On July 1st, 2023, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Euclid Observatory, a mission that will spend the next six years investigating the composition and evolution of the Universe. In particular, Euclid will observe how the Universe has expanded over the past 10 billion years to test theories about Dark Energy. While fine-tuning and calibrating the telescope’s instruments in preparation for the mission’s first survey, the mission team noticed that a few layers of water ice formed on its mirrors after it entered the freezing cold of space.

While common, this is a problem for a highly sensitive mission like Euclid, which requires remarkable precision to investigate cosmic expansion. After months of research, the Euclid team tested a newly designed procedure to de-ice the mission’s optics. On March 20th, the ESA announced that the team’s de-icing approach worked (so far) and that Euclid’s vision has been restored. If the method proves successful, it will have validated the mission team’s plan to keep Euclid‘s optical system working for the rest of its mission.

The problem first became evident as science operations experts noticed a small but progressive decrease in light measured by the telescope’s VISible instrument (VIS). This instrument is responsible for measuring visible light from distant galaxies to determine how the light’s trajectory is affected by gravity fields. Mischa Schirmer, a calibration scientist for the Euclid consortium and one of the main designers of the new de-icing plan, explained in an ESA press release:

“We compared the starlight coming in through the VIS instrument with the recorded brightness of the same stars at earlier times, seen by both Euclid and ESA’s Gaia mission. Some stars in the Universe vary in their luminosity, but the majority are stable for many millions of years. So, when our instruments detected a faint, gradual decline in photons coming in, we knew it wasn’t them – it was us.”

It was always expected that there would be some water contamination with Euclid, which is why there was an “outgassing campaign” shortly after launch. This consisted of the telescope being warmed up by onboard heaters and also partially exposed to the Sun, sublimating most of the water brought from Earth. However, a considerable amount remained after being absorbed in the telescope’s multi-layer insulation, which slowly began building up on the VIS intrument’s mirror surfaces. After months of research, lab studies, and calibrations, the team determined the source and began working on a solution.

The obvious solution was to heat Euclid again by running all its internal heaters for days. However, this ran the risk of deforming the mechanical structure of the spacecraft, which could alter Euclid’s optical alignment. Said Andreas Rudolph, Euclid Flight Director at ESA’s mission control:

“Most other space missions don’t have such demanding requirements on ‘thermo-optical stability’ as Euclid. To fulfil Euclid’s scientific goals of making a 3D map of the Universe by observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years, across more than a third of the sky, means we have to keep the mission incredibly stable – and that includes its temperature. Switching on the heaters in the payload module therefore needs to be done with extreme care.”

The team began by individually heating two of Euclid’s mirrors independently, a low-risk approach since they are located in areas where water vapor was not likely to contaminate other instruments. After analyzing the initial results, the team found that Euclid’s vision was restored to its previous accuracy. However, this was a temporary solution, and a long-term strategy for regular de-icing is still being sought. In the meantime, the ESA promises to continue to monitor the telescope for changes and share any new findings publicly.

However, the response to this problem highlights the international cooperation that made this mission possible. Said Ralf Kohley, Euclid Instrument Operations Scientist who coordinated the response:

“A complex mission requires a united response from teams across Europe, and I’m incredibly thankful for the effort and skill that so many have poured into this. It took work from teams at ESA’s ESTEC technical heart in the Netherlands, the ESAC science operations centre in Madrid and the Flight Control Team at ESOC mission control in Darmstadt – but we couldn’t have done it without the Euclid consortium and the critical inputs we got from spacecraft prime contractor Thales Alenia Space and its industrial partner Airbus Space.”

In addition, this issue could lead to vital research on how to maintain missions where highly sensitive optics are concerned. Despite how common this issue is for spacecraft, there is very little research on how ice forms on optical mirrors and impacts observations. Therefore, the solution devised by the mission team and agency could lead to new procedures for future missions. These could come in handy when Euclid is joined by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST) in March 2027 – another mission that will explore the “dark Universe.”

Further Reading: 

• ESA

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

25-03-2024 om 20:37 geschreven door peter  

Mysterieuze grascirkels in Namibië houden wetenschappers al decennia bezig. Eindelijk is er een definitieve verklaring

Jeannette Kras

Aan de rand van de woestijn in Namibië bevindt zich dor grasland met daarin kale plekken, die een vrijwel perfecte cirkel vormen. De vraag is: hoe kan het gras eromheen wel groeien en in de cirkel niet? Het is een mysterie dat wetenschappers al decennia bezighoudt, maar een stel Duitse en Israëlische onderzoekers lijkt nu het antwoord te hebben.

Ze zijn zelf het veld ingetrokken om te kijken hoe net opkomend gras vrijwel direct weer afsterft in de cirkel, terwijl het eromheen wel welig tiert. Dat blijkt door een gebrek aan water te komen, ontdekten ze. De bovenste 10 tot 12 centimeter grond functioneert als een soort death zone waarin gras niet lang kan overleven. Het gaat tien tot twintig dagen, nadat er regen is gevallen alsnog dood. Daarmee kan een andere theorie de prullenbak in: het gras gaat niet ten onder aan termieten, zoals lang werd gedacht.

Honderden metingen
De wetenschappers zijn niet over één nacht ijs gegaan om dit tientallen jaren oude mysterie op te lossen. Ze hebben vijfhonderd grasplanten in vier regio’s van de Namib-woestijn opgemeten, en dan zowel de wortels als de sprieten. Ook hebben ze er statistische analyses op losgelaten en foto’s gemaakt. De honderden metingen van de vochtigheid van de grond tijdens en na de regenseizoenen van 2023 en 2024 boden uiteindelijk definitief uitsluitsel.

Daaruit bleek namelijk dat de toplaag erg gevoelig is voor uitdroging. Tijdens en na het regenseizoen is deze grond drie tot vier keer minder vochtig dan de aarde op een diepte van 20 centimeter. Daarbovenop is de toplaag in de periode na de regen nog droger binnen de cirkels dan erbuiten.

• https://youtu.be/KoWyV01wR7o

Langere wortels
Onder deze omstandigheden kan het net ontkiemende gras niet overleven in de cirkel, concluderen de onderzoekers. Het droogt uit, omdat het de diepere, vochtigere grondlaag niet kan bereiken met de wortels die gemiddeld nog maar 10 centimeter lang zijn. Het grote, oudere gras daarentegen dat aan de rand van de cirkel groeit, heeft langere wortels en weet het water op 20 tot 30 centimeter diepte dus wel te halen. Het wordt na een stevige regenbui al snel weer lekker groen.

“Met hun goed ontwikkelde wortels zuigen deze graspollen veel van het water op. Na de regen hebben ze een enorm voordeel boven de net ontkiemende grassen in de cirkel. Het nieuwe gras verliest maar een klein deel van het water via transpiratie door zijn kleine sprietjes, waardoor er onvoldoende zuigkracht is om nieuw water uit diepere bodemlagen te halen”, legt hoofdonderzoeker Stephan Getzin uit van de Göttingen University.

Schematische weergave van de groei van het gras en de waterverdeling in de eerste weken na hevige regenval in de cirkel. Afbeelding: Bauhaus University Weimar, Faculty of Art & Design/Animation Art & Design

Bovenste grondlaag
De metingen tonen verder aan dat het water vooral makkelijk uit de grond te zuigen is in de eerste twintig dagen na de regen en dan met name in de bovenste grondlaag. Het gevolg is dat het oudere, stevigere gras voornamelijk water haalt uit de bovenste 10 tot 20 centimeter grond. Daardoor blijft er nog minder over voor de nieuwe plantjes. “Dit is de doodsoorzaak van het nieuwe gras in de cirkel. Continue metingen van de grondvochtigheid gedurende meerdere jaren ondersteunen die conclusie, omdat daaruit blijkt dat het grondwater in de cirkel alleen merkbaar snel afneemt tijdens de groei van het omringende gras na de regen”, aldus de onderzoeker.

Dit betekent dus dat de cirkels eigenlijk een waterbron vormen voor het omringende gras dat een groot deel van het jaar kampt met een watertekort. Het gras zelf vormt de ronde vorm van de cirkels, omdat het zo voor zichzelf maximaal toegang heeft tot grondwater. “Deze zelforganisatie kun je zien als zwermintelligentie. Het is een systematische aanpassing aan een gebrek aan water in droge regio’s”, verklaart Getzin.

Geen termieten
De theorie dat termieten de wortels van het verse gras opeten, waardoor het afsterft, klopt dan ook niet volgens de onderzoekers. “In een uitgebreide discussie over de zandtermietentheorie tonen we aan dat tot nu toe geen enkele veldstudie met systematische meetgegevens van de wortellengte heeft weten te bewijzen dat de termieten zich voeden met de wortels van het nieuwe gras in de cirkels”, klinkt het overtuigd.

Het bewijs stapelt zich dus op dat het echt een watertekort is dat tot de mysterieuze cirkels in de Namib-woestijn heeft geleid. De nieuwe verse grassprietjes delven het onderspit tegen de grote, oudere grassen, die veel langere wortels hebben.

Bronmateriaal

• "Desiccation of undamaged grasses in the topsoil causes Namibia's fairy circles – Response to Jürgens & Gröngröft (2023)" - Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics
  
• Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: Stephan Getzin

{ https://scientias.nl/ }

25-03-2024 om 01:43 geschreven door peter  

Constructing a lunar railroad system may seem like something from a science fiction movie. Yet, the project reflects the Department of Defense’s (DoD) mysterious focus on lunar operations and potential ambition to establish a strategic military presence on the Moon. 

“The envisioned lunar railroad network could transport humans, supplies, and resources for commercial ventures across the lunar surface – contributing to a space economy for the United States and international partners,” Northrop Grumman said in a statement. 

According to Northrop Grumman, the company will begin by exploring concepts for constructing and operating a lunar railroad network, including identifying the foreseeable costs, necessary resources, and technological risks associated with such an ambitious endeavor. 

Chris Adams, vice president and general manager at Northrop Grumman’s Strategic Space Systems, emphasized the significance of this initiative. “This investment in key developmental research propels our technology to the forefront of next-generation solutions, establishing a sustainable space ecosystem,” Adams stated.

America’s development of a nationwide railroad network in the 1800s is primarily recognized as a symbol of modernity and national progress. However, the expansion of the First Transcontinental Railroad also came at a significant cost to the landscape and Indigenous communities of the American Midwest. 

Many historians argue that the construction of the Pacific Railroad from 1863 to 1869 played a significant role in the near-extinction of the American bison. This was largely due to the railroad’s influx of settlers who hunted the bison extensively. 

Furthermore, the arrival of these new settlers, coupled with diminishing natural resources, led to increased tensions and conflicts between the U.S. government and the Indigenous tribes of the region, as the expanded homesteading facilitated by the railroad encroached on their lands.

As a consequence of these developments, Indigenous peoples in the United States ended up losing nearly 99% of the land they had occupied for tens of thousands of years.

The Moon lacks human inhabitants or an ecosystem that a lunar railroad system could potentially disrupt. Nonetheless, this does not eliminate the possibility of unintended consequences as humanity plans to colonize the lunar surface.

As it relates to potential “unintended consequences,” perhaps one of the most pressing questions is why DARPA, the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) primary brain trust, has taken such a keen interest in the Moon in recent years. 

During the announcement of industry partners for DARPA’s 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study, known as “LunA-10,” Dr. Michael “Orbit” Nayak, a program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office, underscored the agency’s intention to turn the Moon into an economic extension of the U.S.

“LunA-10 has the potential to upend how the civil space community thinks about spurring widespread commercial activity on and around the Moon within the next 10 years,” Dr. Nayak said. “LunA-10 performers include companies both big and small, domestic and international, each of which brought a clear vision and technically rigorous plan for advancing quickly towards our goal: a self-sustaining, monetizable, commercially owned-and-operated lunar infrastructure.” 

Policy experts note that DARPA’s lunar initiatives, such as constructing a lunar railroad network, comply with the United Nations Outer Space Treaty of 1967. This treaty prohibits the militarization of space and requires the Moon and other celestial bodies to be used only for peaceful purposes.

However, there remains a risk of “unintended consequences” similar to those experienced during the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad. In this case, the conflict would not involve Indigenous populations but could arise from commercialization and competition for lunar resources with another global power: China.

China likewise has plans for a permanent lunar settlement, including a nearly 14-square-mile lunar base with underground facilities, a command and communication center, a power station, laboratories, and a fleet of autonomous robots to support scientific research and commercialization of the Moon. 

Even before either country has started constructing permanent settlements on the Moon, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has accused China of intending to claim resource-rich areas of the Moon as its own sovereign territory, an allegation that Beijing has denied, labeling it a “lie.”

Nevertheless, as recently reported by The Debrief, Beijing plans to extend its advanced mass surveillance network, known as “Skynet,” to the Moon. Expanding its extensive spy network to include the lunar surface suggests China is already preparing for potential disputes with lunar neighbors, particularly the U.S.

The recent lunar railroad initiative by DARPA is not just about creating a novel means of transport but also envisioning a future where the Moon plays a pivotal role in supporting human life and commercial activities. 

DARPA’s burgeoning interest in lunar infrastructure development subtly aligns with the DoD’s broader vision to leverage the Moon’s strategic position beyond mere scientific exploration to achieve economic and defense objectives. 

It remains to be seen whether perceiving the Moon as a critical asset for U.S. national security and economic development will ultimately lead to earthly conflicts in the future.

