Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
05-03-2024
UFO Over Taitung, Taiwan on 1961, Almost Looks Like Black Hole! UFO Sighting News.
UFO Over Taitung, Taiwan on 1961, Almost Looks Like Black Hole! UFO Sighting News.
Now this is a very old photo from Taiwan of a UFO. They assumed the black circle is the UFO, but it is not. The UFO itself is more easily visible when put into negative format. It's 3X bigger! The black craft above around the white circle...thats the whole UFO. The circle is a some area below. This UFO is easily 1 mile across.
Curiosity Rover is Climbing Through Dramatic Striped Terrain on Mars
Just about every day we here on Earth get a breathtaking picture of Mars’s terrain sent back by a rover. But, the view from space can be pretty amazing, too. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) just sent back a thought-provoking picture of Curiosity as it makes its way up a steep ridge on Mount Sharp.
The rover is a tiny black dot in the center of the image, which gives a good feeling for what MRO’s HiRISE camera accomplished. For scale, the rover is about the size of a dinner table, sitting in a region of alternating dark and light bands of material on the Red Planet.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover appears as a dark speck in this image captured from directly overhead by the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Where’s Curiosity?
The Curiosity rover is exploring an ancient ridge on the side of Mount Sharp, which is the peak of a crater on Mars. It’s sitting on the side of a feature called Gediz Vallis Ridge, and the terrains and materials preserve a record of what things were like when water last flowed there. That happened about three billion years ago. The force of the flow brought significant amounts of rocks and debris through the region. They piled up to form the ridge. So, much of what you see here is the desiccated remains of that flooding.
Debris flows are pretty common here on Earth, particularly in the aftermath of floods, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and other actions. We can see them wherever material floods through a region or down a slope. In a flood-based flow, the speed of the water combines with gravity and the degree of slope to send material rushing across the surface. A debris flow can also be a dry landslide, and those can occur pretty much anywhere on Earth where the conditions are right. Another type of debris flow comes from volcanic activity. That occurs when material erupts from a volcano, or when earthquakes combined with an eruption collapse material into the side of the mountain. That results in what’s called a “lahar”. Folks in North America might recall the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980; it resulted in several lahars that buried parts of the surrounding terrain.
Now that scientists see similar-seeming regions on Mars, they want to know several things. How did they form? Were they created by the same processes that make them on Earth? And, how long ago did they begin to form? Curiosity and Perseverance and other rovers and landers have been sent to Mars to help answer those questions.
Understanding the Debris Ridge
Did any of these actions happen on Mars? The evidence is pretty strong, which is why Gediz Vallis itself is a major exploration goal for the rover. It’s a canyon that stretches across 9 kilometers of the Martian surface and is carved about 140 meters deep. Gediz was likely carved by so-called “fluvial” activity (meaning flowing action) in the beginning. Later floods deposited a variety of fine-grained sands and rocks. Over time, winds have blown a lot of that material away, leaving behind protected pockets of materials left behind by the flooding. The size of the rocks tells something about the speed of the flows that deposited all the material. Geological studies of those rocks will reveal their mineral compositions, including their exposure to water over time.
The Gediz Vallis ridge resulted from the action of water pushing rocks and dirt around to build it up over time. Planetary scientists now need to figure out the sequence of events that created it. The clues lie in the scattered rocks in the region and the surrounding terrain. Mount Sharp itself (formally known as Aeolis Mons), is about 5 kilometers high and is, essentially, a stack of layered sedimentary rocks. As Curiosity makes its way up the mountain, it explores younger and younger materials.
NASA’s Curiosity captured this 360-degree panorama while parked below Gediz Vallis Ridge (seen at right), a formation that preserves a record of one of the last wet periods seen on this part of Mars. After previous attempts, the rover finally reached the ridge on its fourth try. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.
Curiosity’s Mission at Gediz
To put all this on a larger scale, Mount Sharp is the central peak of Gale Crater. It formed some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago from an impact. As time went by, water flooded the crater several times. It flowed out and eventually disappeared as Mars’s climate changed it to the dusty desert we see today.
Winds also played a role in filling the crater with dust and sand deposits. This so-called aeolian activity also helped carve out Mount Sharp. This history of wind- and water-based deposition and erosion made Gale Crater a very attractive place to explore. That’s why Curiosity was sent there and continues its journey up Mount Sharp.
As if the Mars Perseverance Rover and Ingenuity Drone were not exciting enough then the next step in this audacious mission takes it to a whole new level. Mars Sample Return Mission is to follow along, collect and return the samples collected by Perseverance back to Earth. However the status of Mars Sample Return is uncertain as engineers are still working on technology to retrieve the samples. The current challenge is the gripper arm that will collect the samples and stow them safely and securely before transportation without damaging them.
Mars, known as the “Red Planet,” is the fourth planet from the Sun. It’s named after the Roman god of war and has fascinated humans for centuries. The distinctive rusty-red colour and mysterious terrain has over the years, led many to believe Mars was inhabited by aliens. Exploration has shown us though that Mars is a barren landscape that is home to Olympus Mons, the largest volcano, and Valles Marineris, the deepest canyon, in the solar system.
Featured Image: True-color image of the Red Planet taken on October 10, 2014, by India’s Mars Orbiter mission from 76,000 kilometers (47,224 miles) away. (Credit: ISRO/ISSDC/Justin Cowart) (This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)
Viking 1 was the first spacecraft to visit Mars, successfully touching down on 20 July 1976 in the Chryse Planitia region. It comprised an orbiter and lander both of which were equipped with high resolution cameras to undertake a detailed examination of the Martian surface and atmosphere. A host of other spacecraft have visited Mars since then, most recently the Perseverance rover which carried with it the Ingenuity aircraft.
One of the mission objectives of Perseverance was to collect samples from Martian rocks and soil using the onboard drill. The samples were collected during a process known as ‘sample caching’ and then stored in tubes before being deposited on the surface for later collection. It’s a procedure that has never been undertaken before but set the foundations for future missions to collect and transport the samples back to Earth. Perseverance has been busy, there are now 23 titanium tubes sat on the Martian surface just waiting to be delivered back to Earth.
Mars Perseverence rover sent back this image of its parking spot during Mars Solar Conjunction. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
Enter Mars Sample Return mission, a joint NASA and ESA project that is planned to collect the tubes and bring them home for study. Engineers are now working on a prototype robotic arm that will collect the tubes from the surface. It uses a grip with two ‘fingers’ to pickup the hermetically sealed tubes from various angles and positions. There is a mechanism that ensures enough grip to pickup but not damage the tube or its contents which are Martian samples about the size of a piece of classroom chalk. It can even collect them direct from the rover itself.
As with all space missions, backup plans must always be considered. In the case of the the Sample Return mission the backup is likely to be two helicopters based on the Ingenuity design that can collect the tubes and deposit them in front of the lander for collection. An audacious mission perhaps but we will have to wait until 2028 to see the lander on Mars and until 2033 for the samples to be returned to Earth.
Massive Stars Have the Power to Shape Solar Systems
This image is a Hubble image of the inner regions in the Orion Nebula, with a JWST image of a protoplanetary disk named d203-506. The disk is close enough to the massive Trapezium Cluster stars that their UV radiation is shaping the planet-forming process in the disk. Image Credit: NASA/STSCI/RICE UNIV./C.O'DELL ET AL / O. BERNÉ, I. SCHROTTER, PDRS4ALL
Massive Stars Have the Power to Shape Solar Systems
Stars shape their solar systems. It’s true of ours, and it’s true of others. But for some massive stars, their power to shape still-forming systems is fateful and final.
In their youth, stars are surrounded by a rotating mass of gas and dust called a protoplanetary disk. Planets form in these disks, and the process can take millions of years. But stars have different masses and different radiation outputs that affect how planets form, or if they form at all.
New research examines how the powerful UV radiation from massive stars affects planet formation in disks. The research article is “A far-ultraviolet–driven photoevaporation flow observed in a protoplanetary disk.” It’s published in the journal Science, and the lead author is Olivier Berne from the Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology, University of Toulouse, France.
