Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS NEARLY 13 YEARS AND 4 MONTH.
ON /30/09/2024 MORE THAN 2.230.520
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
20-02-2024
Titan Most Likely Non-Habitable, Astrobiologists Say
Titan Most Likely Non-Habitable, Astrobiologists Say
Saturn’s moon Titan has an organic-rich atmosphere and surface with a subsurface ocean that may represent a habitable environment. In a new study, astrobiologists determined the amount of organic material that can be delivered from Titan’s surface to its ocean through impact cratering. Unless biologically available compounds can be sourced from Titan’s interior, or be delivered from the surface by other mechanisms, their calculations suggest that even the most organic-rich ocean world in the Solar System may not be able to support a large biosphere.
An artist’s rendering of the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.
Image credit: Benjamin de Bivort, debivort.org / CC BY-SA 3.0.
The identification of life in the outer Solar System is a significant area of interest for planetary scientists, astronomers and government space agencies like NASA, largely because many icy moons of the giant planets are thought to have large subsurface oceans of liquid water.
Titan, for example, is thought to have an ocean beneath its icy surface that is more than 12 times the volume of Earth’s oceans.
Life as we know it here on Earth needs water as a solvent, so planets and moons with lots of water are of interest when looking for extraterrestrial life,” said first author Professor Catherine Neish, an astrobiologist at the University of Western Ontario.
In the study, Professor Neish and her colleagues attempted to quantify the amount of organic molecules that could be transferred from Titan’s organic-rich surface to its subsurface ocean, using data from impact cratering.
Comets impacting Titan throughout its history have melted the surface of the icy moon, creating pools of liquid water that have mixed with the surface organics.
The resulting melt is denser than its icy crust, so the heavier water sinks through the ice, possibly all the way to Titan’s subsurface ocean.
Using the assumed rates of impacts on Titan’s surface, the researchers determined how many comets of different sizes would strike Titan each year over its history.
“Life as we know it here on Earth needs water as a solvent, so planets and moons with lots of water are of interest when looking for extraterrestrial life,” said first author Professor Catherine Neish, an astrobiologist at the University of Western Ontario.
In the study, Professor Neish and her colleagues attempted to quantify the amount of organic molecules that could be transferred from Titan’s organic-rich surface to its subsurface ocean, using data from impact cratering.
Comets impacting Titan throughout its history have melted the surface of the icy moon, creating pools of liquid water that have mixed with the surface organics.
The resulting melt is denser than its icy crust, so the heavier water sinks through the ice, possibly all the way to Titan’s subsurface ocean.
Using the assumed rates of impacts on Titan’s surface, the researchers determined how many comets of different sizes would strike Titan each year over its history.
This allowed them to predict the flow rate of water carrying organics that travel from Titan’s surface to its interior.
The authors found the weight of organics transferred in this way is quite small, no more than 7,500 kg/year of glycine, the simplest amino acid, which makes up proteins in life.
“One elephant per year of glycine into an ocean 12 times the volume of Earth’s oceans is not sufficient to sustain life,” Professor Neish said.
“In the past, people often assumed that water equals life, but they neglected the fact that life needs other elements, in particular carbon.”
Other icy worlds in the Solar System have almost no carbon on their surfaces, and it is unclear how much could be sourced from their interiors.
“This work shows that it is very hard to transfer the carbon on Titan’s surface to its subsurface ocean — basically, it’s hard to have both the water and carbon needed for life in the same place,” Professor Neish said.
The team’s paper was published online this month in the journal Astrobiology.
Catherine Neish et al. Organic Input to Titan’s Subsurface Ocean Through Impact Cratering. Astrobiology, published online February 2, 2024; doi: 10.1089/ast.2023.0055
Astronomers Spot Hundreds of Massive Gas Clouds Escaping Milky Way’s Center
Astronomers Spot Hundreds of Massive Gas Clouds Escaping Milky Way’s Center
Using new 21-cm radio observations made with NSF’s Green Bank Telescope, astronomers have discovered over 250 neutral gaseous clouds being blasted out of the center of our Milky Way Galaxy into interstellar space. These clouds are likely a product of the same phenomenon that created the Fermi Bubbles.
An artist’s conception of the clouds flowing out from the center of the Milky Way, entrained in a very hot wind that has accelerated them to velocities of many hundreds of km per second.
Image credit: NSF / GBO / P. Vosteen.
It has been known for some time that energetic processes in the center of the Milky Way have created fast, hot winds expanding into intergalactic space with temperatures of millions of degrees and velocities of thousands of km per second. Most large galaxies have winds like this.
The accidental discovery that some of this outflowing hot gas has entrained cold hydrogen clouds was made by the Australian ATCA telescope measuring the 21-cm radio emission emitted by interstellar hydrogen atoms.
This implied that there could be an undiscovered population of clouds carrying matter out of the nucleus of the Milky Way.
The hydrogen clouds are important on their own, but they also serve as probes of the hot wind.
It is difficult to measure conditions within the very hot wind, but the cool clouds can trace it in the same way that on Earth, a handful of leaves tossed upwards can show the direction and speed of the local wind.
The sensitivity of the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) make it the ideal instrument for detecting faint signals from interstellar hydrogen, but mapping these clouds, and realizing their true extent, was no easy feat.
“It took years using the GBT to systematically map hundreds of square degrees in search of faint hydrogen emission,” said Dr. Felix James ‘Jay’ Lockman, senior astronomer at the Green Bank Observatory.
“Once we identified some promising candidates, we could follow up with targeted observations at other telescopes to show us more.”
“The clouds must have been ripped from an area near the very center of the Milky Way and flung outward, either by a burst of star formation or activity of a black hole.”
Some of these clouds have the highest outflow velocity of any clouds ever observed in the Milky Way, and may escape the Galaxy.
In an unexpected twist, the new data from the APEX telescope revealed that some of the hydrogen clouds contain molecules and dense cold gas.
“No one would have expected that clouds violently ejected from the Milky Way could harbor relatively fragile molecular material, but there it is,” Dr. Lockman said.
Astronomers using the MeerKAT array recently mapped the hydrogen in a few clouds at high angular resolution, showing them evolving and being shredded as they flow into interstellar space.
“These new results open the door for more discoveries,” Dr. Lockman said.
“How the clouds remain stable as they are accelerated to more than 400 km per second is a mystery.”
“The chemical processes in these clouds are quite unusual and unexplored.”
Dr. Lockman and his colleague, Dr. Enrico Di Teodoro from the Università degli Studi di Firenze, presented the findings at AAS243, the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans, Louisiana, the United States.
Felix Lockman & Enrico Di Teodoro. 2024. A New Census of Neutral Clouds in the Milky Way’s Nuclear Wind. AAS243, abstract #2851
De Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA zoekt kandidaten om uit te testen hoe het leven op Mars is. Maar de vereisten zijn zeer strikt: om te beginnen mogen enkel Amerikanen deelnemen aan de tests.
Nu de rakettechnologie steeds meer op punt staat, lijkt exploratie op Mars dichterbij te komen. De levensomstandigheden zijn echter heel anders dan op aarde. Vandaar dat er getest moet worden of het wel verstandig is om mensen te sturen.
In het nieuws: De simulatiemissie Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA 2) moet NASA een beeld geven van het leven op Mars.
Vier personen zullen zich vanaf de lente van 2025 begeven in een ge-3D-printe omgeving van bijna 160 vierkante meter in de thuisbasis van NASA in Houston. Daar wordt het leven op Mars nagebootst. Er wordt onderzocht hoe je voedsel kan kweken of hoe ruimtewandelingen zouden zijn. De missie duurt een jaar.
