Why Venus May Be Our Best Bet For Finding Life In the Solar System

Venus and Earth once looked a lot alike. Could our planet’s forgotten early twin also contain life?

BY KIONA SMITH

 

One of the weirdest places in our Solar System may actually be a great place to search for alien life: the skies of Venus.

We don’t have evidence of life — or even indisputable evidence that life could survive — in any world but the one we currently live in. However, recent years have raised the tantalizing prospect that our Solar System, in which we thought we were alone, may be dotted with diverse, and deeply weird, homes for life: In dark water beneath the ice of Europa and Enceladus, in briny underground refugia on Mars, and even drifting in the acidic clouds of Venus.

“If it had liquid water in the past, and if we can really confirm that, then yes – Venus would likely be the planet I would place my bet on,” University of Wisconsin-Madison planetary scientist Sanjay Limaye tells Inverse.

Limaye and his colleagues, along with several other teams of researchers, presented their work in a recent collection of papers in the journal Astrobiology.

BETTING ON VENUS

In a series of recent papers, several teams of planetary scientists and astrobiologists argue that although the surface of Venus is undeniably an uninhabitable hellscape — you can’t do organic chemistry in a place that’s hot enough to melt lead — the sulfuric acid clouds might actually contain just enough water and other key chemicals for microbes to make a living.

What we know about Venus suggests that there’s something going on in our evil twin planet’s atmosphere that we don’t understand yet, whether it’s alien life or unusual chemical reactions that we’ve never seen anywhere else is still hotly debated.

A few years ago, a team of scientists detected a chemical called phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere. Here on Earth, the chemical reactions that create phosphine only ever happen inside living things, so some astrobiologists immediately got very excited about its presence on Venus. But in a recent paper, chemist Klaudia Mráziková of the Czech Academy of Sciences and her colleagues proposed a way that chemical reactions in the atmosphere could make phosphine without any help from life — and they’re not the first, although co-author Paul Rimmer of Cambridge University tells Inverse that he thinks their scenario is the “best hypothetical abiotic source for phosphine” so far.

Meanwhile, high in Venus’s atmosphere, something is absorbing huge amounts of ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. Over the last century, planetary scientists have suggested several chemical compounds, in different combinations, that could be absorbing the UV light, but no explanation quite fits, at least so far. And in a weirdly compelling coincidence, the shape of whatever’s absorbing the light, and the way it changes with the Venusian seasons, bears a striking resemblance to algal blooms in Earth’s oceans. Like the phosphine, it could be alien microbes busily doing photosynthesis, or it could be fascinating undiscovered chemistry.

And then there are the Mode 3 particles. These weirdly shaped particles in the lower cloud layers of Venus are less than a ten-thousandth of an inch wide, but that’s surprisingly large for particles floating in clouds. The Pioneer Venus mission discovered them in early 1971, when one of its instruments measured the tiny shadows of particles passing by. They’re not tiny spheres, but amorphous blobs, and some scientists wonder whether they might be cells living in the droplets of liquid that make up the clouds.

As incredible a discovery as that would be, the Mode 3 particles could also be an optical illusion; the result of overlapping shadows of round droplets, or a problem with the Pioneer Venus instrument’s calibration. They could also be grains of dust blown aloft from the dead surface of Venus, or something else entirely.

All of these mysteries could be clues pointing to alien life in the Venusian clouds – or they could be a stack of coincidences, which future astrobiologists will one day use as a cautionary tale. We just don’t know yet.

“There are far more unanswered questions about Venus than any other planet,” says Limaye.

A TALE OF TWO PLANETS

Venus is both the most and the least Earth-like planet we know of. It’s about the same size as our home world, and it’s also a rocky world, shrouded by an atmosphere, in the habitable zone of our Sun. But Venus is also a hellworld that rotates backwards, where temperatures on the ground could melt lead and the clouds rain sulfuric acid. But some scientists argue high above the deadly heat and crushing pressure of the surface, the acidic clouds actually aren’t so bad, that is if you’re a microbe evolved to like that sort of thing.

“Venus is often overlooked as a target for astrobiology,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology astrobiologist Janusz Petkowski tells Inverse. “This is an unfair assessment.” Petkowski and his colleagues recently published a paper in the journal Astrobiology presenting a case for a habitable niche in Venus’s clouds.

Once upon a time (almost 4 billion years ago, that is), the young planets Venus and Earth probably looked a lot alike. The fledgling Venus may even have had seas of liquid water, much like the environments where life probably emerged from chemistry on Earth. Researchers like Petkowski and Limaye argue that if Venus and Earth were similar during their youth, there’s no reason life couldn’t have emerged on Venus just like it did on Earth (it’s also plausible that the same thing was happening on Mars at around the same time).

But, as siblings sometimes do, the two planets took very different paths in their adolescent years. For various reasons, Venus’s atmosphere acted like a greenhouse, holding in heat until the seas boiled away and the clouds turned noxious and acidic. But that process took at least a hundred million years, and Petkowski, Limaye, and others are betting that some Venusian life may have evolved quickly enough to survive as the seas evaporated and the clouds got more and more acidic. If they’re right, then colonies of microbes could still be drifting in the upper layers of Venus’s atmosphere, where temperatures are more hospitable, clinging to droplets of fluid or tiny grains of dust that make up the clouds.

LIFE, UH, FINDS A WAY

“No life on Earth could actually survive in Venus’s clouds,” says Petkowski.” “But if we define habitability as an environment that allows any kind of organic chemistry to survive – maybe even life with different chemical composition and different biochemical solutions – then Venus’s clouds could be potentially habitable.”

The cloud layers of Venus’s upper atmosphere stay between freezing and boiling — exactly the right temperature range for life — but they’re made mostly of droplets of sulfuric acid, mingled with a few microscopically tiny droplets of water. No environment on Earth is remotely similar. But seeing how the scrappiest, stubbornest Earth life has adapted to milder versions of these challenges, astrobiologists can learn how life might adapt to the harsh conditions of Venus.

Here on Earth, for example, some microbes that live in acidic hot springs have found ways to neutralize the acid around them. Venus’s clouds are much more acidic than even the most caustic hot springs here on Earth, but given millions of years to adapt, it’s possible that microbes could keep pace with their changing environment. Petkowski and his colleagues suggest that multi-layered cell walls or acid-resistant membranes could also help microbes keep the acid out and the water in.

For now, that’s all speculation, but in recent lab experiments, Worcester Polytechnic Institute chemist Maxwell Seager and his colleagues found that some amino acids (chemical compounds that form the building blocks for proteins) are completely fine hanging out in a mixture of 98 percent sulfuric acid and 2 percent water. In previous experiments, the same team learned that nucleic acids (the molecules that store the genetic code) are also undaunted by super-acidic conditions.

That could be good news for life, but surviving the acid clouds is just one part of the challenge. Life — at least life as we know it — needs water to survive, and if there’s water in Venus’s clouds, it exists in the form of microscopic droplets, and even those are probably few and far between. In the driest places on Earth — carefully climate-controlled libraries — some resourceful microbes use nearby salt to pull just a few molecules of water out of the air. It’s not hard to imagine microbes on Venus doing something similar while clinging to a droplet of liquid in a cloud.

But could microbes spend their whole lives in the air? Some microbes here on Earth spend part of their life cycle in the clouds, but on Venus, sinking too deep into the haze below means a boiling death. Petkowski and colleagues say that resourceful microbes could lock themselves into armored balls called spores when their environments get too hot; inside the spore, a dormant microbe could wait until wind currents lift them back up to where things are cooler.

In other words, life finds a way. Or at least, it theoretically could. We need a lot more information to know for sure, or even to say how likely this scenario could be.

WILL WE EVER FIND A SMOKING GUN?

Upcoming missions to Venus may help answer some questions about what’s really going on in the sulfuric acid clouds: How much water is there? Are there organic molecules? Did Venus ever have liquid water on its surface? All of these are pieces of a much larger question: Could the clouds of Venus be habitable, even for a kind of life that we’ve never seen on Earth?

A commercial spaceflight company called Rocket Lab plans to launch its Venus Life Finder mission in December 2024. Venus Life Finder will look for organic molecules in the upper cloud layers. Finding these molecules won’t prove there’s life on Venus (despite the mission’s ambitious name), but it would show that the acidic clouds are home to the kind of chemistry that makes life work. This would be an encouraging sign.