The research looks at large stars in their first million years of life, when they’re not only young but extremely luminous. The researchers focused on several stars in the Orion Nebula and its stellar nurseries. The stars are at least ten times more massive than the Sun and are 10,000 times more luminous. What effect does their luminosity and all that radiation have on disks where planets form?
These powerful young stars emit high levels of Far-Ultraviolet (FUV) radiation, which has the power to remove mass from planet-forming disks. This power extends beyond their own immediate surroundings into the disks around neighbouring low-mass stars.
“Most low-mass stars form in stellar clusters that also contain massive stars, which are sources of far ultraviolet (FUV) radiation,” the researchers explain. “Theoretical models predict that this FUV radiation produces photodissociation regions (PDRs) on the surfaces of protoplanetary disks around low-mass stars, which affects planet formation within the disks.” The PDRs can span several hundred astronomical units (AU).
The researchers examined one protoplanetary disk that’s within range of energetic, high-mass stars residing in the Trapezium Cluster in the heart of the Orion Nebula. The five brightest stars in that cluster range from 15 to 30 solar masses, making them prime candidates to study PDRs in neighbouring planet-forming disks. The Orion Bar PDR is an often-studied and prototypical PDR.
The Orion Nebula. The Trapezium Cluster is above and to the right of the three stars in Orion’s Belt in this image. The stars in Trapezium are mostly responsible for illuminating Orion, and their powerful FUV energy can strip gas from the protoplanetary disks surrounding lower-mass stars nearby. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The disk in the image, d203-506, is being bombarded by intense FUV radiation from the massive Trapezium stars. The FUV radiation is dispersing matter in the disk, inhibiting planet formation. According to the research, it’s impossible for a Jupiter-mass planet to form in this disk because the radiation is stripping matter away.
This figure from the research has an optical image from Hubble on the left. On the right is a JWST NIR image of the same region, including a zoomed-in view of the d203-506 disk. The dotted line marks a feature named the Orion Bar PDR. On the upper right of the Bar, the gas is fully ionized, and on the lower left, the gas is neutral. The smaller inset image of the disk shows a bright spot where jets from the embedded star are sending material out into space. Image Credit: Berne et al. 2024.
“Planet formation is limited by processes that remove mass from the disk, such as photoevaporation,” the authors write. “This occurs when the upper layers of protoplanetary disks are heated by x-ray or ultraviolet photons.” Once heated, the gas exceeds the escape velocity of the disk, and the gas leaves the system.
After the radiation drives mass out of the disk, it collects in a diffuse envelope around the disk.
This schematic from the research illustrates some of the forces involved in the d203-506 planet-forming disk. Features like the bright spot and the jets are visible but unlabelled in the JWST images preceding this one. The brown arrows show gas being driven out of the disk by the FUV radiation, which produces the tan envelope around the disk. The orange outline is the dissociation front. Image Credit: Berne et al. 2024.
The powerful FUV radiation dissociates molecular hydrogen into atomic hydrogen. The PDR marks the transition between molecular and atomic hydrogen. As the hydrogen is converted into atomic hydrogen, it becomes warmer, and the heating helps drive the photoevaporation of the hydrogen.
When the star inside the affected disk is more massive, that helps restrict the loss of hydrogen from the disk. Its gravity can help the disk retain matter, making it available for planet formation.
This all plays out relatively quickly in a disk. In the d203-506 disk, the star is only about 0.3 solar masses. The researchers write that in only about 0.13 million years, enough material will be removed from the disk to prohibit the formation of a Jupiter-mass planet. “This is faster than even very early planet formation,” the researchers write.
But powerful FUV radiation and the PDRs they produce do more than just inhibit the formation of gas giants. They shape other aspects of the future solar system as well.
“The effect affects the disk mass, radius, and lifetime, its chemical evolution, and the growth and migration of any planets forming within the disk,” the authors explain.
The Insights of Michio Kaku on UFOs and Advanced Civilizations: An Overview
The Insights of Michio Kaku on UFOs and Advanced Civilizations: An Overview
In a remarkable and enlightening conversation, Ross Coulthart, a seasoned investigative journalist, engaged with Michio Kaku, a renowned quantum physicist and a key proponent of string theory, to unravel the mysteries surrounding Unidentified Flying Objects. This discussion, initially part of a broader documentary effort, sheds light on the growing interest and acknowledgment of UFO phenomena within both the scientific community and the general public.
Skepticism and the Burden of Proof
Kaku, a professor at City College of New York, addressed the skepticism that often surrounds the existence of UFOs, highlighting a shift in the burden of proof. He underscored the importance of data, indicating that the military’s disclosure of extensive video evidence has been pivotal. This transparency challenges the longstanding requirement for individuals to prove the existence of anomalous objects, instead placing the onus on the military to demonstrate that these observations are not extraterrestrial.
Technological Marvels Beyond Human Capability
The interview delved into the capabilities of the objects observed, with Kaku explaining that the maneuvers and speeds documented far exceed current human-made aircraft or drones. This includes instances where objects have demonstrated the ability to travel at speeds up to Mach 20 and perform aerial feats that would subject any known life form to lethal g-forces, suggesting the possibility of drone technology beyond our comprehension.
The Possibility of Extraterrestrial Origin
Kaku candidly explored the possibility that these UAPs could be of extraterrestrial origin, acknowledging that while some military and government officials have started to admit this as a possibility, the scientific community remains cautious. He emphasized the significance of following the data, which seems to suggest a technology that is potentially thousands, if not millions, of years more advanced than ours.
Advanced Civilizations and Energy Manipulation
Discussing the theoretical framework for exceeding the speed of light—a boundary firmly established by Einstein—Kaku introduced concepts such as wormholes and the Alcubierre drive. These ideas, grounded in the general theory of relativity, suggest mechanisms through which advanced civilizations might traverse vast cosmic distances. However, Kaku also noted the immense energy requirements for such feats, positing that only civilizations far beyond our current technological capacity could achieve them.
The Implications of Contact
The conversation also touched on the societal and philosophical implications of contact with advanced extraterrestrial life. Kaku speculated on the reasons advanced beings might visit Earth and how humanity might perceive and interact with them. He stressed the importance of cautious engagement, drawing parallels with historical encounters on Earth that led to the downfall of less technologically advanced civilizations.
Looking Towards the Future
As the interview concluded, Kaku and Coulthart contemplated the future of humanity’s quest to understand and possibly interact with extraterrestrial life. Kaku’s reflections on the potential for advanced civilizations to exist within the vast expanse of the universe serve as a reminder of the humbling and awe-inspiring possibilities that lie beyond our current understanding.
VIDEO:
Professor Michio Kaku & Ross Coulthart interview IN FULL | UFO UAP News
This dialogue between Coulthart and Kaku not only highlights the evolving discourse surrounding UFOs and UAPs but also underscores the importance of scientific inquiry and open-mindedness in exploring the unknown frontiers of our universe. As humanity continues to advance technologically, the prospect of encountering or even understanding advanced extraterrestrial life remains one of the most intriguing and profound challenges of our time.
Europa Produce Less Oxygen than Previously Thought
Europa Produce Less Oxygen than Previously Thought
Using data from the Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE) instrument onboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft, planetary scientists have calculated the rate of oxygen being produced at Jupiter’s icy moon Europa to be substantially less than most previous studies.
This illustration shows charged particles from Jupiter impacting Europa’s surface, splitting frozen water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen molecules; scientists believe some of these newly created oxygen gases could migrate toward the moon’s subsurface ocean, as depicted in the inset image.
Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SWRI / PU.
With an equatorial diameter of 3,100 km (1,940 miles), Europa is the fourth largest of Jupiter’s 95 known moons and the smallest of the four Galilean satellites.
The moon hosts an internal liquid ocean with potentially habitable conditions below a frozen crust.
Its surface is constantly bombarded by radiation that breaks the icy crust into oxygen and hydrogen, most of which are freed from the surface, escaping into space, or remain behind to form Europa’s atmosphere.