Op dit moment is er al een crew aanwezig voor het CHAPEA 1-project. Zij zitten halverwege hun periode. Het gaat er hard aan toe: de levensomstandigheden zijn niet evident. De job is betaald, maar NASA wil niet zeggen hoeveel precies.
De details: De toelatingsvoorwaarden zijn niet min.
Om te beginnen zoekt NASA voor CHAPEA 2 uitsluitend Amerikaanse burgers die tussen de 30 en 55 jaar oud zijn. Ze moeten een masterdiploma in een STEM-richting hebben, plus minstens twee jaar werkervaring in een dergelijke richting.
Verder zijn ook nog minstens 1.000 vlieguren als piloot of twee jaar doctoraatswerk in een STEM-richting bepalende factoren.
Geïnteresseerden kunnen zich aanmelden op de NASA-website en krijgen een indrukwekkende vragenlijst voorgeschoteld. “Ben je bereid om geen communicatie te hebben voor een jaar behalve met je crewleden, met een vertraging van maximaal 20 minuten?” en “Ben je bereid uitgebreide cognitieve, sportieve en gedragstests te ondergaan?” geven een beeld van wat je kan verwachten.
UFO sighting video: Cigar-shaped UFO over Lucca, Italy 18-Feb-2024
UFO sighting video: Cigar-shaped UFO over Lucca, Italy 18-Feb-2024
On February 18, 2024, an intriguing video surfaced on the “Latest UFO Sightings” Facebook group, capturing the attention of UFO enthusiasts and skeptics alike. The footage, recorded during daylight hours, showcases a remarkable sighting above the historic city of Lucca, located in the heart of Tuscany, Italy. This video has ignited a flurry of discussions and analyses within the community, offering a fresh glimpse into the ever-evolving mystery of unidentified flying objects.
The object in question is described as a thin, long cylindrical UFO, distinguished by an unusual feature: a ring on either side of its body. This distinctive characteristic sets it apart from the more commonly reported shapes of UFOs, sparking curiosity and speculation about its origin and purpose. The clarity of the footage, combined with the object’s unique attributes, has made this sighting a significant point of interest.
Lucca, the backdrop of this extraordinary event, is a city revered for its rich history and cultural heritage. Nestled on the Serchio River in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea, Lucca boasts a population of about 89,000 residents. This “Città d’arte” (City of Art) is encircled by intact Renaissance-era city walls, a testament to its historical significance and enduring beauty. The city’s well-preserved historic center is home to architectural marvels such as the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, the Guinigi Tower, and the Cathedral of San Martino, making it a treasure trove of Italian art and history.
Moreover, Lucca has been the birthplace of several world-renowned composers, including Giacomo Puccini, Alfredo Catalani, and Luigi Boccherini, further enriching its cultural landscape. The sighting of a UFO above such a historically and artistically significant city adds an intriguing layer to its already fascinating narrative.
As the video garners views and shares across social media, it raises numerous questions about the nature of the object and its origins. Could this be evidence of extraterrestrial technology, an experimental aircraft, or simply a misunderstood natural phenomenon? The clear daytime conditions under which the footage was captured provide a rare opportunity for detailed analysis, offering both believers and skeptics alike a chance to explore the possibilities.
The sighting in Lucca contributes to the global catalog of UFO encounters, reminding us of the vast, unexplored mysteries that lie beyond our current understanding. As investigations into the footage continue, this event stands as a captivating chapter in the ongoing quest to unravel the enigma of UFOs. Whether this sighting will eventually be explained or remain an enduring mystery, it undeniably adds to the allure and intrigue of Lucca’s rich tapestry of history and art.
Odysseus Moon Lander Sends Back Selfies With Earth in the Picture
Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander has beamed back a series of snapshots that were captured as it headed out from the Earth toward the moon, and one of the pictures features Australia front and center. The shots also show the second stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched the spacecraft, floating away as Odysseus pushed onward.
The pictures were taken on Feb. 16, the day of the launch.
“Payload integration managers programmed the lander’s wide and narrow field-of-view cameras to take five quick images every five minutes for two hours, starting 100 seconds after separating from SpaceX’s second stage,” Houston-based Intuitive Machines explained in a posting to X / Twitter. “Out of all the images collected, Intuitive Machines chose to show humanity’s place in the universe with four wonderful images we hope to inspire the next generation of risk-takers.”
If Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission is successful, Odysseus is due to become the first commercial spacecraft to make a soft landing on the moon, and the first U.S. spacecraft to do so since NASA’s Apollo 17 crewed mission in 1972.
The lander, which is about the size of an old-fashioned telephone booth, is carrying six science payloads for NASA, plus six commercial payloads — including a miniaturized camera system that would be dropped off just before landing to record the touchdown.
Odysseus is scheduled to reach lunar orbit on Feb. 21 and descend to Malapert A crater, near the moon’s south pole, on the 22nd. The mission’s objective is to test out spacecraft systems and assess the environment in the south polar region, in advance of a crewed landing that could take place as early as 2026.
Assuming all goes well, Intuitive Machines is in line to receive $118 million from NASA through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which was created to take advantage of private-sector innovation and reduce NASA’s costs.
In a Feb. 18 mission update, Intuitive Machines reported that Odysseus “continues to be in excellent health, and flight controllers are preparing planned trajectory correction maneuvers to prepare the lander for lunar orbit insertion.”
Success isn’t guaranteed: Just last month, a NASA-supported commercial lander built by Astrobotic fell back to Earth after missing its chance to make a moon landing due to a propellant leak. Over the past few years, other robotic moon landing missions planned by Israel’s SpaceIL team, Japan’s iSpace and the Russian Space Agency have also ended in failure.
That being said, failure isn’t inevitable: In the past year, India and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have successfully put landers on the lunar surface to send back science data.
If Odysseus survives its landing attempt, Intuitive Machines expects the solar-powered robot to be in operation for seven days. The mission is expected to end when the sun sinks below the lunar horizon.
Look at How Much the Sun Has Changed in Just Two Years
The solar cycle has been reasonably well understood since 1843 when Samuel Schwabe spent 17 years observing the variation of sunspots. Since then, we have regularly observed the ebb and flow of the sunspots cycle every 11 years. More recently ESA’s Solar Orbiter has taken regular images of the Sun to track the progress as we head towards the peak of the current solar cycle. Two recently released images from February 2021 and October 2023 show how things are really picking up as we head toward solar maximum.
The Sun is a great big ball of plasma, electrically charged gas, which has the amazing property that it can move a magnetic field that may be embedded within. As the Sun rotates, the magnetic field gets dragged around with it but, because the Sun rotates faster at the equator than at the poles, the field lines get wound up tighter and tighter.
Under this immense stressing, the field lines occasionally break, snap or burst through the surface of the Sun and when they do, we see a sunspot. These dark patches on the visible surface of the Sun are regions where denser concentrations of solar material prohibit heat flow to the visible surface giving rise to slightly cooler, and therefore darker patches on the Sun.
A collage of new solar images captured by the Inouye Solar Telescope, which is a small amount of solar data obtained during the Inouye’s first year of operations throughout its commissioning phase. Images include sunspots and quiet regions of the Sun, known as convection cells. (Credit: NSF/AURA/NSO)
The slow rotation of the Sun and the slow but continuous winding up of the field lines means that sun spots become more and more numerous as the field gets more distorted. Observed over a period of years the spots seem to slowly migrate from the polar regions to the equatorial regions as the solar cycle progresses.