NASA’s DAVINCI mission, which is planned for a 2029 launch, will study Venus’s atmosphere from orbit — and drop a probe into it. A couple of years later, in 2031, NASA’s VERITAS mission will study the planet’s surface and it’s interior. At around the same time, the European Space Agency’s EnVision mission will also use radar to study the interior of Venus from space.

All of these missions could help scientists understand whether Venus ever had liquid water on its surface, and how the planet’s atmosphere evolved over time (ratios of different chemical isotopes in a planet’s atmosphere can contain clues about its history). They may also help find explanations for the phosphine and even the mysterious UV absorber.

However, all of these missions are still years away even if everything goes according to plan. As JWST and Artemis have both shown us, it seldom does; they call it rocket science for a reason. And none of them will be capable of actually detecting life among the clouds of Venus , only clues about whether it could survive there. The only way to find real proof of life on Venus, according to researchers like Petkowski and Limaye, will be to scoop up a sample of the Venusian clouds and bring it home.

And that possibility is still decades away.

“It will take at least a couple of decades or longer, given the rate at which the previously selected missions are taking to actually be implemented,” says Limaye. “It will be a long time before we actually detect life elsewhere. It's not going to be a single experiment. It's going to take a lot of effort and different experiments and investigations and missions to determine.”

In the meantime, we can speculate, and scientists can find new ways to analyze the data they have. And we can all enjoy the possibility that our Solar System may be a lot wilder and a lot livelier than we thought.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

06-05-2024 om 17:36 geschreven door peter  

Multiple space agencies are looking to send crewed missions to the Moon’s southern polar region in this decade and the next. Moreover, they intend to create the infrastructure that will allow for a sustained human presence, exploration, and economic development. This requires that the local geography, resources, and potential hazards be scouted in advance and navigation strategies that do not rely on a Global Positioning System (GPS) developed. On Sunday, April 21st, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) released the first complete high-definition geologic atlas of the Moon.

This 1:2.5 million scale geological set of maps provides basic geographical data for future lunar research and exploration. According to the Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the volume includes data on 12,341 craters, 81 impact basins, 17 types of lithologies, 14 types of structures, and other geological information about the lunar surface. This data will be foundational to China’s efforts in selecting a site for their International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) and could also prove useful for NASA planners as they select a location for the Artemis Base Camp.

Ouyang Ziyuan and Liu Jianzhong, a research professor and senior researcher from the Institute of Geochemistry of the CAS (respectively), oversaw these efforts. Since 2012, they have led a team of over 100 scientists and cartographers from relevant research institutions. The team spent more than a decade compiling scientific exploration data obtained by the many orbiters, landers, and rovers that are part of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (Chang’e), and other research about the origin and evolution of the Moon.

ccording to the CAS, the atlas includes an “upgraded lunar geological time scale” for “objectively” depicting the geological evolution of the Moon, including the lunar tectonics and volcanic activity that once took place. As a result, the volume could not only be significant in terms of lunar exploration and site selection. Still, it could also improve our understanding of the formation and evolution of Earth and the other terrestrial planets of the Solar System – Mercury, Venus, and Mars. As Jianzhong indicated in a CAS press release,

“The world has witnessed significant progress in the field of lunar exploration and scientific research over the past decades, which have greatly improved our understanding of the moon. However, the lunar geologic maps published during the Apollo era have not been changed for about half a century and are still being used for lunar geological research. With the improvements of lunar geologic studies, those old maps can no longer meet the needs of future scientific research and lunar exploration.”

Jianzhong also claims that the atlas could help inform future sample collection on the Moon. This includes the Chang’e-6 mission (consisting of an orbiter and lander), which launched this past Friday (May 3rd). The orbiter element will reach the Moon in a few days, and the lander element is expected to touch down the far side of the Moon by early June. By 2026, it will be joined by the Chang’e-7 mission, consisting of an orbiter, lander, rover, and a mini-hopping probe. While Chang’e-6 will obtain lunar soil and rock samples, Chang’e-7 will investigate resources and obtain samples of water ice and volatiles.

According to Gregory Michael, a senior scientist from the Free University of Berlin, the release of this atlas represents the culmination of decades of work, and not just by Chinese scientists:

“This map, in particular, is the first on a global scale to utilize all of the post-Apollo era data. It builds on the achievements of the international community over the last decades, as well as on China’s own highly successful Chang’e program. It will be a starting point for every new question of lunar geology and become a primary resource for researchers studying lunar processes of all kinds.”

Aside from updating data on lunar features and geology, the new maps reportedly double the resolution of the Apollo-era maps. These maps were compiled by the US Geological Survey in the 1960s and 70s using data from the Apollo missions. Among them was a global map at the scale of 1:5,000,000, though other regional maps and those that showed the terrain near the Apollo landing sites were of higher resolution. Geological and geographical information on the Moon has advanced considerably since then, requiring updated maps that reflect the objective of returning to the Moon with the intent to stay.

In addition to the Geologic Atlas of the Lunar Globe, the CAS also released a book called Map Quadrangles of the Geologic Atlas of the Moon. This document includes 30 sector diagrams that collectively form a visualization of the entire lunar surface. Both are available in Chinese and English, have been integrated into a digital platform called Digital Moon, and will eventually become available to the international research community.

Further Reading: 

• CAS

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

06-05-2024 om 17:22 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious Object Spotted Over LaGuardia Airport Raises Eyebrows: Possible UFO Sighting

In a bizarre turn of events, a mysterious cylindrical object was reportedly sighted hovering near New York’s LaGuardia Airport, prompting speculation and intrigue among witnesses and experts alike. The incident, captured on camera by Michelle Reyes from her airplane window, has sparked discussions about the possibility of extraterrestrial activity in our skies.

Michelle Reyes, accompanied by her daughter, was aboard a flight over New York City when she inadvertently stumbled upon the enigmatic sight. Initially intending to capture the scenic view of the city skyline, Reyes was taken aback when she noticed an unusual object darting across her line of sight. Describing it as a “flying cylinder,” Reyes was quick to rule out conventional explanations, as the object appeared to be moving autonomously at a remarkable speed.

Following the sighting, Reyes took proactive measures by reaching out to relevant authorities, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), to report the potential safety hazard. Despite her efforts, she received limited acknowledgment, highlighting the challenges faced by individuals attempting to report such incidents.

The perplexing nature of the sighting garnered attention from UFO investigator Ben Hansen, known for his work on Discovery’s “UEFA Witness.” After an extensive analysis of the footage, Hansen expressed his belief in the authenticity of the video, debunking claims of fabrication or hoax. His assessment adds weight to the possibility that the object spotted near LaGuardia Airport may indeed be of extraterrestrial origin.

One intriguing aspect of the sighting is the corroborating testimony from another passenger on the same flight, confirming the presence of a similar object. This additional witness account strengthens the credibility of Reyes’ report, indicating that multiple individuals observed the anomaly, further validating its significance.

• https://youtu.be/8wVw5ByNb9c

Despite efforts to rationalize the sighting, experts have struggled to provide a definitive explanation. While some speculate that the object could be a drone, its exceptional speed and unconventional behavior cast doubt on such assertions. Moreover, the absence of a coherent response from aviation authorities only serves to deepen the mystery surrounding the incident.

In light of this compelling evidence, it is imperative that such sightings be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated. The potential implications of encountering unidentified aerial phenomena cannot be understated, warranting a concerted effort to discern the truth behind these enigmatic encounters.

As we continue to grapple with the unexplained, incidents like the one witnessed over LaGuardia Airport serve as a reminder of the vastness of the unknown and the limitless possibilities that lie beyond our comprehension. Whether it be a fleeting glimpse of extraterrestrial visitors or a trick of the light, the quest for answers persists, fueling our curiosity and expanding our understanding of the universe.

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

06-05-2024 om 17:07 geschreven door peter  

UFO With Entities Did Land In Rendlesham Forest & Filmed On Cine Camera, Revealed In New USAF Airman Testimony

The Rendlesham Forest UAP incident is one of the legendary UFO encounter cases in the history of UFOlogy. In 1980, Lt. Col. Charles Halt, a deputy commander of the US Air Force Base, received the news of strange sightings near twin NATO airbases of RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk, England. In the early morning of December 26, Airman First Class John Burroughs reported the sighting that included vague descriptions, ranging from unusual supernatural light, glittering triangular spaceships, and scorched footprints on the ground.

