The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
19-07-2024
NASA's Curiosity rover discovers a surprise in a Martian rock
NASA's Curiosity rover discovers a surprise in a Martian rock
Story by Science X staff
These yellow crystals were revealed after NASA's Curiosity happened to drive over a rock and crack it open on May 30. Using an instrument on the rover's arm, scientists later determined these crystals are elemental sulfur—and it's the first time this kind of sulfur has been found on the Red Planet.
Scientists were stunned on May 30 when a rock that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover drove over cracked open to reveal something never seen before on the Red Planet: yellow sulfur crystals.
Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a region of Mars rich with sulfates, a kind of salt that contains sulfur and forms as water evaporates. But where past detections have been of sulfur-based minerals—in other words, a mix of sulfur and other materials—the rock Curiosity recently cracked open is made of elemental (pure) sulfur. It isn't clear what relationship, if any, the elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.
While people associate sulfur with the odor from rotten eggs (the result of hydrogen sulfide gas), elemental sulfur is odorless. It forms in only a narrow range of conditions that scientists haven't associated with the history of this location. And Curiosity found a lot of it—an entire field of bright rocks that look similar to the one the rover crushed.
"Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert," said Curiosity's project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "It shouldn't be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting."
It's one of several discoveries Curiosity has made while off-roading within Gediz Vallis channel, a groove that winds down part of the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) Mount Sharp, the base of which the rover has been ascending since 2014. Each layer of the mountain represents a different period of Martian history. Curiosity's mission is to study where and when the planet's ancient terrain could have provided the nutrients needed for microbial life, if any ever formed on Mars.
NASA’s Curiosity captured this close-up image of a rock nicknamed “Snow Lake” on June 8, 2024, the 4,209th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Nine days earlier, the rover had crushed a similar-looking rock and revealed crystalline textures—and elemental sulfur—inside.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of Gediz Vallis channel on March 31. This area was likely formed by large floods of water and debris that piled jumbles of rocks into mounds within the channel.
Spotted from space years before Curiosity's launch, Gediz Vallis channel is one of the primary reasons the science team wanted to visit this part of Mars. Scientists think that the channel was carved by flows of liquid water and debris that left a ridge of boulders and sediment extending 2 miles down the mountainside below the channel. The goal has been to develop a better understanding of how this landscape changed billions of years ago, and while recent clues have helped, there's still much to learn from the dramatic landscape.
Since Curiosity's arrival at the channel earlier this year, scientists have studied whether ancient floodwaters or landslides built up the large mounds of debris that rise up from the channel's floor here. The latest clues from Curiosity suggest both played a role: Some piles were likely left by violent flows of water and debris, while others appear to be the result of more local landslides.
Related video:
Humans Could Settle in These Huge Lava Tubes on Mars and the Moon! (Dailymotion)
Those conclusions are based on rocks found in the debris mounds: Whereas stones carried by water flows become rounded like river rocks, some of the debris mounds are riddled with more angular rocks that may have been deposited by dry avalanches.
Finally, water soaked into all the material that settled here. Chemical reactions caused by the water bleached white "halo" shapes into some of the rocks. Erosion from wind and sand has revealed these halo shapes over time.
"This was not a quiet period on Mars," said Becky Williams, a scientist with the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and the deputy principal investigator of Curiosity's Mast Camera, or Mastcam. "There was an exciting amount of activity here. We're looking at multiple flows down the channel, including energetic floods and boulder-rich flows."
A hole in 41
All this evidence of water continues to tell a more complex story than the team's early expectations, and they've been eager to take a rock sample from the channel in order to learn more. On June 18, they got their chance.
While the sulfur rocks were too small and brittle to be sampled with the drill, a large rock nicknamed "Mammoth Lakes" was spotted nearby. Rover engineers had to search for a part of the rock that would allow safe drilling and find a parking spot on the loose, sloping surface.
After Curiosity bored its 41st hole using the powerful drill at the end of the rover's 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm, the six-wheeled scientist trickled the powderized rock into instruments inside its belly for further analysis so that scientists can determine what materials the rock is made of.
Curiosity has since driven away from Mammoth Lakes and is now off to see what other surprises are waiting to be discovered within the channel.
Provided by NASA
This story was originally published on Phys.org. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest sci-tech news updates.
UFO expert worried 'alien craft followed me home' after shooting film on ETs
UFO expert worried 'alien craft followed me home' after shooting film on ETs
EXCLUSIVE: We're all often told not to take our work home with us, but for one avid UFO expert this was seemingly made hard to do after he returned from a shoot to find a UFO loitering near his house
What do you make of it? Let us know in the comments
(Image: Youtube/NubTV)
A UFO investigator has spotted a strange orb he thinks might have followed him home after visiting “The British Roswell”.
Mark Christopher Lee had been in Suffolk making a film in Rendelsham, Suffolk about a 1980 UFO incident that was reported there. But when he got home, he had the strange feeling that something might have followed him home from the shoot.
He felt it weird that, after being away working purely on unidentified phenomena, he returned home to more of the same. “I just question whether we brought something back with us from Rendelsham Forest? Or was it something else?” Mark said.
He told the Daily Star: “It was definitely weird – at first I thought it was an aircraft, but it wasn’t, there was light reflecting off it. There are planes nearby, we get a lot of planes because we live near Luton Airport.
The object 'blipped' in and out(Image: Youtube/NubTV)
“It wasn’t moving, planes come towards you or go away, it was just kind of swaying side to side a little bit. It wasn’t a balloon, there was a bit of a breeze so it would have had more movement. It seemed to be blipping in and out.
“Bear in mind it was a beautiful blue sky and no clouds in the sky. Where was it blipping to? It kept coming back it was very weird.
Mark Christopher Lee spoke to the Daily Star
“It’s definitely unexplained. It was too low for a satellite. I’m quite rational so I try and rule things out but I was left speechless. The fact that it was in the daytime as well.
“I just wonder if there was anyone else in the area that saw it.”
Scottish region branded 'UK's Bermuda Triangle' after 100s of UFO sightings
Scottish region branded 'UK's Bermuda Triangle' after 100s of UFO sightings
A tiny village sandwiched in between Glasgow and Edinburgh has been labelled the UFO hotspot of the UK thanks to hundreds of sightings reported by locals every year
By Danny Gutmann
Bonnybridge has a population of just over 5,000 people
(Image: Sygma via Getty Images)
A small village in Scotland is at the centre of a UFO hotspot region compared to the Bermuda Triangle.
With a population little over 5,000, the village that is placed directly in between Glasgow and Edinburgh was once a beacon for industry. But it is now known for something very different.
Often branded as the UK's answer to Roswell, there have been an average of 300 UFO sightings across the region every year. The reported spacecrafts supposedly take on all different shapes and sizes including cigar shaped crafts over head and even some instances of alien abductions.
Such is the mystery around the strange phenomena that the area has even been coined the 'Falkirk Triangle'.
Many have mused down the years whether the village could be a passage into another dimension, much like the Bermuda Triangle is reported to be. Others have also proposed that the Forth and Clyde Canal acts as a Bermuda-eque stream in between dimension.