To try and help understand this complex cycle and unlock other mysteries of the Sun, the European Space Agency launched its Solar Orbiter on 10 February 2020. Its mission to explore the Sun’s polar regions, understand what drives the 11 year solar cycle and what drives the heating of the corona, the outer layers of the Sun’s atmosphere.
Solar Orbiter
Images from Solar Orbiter have been released that show closeups of the Sun’s visible surface, the photosphere as it nears peak of solar activity. At the beginning of the cycle, at solar minimum in 2019, there was relatively little activity and only a few sunspots. Since then, things have been slowly increasing. The image from February 2021 showed a reasonably quiet Sun but an image taken in October last year shows that things are, dare I say, hotting up! The maximum of this cycle is expected to occur in 2025 which supports theories that the period of maximum activity could arrive a year earlier.
Understanding the cycle is not just of whimsical scientific interest, it is vital to ensure we minimise damage to ground based and orbiting systems but crucially understand impact on life on Earth.
A team of archaeologists from Germany has discovered a submerged Stone Age megastructure in the Western Baltic Sea at a water depth of about 21 m. The structure was likely constructed by hunter-gatherer groups more than 10,000 years ago and ultimately drowned around 8,500 years ago; since then, it remained hidden at the seafloor, leading to a pristine preservation that will inspire research on the lifestyle and territorial development in the larger area.
An artist’s reconstruction of the Blinkerwall in the Bay of Mecklenburg, Germany.
Image credit: Michał Grabowski.
The Stone Age megastructure was discovered in the Bay of Mecklenburg, about 10 km northwest off Rerik, Germany.
The stonewall is made of 1,673 individual stones which are usually less than 1 m in height, placed side by side over a distance of 971 m in a way that argues against a natural origin by glacial transport or ice push ridges.
Dubbed Blinkerwall, it was built by hunter-gatherers that roamed the region after the retreat of the Weichselian Ice Sheet.
Enlarge/ Morphology of the southwest–northeast trending ridge that hosts the Blinkerwall and the adjacent mound.
Running adjacent to the sunken shoreline of a paleolake (or bog), whose youngest phase was dated to 9,143 years ago, the structure was likely used for hunting the Eurasian reindeer (Rangifer tarandus).
“At the time, the entire population across northern Europe was likely below 5,000 people,” said Dr. Marcel Bradtmöller, a researcher at the University of Rostock.
“One of their main food sources were herds of reindeer, which migrated seasonally through the sparsely vegetated post-glacial landscape.”
“The wall was probably used to guide the reindeer into a bottleneck between the adjacent lakeshore and the wall, or even into the lake, where the Stone Age hunters could kill them more easily with their weapons.”
Morphology of the southwest-northeast trending ridge that hosts the Blinkerwall and the adjacent mound.
Image credit: Geersen et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2312008121.
The Blinkerwall represents one of the oldest documented man-made hunting structures on Earth, and ranges among the largest known Stone Age structure in Europe.
“Our investigations indicate that a natural origin of the underwater stonewall as well as a construction in modern times, for instance in connection with submarine cable laying or stone harvesting are not very likely,” said Dr. Jacob Geersen, also from the University of Rostock.
“The methodical arrangement of the many small stones that connect the large, non-moveable boulders, speaks against this.”
Using modern geophysical methods, the researchers created a detailed 3D model of the Blinkerwall and reconstructed the ancient landscape.
The site was also visited and inspected by a team of scientific divers from Rostock University and the State Authority for Culture and Monuments in Mecklenburg Western Pomerania on one occasion.
The dives primarily aimed at assessing the nature of the stonewall and to survey the surrounding seabed for the presence of possible archeological artifacts.
They concentrated on two locations, namely the western end of the structure and a large stone in the center where the Blinkerwall changes direction.
While neither artifacts or dateable organic material was found in the immediate vicinity of the two dive locations, a small timber sample was retrieved from the Holocene sediments about 10 m to the south of the structure.
3D model of a section of the Blinkerwall adjacent to the large boulder at the western end of the wall. Photographs were taken by Philipp Hoy, Rostock University. The scale bar at the top-right edge of the image is 50 cm.
Image credit: Geersen et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2312008121.
“Although numerous well-preserved archaeological sites from the Stone Age are known from the Bay of Wismar and along the coast of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, these are located in much shallower water depths and mostly date to the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods (7,000-2,500 BCE),” said Dr. Jens Auer, a researcher at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern State Office for Culture and Monument Preservation.
“We have evidence for the existence of comparable stonewalls at other locations in the Mecklenburg Bight. These will be systematically investigated as well,” added Dr. Jens Schneider von Deimling, a researcher at Kiel University.
“Overall, the investigations can make a significant contribution to understanding the life, organization and hunting methods of early Stone Age hunter-gatherers.”
The team’s paper was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Jacob Geersen et al. 2024. A submerged Stone Age hunting architecture from the Western Baltic Sea. PNAS 121 (8): e2312008121; doi: 10.1073/pnas.2312008121
Early on Feb. 12, 2023, at least three different flights over Quebec reported(opens in a new tab)"seeing very strange lights in the sky, high above the flight paths" that were "moving in a rapid and irregular way."
"It looks like it's more than one and sort of circling," a crew member aboard a cargo flight from Chicago to Luxembourg told air traffic controllers in Canada, according to audio obtained by CTVNews.ca(opens in a new tab). "It's a bit weird."
Selected incidents from the Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System (CADORS), 2023
Since 2000, Transport Canada's database has logged more than 315,000 reports of civil aviation incidents. The cases below represent unusual "laser interference" and "CIRVIS/UFO" reports from 2023.
"Just to let you know there was a flight from the south… they saw the same thing roughly a half-an-hour ago," an air traffic controller told the Luxembourg-bound cargo flight on Feb. 12.
"So I guess we're not just dreaming then, huh?" the aviator said.
"No, you're not the first one tonight."
Roughly 24 hours later, air traffic controllers received another report, this time from an Edmonton to Yellowknife flight(opens in a new tab) operated by Air Tindi that "reported observing a rotating light" at 30,000 feet over northern Alberta.
Transport Canada routinely cautions that such "reports contain preliminary, unconfirmed data which can be subject to change."
"These reports have no potential for regulatory enforcement and often fall outside the department’s mandate," a Transport Canada spokesperson previously told CTVNews.ca(opens in a new tab). "Reports of unidentified objects can rarely be followed up on as they are as the title implies, unidentified."
"I suspect that these reports represent a small fraction of what pilots are seeing," Powell told CTVNews.ca. "Not only does the stigma of making a UAP report still exist, but the reporting form and the way it is handled would make it clear to any pilot that his report was simply filed away."
Most reports are provided to federal transportation officials by Nav Canada, a private non-profit company that owns and operates Canada's civilian air traffic control infrastructure.
The company's aviation guidelines(opens in a new tab)(opens in a new tab)direct pilots over Canada to immediately report "a vital intelligence sighting of any airborne and ground objects or activities that appear to be hostile, suspicious, unidentified or engaged in possible illegal smuggling activity." Known as "Communication Instructions for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings" or CIRVIS reports, Nav Canada even puts "unidentified flying objects" at the front of a list of examples that also includes foreign submarines and warships. When such reports are made, Nav Canada typically alerts Transport Canada and a Norad-affiliated Royal Canadian Air Force squadron in North Bay, Ont(opens in a new tab).