In an interview, last year with Space.com, Paul Szymanski of the Space Strategies Center and co-author of The Battle Beyond: Fighting and Winning the Coming War in Space described the sudden international interest in the Moon as “strange.” 

“For my entire 50-year career, no one I knew was particularly interested in it [the moon], but now there is extreme attention,” Szymanski said. “In the 1970’s NASA asked the Air Force if they wanted a base on the moon, and they said ‘no,'”

“Yet now, I personally know of companies planning on providing cell phone service on the Moon, and the Air Force Research Lab is developing several programs, such as space surveillance for the far side of the Moon. None of this makes sense unless there is some other not publicly known factor that has changed everyone’s attitudes.” 

• 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 

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

25-03-2024 om 01:29 geschreven door peter  

CIA Chilling Document Reveals Presence Of Giant Aliens On Mars 1 Million Years B.C

In the CIA declassified file, it was detailed how Uri Geller could replicate things drawn by a researcher in another sealed room. As the US government was getting benefits from this program, they continued funding it.

One of the remote viewers named Angela Dellafiora Ford revealed her physics powers on the CBS News program “48 Hours.” In 1989, she was asked by the army to psychically track down the location of one man. She located the man in Lowell, Wyoming, and then he was arrested 100 miles west of a Wyoming town called Lovell.

In 2021, John Greenewald, Jr.’s Blackvault published approximately 2,700 pages of the declassified documents provided by the CIA, involving UAP/UFO information. One document that staggered ET hunters was about Mars.

Read also:

• Ret. US Army Major Showed Deleted UFO Photos Captured By Apollo Astronauts On Moon
• Former Area-51 Engineer Claimed Testing Re-Engineered UFO That Crashed In Arizona In 1953 With Four Aliens
• Ret. US Army Colonel Claimed Aliens In Roswell UFO Crash Were Bio-Robots Built For Space Travel
• FBI Chilling UFO Reports: Recovered 3 UFOs With Alien Bodies In New Mexico & 27,000 Mph Craft

Giant Entities On Mars

The document titled “Mars Exploration May 22, 1984,” basically centers around a subject that made use of astral projection which helped him observe ancient alien life on Mars. In this document, there is a transcript, where a subject named Joseph McMoneagle, a retired US Army veteran was given an envelope prior to the interview and asked not to open it until the interview ended. According to the CIA’s own documents, the unnamed psychic described “The planet Mars. Time of interest approximately 1 million years B.C.” (Source)

He claimed to identify that he saw pyramid-like structures on the Red Planet. The subject also added that he witnessed alien life forms on the Martian surface.

[Subject]: I’m seeing, ah… It’s like a perception of a shadow of people, very tall… thin, it’s only a shadow. It’s as if they were there and they’re not, not there anymore.
[Monitor]: Go back to a period of time where they are there.
Sub: Um… (mumble) It’s like I get a lot of static on a line and everything, it’s breaking up all the time, very fragmentary pieces.
Mon: Just report the data, don’t try to put things together, just report the raw data.
Sub: I just keep seeing very large people. They appear thin and tall, but they’re very large. Ah… wearing some kind of strange clothes.

According to the date specified in the “Mars Exploration” memo, it was approved to be published only in 2000 although it was recorded in 1984, and McMoneagle was the only remote viewer to be working at that time. He wrote in his book “Mind Trek” about a similar incident mentioned in that memo.

Jacob Brogan, an assistant editor at the Washington Post tracked down and called McMoneagle. According to Brogan, McMoneagle told him that the request to visit Mars was not made by the CIA but by some unknown army person to him. (Source)

“Neither of us knew what we were working on. Our assumption at the time was that I was working on targets on Earth. I was not familiar with any pyramids on Earth that had such large rooms,” McMoneagle told him.

McMoneagle was confused why he had been asked by the army to explore Mars. He had no clue. He remembered one more incident when he was asked to examine the UFO. “The problem that I have with targeting UFOs and Mars and things like that is that there’s no real way to validate the information,” he said.

In an interview with Richard Thieme, a founder of ThiemeWorks, McMoneagle shared his experience on Project Stargate, UFOs, and ETs. He shared his encounter with the UFO in 1966, in which he got a radiation burn.

Richard Thieme asked him: “Is it all one thing, though? These are complex psychological processes – and you were burned physically in 1966. Is it all one thing? Do scriptural texts of folk documents about people encountering entities – can we connect that experience with an experience of the lights going on at night and you seeing a physical craft?”

McMoneagle replied: “I did a remote viewing in early 1980s, 82 or 83, where a UFO target was mixed in with other targets, so I had no idea it was a UFO target.” Over the years, as McMoneagle said, he was involved in about 450 missions. One of his favorites was in 1980 when CIA personnel captured a suspected KGB agent in South Africa. They wanted to know how the agent was communicating with the Soviet military. They put an envelope on McMoneagle’s desk, and without knowing anything of the man, McMoneagle told the CIA that the man liked to use a small pocket calculator. The calculator turned out to be a disguised short-wave radio. He retired from the Army in 1984 but continued to work as a Stargate consultant.

Jacob Brogan, an assistant editor at the Washington Post tracked down and called McMoneagle. According to Brogan, McMoneagle told him that the request to visit Mars was not made by the CIA but by some unknown army person to him.

“Neither of us knew what we were working on. Our assumption at the time was that I was working on targets on Earth. I was not familiar with any pyramids on Earth that had such large rooms,” McMoneagle told him.

McMoneagle was confused why he had been asked by the army to explore Mars. He had no clue. He remembered one more incident when he was asked to examine the UFO. “The problem that I have with targeting UFOs and Mars and things like that is that there’s no real way to validate the information,” he said.

In an interview with Richard Thieme, a founder of ThiemeWorks, McMoneagle shared his experiences on the Project Stargate, UFOs, and ETs. He shared his encounter with the UFO in 1966, in which he got a radiation burn.

Richard Thieme asked him: “Is it all one thing, though? These are complex psychological processes – and you were burned physically in 1966. Is it all one thing? Do scriptural texts of folk documents about people encountering entities – can we connect that experience with an experience of the lights going on at night and you seeing a physical craft?”

McMoneagle replied: “I did a remote viewing in early 1980s, 82 or 83, where a UFO target was mixed in with other targets, so I had no idea it was a UFO target.”

CIA Interdimensional Experiemnt

Robert Monroe (1915 –1995), another RV that had a striking history of remote viewing was probably the first RV hired by the CIA. One day in 1978, the CIA representatives contacted him. They wanted to implement his mind-expanding practice in attempt of sending soldiers into deep remote viewing sessions. Given Monroe’s extensive background and various patented applications, he was the perfect choice for this trailblazing operation. Hoping to obtain further credibility in the study of paranormal phenomena, he agreed to join them. (Source)

Since those involved were opening portals to other dimensions, researchers aptly named the assignment Gateway Process. According to declassified files, the program is “a training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus and coherence to the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left and right hemispheres so as to alter consciousness, moving it outside the physical sphere so as to ultimately escape even the restrictions of time and space. (Source)

The participant then gains access to the various levels of intuitive knowledge the universe offers.” Discoveries listed in Commander Wayne M. McDonnell’s final analysis paper included detailed information about the nature of reality. Investigators ascertained we live in a holographic universe and waking life is a projected electromagnetic matrix.

To enter the unearthly realms, headphone-donning voyagers sat in isolated darkness while listening to various tones at specific hertz. The participants had no contact or communication with one another. After their journey was finished, the volunteers would report what they experienced with staff members.

According to Robert, subjects would often encounter interdimensional entities. Most frequently, they witnessed reptilian humanoids. The viewers referred to the uncanny creatures as “the alligators” due to their crocodilian features. Curiously, Monroe was already quite familiar with the unsettling breed. During countless expeditions, he observed identical saurian creatures. For over thirty-five years, the etheric investigator gathered insight about these startling beings.

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

24-03-2024 om 23:59 geschreven door peter  

Ex-Apollo Astronaut Claimed Humans Are Ancient Aliens, Visited Earth From Space

By Vicky Verma

In the history of space programs, seven Apollo command module pilots spent time in isolation in lunar orbit while the rest of the crew explored the moon. These astronauts were completely cut off from Earth and the nearest humans had ever been when they were on the far side of the Moon. One of these astronauts was Apollo 15 command module pilot Al Worden who flew to the Moon in July 1971. He is remembered as the “most isolated human being” ever  – at times his companions being 3,600 km (2,235 miles) away on the lunar surface. He passed away at the age of 88 on March 18, 2020.

Astronaut Al Worden claimed that we are not alone in the universe. He said there is no doubt there are other living species out there. During his visit to FM’s Ray D’Arcy Show in 2014, he recalled being alone in space for three days during his 1971 mission gave him time to think about the bigger questions in life. (Source)

He said, “You see the universe out there and all the stars and you think and you do a little research on the stars. You realize how many there are out there. “There are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy alone and there are another 200 billion galaxies. You begin to think ‘All that out there, there’s got to be somebody’.” Asked why he thought we haven’t had any contact from potential extraterrestrials, he quipped: “Why would they want to? They know enough about us not to want to. We’re making a balls of what we’re doing down here.”

Later he reconsidered his thoughts on alien life during his interview with the British TV show “Good Morning Britain.” He without any hesitation said that humans are the ancient aliens who had arrived on Earth in the distant past. When Worden is asked about the possibility that there are extraterrestrials out there, Worden says, “You know, I’ve been asked that question hundreds of times, ‘do you believe in aliens?’ and I say ‘yeah.’

In 2017, on a British TV show, he gave a shocking response when a host asked why to spend a lot of money on space missions when there are lots of problems on Earth. He was asked if he believed aliens were real. The answer probably surprised everyone watching the interview. The former Apollo 15 member said that not only were aliens real, but they had come to Earth in the distant past and created our civilization, and if we wanted to look for evidence, all we had to do was to look at ancient Sumerian literature.

“We are the aliens, but we just think they are somebody else. But we are the ones who came from somewhere else, because somebody else had to survive, and they got into little spacecraft then they came here and landed, and they started civilization here. And if you don’t believe me, go get books on Ancient Sumerians and see what they had to say. They’ll tell you right up front,” Worden added. He died on March 18, 2020.

ccording to his words, he was the firm believer in the ancient Sumerian scriptures. They reveal that humans and gods used to live together, while humans were servants to gods and each Sumerian city was guarded by its own god. The earliest record of a Sumerian creation myth can be found in a tablet excavated in Nippur, an ancient Sumerian city in Mesopotamia, in 1893. (Click here for the full article)

According to the cuneiform tablets, Earth was ruled by human-like gods at the beginning. When they arrived on Earth, they made it habitable by toiling the soil and mining the minerals. Besides, the text mentioned the revolt between the gods and their laborers.

“When the gods like men
Bore the work and suffered the toll
The toil of the gods was great,
The work was heavy, the distress was.”

It is said before humans, the Anunnaki (a group of deities of the ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians) used the Igigi (sometimes also spelled “Igigu”), the young generation of Ancient Astronaut Gods as their servants to mine gold on Earth, but later, they were replaced by humans when they rebelled against the Annunaki. For the ancient Mesopotamians, heaven is divided into three domes. The lowest dome of heaven was the home of the stars, and the middle dome was the home of the Igigi, the younger gods. The highest and outermost dome of heaven was personified as An, the god of the sky.

Supporting Al Worden’s statement, Dr. Ellis Silver, an author of the book “Humans are not from Earth: a scientific evaluation of the evidence,” has a strong belief that life on earth was sparked by aliens thousands of years ago.

According to him, humans should have become the strongest race in the universe, but the mortal body failed to thrive in the Earth’s environment, it can easily be harmed by sunlight, natural disasters, and diseases. He said: “Mankind is supposedly the most highly developed species on the planet, yet is surprisingly unsuited and ill-equipped for Earth’s environment: harmed by sunlight, a strong dislike for naturally occurring foods, ridiculously high rates of chronic disease, and more.”

Dr. Ellis concluded that mankind did not come from that particular strain of life, but evolved elsewhere and was transported to Earth (as fully evolved Homo sapiens) between 60,000 and 200,000 years ago.

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

24-03-2024 om 21:13 geschreven door peter  

A twinset of icy asteroids called Mors-Somnus is giving planetary scientists some clues about the origin and evolution of objects in the Kuiper Belt. JWST studied them during its first cycle of observations and revealed details about their surfaces, which gives hints at their origins. That information may also end up explaining how Neptune got to be the way it is today.

The Mors-Somnus binary is part of a collection of objects beyond Neptune. They’re called, aptly enough, “Trans-Neptunian Objects” or TNOs, for short. About 3,000 are numbered and known, and many more aren’t yet surveyed. They all lie beyond the orbit of Neptune and are divided into various classes. There are the classical Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) and scattered disc objects. Within those two classes, there are resonant TNOs—which move in resonance with Neptune and extreme TNOs, which orbit far beyond Neptune (around 30 AU). Then there are objects in orbits similar to Pluto’s, called “plutinos”. Mors-Somnus is also a Plutino.

Neptune and Beyond

Why is there such a varied bunch of objects “out there”? Where did they originate and how have they changed over time? One way to answer those questions is to study the surface properties of Kuiper Belt Objects and, in particular, icy rocks like Mors-Somnus. One way to do that is to take spectra of their surfaces. The data reveals information about the surface compositions of these objects. That, in turn, tells scientists something about the environments in which they formed and those they’ve experienced over time.