Councillor for Falkirk, William Buchanan spoke about one of the more peculiar alien sightings reported in the area(Image: Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF)
And, in a documentary made by TalkTV one encounter stands out ahead of the rest as Councillor for Falkirk, William Buchanan recalls: "I was in the house one night, and I'd just come back from the council, and what happened is, I'd seen a car coming into the driveway and I went out to find out who it was. It was a chap I've known all my days and he say's 'is it okay, can we talk?'.
He continues: "He said 'I need to talk to somebody'. This individual was having an assignation, they were making love, but the problem was that this was his brother's wife, so that in itself was a situation."
But, what Buchanan would describe next is even more shocking, he added: "The next thing is, coming into the woods there, up came these 6ft black aliens looking in the windows and then the next thing is he was in a spaceship and he was getting prodded. He says since that happened we've had ESP (Extra Sensory Perception). He says 'I can levitate. I'e got all these strange powers'.
Despite all of the mysterious goings on across the region, some have put forward other explanations for the disproportionate amount of UFO sightings.
One is that they can simply be put down to top secret military testing, a theory that is often suggested in areas with high levels of UFO reports. Some have even suggested that Bonnybridge would provide the perfect spot for such testing due to its landscape.
Another explanation could be that the UFO-like 'beams of light' could be a result of a natural event such as an aurora or balls of gas that as spectacular as they are, they certainly have nothing to do with extraterrestrials.
Study: Biological Amino Acids Could Survive in Near-Surface Ices of Europa and Enceladus
Study: Biological Amino Acids Could Survive in Near-Surface Ices of Europa and Enceladus
Europa and Enceladus are key targets to search for evidence of alien life in our Solar System. However, the surface and shallow subsurface of these airless icy moons are constantly bombarded by ionizing radiation that could degrade chemical biosignatures. Therefore, sampling of icy surfaces in future life detection missions to Europa and Enceladus requires a clear understanding of the necessary ice depth where unaltered organic biomolecules might be present. A team of scientists from NASA and the Pennsylvania State University has conducted experiments by exposing individual biological and abiotic amino acids in ices to gamma radiation to simulate conditions on these icy worlds.
The surface of Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view; image scale is 1.6 km per pixel; north on Europa is at right.
Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SETI Institute.
“Based on our experiments, the ‘safe’ sampling depth for amino acids on Europa is almost 20 cm (8 inches) at high latitudes of the trailing hemisphere (hemisphere opposite to the direction of Europa’s motion around Jupiter) in the area where the surface hasn’t been disturbed much by meteorite impacts,” said Dr. Alexander Pavlov, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
“Subsurface sampling is not required for the detection of amino acids on Enceladus — these molecules will survive radiolysis (breakdown by radiation) at any location on the Enceladus surface less than a few millimeters (a tenth of an inch) from the surface.”
Dr. Pavlov and his colleagues used amino acids in radiolysis experiments as possible representatives of biomolecules on icy moons.
Amino acids can be created by life or by non-biological chemistry.
However, finding certain kinds of amino acids on Europa or Enceladus would be a potential sign of life because they are used by terrestrial life as a component to build proteins.
Proteins are essential to life as they are used to make enzymes which speed up or regulate chemical reactions and to make structures.
Amino acids and other compounds from subsurface oceans could be brought to the surface by geyser activity or the slow churning motion of the ice crust.
To evaluate the survival of amino acids on these worlds, the researchers mixed samples of amino acids with ice chilled to about minus 196 Celsius (minus 321 Fahrenheit) in sealed, airless vials and bombarded them with gamma-rays, a type of high-energy light, at various doses.
Since the oceans might host microscopic life, they also tested the survival of amino acids in dead bacteria in ice.
Finally, they tested samples of amino acids in ice mixed with silicate dust to consider the potential mixing of material from meteorites or the interior with surface ice.
The experiments provided pivotal data to determine the rates at which amino acids break down, called radiolysis constants.
With these, the scientists used the age of the ice surface and the radiation environment at Europa and Enceladus to calculate the drilling depth and locations where 10% of the amino acids would survive radiolytic destruction.
Although experiments to test the survival of amino acids in ice have been done before, this is the first to use lower radiation doses that don’t completely break apart the amino acids, since just altering or degrading them is enough to make it impossible to determine if they are potential signs of life.
This is also the first experiment using Europa/Enceladus conditions to evaluate the survival of these compounds in microorganisms and the first to test the survival of amino acids mixed with dust.
The scientists found that amino acids degraded faster when mixed with dust but slower when coming from microorganisms.
“Slow rates of amino acid destruction in biological samples under Europa and Enceladus-like surface conditions bolster the case for future life-detection measurements by Europa and Enceladus lander missions,” Dr. Pavlov said.
“Our results indicate that the rates of potential organic biomolecules’ degradation in silica-rich regions on both Europa and Enceladus are higher than in pure ice and, thus, possible future missions to Europa and Enceladus should be cautious in sampling silica-rich locations on both icy moons.”
“A potential explanation for why amino acids survived longer in bacteria involves the ways ionizing radiation changes molecules — directly by breaking their chemical bonds or indirectly by creating reactive compounds nearby which then alter or break down the molecule of interest.”
“It’s possible that bacterial cellular material protected amino acids from the reactive compounds produced by the radiation.”
The team’s paper was published in the journal Astrobiology.
Alexander A. Pavlov et al. 2024. Radiolytic Effects on Biological and Abiotic Amino Acids in Shallow Subsurface Ices on Europa and Enceladus. Astrobiology 24 (7); doi: 10.1089/ast.2023.0120
This article was adapted from an original release by NASA.
AI Focuses UFO Over Brazil Drops Two Objects, Feb 2011, UAP Sighting News.
AI Focuses UFO Over Brazil Drops Two Objects, Feb 2011, UAP Sighting News.
Date of sighting:February 11, 2011
Location of sighting: Sao Paulo, Brazil
I really wanted to run some screenshots of this UFO though ai, and quickly realized that this really was a UFO as it came into focus. AI helps some photos get focused and cleaned up so that we can see the true detail. Sometimes AI can't, so I have to go through about 20-30 sighting photos before I find one thats focuses. AI is the tool of the future for all UFO researchers world wide.
Dat de aarde steeds langzamer draait is geen mysterie, tenminste niet binnen de wetenschappelijke gemeenschap. De redenen hiervoor zijn divers en hebben te maken met de natuurlijke processen die onze planeet beïnvloeden... voor het grootste deel. Volgens recent wetenschappelijk onderzoek vertraagt de rotatiesnelheid van de aarde echter door toedoen van de mens en zijn activiteiten. Laten we eens kijken hoe dit mogelijk is en wat de gevolgen zijn voor onze samenleving.
Van de maan tot de gletsjers: een reis op een steeds trager wordende planeet
Zoals we in de inleiding zeiden, is het onderhand bekend dat de rotatiesnelheid van de aarde om haar as noch vast, noch constant is, voornamelijk als gevolg van twee verschillende processen:
aan de ene kant vertraagt de kern van de Aarde haar rotatiesnelheid;
aan de andere kant verwijdert de Maan zich steeds verder van de Aarde.