"Nav Canada's Aviation Occurrence Reporting Procedure is used to address instances of unauthorized or unknown aircraft in NAV CANADA managed airspace," a company spokesperson told CTVNews.ca. "Nav Canada provides all information that it receives on these incidents to the Canadian government."
"The Canadian Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Air Force do not typically investigate sightings of unknown or unexplained phenomena outside the context of investigating credible threats, potential threats, or potential distress in the case of search and rescue," a Canadian defence spokesperson previously told CTVNews.ca(opens in a new tab).
More than half of the unusual reports filed in 2023 were classified as "laser interference" incidents, while the rest were labelled as "CIRVIS/UFO" reports.
Examples of "laser interference" from 2023 include
A Transport Canada spokesperson previously explained(opens in a new tab) that aviation reports are labelled "laser interference" when "an aircraft is targeted or reported seeing a laser beam or any other directed bright light source."
Powell, the UAP researcher, believes the "laser" label is being misapplied.
"The 'laser interference' explanation appears to be a catch-all category for pilot reports," Powell said. "Laser light sources would be below the aircraft and not above it."
CTVNews.ca has filed freedom of information requests to get more data on reports like these, which rarely feature more than a line or two of detail. For example, a publicly-available Jan. 11, 2023 report from an Exploits Valley Air Services flight(opens in a new tab) over the Gulf of Saint Lawrence simply describes "bright lights approximately 100 [nautical miles] from their position." An access to information request filed with Canada's Department of National Defence revealed a slightly longer report of "approx 4 bright lights moving around each other creating geometric shapes (triangle to hexagon)."
From drones to balloons, satellites, meteorites, flares, paper lanterns and weather phenomena, many of the reports described in this article likely have ordinary and earthly explanations. But with little sign of official investigation or follow-up from Canadian officials, most cases remain unexplained.
Donald "Spike" Kavalench is a retired Transport Canada surveillance pilot who also spent more than two decades flying for the Royal Canadian Air Force.
"Transport Canada, Nav Canada and the Department of National Defence need to work together to quickly and effectively respond to and investigate any UAP reports that could signify a potential threat to the flying public and potentially our national security," Kavalench told CTVNews.ca. "So far, that has not been done."
Bizarre UFO Encounters in the Skies: A Pilot’s Perspective
Bizarre UFO Encounters in the Skies: A Pilot’s Perspective
The enigma of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) continues to spark curiosity and debate among people worldwide. Among the most credible reports of these mysterious sightings come from those who spend a significant amount of their careers in the skies: pilots. Both military and civilian aviators have reported encounters with objects that defy conventional explanation, fueling speculation and intrigue about what really lies beyond our understanding.
One of the earliest recorded pilot encounters with a UFO dates back to June 24, 1947, when Kenneth Arnold, a pilot flying near the Cascade Mountains in Washington State, reported seeing nine bright, saucer-like objects speeding across the sky. This encounter is notable not only for its detail but also for introducing the term “flying saucers” to the public lexicon.
The credibility of pilot reports stems from their extensive training, experience, and familiarity with aerial phenomena, making them unlikely to be easily mistaken or deceived by optical illusions or known aircraft. Despite this, many pilots have faced skepticism and ridicule, often deterring them from coming forward with their experiences.
One particularly compelling incident involved a group of P-51 Mustang pilots in 1948, led by Captain Thomas Mantell, who pursued a large, unidentified object flying at a high altitude. Mantell’s tragic crash during the pursuit added a layer of mystery and speculation regarding the nature of the object he was chasing. The official explanation, attributing the sighting to Venus, was met with skepticism, fueling theories of a cover-up and further embedding the UFO phenomenon in the realm of conspiracy and secrecy.
British pilots, too, have encountered unexplained aerial phenomena. Despite the tight-lipped approach of the British Air Ministry, stories of sightings by RAF pilots have leaked, revealing encounters with objects exhibiting capabilities beyond the technology of the time. One notable report came from a BOAC Captain in 1954, who described an encounter with multiple objects, including a large one that appeared to change shape, alongside his aircraft over the Atlantic.
The phenomena are not limited to visual sightings; radar operators have corroborated pilot reports, adding a technical layer of verification to these encounters. One of the most detailed cases occurred in New Zealand in 1978, involving multiple pilots and radar operators witnessing and tracking unexplained objects over the Kaikoura coastline. The incident was extensively documented, including film footage that fueled worldwide interest and debate.
Skeptics and researchers have offered various explanations for these sightings, ranging from atmospheric phenomena and optical illusions to misidentifications of planets or man-made objects. However, many encounters remain unexplained, with the objects’ advanced maneuverability and speeds suggesting technology far beyond our current capabilities.
VIDEO:
Bizarre UFO Sightings Spotted By Pilots | Strange But True | Our Life
The persistence of these sightings, coupled with the high credibility of pilot witnesses, keeps the discussion about UFOs alive. While some sightings have been debunked or explained through natural or technological phenomena, others remain compelling mysteries, challenging our understanding of the world and perhaps, the universe. The pilots’ accounts contribute to a larger narrative that continues to intrigue and puzzle both the public and experts, keeping the door open to the possibilities of what might be out there, beyond the known boundaries of our skies.
De Odysseus-maanlander van Intuitive Machines heeft met succes de eerste beelden vanuit de ruimte naar de aarde gestuurd. Het robotachtige ruimteschip is sinds 15 februari onderweg naar de maan. Kort na de lancering verstuurde de Falcon 9-raket, gebouwd door SpaceX, enkele selfies met de aarde op de achtergrond.
Deze mijlpaal werd aangekondigd door het Amerikaans bedrijf Intuitive Machines via een bericht op X, waarop vier foto’s werden gedeeld. Intuitive Machines met hoofdkantoor in Houston werd opgericht in 2013 door het drietal Stephen Altemus, Kam Ghaffarian en Tim Crain. Het bedrijf verwacht minstens één keer per dag missie-updates te blijven geven op X.
Eerste onbemande maanlanding
Odysseus zal de eerste onbemande Amerikaanse maanlanding zijn sinds de Apollo-missies tussen 1961 en 1972. Het ruimteschip verkeert in perfecte conditie en is op weg naar een geplande landingspoging op 22 februari.
Intuitive Machines gebruikt voor hun motor een combinatie van vloeibare methaan en vloeibare zuurstof. Die combinatie wordt ook gebruikt voor de Raptor-raketmotoren van SpaceX, die de Starship-raket aandrijven. Starship is het ambitieuze project van SpaceX om mensen naar de maan en Mars te brengen.
Doel
Het doel van het bedrijf is het bereiken van een baan om de maan, een zachte maanlanding en communicatie vanaf de maan mogelijk maken. Intuitive Machines heeft ook drie NASA-contracten om ladingen naar het maanoppervlak te transporteren.
De Odysseus-maanlander van Intuitive Machines heeft met succes de eerste beelden vanuit de ruimte naar de aarde gestuurd. Het robotachtige ruimteschip is sinds 15 februari onderweg naar de maan. Kort na de lancering verstuurde de Falcon 9-raket, gebouwd doorSpaceX, enkele selfies met de aarde op de achtergrond.
Deze mijlpaal werd aangekondigd door het Amerikaans bedrijf Intuitive Machines via een bericht op X, waarop vier foto’s werden gedeeld. Intuitive Machines met hoofdkantoor in Houston werd opgericht in 2013 door het drietal Stephen Altemus, Kam Ghaffarian en Tim Crain. Het bedrijf verwacht minstens één keer per dag missie-updates te blijven geven op X.