The abundance of these atmospheric gases and ions — and consequently their production rate at the surface — has mostly been inferred by remote sensing observations and has large uncertainties.
“Europa is like an ice ball slowly losing its water in a flowing stream,” said JADE scientist Dr. Jamey Szalay, a researcher at Princeton University.
“Except, in this case, the stream is a fluid of ionized particles swept around Jupiter by its extraordinary magnetic field.”
“When these ionized particles impact Europa, they break up the water-ice molecule by molecule on the surface to produce hydrogen and oxygen.”
“In a way, the entire ice shell is being continuously eroded by waves of charged particles washing up upon it.”
In the new study, Dr. Szalay and colleagues analyzed data from a flyby of Europa performed by the Juno spacecraft on September 29, 2022, which saw the spacecraft fly 353 km (219 miles) above Europa’s surface.
Using the JADE instrument, they extracted the abundance of various pickup ions, which are charged particles generated by the breakup of atmospheric neutrals when they collide with energetic radiation or other particles.
From these data, they calculate that approximately 12 kg of oxygen are produced at Europa’s surface every second.
This is at the lower end of the expectations inferred from previous models that ranged from 5 to 1,100 kg per second.
The results indicate there may be less oxygen on Europa’s surface than previously thought, and that this implies a narrower range to support habitability in Europa’s ocean.
“Our ability to fly close to the Galilean satellites during our extended mission allowed us to start tackling a breadth of science, including some unique opportunities to contribute to the investigation of Europa’s habitability,” said Juno’s principal investigator Dr. Scott Bolton, a researcher at the Southwest Research Institute.
“And we’re not done yet. More moon flybys and the first exploration of Jupiter’s close ring and polar atmosphere are yet to come.”
The findings were published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
J.R. Szalay et al. Oxygen production from dissociation of Europa’s water-ice surface. Nat Astron, published online March 4, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02206-x
The Global Aviation Encounter with Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
The Global Aviation Encounter with Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
In the vast expanse of our skies, pilots navigate not only the complexities of modern aviation but also, occasionally, the mysteries of the unexplained. Among these enigmas, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) present a perplexing challenge, sparking intense discussions on aviation safety and the need for a concerted global response. Far from being confined to the realm of science fiction, encounters with UAPs have been reported by credible witnesses across the globe, igniting concerns about the potential risks they pose to flight safety.
One of the most compelling cases that underscore the seriousness of these encounters occurred in 1986, involving Japan Airlines Flight 1628 over Alaska. The crew reported an inexplicably large object, several times the size of their aircraft, trailing them for a considerable duration. The incident, characterized by the pilot’s vivid description of the object’s enormity and his own fear, is far from isolated. Similar encounters have been documented worldwide, suggesting that the phenomenon of UAPs is not only real but also widespread.
VIDEO:
The Global Threat (Full Episode) | UFOs: Investigating the Unknown
These encounters often share common characteristics: highly advanced maneuverability that defies conventional aviation technology, the ability to appear and disappear from both sight and radar, and, most alarmingly, the potential to come dangerously close to commercial aircraft. Such near misses raise legitimate concerns over passenger safety and the need for a deeper understanding of UAPs.
Despite the growing body of evidence, the official response has been tepid at best. In the United States, the government’s formal study of UFOs (an earlier term for UAPs) concluded in 1969, leaving a vacuum filled by civilian researchers and a handful of dedicated organizations. However, the lack of official acknowledgment or investigation into these phenomena means that many near misses go unreported or are dismissed, leaving pilots and air traffic controllers without the support they need to understand or mitigate these risks.
Internationally, the response has been varied. Some countries have taken the initiative to study UAPs more openly. For example, France has established a governmental agency within its space studies center to investigate UAPs, bringing together experts from various fields to analyze sightings. Similarly, Chile and Peru have recognized the importance of these investigations, often focusing on the implications for aviation safety.
The need for a unified approach to understanding and addressing UAPs is evident. The establishment of organizations like the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP) is a step in the right direction, offering a confidential reporting system for aviation professionals. Yet, the challenge remains global, and the response must be equally comprehensive.
The implications of these unexplained encounters extend beyond the immediate safety concerns. They challenge our understanding of the skies we navigate and the technologies we’ve mastered. As we continue to explore the boundaries of aviation, the conversation around UAPs serves as a reminder of the mysteries that still lie beyond our grasp.
A global, collaborative effort to investigate UAPs could not only enhance aviation safety but also expand our scientific horizons. By embracing the unknown with an open mind and a rigorous scientific approach, we may one day unlock the secrets of these phenomena, turning today’s mysteries into tomorrow’s knowledge. Until then, the skies remain a frontier of both exploration and uncertainty, a reminder of the endless quest for understanding in the vast expanse above us.
SpaceX and NASA recently performed full-scale qualification testing of the docking system that will connect SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System (HLS) with Orion and later Gateway in lunar orbit during future crewed Artemis missions. Based on the flight-proven Dragon 2 active docking system, the Starship HLS docking system will be able to act as an active or passive system during docking. Image Credit: SpaceX
The Apollo Program delivered 12 American astronauts to the surface of the Moon. But that program ended in 1972, and since then, no human beings have visited. But Artemis will change that. And instead of just visiting the Moon, Artemis’ aim is to establish a longer-term presence on the Moon. That requires more complexity than Apollo did. Astronauts will need to transfer between vehicles.
All of that activity requires a reliable spacecraft docking system.
When Artemis astronauts blast off from Earth, they’ll be in the four-seat Orion spacecraft. Orion will take them to lunar orbit, where two will transfer into the Starship HLS, and two will remain in Orion. Starship HLS will deliver them to the lunar surface. In the future, the Lunar Gateway will be in orbit around the Moon, and astronauts will move from Orion to the Gateway to the Starship HLS.
These transfers are complicated and risky maneuvers. The docking system that will make this work is called SpaceX’s Starship HLS docking system. It’s based on SpaceX’s successful Dragon 2 docking system. The Dragon 2 system allows the Dragon 2 spacecraft to dock with the ISS so crew and equipment can be transferred. It’s been in use since 2020.
NASA and SpaceX are busy testing the new Starship HLS docking system. They recently completed ten days of testing at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas. They conducted more than 200 different docking scenarios involving different speeds and angles. The results from this full-scale testing will feed into ongoing computer models of the system, which will, in turn, feed into future testing and design.
This graphic shows the Artemis III Concept of Operations. Docking and crew transfers are a critical stage in the missions. Image Credit: NASA
The system has both an active and a passive mode. When two spacecraft dock, one is active, and the other is passive. The active one is called the chaser, and the other is the target.
During this round of tests, NASA and SpaceX demonstrated the soft capture procedure. In passive capture, the chaser extends its soft capture system (SCS) while the target spacecraft’s system remains retracted. The chaser does all the work, employing latches and other mechanisms to grab the target spacecraft and complete the docking.
HLS requirements state that there must be redundancy in crew egress/ingress. The soft capture procedure seems to address this if the docking system works while one docking system remains retracted.
This is just the latest round of tests. SpaceX has already reached a series of important milestones for the Starship HLS. Those milestones involved power generation, communications, guidance and navigation, propulsion, life support, and space environments protection.
While watching powerful rockets being tested and launched takes up a lot of attention, there’s far more to successful missions than just launch vehicles. According to NASA, “the Human Landing System program is at the center of Artemis, designed to yield groundbreaking science, develop and utilize lunar surface resources and leverage what we learn at the Moon for future Mars missions.” Docking systems might not garner much attention, but they’re obviously a critical part of success.
Through that lens, any progress on Artemis is good news because, on other fronts, the news is not always good. Artemis was initially scheduled to launch in 2025. But it’ll be at least a year late, and NASA says that SpaceX will need to perform more launches before the Artemis mission is given the go-ahead.
How Startups on Earth Could Blaze a Trail for Cities on Mars
If future explorers manage to set up communities on Mars, how will they pay their way? What’s likely to be the Red Planet’s primary export? Will it be Martian deuterium, sent back to Earth for fusion fuel? Raw materials harvested by Mars-based asteroid miners, as depicted in the “For All Mankind” TV series? Or will future Martians be totally dependent on earthly subsidies?