It is always argued whether the Suffolk UFO landing actually happened or it was just a hoax. On the official note, there is no physical evidence to prove this claim, only testimonies provided by credible witnesses. As the years passed, a piece of new information indulged which opened many untold stories of this case.

Gary Heseltine, a former police detective and UFO investigator recounts the complex story of the Rendlesham Forest UFO incidents, which is considered the second most famous UFO case after Roswell in 1947. Heseltine researched the case for over five years, analyzing various published materials and uncovering lesser-known information.

In his book, “NON-HUMAN: The Rendlesham Forest UFO Incidents: 42 Years of Denial“, he presented amazing new military testimony from a previously unknown witness. The book discusses the political aspects of the incident, suggesting that the narrative may have been controlled by a few individuals for years. Heseltine argues that the UK and US governments have downplayed the true significance of the case.

This series of events occurred between December 26 and December 28, 1980. A mysterious flying object flew at such an incredible speed that violated the laws of physics. Moreover, despite the very high speed, the alien spacecraft did not make any noise.

The incident involves a young airman’s claim of witnessing a translucent UFO about 30 ft in diameter landing in a farmer’s field. This claim has been debated for many years. Later, round-shaped prints were found on the ground clearly from a heavy object, which were at a distance of about 3 meters from each other. Burns were also seen near these grooves on the ground.

On December 28, when soldiers were sent for a more thorough study of the area, they noted the excess of radiation. And at this time, a UFO reappeared, it flew by with incredible speed, illuminating everything around with bright red lights. The light emanating from the ship was so strong that the sensors of the night sights burned out, and the lights continued to hover and shine over the forest and field for some time.

Heseltine discovered a new witness account that sheds new light on the landing of a triangular-shaped UFO in the forest, an event previously recounted publicly only by Staff Sgt Jim Penniston and Airman John Burroughs. Heseltine reveals that after extensive research, he has obtained corroboration from a military witness, Sergeant Adrian Bustinza, confirming the occurrence of a UFO landing.

In a four and half hour transatlantic telephone interview (which was audio recorded) he admitted that he had been involved in a second UFO related event, a landing of a translucent craft approximately 30 feet in diameter which was surrounded by a ring of US Air Force Security police officers, writes Heseltine. (Source)

The landing was filmed on video and cine cameras, marking it as the second UFO landing event. Heseltine emphasizes that Bustinza’s involvement was significant because he was part of the security perimeter around the craft, as was Larry Warren, an honorably discharged military eyewitness, and was the first to go public about the Bentwaters UFO cover-up.

Sergeant Bustinza’s account corroborates Warren’s version of events, confirming that the entire incident was being filmed. Additionally, Bustinza states that Colonel Gordon Williams, the Base Commander of the twin US bases of RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge, was present at the second landing. Despite Colonel Williams’ denial of involvement, both Bustinza and Warren assert that he was present during the event.

“When I arrived [at the scene], it was going in and out through the trees and at one stage it was hovering,” Sgt. Adrian Bustinza said. (Source)

Interestingly, Heseltine mentioned that both Bustinza and Warren state that entities or lifeforms were seen near the craft, engaging in what seemed like a silent confrontation with Colonel Williams. This detail adds a mysterious and intriguing element to the story.

Read also:

• This Footage of Airplane Teleporting With UFOs Appeared After Malaysia Airlines MH370 Disappeared
• US Congresswoman Claims She Saw Photo Evidence Of UFO Technolgy Not Made By Humans
• U.S. Congressman Says UFOs May Be Machines of a Hidden ‘Ancient Earth Civilization’
• Ex-CIA Pilot Said US Buried Huge UFO That Was Too Big To Move, Corroborating Coulthart Claim

Heseltine highlights the significance of Sergeant Adrian Bustinza’s corroboration, as it confirms the existence of the second UFO landing. He asserts that the US Air Force has attempted to cover up this event, but now, with the corroboration from a first-person witness, the truth is emerging.

Moreover, while examining old documentation of the case, Heseltine found a direct admission made by Lt. Col. Charles Halt, the deputy base commander at the time, to an American researcher named Ray Boeche in April 1985. Halt admitted that the second UFO landing did occur, and the craft was surrounded by USAF Security police officers, with Col. Williams present. This admission from Lt. Col. Halt adds further weight to the claims made by Bustinza and Warren.

Alien Abduction

Interestingly, video footage was published in 2018 by the British tabloid newspaper, The Sun, where Retired Lt. Colonel Charles Halt can be heard saying that John Burroughs “may have been abducted” and that the men were “unaccounted” for hours. The video was reportedly captured in 2010 when Halt and retired British police detective Gary Heseltine revisited Rendlesham Forest for a documentary that was never made. The footage was recorded by Heseltine’s wife when the two were talking about the UFO incident during a break.

Halt said: “He [Burroughs] may have been abducted, who knows… You know, there is LOST TIME, we know that? They were not on the radio… You’ve got men out in the forest that you can’t… unaccounted for hours.”

Even though the USAF had always denied any UFO landing in the Rendelsem forest, Burroughs shared the shocking news about his health. He said that he had been subjected to a high amount of radiation during the investigations of the mysterious craft on three consecutive nights in December 1980.

The US military classified Burrough’s medical records, so neither he nor his lawyer were able to get it. Even the USAF denied that he had been working with them during the time of the incident as claimed by Burrough. Somehow, they got a document from the British Ministry of Defence in which it was written that the site had a high level of radiation during the UFO incident.

Finally, after decades, the US Veterans Association and the Department of Defence agreed to pay for his treatment. Besides, in the radiation document, the US military acknowledged the unexplained aerial phenomenon that occurred at the site and caused a physical injury to Burrough.

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

06-05-2024 om 00:59 geschreven door peter  

China Just Launched its Chang'e-6 Mission To Grab Samples From the Elusive Far Side of the Moon

Liftoff for the Moon’s newest robotic visitor.

BY DORIS ELÍN URRUTIA

 

Hector Retamal / AFP / Getty Images

China has launched the Chang’e-6 rover to the Moon.

Chang’e-6 is the latest of the Chang’e fleet, named after the Chinese goddess of the Moon. On Friday, the rover launched atop a Chinese Long March-5 rocket from Wenchang Space Launch Site in south China's Hainan Province. Chang’e-6 has successfully deployed into space, and it’s now heading for the enigmatic far side of the Moon.

Its predecessor, Chang’e-5, collected about 2 kilograms of lunar material from the near side of the Moon in late 2020. This was the first time since the 1970s that humanity had brought samples from the Moon to Earth. In early 2019, Chang’e-4 was the first mission ever to land on the far side of the Moon. Chang’e-6 builds upon all that work.

WHY GO TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON?

Chang’e-6 will be a blend of both those earlier missions: It will retrieve samples from the far side of the Moon. Chang’e-6 will land in the largest and oldest known impact basin on the Moon. Known as the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, it “stretches across nearly a quarter of the Moon,” according to the team that operates NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

It’s a fascinating place. The terrain is quite dramatic. The craters are also thought to have formed 3.9 billion years ago when life was just beginning to form on Earth. If the craters owe their existence to a chaotic episode of rocky bombardment, that same rocky rainfall likely struck Earth and the other terrestrial planets.

According to Chinese state media Xinhua, Chang’e-6 will deploy its robotic arm about 48 hours after landing. It will scoop up rocks and lunar dirt, called regolith. It will also excavate samples with a drill. The 53-day mission will culminate in samples, sealed away and ferried into an orbiter, flying to Earth. They’re expected to land in Inner Mongolia at the end of June.

Chang’e-6 is also carrying scientific instruments from other countries. “The Chang'e-6 mission is carrying four payloads developed through international cooperation. Scientific instruments from France, Italy, and the European Space Agency/Sweden are aboard the Chang'e-6 lander, and a small satellite from Pakistan is aboard the orbiter,” according to Xinhua.

In a year packed with lunar visits from other robots, like Odysseus of Houston-based Intuitive Machines, and Japan’s SLIM lander, Chang’e-6 is set to keep the momentum of 2024 Moon exploration building.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

06-05-2024 om 00:37 geschreven door peter  

Details are only now emerging of a major incident centred on Langley Air Force Base, where assets from NASA were called in to help identify a 'swarm' of unidentified flying objects

READ MORE: 

• Whistleblower tells Congress he knows 'exact' locations Government is housing UFOs

Chris pointed out that the object’s apparent target – Langley Air Force Base – regularly uses an area of sea off the coast of Virgina where former Navy fighter pilot Ryan Graves claimed to have detected multiple "unknown objects" in US airspace.