Eerste onbemande maanlanding
Odysseus zal de eerste onbemande Amerikaanse maanlanding zijn sinds de Apollo-missies tussen 1961 en 1972. Het ruimteschip verkeert in perfecte conditie en is op weg naar een geplande landingspoging op 22 februari.
Intuitive Machines gebruikt voor hun motor een combinatie van vloeibare methaan en vloeibare zuurstof. Die combinatie wordt ook gebruikt voor de Raptor-raketmotoren van SpaceX, die de Starship-raket aandrijven. Starship is het ambitieuze project van SpaceX om mensen naar de maan en Mars te brengen.
Doel
Het doel van het bedrijf is het bereiken van een baan om de maan, een zachte maanlanding en communicatie vanaf de maan mogelijk maken. Intuitive Machines heeft ook drie NASA-contracten om ladingen naar het maanoppervlak te transporteren.
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. During 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.
“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.
Bij klimaatverandering denken we vooral aan opwarming, maar in grote delen van Europa zou ook weleens een flinke afkoeling kunnen plaatsvinden als een belangrijke Atlantische oceaanstroom plots tot stilstand komt. Uit nieuwe computersimulaties blijkt dat de kans daarop iets groter is geworden.
We hebben het hier over de AMOC, de Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, waartoe ook de bekende warme Golfstroom behoort. De AMOC maakt deel uit van een grote circulatie van oceaanstromen, waardoor zout en warm water op verschillende dieptes over de aarde wordt verplaatst wat helpt om de temperatuur te regelen. Als deze AMOC tot stilstand komt, wordt er minder hitte uitgewisseld over de hele planeet en dat heeft vooral veel impact op Europa.
Van Groenland naar Zuid-Afrika en terug De motor achter het systeem bevindt zich voor de kust van Groenland. Doordat er daar meer ijs smelt door klimaatverandering belandt er meer zoetwater in de Noord-Atlantische Oceaan, waardoor de AMOC vertraagt. In het huidige systeem stroomt koud, diep water naar het zuiden langs Noord- en Zuid-Amerika en dan oostwaarts langs Afrika. Ondertussen beweegt zouter, warmer oceaanwater vanuit de Indische Oceaan rond het puntje van Afrika naar Florida via de Amerikaanse oostkust naar Groenland. En zo ontstaat een wereldwijde circulatie van oceaanwater.
Wereldwijde catastrofe Maar doordat die Groenlandse ijskap dus in hoog tempo aan het smelten is, dreigt de AMOC tot stilstand te komen. Waar dat eerder nog eeuwen leek te duren, blijkt uit de nieuwe computersimulatie dat dit mogelijk nog maar decennia ver weg is. Dat zou het weer overal op aarde veranderen. In Noordwest-Europa kan het 5 tot 15 graden kouder worden, het poolijs komt veel zuidelijker te liggen en op het zuidelijk halfrond wordt het nog warmer. Ook veranderen neerslagpatronen. Sommige wetenschappers denken dat het een ramp wordt die wereldwijd tot grote voedsel- en watertekorten kan leiden.
Maar zo ver is het nog niet. De wetenschappers van de Universiteit Utrecht zien wel dat we dichterbij de instorting van de AMOC komen, maar hoe dichtbij we precies zijn, is nog onduidelijk. Wel gaan we richting een omslagpunt. Dat kan nog een eeuw duren, maar ook enkele decennia. Dat hangt onder meer af van ons eigen gedrag: hoe minder CO2 we uitstoten, hoe langer het zal duren voor het ijs smelt en de AMOC stilvalt.
Op eigen risico Tot nu toe is duidelijk dat de oceaanstroom vertraagt, maar het probleem ontstaat pas als hij instort. Het VN-klimaatpanel IPCC heeft er ‘medium vertrouwen’ in dat dit niet voor 2100 gebeurt, maar meerdere wetenschappers denken daar anders over. Zo reageert een belangrijke Duitse klimaatwetenschapper dat de nieuwe studie bijdraagt aan de groeiende zorg over de instorting van de AMOC in de niet al te verre toekomst. “We negeren dit op eigen risico”, klinkt het. Een instorting van de AMOC heeft zulke grote gevolgen voor het wereldwijde klimaat, die zo abrupt zijn dat het in sommige gebieden onmogelijk is om aan te passen, reageert ook een Britse wetenschapper. Ook
2200 jaar AMOC De wetenschappers simuleerden 2200 jaar aan oceaanstromen met daarin de effecten van de huidige opwarming verwerkt. Ze vonden na 1750 jaar ‘een abrupte AMOC-instorting’ maar ze waren tot nu toe nog niet in staat om de gesimuleerde tijdlijn te vertalen naar de werkelijke toekomst van de aarde. Wel zagen ze dat een complexe oceaanstroommeting rond het puntje van Zuid-Afrika cruciaal is om te monitoren. Hoe negatiever die meting is, hoe trager de AMOC gaat. Door klimaatverandering wordt deze waarde negatiever en wanneer hij een bepaald punt bereikt, is er geen langzame stop, maar is het meer alsof je van een klif stort, waarschuwen de onderzoekers.
En waar dit eerst altijd klonk als een ver-van-je-bedshow zou het volgens de nieuwe studie zomaar kunnen dat het nog in ons leven gebeurt, al is er nog veel meer onderzoek nodig om meer te kunnen zeggen over de precieze termijn. Het is dus absoluut geen reden tot paniek, maar zeker wel tot zorg.
Researchers from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool known as “Deep-DRAM” to discover and fabricate novel metamaterials with unparalleled ease and accessibility.
The groundbreaking method promises to revolutionize metamaterial development by streamlining the discovery and creation of durable, custom-designed materials with “unprecedented functionalities” and “unusual properties.”
“Traditionally, designers use the materials available to them to design a new device or a machine. The problem with that is that the range of available material properties is limited. Some properties that we would like to have just don’t exist in nature,” study co-author and professor of biomechanical engineering, Dr. Amir Zadpoor, explained in a press release by Delft University.
“Our approach is: tell us what you want to have as properties and we engineer an appropriate material with those properties. What you will then get is not really a material but something in-between a structure and a material, a metamaterial.”
Metamaterials are materials engineered to have properties not found in naturally occurring substances. These engineered composites can defy conventional material properties by deriving their unique characteristics from a structure’s geometry rather than molecular composition.
Metamaterials are currently employed in various industries, serving practical purposes such as improving antenna performance in telecommunications and controlling sound waves for noise reduction or focusing in acoustic engineering. Recent advancements include creating the world’s first genuine “one-way glass,” showcasing metamaterials, versatility, and potential for innovative applications.
In 2006, two research papers published in Sciencedemonstrated that metamaterials could be used to manipulate the propagation and transmission of specified light frequencies and electromagnetic radiation to render an object invisible.
Recent publications from Sandia National Laboratories, the U.S. Naval Institute, and Northrop Grumman have discussed the military potential of metamaterials, suggesting the possibility of creating real-life versions of the fictional “Klingon Cloaking Device” or “Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak.” However, despite ongoing research efforts, practical metamaterial cloaking technology has yet to be publicly demonstrated thus far.
This most significant challenge in developing novel metamaterials stems from solving the so-called “inverse problem” or calculating the specific geometry needed to produce desired properties.
“Even when inverse problems were solved in the past, they have been limited by the simplifying assumption that small-scale geometry can be made from an infinite number of building blocks,” lead author Dr. Helda Pahlavani explained. “The problem with that assumption is that metamaterials are usually made by 3D printing and real 3D printers have a limited resolution, which limits the number of building blocks that fit within a given device.”