In a new book titled “The New World on Mars,” Robert Zubrin — the president of the Mars Society and a tireless advocate for space settlement — says Mars’ most valuable product will be inventions.
“We’re talking about creating a new and potentially extremely inventive branch of human civilization, which will benefit humanity as a whole enormously,” he says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast. “But moreover, we’ll play from that strength to make money.”
Zubrin isn’t waiting until humans step foot on Mars to get started.
“We are in the process of drawing up business plans for two major initiatives — one in the artificial intelligence area and the other in the synthetic food production area,” he says. “And the idea is, fairly soon we’re going to be presenting these business plans to investors, with the idea of starting companies devoted to these two different technological ideas that we have put together.”
Zubrin says it’s too early to reveal exactly what these companies would do, but he claims the ventures have the potential to become extremely profitable. The AI concept could be “a billion-dollar idea,” he says.
“They’re both addressing critical questions for Mars that have tremendous terrestrial spin-off potential,” Zubrin says.
Income from the ventures would be split between investors and the Mars Society, which would use the funds to support a Mars Technology Institute. “We just did a fundraising drive and raised $150,000 to get this thing started,” Zubrin says.
Robert Zubrin is the founder and president of the Mars Society. (Credit: Mars Society CC BY-SA 3.0)
Once things get rolling, Zubrin envisions setting up a headquarters for the institute — perhaps in the Pacific Northwest or in Colorado (where the Mars Society is currently based).
The concept of using earthly ventures to support off-Earth adventures is by no means new. Back in 2015, when SpaceX founder Elon Musk was recruiting engineers for the Starlink satellite internet network, he said the profits from Starlink would go toward funding a city on Mars.
“Looking in the long term, and saying what’s needed to create a city on Mars — well, one thing’s for sure: a lot of money,” Musk told an audience of about 400 techies (including prospective employees) in Seattle. “So we need things that will generate a lot of money.”
Zubrin says the challenge of establishing settlements on Mars will promote invention in the same way that the challenges facing pioneers in the United States led to innovations ranging from steamboats to light bulbs to iPhones.
“Mars is even going to be much more technologically selective in terms of who goes there, and also a much more challenging environment,” he says. “It’s going to be America to the third power in terms of what it will be able to invent.”
He argues that settlers will be forced to innovate when it comes to developing nuclear fission and fusion plants for energy, finding ways to conserve and recycle resources for sustaining Martian communities, and maximizing food production amid the planet’s harsh conditions. All those innovations can then be exported back to Earth.
Zubrin has laid out the case for Mars settlement in a series of books that goes back to, well, “The Case for Mars” in 1996. He also wrote a fictional account of a crewed mission to Mars, titled “First Landing.” And he has appeared in more than a dozen TV shows about Mars and space exploration, including “Mars,” a National Geographic series that blends science fiction and science fact.
“The New World on Mars” deals with thematic territory that spreads out much more broadly than what was covered in “The Case for Mars.” And Zubrin says SpaceX’s rise is the reason why.
For years, Musk and his team have been focusing on development of a reusable super-heavy-lift launch system known as Starship. The next test flight could take place within weeks — and it’s likely to be only a matter of time before Starship offers a reliable way to get to Earth orbit and beyond. Musk envisions building a fleet of the rockets to send thousands of settlers to Mars, in line with his long-term ambition to make humanity a multiplanet species.
“The New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Red Planet” by Robert Zubrin. (Diversion Books)
Zubrin assumes that Starship or something like it will be a success — which means there’s less need to dwell on the nuts and bolts of interplanetary transport in “The New World on Mars.”
“This book essentially says, ‘Look, it’s soon going to be possible for humans to go to Mars,’” he says. “So the key question is not how do we do that, but what do we do when we get there?”
Zubrin goes into great detail about how Mars’ harsh realities could affect every aspect of daily life, from energy production and terraforming to marriage and parenthood. For example, he suggests that Martians might clean their clothes simply by airing them out in the Red Planet’s low-pressure, bacteria-killing environment.
Zubrin went so far as to test the technique by stuffing dirty clothes into a laboratory vacuum chamber. “The only downside is that stains are not removed, so they don’t look clean. One remedy for this would be to use camo coloration for clothes, as it does not show stains,” he writes. “I predict this will be the style.”
“The New World on Mars” is more optimistic about Red Planet settlement than “A City on Mars,” a book by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith that was featured on Fiction Science last November. That book argues that the drive to create space settlements is premature — and that a host of uncertainties need to be cleared up first. For example, the Weinersmiths say that much more research should be done on the potential effects of Mars’ reduced gravity on human reproduction and development. They also raise concerns about the potential international conflicts over property rights in space.
As you’d expect, Zubrin strongly disagrees with such views — in his book, on the podcast, and in a book review published by Quillette. “They say there’s no point going into space. There’s nothing to be gained from it, and therefore, there should be laws to stop it, which makes no sense whatsoever,” he says.
In Zubrin’s view, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty’s prohibition on claims of national sovereignty won’t tie the hands of Mars settlers. Instead, it would make it easier for them to stake their own claims. “If a Martian colony is set up, and declares property rights within its vicinity, [governments on Earth] have no jurisdiction to contradict it,” Zubrin says. “They have explicitly signed away their rights to interfere with Mars settlement.”
And what about the health effects of living on Mars? “OK, so yeah, we don’t know about the long-term effects of one-third gravity on people, but we’ll find that out,” Zubrin says. “When we send our first exploration missions to Mars, I believe it’ll be OK.”
The way Zubrin sees it, the main attraction for Mars settlers won’t be deuterium, or asteroid riches, or shiny red obsidian. It’ll be something money can’t buy: the freedom to create.
“I believe that there’s nothing more powerful than the creative power of life,” he says. “The grass finds a way to break through the pavement. Life finds a way. … And freedom is going to find a way.”
US Government Researched About UFOs Disguised As Clouds, UFO Sighting News.
US Government Researched About UFOs Disguised As Clouds, UFO Sighting News.
Now here is an interesting situation. The US Gov department of defense and the USAF both considered that UFOs could be cloaking within disk shaped clouds and did research recording the craft in the once top secret UFO report call the Condon Reports.
Some Intelligent Civilizations Will Be Trapped on their Worlds
With thousands of exoplanets discovered so far, astronomers are learning how different planets can be. What if intelligent alien civilizations arise on extremely different habitable worlds? Some civilizations could develop space exploration technologies, but others would be trapped underwater, under ice, or in enormous gravity wells. How could they escape? Image Credit: DALL-E
Some Intelligent Civilizations Will Be Trapped on their Worlds
Evolution has produced a wondrously diverse variety of lifeforms here on Earth. It just so happens that talking primates with opposable thumbs rose to the top and are building a spacefaring civilization. And we’re land-dwellers. But what about other planets? If the dominant species on an ocean world builds a technological civilization of some sort, would they be able to escape their ocean home and explore space?
We have no way of knowing if other Extraterrestrial Intelligences (ETIs) exist or not. There’s at least some possibility that other civilizations exist, and we’re certainly in no position to say for sure that they don’t. The Drake Equation is one of the tools we use to talk about the existence of ETIs. It’s a kind of structured thought experiment in the form of an equation that allows us to estimate the existence of other active, communicative ETIs. Some of the variables in the Drake Equation (DE) are the star formation rate, the number of planets around those stars, and the fraction of planets that could form life and on which life could evolve to become an ETI.
In his new research article, Quiroga comes up with two new concepts that feed into the DE: the Exoplanet Escape Factor and Fishbowl worlds.
Planets of different masses have different escape velocities. Earth’s escape velocity is 11.2 km/s (kilometres per second), which is more than 40,000 km/h. The escape velocity is for ballistic objects without propulsion, so our rockets don’t actually travel 40,000 km/h. But the escape velocity is useful for comparing different planets because it’s independent of the vehicle used and its propulsion.