He added: “Graves said one of the objects was visually reported as ‘a cube within a transparent sphere.’ I'm a retired F-16 pilot I flew for 18 years and I've never heard of anything of that description – particularly if it's flying in high winds.”

Chris said the area around Langley Air Force Base, including the US Navy shipyards at Norfolk, are home to some of America’s most advanced warships.

He explains: “The incidents got so bad that additional assets were called in including the Whiskey Bravo 57F high-flying research plane that NASA owns.

"According to The War Zone this spate of bizarre drone incursions deeply underscores the still growing threats that uncrewed aerial systems [UAS] present on and off traditional battlefields.”

Plane spotters tracked two combat air patrols over the area in mid-December, as well as the advanced NASA plane displaying its ability to fly in absolutely perfect circles around Langley even in the face of high winds.

It’s only now that the purpose of these air patrols has emerged. A USAF spokesperson said: "To protect operational security, we do not discuss impacts to operations.

"We don’t discuss our specific force protection measures but retain the right to protect the installation. Langley continues to monitor our air space and work with local law enforcement and other federal agencies to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities, and assets."

Chris noted that the exact reason for all this activity, in what is a militarily sensitive location, has not been revealed. He continued: “There's tons of important assets here; nuclear assets as well just an amazing amount of military hardware is it actually China on the east coast of the United States? because that would be quite interesting. Or is it people operating drones just in the general area? Is that what sparked all this activity?

“Or, is it UAPs? Could it actually be UAP incursions are picking up or now they're actually taking them seriously?”

Either way, Chris claimed this is an embarrassing incident for the USAF. “Its airspace getting penetrated for weeks on end is clearly not the best look – especially after major lapses in domain awareness and air defence capabilities were recently spotlighted by the Chinese ‘spy balloon’ saga,” he continued.

Langley is home to some of the USAF’s super-advanced F-22 fighters and one of their particular responsibilities is guarding the airspace around Washington DC.

Chris pointed out that there is a wealth of high-value military hardware located in the area. He explained: "Naval Station Norfolk the largest naval base on the east coast.

"It's home to roughly half of America's carrier Fleet and it's located just to the southeast a host of other military installations are also dotted throughout the broader area including Naval Air Station Oceana – that's where Ryan Graves operated out of and that's the Navy's Master tactical jet base on the East Coast also has Navy special warfare's East Coast headquarters."

The War Zone noted that unexplained drone incursions have been logged at military bases across the US. They wrote: “Military aircraft are also routinely encountering drones in various test and training ranges and other restricted military operating areas. America's nuclear power plants have had very troubling encounters with drone swarms.

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

05-05-2024 om 23:50 geschreven door peter  

We could be in contact with aliens within the next few years as our technology continues to improve – and they could be looking for us in the same ways we look for them

By Adam Aiken

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project has been looking for aliens since the 1980s, and one of the top geeks working there is as confident as he’s ever been that they’ll soon strike gold.

Seth Shostak, who has been the senior astronomer at SETI for nearly a quarter of a century, seems to be pretty confident that we’ll come across intelligent aliens by 2036.

READ MORE: 

• Aliens 'signed treaty with government' as 'we've each got something the other wants'
  

He apparently bases this prediction on our rapidly improving technology, with massive strides being taken in terms of our telescopes and computers, reports Mail Online.

On Reddit recently, Seth said: “The trend of improving hardware - mostly computers -- has proceeded unabated. I'm still betting on a signal by 2036.”

And he reckons that once we’ve broken the seal, we could be blown away by how many other places could sustain life as we know it. In fact, he reckons there could be billions of Earth-like worlds out there.

“That may be the strongest argument for life in space,” he said. “If there isn't any, there's something really exceptional about what's happened here on Earth.

“While that's not ruled out by the data, it does seem a little self-centred.

Seth has also revealed the team at SETI have a firm protocol to follow if (or when) they finally confirm the existence of alien life – and it’s all remarkably matter-of-fact.

“There is a document,” said Seth. “Briefly, it says, check the signal to make sure it is truly extraterrestrial. Then announce it to the world, and consult internationally before transmitting a reply.”

We won’t know until it happens what contact from aliens looks like, but some geeks think they’ll be looking for us in the same ways we look for them. For instance, they could spot Earth’s shadow as we pass between them and the Sun.

There are 1,715 star systems which could have spotted Earth within the past 5,000 years, and more than 300 others that will be able to spot us in that way during the next 5,000 years.

Jackie Faherty, an Astrophysicist based at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, said any aliens living on those worlds would have a “front-row seat to finding Earth”.

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

05-05-2024 om 23:28 geschreven door peter  

We could be in contact with aliens within the next few years as our technology continues to improve – and they could be looking for us in the same ways we look for them

By Adam Aiken

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project has been looking for aliens since the 1980s, and one of the top geeks working there is as confident as he’s ever been that they’ll soon strike gold.

Seth Shostak, who has been the senior astronomer at SETI for nearly a quarter of a century, seems to be pretty confident that we’ll come across intelligent aliens by 2036.

READ MORE: 

• Aliens 'signed treaty with government' as 'we've each got something the other wants'
  

He apparently bases this prediction on our rapidly improving technology, with massive strides being taken in terms of our telescopes and computers, reports Mail Online.

On Reddit recently, Seth said: “The trend of improving hardware - mostly computers -- has proceeded unabated. I'm still betting on a signal by 2036.”

And he reckons that once we’ve broken the seal, we could be blown away by how many other places could sustain life as we know it. In fact, he reckons there could be billions of Earth-like worlds out there.

“That may be the strongest argument for life in space,” he said. “If there isn't any, there's something really exceptional about what's happened here on Earth.

“While that's not ruled out by the data, it does seem a little self-centred.

Seth has also revealed the team at SETI have a firm protocol to follow if (or when) they finally confirm the existence of alien life – and it’s all remarkably matter-of-fact.

“There is a document,” said Seth. “Briefly, it says, check the signal to make sure it is truly extraterrestrial. Then announce it to the world, and consult internationally before transmitting a reply.”

We won’t know until it happens what contact from aliens looks like, but some geeks think they’ll be looking for us in the same ways we look for them. For instance, they could spot Earth’s shadow as we pass between them and the Sun.

There are 1,715 star systems which could have spotted Earth within the past 5,000 years, and more than 300 others that will be able to spot us in that way during the next 5,000 years.

Jackie Faherty, an Astrophysicist based at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, said any aliens living on those worlds would have a “front-row seat to finding Earth”.

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

05-05-2024 om 23:28 geschreven door peter  

Researcher Mark Christopher Lee claims the 'Tic Tac' UFO exposed by US whistle blowers 'hovered above a USO emerging from the ocean' 

(Image: Youtube/Nub TV)

The infamous 'Tic-Tac' UFO exposed by US whistle blowers was "hovering above an unidentified submerged object (USO) emerging from the ocean".

This is the claim by UFO researcher and filmmaker Mark Christopher Lee who said the US Military and Navy have been inundated with UFO and USO confrontations since the 1950s, with the navy dubbing USOs their "biggest threat" yet.

The infamous interaction with the Tic-Tac UFO captured by crew members from the USS Nimitz in 2004 marked a significant turning point in human history – with two former Navy pilots having come forward to share their discomforting encounters with the alien craft.

READ MORE: 

• Aliens may not have visited Earth due to one 'morbid' reason, space scientist suggests

But now expert Lee has thrown more questions into the mix as he boldly claimed the Tic-Tac UFO was seen hovering above a USO, something not previously addressed.

"USOs have been seen coming from the oceans for hundreds of years," Lee told the Daily Star. "Even Christopher Columbus saw a USO on his voyage to the new world and the US Navy has had plenty of confrontations with USOs since the 50s and have identified them as the biggest threat.

"Note that the Tic-Tac UFO reported by the recent US whistle blowers was seen hovering above a USO emerging from the ocean. [This makes me think UFOs and USOs] are linked and the tic tac and other UFOs are all able to enter the oceans at will.

"So, in my opinion, all UFOs are also USOs."

While training with a strike group off San Diego's coast back in November 2004, F/A-18 Squadron Lieutenant Alex Dietrich and ex-Navy pilot Dave Fravor spotted an unusual Tic-Tac shaped object via their infra-red cameras.

Nick Pope, a UFO expert who spent 21 years working at the Ministry of Defence and three running its UFO desk, previously told the Daily Star the pilots' claims put humankind in "disturbing territory".