Dit zijn natuurlijke processen die leiden tot werkelijk oneindige veranderingen in de rotatiesnelheid van onze planeet, en dus ook in de lengte van de dagen. Door de verwijdering van de maan zal de dag van de aarde bijvoorbeeld 25 uur duren, maar over 200 miljoen jaar. Toch spreekt onderzoek uitgevoerd door het centrum ETH Zürich in samenwerking met NASA over een andere factor die de rotatiesnelheid van de aarde zou kunnen vertragen: de stijging van de temperatuur als gevolg van menselijke activiteiten.
Het verband lijkt werkelijk paradoxaal, maar het is er wel. Onderzoekers hebben namelijk ontdekt hoe hogere temperaturen een kettingreactie hebben veroorzaakt die de dagen op aarde feitelijk verlengt. Het smelten van gletsjers op Antarctica en Groenland leidt er feitelijk toe dat miljoenen kubieke meters water over het hele aardoppervlak worden verspreid, waardoor de rotatiesnelheid van de planeet effectief wordt vertraagd.
De gevolgen van de vertraging van de aarde… op aarde
Unsplash
In hun eerste onderzoek, gepubliceerd in het tijdschrift PNAS, merken de onderzoekers op hoe de temperatuurstijging om antropogene redenen leidt tot langere dagen. Hetzelfde team publiceerde echter ook een tweede onderzoek in het tijdschrift GeoScience, waarin ze kijken naar hoe smeltende gletsjers bijdragen aan het veranderen van de positie van de rotatie-as van de aarde. Samen met andere verschijnselen, zoals de eerder genoemde bewegingen van de kern van de aarde, verschuift de rotatie-as elke 100 jaar ongeveer 10 meter.
De effecten die kunnen worden toegeschreven aan smeltende gletsjers en menselijke activiteiten zijn minimaal, maar er is geen reden tot vreugde. Alle verschijnselen die door de onderzoekers zijn geanalyseerd, zijn namelijk terug te voeren op natuurlijke verschijnselen, en dat hebben we gezien: de maan die afstand neemt, het effect van de getijden, de binnenkern en haar bewegingen, enzovoort. In zo'n beeld speelt echter ook de hand van de mens een rol en kan leiden tot plotselinge versnellingen van deze processen.
De gevolgen van de vertraging van de aarde... voor de mens
De interne en externe processen op aarde zijn daarom meer met elkaar verbonden dan we denken: zoals we hebben gezien, kunnen ze elkaar beïnvloeden, maar ook de menselijke activiteiten die bijdragen aan het veroorzaken ervan. Hoewel de vertraging van de rotatiesnelheid van de aarde momenteel minimaal is en de dagen slechts fracties van een seconde langer worden, zijn de gevolgen voor de mens al aanzienlijk.
De tijdmeting van de mens is gebaseerd op uiterst nauwkeurige atoomklokken. Deze precisie wordt echter in gevaar gebracht door de interactie tussen de verschillende factoren die bijdragen aan het verlengen van de dagen op aarde. Het risico is dat we minder nauwkeurige GPS hebben, met alle gevolgen van dien voor alle menselijke activiteiten.
Aan de andere kant: als de vertraging tot 2000 tussen de 0,3 en 1 milliseconde per eeuw lag, zitten we nu op ongeveer 1,3 milliseconden per eeuw, maar dit lijkt voorbestemd om te stijgen. Het is een neerwaartse spiraal waar we de afgelopen decennia steeds meer vertrouwd mee zijn geworden... en die we nog kunnen vertragen als we tijdig handelen.
Amazon UFO Secrets: Researcher Uncovers Mysterious Sounds in the Rainforest
Amazon UFO Secrets: Researcher Uncovers Mysterious Sounds in the Rainforest
The Amazon rainforest, a place often associated with vast biodiversity and hidden natural wonders, has recently become the focus of UFO research. Brazilian UFO researcher Rony Vernet has uncovered extraordinary phenomena that suggest the presence of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) deep within this dense jungle.
In a recent episode of “Reality Check with Ross Coulthart,” Vernet shared his findings after an expedition to the Amazon rainforest, specifically a remote area near the border of Brazil and Peru. Vernet’s journey was inspired by a long history of unexplained UAP incidents in the region, dating back to at least the mid-1970s.
Background on UAP Activity in the Amazon
The Amazon and its surrounding areas have been hotspots for UAP sightings for decades. In 1977, a series of UAP incidents in the Brazilian states of Pará and Maranhão drew significant attention. Hundreds of people reported being struck by light beams emitted from UAPs, particularly around the city of Colares. These incidents led to Operation Saucer (Operação Prato), an investigation by the Brazilian Air Force, which officially found no unusual phenomena. However, locals reported injuries consistent with microwave burns, and some even claimed that individuals were killed by these light beams.
In more recent years, there have been continued reports of UAP activity. In 2013, unidentified aerial phenomena were observed over a village in Acre, Brazil, near the Peruvian border. By 2014, these sightings escalated to UAPs descending into the village and emitting light beams at the indigenous people, prompting an investigation by the National Indigenous Foundation and federal authorities.
Vernet’s Expedition and Findings
Driven by these historical reports, Vernet embarked on an expedition to the Yanawa Indigenous Tribe in Acre province. His goal was to gather firsthand evidence of these phenomena. Over the course of his investigation, Vernet experienced a series of inexplicable events, beginning with what he described as poltergeist-like activity.
On his first night in the jungle, Vernet reported hearing loud, metallic sounds that had no apparent source. These sounds resembled furniture being dragged across a wooden floor, yet there were no structures nearby that could produce such noises. Despite thorough searches, Vernet and his team could not find any logical explanations for these occurrences.
The following night, Vernet explored an abandoned house in the jungle, which was filled with objects as if its inhabitants had left suddenly. Here, he and his team felt an overwhelming sense of fear and coldness, unlike anything they had experienced before. The eerie environment only added to the mystery of the phenomena they were investigating.
Encounters with Luminous Spheres
As Vernet continued his investigation, he began to observe luminous phenomena. Indigenous people frequently reported seeing orange or yellow spheres, described as golden balls of fire, hovering near their homes. These spheres often appeared on the rooftops, seemingly observing the inhabitants. Remarkably, whenever someone attempted to point at or directly engage with the spheres, they would disappear instantly.
On one occasion, while setting up monitoring equipment, Vernet and his team witnessed a large, red-orange sphere less than a meter from the ground and only about five meters away from them. Despite its brightness, the sphere made no noise and could be stared at without discomfort. When Vernet attempted to capture the phenomenon with a drone, the sphere evaded recording by somehow remaining invisible to the drone’s camera despite being clearly visible to the naked eye.