“It could therefore be the case that an intelligent species on these planets would never be able to travel into space due to sheer physical impossibility.”
Elio Quiroga, Universidad del Atlántico Medio
Super-Earths have much greater masses and much higher escape velocities. While there’s no exact definition of a Super-Earth’s mass, many sources use the upper bound of 10 Earth masses to define them. So, an ETI on a Super-Earth would be facing a different set of conditions than we do here on Earth when it comes to space travel.
This simple graph from the research article shows how escape velocity rises with planetary mass. The x-axis shows Earth masses, and the y-axis shows the required escape velocity. Image Credit: Quiroga, 2024.
In this work, Quiroga implements the Exoplanet Escape Factor (Fex) and the Exoplanet Escape Velocity (Vex.) By working with them, he arrives at a sample of escape velocities for some known exoplanets. Note that the composition of the planets isn’t critical, only their masses.
This figure from the research shows how easy or difficult it would be to reach space from some known exoplanets. Green indicates that escape is possible, orange indicates likely problems, and red indicates the practical impossibility of space travel. Image Credit: Quiroga 2024.
Quiroga points out that a planet with a Fex value of <0.4 would struggle to hold onto any atmosphere anyway, making life unlikely. Conversely, a Fex value of >2.2 would make space travel unlikely. “Values of Fex > 2.2 would make space travel unlikely for the exoplanet’s inhabitants: they would not be able to leave the planet using any conceivable amount of fuel, nor would a viable rocket structure withstand the pressures involved in the process, at least with the materials we know (as far as we know, the same periodic table of elements and the same combinations of them govern the entire universe).”
“It could, therefore, be the case that an intelligent species on these planets would never be able to travel into space due to sheer physical impossibility,” Quiroga writes. In fact, they may never conceive of the idea of any type of space travel at all. Who knows?
Of course, space exploration isn’t a one-way street. Astronauts have to return from space, and a planet’s mass affects that. Re-entry imposes its own difficulties on a Super-Earth ten times more massive than our planet. The atmospheric density also plays a role. A spacecraft needs to control its velocity and frictional heating when re-entering, and that’s more difficult on a more massive planet, just as escaping is.
Quiroga also talks about the idea of the Fishbowl Worlds. These are the planets above Fex 2.2 from which escape is physically impossible. What could life for an intelligent species be like on a Fishbowl world?
Artist’s impression of the surface of a “Hycean” world. According to Quiroga, if a civilization arose on an ocean world, it could end up being a Fishbowl World where the inhabitants have no chance of ever exploring space. Image Credit: University of Cambridge
In his research article, Quiroga invites us to be speculative with a nod to science fiction. Imagine an ocean world that’s home to an intelligent species. In a fluid environment, unaided communication travels much further than in an atmosphere like Earth’s. Unaided signals could travel for hundreds of kilometres. In an environment like that, “… communication between individuals could be feasible without the need for communication devices,” Quiroga explains. So, the impetus to develop communication technologies might not be there. In that case, Quiroga says, the technology may not have developed and the civilization might not be considered “communicative” at all, one of the keys to the definition of an ETI.
“Telecommunications technology might never emerge on such a world, even though it could be home to a fully developed civilization,” Quiroga writes. “Such a civilization would not be “communicative” and would not be contemplated in the Drake equation.”
Other circumstances could effectively trap civilizations on their homeworlds. On a planet with continuous, unbroken cloud cover, the starry sky would never be visible. How would that affect a civilization? Can you wonder about the stars if you can’t see them and don’t know they’re there? Of course not. A similar thing is true in a binary star system with no nighttime. Stars would never be visible and would never be objects and sources of wonder.
Ocean worlds present a similar conundrum. On ocean worlds or moons with warm oceans and frozen ice shells kilometres thick, any inhabitants would have extremely limited views of the Universe they inhabit. It’s difficult to imagine a technological civilization arising in an ocean under several kilometres of ice. But we’re in no position to judge whether that’s possible or not.
Jupiter’s moon, Europa, has a warm ocean under a thick icy shell. Are there other worlds out there like Europa? What would it be like for intelligent creatures that lived in a world like this? They would never see the stars in the sky, their own stars, or any other planets in their solar systems. (Credit: NASA/JPL/Galileo spacecraft)
Quiroga’s Exoplanet Escape Factor (Fex) can help us imagine what kinds of worlds could host ETIs. It can help us anticipate the factors that prevent or at least inhibit space travel, and it brings more complexity into the Drake Equation. It leads us to the idea of Fishbowl Worlds, inescapable planets that could keep a civilization planet-bound forever.
Without the ability to ever escape their planet and explore their solar systems, and without the ability to communicate beyond their worlds, could entire civilizations rise and fall without ever knowing the Universe they were a part of? Could it happen right under our noses, so to speak, and we’d never know?
The Search for an Alien Base Off the California Coast
The Search for an Alien Base Off the California Coast
In recent years, the quest to understand the unknown has taken researchers to the depths of the ocean, particularly off the California coast, where an extraordinary discovery has sparked widespread intrigue. This area, often compared to the infamous Bermuda Triangle for its mysterious electromagnetic anomalies, has become the focal point of investigations into unidentified submerged objects (USOs) and potential extraterrestrial activity.
The Investigation Begins
Led by researcher Ben Hanson, a team embarked on a daring exploration to uncover the secrets hidden beneath the waves. Their journey took them to the Farallon Trench, a deep-sea canyon on the southwest side of Catalina Island, known for its unusual electromagnetic signatures. The trench, reaching depths of over a mile, lies within a dozen miles of numerous USO sightings, suggesting a connection between the location and unexplained phenomena.
Diving into the Unknown
Hanson and his team planned a dive to 120 feet below the surface to observe the trench’s abrupt descent. The objective was to explore the possibility of an underwater alien base in these waters. Equipped with diving gear and communication devices, they ventured into the depths, aiming to gather evidence and document their findings.
Encountering Anomalies
As they approached the undersea ledge, the team encountered unexpected challenges. Communication with the surface became sporadically unavailable, and Hanson reported a significant deviation in his compass readings—a 45-degree shift, an anomaly nearly three times stronger than that caused by a lightning strike. Such a drastic change in magnetic orientation is rare, with the largest known natural magnetic anomaly on Earth, located in Russia, affecting compasses by only 15 degrees.
The Magnetic Hotspot
Further analysis revealed that the area they were exploring was one of the most intense electromagnetic hotspots on the planet, marked by a small red dot on the backside of Catalina Island. This discovery raised questions about whether these anomalies were natural or indicative of something more extraordinary.
Speculations and Theories
The investigation proposed that extraterrestrial visitors might utilize the area’s natural magnetism to conceal their activities. The presence of military facilities nearby added to the intrigue, suggesting that the location’s geological features could be strategically advantageous for hiding advanced technology or bases.
Broader Implications
The findings from Hanson’s exploration contribute to a growing body of evidence suggesting that our planet may host more secrets than we realize. The idea of an alien base off the California coast, while speculative, opens the door to fascinating discussions about extraterrestrial life, advanced technology, and the mysteries lying in the depths of our oceans.
VIDEO:
UFO Investigation Exposes “Mini Bermuda Triangle” Off California Coast | UFO Witness
Watch this video created by "Fade to Black" radio host Jimmy Church about the Malibu underwater anomaly.
The search for an alien base off the California coast has unveiled a “mini Bermuda Triangle” marked by intense electromagnetic anomalies and unexplained phenomena. While definitive evidence of extraterrestrial activity remains elusive, the investigation into this mysterious region challenges our understanding of the natural world and the possibility of otherworldly visitors. As research continues, the quest for answers only deepens the mystery of what lies beneath the waves.
A mysterious black ring filmed in the sky moving slowly from side to side over Argentina had some locals wondering if a UFO was visiting their town.
The footage, taken from a farm in Argentina’s Tucuman province, had many area residents stumped as they tried to guess what it was that they were seeing.
A mysterious black ring filmed in the sky moving slowly from side to side over Argentina had some locals wondering if a UFO was visiting their town.