Neptune itself likely formed closer to the Sun but then migrated to the outer Solar System (along with Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus). At the same time, a huge dense disk of rocky and icy planetesimals and asteroids populated space out to about 35 AU. As the giant planets migrated to more distant orbits, they preferentially scattered those smaller bodies. These icy asteroids and cometary bodies settled into the Kuiper Belt, scattered disk, and the Oort Cloud. How that activity progressed and where those icy bodies came from in the first place are questions planetary scientists are working to answer.

More About Mors-Somnus and Neptune

This is where Mors-Somnus comes in handy. The pair is a good example of a “cold classical” TNO. It was studied by JWST as part of a program called Discovering the Surface Compositions of Trans-Neptunian Objects (DiSCO-TNOs) led by Ana Carolina de Souza Feliciano and Noemí Pinilla-Alonso at the University of Central Florida. The project identifies the unique spectral properties of these small celestial bodies beyond Neptune, something that hasn’t been done before now.

The Mors-Somnus is a member of the same dynamical group as other nearby TNOs and they share spectroscopic characteristics with other cold-classical group objects. This means they probably all formed at about the same time. They probably originated beyond 30 astronomical units from the Sun. Trans-Neptunian binaries such as Mors-Somnus provide a unique way to look at the formation and evolution of planetesimals in that region of space.

Studying the composition of small celestial bodies such as Mors-Somnus gives us precious information about where we came from, Pinilla-Alonso said. “We are studying how the actual chemistry and physics of the TNOs reflect the distribution of molecules based on carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen in the cloud that gave birth to the planets, their moons, and the small bodies,” she says. “These molecules were also the origin of life and water on Earth.”

The Importance of Objects Beyond Neptune

The chemical and physical properties of TNOs offer a treasure trove of information about what conditions were like in the early Solar System. They likely contain pristine materials that existed in the protoplanetary disk from which our Solar System formed, including primitive ices. Those ices don’t change due to solar heating (since the Sun is so far away), but they can be darkened by ultraviolet radiation over time, as planetary scientists have seen at Pluto and other icy worlds. And, those bodies can get transported from their birth regions to other parts of the solar system. If their surfaces don’t change much, then scientists can used spectral studies to trace where groups of objects originated.

The TNO region also contains what scientists call a “dynamical structure”. That is, its distribution of objects by various characteristics, including their orbits and motions over time. Objects and events can change the dynamical structure. For example, the dynamical structure of the trans-Neptunian region bears the traces of planetary migration that occurred in the first billion years of the Solar System’s existence. The TNOs, and in particular, binaries like Mors-Somnus were affected by such migrations.

Migration and Neptune

It’s very likely that this binary pair originally formed well beyond the orbit of Neptune. The researchers found similar spectroscopic characteristics between Mors and Somnus and the cold-classical group. It’s compositional evidence that this binary pair formed well beyond 30 astronomical units (nearly 2.7 billion miles away). Then, they moved to their present positions under the gravitational influence of other planetary migrations.

Thanks to gravitational perturbations from Neptune, Mors-Somnus and its neighbors moved closer to the planet. They now orbit in resonance with the planet. All these objects are potential tracers for Neptune’s migration path before it settled into its final orbit, the researchers say.

Binaries separated by distance, as Mors-Somnus is, rarely survive outside of areas bound by gravity, where they are sheltered by other KBOs. To survive migration, they require a slow transportation process toward their destination. The migration of Neptune to its final orbit offered such a leisurely opportunity.

Using JWST to study the surface characteristics of smaller distant worlds is a great accomplishment, according to co-author Pinilla-Alonso. The telescope has studied larger worlds out there, but this is the first time it’s focused on such tiny members of the outer Solar System. “For the first time, we can not only resolve images of systems with multiple components like the Hubble Space Telescope did, but we can also study their composition with a level of detail that only Webb can provide. We can now investigate the formation process of these binaries like never before.”

For More Information

• UCF Scientists Use James Webb Space Telescope to Uncover Clues About Neptune’s Evolution
• Spectroscopy of the Binary TNO Mors–Somnus with the JWST and Its Relationship to the Cold Classical and Plutino Subpopulations Observed in the DiSCo-TNO Project

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

24-03-2024 om 18:42 geschreven door peter  

In a New Memoir, NASA Scientist Reveals What Asteroids Keep Him Up At Night

Frightening yet alluring asteroids are the subject of a new space memoir.

BY DORIS ELÍN URRUTIA

 

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

This month, Lauretta spoke to Inverse about the keystone to the entire mission — the space-rock scooper called the Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) that grabbed the sample — as well as what might be hiding inside the carbon-rich, ultra-dark asteroid samples, and what near-Earth asteroids keep him up at night.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Inverse: The TAGSAM, which is the robotic “arm” that scooped the asteroid sample as the spacecraft flew by Bennu, went through over 25 rounds of testing to ensure it could do this incredibly important, yet tricky task. It did these tests in NASA’s test plane, nicknamed the “Vomit Comet” for its signature parabolic, u-shaped flights known to induce severe nausea. When you saw the TAGSAM again once it landed on Earth last year, did you have flashbacks to this testing from 11 years ago?

Lauretta: Definitely. When the TAGSAM touched the test bed in the reduced gravity aircraft [the Vomit Comet], it was so gentle! Everything kind of just flipped up in slow motion. It was like a snow globe, but you could tell the physics were different.

It was so captivating. I found myself staring at it and thinking, ‘Wow.’ It really is a different regime when you’re trying to work in microgravity. We don’t have common sense for that. That really stuck with me. What will happen when we get down to the really low gravity [of Bennu], which is impossible to simulate on that aircraft?

Have all the Bennu asteroid samples been cataloged yet or is it an ever-evolving process?

It’s kind of a fractal process. When we take them out of TAGSAM and put them in what we call our pizza trays — if you’ve seen some pictures of them, they look like pizza slices — and that whole tray has a sample number. Then we go in and say, ‘Oh, that stone looks interesting!’ That stone gets pulled out and gets its own sample number. That process will go on for years because there are thousands and thousands of stones, especially as you get to smaller particles.

There’s a lot of discussion and decision-making. It’s a balance between doing the most exciting science, meeting the minimum science requirements, and also preserving the legacy of the collection for the future. We don’t want to consume all of a unique thing. But we do want to look at it, so we figure out how to characterize it while maintaining its integrity.

In the book, you describe the difficulties in talking to media outlets about an asteroid called Duende that would safely fly by the Earth. But then, that same morning, a meteoroid exploded with the power of a nuclear bomb over Chelyabinsk, Russia. Do you have fears that, say, OSIRIS-REx, now called OSIRIS-APEX, finds something gnarly about its new asteroid target, Apophis?

The risk of an asteroid impact is real. It’s small. But the consequences are huge. The event in Chelyabinsk really showed us. That was a true asteroid impact over a populated area. It was a really small object, as these things go, but it still caused damage. Hundreds of people were injured, and the property was destroyed. It woke everybody up.

That reminded me of the comet that struck Jupiter in 1994. Same kind of awareness. We live our lives with our heads down with all our daily struggles. But every once in a while, you look up, and you go, you know, there could be something coming, and maybe we should think about it. These kinds of high-profile events catalyze a lot more activity in these areas, absolutely.

How did Chelyabinsk affect the progression of the OSIRIS-REx mission? At the time, the mission hadn't yet been confirmed.

My science is all about origins investigations: How did Earth form, where did life come from, and does it exist elsewhere in the universe? But that’s somewhat esoteric, I would say, especially for Congress and politicians. But something coming from outer space that could cause damage? Everybody understands that. Our mission directly addresses it. So we absolutely leaned into it.

A few years ago, NASA confirmed that the asteroid this spacecraft is chasing now, called Apophis, won’t hit Earth in 2029, nor in 2068, and will fly past us safely in both instances. But Bennu could strike our planet in the year 2182. If that happens, it could create a fireball many times brighter than the Sun and carve out a four-mile-wide crater where dislodged rocks the size of sixteen-story buildings would rain down. Does knowing all this ever give you nightmares?

No. I mean, what it does is make me very humble in the sense that the universe is much bigger than anything I can imagine. Even though I spend my time trying to imagine how big it is, it’s impossible.

The forces that are out there are unbelievably powerful. Once you kind of appreciate that, you can’t help but feel tiny. An asteroid impact is one facet of that. The universe is such an amazing place to explore. There are beautiful things, but there are dangerous things. Our place is very precious. At the end of the day, I come away grateful that I’m here, that I’m alive.

In the last 20 years, have advancements been made to better track asteroids? What would you like to see happen next in this field?

In the last 20 years, there have been advances, and there have been setbacks. Advances have been made in the sense that some very capable asteroid survey telescopes have come online. One of which is the Pan-STARRS facility in Hawaii. That was a huge asset that came online and has discovered many hazardous asteroids — and non-hazardous asteroids, for that matter — every night. At the University of Arizona, where I’m based, we operate the Catalina Sky Survey, which has continued to improve its capabilities. It is still a very productive program for looking for asteroids in the Solar System.

I think the biggest setback is the loss of the Arecibo planetary radar system in Puerto Rico. That took severe damage from the hurricane that passed through there. That was such a powerful tool for characterizing the nature of these asteroids: getting their orbit, their size, their shape, their rotation state, and even some information about their surface properties. Arecibo data was absolutely central to mission planning for OSIRIS-REx at Bennu.

We don’t have that anymore. There’s no plan to rebuild Arecibo. I think it’s critical infrastructure. We should be talking about a replacement radio telescope. That, to me, is a major setback and a loss in our capability to get up close and personal with these objects.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

24-03-2024 om 18:25 geschreven door peter  

10 UFO Sightings That Got the Internet Talking

UFOs occupy a special place in the human imagination, blurring the line between reality and fiction.

Shannon Sanford

Alien Scene from Signs the movie 

(Image Via Buena Vista Pictures Distribution/Touchstone Pictures

The allure of the unknown has always drawn us toward the stars, igniting our imaginations and prompting questions about what lies beyond. Among these cosmic curiosities, UFOs occupy a special place, blurring the line between reality and fiction. However, not every light in the sky is a sign of extraterrestrial visitors; many are the creations of earthly tricksters!

Today, we're looking at some UFO rumors and hoaxes that took the internet by storm. These posts and videos may have gone viral, but that doesn't mean they should be trusted. The truth may be out there!

From misunderstandings to outright deception, these are the UFO "sightings" that got the world talking:

1. Is This an Authentic Video of 3 UFOs Spotted Over New Mexico or Nevada?

• https://youtu.be/F5LsNif0aZo

In August 2023, a video claiming to show UFOs being chased by F-22 Raptors over Nevada took social media by storm. However, the creator disclosed that it was all virtual reality and that it was filmed using the "Digital Combat Simulator" video game.

Despite looking incredibly realistic and even fooling some UFO enthusiasts, the video doesn't feature real unidentified flying objects.

2. Did Rep. Tim Burchett Accuse US Government of Covering Up UFOs 'Since 1947'?

In a podcast appearance in June 2023, U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett discussed the U.S. House Oversight Committee's efforts to declassify unexplained anomalous phenomena and hold hearings on recovered non-human-made aircraft. Burchett mentioned the possibility of the government hiding evidence of alien technology since 1947, citing UFO sightings and the infamous Aurora, Texas, incident from 1897. 

Though the alleged airship crash from Mars was later revealed as a hoax, Burchett did make this claim. These discussions shed light on the ongoing interest in unexplained aerial phenomena and their potential implications.

3. Does This Video Show a UFO in Kazakhstan?

• https://youtu.be/jBl0zqnaY94

In mid-June 2023, a Twitter user posted a video supposedly capturing a UFO in Kazakhstan. However, it turned out to be an optical illusion created by the lights from the Russian Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station. The video, although genuine, didn't depict a UFO. 

It was filmed in Balkhash, south of the Kazakh Uplands, shortly after the spacecraft's launch on Sept. 21, 2022. The footage surfaced online four days after the launch and continued circulating for a month, offering a glimpse into the fascinating world of misinterpreted space phenomena.

4. Does NASA Video Show Aliens Flying 2 Rectangular UFOs?

• https://youtu.be/-CHMQDqxFRY

In February 2023, a Twitter post misleadingly claimed that NASA had recorded a video of aliens piloting two rectangular UFOs eight years prior. This assertion quickly sparked curiosity and skepticism. However, the truth is far less extraterrestrial. 

The video in question was actually a digital animation created by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, showcasing the twin spacecraft satellites from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment mission, not alien technology. This creative misunderstanding highlights the importance of verifying sensational claims, especially when they involve the vast unknown of space.

5. Does This Video Show Helicopters Escorting a UFO?

• https://youtu.be/22GxeGv5ooc

In early February 2022, UFO enthusiasts were abuzz with a video purporting to show an alien spacecraft being chased by helicopters over Durham, Connecticut. The footage, described in sensational headlines, was too grainy to confirm details such as the date, location and type of helicopters involved. 

Despite the fuzzy quality, the video likely depicted three helicopters, with the middle one shining a spotlight below, rather than a UFO encounter. This interpretation leans more towards a terrestrial explanation.

6. Did Pentagon Confirm Leaked Pics of UFOs Were Taken by Military Personnel?

In July 2019, a night-vision video captured by the USS Russell crew showed pyramid-shaped objects flying in the night sky, confirmed as authentic by the U.S. Department of Defense. While the public might jump to extraterrestrial conclusions, these are officially termed "unidentified aerial phenomena." The origin and nature of these objects remain a mystery even to U.S. military officials. 

Documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell and investigative reporter George Knapp released the footage, hoping it sparks a rational and transparent investigation into UFO phenomena, suggesting technology possibly beyond current human capability. Further images captured by military aviators in 2019 have also surfaced, adding to the intrigue around these unidentified objects.

7. Did a 'Declassified' Picture Show an Alien UFO Crash?

An online ad promising "40+ Wild Photos That the Government Has Declassified" featuring a dramatic image of a UFO crash scene led curious folks to a lengthy slideshow on the Daily Forest website. The intrigue? A flying saucer surrounded by officials, straight out of a sci-fi scene. However, the twist in the tale was that the advertised UFO crash photo didn't make an appearance in the article. 

Instead, it was revealed to be a still from "The X-Files: The Event Series," dating back to 2016. 

8. Was a UFO Spotted Over New Jersey?

In mid-September 2020, a TikTok video capturing what seemed to be a UFO over New Jersey quickly went viral, amassing millions of views. The footage showed onlookers near Route 21, mesmerized by the sight. However, the mystery was soon solved: the "alien spaceship" was actually a Goodyear Blimp, confirmed by a company representative.

The blimp was in the area to film the NFL game between the New York Giants and the Pittsburgh Steelers at MetLife Stadium.

9. Was an Alien Spotted Boarding a UFO in Romania?

• https://youtu.be/nIvatqK_57o

In January 2018, a video allegedly capturing an alien boarding a spaceship in Romania and soaring over the forest became a social media sensation, amassing more 15 million views. Despite skepticism, some viewers were convinced it documented a real extraterrestrial visit.

However, the video's authenticity was questionable, with conflicting reports about its location — ranging from Târgoviște to Bacău, Romania, and even Alaska, highlighting a typical internet hoax pattern. 

Originally posted on the "Alien Unleash" YouTube channel without a specific location, the video, surrounded by keywords like "UFO" and "Real Aliens," was part of a collection featuring fantastical elements such as dragons and alien abductions, casting further doubt on its legitimacy.

10. Did a UFO Disappear Into a 'Portal' Above Colorado?

On April 17, 2017, a video claiming to show a UFO over southern Colorado went viral after being posted on the "I'm From Denver" Facebook page. Despite its widespread sharing, there were no local news reports to corroborate the sighting, which would be expected for such an extraordinary event. 

The video's true origins trace back to Sonora, Mexico, not Colorado. Skepticism grew as no concrete evidence supported the sighting, and the possibility of it being a drone light show or a digital creation was considered. Gabe Hash, a YouTube personality, debunked the video as a likely computer-generated hoax.

By Shannon Sanford

Shannon Sanford is a freelance writer assigned to come up with fun content from Snopes' archives.

{ https://www.snopes.com/ }

24-03-2024 om 14:37 geschreven door peter  

Sean Kirkpatrick, director of All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office at the defense department, speaks at Nasa’s headquarters in Washington DC on 31 May 2023. 

Photograph: Joel Kowsky/Nasa

Sean Kirkpatrick doesn’t seem too thrilled to be chatting with me about UFOs. Since taking over the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in 2022 – government-speak for UFO hunting – Kirkpatrick has received violent threats, social-media smear campaigns, and even had to call the FBI after a UFO fanatic showed up at his home.

“I’ve had people threaten my wife and daughter, and try to break into our online accounts – far more than I ever had as the deputy director of intelligence [of US Strategic Command],” Kirkpatrick says. “I didn’t have China and Russia trying to get on me as much as these people are.”

So, after 18 months in the job, Kirkpatrick called it quits last December. Then, last week, AARO published the first part of a report he had worked on that concluded there was no evidence “that any USG [US government] investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP [unidentified aerial phenomenon] represented extraterrestrial technology”.

AARO’s conclusions sent the world of ufology – the study of UFOs, the practitioners of which are known as ufologists – into a tailspin.

After all, it was only in July last year that the former intelligence officer David Grusch told a packed congressional hearing that for decades the US government had been hoarding crashed alien spaceships and attempting to reverse-engineer them. True believers thought we were getting closer than ever to full disclosure; it was only a matter of time until the government would wheel out the flying saucers on to the White House lawn.

David Grusch, center, testifies during a house hearing on unidentified aerial phenomena in Washington DC on 26 July 2023. 

Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Kirkpatrick was watching that hearing. Over the course of three hours, and via testimony from two former US navy pilots, David Fravor and Ryan Graves, Congress heard about unknown aircraft making impossible manoeuvres, or the government’s possession of “non-human biologics” recovered from crashed spaceships. At one point, Representative Tim Burchett asked Grusch if he had any personal knowledge of people being harmed or injured in efforts to cover up or conceal extraterritorial technology. Grusch replied: “Yes.” Burchett then asked Grusch if he had heard of anyone being murdered. The former intelligence official answered: “I directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities.” Grusch also claimed that the Men in Black were on his case and were harassing other witnesses.

Crucially, Grusch said he hadn’t seen the spaceships and “biologics” with his own eyes; someone in the intelligence community told him the story.

Naturally, Kirkpatrick tried to talk to him. But although Grusch had dropped most of these bombshells months before on the cable channel NewsNation, when asked to discuss it with the one man in the US government who really needed to hear the yarn, he was a no-show. “We tried to reach out to him four or five times to get him to come in,” Kirkpatrick says. “And as of the time that I left, he had refused to come for a variety of reasons.”You see this story crop up every couple of decades, and it’s pretty much the same story

Kirkpatrick – who has sharp features, a thin goatee and speaks in a measured monotone that makes even this topic seem slightly boring – says the evidence against Grusch’s claims is conclusive. “There’s no evidence to support any of the allegations or any extraterrestrial reverse engineering or ‘human biologics’ or whatever you want to call it,” he says. “You see this story crop up every couple of decades, and it’s pretty much the same story.”

And it comes, he says, from the ufologists who gave him such grief – a core of people that can only be described as America’s new UFO lobby.

A new age

The 21st century’s UFO craze began on 16 December 2017 after the New York Times reported that the Pentagon had created something called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). This was supposedly a secret department investigating unidentified aerial phenomena or UAPs (the Department of Defense’s preferred acronym for UFOs).

The Times piece also included three videos, the most compelling of which showed an object eerily similar to a flying saucer, moving with no apparent means of propulsion.

The story went viral and UFOs went mainstream. Serious people were now taking little green men and their spaceships very seriously. Barack Obama told The Late Late Show with James Corden that things were happening in our skies that the US government simply could not explain.

A flying saucer photographed near Santa Ana, California, in August 1965. 

Photograph: GRANGER/Historical Picture Archive/Alamy

However, not everything in the Times’ story was accurate. Yes, the Pentagon did have a UFO programme, but it was called the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), not AATIP, and it had bizarre beginnings.

Seated next to Grusch in that congressional hearing was George Knapp, a journalist who in 2006 co-wrote a book called Hunt for the Skinwalker (a shape-shifting witch in Navajo culture). Knapp’s book tells stories of vanishing cattle, “invisible objects emitting magnetic fields” and flying orbs zooming around the eponymous Skinwalker Ranch – a large property in Utah.

The book has proved to be instrumental in modern ufology. It found its way to James Lacatski, an intelligence officer in the Department of Defense, who was blown away by it and contacted the aviation billionaire Robert Bigelow, the owner of Skinwalker Ranch at the time. Bigelow allowed Lacatski to visit the ranch and investigate; one evening, Lacatski claimed to see an apparition in the kitchen, described in Knapp’s and Lacatski’s 2021 follow-up book Skinwalkers at the Pentagon as “an unearthly technological device” which took the form of “a complex semi-opaque, yellowish, tubular structure”.

Lacatski and Bigelow took their findings to the late Harry Reid, the Nevada senator, who also had a keen interest in UFOs. Bigelow was a longtime donor to Reid’s campaigns, and persuaded him that it was time to look into UFOs and related phenomena.

There was one problem: a defence programme focused on UFOs would not loosen any purse strings at the Pentagon, so Lacatski buried the true purpose of his research under an unremarkable acronym: AAWSAP, which promptly kicked off a search for poltergeists, ET and “the freakish hybrid of small dinosaur [sic] and large beaver”.

The Pentagon gave $22m to AAWSAP in 2008 – and AAWSAP gave the funds to none other than Bigelow and his company, Bigelow Aerospace, who used the money to chase UFOs and the paranormal at Skinwalker Ranch.

A few years later, the Pentagon got wind of what was really happening, and AAWSAP was fully closed down by 2012. There’s no evidence that AAWSAP found spaceships or aliens.

The Amalgamated Flying Saucer Club of America, which headquarters in Los Angeles, released this photo taken by a member reportedly showing a flying saucer estimated at 70ft in diameter. 

Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive

But the myth had taken root.

In Kirkpatrick’s report, he says all the stories – the alien bodies and crashed spaceships that Grusch peddled in Congress – “largely originate from the same group of individuals who have ties to AAWSAP/AATIP program” and “worked with each other consistently in various UAP-related efforts”.

Their beliefs, he says now, are as circular as their associations with one another. “Some of that same core group of individuals had reached out to one of these industry partners and convinced them to take a look at a piece of material that they claimed was part of a crashed UFO. And then they turned around to point to that company and say, ‘Hey, ‘they’re reverse engineering crashed UFOs?’ Well, they were the ones that gave it to them.” Nevertheless, he and his team at AARO looked into it. “It turns out that’s not really a UFO. It’s most likely a piece of a missile case from an air force test,” he says.

What about the leaked UFO videos, like the one in the New York Times? Kirkpatrick says there’s not enough data to provide a definitive analysis of each one but insists that, like all the stories that came across his desk, they have mundane explanations that don’t involve space aliens. The rotating object shaped like a flying saucer is probably glare from a distant heat source. “The source could be any number of things. Even a weather balloon will give off that kind of glare if it’s got enough shiny metal on it, and the sun’s just right,” he says.

But evidence is not the point. Some will never be swayed. “There’s the absolute true belief, which would suggest it is more akin to a religion than an actual factual thing,” he says. “And those are the people that you’re never going to convince, no matter what you put in front of them. I can lay out the pictures of the classified programmes that they mistook, and they still wouldn’t believe it. They would say, ‘No, that was derived from alien technology.’”

And what if the government does eventually get its hands on aliens and their flying saucers? “It’s not their job [to keep it secret],” he says. “It would immediately get turned over to Nasa, and Nasa would immediately disclose it to everybody. That’s their job.”

• This article and its headline were amended on 22 March 2023. A previous version misquoted Sean Kirkpatrick as saying a UFO fanatic tried to break into his home. Instead a ufologist only showed up at his home.

{ https://www.theguardian.com/world/ufos }

24-03-2024 om 14:00 geschreven door peter  

Australian Pilot Followed By Large UFO & Mysteriously Disappeared 43 Years, Never Found

Frederick Valentich disappeared in 1978 while flying a Cessna over the Bass Strait

On October 21, 1978, Valentich (20) planned a date with his fiancee Rhonda Rushton to fly in his light-engine Cessna 182L aircraft from Moorabbin to King Island. Somehow, the plan failed as Rhonda could not leave work earlier and also unable to call him. Due to the tight schedule of the flight, Valentich had to leave her behind, began his flight at 18:19 and flew at an air level of 1500 m.

The plane flew to the island, not over the shortest distance, but making a broken line to minimize the duration of the flight over the Bass Strait, a sea strait separating Tasmania from the Australian mainland. At the 41st minute of the flight, the plane reached Cape Otway and turned towards the strait.

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At 19:06, Valentich informed the ground control service of Melbourne that he had seen an unidentified aircraft flying higher and faster. The controllers did not know anything about the planes flying in that area, and the radars showed that Valentich was flying all alone.

Nevertheless, Frederick insisted that there was a large aircraft next to him, which appeared and disappeared from his view. Over the next 5 minutes, he continued to talk about the spaceship flying around him, however, he did not give any detailed description of it. The only significant information related to the appearance of the UFO given by him was that it had four landing lights.

It has been over 43 years since Valentich’s plane disappeared. The search operation carried out in the Bass Strait and on King Island had no result, although it continued until October 25. The investigation carried out by the Australian Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, lasted for 3.5 years. On April 27, 1982, it ended with a laconic verdict and the reason for the disappearance of the aircraft has not been determined.

Richard Valentich was 12 when his brother vanished but said there was no family fixation on UFOs. “The concept of a UFO taking my brother is very far out there,” he said.

“Did he encounter something that made him crash? That may be more plausible. There’s a lot of theories out there but no one has proven anything.” The people in authority tried to destroy all records of his flight. It was done ostensibly to announce that on October 21, 1978, there was no such flight at all. Moreover, the original audio recording of Valentich’s conversations with the control room has disappeared. In 2008, BBC officials formally requested the original audio recording from the Australian Ministry for Infrastructure but never received it.

At the end of 1978, dozens of reports were received about strange objects and incomprehensible optical phenomena in the sky over the western part of the Bass Strait. In 1998, it became known about the existence of three witnesses, who on October 21, 1978, watched from the shore a flight over the Bass Strait of a light-engine aircraft, which was pursued by green lights.

Interestingly, there was a witness on the ground who claimed to have seen a green light just above Valentich’s plane. The last piece of audio recording with a duration of 17 seconds, in which strange grinding sounds are heard, was examined by researcher Richard Haines. According to him, this audio fragment contained 36 sound signals (bursts) of different frequency spectrums without a clear rhythmic pattern.