Technological and Sensor Data
Vernet’s research was not limited to visual observations. He brought a variety of sophisticated equipment, including thermal cameras, cosmic ray sensors, infrasound detectors, and microwave antennas, to gather as much data as possible. Notably, during these encounters, he detected a 1.6 GHz signal, a frequency also observed during similar phenomena at Skinwalker Ranch in the United States.
Although some of his sensors were not fully operational during the initial nights, Vernet plans to analyze the collected data to find correlations between the visual phenomena and the sensor readings. His initial findings suggest that the UAPs might have the capability to interfere with electronic devices, as witnessed when camera equipment and flashlights malfunctioned during sightings.
Indigenous Perspectives and Scientific Interpretation
The indigenous communities in the Amazon have their own interpretations of these phenomena, often linking them to spiritual beliefs. The Yanawa tribe, for instance, regards certain areas of the forest as portals where beings from the spirit world traverse into our reality. Vernet’s research, combining modern scientific methods with indigenous knowledge, aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of these mysterious occurrences.
Conclusion
Rony Vernet’s investigation into the Amazon’s UAP phenomena has provided compelling evidence that these mysterious lights and sounds are more than mere folklore. His findings suggest a highly intelligent phenomenon capable of interacting with and evading human observation. As Vernet continues to analyze the data and collaborate with other scientists, his work could bring us closer to understanding the enigmatic UAPs of the Amazon rainforest.
The combination of scientific inquiry and indigenous wisdom in Vernet’s approach sets a new precedent for UAP research. By respecting and incorporating the knowledge of local communities, researchers like Vernet are paving the way for a more holistic understanding of these phenomena, which could one day unravel the secrets of the Amazon’s skies.
Wetenschappers van een laboratorium in het Franse Marseille hebben gewaarschuwd voor de mogelijkheid van een nieuwe pandemie in de toekomst. Deze zou immers kunnen worden veroorzaakt door een virus dat al meer dan 30.000 jaar bevroren is.
Microben in het noordpoolgebied zouden de oorzaak kunnen zijn, nadat de opwarming van de aarde, de toegenomen menselijke activiteit en de aanwezigheid van schepen in de regio het ontdooi- en smeltproces versnellen.
Volgens de onderzoekers is de kans groot dat deze en andere virussen, als het ontdooiproces doorgaat, zich vrij zullen verspreiden en uiteindelijk nieuwe ziekten veroorzaken.
Dit ‘zombievirus’ werd door laboratoriumonderzoekers ontdekt in een laag Siberische permafrost die duizenden jaren bevroren was in het noordwesten van Siberië.
Het nieuws werd in The Guardian becommentarieerd door de Nederlandse viroloog Marion Koopmans, die beweerde dat “we niet weten welk virus zich in de permafrost bevindt. Maar ik denk dat er een reëel risico bestaat dat er één virus is dat een epidemie kan veroorzaken, bijvoorbeeld een oude vorm van polio. We moeten aannemen dat zoiets zou kunnen gebeuren”, waarschuwde ze.
(SR and FM for Tagtik/Source: The Guardian/Illustration: Pixabay)
Wetenschappers van een laboratorium in het Franse Marseille hebben gewaarschuwd voor de mogelijkheid van een nieuwe pandemie in de toekomst. Deze zou immers kunnen worden veroorzaakt door een virus dat al meer dan 30.000 jaar bevroren is.
Microben in het noordpoolgebied zouden de oorzaak kunnen zijn, nadat de opwarming van de aarde, de toegenomen menselijke activiteit en de aanwezigheid van schepen in de regio het ontdooi- en smeltproces versnellen.
Volgens de onderzoekers is de kans groot dat deze en andere virussen, als het ontdooiproces doorgaat, zich vrij zullen verspreiden en uiteindelijk nieuwe ziekten veroorzaken.
Dit ‘zombievirus’ werd door laboratoriumonderzoekers ontdekt in een laag Siberische permafrost die duizenden jaren bevroren was in het noordwesten van Siberië.
Het nieuws werd in The Guardian becommentarieerd door de Nederlandse viroloog Marion Koopmans, die beweerde dat “we niet weten welk virus zich in de permafrost bevindt. Maar ik denk dat er een reëel risico bestaat dat er één virus is dat een epidemie kan veroorzaken, bijvoorbeeld een oude vorm van polio. We moeten aannemen dat zoiets zou kunnen gebeuren”, waarschuwde ze.
(SR and FM for Tagtik/Source: The Guardian/Illustration: Pixabay)
Swarming Satellites Could Autonomous Characterize an Asteroid
An asteroid’s size, shape, and rotational speed are clues to its internal properties and potential resources for mining operations. However, of the more than 20,000 near-Earth asteroids currently known, only a tiny fraction have been sufficiently characterized to estimate those three properties accurately. That is essentially a resource constraint – there aren’t enough dedicated telescopes on Earth to keep track of all the asteroids for long enough to characterize them, and deep space resources, such as the Deep Space Network required for communications outside Earth’s orbit, are already overutilized by other missions. Enter the Autonomous Nanosatellite Swarming (ANS) mission concept, developed by Dr. Simone D’Amico and his colleagues at Stanford’s Space Rendezvous Laboratory.
The concept behind ANS is relatively simple. A primary “mothership” spacecraft travels to an asteroid, where it deploys several smaller, autonomous nanosatellites upon arrival. These nanosatellites take up positions surrounding the asteroid and, using relatively inexpensive sensor and communications technology, map the asteroid’s features. After observing for some time, they send data back to the mothership, where an algorithm pieces together information similar to a stereo vision system on Earth and calculates the asteroid’s shape, size, and rotational speed.
There are several deeper layers to unpack in the mission, though. Communication is the first one. In ANS, only the mothership communicates back to Earth using a high-gain antenna. The smaller swarming robots all communicate with each other – partly to estimate distances between the different swarming satellites but also to coordinate observations.
Characterization is the first step toward exploitation, as Fraser discusses.
Each nanosatellite utilizes only a few relatively inexpensive pieces of hardware, including a star tracker for overall positioning, short range camera (as compared to more expensive lidar systems typically used in asteroid characterization missions), atomic clocks to synchronize timing, and radio frequency communication modules. These components allow for relatively independent operation of each nanosatellite and lower the burden of communication back with Earth – freeing up those deep space communications resources for other critical work.
But the critical component of ANS isn’t so much the hardware—it’s the software, particularly the control and estimation algorithm. Dr. D’Amico and his team describe a technical tool known as an unscented Kalman filter, which allows them to estimate asteroid shape, size, and rotation based on landmarks noticed by each swarming nanosatellite and run through this algorithm.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of that algorithm, the team tested it using a relatively well-characterized asteroid: 443 Eros. That asteroid had the distinction of being both the first near-Earth object ever found, back in 1898, and the first ever visited by a mission – the NEAR mission 100 years later. The NEAR Shoemaker craft that visited 433 Eros also successfully landed on it, another first for humanity. Even with the comparatively simple sensing technology of a quarter century ago, Eros is still one of the most characterized asteroids in the solar system.
Here’s a talk about autonomous swarming given by Dr. D’Amico, the head of Stanford’s Space Rendezvous Lab.