Enter Deep-DRAM: an AI-driven modular framework combining deep learning models, generative models, and finite element simulations to address these challenges head-on.
Researchers say Deep-DRAM stands out by tackling the inverse design problem from a new angle, enabling the creation of materials with tailored properties such as double auxeticity (materials that expand in two directions when stretched) and high stiffness.
Dr. Pahlavani underscored the importance of Deep-DRAM being able to overcome previous constraints, stating, “We can now simply ask: how many building blocks does your manufacturing technique allow you to accommodate in your device? The model then finds the geometry that gives you your desired properties for the number of building blocks that you can actually manufacture.”
In a paper published in the journal Advanced Materials, researchers detailed how the application of Deep-DRAM extends beyond theoretical advancements, showcasing real-world implications through extensive simulations and 3D-printed specimens.
Researchers note that the framework’s ability to generate microarchitectures resistant to fatigue and fracture highlights Deep-DRAM’s potential to produce metamaterials that are not only innovative but also durable and reliable for practical applications.
This focus on durability differs from most existing metamaterial designs, which often fail after repeated use.
“So far, it has been only about what properties can be achieved,” Dr. Zadpoor described the current processes for developing metamaterials. “Our study considers durability and selects the most durable designs from a large pool of design candidates. This makes our designs really practical and not just theoretical adventures.”
Researchers say that one of the remarkable aspects of Deep-DRAM is its modular design, allowing for the integration of various computational models to solve complex design problems efficiently. This modular approach accelerates the design process and minimizes computational costs, making it an attractive option for a wide range of applications.
The implications of the innovative Deep-DRAM framework extend far beyond the laboratory, offering tangible solutions to real-world challenges. With the ability to tailor durable metamaterials to specific needs, industries ranging from healthcare to aerospace could benefit immensely from this recent marriage of Artificial intelligence and material science.
Assistant Professor Dr. Mohammad J. Mirzaali, who also served as a corresponding author of the study, says the potential of metamaterials is limitless. However, because their optimal design has historically relied on intuition and trial and error, the metamaterials’ full potential has never been truly realized.
Yet, researchers believe the AI-driven inverse design process of Deep-DRAM could revolutionize the development of metamaterials, opening avenues for applications such as orthopedic implants, surgical instruments, soft robots, adaptive mirrors, and exosuits.
“We think the step we have taken is revolutionary in the field of metamaterials,” said Dr. Mirzaali. “It could lead to all kinds of new applications.”
Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing typically focuses on defense, national security, the Intelligence Community and topics related to psychology. You can follow Tim on Twitter:@LtTimMcMillan. Tim can be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email:LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com
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18-02-2024
Private Odysseus moon lander beams home 1st photos from space
Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander
NASA ID: IM_00309
IM-1, the first NASA Commercial Launch Program Services launch for Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander, will carry multiple payloads to the Moon, including Lunar Node-1, demonstrating autonomous navigation via radio beacon to support precise geolocation and navigation among lunar orbiters, landers, and surface personnel. NASA’s CLPS initiative oversees industry development of small robotic landers and rovers to support NASA’s Artemis campaign.
Private Odysseus moon lander beams home 1st photos from space
Intuitive Machines' robotic Odysseus spacecraft snapped a few selfies with Earth in the background shortly after its Feb. 15 launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — and we can all check them out.
"Intuitive Machines successfully transmitted its first IM-1 mission images to Earth on February 16, 2024. The images were captured shortly after separation from @SpaceX's second stage on Intuitive Machines' first journey to the moon under @NASA's CLPS initiative," the Houston-based company wrote Saturday (Feb. 17) in a post on X that shared four of the photos.
Another selfie beamed home by Odysseus. (Image credit: Intuitive Machines via X)
CLPS is the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which puts agency science instruments on private robotic moon landers like Odysseus. These instruments are designed to collect data that will aid NASA's Artemis program, which aims to establish a crewed base near the lunar south pole by the end of the 2020s.
Odysseus is carrying six NASA experiments and technology demonstrations, along with six private payloads, on its current IM-1 mission.
IM-1 wasn't the first CLPS effort to get off the ground. That distinction goes to the debut flight of Peregrine, a moon lander built by Pittsburgh company Astrobotic, which launched last month atop a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket.
That launch went well, but Peregrine suffered a fuel leak shortly after separating from the rocket's upper stage. The lander couldn't reach the moon, so its handlers steered it to a controlled destruction in Earth's atmosphere on Jan. 18.
Another selfie, apparently taken with a fisheye lens, that Odysseus beamed home on Feb. 16, 2024. (Image credit: Intuitive Machines via X)
Things have been going better for Odysseus. The lander is healthy and communicating with mission control as it heads toward the moon for a planned Feb. 22 touchdown attempt, Intuitive Machines has said.
Odysseus' various systems are performing normally, including its engine, which just aced a crucial checkout in deep space.
"Intuitive Machines flight controllers successfully fired the first liquid methane and liquid oxygen engine in space, completing the IM-1 mission engine commissioning. This engine firing included a full thrust mainstage engine burn and throttle down-profile necessary to land on the moon," the company said in an X post on Friday evening (Feb. 16).
Success on the upcoming landing try would be historic; no private spacecraft has ever touched down softly on the moon.
Odysseus' liquid methane-liquid oxygen combination, by the way, is also employed by SpaceX's Raptor engines, which power the company's giant new Starship rocket. Starship, which SpaceX is developing to get people to the moon and Mars, is being prepped for its third test flight, which could take place in the coming weeks.
Engineers Design Habitats for the Moon Inspired by Terminite Mounds
Through theArtemis Program, NASA intends to send astronauts back to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. But this time, they intend to stay and establish a lunar base and other infrastructure by the end of the decade that will allow for a “sustained program of lunar exploration and development.” To accomplish this, NASA is enlisting the help of fellow space agencies, commercial partners, and academic institutions to create the necessary mission elements – these range from the launch systems, spacecraft, and human landing systems to the delivery of payloads.
With NASA funding, a team of engineers from the University of Arizona College of Engineering (UA-CE) is developing autonomous robot networks to build sandbag shelters for NASA astronauts on the Moon. The designs are inspired by cathedral termite mounds, which are native to Africa and northern Australia’s desert regions. Their work was the subject of a paper presented at the American Astronautical Society Guidance, Navigation, and Control (AAS GNC) Conference, which took place from February 1st to 7th in Littleton and Breckinridge, Colorado.
Illustration of NASA astronauts and the elements of the Lunar Base Camp around the Moon’s south pole. Credit: NASA
Per the Artemis Program, NASA will land astronauts around the lunar south pole with the Artemis III mission, currently scheduled for 2026/27. By the end of the decade, they plan to build the infrastructure for long-duration stays, like the Lunar Gateway and the Artemis Base Camp. The latter element consists of a Foundation Lunar Habitat (FLH), the Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV), and a Habitation Mobility Platform (HMB). However, they will also need semi-permanent safe shelters while they search for optimal locations to build permanent habitats.
Consistent with NASA’s vision for future space exploration, a key element in this plan is to leverage local resources for building materials and resources – a process known as In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU). For their concept, Thanga and his team investigated whether sandbags filled with lunar regolith could be used instead of traditional building materials to build lunar infrastructure. This includes housing, warehouses, control towers, robot facilities, landing pads, and blast walls to protect lunar buildings as spacecraft conduct takeoffs and landings.