UFO researchers have made great efforts to find possible witnesses of the incident with Valentich. According to them, they managed to find more than 20 people who were near the coast in the area of Cape Otway before, during, and after the sunset on October 21, 1978, and who had seen an unidentified object or incomprehensible optical phenomena in the sky.

The Frederick Valentich case is documented in both Ross Coulthart’s “In Plain Sight” and Leslie Kean’s “UFOs.” Here you can listen to the actual audio of Valentich’s last transmission.

Richard Valentich is still convinced that his brother was abducted by aliens. In all his interviews, he invariably declared that what had happened to his brother could not be staged and had no rational explanations. Frederick Valentich is still officially listed as a missing person, and his family members still hope that one day, his disappearance mystery will be solved.

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

24-03-2024 om 13:41 geschreven door peter  

The north west has reported the highest number of UFO sightings

By Damon Wilkinson Reporter -  Richard Ault

It's been an interesting few years for UFO enthusiasts 

(Image: Andy Johnstone for The Daily Mirror)

In Moston a shiny silver object was seen 'randomly disappearing and reappearing in a cloudless sky'. Several bright white lights were spotted in Stalybridge ascending towards a bright star.

And in Stretford a 'white light streak' was caught on a doorbell camera zig-zagging across the atmosphere. They're just some of the dozens of UFO sightings reported across Greater Manchester over the last four years, a new report has revealed.

It's been an interesting time for UFO enthusiasts. Last year American fighter jets shot down an unexplained flying object - which was later identified as a Chinese balloon, suspected to be on a spying mission - as well as three other objects in or near American airspace.

READ MORE: The real story behind the hilarious UFO wind-up in Happy Valley

Then whistle-blower Major David Grusch, a former Air Force intelligence officer, set the internet on fire when he claimed the US was concealing a long-standing programme that retrieves and reverse-engineers unidentified flying objects.

The intrigue has continued into 2024, with Ukrainian troops recording a huge disc-shaped object over the battlefield of Donetsk, while closer to home a hiker came upon a mysterious monolith on a hilltop in Powys, which he initially assumed was 'some sort of UFO', but has since left some speculating it may have been planted by aliens.

But despite increasing speculation about alien visitors online and in the media, the skies above the UK have been relatively quiet in the last year. In its annual report, the research group UFO Identified documented 395 sightings in the UK in 2023 - a 20% drop from 497 sightings in 2022 and lower than in 2021 (413) and 2020 (484).

Information was taken from social media, newspaper reports, and over 50 Freedom of Information requests, as well as from reports made directly to UFO spotter groups around the UK. According to the report, people in the North West had the best chance of seeing a UFO last year, with 41 sightings across the region, followed by the South East (40) and then the South West (39).

Use our interactive map to see the UFO sightings where you live..

• https://www.aberdeenlive.news/news/aberdeen-news/mapped-more-1500-ufo-sightings-9185114

Source: ufoidentified.co.uk

The vast majority of sightings were of far-off objects in the sky, but there were 27 'Close Encounters of the First Kind', more than double the previous year. These are reports of UFOs seen up close, at a distance of no more than 500ft away.

Ash Ellis of UFO Identified said: "Overall, it’s disappointing to see such a big decrease in reports this year, especially after the bumper year of 2022. This time last year we were hoping that a reduction in the stigma surrounding the topic would lead to more reports being filed, but this clearly hasn’t been the case.

"Hopefully, as we and other groups around the country continue giving people space and a platform to talk about their experiences that will help more people come forward and be confident to stand up and tell their story. Despite the reduced number of reports, we continue to see the same trends across different datasets.

"Whether that's the area in which sightings are being made, to the time of day, and the described shape of UFOs, and so on, these have all been consistent over the past four years. This, to me, tells us that there are areas which are more prone to seeing UFOs and we will be using this data to forecast areas of interest over the coming years."

{ https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ }

24-03-2024 om 13:24 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers Find Two Ancient Substructures in Inner Milky Way

Dubbed Shakti and Shiva, the newly-identified structures are between 12 and billion years old — so ancient they likely formed before even the oldest parts of the present-day Milky Way’s spiral arms and disk.

This image shows the location and distribution of Shakti (yellow) and Shiva (blue) stars throughout the Milky Way.

Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC / K. Malhan.

“What’s truly amazing is that we can detect these ancient structures at all,” said Dr. Khyati Malhan, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.

“The Milky Way has changed so significantly since these stars were born that we wouldn’t expect to recognize them so clearly as a group — but the unprecedented data we’re getting from ESA’s Gaia satellite made it possible.”

Using Gaia observations, Dr. Malhan and Max Planck Institute for Astronomy’s Dr. Hans-Walter Rix were able to determine the orbits of individual stars in the Milky Way, along with their content and composition.

“When we visualised the orbits of all these stars, two new structures stood out from the rest among stars of a certain chemical composition. We named them Shakti and Shiva,” Khyati said.

Each stream contains the mass of about 10 million Suns, with stars of 12 to 13 billion years in age all moving in very similar orbits with similar compositions.

The way they’re distributed suggests that they may have formed as distinct fragments that merged with the Milky Way early in its life.

Both Shakti and Shiva streams lie towards the Milky Way’s heart.

Gaia explored this part of the Milky Way in 2022 using a kind of galactic archaeology. This showed the region to be filled with the oldest stars in the entire Galaxy, all born before the disk of the Milky Way had even properly formed.

“The stars there are so ancient that they lack many of the heavier metal elements created later in the Universe’s lifetime,” Dr. Rix said.

“The stars in our Galaxy’s heart are metal-poor, so we dubbed this region the Milky Way’s ‘poor old heart’.”

“Until now, we had only recognized these very early fragments that came together to form the Milky Way’s ancient heart.”

“With Shakti and Shiva, we now see the first pieces that seem comparably old but located further out.”

“These signify the first steps of our Galaxy’s growth towards its present size.”

While very similar, the two streams are not identical. Shakti stars orbit a little further from the Milky Way’s center and in more circular orbits than Shiva stars.

Fittingly, the streams are named after a divine couple from Hindu philosophy who unite to create the Universe.

Some 12 billion years ago, the Milky Way looked very different to the orderly spiral we see today.

We think that our Galaxy formed as multiple long, irregular filaments of gas and dust coalesced, all forming stars and wrapping together to spark the birth of our Galaxy as we know it.

It seems that Shaki and Shiva are two of these components — and future Gaia data releases may reveal more.

The authors also built a dynamical map of other known components that have played a role in our Galaxy’s formation and were discovered using Gaia data.

These include Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus, LMS1/Wukong, Arjuna/Sequoia/I’itoi, and Pontus.

These star groups all form part of the Milky Way’s complex family tree, something that Gaia has worked to build over the past decade.

“Revealing more about our Galaxy’s infancy is one of Gaia’s goals, and it’s certainly achieving it,” said Gaia project scientist Dr. Timo Prusti, an astronomer at ESA.

“We need to pinpoint the subtle yet crucial differences between stars in the Milky Way to understand how our Galaxy formed and evolved.”

“This requires incredibly precise data — and now, thanks to Gaia, we have that data.”

“As we discover surprise parts of our Galaxy like the Shiva and Shakti streams, we’re filling the gaps and painting a fuller picture of not only our current home, but our earliest cosmic history.”

• The study was published in the Astrophysical Journal.
• Khyati Malhan & Hans-Walter Rix. 2024. Shiva and Shakti: Presumed Proto-Galactic Fragments in the Inner Milky Way. ApJ 964, 104; doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad1885

{ https://www.sci.news/ }

24-03-2024 om 12:55 geschreven door peter  

USAF Report Documents Roswell Coverup

  

Roswell was a coverup, and the official photos of the crash debris are not what Army officers found in the desert. A report from the U.S. Air Force and testimony from two officers present, reveal this to be the case. However, the coverup details do not prove what crashed in the desert in 1947 was an alien spacecraft. According to U.S. Air Force investigators, the coverup demonstrates what crashed in Roswell was a top-secret project from the cold war.

In early July 1947, a rancher claimed to have found debris on a ranch approximately 30 miles outside of Roswell, New Mexico. He reported it to the Chavez County Sheriff in the nearby town of Corona. The sheriff called the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF), who sent intelligence officer Major Jesse Marcel and counterintelligence corps officer (CIC) Captain Sheridan Cavitt to investigate.

On July 7, Marcel and Cavitt went to the debris site and examined the materials. What they reported seeing was strange enough for the base commander to order the creation of a press release claiming the RAAF had captured a “flying saucer.”

On July 8, the front page of the Roswell Daily Record read “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region.” The article claimed the RAAF reported they had “come into possession of a flying saucer.”

Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947. Click to enlarge.

(Credit: Roswell Daily Record)

The story was short-lived. The next day, the front-page headline of the Roswell Daily Record read: “Gen. Ramey Empties Roswell Saucer” with the subheadings: “Ramey Says Excitement Is Not Justified,” and “General Ramey Says Disk Is Weather Balloon.”

Roswell Daily Record, July 9, 1947. Click to enlarge.

(Credit: Roswell Daily Record)

On July 8, Marcel was ordered to bring some of the debris to the Fort Worth Army Air Base in Texas and meet with General Roger Ramey. On July 9, Ramey held a press conference where he said there was no “flying saucer” found, and that the RAAF had mistaken a standard weather balloon for something more mysterious.

Press photos were taken with Marcel, Ramey, Colonel Thomas DuBose (Ramey’s Chief of Staff), and the alleged crash debris.

General Roger Ramey (left) with Colonel Thomas Dubois looking at the weather balloon Ramey claimed was mistaken for a flying saucer in Roswell in 1947.

Jesse Marcel holding the weather balloon debris in Ramey’s office.

The public quickly forgot the entire affair. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the Roswell UFO crash story began to acquire attention. In the late 1970s, researcher Stanton Friedman heard about the case and was able to find Marcel. Marcel told Friedman that the weather balloon story was to coverup what was really found. He said the material was not a weather balloon.

“You couldn’t bend it. You couldn’t dent it. Even a sledgehammer would bounce off of it,” Marcel stated in an interview in the 1980s on the show In Search Of.

“I knew I had never seen anything like that before, and as of now, I do not know what it was,” Marcel continued, “It was not anything from this earth.”

Marcel said he had taken some of the material home to show his family. His son had kept some of it, but after the cover story was released, Marcel says he had to return all the material he had to the Army. Jesse Marcel Jr. confirmed the strange properties of the material.

Friedman was able to track down other witnesses, civilians and military, who backed Marcel’s story. Friedman began working the case with researcher and author Bill Moore. Moore then published their work in a book titled The Roswell Incident coauthored with Charles Berlitz.

In the 1980s and 1990s, several more books were published, and the Roswell incident grew in popularity. In 1989, an alleged witness came forward to claim alien bodies were also recovered.

The mythology of the Roswell UFO crash had received so much attention that in 1993, congressman Steven Schiff, called for an investigation into the incident. The investigation results were released in 1995 by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) as The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert.

“Concerning the initial announcement, ‘RAAF Captures Flying Disc,’ research failed to locate any documented evidence as to why that statement was made,” wrote USAF investigators.

However, they also discovered it was not a weather balloon, as Ramey stated.

“It appears that there was some type of umbrella cover story to protect our work with MOGUL,” Professor Charles Moore told USAF investigators.

According to the report, while researching the Roswell incident, investigators ran across balloon testing conducted at the same time as the Roswell incident out of Alamogordo Air Field (now Holloman Air Force Base), over 100 miles west of Roswell. New York University (NYU) ran the project, and further investigation revealed the NYU testing was part of a Top Secret program called Project MOGUL.

The investigators were able to track down Moore, who was the NYU project engineer. When shown witness descriptions of the debris, Moore told investigators that he believed they had found one of their Project MOGUL test balloons. In particular, Moore’s team had not recovered a balloon they had launched on July 4, 1947.

Google map showing Roswell in upper right, and Alamogordo and Holloman Air Force Base in lower left.

“When we heard the [Flying Saucer] news back in New York, we joked that they probably found one of our balloons,” recalled Moore.

As for why Ramey had called it a weather balloon, the report states: “the Air Force did not find documented evidence that Gen. Ramey was directed to espouse a weather balloon in his press conference, he may have done so because he was either aware of Project MOGUL and was trying to deflect interest from it, or he really perceived the material to be a weather balloon based on the identification from his weather officer, Irving Newton.”

Components of a Mogul balloon train per Professor Moore.

As to why debris from a Top Secret project would be left out in a field to be discovered by a rancher, the report explains that the materials were not classified, only the use was. The project’s purpose was to float listening devices with balloons to detect nuclear tests by the Russians.

In 1991, DuBose, the third man in the photographs with the debris, sent UFO researchers an affidavit claiming he knew the material in the photos was not what was found in the desert.

“The material shown in the photographs taken in Gen. Ramey’s office was a weather balloon,” wrote DuBose. “The weather balloon explanation for the material was a cover story to divert the attention of the press.”

DuBose claims the real debris was sent to a General McMullen in Washington D.C., who said he intended to forward the material to Air Material Command at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio.

DuBose claimed, “The entire operation was conducted under the strictest secrecy.”

However, DuBose did not say he knew what the debris material consisted of or knew anything about the recovery of an alien spacecraft.

Although it appears Ramey was covering up the true nature of what the RAAF found in the desert, the description of the materials used for the Project MOGUL balloons was not high tech or out of the ordinary. The balloons were standard weather balloons. Other elements included balsa wood, foil, tape, and string.