The footage, taken from a farm in Argentina’s Tucuman province, had many area residents stumped as they tried to guess what it was that they were seeing.
Some believed it was some sort of smoke ring. Others thought it may have had something to do with the weather. Another hypothesis was that it was some sort of swarm of insects. A few even thought perhaps it was a signal from aliens.
The strange black ring was estimated by some to measure over 1,600 feet in size.
Then it vanished without a trace.
There was good reason for concern because Argentina has been a bit of a hotspot for UFO and alien rumors over the past few years.
This also isn’t the first time that a mysterious black ring has appeared in the sky over Argentina.
In 2019, a construction worker was working in Buenos Aires when he and his crew spotted a similar black, circular UFO in the sky.
It also happened in 2015 when a giant black, circular ring appeared in the sky above Puertos del Fruto.
That particular black ring was eventually blamed on a fireworks display that was set off during a performance at the Parque de la Costa amusement park for a performance called “Zombie Invasion.”
While some plausible explanations have been given for all of these sightings, one man in Argentina named Werner Jaisli constructed a “landing strip” for UFOs called the “Star of Hope.”
He built the UFO monument in the middle of the Argentinian desert between 2008 and 2012, but shortly after it was built he disappeared. It was eventually learned that he had passed away in December 2021 without ever seeing the aliens who he says telepathically ordered him to create the ovniport.
Miniature Cyprinid Fish Can Produce Sounds over 140 dB, Ichthyologists Say
Miniature Cyprinid Fish Can Produce Sounds over 140 dB, Ichthyologists Say
Danionella cerebrum, a translucent fish species of only 12 mm length, produces high amplitude sounds exceeding 140 dB (re. 1 µPa, at a distance of one body length) — comparable to a jet engine during take-off in 100 m distance.
Danionella cerebrum has a pair of extrinsic, indirect sonic muscles that house the drumming cartilage. When a sonic muscle contracts, the fifth rib is pulled anteriorly and builds tension as it pulls the cartilage. The sudden release of the cartilage causes it to rapidly strike the swim bladder, producing a short, loud pulse. A burst of pulses is generated with either bilaterally alternating or unilateral muscle contractions. In sum, this mechanism enables loud and stereotyped sounds that can be elicited in structured sequences, making it a unique solution for acoustic communication and ultrafast skeletal motion in vertebrates surpassing the limitation of muscle contraction speed. Image credit: Ralf Britz, Senckenberg Natural History Collections.
“The snapping shrimp can generate a popping sound of up to 250 dB with its claws,” said Dr. Ralf Britz, an ichthyologist at the Senckenberg Natural History Collections.
“The mating calls of the flightless kakapo reach 130 dB, and elephants can produce noise of up to 125 dB with their trunks.
“Fishes, on the other hand, are generally considered to be rather quiet members of the animal kingdom.”
“However, there are certain fish species that can be surprisingly loud. For example, the male plainfin midshipman fish attracts its females with an audible vibrato of around 100 Hz and 130 dB.”
In the new study, Dr. Britz and his colleagues examined Danionella cerebrum, a miniature teleost fish with the smallest known vertebrate brain.
“This tiny fish can produce sounds of over 140 dB at a distance of 10 to 12 mm — this is comparable to the noise a human perceives of an airplane during take-off at a distance of 100 m and quite unusual for an animal of such diminutive size,” Dr. Britz said.
“We tried to understand how the fish manages this and what mechanisms are responsible for this achievement.”
Using a combination of high-speed video, micro-computed tomography, gene expression analysis, and finite difference methods, the researchers found that Danionella cerebrum males possess a unique sound-generating apparatus that includes drumming cartilage, a specialized rib, and a fatigue-resistant muscle.
“This apparatus accelerates the drumming cartilage with a force of over 2,000g and shoots it against the swim bladder to produce a rapid, loud pulse,” Dr. Britz said.
“These pulses are strung together to produce calls with either bilaterally alternating or unilateral muscle contractions.”
Due to its small size and lifelong optical transparency, Danionella cerebrum is an emerging model organism in biomedical research.
The species is native to shallow and turbid waters of Myanmar.
“We assume that the competition between the males in this visually restrictive environment contributed to the development of the special mechanism for acoustic communication,” Dr. Britz said.
The study’s results challenge the conventional notion that the speed of skeletal movement in vertebrates is limited by muscle movement.
“Understanding the extraordinary adaptation of Danionella cerebrum expands our knowledge of animal locomotion and highlights the remarkable diversity of propulsion mechanisms in different species,” the authors said.
“This contributes to a broader understanding of evolutionary biology and biomechanics.”
“The sounds produced by other Danionella species have not yet been studied in detail; it would be interesting to learn how their mechanism of sound production differs and how these differences relate to evolutionary adaptation.”
“In combination with its lifelong transparency, the genus Danionella offers a unique opportunity to compare the neural mechanisms underlying the sound generation between the different species.”
The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Verity A.N.O. Cook et al. 2024. Ultrafast sound production mechanism in one of the smallest vertebrates. PNAS 121 (10): e2314017121; doi: 10.1073/pnas.2314017121
Laurent Palka is a microbiologist at France's National Museum of Natural History.
Just over five years ago, on 22 February 2019, an unmanned space probe was placed in orbit around the Moon. Named Beresheet and built by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries, it was intended to be the first private spacecraft to perform a soft landing. Among the probe’s payload were tardigrades, renowed for their ability to survive in even the harshest climates.
The mission ran into trouble from the start, with the failure of “star tracker” cameras intended to determine the spacecraft’s orientation and thus properly control its motors. Budgetary limitations had imposed a pared-down design, and while the command center was able to work around some problems, things got even trickier on 11 April, the day of the landing.
On the way to the Moon the spacecraft had been travelling at high speed, and it needed to be slowed way down to make a soft landing. Unfortunately during the braking manoeuvre a gyroscope failed, blocking the primary engine. At an altitude of 150 m, Beresheet was still moving at 500 km/h, far too fast to be stopped in time. The impact was violent – the probe shattered and its remains were scattered over a distance of around a hundred metres. We know this because the site was photographed by NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) satellite on 22 April.
So what happened to the tardigrades that were travelling on the probe? Given their remarkable abilities to survive situations that would kill pretty much any other animal, could they have contaminated the Moon? Worse, might they be able to reproduce and colonize it?
Tardigrades are microscopic animals that measure less than a millimetre in length. All have neurons, a mouth opening at the end of a retractable proboscis, an intestine containing a microbiota and four pairs of non-articulated legs ending in claws, and most have two eyes. As small as they are, they share a common ancestor with arthropods such as insects and arachnids.
Most tardigrades live in aquatic environments, but they can be found in any environment, even urban ones. Emmanuelle Delagoutte, a researcher at the CNRS, collects them in the mosses and lichens of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. To be active, feed on microalgae such as chlorella, and move, grow and reproduce, tardigrades need to be surrounded by a film of water. They reproduce sexually or asexually via parthenogenesis (from an unfertilised egg) or even hermaphroditism, when an individual (which possesses both male and female gametes) self-fertilises. Once the egg has hatched, the active life of a tardigrade lasts from 3 to 30 months. A total of 1,265 species have been described, including two fossils.
Tardigrades are famous for their resistance to conditions that exist neither on Earth nor on the Moon. They can shut down their metabolism by losing up to 95% of their body water. Some species synthesise a sugar, trehalose, that acts as an antifreeze, while others synthesise proteins that are thought to incorporate cellular constituents into an amorphous “glassy” network that offers resistance and protection to each cell.
During dehydration, the tardigrade’s body can shrink to half its normal size. The legs disappear, with only the claws still visible. This state, known as cryptobiosis, persists until conditions for active life become favourable again.
Depending on the species of tardigrade, individuals need more or less time to dehydrate and not all specimens of the same species manage to return to active life. Dehydrated adults survive for a few minutes at temperatures as low as -272°C or as high as 150°C, and over the long term at high doses of gamma rays of 1,000 or 4,400 Gray (Gy). By way of comparison, a dose of 10 Gy is fatal for humans, and 40-50,000 Gy sterilises all types of material. However, whatever the dose, radiation kills tardigrade eggs. What’s more, the protection afforded by cryptobiosis is not always clear-cut, as in the case of Milnesium tardigradum, w
An image of a tardigrade as seen under a microscope. (Image credit: STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images)
Lunar life?
