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 Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
27-04-2025
Hubble Spots a Magnetar Zipping Through the Milky Way
Hubble Spots a Magnetar Zipping Through the Milky Way
By Carolyn Collins Petersen
An artist’s impression of a magnetar, which is a special type of neutron star with an incredibly strong magnetic field. Courtesy ESA.
Magnetars are among the rarest - and weirdest - denizens of the galactic zoo. They have powerful magnetic fields and may be the source of fast radio bursts (FRBs). A team of astronomers led by European Space Agency researcher Ashley Chrimes recently used the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to track one of these monsters called SGR 0501+4516 (SGR0501, for short, and SGR stands for Soft Gamma Repeater). It's whipping through the Milky Way at a rate as high as 65 kilometers per second. The big challenge was to find its birthplace and figure out its origin.
At first, astronomers thought it could be related to a supernova remnant called HB9. After a great deal of study, it turns out SGR0501 is not the product of a massive core-collapse supernova, but Chrimes and her colleagues aren't completely sure of its origin, which makes it even more rare and strange.
“Magnetars are neutron stars — the dead remnants of stars — composed entirely of neutrons. What makes magnetars unique is their extreme magnetic fields,” said Chrimes. "Our definite conclusion is that SGR0501 did not originate in HB9. However, since there is no other clear birth site or smoking gun for a different origin, the alternatives are all plausible and we can’t yet say which is the most likely."
Unraveling the Track of the Traveling Magnetar
There are only about 30 known magnetars in the Milky Way Galaxy. These dense balls of neutrons aren't very big - only about 20 km (12 miles) across. Their tiny sizes belie the incredibly strong magnetic fields that they generate. As the folks at NASA like to say, those fields are strong that if one flew by Earth at the distance of the Moon, all our credit cards would be wiped out. Even worse, if we flew out to visit the magnetar on its way, our ship and astronauts would be torn apart.
Luckily, we only observe them from a distance. Chrimes estimates that it most likely lies about 2,000 parsecs (~6520 light-years) away from us. SGR0501 was originally spotted in 2008 when the Swift Observatory detected brief but bright flashes of gamma rays in its direction. It also looked like it was close to the supernova remnant HB9. Naturally, astronomers assumed the two might be related, since known magnetars are the result of core collapse supernova explosions.
The separation between the magnetar and the center of the supernova remnant on the sky is just 80 arcminutes, or slightly wider than your pinky finger when viewed at the end of your outstretched arm. However, things didn't add up after astronomers studied the magnetar with HST. A decade-long set of Hubble observations resulted in images that helped astronomers figure out the magnetar's path as it travels. By tracking its position, the team charted the object’s apparent motion across the sky. Both the speed and direction of SGR 0501+4516’s movement showed that it could not be associated with the nearby supernova remnant. Tracing the magnetar’s trajectory thousands of years into the past showed that there were no other supernova remnants or massive star clusters that could have produced it.
So, What Formed It?
So, if SGR0501 didn't form in a supernova explosion, what else could form a tiny ball of neutrons with a super-strong magnetic field? That was the challenge the team faced next. It turns out that there are a couple of non-supernova ways to make magnetars. One is by merging two lower-mass neutron stars. That would create the larger, stronger SGR0501.
An artist's conception of the merger of two neutron stars to form a more massive one. Such a collision would also emit radio bursts and other emissions.
Courtesy ESO/University of Warwick/Mark Garlick
The other way is by something called accretion-induced collapse. For that, you need a binary star system with a white dwarf as one of the components. As it pulls in gas and material from its companion, it can get greedy and take too much. That destabilizes the white dwarf and leads to a massive explosion. “Normally, this scenario leads to the ignition of nuclear reactions, and the white dwarf exploding, leaving nothing behind. But it has been theorized that under certain conditions, the white dwarf can instead collapse into a neutron star. We think this might be how SGR 0501 was born,” added co-investigator Andrew Levan of Radboud University in the Netherlands and the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.
How are Fast Radio Bursts Connected to Magnetars?