Cavitt, the CIC officer who accompanied Marcel to the debris site, claimed what he saw looked like regular weather balloon debris.

The report described the tape on the balloons as “fabricated by toy or novelty companies using purplish-pink tape with flower and heart symbols on it.”

Symbols on I-beam as described by the Marcel. This poster is on display at the Roswell UFO Museum.

Symbols and shapes used on Mogul balloons from USAF Roswell report.

Marcel and his son described having a piece of the debris that looked like a small I-beam with strange symbols. However, they recall that although the beam was as light as balsa wood, it was made of metal. They did remember markings on the I-beam but said they were not hearts and flowers.

The USAF investigation led them to conclude: “The Air Force research did not locate or develop any information that the ‘Roswell Incident’ was a UFO event. All available materials, although they do not address Roswell per se, indicate that the most likely source of the wreckage recovered from the Brazel Ranch was from one of the Project MOGUL balloon trains. Although that project was Top Secret at the time, there was also no specific indication found to indicate an official preplanned cover story was in place to explain an event such as that which ultimately happened.”

They claimed that Marcel and the RAAF base commander overacted when they claimed they had caught a “flying disc.”

As for alien bodies, they said that was not possible because the wreckage was from Project MOGUL balloons, which did not have passengers, and that even UFO researchers could not agree on the details related to the alleged alien bodies.

If the USAF seemed to solve the case in 1995, why is Roswell still a thing? Well, many do not believe Marcel would mistake a weather balloon for a crashed alien spacecraft. Further, they argue that the base commander would not have written a press release based on finding foil, balsa wood, and other materials that were not mysterious.

Proponents to the Roswell UFO crash also point to the numerous witnesses who claim to have been threatened by the military to keep their mouths shut, or who had allegedly helped clean up the debris field. Even Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who was from Roswell, has said he heard from credible locals that the Roswell UFO crash was real, and he did not believe the USAF conclusion.

Another problem is that although there are numerous alleged witnesses, the USAF investigators only talked to Cavitt. There are references to Marcel’s comments in publications, but USAF investigators did not contact him or other alleged witnesses.

Field where the “real” Roswell debris is said to have been found.

(Credit: OpenMinds.tv)

The Roswell incident continues to create heated debate among UFO researchers. Over 70 years later, the mythos of the Roswell UFO crash lives on, despite whatever happened in the lonely desert in 1947.

{ https://openminds.tv/category/articles }

24-03-2024 om 12:45 geschreven door peter  

POSTED  BY MATT WILLIAMS

Northrup Grumman is Studying How to Build a Railway on the Moon

Roughly two years and six months from now, as part of NASA’s Artemis III mission, astronauts will set foot on the lunar surface for the first time in over fifty years. Beyond this mission, NASA will deploy the elements of the Lunar Gateway, the Artemis Base Camp, and other infrastructure that will allow for a “sustained program of lunar exploration and development.” They will be joined by the European Space Agency (ESA), the China National Space Agency (CNSA), and Roscosmos, the latter two collaborating to build the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).

Anticipating this process of lunar development (and looking to facilitate it), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched the 10-year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study in August last year. In recent news, the agency announced that it selected Northrop Grumman to develop a moon-based railroad network. This envisioned network could transport humans, supplies, and resources for space agencies and commercial ventures, facilitating exploration, scientific research, and the creation of a lunar economy.

According to DARPA, the seven-month LunA-10 study aims to establish “an analytical framework that defines new opportunities for rapid scientific and commercial activity on and around the Moon.” It also aims to foster the development of foundational technology to optimize lunar infrastructure, allowing space agencies to move away from individual efforts within isolated, self-sufficient systems and towards shareable, scalable, resource-driven systems that can operate together. In keeping with NASA’s long-term objectives, this work will complement the administration’s “Moon to Mars” objectives.

In layman’s terms, the plan is to develop the technologies that will allow space agencies and companies to access each others’ resources, facilities, and information to promote further growth opportunities. Several key sectors are identified in the solicitation that must be developed into services to sustain a long-term presence on the Moon based on an independent market analysis of the future lunar economy. They include construction, mining, transit, energy, agriculture, and research (e.g., medicine, robotics, and life sustainment) that will have applications for space exploration and life on Earth.

Other aspects include lunar and planetary science, communications, digital infrastructure, and Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) technology. Dr. Michael “Orbit” Nayak, a program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office, extolled DARPA’s long history of working with NASA during last year’s announcement:

“For 65 years, DARPA has pioneered and de-risked technologies vital to civil space advancement — from the rocket technology in the Saturn V that took humans to the Moon for the first time, to the recent DARPA-NASA partnership to enable faster space travel to the Moon and beyond with a nuclear thermal rocket engine.

“LunA-10 continues this rich legacy by identifying and accelerating key technologies that may be used by government and the commercial space industry, and ultimately to catalyze economic vibrancy on the Moon. Just like DARPA’s foundational node of ARPANET grew into the sprawling web of the internet, LunA-10 is looking for those connective nodes to support a thriving commercial economy on the Moon.”

As part of this 10-year plan, Northrop Grumman will be tasked with creating the infrastructure that will physically connect lunar facilities and allow for the movement of people and resources back and forth. Their responsibilities, as spelled out in their contract of opportunity, include defining the interfaces and resources required to build a lunar rail network; identifying cost, technological, and logistical risks; creating prototypes, demonstrations, and analyses of a concept design and architecture, and exploring robotics concepts for constructing and operating the system.

These robotics concepts must be able to operate on the lunar surface and carry out specific tasks, such as grading and foundation preparation, track placement and alignment, joining and finishing, inspection, maintenance, and repairs. Said Chris Adams, the vice president and general manager of strategic space systems at Northrop Grumman:

“This investment in key developmental research keeps our technology at the forefront of next-generation solutions. With our proven experience in the integration of complex systems and commercialized autonomous services, we will continue to create lasting change for a sustainable space ecosystem.”

Northrop Grumman and other selectees will receive an Other Transaction award of up to $1 million. They will present their work at the Spring meeting of the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC) in April 2024 and provide a final report in June 2024.

Further Reading: 

• Northrop Grumman

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

24-03-2024 om 11:44 geschreven door peter  

The 1955 Alien Encounter In Sweden – Extraterrestrial Message, Humanoid Alien, & A Beacon Device

 Ansh Srivastava

In July 1955, a lumberjack, who preferred to remain anonymous, was working in the woods in the Gulf of Bothnia at Västra Norrland, Sweden, with his two brothers. Let’s take a deeper look into the Alien Encounter In Sweden.

The 1955 Alien Encounter In Sweden

At some point, all three heard a very loud and incomprehensible noise, which they described as a sound similar to that of a very large animal running wildly in the bushes. 

Listening to this mysterious noise, the rustle and crackle of branches and bushes, they saw above them a cigar-shaped object that flew so low that it touched the tops of the trees. Fragments of branches and leaves rained down on the men like an avalanche.

At first they thought it was a small plane crashing, so when the object passed over them, they ran in the direction it fell. And the fact that he was definitely falling was obvious, the object was quickly losing height.

“I don’t know what we were expecting, maybe a deafening roar when the plane hit the ground, but it didn’t happen. disappeared.

The light was so bright that we could see through the trees. For a second, I could even see the seeds of the trees, and they were more than one meter in diameter, like on an x-ray. 
After a few seconds, a vacuum wave came, sucking everything towards the center of light. All three of us flew forward, branches and leaves flying past us. 

It all probably only lasted a fraction of a second, but I still remember crashing into a tree, time stopped, and my whole life instantly replayed in my head. Even the usual sounds of the forest have ceased.”

When the three lumberjacks finally got to the Esta house where they thought the plane had crashed. They ended up in a clearing where for some reason neither aircraft nor other equipment was visible. There were damaged trees, a bunch of broken branches, but no remains of the plane.

But they found a living humanoid creature on the branches. It was a very short man, apparently about 110-120 cm in height, around whose body a strange white light “vibrated”, “like a halo”.  

The creature seemed dead at first, and one of the brothers reached out to touch the lifeless body, he immediately pulled back his hand, as he received a strong electric shock. And then the little man opened his eyes and said in perfect Swedish: “Don’t touch me, it will only bring you problems.”

“After that, I immediately calmed down and carefully examined him. He was not a dwarf in the broad sense of the word. He was very proportionately built, with broad shoulders and normal features. His skin was yellowish, like an Asian. His eyes were deep-set and black , without proteins. 

His face was covered in bruises with a couple of large gashes on his chin and forehead. No blood flowed, but the skin around the wounds felt wet. The top of his head was lightly covered with a fluff of almost white hair. The earlobes were integral with the neck and resembled shark fins. The lips were wrinkled, narrow and colorless. 

When he smiled reassuringly, as he often did, he would reveal a row of small teeth in both the upper and lower jaws. I especially noted that his fangs were flat and as wide as our two front teeth. 

His hands were small with five slender fingers without nails, and when he moved his hand, it seemed that the ring finger was fused with the little finger, because they moved in sync.

His clothes were like reddish metal and seemed to fit snugly to his body. The head and hands were free, but on the feet the clothes passed into a pair of closed boots in size 35-37. 
The soles of the boots were ribbed and vibrated, and for a moment I thought of the tracks on the tank. The stranger looked at me and nodded slightly. There was no doubt that he knew what I was thinking. 

With these boots, he could roll back and forth on the surface without even moving his feet. Around his waist he wore a wide silvery metal belt with an unusually large buckle that glowed slightly with a light blue tint, which later turned dark blue when he was dead. 

In the middle of the buckle was a yellow colored sign – UV – it looked like the letter V, which was included in the letter U.

A strange creature told the lumberjack that he was thrown out of his spaceship, he was badly injured and now dying. Then he took out of his pocket a rectangular object the size of a matchbox and with 12 small indentations. He then took out another object that looked like a pencil and poked some of the depressions in the first object before throwing the object into the bushes. 

The alien then told the lumberjack not to touch him, and that the item was a homing beacon so that his companions would know where they should come to retrieve his body when he died. 

Then a curious thing happened. The two brothers seemed disoriented and left the clearing, leaving the main eyewitness alone with the dying creature in the forest:

“The stranger lay for some time as if asleep. His hands were tightly clenched, and it was obvious that he was in great pain. Then my brothers suddenly became confused, looked at each other, and then, without saying a word, returned to the forest. Later Years later, looking back on this incident, I am convinced that the stranger somehow asked my brothers to leave without saying a word. 

I sat talking and listening to him for two hours before he died. Shortly before his death, a stranger gave me a folded package from an invisible pocket and said: “When I die, the light will disappear from my body, and with the help of two other men you will put me in this bag and take me to the river where I will disappear. Then you must carefully bathe in water so as not to get sick.

Now he was breathing heavily and I saw that the end was near. The halo around his body became weaker and gradually disappeared. His light blue buckle gradually darkened. He looked at me and smiled. He said something in a language I had never heard before or since. 

Suddenly he switched to Swedish, and I heard the last couple of sentences: “You came without any desire and you leave against your own desire. Our life is like evaporation.” 

He said a few more words, but his voice was so weak that I couldn’t hear them. I am convinced that he prayed to some deity before he died. I was very touched.”

The brothers then returned, looking a little stunned and confused, as if they weren’t quite sure what had just happened to them or why they left. The men put the dead alien in a bag and carried him to the river, noticing that the bag smelled of sulfur and burned his hands. When they lowered the sack into the water, the body and the sack dissolved.

“When the bag hit the water, it started bubbling around it, and we realized that some kind of chemical process had begun. After 5 minutes, nothing was left of the bag and the body, and I thought that perhaps the stranger was hoping to fall into the river for a quick death, instead of lying there for a couple of hours, suffering. He would probably prefer to die alone, thinking about his home, which is many light-years away.”

A few days after this incident, the lumberjack again went to the area to find a rectangular object thrown by an alien, but found only one object that looked like a pencil. He kept it as a memory and as proof that he did not dream it all.

After that, he kept this story to himself for many years. It wasn’t until he spoke to a UFO researcher named John Fontaine , who wrote about it all in an article called “Humanoid Dies in Sweden”, that the story became public. 

Fontaine personally spoke to the lumberjack and seemed to be the only person the man ever spoke to about it, but the problem was that the eyewitness, even to him, never fully revealed the details of his long conversation with the alien when they were alone:

“What they talked about during these two hours, I could not get the witness to tell. I begged and persuaded him, but he did not tell me anything, only a few of the following fragments.

He said that the alien came from a place close to the constellation we call the Eagle. Several races from outer space have visited Earth and some are so advanced that we would only see them when they materialized or dematerialized to visit a parallel universe orbiting Earth. 

Some aliens kept people on earth under surveillance and did so for millennia, while others took earth samples for the purpose of later settlements, and still others had contact with humanity for centuries. That’s it,” Fontaine wrote.

What do you think about this Alien Encounter In Sweden? Tell us in the comments section below.

• https://youtu.be/SBCbCjk_rSk

{https://www.infinityexplorers.com/category/mystery/}

24-03-2024 om 11:33 geschreven door peter  

A Mysterious Encounter in the Nordic Forests: The 1955 Northern Sweden Incident

In the tranquil expanse of Northern Sweden, amidst the dense forests and the serene Gulf of Bothnia, an extraordinary event unfolded in July 1955 that would remain etched in the annals of UFO encounters. This story, unearthed decades later, provides a compelling glimpse into the unknown, challenging our understanding of the cosmos and its inhabitants.