The demonstration results clearly showed that the ANS algorithm does its job well. It can coordinate the positioning of the nanosatellites surrounding the asteroid and coalesce their disparate data sets into a coherent picture of the asteroid they are monitoring. And it can do so remotely, with very minimal input from Earth.
For now, that is how far the algorithm has gotten. Several missions, some of which we’ll cover in the near future, further explore the idea of nanosatellite swarms. But ANS itself hasn’t yet been adopted into a formal mission architecture. One day, though, thousands of satellites might be swarming the tens of thousands of small bodies surrounding our home, leading to the first stages of a genuinely off-Earth economy.
The Most Dangerous Part of a Space Mission is Fire
This AI generated image shows a fire spreading in a spacecraft. Researchers are working to understand how fire behaves differently in spacecraft environments so they can protect astronauts. Image Credit: ZARM/ University of Bremen
The Most Dangerous Part of a Space Mission is Fire
Astronauts face multiple risks during space flight, such as microgravity and radiation exposure. Microgravity can decrease bone density, and radiation exposure is a carcinogen. However, those are chronic effects.
The biggest risk to astronauts is fire since escape would be difficult on a long mission to Mars or elsewhere beyond Low Earth Orbit. Scientists are researching how fire behaves on spacecraft so astronauts can be protected.
“A fire on board a spacecraft is one of the most dangerous scenarios in space missions,” said Dr. Florian Meyer, head of the Combustion Technology research group at ZARM. “There are hardly any options for getting to a safe place or escaping from a spacecraft. It is therefore crucial to understand the behavior of fires under these special conditions.”
Since 2016, ZARM has been researching how fire behaves and spreads in microgravity conditions like those in the ISS. Those conditions also include an oxygen level similar to Earth’s, forced air circulation, and ambient pressure similar to Earth’s. NASA has been conducting similar experiments, and now we know that fire behaves differently in microgravity than it does on Earth.
Initially, a fire will burn with a smaller flame and take longer to spread. This is to the fire’s advantage since it won’t be noticed as quickly. Fire also burns hotter in microgravity, meaning that some materials that may not be combustible in normal Earth conditions could burn in spacecraft, creating toxic chemicals in the spacecraft’s air.
Spacecraft for Mars missions will have different environments than the ISS. The ambient air pressure will be lower, which provides two benefits: it makes the spacecraft lighter and also allows astronauts to prepare for external missions more quickly. However, the lower ambient pressure introduces another critical change in the spaceship environment. The oxygen content has to be higher to meet the astronauts’ respiration needs.
In these latest tests, the team at ZARM tested fire in these revised conditions.
PMMA stands for polymethyl methacrylate and is usually called acrylic. It’s a common material used in place of glass because it’s light and shatterproof. The ISS doesn’t use it, but it’s being developed for use in future spacecraft. The Orion capsule uses acrylic fused to other materials for windows, and future spacecraft will likely use something similar.
In their experiments, the researchers lit acrylic glass foils on fire and varied three environmental factors: ambient pressure, oxygen content and flow velocity.
This table from the figure is the test matrix for the experiments. The X’s and the single O indicate flow rates: X = 100 mm/s, O = 30–200 mm/s. Image Credit: Ries et al. 2024.
The experiments showed that lower ambient pressure dampens fire. However, higher oxygen content has a more powerful effect. The ISS’s oxygen level is 21%, just as it is on Earth. Future spacecraft with lower ambient pressures will have oxygen levels as high as 35%. That translates into a huge increase in the risk astronauts face from fire. The results show that a fire can spread three times faster than it would under Earth conditions.
“Our results highlight critical factors that need to be considered when developing fire safety protocols for astronautic space missions.”
Dr. Florian Meyer, Combustion Technology research group at ZARM
This figure from the study shows a time series of infrared images of the tests. They show fire on an acrylic film under microgravity conditions with 100 mm/second airflow, 75 kPa, and 28.3% oxygen. The white dashed lines show the contour of the acrylic sample. The green dotted lines are the evaluation lines used to measure the fire’s propagation rate. In panel b, the pink horizontal bar below the propagation front is the igniter. Image Credit: Ries et al. 2024.
We all know increased airflow spreads fire faster; that’s why we blow on a small flame to create a larger fire. Increased airflow delivers more oxygen, increasing combustion, so increased airflow in a higher-oxygen atmosphere creates a dangerous situation for astronauts.
“Our results highlight critical factors that need to be considered when developing fire safety protocols for astronautic space missions,” said Dr. Florian Meyer. “By understanding how flames spread under different atmospheric conditions, we can mitigate the risk of fire and improve the safety of the crew.”
Meteor Exploded Over N.Y.C. at 38,000 MPH: 'Rare Daylight Fireball'
Meteor Exploded Over N.Y.C. at 38,000 MPH: 'Rare Daylight Fireball'
Story by Anna Lazarus Caplan
NASA said that it does not track small meteors at "significant" distances from Earth, but individuals in New York and New Jersey reported witnessing the event
A small meteor was responsible for a big fireball over New York City on Tuesday, July 16, authorities said.
The astronomical event was first detected about 49 miles above Upper Bay/New York Harbor and moved west towards New Jersey at 38,000 mph, passing over the Statue of Liberty before disintegrating about 29 miles above midtown Manhattan, NASA confirmed in a statement.
Witnesses described seeing a fireball, hearing “booms” and feeling “shakings” between 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. local time, NASA said.
It is unclear if the sounds were related to the meteor or were due to military operations happening at the same time in New Jersey, Bill Cooke, with NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office said, per ABC affiliate WABC-TV.
However, he added that the event was an unusual occurrence.
"Something when it's moving that fast it heats up,” Cooke said. “You expect to see meteors at night not during the day, so this was a rare daylight fireball."
While no meteorites were reported, the meteor gave pause to those underneath its trajectory.
Related video:
NASA Meteor Watch: 'Daylight fireball over New York City' around time of reported booms, shakings (News 12 (Video)
"It was long and really, really fast," Judah Bergman, who saw the meteor from his Lakewood, N.J. office, told WABC. "It looked like a flaming, long rod or something on fire and flying through the sky."
The meteor was not even on NASA’s radar, at first, according to the organization.
“We do keep track of asteroids that are capable of posing a danger to us Earth dwellers, but small rocks like the one producing this fireball are only about a foot in diameter, incapable of surviving all the way to the ground,” NASA said in its statement. “We do not (actually cannot) track things this small at significant distances from the Earth, so the only time we know about them is when they hit the atmosphere and generate a meteor or a fireball.”
While some seasoned New Yorkers were nonplussed, according to The New York Times, at least one resident who observed the moment reveled in its rarity.
“There’s something magical about it,” Tina Dang, a private chef, said. “You forget about these incredible moments in life, when so much else is going on.”