So what happened to the tardigrades after they crashed on the Moon? Are any of them still viable, buried under the moon’s regolith, the dust that varies in depth from a few metres to several dozen metres?
First of all, they have to have survived the impact. Laboratory tests have shown that frozen specimens of the Hypsibius dujardini species travelling at 3,000 km/h in a vacuum were fatally damaged when they smashed into sand. However, they survived impacts of 2,600 km/h or less – and their “hard landing” on the Moon, unwanted or not, was far slower.
The Moon’s surface is not protected from solar particles and cosmic rays, particularly gamma rays, but here too, the tardigrades would be able to resist. In fact, Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber, professor at the University of Kiel in Germany, and his team have shown that the doses of gamma rays hitting the lunar surface were permanent but low compared with the doses mentioned above – 10 years’ exposure to Lunar gamma rays would correspond to a total dose of around 1 Gy.
But then there’s the question of “life” on the Moon. The tardigrades would have to withstand a lack of water as well as temperatures ranging from -170 to -190°C during the lunar night and 100 to 120°C during the day. A lunar day or night lasts a long time, just under 15 Earth days. The probe itself wasn’t designed to withstand such extremes and even if it hadn’t crashed, it would have ceased all activity after just a few Earth days.
Unfortunately for the tardigrades, they can’t overcome the lack of liquid water, oxygen and microalgae – they would never be able to reactivate, much less reproduce. Their colonising the Moon is thus impossible. Still, inactive specimens are on lunar soil and their presence raises ethical questions, as Matthew Silk, an ecologist at the University of Edinburgh, points out. Moreover, at a time when space exploration is taking off in all directions, contaminating other planets could mean that we would lose the opportunity to detect extraterrestrial life.
40 Mile alien base on planet Mars, absolute proof of alien civilization, UFO Sighting News.
40 Mile alien base on planet Mars, absolute proof of alien civilization, UFO Sighting News.
Guys I found this alien base on Mars and made this short video for you to inspect. The building itself is over 40 miles long and 4 miles wide or more. On most maps this object does not exist and yet it was over looked on this particular map that I used.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
Ukrainian soldier who filmed UFO 'bigger than the Empire State Building' over warzone in Donetsk tells DailyMail.com it sat deathly still against winds and was 'hotter than anything I've ever seen'
Ukrainian soldier who filmed UFO 'bigger than the Empire State Building' over warzone in Donetsk tells DailyMail.com it sat deathly still against winds and was 'hotter than anything I've ever seen'
Ukrainian troops recorded a 'very hot' 1300-ft-long UFO over Donetsk battlefield
Unit drone pilot says he and his battalion have 'never seen things like this before'
A disc-shaped object longer than the height of the Empire State Building emerged from the horizon of Ukraine's embattled Donetsk province last Friday, hovering eerily still a mile off the ground, a soldier has told DailyMail.com
That soldier, a drone operator, had cautiously guided his infrared quadcopter 500-feet for a reconnaissance mission, struggling against high winds, when he suddenly spotted the flat, 1,300-foot-long UFO, which stood motionless despite those winds.
In an interview from the warzone, the soldier, who is with the Ukrainian army's 406th Battalion, said he and his fellow servicemen had 'never seen things like this before.'
Initially, I thought that it was something new invented by the Russians,' he added, 'but then I understood... 'No! It might be [a] UFO.''
The 'craft' was 36 to 54 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than any other object this 406th drone pilot says he has ever tracked in the warzone — ruling out atmospheric phenomena, balloons and known enemy aircraft, he claimed.
'Why isn't it moving?' troops with the Ukrainian's 406th Battalion can be heard debating as they witness a large UFO hovering, deadly calm, over their warzone
The 'craft' was 36 to 54 degrees hotter in Fahrenheit than any other object the Ukrainian military drone operator (above) has tracked in the warzone — ruling out atmospheric phenomena, balloons and known enemy aircraft, as he told DailyMail.com via an interpreter
'We were surprised, very surprised,' the soldier, whose first name is Vadym, recalled via an interpreter.
But Vadym told DailyMail.com that this 'surprise' was not quite fear, because he and his fellow soldiers have had to learn to suppress those emotions amid their effort to defend Ukraine from a now two-year-long invasion by Russia.
'We got scared on the 24th of February 2022,' Vadym said. 'After that, we aren't scared of anything.'
The 406th's drone pilot said he'd gotten his craft about 'a few kilometers' into its recon mission before spotting the UFO.
'I looked right and saw this,' Vadym said.
'After 30 seconds, we decided to film it. All the emotions we had at that moment, they're in the video... You you can hear it.'
As Vadym and his fellow 406th unit members scrambled to make sense of the apparent object, their confusion is palpable in the 17-second video, shared exclusively with DailyMail.com this week.
In between the swearing ('Holy s***') and the excitement ('What the f*** is this?'), one member of the battalion asks: 'Why isn't it moving?'
Another wonders: 'Why can't he fire missiles at us? What do you mean?'
Aside from the object's unusual heat signature, it appeared to more readily withstand the strong wind, but Vadym told DailyMail.com that no other extreme weather could help explain the unusual sighting.
'There was a very strong wind,' Vadym said. 'The wind was flowing into the same direction as we were flying basically.'
'But it [the UFO] just stayed at the same place — and the sky was clear,' he said. 'So no clouds, nothing.'
'We were surprised, very surprised,' the soldier, whose first name is Vadym, recalled - adding that this 'surprise' was not quite fear: he and his fellow soldiers (above) have had to learn to suppress those emotions while defending Ukraine from a now two-year-long Russian invasion
Ukrainian's 406th Battalion (right) was gifted their commercial, DJI brand Mavic 3T thermal-imaging drone (left) via the fundraising efforts of the DeepInspire Foundation, war correspondent Joe Lindsley, who runs Lviv Lab media center, and other humanitarian activists
'I use this [infrared, heat vision] filter very often,' the unit drone operator said, 'and just got experience so I can differentiate how bright an object should be according to what temperature.'
Based on that experience, Vadym stated that the UFO 'was very hot. I'm guessing 20 to 30 degrees [Celsius] hotter than other objects.'
Vadym estimated that the roughly 1,300 ft (400 meters) long UFO was also about 328 feet (100 meters) tall.
The apparent object, craft or phenomena, was caught on the camera of a commercial DJI brand Mavic 3T thermal-imaging drone on February 23, 2024.
The UFO, spotted around 9:02pm local time, appeared to be approximately 37 to 40 miles away from the soldiers, he said, in the direction of Donetsk Oblast, the southeastern Ukrainian province that has been most dominated by Russia's forces.
Vadym requested that his last name and other key details of the encounter not be disclosed for reasons of operational security amid the Ukrainian Armed Forces' (UAF) effort to repel the Russian invasion.
A spokesperson for Mavic's manufacturer DJI told DailyMail.com that, while it could not help in explaining what is present in the UFO footage, an equipment error could have played a role - but Vadym doubted this
But he noted that, while 'it's hard to count' just how many times he has personally flown his unit's Mavic 3T, it was probably 'more than 10,000 times.'
'We've seen different things [in the skies],' he said, adding, 'We've never seen things like this before.'
One potential explanation for the UFO was the well-known optical illusion phenomena called 'Fata Morgana,' a mirror-like atmospheric mirage produced by a 'temperature inversion' of hot air in the upper atmosphere.
But Vadym is adamant that what he saw was real.
'It wasn't a mirage,' Vadym told DailyMail.com, 'because in thermal vision you can't see a mirage. You can see it only with your naked eye.'
He continued to explain that the object did not ripple, shimmer or otherwise alter its shape, which would have been a tell-tale sign of a Fata Morgana mirage.