The Encounter Begins

The day started like any other for a forestry worker and his colleagues, who were tasked with timber delivery in the early hours of a warm July morning. Their objective was straightforward: complete the harvest before the sweltering heat became unbearable. However, their routine was abruptly interrupted by an unexpected sight—a cigar-shaped object maneuvering erratically through the sky, cutting a path through the treetops.

The Crash

The forestry workers watched in astonishment as the object descended towards the river, anticipating an explosive impact that never came. Instead, a brilliant light engulfed the area, illuminating the surroundings with an intensity that made daylight pale in comparison. This light, powerful enough to render the forest’s interior visible as if x-rayed, was followed by a forceful vacuum wave that drew everything towards the crash site.

Discovery of the Alien

Venturing towards the impact site, the workers expected devastation but found tranquility instead. The forest stood undisturbed, save for a few downed logs. The real discovery came at the forest’s edge, where they encountered a lifeless figure—an alien being, small in stature and clad in a uniform unlike any earthly material. Attempting to check for signs of life, one worker experienced a shock upon touch, prompting the being to awaken and communicate in perfect Swedish, warning against further contact.

A Dialogue with an Extraterrestrial

The being shared its origin, claiming to hail from near the constellation of the Eagle, and spoke of various intelligences from outer space visiting Earth. It revealed that while some extraterrestrial visitors come in peace to study or establish contacts, others might have different agendas. The conversation delved into the complexities of interstellar travel and the possibility of life beyond our understanding, painting a picture of a universe teeming with life and civilizations far advanced from our own.

The Final Moments

Before its death, the alien imparted instructions for its disposal in the river, ensuring its body would leave no trace through a mysterious chemical process. In its last breaths, the being shared words of wisdom and a perspective on life that transcended the boundaries of worlds, leaving a profound impact on the witnesses.

Legacy of the Encounter

The incident left behind more questions than answers, including a piece of metal—allegedly from the alien’s possession—as the only physical evidence of the encounter. The story, shared years later, stands as a testament to the possibility of life beyond Earth and the potential for encounters that challenge our understanding of the universe.

This incident in Northern Sweden in 1955 remains a captivating chapter in the history of UFO encounters, inviting us to ponder the vastness of the cosmos and the mysteries that lie waiting to be uncovered. Whether viewed with skepticism or belief, the story encourages us to keep an open mind about the unknown and the myriad possibilities that the universe holds.

LINKS VIDEOS

• https://youtu.be/8Vcbt8_cXes
• https://youtu.be/cb4oxgDZl6I

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

24-03-2024 om 11:15 geschreven door peter  

The Joe Rogan Experience: A Deep Dive into UFO Sightings

In the realm of the unexplained and the extraordinary, UFO sightings stand as a pinnacle of curiosity and debate. The notion of unidentified flying objects traversing our skies has captivated humanity for generations, spawning theories, research, and endless speculation. The discussions surrounding these enigmatic occurrences have taken many forms, from eyewitness accounts by credible observers to detailed examinations by government and private entities. As we delve into this intriguing subject, our aim is to explore the multifaceted nature of UFO sightings, shedding light on the technological, scientific, and speculative aspects that continue to fuel our fascination with the unknown.

VIDEO:

• JRE: Taking Picture Of UFO!
• https://youtu.be/oCzYwPshh-0

At the heart of many discussions on UFOs are accounts from highly trained individuals, such as fighter pilots, whose credibility and expertise lend significant weight to their observations. These pilots, operating sophisticated military aircraft equipped with advanced tracking systems, have reported encounters with objects exhibiting capabilities far beyond our current technological understanding. One notable example involves a pilot sighting an object that dramatically changed altitude, from over 60,000 feet to just 50 feet above sea level in less than a second, defying known principles of aerodynamics and physics.

Such reports challenge our understanding of technology and propulsion, suggesting the existence of mechanisms and materials unknown to our current scientific paradigm. The debate often revolves around whether these sightings can be attributed to highly advanced drones, experimental aircraft, or even phenomena of extraterrestrial origin. Skeptics and proponents alike ponder the possibility of other nations possessing breakthrough technologies that could account for these observations.

The question of UFOs also intersects with government transparency and secrecy. There have been suggestions that top-secret programs exist, utilizing drones and technologies not yet disclosed to the public. This notion is supported by insiders and former defense department personnel, who claim the existence of spectacular yet classified photos and videos. The rationale for withholding such information often parallels the historical precedent of military projects like the stealth bomber, which remained under wraps until their strategic reveal became advantageous or necessary.

Furthermore, the discussion extends beyond terrestrial explanations to the cosmic scale, where the vastness of space and the statistical likelihood of extraterrestrial life come into play. The Drake Equation and Fermi Paradox provide frameworks for considering the existence of intelligent life beyond Earth, though evidence for visitation remains speculative and anecdotal. Yet, the continuous discovery of exoplanets within habitable zones adds a tantalizing possibility to the mix, suggesting that if we can imagine the technology for interstellar travel, others might already possess it.

In addressing the unknown, the scientific method remains our best tool. While a significant portion of UFO sightings can be explained through natural or man-made phenomena, a small yet persistent fraction defies easy categorization. These anomalies, while not conclusive proof of extraterrestrial visitation, invite further investigation and an open-minded approach to understanding the limits of our knowledge and technology.

As we stand on the brink of new discoveries, both in space exploration and technological advancement, the mystery of UFO sightings continues to provoke thought, debate, and exploration. Whether these phenomena are the result of human ingenuity, natural processes, or indeed, the evidence of other civilizations, the quest for answers remains a compelling testament to human curiosity and the unending quest to understand the universe and our place within it.

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

24-03-2024 om 11:02 geschreven door peter  

Take the Breakthrough Initiatives, for example: Back in 2016, the effort’s billionaire founder, Yuri Milner, teamed up with physicist Stephen Hawking to announce a $100 million project to send a swarm of nanoprobes through the Alpha Centauri star system, powered by light sails. The concept, dubbed Breakthrough Starshot, was similar to the space-sail swarm envisioned in Liu’s books — but with the propulsion provided by powerful lasers rather than nuclear bombs.

Today, the Breakthrough Initiatives is focusing on projects closer to home. In addition to the millions of dollars it’s spending to support the search for radio or optical signals from distant planetary systems, it’s working with partners on a miniaturized space telescope to identify planets around Alpha Centauri, a radio telescope that could someday be built on the far side of the moon, and a low-cost mission to look for traces of life within the clouds of Venus.

Breakthrough Starshot, however, is on hold. “This looks to be quite feasible. However, it seems to be something that is still pretty, pretty expensive, and probably wouldn’t be feasible until later in the century,” says Pete Worden, executive director of the Breakthrough Initiatives. “So, we’ve put that on hold for a period of time to try to look at, are there near-term applications of this technology, which there may be.”

Worden provides a status report on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence — and sorts out science fact from science fiction — on the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast.

“3 Body Problem” takes its name from a longstanding challenge in orbital mechanics: It’s devilishly difficult to predict the gravitational interactions of three massive bodies in a system, except in some special cases. In the Netflix series, and in the books on which the series is based, a Chinese radio astronomer makes contact with an alien civilization that suffers repeated crises because its home world is in an unstable triple-star system.

Pete Worden is the executive director of the Breakthrough Initiatives.

(Credit: Breakthrough Initiatives)

When the aliens learn of our existence, they set out on a 400-year mass migration to Earth — an onslaught that puts our own planet on edge. One of the key concepts in the book is the Dark Forest Theory. That’s the idea that civilizations shouldn’t broadcast their existence to the rest of the galaxy, for fear that other denizens of the “Dark Forest” will eventually come after them.

Worden admits that the Dark Forest Theory has had an effect on the Breakthrough Initiatives’ agenda.

“We initially had a program called Breakthrough Message. … Not that we were going to send anything, but we were going to think about it,” he recalls. “We got a lot of resistance to even thinking about sending messages. Interestingly enough, one of the key skeptics of this was Professor Stephen Hawking. He thought it was a bad idea for exactly the Dark Forest reason. Conversely, the chairman of our advisory committee — Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal of the U.K. — has the opposite view. He doesn’t think that’s a big issue.”

Worden’s personal view is that we’ve been sending out signs of our presence — ranging from radio transmissions to telltale pollutants in the atmosphere — for so long that “it’s probably too late to hide in the forest and be quiet.”

The Breakthrough Initiatives is counting on civilizations in other planetary systems to speak up, one way or the other. Starting in 2015, Breakthrough Listen has provided support for programs looking for radio signals or optical flashes that might have been transmitted by aliens. One signal in particular, known as BLC1, got hearts beating faster in 2019 — but astronomers eventually traced its origin to earthly radio interference rather than Proxima Centauri.

Another initiative, known as Breakthrough Watch, is working with Australian astronomers on a space telescope that would monitor the motions of the three stars in the Alpha Centauri system, looking for ever-so-slight gravitational wobbles that could point to the presence of Earthlike planets a little more than 4 light-years from Earth. The telescope is called TOLIMAN, which is the Arabic name for Alpha Centauri as well as an acronym for “Telescope for Orbit Locus Interferometric Monitoring of our Astronomical Neighborhood.”

Worden says launch is currently scheduled for the first half of 2025. “We’re still negotiating on the launch vehicles, but it’s most likely to be a piggyback mission, possibly on a SpaceX mission.” he says.

For what it’s worth, astronomers have already detected a super-Earth that’s orbiting Proxima Centauri — and in 2021, a team supported by Breakthrough Watch reported seeing tentative signs of a giant planet around Alpha Centauri A.

Meanwhile, Worden is working with CSIRO, the Australian government’s science agency, on a different sort of telescope.

“We think we can put a radio telescope for on the order of $100 million on the far side of the moon that looks for transients across the broad spectrum, mostly at higher frequencies,” he says. “That’s a good place, because right now it’s blocked from interference from the Earth. Just virtually everything you see is going to be something interesting.”

The Breakthrough team is also interested in extraterrestrial life in our own solar system: Years ago, Yuri Milner looked into the prospects for sending a probe to Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn that may harbor hidden seas and perhaps even marine organisms. Today, Worden and his colleagues are collaborating with other interested parties — including Schmidt Sciences, researchers at MIT and engineers at Rocket Lab — to send a probe through Venus’ atmosphere to search for organic materials. Liftoff is set for as early as next January.

Getting to other stars

Even though Starshot is on hold, Worden is still thinking about interstellar travel, and he’s not the only one. Last weekend, SpaceX founder Elon Musk referred to the prospects of sending his company’s Starship super-rocket on trips beyond the moon and Mars.

“This Starship is designed to traverse our entire solar system and beyond to the cloud of objects surrounding us,” Musk said in a posting to X / Twitter, his social media platform. “A future Starship, much larger and more advanced, will travel to other star systems.”

Musk may not be thinking about using light sails, but NASA is. One of the proposals that won funding in the latest round of NASA Advance Innovative Concepts grants envisions developing swarms of sail-equipped, laser-propelled micro-probes that would take advantage of the same principle laid out by Breakthrough Starshot to get to the Alpha Centauri system.

Light sails are likely to start out being used for trips to far-out destinations in the solar system. Japan’s space agency tested a solar sail during an experiment in 2010 that sent the spacecraft on a flyby past Venus — and looked into a follow-up mission to a group of asteroids in Jupiter’s orbit. That idea was put on hold, but Japanese scientists are considering other missions that would use solar power sails.

Worden thinks the best long-term approach to interstellar travel would be a combination of light sails to get the probes where they’re going, plus fusion power to slow them down once they get there. “I think that ultimately, something along that line is probably feasible in a century or so, maybe sooner,” he says.

A century may sound like a long time, but when you’re talking about sending probes to other stars, you have to adjust your time scales. After all, even the super-advanced aliens in “3 Body Problem” need 400 years to get to Earth. You can add interstellar travel to the other multi-generational challenges that are facing humanity, such as climate change. In fact, The New Yorker’s review of “3 Body Problem” notes that the approach of the aliens serves as “an unexpectedly potent metaphor for the looming perils of climate change.”

So, how long could it be before we connect with extraterrestrial civilizations? That’s the kind of question that can get alien-hunters in trouble. Two decades ago, the SETI Institute’s Seth Shostak speculated that we were likely to pick up signals from intelligent alien life by the year 2025 — a scenario that now seems extremely unlikely.

Worden prefers to think in terms of percentages.

“Within a decade, we’ll almost assuredly find life elsewhere,” he says. “We’ll probably find a life-bearing planet nearby. We’ll find life either on Mars, or Venus, or maybe the outer solar system moons. But an alien techno-civilization? I’d say, for any given decade, it’s probably a few percent. But if you don’t look, you don’t find it.”

It doesn’t bother him that he may not be around to answer one of life’s ultimate questions. “One of the cool things about science is that the journey is the fun part, and you never know what you’re going to find,” Worden says. “So, as a scientist, to me, you’re pursuing something that is unlikely, but really fundamental to our future. It’s the most fun thing I can imagine working on.”

If the aliens ever do arrive, let’s hope they find that oh-so-human trait endearing.