Thanga was first inspired by a YouTube video showing the work of Iranian-born American architect Nader Khalili, best known for designing structures that incorporate unconventional building materials. This includes his development of SuperAdobe sandbag construction to create structures for the developing world and emergency situations. During the 1980s, the late architect proposed building sandbag structures on the Moon and other extraterrestrial locations. Thanga incorporated the concept of insect “skyscrapers” into Khalili’s ideas, specifically the tall-standing cathedral termite mounds.
These mounds are common in African and Australian deserts and are important in regulating the subterranean nest environment. As Thanga described in a UA College of Engineering News release:
“In the case of the termites, it’s very relevant to our off-world challenges. The extreme desert environments the termites face are analogous to lunar conditions. Importantly, this whole approach doesn’t rely on water. Most of the moon is bone-dry desert. Learning about that helped direct me toward distributed systems for construction.”
UA aerospace engineering students (from left) Min Seok Kang, Athip Thirupathi Raj, Chad Jordan Cantin, Sivaperuman Muniyasamy, and Korbin Aydin Hansen display a smart sandbag structure. Credit: University of Arizona College of Engineering
Thanga has long been interested in applying insect social systems to distributed robot networks where machines are organized by swarm intelligence to work cooperatively without human intervention. In their system, the robots embed sensors and electronics in sandbags, fill them with lunar regolith, and then use these to assemble the structures in place. Some sensors provide location data to help the robots place the sandbags, while others provide communication capabilities and environmental information to warn of potential dangers.
These include moonquakes, which result from heating and cooling during every lunar day and night (which last 14 days each). The temperature swings during this cycle are also a potential hazard, ranging from -183 to 107 °C (-298 to 224 °F) between day and night. Because the Moon is an airless environment, there’s also the threat of micro-meteors that bombard the surface at an average speed of 96,560 km/h (60,000 mph). The lack of an atmosphere (and a magnetosphere) also means the lunar surface is exposed to considerably more solar radiation and cosmic rays.
These buildings meet NASA’s requirements for the Artemis Program by reducing the amount of material that must be transported to the Moon while protecting the harsh lunar environment. NASA has granted Thanga and his team $500,000 for lunar surface projects through the agency’s Space Technology Artemis Research program (M-STAR), part of the Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP). NASA has also provided $1 million annually for UA student research projects over the last five years through a MUREP Institutional Research Opportunity (MIRO). Said Thanga:
“The goal is to raise the participation of underrepresented groups in aerospace. And these are hands-on, student-centric projects. This lab offers me the exact environment – it’s startup culture. I’m leading a team and working with multidisciplinary people. I’m glad I’m here.”
Thanga and Sivaperuman Muniyasamy, an aerospace engineering doctoral student and first author on the paper describing the technology, presented their idea during a classified session of the AAS GNC. “By publishing the paper at the conference, we’re gaining feedback from other experts that really helps us move forward,” said Muniyasamy. “It’s no accident this team has an academic partner, a commercial partner, and a government agency,” Thanga added. “Given the challenges, part of the path is for us to collaborate.”
Artist’s impression of a lunar mining facility harvesting resources from the Moon’s surface. Credit: NASA/Pat Rawlings
Beyond the team’s plans for lunar habitats, the LUNAR-BRIC consortium plans to produce many concepts that will support the creation of a space economy. In addition to leading a team of eight undergraduate and master’s students working on lunar surface projects, Muniyasamy plans to launch a space mining company after completing his Ph.D. As he noted, NASA plans to build facilities for long-term habitation and industry within a few years of the successful landing of Artemis III that will enable (among other things) environmentally responsible lunar and asteroid mining
Thanga and his student team worked with the university commercialization arm (Tech Launch Arizona) to file patents on the robotic system and the distributed computer processing networks that link the proposed structures and robots.
China's Chang'e-8 Mission Will Try to Make Bricks on the Moon
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has put out a call for international and industry partners to contribute science payloads to its Chang’e-8 lunar lander, set for launch to the Moon in 2028. The mission, which will involve a lander, a rover, and a utility robot, will be China’s first attempt at in-situ resource utilization on the Moon, using lunar regolith to produce brick-like building materials.
Just like NASA’s Artemis plans, the CNSA’s plans for the Moon are targeted at the Lunar south pole, which is expected to be rich in useable resources, especially water. The presence of these resources will be vital for long-term human activity on the lunar surface.
Possible landing sites for Chang’e-8 include Leibnitz Beta, Amundsen crater, Cabeus crater, and the ridge connecting the Shackleton and de Gerlache craters, according to a presentation by Chang’e-8 chief deputy designer in October 2023.
Chang’e-8 will be the last CNSA robotic mission to be launched before construction begins on the International Lunar Research Station, China’s crewed moonbase being planned in collaboration with Russia’s Roscosmos. That makes Chang’e-8’s attempt to create building materials out of regolith a vital proof-of-concept for their lunar aspirations.
In order to make moon-bricks, the lander will carry an instrument that uses solar energy to melt lunar soil and turn it into useable parts at a speed of 40 cubic cm per hour.
Alongside the regolith processing equipment, the lander will be equipped with an array of science instruments, including cameras, a seismometer to detect moonquakes, and an x-ray telescope. Part of the mission will focus on moon-based Earth observation, with several instruments designed to monitor Earth’s atmosphere and magnetosphere.
The rover, meanwhile, will carry ground penetrating radar, cameras, a mineral analyzer, and tools for collecting and storing samples (leaving open the possibility of future missions to retrieve the samples).
The utility robot is a key piece of the mission, but CNSA isn’t developing it in-house. Instead, the space agency is seeking proposals from partners interested in developing it as a piggyback payload to ride alongside the rest of Chang’e-8.
According to the call for proposals, the 100kg, battery-powered robot will need to be able to “capture, carry and place items, shovel, and transfer lunar soil.” It will also need to be able to travel at 400m per hour.
There is room for an additional 100kg of piggyback payloads besides the robot, for which full proposals are expected to be submitted later this year.
While planning for Chang’e 8 is ongoing, the CNSA has two additional robotic moon missions in the works for the near future. The first, Chang’e-6, will launch this spring, and aims to return a regolith sample from the lunar far side (a never before accomplished feat). The next mission is planned for 2026, when Chang’e-7 will carry out a geological examination of the permanently shadowed craters scattered around the Moon’s south pole.
A recently submitted study to The Astronomical Journal continues to search for the elusive Planet Nine (also called Planet X), which is a hypothetical planet that potentially orbits in the outer reaches of the solar system and well beyond the orbit of the dwarf planet, Pluto. The goal of this study was to narrow down the possible locations of Planet Nine and holds the potential to help researchers better understand the makeup of our solar system, along with its formation and evolutionary processes. So, what was the motivation behind this study regarding narrowing down the location of a potential Planet Nine?
Dr. Mike Brown, who is a Richard and Barbara Rosenberg Professor of Astronomy at Caltech and lead author of the study, tells Universe Today, “We are continuing to try to systematically cover all of the regions of the sky where we predict Planet Nine to be. Using data from Pan-STARRS allowed us to cover the largest region to date.”
Pan-STARRS, which stands for Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, is a collaborative astronomical observation system located at Haleakala Observatory and operated by the University of Hawai’I Institute of Astronomy with telescope construction being funded by the U.S. Air Force. For the study, the researchers used data from Data Release 2 (DR2) with the goal of narrowing down the possible location of Planet Nine based on findings from past studies.