He explained: "To have the Pentagon say 'these are authentic US Navy films' and they are on their own website... along with a note saying these sightings are still unexplained... takes us into new and frankly quite disturbing territory because these Top Guns don't spook easily. They are clearly encountering something outside of their knowledge base and their experience.

"Frankly there is only a couple of possibilities with this sort of thing. Either an adversary has made some sort of quantum leap breakthrough or this really could be some sort of first contact which is exactly how I imagined first contact would be, a sort of war of nerves – pushing at the boundaries, just testing, seeing how good our radar systems are.

"Are they going to pick us up, are they going to scramble jets, what are they going to do? Frankly, I'd rather this was extraterrestrial because if it is an adversary like China or Russia and they've got stuff... we're in big trouble.

"Usually with technological advances they come in steps and here it's like there are 10 steps missing. That just doesn't normally happen. It's as if you went from the Wright Brothers to a stealth fighter with nothing in between.''

READ NEXT:

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• 'I reached out to aliens telepathically – they arrived in UFO and made chilling move'
• Amanda Holden, 53, goes braless as she displays ageless figure in thigh-split dress
• Simple masturbation trick gives amazing orgasms – but only 3% of people do it
• Aliens 'signed treaty with government' as 'we've each got something the other wants'

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/ }

05-05-2024 om 21:19 geschreven door peter  

Manganese-Rich Sandstones Point to Earth-Like Environment on Ancient Mars

In May 2017, NASA’s Curiosity rover observed higher than usual amounts of manganese in the lakebed rocks within Gale crater, Mars. These sedimentary rocks have larger grain sizes than what is typical for the lakebed rocks in the crater. This may indicate that the original sediments were formed in a river, delta, or near the shoreline in the ancient lake. In a new paper, Dr. Patrick Gasda from Los Alamos National Laboratory and his colleagues discuss how manganese could have been enriched in these rocks — for example, by percolation of groundwater through the original sediments or through the rock afterward — and what oxidant could be responsible for the precipitation of manganese in the rocks. On Earth, manganese becomes enriched because of oxygen in the atmosphere and this process is often sped up by the presence of microbes. Microbes on Earth can use the many oxidation states of manganese as energy for metabolism; if life was present on ancient Mars, the increased amounts of manganese in these rocks along the lake shore would be a helpful energy source for life.

Mastcam mosaic from the Sol 1686 rover location looking behind the rover (downslope) at the transition point between the Sutton Island and Blunts Point Murray members. Images from Sols 1685-1689 display sedimentary textures of dark-toned manganese-rich sandstones and nearby rocks. Dashed line boxes in the large mosaic are shown as insets along the bottom of figure. Small red outlines show the approximate locations and extent of ChemCam observations. Throughout this transition area, dark-toned sandstones (presumably manganese-rich based on ChemCam observations at three locations) overlie light-toned materials. Insets from left to right: (a) Denning Brook, a manganese-rich fine-grained dark-toned sandstone ChemCam observation; (b) and (c) two light-toned blocks with cross-stratified textures, highlighted with yellow lines, 6 m away from Denning Brook and to the upper left in the large mosaic; (d) dark-toned materials (center of mosaic); and (E1) Newport Ledge, (E2) AEGIS post 1685a, (E3) Sugarloaf Mountain, three thin planar laminated dark-toned sandstones.

Image credit: NASA / Caltech-JPL / MSSS.

“It is difficult for manganese oxide to form on the surface of Mars, so we didn’t expect to find it in such high concentrations in a shoreline deposit,” Dr. Gasda said.

“On Earth, these types of deposits happen all the time because of the high oxygen in our atmosphere produced by photosynthetic life, and from microbes that help catalyze those manganese oxidation reactions.”

“On Mars, we don’t have evidence for life, and the mechanism to produce oxygen in Mars’ ancient atmosphere is unclear, so how the manganese oxide was formed and concentrated here is really puzzling.”

“These findings point to larger processes occurring in the Martian atmosphere or surface water and shows that more work needs to be done to understand oxidation on Mars.”

To measure manganese abundances in lakebed rocks within Gale crater, Dr. Gasda and co-authors used the ChemCam instrument onboard NASA’s Curiosity rover.

“ChemCam is an atomic emission spectroscopy instrument that uses laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) to quantify elemental abundances present in a target,” they explained.

“The ChemCam LIBS uses a pulsed laser emitting a 1,067 nm beam that is focused onto a target up to 7 m from the rover, which produces an analytical footprint of 350-550 μm.”

NASA’s Curiosity rover continues to search for signs that Mars’ Gale Crater conditions could support microbial life. 

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

“Each laser pulse ablates and ionizes a small (nanograms to micrograms) amount of material.”

“Light emitted from the plasma formed by each laser pulse is collected by the ChemCam telescope, and spectra are recorded by the ultraviolet, violet, and visible to near infrared spectrometers.”

The sedimentary rocks explored by the Curiosity rover are a mix of sands, silts, and muds.

The sandy rocks are more porous, and groundwater can more easily pass through sands compared to the muds that make up most of the lakebed rocks in Gale crater.

{ https://www.sci.news/ }

05-05-2024 om 20:54 geschreven door peter  

Webb Probably Didn’t Detect Biosignature Gas on K2-18b

This illustration depicts NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope – the largest, most powerful, and most complex space science telescope ever built – fully unfolded in space.

(Credits: NASA/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez)

In 2023, astronomers reported a tentative detection of dimethyl sulfide — which is predominately produced by marine microbes on Earth and regarded as a biosignature gas — in the atmosphere of the super-Earth exoplanet K2-18b. In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, University of California, Riverside astronomer Shang-Min Tsai and colleagues challenge this finding, but also outline how the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope might verify the presence of dimethyl sulfide.

Rendering of the likely view on a Hycean world.

Image credit: Shang-Min Tsai / UCR.

K2-18 is a red dwarf located approximately 111 light-years away in the constellation of Leo.

Also known as EPIC 201912552, the star hosts two massive exoplanets: K2-18b and K2-18c.

First discovered in 2015, K2-18b has a radius of 2.2 times that of Earth and is about 8 times as massive.

The planet orbits its star every 33 days at a distance of approximately 0.15 AU and has an Earth Similarity Index of 0.73.

It receives 1.28 times the light intensity of Earth, and its equilibrium temperature is 28 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 2 degrees Celsius).

K2-18c, discovered in 2017, has a mass about 7.5 times that of Earth, orbits the host star one every 9 days, and is probably too hot to be in the habitable zone.

In 2023, astronomers reported a tentative detection of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) in the atmosphere of K2-18b.

“K2-18b gets almost the same amount of solar radiation as Earth,” Dr. Tsai said.

“And if atmosphere is removed as a factor, K2-18b has a temperature close to Earth’s, which is also an ideal situation in which to find life.”

“K2-18b’s atmosphere is mainly hydrogen, unlike our nitrogen-based atmosphere.”

“But there was speculation that K2-18b has water oceans, like Earth. That makes K2-18b a potentially Hycean world, which means a combination of a hydrogen atmosphere and water oceans.”

“What was icing on the cake, in terms of the search for life, is that last year researchers reported a tentative detection of DMS in the atmosphere of that planet, which is produced by ocean phytoplankton on Earth.”

“DMS is the main source of airborne sulfur on our planet and may play a role in cloud formation.”

Because the telescope data were inconclusive, Dr. Tsai and co-authors wanted to understand whether enough DMS could accumulate to detectable levels on K2-18b.

“The DMS signal from Webb was not very strong and only showed up in certain ways when analyzing the data,” Dr. Tsai said.

“We wanted to know if we could be sure of what seemed like a hint about DMS.”

This art’s tisimpression shows planets K2-18b and c and their host star.

Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / M. Kornmesser.

Based on computer models that account for the physics and chemistry of DMS, as well as the hydrogen-based atmosphere, the researchers found that it is unlikely the data show the presence of DMS.

“The signal strongly overlaps with methane, and we think that picking out DMS from methane is beyond this instrument’s capability,” Dr. Tsai said.

However, the scientists believe it is possible for DMS to accumulate to detectable levels.

For that to happen, plankton or some other life form would have to produce 20 times more DMS than is present on Earth.

Detecting life on exoplanets is a daunting task, given their distance from Earth.

To find DMS, Webb would need to use an instrument better able to detect infrared wavelengths in the atmosphere than the one used last year.