IJssmelt aangespoord door door de mens veroorzaakte opwarming van de aarde wijzigt de massaverdeling van onze planeet, vertraagt uiteindelijk de rotatie van de aarde en verlengt de 24-uursdag, volgens een studie gepubliceerd op 15 juli in het tijdschrift Proceedings van de National Academy of Sciences. Eerder onderzoek heeft vergelijkbare bevindingen gedaan, maar de nieuwe studie suggereert dat klimaatverandering een grotere impact heeft op de daglengte dan eerder werd gedacht.
Als het gebruik van fossiele brandstoffen en de uitstoot van broeikasgassen blijven toenemen in een algemeen genoemd scenario met hoge opwarming, bekend als RCP 8.5, dan zou klimaatverandering een grotere invloed kunnen hebben op de rotatie en daglengte van de aarde dan de maan, volgens de nieuwe bevindingen.
Veel factoren hebben een klein maar significant effect op de daglengte, waaronder de beweging van magma in de vloeibare kern van de aarde, windfluctuaties en de stroming van water op het oppervlak van onze planeet. Zoals het is, creëert de maan getijden die heen en weer wrijving produceren die de rotatie van onze planeet vertraagt. Op de schaal van de geologische tijd heeft dit maaneffect de grootste bijdrage geleverd aan veranderingen in de daglengte in de geschiedenis van onze planeet. Toch is de door de mens veroorzaakte opwarming van de aarde bezig met een inhaalslag.
De aarde is geen perfecte bol, het is "afgeplat", wat betekent dat het licht samengedrukt is langs de evenaar in een subtiele 3D-ovale vorm. Naarmate de ijskappen van Groenland en Antarctica smelten, beweegt er meer water en massa van de polen naar de evenaar. Dit maakt de aarde effectief verder plat, waardoor het midden nog breder en zwaarder wordt dan de boven- en onderkant, waardoor de rotatie enigszins wordt vertraagd als gevolg van de toegenomen traagheid. "Het is net als wanneer een kunstschaatsster een pirouette maakt, waarbij ze eerst haar armen dicht bij haar lichaam houdt en ze vervolgens uitstrekt", zei senior onderzoeker Benedikt Soja, hoogleraar ruimtegeodesie aan de ETH Zürich in Zwitserland, in een persverklaring. Met uitgestrekte armen zou de kunstschaatser vertragen, en twee eeuwen aan observatiegegevens en modellen suggereren dat onze planeet dat ook is.
Onderzoekers berekenden het smelten van ijs en de bijbehorende veranderingen in de afgeplatheid van de aarde met behulp van observatiegegevens die sinds 1976 zijn verzameld en modelleerden reconstructies en projecties van 1900 tot 2100. In de 20e eeuw ontdekten ze dat klimaatverandering de dag tussen 0,3 en 1,0 milliseconden verlengde. Sinds 2000 is de snelheid van door klimaatverandering veroorzaakte dagverlenging echter versneld tot ongeveer 1,33 milliseconden per eeuw. In het RCP 8.5-scenario met hoge emissies voorspellen de wetenschappers dat de snelheid van dagverlenging zou verdubbelen tot ongeveer 2.62 milliseconden per eeuw, waarmee officieel de getijdenwrijving van de maan zou worden overtroffen als de belangrijkste langetermijnkracht die op de daglengte van de aarde inwerkt.
Een paar milliseconden per eeuw klinkt misschien als kruimels in vergelijking met de universele taart, maar het kan oplopen tot dagen die uren langer zijn gedurende miljarden jaren. Op de kortere termijn hebben de door het klimaat veroorzaakte verschuivingen invloed op nauwkeurige tijdregistratie, die wordt gebruikt om nauwkeurige en soepele GPS-navigatie, wereldwijde communicatie, elektriciteitsnetten en financiële systemen te behouden. Ook de verkenning van de ruimte kan door de verandering worden beïnvloed, omdat zelfs kleine afwijkingen in rotatie en positie op aarde kunnen leiden tot grote misrekeningen als het gaat om het navigeren en corrigeren van het landen van een sonde over grote afstanden elders in het zonnestelsel.
Een verwante studie van dezelfde groep onderzoekers die op 12 juli werd gepubliceerd, beoordeelde niet alleen de rotatiesnelheid, maar ook de beweging en locatie van de as van de aarde. Soja en zijn collega's ontdekten dat dezelfde herverdeling van water en massa, veroorzaakt door smeltende poolkappen, bovendien de rotatie-as van de planeet verschuift - mogelijk met een paar meter per eeuw.
Er zijn beperkingen aan beide onderzoeken. RCP 8.5 wordt bijvoorbeeld over het algemeen beschouwd als een verouderde en onwaarschijnlijke projectie voor toekomstige opwarming en gemodelleerde gegevens gaan gepaard met een zekere mate van onzekerheid. Toch laten de twee wetenschappelijke artikelen zien hoe diep de gevolgen van klimaatverandering weerklinken.
"Wij mensen hebben een grotere impact op onze planeet dan we beseffen", aldus Soja in het persbericht. "Dit legt natuurlijk een grote verantwoordelijkheid op ons voor de toekomst van onze planeet."
'Broken piece of alien spacecraft' found is 'so light it won't bend a flower'
MUFON showed off the 'UFO debris' in their news conference in Texas earlier this week
(Image: Supplied)
'Broken piece of alien spacecraft' found is 'so light it won't bend a flower'
A group of UFO fanatics have claimed to have tiny objects believed to be debris from a 'crashed UFO' given to them from a Russian man who said he was handed them by aliens
ByDanny Gutmann
UFO enthusiasts claim to be in possession of aliens objects.
In a news conference held in Irving, Texas, US earlier this week the UFO organisation MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) presented the minuscule pieces of debris from a supposed alien spacecraft.
Speaking at the conference MUFON researcher Bob Spearing said: "It's very, very light material. It almost looks porous, like it has pores. It has a tinge of gold in it, but it's basically a black material. Seems to be some sort of composite."
He added: "It's so light that it won't even bend a flower."
Such is the sight and texture of the debris that MUFON believe that it simply can't come from something man made.
This is part of the debris that was discovered
(Image: Supplied)
They helped prove this by reportedly testing the samples with NASA-level technology and found that they couldn't identify 90 per cent of the debris, the Daily Mail reported.
The material was originally discovered by a Russian researcher named Arkady who said that he was contacted by aliens at his home who informed him that the debris was from a crashed UFO.
After further testing in Russia, Spearing said that the samples were found to be made up of 10 per cent calcium, titanium, iron, arsenic and copper.
UFO fans claim to be in possession of alien objects
(stock)( Image: Getty Images/Tetra images RF)
In a strange turn of events, MUFON claimed that the samples sent to them were originally stolen from official the Post Office Box of the United States after they were sent from a Russian man who sent them.
MUFON Media Relations Director Ron James said: "This is typical with evidence of this nature."
"We believe that this material was deliberately taken by someone who could hack into a locked Post Office Box to prevent further testing."
The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), a group of US-based UFO investigators, has reportedly obtained an unidentified material believed to be of 'non-human' origin.The sample was tested using NASA-grade technology, with results indicating that 90% of the material couldn't be identified.The gold-tinged, lightweight fragments were displayed at a conference in Irving, Texas this week.MUFON suggests that the unique texture of thesample indicates it is not a metal known to humankind and may resemble 'debris from a craft.'