'Often, a Fata Morgana changes rapidly,' as the flight safety guide SKYbrary notes. 'The mirage comprises several inverted (upside down) and erect (right side up) images that are stacked on top of one another.
But according to Vadym, 'The object was in a stable form. It wasn't moving.'
That said, the UFO, whatever it was, wasted no time leaving its perch above Donetsk.
'At another position, we had another drone and put it up in about three minutes,' Vadym said, '[but] they didn't see it [the UFO] at that moment.'
'When we returned to the same position later, there was nothing there.'
The 406th unit member also relayed his recollection that the UFO did not ripple, shimmer or otherwise alter its shape, which would have been a tell-tale sign of a Fata Morgana mirage
In one photographic case of Fata Morgana (above), the Anthem of the Seas cruise ship, an 168,000-tonne Royal Caribbean liner, looked like it was hovering above the water
This past Tuesday, a spokesperson for Mavic's manufacturer DJI told DailyMail.com that, while it could not help in explaining what is present in the 406th's UFO footage, an equipment error could have played a role.
UFOs are 'not of human origin,' US Representative Anna Paulina Luna from Florida told Grant Mitterlehner this week on his podcast. She described government obstruction as she investigated UFOs.
But Vadym noted that he was confident the Mavic 3T's systems were functioning normally at the time of the encounter.
The red 'warning' or 'error' bar visible in the upper left-hand portion of the drone's display, he said, related to the consumer-grade drone's GPS navigation.
'It is a warning that we were flying without satellites on 100 percent manual controls,' Vadym told DailyMail.com.
'Because Russia does everything they can to deny Ukrainians the ability to fly over and understand [...] their plans.'
Vadym noted that similar combat-specific issues prevented the battalion from storing a recording of their UFO thermal-imaging footage directly on the Mavic drone itself.
'We remove the memory cards from the drones when we are doing flights over enemy territories,' Vadym said.
'There is a risk that if we lose a drone because of enemy electronic countermeasures, they could pick up the drone, they could pick up the card, and read what's there.'
When pressed again on how he and his fellow 406th Battalion members felt about the UFO, Vadym said, 'The best I could say would be that for this video to have never happened, for us [the Ukrainian military] to never have to do the work we do.'
In a better world, Vadym said, the Russian invasion of February 2022 'never happened' and 'we just use civilian drones to film weddings.'
Al tien jaar onopgelost: MH370 'grootste mysterie uit moderne luchtvaart'
Al tien jaar onopgelost: MH370 'grootste mysterie uit moderne luchtvaart'
Artikel door RTL Nieuws
Tien jaar geleden verdween vlucht MH370 van de radar met 239 mensen aan boord. Een van de grootste zoekacties in de geschiedenis van de luchtvaart mocht niet baten: nog altijd blijft de toedracht van de verdwijning een mysterie, dat velen tot op de dag van vandaag bezighoudt. "Als je veel geld en tijd hebt, is niets onmogelijk."
Tot nu toe zijn enkel onderdelen van het toestel teruggevonden
Dit weekend komen de families van de nabestaanden samen voor een herdenking in de Maleisische hoofdstad Kuala Lumpur. Nog altijd zitten zij vol vragen over het verdwenen toestel.
Vlucht MH370 van Malaysia Airlines vertrok op zaterdag 8 maart 2014 even na middernacht van de internationale luchthaven van Kuala Lumpur. Aan boord van de Boeing 777 zaten 2 piloten, 10 bemanningsleden en 239 passagiers. Zij kwamen uit 14 verschillende landen.
Het gros van de passagiers kwam uit China (153 personen) en Maleisië (50 personen). De enige Nederlandse inzittende was de 50-jarige Surti Dahlia uit Amsterdam. Zij hoopte in Maleisië haar grote liefde te ontmoeten.
De bestemming van de vlucht, de Chinese hoofdstad Peking, is nooit bereikt. Het toestel maakte 38 minuten na het opstijgen voor het laatst contact met de luchtverkeersleiding. De piloot wenste hen een goede nacht.
Uit koers
Wat er vervolgens precies is gebeurd in de cockpit, weet niemand. Achteraf is uit satellietgegevens gebleken dat het toestel van koers is gewijzigd en uiteindelijk - vermoedelijk zonder brandstof - in een zeer afgelegen deel van de Indische Ocean is neergestort.
"De plek waar het toestel verdween, is zo uitgestrekt en onmetelijk groot", zegt luchtvaartdeskundige Joris Melkert, die de zaak al die jaren is blijven volgen. "Er komt bijna niemand in dit deel van de oceaan, omdat er niets te halen valt. Ten tijde van het ongeluk was alleen een Noors vrachtschip in de omgeving. Waarvan ook nog de vraag was wat dat schip daar nu precies deed."
Al tien jaar onopgelost: MH370 'grootste mysterie uit moderne luchtvaart'
Het betreffende gebied wordt door zeevaarders de 'roaring forties' genoemd. Dit vanwege de ligging op de veertigste breedtegraad en de krachtige, onstuimige westenwind die er de dienst uitmaakt. Diezelfde wind en metershoge golven hebben de zoektocht vanaf het begin erg moeilijk gemaakt. Net als de diepte van het water: de Indische Oceaan is er op sommige plekken wel 4 kilometer diep.
Er zijn door de jaren uiteenlopende theorieën gevormd over de toedracht van de vermoedelijke crash in zee. Er zou misschien brand of een gebrek aan luchtdruk zijn ontstaan aan boord, waarop de piloten de dichtstbijzijnde luchthaven hebben willen bereiken. Dat dit niet is gelukt, zou mogelijk komen doordat beide piloten hun bewustzijn hebben verloren. Ook is gespeculeerd dat de piloot het toestel bewust liet crashen.
'Erger dan speld in hooiberg'
Alle denkbare middelen zijn bij het zoeken ingezet, van vliegtuigen en helikopters, tot onderzeeërs, drones en duikers. Het vermoedelijke crashgebied is zo'n 120.000 vierkante kilometer groot, legt Melkert uit. "Dat is drie keer het grondgebied van Nederland en dat is echt gigantisch. Dit is nog erger dan zoeken naar een speld in een hooiberg en de reden dat het complete wrak nooit is gevonden."
Door de jaren heen spoelden wel losse brokstukken aan, onder meer bij het Franse eiland Réunion, Madagaskar en Tanzania, maar de zwarte doos is nooit aangetroffen. Dat was al snel buitengewoon lastig: de batterij van zo'n 'flightdatarecorder' in een Boeing 777 is na dertig dagen leeg en zendt dan geen signalen meer uit.
De hoop is altijd blijven bestaan dat de romp van het toestel zou worden gevonden. Zoals gebeurde bij de verdwenen vlucht AF447 van Air France. Daarbij werd in 2011 (bijna twee jaar na de ramp) met behulp van robotduikboten op vierduizend meter diepte alsnog de romp van het toestel gevonden voor de kust van Brazilië.
In september vorig jaar werd via een nieuwe techniek, met behulp van radiogolven, een kleiner gebied van zo'n 130 bij 74 kilometer groot vastgesteld waarbinnen het wrak zich ergens moet vinden. Dat gebied ligt op ruim 1500 kilometer ten westen van Australië.
'Het kan nog altijd'
Want de zoektocht is nog altijd niet opgegeven. Familieleden en een groepje experts hopen dat het maritieme bedrijf Ocean Infinity, gespecialiseerd in zeebodemonderzoek, binnenkort een nieuwe poging waagt en zo eindelijk het mysterie oplost. Maar volgens sommige critici heeft de Maleisië overheid daar geen trek in omdat het teveel geld zou kosten.
Volgens Melkert kan het wrak na al die jaren nog altijd worden gevonden. "Het toestel bestaat grotendeels uit aluminium dat onder water afgesloten van zuurstof nog eeuwen kan blijven liggen. Wellicht dat het bedolven ligt onder sediment, maar als je veel geld en tijd hebt, is niets onmogelijk. Het wrak zal niet snel vergaan en moet er nog zijn. De vraag is nog altijd: waar?"
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.