Fortunately, the telescope will use such an instrument later this year, revealing definitively whether DMS exists on K2-18b.

“The best biosignatures on an exoplanet may differ significantly from those we find most abundant on Earth today,” said Dr. Eddie Schwieterman, an astrobiologist at the University of California, Riverside.

“On a planet with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, we may be more likely to find DMS made by life instead of oxygen made by plants and bacteria as on Earth.”

• Shang-Min Tsai et al. 2024. Biogenic Sulfur Gases as Biosignatures on Temperate Sub-Neptune Waterworlds. ApJL 966, L24; doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ad3801

LINKS VIDEOS

• https://youtu.be/2WCzlACGULs

• https://youtu.be/e_uwbGVX1Lg

{ https://www.sci.news/ }

05-05-2024 om 20:38 geschreven door peter  

The mirror is called a primary/tertiary mirror because it comprises two optical surfaces with different curvatures. The primary mirror is 8.4 meters, while the tertiary mirror is 5 meters in diameter. The pair of surfaces are combined into one large structure. The unique design reduces the telescope’s engineering complexity without reducing its impressive light-gathering capability. It can be rotated quickly and also settles quickly.

The outer surface forms the primary mirror. It captures light from space first, then that light reflects upwards to the 3.4-meter secondary mirror. After that, it’s reflected back down to the inner 5.0-meter surface that forms the tertiary mirror. Then, the light is sent to the camera.

The primary mirror’s size is critical because it determines how much light the telescope can collect. More light means astronomers can study very faint or distant objects. The VRO’s design allows the camera to capture a large area of sky the size of 7 full moons across in a single image.

via GIPHY

Only meticulous engineering and construction can build a telescope like this. One of the stages is putting the reflective and protective coatings on the mirrors. The VRO announced that the primary/tertiary mirror has its first coating.

The VRO has a special onsite coating chamber built just for this purpose. It’s a 128-ton chamber on the observatory’s maintenance floor. It uses a process called magnetron sputtering to apply coatings. The chamber will be reused during the telescope’s lifetime whenever the mirror needs re-coating.

The chamber can apply coatings of different reflective materials alone or in combinations. It took a lot of work to determine the perfect coating for reflectivity and durability. Researchers tested different coatings on a steel stand-in mirror.

The first layer was an adhesive layer of nickel-chromium. Next came an incredibly thin layer of silver weighing only 64 grams spread over the 8.4-meter mirror. On top of that, another nickel-chromium adhesive layer, then a protective layer of silicon nitride to shield the reflective layer.

The person in charge of these precision coatings is Tomislav Vucina, the Senior Coating Engineer. Vucina describes the coatings as a balancing act. “This outer layer needs to be thick enough that it’s not worn off by cleaning,” said Vucina, “but not so thick that it absorbs too many photons and prevents the mirror from meeting Rubin’s scientific requirements.”

Until these coatings were applied, the glass was just glass. Highly specialized glass, but glass nonetheless. Now that the glass has received its reflective silver coating, it’s truly a mirror.

The application process took only 4.5 hours, nothing compared to the 7 years required to build the primary/tertiary mirror. Vucina and his team subjected the mirror to a battery of tests: reflectivity, adhesion, pinhole, and cosmetic. According to Vucina, the application process was successful.

“This was a very well-conducted project from every angle,” said Vucina, “thanks to a combination of careful planning and the technical skills of our excellent team.”

It’s been a long road to completion for the VRO. But after a long wait, first light is rapidly approaching. Excitement and anticipation for the observatory’s unique and powerful scientific contribution is growing. Its main output is the decade-long Legacy Survey of Space and Time.

“We’re extremely excited that both mirrors are now coated and will be installed on the telescope very soon,” said Sandrine Thomas, Deputy Director for Rubin Construction. “The combined reflectivity of these mirrors will enable Rubin to detect very faint and far-away objects, leading to great science!”

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

05-05-2024 om 18:29 geschreven door peter  

The JWST is astronomers’ best tool for probing exoplanet atmospheres. Its capable instruments can dissect the light passing through a distant world’s atmosphere and determine its chemical components. Scientists are interested in everything the JWST finds, but when it finds something indicating the possibility of life it seizes everyone’s attention.

That’s what happened in September 2023, when the JWST found dimethyl sulphide (DMS) in the atmosphere of the exoplanet K2-18b.

K2-18b orbits a red dwarf star about 124 light-years away. It’s a sub-Neptune with about 2.5 times Earth’s radius and 8.6 Earth masses. The exoplanet may be a Hycean world, a temperate ocean-covered world with a large hydrogen atmosphere.

In October 2023, researchers announced the tentative detection of dimethyl sulphide in K2-18b’s atmosphere. They found it in JWST observations of the planet’s atmospheric spectrum. “The spectrum also suggests potential signs of dimethyl sulphide (DMS), which has been predicted to be an observable biomarker in Hycean worlds, motivating considerations of possible biological activity on the planet,” the researchers wrote.

The DMS caught people’s attention because it’s produced by living organisms here on Earth, mostly by marine microbes. So, finding it on an ocean world is cause for a deeper look. A team of researchers from the USA, Germany, and the UK examined the detection to see how it fits with atmospheric models.

“The best biosignatures on an exoplanet may differ significantly from those we find most abundant on Earth today.”

Eddie Schwieterman, astrobiologist, University of California, Riverside

They published their results in a paper in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. It’s titled “Biogenic Sulfur Gases as Biosignatures on Temperate Sub-Neptune Waterworlds.” The lead author is Shang-Min Tsai, a University of California Riverside project scientist.

Most of the thousands of exoplanets we’ve discovered are nothing like Earth. Habitability is impossible according to every known metric. But some are more intriguing. Some, like K2-18b, are more difficult to understand regarding habitability.

There’s some disagreement over what type of planet K2-18b is. It was the first exoplanet scientists ever detected water vapour on. It may be the first example of a Hycean world if they exist.

There are some clear differences between K2-18b and Earth. Our atmosphere is dominated by nitrogen, which makes up about 78%. K2-18b’s atmosphere is dominated by hydrogen. But it’s enough like Earth in some ways that scientists are keen to understand it better.

“This planet gets almost the same amount of solar radiation as Earth. And if atmosphere is removed as a factor, K2-18b has a temperature close to Earth’s, which is also an ideal situation in which to find life,” said lead author Shang-Min Tsai.

The researchers who found DMS in K2-18b’s atmosphere also found carbon dioxide and methane. Finding CO₂ and CH₄ is noteworthy, but finding DMS with them is even more intriguing.

“What was icing on the cake, in terms of the search for life, is that last year these researchers reported a tentative detection of dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, in the atmosphere of that planet, which is produced by ocean phytoplankton on Earth,” Tsai said. DMS is oxidized in Earth’s oceans and is the planet’s main source of atmospheric sulphur.

However, the 2023 findings were not conclusive. There were hints of DMS but nothing strong enough to convince scientists and overcome their professional skepticism. “The potential inference of DMS is of high importance, as it is known to be a robust biomarker on Earth and has been extensively advocated to be a promising biomarker for exoplanets,” the authors of the 2023 paper explained.

“The DMS signal from the Webb telescope was not very strong and only showed up in certain ways when analyzing the data,” Tsai said. “We wanted to know if we could be sure of what seemed like a hint about DMS.”

The JWST has no alarm bell and flashing indicator that lights up and says, ‘Biomarker Detected!’ It produces data that must be processed to tease out its secrets. Scientists also rely on battle-tested climate and atmospheric chemistry models to understand what the JWST sees.

“In this study, we explore biogenic sulphur across a wide range of biological fluxes and stellar UV environments,” the researchers write. They performed experiments with a 2D photochemical model and a 3D general circulation model (GCM.) According to Tsai and his co-researchers, the data is unlikely to show the presence of DMS in K2-18b’s atmosphere.

“The signal strongly overlaps with methane, and we think that picking out DMS from methane is beyond this instrument’s capability,” Tsai said.

That doesn’t mean that DMS is ruled out. It’s possible that the chemical could build up to detectable levels if plankton or some other life form were producing it. But, they’d have to produce about 20 times more DMS than there is on Earth.

Professor Madhusudhan from Cambridge University is the lead author of the 2023 paper on K2-18b’s atmosphere. He’s being touted in the media as the man who discovered alien life on another planet. He’s clearly uncomfortable with some of the hyperbole, but the message is becoming bigger than the messenger.