In the end, the team narrowed down possible locations of Planet Nine by eliminating approximately 78 percent of possible locations that were calculated from previous studies. Additionally, the researchers also provided new estimates for the approximate semimajor axis (measured in astronomical units (AU)) and Earth-mass size of Planet Nine at 500 and 6.6, respectively. So, what are the most significant results from this study, and what follow-up studies are currently being conducted or planned?
“While I would love to say that the most significant result was finding Planet Nine, we didn’t,” Dr. Brown tells Universe Today. “So instead, it means that we have significantly narrowed the search area. We’ve now surveyed approximately 80% of the regions where we think Planet Nine might be.”
In terms of follow-up studies, Dr. Brown tells Universe Today, “I think that the LSST is the most likely survey to find Planet Nine. When it comes online in a year or two it will quickly cover much of the search space and, if Planet Nine is there, find it.”
LSST stands for Legacy Survey of Space and Time, and is an astronomical survey currently scheduled as a 10-year program to study the southern sky and take place at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, which is presently under construction. Objectives for LSST include studying identifying near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and small planetary bodies within our solar system, but also include deep space studies, as well. These include investigating the properties of dark matter and dark energy and the evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy. But what is the importance of finding Planet Nine?
Dr. Brown tells Universe Today, “This would be the 5th largest planet of our solar system and the only one with a mass between Earth and Uranus. Such planets are common around other stars, and we would suddenly have a chance to study one in our own solar system.”
Scientists began hypothesizing the existence of Planet Nine shortly after the discovery of Neptune in 1846, including an 1880 memoir authored by D. Kirkwood and later a 1946 paper authored by American astronomer, Clyde Tombaugh, who was responsible for discovering Pluto in 1930. More recent studies include studies from 2016 and 2017 presenting evidence for the existence of Planet Nine, the former of which was co-authored by Dr. Brown. This most recent study marks the most complete investigation of narrowing down the location of Planet Nine, which Dr. Brown has long-believed exists, telling Universe Today, “There are too many separate signs that Planet Nine is there. The solar system is very difficult to understand without Planet Nine.”
He continues by telling Universe Today that “…Planet Nine explains many things about orbits of objects in the outer solar system that would be otherwise unexplainable and would each need some sort of separate explanation. The cluster of the directions of the orbits is the best know, but there is also the large perihelion distances of many objects, existence of highly inclined and even retrograde objects, and the high abundance of very eccentric orbits which cross inside the orbit of Neptune. None of these should happen in the solar system, but all are easily explainable as an effect of Planet Nine.”
Does Planet Nine exist and where will we find it in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
Even Eris and Makemake Could Have Geothermal Activity
Whether or not you agree that Pluto isn’t a planet, in many ways, Pluto is quite different from the classical planets. It’s smaller than the Moon, has an elliptical orbit that brings it closer to the Sun than Neptune at times, and is part of a collection of icy bodies on the edge of our solar system. It was also thought to be a cold dead world until the flyby of New Horizons proved otherwise. The plucky little spacecraft showed us that Pluto was geologically active, with a thin atmosphere and mountains that rise above icy plains. Geologically, Pluto is more similar to Earth than the Moon, a fact that has led some to reconsider Pluto’s designation as a dwarf planet.
Astronomers still aren’t sure how Pluto has remained geologically active. Perhaps the gravitational interactions with its moon Charon, or perhaps interior radioactive decay. But regardless of the cause, the general thought has been that Pluto is an exception, not a rule. Other outer worlds of similar size and composition are likely dead worlds. But a new study shows that isn’t the case for at least two dwarf planets, Eris and Makemake.
This new study doesn’t rely on high-resolution images like we have for Pluto. Our current observations of Eris and Makemake show them only as small, blurry dots. But we do have spectral observations of these worlds, which is where this study comes in.
The team looked at the spectral lines of molecules on the surface of these worlds, most specifically that of methane. Methane, or CH4 has two important variants. One is composed of standard hydrogen atoms, while the other contains one or more atoms of a type of hydrogen known as deuterium. Deuterium has a nucleus containing a proton and neutron rather than just a proton, and this skews the spectrum of methane a bit. From the spectral observations, the team could measure the D/H ratio for methane on both worlds.
How D/H ratios compare to possible origins. Credit: Glein, et al
Thisratio is determined by the source of the methane. If Eris and Makemake are dead worlds, then the methane they have stems from their origin more than 4 billion years ago, and the D/H level should be on the higher end. On the other hand, if the surface methane was generated through an interior process and vented through active geological processes, then the D/H ratio should be lower. The team found that the ratio is most consistent with thermogenic and abiotic mechanisms, suggesting that both Eris and Makemake are active worlds, or at least were active in geologically recent times.
Eris is about the same size as Pluto, so it isn’t too surprising that it’s a geologically active world given what we now know about Pluto. But Makemake is much smaller, about 60% the size of Pluto. If Makemake is an active world, then it is likely that other dwarf planets such as Haumea are as well. If that’s the case, then most if not all dwarf planets are geologically active. As the authors suggest, it might be worth sending a probe or two to the outer worlds for more study.
UFO Communication with an Eyewitness at Lake Superior
UFO Communication with an Eyewitness at Lake Superior
In the realm of unexplained phenomena, few topics capture the imagination quite like unidentified flying objects (UFOs). A particularly intriguing incident took place in June 2019 near the storied waters of Lake Superior, where an individual’s encounter with mysterious orbs not only challenged conventional explanations but also hinted at the possibility of communication between humans and these enigmatic entities.
The Encounter
Erik Rintamaki, known for his discovery of a unique type of rock called yooperlites, ventured out one evening in search of these stones. Armed with a specific type of blacklight to illuminate these rare finds, he unexpectedly became the witness to something far more unusual than fluorescent minerals. Glowing orbs appeared in the night sky, capturing his attention and setting the stage for an extraordinary experience. Unlike any typical aircraft or natural celestial body, these lights exhibited unusual behavior, moving in a synchronized fashion without making any sound.
Expert Analysis
The incident prompted a detailed examination by experts across various fields. Video forensic analysis confirmed the authenticity of the footage, ruling out digital manipulation or the use of computer-generated imagery. Astronomers and aviation analysts weighed in, considering and dismissing conventional explanations such as drones, which typically display different lighting patterns, or astronomical bodies like Venus, which could not account for the observed characteristics of the orbs.
One of the most compelling aspects of Rintamaki’s encounter was the apparent interaction between the eyewitness and the unidentified objects. As described by Alexis Brooks, an author familiar with UFO phenomena, instances where UFOs seem to respond to human observation are not unheard of. This encounter seemed to echo such instances, with the orbs appearing to move towards Rintamaki as if acknowledging his presence and possibly attempting communication.
Skepticism and Open Questions
Despite thorough analysis, skepticism remains. Some experts suggested optical illusions or misinterpretations of natural phenomena might explain the encounter. For instance, Marc D’Antonio, an astronomer and video effects designer, proposed that the orbs’ behavior could be attributed to the camera’s focus adjustments in low light conditions, a common issue that can create misleading effects.
VIDEO:
UFO COMMUNICATES WITH AN EYEWITNESS (S2) | The Proof Is Out There | The UnXplained Zone
The Lake Superior UFO encounter stands as a testament to the enduring mystery of UFOs. While the exact nature of the orbs remains unidentified, the possibility of an attempted communication adds a fascinating layer to the narrative. This incident underscores the complex relationship between human perception, technology, and the unknown. Whether these orbs were natural phenomena, undisclosed human-made technology, or indeed something more extraordinary, they remind us of the vastness of our universe and the limits of our understanding.
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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.