• Take a look at the original version of this posting on Cosmic Log to get Worden’s recommendations for science-fiction stories about alien contact. Check out the Breakthrough Initiatives website to learn more about what Worden and his colleagues are up to, and tune into “3 Body Problem” on Netflix. There’s also a Chinese adaptation of Liu’s books, titled “Three-Body,” that’s available in the U.S. via PBS, Peacock, Amazon Prime and other streaming services.
• My co-host for the Fiction Science podcast is Dominica Phetteplace, an award-winning writer who is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and lives in San Francisco. To learn more about Phetteplace, visit her website, DominicaPhetteplace.com, and read “The Ghosts of Mars,” her novella in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine.
• Stay tuned for future episodes of the Fiction Science podcast via Apple, Google, Overcast, Spotify, Player.fm, Pocket Casts and Radio Public. If you like Fiction Science, please rate the podcast and subscribe to get alerts for future episodes.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

22-03-2024 om 23:21 geschreven door peter  

Natural color image of Europa obtained by NASA's Juno spacecraft.

(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill)

Can Europa’s massive, interior ocean contain the building blocks of life, and even support life as we know it? This question is at the forefront of astrobiology discussions as scientists continue to debate the possibility for habitability on Jupiter’s icy moon. However, a recent study presented at the 55^th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) might put a damper in hopes for finding life as a team of researchers investigate how Europa’s seafloor could be lacking in geologic activity, decreasing the likelihood of necessary minerals and nutrients from being recycled that could serve as a catalyst for life.

Here, Universe Today speaks with Henry Dawson, who is a PhD student in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and lead author of the study, about his motivation behind the study, significant results, follow-up studies, and whether Dawson believes there’s life on Europa. So, what was the motivation behind this study?

Dawson tells Universe Today, “A large portion of the community has been looking at the habitability potential of the seafloor, and looking at processes that might occur at seafloor hydrothermal vents, or at water–rock interaction chemistry. However, it was never established that there would actually be any fresh rock exposed at the seafloor, or if the tectonic processes that drive hydrothermal vents would be present. The silicate interior of Europa is a similar size to that of Earth’s Moon, which is largely geologically dead on the surface.”

(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Michael Carroll)

For the study, Dawson and his colleagues examined the likelihood for geologic activity occurring on Europa’s seafloor through analyzing data on Europa’s geophysical characteristics and comparing them with known geologic parameters and processes, including the strength of potential fault lines and fractures within Europa’s rocky interior, how the strength of this rock changes with depth, and how the rock could react to ongoing stresses, commonly known as convection. Using this, they conducted a series of calculations to ascertain whether the seafloor crust could drive geologic activity. Therefore, what were the most significant results from this study?

“It looks a lot more difficult to expose fresh rock (which is required to drive the reactions that life would exploit) to the ocean,” Dawson tells Universe Today. “Tidal forces do not seem able to cause motion along faults, like it can on the surface, and so the seafloor is most likely still. All the rock that water is able to interact with through porosity was likely altered hundreds of millions to billions of years ago, and so the ocean and rock are in chemical equilibrium. This means that there is no present day, continuous input of nutrients into the ocean from the rocky core, and so any possible life would likely have to exploit nutrient input from the icy shell above the ocean.”

While this study focused on geologic stresses related to fractures and fault lines, Europa’s interior ocean is produced from another type of geologic stress known as tidal heating, which is induced from the constant stretching and compressing as Europa orbits the much more massive Jupiter. This same tidal process occurs between the Earth and its Moon, and we see this in action in the rising and falling of the Earth’s waters around the globe. For Europa, over the course of thousands to millions of years, the stretching and compressing leads to friction in Europa’s inner rocky core, which leads to becoming heated and melting the inner ice into the interior ocean that exists today. It is in this ocean that astrobiologists hypothesize that life could exist, possibly even life as we know it.

However, given these study’s unfortunate findings, Dawson and his colleagues give dire implications for the potential habitability on Europa, noting their calculations estimate that geologic activity on Europa’s seafloor is limited enough to indicate habitable conditions within Europa’s interior ocean could be limited, as well. However, the study was quick to note that other geologic processes could be examined to explain the present state of Europa’s seafloor geologic activity, including processes known as serpentinization and thermal expansion anisotropy.

“As rock is exposed to water and chemically alters, the new minerals that form may have a different molar volume than the unaltered minerals in the original rock,” Dawson tells Universe Today. “Serpentinization specifically is the process where peridotite, a typical mantle rock, is altered to serpentinite. This reaction has a net volume increase, which introduces new stresses. These stresses might lead to the fracturing of the rock, fresh rock faces exposed, and more alteration, leading to a self-propagating cycle. On the other hand, the new minerals might cement up pre-existing fractures, preventing further exposure, and creating a negative feedback loop. Thermal expansion anisotropy describes the process where different minerals have varying degrees of expansion upon heating. Thus, when a rock is heated or cooled, the mineral grains inside will push against each other, introducing porosity and interior stresses.”

Regarding the tidal forces responsible for producing Europa’s interior ocean, this icy moon and the Earth’s Moon are not the only planetary bodies in the solar system that could experience these unique forces. Others include Jupiter’s third Galilean Moon, Ganymede, Saturn’s icy moon, Enceladus, and Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, all of which are currently hypothesized to possess interior oceans from tidal heating. Like Europa, Ganymede exhibits a predominantly crater-free surface, which is indicative of frequent resurfacing, and Enceladus was observed on numerous occasions by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft to have geysers on its south pole region that frequently shoots out water into space.

Additionally, Cassini flew through these geysers to obtain data on the ejecta’s composition, discovering organic molecules. For Titan, Cassini data revealed that an interior ocean exists beneath its surface, which is currently hypothesized to contain a combination of ammonia and salts. But regarding this most recent research, what follow-up studies are currently being conducted or planned?

Dawson tells Universe Today, “I’m currently using the same model to estimate whether tidal forces are able to cause fracturing on other icy moons in the outer solar system, such as Ganymede, Enceladus, Titan, and the mid-size Uranian moons. Based on my preliminary results that I presented at LPSC, it appears that tidal forces are insufficient on those moons as well. In addition, our collaborator Austin Green is looking at whether seafloor volcanism might occur, based on the forces that volcanic dikes can exert on the rock that they are propagating through. For Europa, the lithosphere is too deep and too strong for magma to reach the seafloor, and so any melt that forms in the mantle stalls out at depth.”

Despite being discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610, the fascination for finding life within Europa’s ocean has only come within the last few decades, thanks largely to the NASA Voyager missions, with Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 flying through the Jupiter system in 1979 and imaged the Galilean Moons up close and in detail for the first time, hinting that Europa was currently geologically active. This is because Europa has almost no visible craters throughout its entire surface, indicating specific processes are responsible for reshaping the small moon and covering up evidence of past impacts. Europa, being the second Galilean Moon, shares these traits with the first and third Galilean Moons, Io and Ganymede, respectively, while the fourth Galilean Moon, Callisto has a surface that is almost entirely covered by craters.

Thanks to further data obtained from proceeding missions, including NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, Hubble Space Telescope, and Juno, scientists are almost entirely convinced that an interior ocean lies beneath Europa’s icy crust, with some estimates putting the volume of liquid water at double of Earth’s oceans. Therefore, as we see on Earth, liquid water means life, which is why Europa’s interior ocean is a target for astrobiology research. But does Henry Dawson think there’s life on Europa?

Dawson tells Universe Today, “I think there’s still a lot more that I would like to understand before I make a yes or no statement on that. While I believe that Europa is one of the most likely candidates to host life, alongside Enceladus, the chance of life remains small, and this research reduces the probability even more.”

This study comes as NASA prepares to launch the Europa Clipper spacecraft this October with a planned arrival date of April 2030 and is designed to explore the habitability potential of Europa and its interior ocean. During its 3.5-year mission, Clipper will perform up to 44 close flybys of Europa ranging between 25 and 2,700 kilometers (16 to 1,678 miles) as the spacecraft will perform elongated orbits to keep from staying within Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field for too long. To assess Europa’s habitability potential, Clipper will carry a powerful suite of scientific instruments designed to analyze Europa’s chemistry, surface geology, and interior ocean characteristics.

Additionally, the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission was launched in April 2023 with a planned orbital insertion at Jupiter in July 2031, followed by a departure from Jupiter and an orbital insertion around Ganymede in December 2034. Like Clipper, JUICE is designed to investigate the habitability potential of the icy moon, but will also examine Ganymede and Callisto, as well.

“Get excited for the Europa Clipper and JUICE missions! Dawson exclaims to Universe Today. “While it will still be 6 years before they reach Jupiter, once they arrive, we will be able to learn much more about what is going on at Europa. While they will not be able to directly measure the interior, observations of the ice shell, gravity field, and tidal forcing on Europa will help to constrain future models. As well, always be careful about the assumptions you make for other planetary bodies. While Europa may be covered with ice, it is truly a rocky world that happens to have a deep ocean, and the processes occurring at depth may not reflect what we see at Earth’s seafloor.”

Is Europa’s seafloor geologically active, and what new insights will Europa Clipper and JUICE make about this astonishing and intriguing icy moon in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

• As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

22-03-2024 om 22:58 geschreven door peter  

More About Craters

Impact cratering performs a lot of gardening in the Solar System, according to Johnson. He is the first author on a recently published paper discussing these features on Europa. “Craters are found on almost every solid body we’ve ever seen. They are a major driver of change in planetary bodies,” he said.

Just looking at images of different worlds in the Solar System, we can see some pretty heavily cratered surfaces. The Moon is a good example, as is Mars. And, we see it at many of the smaller bodies, such as the moons of the gas and ice giants. The more craters we see, the older the surface. In some places, multiple overlapping craters indicate a very old surface. In other places, such as at Europa, the craters are fewer and farther between. Something has “paved over” the craters such that any we CAN see were made after the repaving event. In addition, the craters reveal information about the surface as well as the “subsurface” of Europa.

“When an impact crater forms, it is essentially probing the subsurface structure of a planetary body,” said Johnson. “By understanding the sizes and shapes of craters on Europa and reproducing their formation with numerical simulations, we’re able to infer information about how thick its ice shell is.”

What Europa’s Craters Tell Us

This tiny moon is an enigma wrapped in shimmering ice. Its frozen surface hides a rocky inner core covered with a salt-water ocean. Like Earth, it experiences surface plate tectonics, driven by the core region’s heating. Inside, that heating drives currents of warmer water up from the core. That water gets forced to the surface, where it freezes and creates a new layer overlying any other features. This resurfacing happens every 50 to 100 million years.

Incoming impactors carve out new craters in that “freshened-up” surface, which gives scientists some pretty easy-to-study craters. They aren’t terribly deep, however, which tells scientists a lot about the structure of the icy shell. Johnson, Wakita, and their team studied images from the Galileo spacecraft to analyze Europa’s craters. In particular, they focused on two multi-ringed basins imaged on this moon. They show two or more concentric rings around the point of the impact that created them. Such basins are fairly rare and usually indicate some kind of large, energetic impact. On Europa, their appearance and formation give clues to the thickness of the icy shell and their thermal structure, which is a way to understand how the shell conducts heat.

Multi-ringed Crater Basins Tell a Tale

In their study, the Purdue team simulated a multi-ring basin with varying thicknesses of ice. Those thicknesses influence the degree of tidal heating in the shell itself. They also help scientists understand how heat exchange occurs between the bottom of the shell and the underlying ocean. The team found that icy shells thinner than about 15 kilometers don’t show the kinds of multi-ringed basins that exist on Europa. However, a thicker one does. In particular, the best-fit simulation used a 20+ kilometer-thick shell. It consists of two layers: a 6-8 kilometer-thick conductive “lid” that covers up a layer of warm, convecting ice.

In addition to studying the craters, the team also looked at the types of impactors needed to create those multi-ringed basins on Europa. From the structures seen in the Galileo images, they concluded that the impactors would need to be around 1.5 kilometers in radius to create the multi-ringed basins. Smaller ones wouldn’t create the structures they saw, and bigger impactors would result in very different-looking craters and rings.

What About Other Worlds?

Europa isn’t the only world at Jupiter with an icy crust. Both Ganymede and Callisto also show cratering, with multi-ring basins. This tells us that these worlds also have to have thick enough icy crusts where such basins can form. Planetary scientists have suggested their crusts are at least 80 to 105 kilometers thick. In their paper, the Purdue teams suggest that since Europa’s crust is likely to be at least 20 kilometers thick (if not more) it’s also likely that Ganymede and Callisto have much thicker crusts than current predictions suggest.

Finally, although the paper doesn’t specifically address this, the fact that the scientists can deduce impactor size from the characteristics of the resulting craters does provide insight into the sizes of impactors available in Jovian “airspace”. To sustain these kinds of multi-ringed basins, you need a good population of sizable impactors to do the job. Also, for Europa to be so recently “refreshed” really does give a clue to the impact environment in the Jupiter system. While Ganymede and Callisto both have very old surfaces, the existence of “fresh” ice at various cratering sites tells us that they’re still being bombarded in recent times, although they’re not actively resurfacing themselves. These are all additional data points to consider when understanding the habitability of environments, particularly at Europa (and possibly at places such as Enceladus at Saturn).

“Understanding the thickness of the ice is vital to theorizing about possible life on Europa,” Johnson said. “How thick the ice shell is controls what kind of processes are happening within it, and that is really important for understanding the exchange of material between the surface and the ocean. That is what will help us understand how all kinds of processes happen on Europa—and help us understand the possibility of life.”

For More Information

• Planetary Scientists Use Physics and Images of Impact Craters to Gauge Thickness of Ice on Europa
• Multiring Basin Formation Constrains Europa’s Ice Shell Thickness

 { https://www.universetoday.com/ }

22-03-2024 om 22:03 geschreven door peter