This study will probably put a damper on the media’s enthusiasm. But for people who follow science, this is just another instance of science correcting itself.

The fact is, we’re only groping our way toward understanding exoplanet atmospheres. Scientists have a powerful tool in the JWST, but it has limitations. It measures light in extreme detail and leaves the rest up to us. “We find that it is challenging to identify DMS at 3.4 ?m where it strongly overlaps with CH₄,” the authors explain. But, they continue, “it is more plausible to detect DMS … in the mid-infrared between 9 and 13 ?m,” the authors explain.

That means there’s hope for K2-18b. These observations were taken with the JWST’s near-infrared instruments, the NIRISS and the NIRSpec. Sometime next year, the JWST will examine the exoplanet’s atmosphere again, this time with its mid-infrared instrument MIRI. This instrument should tell us definitively whether DMS is present.

Scientists’ understanding of biosignatures has grown more detailed. Instead of searching for biosignatures like the ones on Earth, scientists are taking a larger, more holistic view of biosignatures and the nature of the atmospheres they might be present in.

“The best biosignatures on an exoplanet may differ significantly from those we find most abundant on Earth today. On a planet with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, we may be more likely to find DMS made by life instead of oxygen made by plants and bacteria as on Earth,” said UCR astrobiologist Eddie Schwieterman, a senior author of the study.

The team’s work does show that sulphur could be a detectable biomarker for Hycean worlds. “The moderate threshold for biological production suggests that the search for biogenic sulphur gases as one class of potential biosignature is plausible for Hycean worlds,” they conclude.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

05-05-2024 om 18:16 geschreven door peter  

As mentioned, astronomers rely extensively on machine learning algorithms to sort through the volumes of data obtained by modern telescopes and instruments. This practice began about a decade ago and has since grown by leaps and bounds to the point where AI has been integrated into the entire research process. As ICRA President and the study’s lead author Yu Wang told Universe Today via email:

“Astronomy has always been driven by data and astronomers are some of the first scientists to adopt and employ machine learning. Now, machine learning has been integrated into the entire astronomical research process, from the manufacturing and control of ground-based and space-based telescopes (e.g., optimizing the performance of adaptive optics systems, improving the initiation of specific actions (triggers) of satellites under certain conditions, etc.), to data analysis (e.g., noise reduction, data imputation, classification, simulation, etc.), and the establishment and validation of theoretical models (e.g., testing modified gravity, constraining the equation of state of neutron stars, etc.).”

Data analysis remains the most common among these applications since it is the easiest area where machine learning can be integrated. Traditionally, dozens of researchers and hundreds of citizen scientists would analyze the volumes of data produced by an observation campaign. However, this is not practical in an age where modern telescopes are collecting terabytes of data daily. This includes all-sky surveys like the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS) and the many phases conducted by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).

To date, LLMs have only been applied sporadically to astronomical research, given that they are a relatively recent creation. But according to proponents like Wang, it has had a tremendous societal impact and has a lower-limit potential equivalent to an “Industrial Revolution.” As for the upper limit, Wang predicts that that could range considerably and could perhaps result in humanity’s “enlightenment or destruction.” However, unlike the Industrial Revolution, the pace of change and integration is far more rapid for AI, raising questions about how far its adoption will go.

To determine its potential for the field of astronomy, said Wang, he and his colleagues adopted a pre-trained GPT model and fine-tuned it to identify astronomical phenomena:

“OpenAI provides pre-trained models, and what we did is fine-tuning, which involves altering some parameters based on the original model, allowing it to recognize astronomical data and calculate results from this data. This is somewhat like OpenAI providing us with an undergraduate student, whom we then trained to become a graduate student in astronomy. 

“We provided limited data with modest resolution and trained the GPT fewer times compared to normal models. Nevertheless, the outcomes are impressive, achieving an accuracy of about 90%. This high level of accuracy is attributable to the robust foundation of the GPT, which already understands data processing and possesses logical inference capabilities, as well as communication skills.”

To fine-tune their model, the team introduced observations of various astronomical phenomena derived from various catalogs. This included 2000 samples of quasars, galaxies, stars, and broad absorption line (BAL) quasars from the SDSS (500 each). They also integrated observations of short and long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), galaxies, stars, and black hole simulations. When tested, their model successfully classified different phenomena, distinguished between types of quasars, inferred their distance based on redshift, and measured the spin and inclination of black holes.

“This work at least demonstrates that LLMs are capable of processing astronomical data,” said Wang. “Moreover, the ability of a model to handle various types of astronomical data is a capability not possessed by other specialized models. We hope that LLMs can integrate various kinds of data and then identify common underlying principles to help us understand the world. Of course, this is a challenging task and not one that astronomers can accomplish alone.”

Of course, the team acknowledges that the dataset they experimented with was very small compared to the data output of modern observatories. This is particularly true of next-generation facilities like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which recently received its LSST camera, the largest digital camera in the world! Once Rubin is operational, it will conduct the ten-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which is expected to yield 15 terabytes of data per night! Satisfying the demands of future campaigns, says Wang, will require improvements and collaboration between observatories and professional AI companies.

Nevertheless, it’s a foregone conclusion that there will be more LLM applications for astronomy in the near future. Not only is this a likely development, but a necessary one considering the sheer volumes of data astronomical studies are generating today. And since this is likely to increase exponentially in the near future, AI will likely become indispensable to the field of study.

Further Reading: 

• arXiv

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

05-05-2024 om 17:59 geschreven door peter  

You’ve seen the Sun, but you’ve never seen the Sun like this. This single frame from a video captured by ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission shows the Sun looking very …. fluffy!  You can see feathery, hair-like structures made of plasma following magnetic field lines in the Sun’s lower atmosphere as it transitions into the much hotter outer corona. The video was taken from about a third of the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

See the full video below, which shows unusual features on the Sun, including coronal moss, spicules, and coronal rain.  

Solar Orbiter recorded this video on September 27, 2023 using its Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument.

ESA said the brightest regions are around one million degrees Celsius, while cooler material looks darker, as it absorbs radiation.

So, just what is coronal moss? It’s what gives the Sun its fluffy appearance here. These peculiar structures on the Sun resemble the moss we find on Earth, in that it appears like fine, lacy features. But on the Sun, they usually can be found around the center of sunspot groups, where magnetic conditions are strong and large coronal loops are forming. The moss is so hot, most instruments can’t detect them. The moss spans two atmospheric layers, the chromosphere and corona.

Features on the Sun’s surface, as seen by Solar Orbiter.

Credit: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/EUI Team

Spicules, as their name implies, are tall spires of gas seen on the solar horizon that reach up from the Sun’s chromosphere. These can reach up to a height of 10,000 km (6,000 miles).

At about 0:30 in the video, you’ll see coronal rain. This material is cooler than the rest of the solar surface (probably less than 10,000 °C) versus the one million degrees C of the coronal loops. The rain is made of higher-density clumps of plasma that fall back towards the Sun under the influence of gravity.

Did you see the small eruption in the center of the field of view at about 0:20 seconds in the video? , with cooler material being lifted upwards before mostly falling back down. It’s not small at all — this eruption is bigger than Earth!

Missions like Solar Orbiter, the Parker Solar Probe and the Solar Dynamics Observatory are giving us unprecedented views of the Sun, helping astronomers to learn more about the dynamic ball of gas that powers our entire Solar System.

Further reading: 

• ESA

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

05-05-2024 om 17:45 geschreven door peter  

{ https://scientias.nl/ }

05-05-2024 om 00:21 geschreven door peter  

{ https://scientias.nl/ }

05-05-2024 om 00:21 geschreven door peter  

Wanneer vindt de volgende massa-extinctie plaats? De wetenschap weet het

Slechts een klein deel van de aarde zal bewoonbaar blijven tijdens wat volgens wetenschappers de grootste massa-extinctie sinds de ondergang van de dinosauriërs kan worden.

DOOR NANNA VIUM

Extreme temperaturen, intense straling en een totale instorting van de voedselvoorziening.

Dat klinkt niet bijster aantrekkelijk, maar het kan de harde werkelijkheid worden wanneer in de verre toekomst de landmassa’s van de aarde fuseren om het volgende supercontinent te vormen.

Dit is een deel van de conclusie van een onderzoek van de Universiteit van Bristol, waarin wetenschappers computersimulaties maakten van de invloed van het samenkomen van de landmassa’s op landzoogdieren.

En volgens hun resultaten ziet het er op zijn zachtst gezegd niet best uit.