Alien debris
Speculations surrounding its origin
A Russian researcher, who discovered the sample, had previously suggested that the unidentified material could be remnants of a crashed UFO.This theory has been echoed by independent UFO experts who have labeled this discovery as the latest sample with potential "alien origin."MUFON Media Relations Director Ron James claimed that some samples were stolen from their official Post Office Box in the US after the Russian finder tried to send them to MUFON for further testing.
Material examination
Detailed analysis of the unidentified material
MUFON researcher Bob Spearing shared that Russian researcher had approached him after testing the material using an X-Ray fluorescence gun in Russian geological labs.Spearing described the unidentified material as "very, very light" and almost porous in appearance.He added, "It has a tinge of gold in it, but it's basically a black material. Seems to be some sort of composite," and noted its extreme lightness by stating "It's so light that it won't even bend a flower."
AI Enhances Image of UFO Over New Jersey Sept 14, 2020, UAP Sighting News.
AI Enhances Image of UFO Over New Jersey Sept 14, 2020, UAP Sighting News.
Date of sighting:Monday, Sept 14, 2020
Location of sighting: New Jersey, USA
On Sept 14th, thousands of eyewitnesses saw a UFO over New Jersey area. The UFO which was about 30 meters across and hovered over various parts of the city. People were seen on the freeways pulling their cars over to the side of the road and watching this UFO in the distance. The object has a glowing light for a center, similar to the military TR3B, and strangely enough...it's not a disk, but a triangle. That fact that the event took place is obvious from all the videos currently being uploaded as we speak.
AI has focused two screenshots here of the video and it clearly shows a cigar shaped spacecraft. Now is the spacecraft alien or is it US military...thats the harder question to answer.
NASA's volgende doel is om de mens in 2026 terug te brengen naar de maan. In de tussentijd opent een ondergrondse grot op onze satelliet de deur naar nieuwe mogelijkheden.
De terugkeer van de mens naar de maan: de ondergrondse grot zou hem kunnen huisvesten
Meer dan 50 jaar zijn verstreken sinds de laatste mens op het maanoppervlak liep. Sinds 1972 heeft geen enkele andere bemanning onze natuurlijke satelliet bereikt, maar NASA bereidt zich voor op deze grote terugkeer en telt onder de astronauten op de missie de eerste vrouw en de eerste zwarte man met het Artemis-programma.
Nu heeft een nieuwe studie een ondergrondse grot op de maan ontdekt die nieuwe mogelijkheden opent: astronauten zouden daarin hun toevlucht kunnen zoeken voor een langdurig verblijf buiten de aarde. Wetenschappers hebben de aanwezigheid van de grot officieel gemaakt, gelegen op slechts 400 km van het punt waar Neil Armstrong in 1969 samen met Buzz Aldrin landde met de ruimtevlucht Apollo 11.
Bewijs voor het bestaan van maangrotten: de studie
Nature Astronomy
Het team van Italiaanse wetenschappers heeft bewijs gepubliceerd dat het bestaan bevestigt van de vrij grote grot, die toegankelijk zou kunnen zijn vanuit de diepst bekende maankuil. De grot bevindt zich in de Mare Tranquillitatis, de maanzee die zich bevindt op het halfrond dat altijd naar onze planeet is gericht. Tot nu toe zijn er tweehonderd mogelijk vergelijkbare grotten ontdekt, allemaal ontstaan door ingestorte lavabuizen.
Het onderzoek was erop gericht om de metingen van NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter te vergelijken met de lavabuizen op aarde. De radar mat alleen het eerste deel van de ondergrondse grot en detecteerde een breedte van ongeveer 40 meter en een lengte van tientallen meters. Leonardo Carrer en Lorenzo Bruzzone van de Universiteit van Trento, Italië, legden uit dat "maangrotten meer dan 50 jaar een mysterie zijn gebleven, dus het was spannend om eindelijk hun bestaan te kunnen bewijzen."
De ondergrondse maangrot zou astronauten kunnen huisvesten
De grot zou een potentiële maanbasis kunnen worden, volgens de wetenschappers, omdat het “beschutting biedt tegen de barre omstandigheden aan het oppervlak en de menselijke verkenning van de maan op de lange termijn zou kunnen ondersteunen”. De bouw van een nieuwe maanbasis, zo beweren de auteurs van het onderzoek, zou veel duurder en tijdrovender zijn, hoewel de muren van de groeve waarschijnlijk verstevigd zouden moeten worden om een mogelijke instorting te voorkomen.
Volgens Helen Sharman, een Britse astronaute, zouden mensen dankzij deze diepe ondergrondse schuilplaatsen over twee of drie decennia op de maan kunnen blijven en een soort lift installeren om naar het oppervlak terug te keren. Bovendien zijn de materialen in deze kuilen in de loop van eonen, oftewel miljarden jaren, niet veranderd en zouden ze waardevolle nieuwe informatie kunnen opleveren over de evolutie van de satelliet en zijn vulkanische activiteit.
Na meer dan een halve eeuw zal de mens dus terugkeren naar de maan met nieuwe mogelijkheden vergeleken met die van de twintigste eeuw, en zou hij lange tijd op de satelliet kunnen blijven, in ondergrondse grotten.
NASA zal dan toch geen "rover" (een rijdende robot) naar de zuidpool van de maan sturen om er water te zoeken. Dat heeft het Amerikaanse ruimtevaartagentschap woensdag bekendgemaakt. De kosten van de missie liepen te hoog op.
Het ruimtevaartagentschap gaf al 450 miljoen dollar uit aan de robot, waarvan de kosten oorspronkelijk waren geraamd op minder dan 430 miljoen dollar. De lancering was in eerste instantie voorzien voor 2022, maar was uitgesteld tot ten vroegste het voorjaar van 2025. Dat zou de totale kosten hebben opgedreven tot meer dan 600 miljoen dollar.
Het was volgens NASA een zeer moeilijke beslissing om de missie af te blazen, terwijl de rover al is opgetuigd. Het ruimtevaartagentschap heeft een oproep gelanceerd voor industriële of internationale partners die mogelijk geïnteresseerd zijn in de rover. Anders is NASA van plan om het toestel te ontmantelen om bepaalde onderdelen te hergebruiken, zoals batterijen en zonnepanelen.
This “penguin party” (called Arp 142) is loud! The distorted spiral galaxy at center, the Penguin, and the compact elliptical galaxy at left, the Egg, are locked in an active embrace. A new near- and mid-infrared image from the Webb Space Telescope, taken to mark its second year of science, shows that their interaction is marked by a faint upside-down U-shaped blue glow. The blue galaxy at upper right (near bright star) is a closer galaxie teeming with new stars. It's not part of the collision and lies closer to Earth than Arp 142.
What happens when a spiral and an elliptical galaxy collide? To celebrate the second anniversary of the “first light” for the Webb telescope, NASA released an amazing infrared view of two galaxies locked in a tight dance. They’re called the Penguin and the Egg and their dance will last hundreds of millions of years.
“In just two years, Webb has transformed our view of the universe, enabling the kind of world-class science that drove NASA to make this mission a reality,” said Mark Clampin, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Webb is providing insights into longstanding mysteries about the early Universe.”
Webb Witnesses a Galactic Dance
The telescope targeted a collision scene named Arp 142 containing both galaxies—a scene that the Hubble Space Telescope has also explored. They lie about 326 million light-years away. Their first close encounter began somewhere between 25 and 75 million years ago. That’s when two partner galaxies had the first of many passages that will distort their shapes more than they already appear here.
The Hubble Space Telescope captured visible light when observing Arp 142, nicknamed the Penguin and the Egg, in 2013. The Webb view (right) shows the near-infrared view. Courtesy NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Webb’s observations, which combine near- and mid-infrared light from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), respectively, clearly show that a hazy cloud of gas and stars (blue) links them together. The close approach also set off tremendous bursts of star birth in the colliding clouds of gas and dust.
Eventually, after several close approaches in their cosmic dance, these two galaxies will merge completely. Observers hundreds of millions of years in the future will look at Arp 142 and see one massive elliptical galaxy.
Interestingly, Webb’s sharp infrared eyes also picked out very distant galaxies. Some lie beyond this cosmic collision, although at least one lies about a hundred million light-years closer to Earth. It bristles with hot, young, newborn stars.
How The Arp 142 Galaxies Experience a Merger
The Penguin and Egg galaxies lie about 100,000 light-years apart but they affect each other. The Egg’s gravitational pull distorts the spiral and that interaction is “sculpting” the Penguin. The core makes up the eye of a penguin. The slowly unwinding spiral arms form a beak, head, backbone, and tail.
Webb’s infrared view reveals otherwise unseen activity between the two. For example, the Penguin is rich in dust. Webb’s view shows us how gravitational interactions pull that dust away from the Penguin. There are also scads of new stars in the galaxy, surrounded by what looks like smoke. Webb’s view shows this hydrogen cloud. It’s rich in carbon-based molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). These are incredibly abundant in the Universe and astronomers find them just about everywhere they point a telescope.
Webb’s mid-infrared MIRI image shows the Egg as a small teal oval. Mid-infrared light predominantly shows the oldest stars in the elliptical galaxy, which has lost or used up most of its gas and dust. This is why the view is so different from the combined image, which includes near-infrared light. Courtesy: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
By contrast, in Webb’s view, the Egg looks like it’s hardly been touched—it’s still an egg-shaped elliptical. It has much older stars than the Penguin. Past epochs of star birth have pretty much used up the available star-making material. So, even though the two galaxies have about the same mass, the Egg just doesn’t have as much material to get stretched out or turned into stars.
Zeroing in on Webb’s Two Views
If you look at both of Webb’s infrared views of the galaxy collision, you can see marked differences in them. That’s because each one prioritizes a different set of infrared wavelengths. In the mid-infrared view, the egg looks tiny and washed out. That’s because the instrument sees only the old stars in the Egg. By contrast, the Penguin’s distorted core and spiral arms are brimming with young stars embedded in the PAH-rich hydrogen clouds.
The combined near- and mid-infrared view shows more of the gas clouds as the Egg tears them away from the Penguin. These regions will glitter in the future with the light of newly formed stars. For now, however, only cooler, older stars are visible in the combined image. The younger ones are there, but the mid-infrared-sensitive instrument doesn’t spot them.
Here’s a flythrough visualization of Arp 142. NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Christian Nieves (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Frank Summers (STScI), Greg Bacon (STScI)
Why Does Webb Study Galaxy Collisions?
By studying this galactic collision site, the Webb telescope further probes the activity as galaxies evolve. Collisions are an integral part of this process. Our Milky Way Galaxy will dance with the nearby Andromeda Galaxy, starting in about 5 billion years. Images and data from observations of other galaxies doing the same thing give astronomers a chance to understand the process and forecast the distant future when something called “Milkdromeda” will contain the stars and planets of two spirals that once were close neighbors.
A Hopping Robot Could Explore Europa Using Locally Harvested Water
Various forms of hopping robots have crept into development for us[e in different space exploration missions. We’ve reported on their use on asteroids and even our own Moon. But a study funded by NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) in 2018 planned a mission to a type of world where hopping may not be as noticeable an advantage—Europa.
The mission, developed by engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Purdue University, and Honeybee Robotics, is known as the Steam Propelled Autonomous Retrieval Robot for Ocean Worlds, or SPARROW. It’s about the size and shape of a soccer ball, with the logic, power, and control systems inside a spherical outer hollow shell.
SPARROW wouldn’t be able to operate on its own, however. It would require a lander to deposit it onto the surface and serve as a refueling and sample collection storage base. Europa Clipper, the only currently planned NASA mission to the icy moon, would have been good for hitching a ride, but its lack of a lander made it unsuitable for SPARROW.
Budget constraints are always a problem for innovative missions – as Fraser explains with Dr. Manasvi Lingam.
However, the hopping robot itself is well suited for the environment in Europa. Its designers intended to make it “terrain agnostic,” meaning it could traverse even the harshest terrain the icy moon could throw at it. These would include penitentes, shards of ice that could be meters tall, and difficult for ground-based robots to traverse.
SPARROW could fly over them, collect interesting samples, and return to the lander to refuel and deposit them. Then, it could go out again in a different direction. To model this system architecture, the JPL team spent Phase I trying to determine the best propulsion system for the robot and modeling control algorithms for the flights.
First, let’s tackle the propulsion system. The lander accompanying SPARROW would have to mine ice off the moon’s surface, then heat it and store it as water. When SPARROW returned from a hop, it would use the water to refuel. Five different propulsion methods were considered as part of the study. Still, the best turned out to be a “hot water thruster,” where SPARROW would internally heat the water supplied by the lander, then eject that out in a burst of propulsive force to launch the robot off the surface.
Exploring the surface of Europa is only one part of its mystery – as Fraser explains.
The second major part of the paper was controlling that propulsion. Trajectory correction is critical to mission success, but in this case, the designers believe that no matter where the robot ends up, it will be able to collect a sample and return to the lander. This is due to its gimballed design, which allows the robot to consistently orient correctly, even after bouncing along a frozen surface for a while.
There is still much work to do before the mission is ready to go, though. Some of the most pressing questions are how to stop ice from forming in the robot’s propulsion nozzle and throughout its structural cage. Such blockages could easily throw off any existing trajectory calculations and theoretically immobilize the hopper entirely if they were severe enough.
However, no work is planned to solve those problems for now as the project has yet to receive Phase II funding from NIAC, and work on it appears to have stalled. Dr. Gareth Meirion-Griffith, the primary investigator on the project, has moved on from JPL to take a job at Collins Aerospace. Even so, someday, the author’s ideas might be integrated into a Europa lander mission—we’ll have to wait and see.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