Het toekomstige supercontinent zal naar verwachting over 250 miljoen jaar rond de evenaar ontstaan en wordt Pangea Ultima genoemd: een verwijzing naar het supercontinent Pangea, dat bestond in het tijdperk van de dinosauriërs.

De afgelopen 2 miljard jaar zijn de continenten verschillende keren verenigd, met zo’n 600 miljoen jaar ertussen. Geologen spreken van de supercontinentcyclus.

Supercomputer voorspelt de toekomst

De oorzaak van de herschikking van het landoppervlak is te vinden in het middelste deel van de aardmantel, waar een hete oceaan van magma de buitenste, vaste platen tegen elkaar duwt.

Enorme botsing creëerde Pangea

Door botsingen tussen de continentale platen waarop de landmassa’s van de aarde rusten, ontstond zo’n 325 miljoen jaar geleden het supercontinent Pangea.

© Claus Lunau

325 miljoen jaar geleden: Continenten botsen

Bijna al het land op aarde is gegroepeerd in twee continenten, Euramerika en Gondwana. De continentale platen waarop de twee landmassa’s rusten, botsen op elkaar, waardoor de Paleo-Tethysoceaan zich sluit.

© Claus Lunau

235 miljoen jaar geleden: Al het land komt samen in Pangea

Alle landmassa’s zijn nu verzameld in Pangea – naar de twee Griekse woorden voor alles (pan) en land/aarde (gaia), terwijl de rest van de aarde wordt bedekt door de oceaan Panthalassa. Thalassa betekent zee.

© Claus Lunau

140 miljoen jaar geleden: Werelddelen ontstaan

De continentale platen bewegen uit elkaar, en Pangea verbrokkelt. De Noord-Atlantische Oceaan is een smalle zeestraat, terwijl Afrika en Zuid-Amerika zich nog aan elkaar vastklampen.

{ https://wibnet.nl/heelal }

04-05-2024 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

No lettering or numbers appear on any of the Roman dodecahedrons that have currently been discovered, although similar objects that include 20-sided icosahedrons of comparable design have also been found. Like many curiosities of the ancient past, their distinctive appearance is strongly suggestive that they were created as devices designed with a specific purpose. Why else would one go to all the trouble of crafting them otherwise?

Although there is still no explanation that researchers agree on in terms of what the objects may have been intended for, several theories have propelled the debate now for decades, and archaeologists may be closing in on discoveries that could provide much-needed context for answering the remaining questions about these ancient Gallo-Roman curiosities.

HISTORY

The earliest known discovery of a Roman dodecahedron is believed to have occurred in 1739 near Aston, Hertfordshire, England. According to an 1849 catalog entry in the miscellaneous collections of the Society of Antiquaries of London, a bronze Roman dodecahedron “found with copper coins at Aston, in Hertfordshire, in a field called Hagdale, was exhibited to the Society by Mr. North [on] June 28, 1739.”

The 1849 entry also discusses the discovery of a similar dodecahedral object nearly three decades later, unearthed from a depth of close to 8 feet on the grounds of St. Peter’s Church at Carmarthen that occurred in May 1768. Described as a “singular object of bronze, in form of a hollow dodecahedron,” the artifact featured “a ball attached to each angle” and a circular opening on “each of its pentagonal sides … the diameters of these perforations increasing gradually from six-tenths to about 1 ½ inch. Each side measures, in diameter, 2 1/5 inches.”

“Several pieces of copper, curiously laid in flag-bricks, were found at the same time, but they crumbled to dust,” the entry states, although it is unclear whether these bricks had any specific relationship to the dodecahedron. Finally, the 1849 catalog entry mentions the discovery of a third dodecahedron “but of smaller size and without balls at the angles, found near Fishguard,” which was delivered to the Society of Antiquaries by the Rev. Edward Harries of Llandysilio, Pembrokeshire, on March 12, 1846.

Over the ensuing centuries, dozens more of the objects have been found in England, France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, and surrounding countries. Curiously, the objects have remained absent amidst archaeological discoveries made in Italy, where one might otherwise presume a concentration of objects of Roman provenance would be located, further adding to the mystery of their purpose.

THEORIES

Given that there is virtually nothing to provide historical context for what these objects may have been designed and used for, a range of theories have emerged over the years that could offer potential solutions to the mystery of the dodecahedrons.

One of the earliest proposed theories among scholars in the 19th century had been that the objects may have been implements of warfare, perhaps serving as a mace head, a component of a net or bolas-type throwing weapon, or even a projectile. However, the hollow design of the dodecahedrons would seem to impose obvious limitations on their effectiveness if used for such purposes.

More recent theories about the Roman dodecahedra involve their possible use as measurement gauges or as a surveying instrument, while other theories hold that they may have had an artistic or decorative purpose. Other theories put forward over the decades have argued that the dodecahedrons may have served as everything from candlestick holders to gaming implements, devices used for determining sowing dates, calibration tools for water pipes, or possibly army standard bases used by Roman soldiers.

According to Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, a researcher with the Department of Applied Science and Technology at the Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy, one novel possibility is that the Roman dodecahedrons served as dioptrons (i.e., rangefinders). ​Drawing from sources based entirely online, Sparavigna concluded in a 2o12 paper that features common among all the known Roman dodecahedrons point to their use as optical instruments for the measurement of angles and estimating distances.

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

04-05-2024 om 22:34 geschreven door peter  

Peering down into these giant holes in the Earth, one is greeted not with a desolate rocky cave, but a hidden lush green forest.

“The scene down there was stunning: an underground pristine forest with no trace of human activities, with 40 meter-high ancient trees and a group of endangered wild plants from the times of dinosaurs,” explained Tang Jianmin, an associate Researcher at Guangxi Institute of Botany, in an article.

The process begins when water acidified by carbon dioxide seeps into the soil, slowly dissolving the underlying limestone. Over time, this leads to the creation of underground voids that eventually collapse, forming tiankengs, which is Mandarin for “heavenly pits.”

With 300 known tiankengs in the world, 200 of which are in China, scientists have been studying the various plants and animals that reside there. 

This most recent study conducted by a team of researchers, including Tang Jianmin, from the Guangxi Institute of Botany, utilized advanced Hyper-seq gene sequencing technology to analyze the genetic diversity of Manglietia aromatica, a rare tree species. Sheltered for milenia, this tree thrives in these deep sinkholes, and has avoided the near extinct fate of its surface living brethren. 

According to the study, the genetic diversity within the tiankeng populations of Manglietia aromatica is significantly higher than those found outside these sinkholes. Specifically, the genetic diversity index (π) was 0.2044 for populations within the tiankengs, compared to 0.1671 for those outside. The Chinese scientists suggest that tiankengs may act as natural conservatories, preserving a rich genetic pool that enhances species resilience and adaptability.

Moreover, the study revealed moderate genetic differentiation between populations inside and outside the tiankengs. This moderate differentiation underscores the partial genetic isolation provided by tiankengs, which likely contributes to the unique genetic traits observed within these populations. In really simple terms, life inside these underground forests evolved differently, and if this is the case for Maglietia aromatica, what does this say for all the other species of plants and animals that live there?

Cave explorers came across the sinkhole in Leye County. It is 306 metres in length, 150 metres wide and 192 metres deep. 

Photograph: Courtesy of Guangxi speleology research team 702

The unique microclimates and isolated environments within tiankengs foster the development of diverse ecosystems relatively untouched by human activity. The forests within tiankengs are more than just collections of trees; they are dynamic environments that support complex food webs and ecological interactions. The genetic diversity found in these forests contributes to the overall health and stability of the ecosystem, enabling plants and animals to adapt to changes and resist diseases. Furthermore, these forests play a crucial role in carbon sequestration, helping to mitigate climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The discovery and subsequent studies of China’s karst tiankengs have opened a new chapter in our understanding of conservation biology and the importance of natural refuges in preserving genetic diversity. This most recent study proves that these giant underground forests not only house some of the last remaining members of certain plant and animal species but also genetic variations that have ceased to exist on the surface. 

“You don’t know what you’re going to find in each corner, and sometimes we are surprised and occasionally something breaks through our own expectations,” Veni stated back in 2022. “It’s interesting that we’ve gone from living in caves to now studying and exploring them.”

• MJ Banias covers space, security, and technology with The Debrief. You can email him at mj@thedebrief.org or follow him on Twitter @mjbanias.

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

04-05-2024 om 21:25 geschreven door peter