The birth of a magnetar is a pretty powerful event that gives off the kind of brief but strong emissions that characterize fast radio bursts. If SGR0501 formed from a marger or accretion-induced collapse, that might explain the phenomenon of FRBs. These are very short (on the order of less than a millisecond) that don't always re-occur (in other words, they're transient flashes in the sky). Many FRBs occur outside our Milky Way, but some are also detected within the Galaxy.
“Magnetar birth rates and formation scenarios are among the most pressing questions in high-energy astrophysics, with implications for many of the universe’s most powerful transient events, such as gamma-ray bursts, super-luminous supernovae, and fast radio bursts,” said Nanda Rea of the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona, Spain. Magnetars that form through accretion-induced collapse could provide the kinds of short, powerful bursts of radio waves that characterize FGBs. In particular, that could explain the FRBs seen in ancient stellar populations too old to have massive stars that could explode as supernovae. Since there are other magnetars to study, the team is planning to use HST for further observations of these weirdly magnetic stellar remnants.
Super Earth's are Pretty Common. We Just Don't Have One.
Super Earth's are Pretty Common. We Just Don't Have One.
By Mark Thompson
Caption: This artist's concept illustrates the results of a new study that measured the masses of many planets relative to the stars that host them, leading to new information about populations of planets in the direction of the bulge of the Milky Way. This study, published in the journal Science, shows that super-Earths are common and places them in context with gas giant planets. (Credit: Westlake University)
The discovery of exoplanets has transformed astronomy since the early 1990s. Using methods like transit photometry and radial velocity measurements, scientists have identified over 5,000 planets beyond our Solar System, revealing an incredible range of worlds from scorching gas giants to potentially habitable Earth-sized worlds. Space telescopes like Kepler, TESS, and James Webb have increased these discoveries, allowing us to study distant planetary atmospheres.
The James Webb Space Telescope has revolutionised our view of exoplanets
(Credit : NASA)
One particular type of exoplanet, the super-Earths have masses between Earth and Neptune, typically 2-10 times Earth's mass. They are absent from our Solar System but seem to be common elsewhere. Even within this classification, these worlds display remarkable diversity; some rocky with thin atmospheres, others with thick gaseous envelopes. Many orbit in their stars' habitable zones, raising possibilities for liquid water, though their stronger gravity and often tidally locked rotation would create distinctly alien conditions.
A recent study published in Science reveals that super-Earths are common throughout our Galaxy. The international research team, including astronomers from the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard & Smithsonian, discovered a particularly notable super-Earth orbiting its star at a distance greater than Saturn is from our Sun, a region where previously only massive planets had been found.
Illustration of the inferred size of the super-Earth CoRoT-7b (center) in comparison with Earth and Neptune
"We found a 'super Earth'... in a place where only planets thousands or hundreds of times more massive than Earth were found before," explained CfA Fellow Weicheng Zang, the study's lead author. This discovery highlights how dramatically different other planetary systems can be from our own Solar System and contributes to a broader investigation measuring planetary masses relative to their host stars, enhancing our understanding of planetary populations across the Milky Way.
This groundbreaking discovery of a distant super-Earth is part of a comprehensive study that has revealed new insights about planetary populations across the Milky Way by measuring planet masses relative to their host stars. Using microlensing (a technique where light from distant objects is amplified by intervening bodies) researchers could detect planets at large distances from their stars, comparable to the Earth-Saturn orbital range. This represents the largest study of its kind, examining about three times more planets and including worlds approximately eight times smaller than previous microlensing-detected samples.
This study also reveals super-Earths are at least as common as Neptune-sized planets throughout our galaxy, significantly advancing planetary science through advanced observational techniques. As instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope continue characterizing exoplanet atmospheres, astronomers edge closer to understanding planetary formation and the potential for extraterrestrial life. The discovery of such diverse planetary systems challenges our assumptions and suggests a Universe filled with planets of varied sizes and compositions in unexpected orbital arrangements. This expanding cosmic census not only deepens our astronomical knowledge but helps us better understand Earth's place in the Cosmos.
Found On Mars! Alien figure carved in stone, New Discovery Today! April 27, 2028, UFO UAP Sighting News.
Found On Mars! Alien figure carved in stone, New Discovery Today! April 27, 2025, UFO UAP Sighting News.
Date of discovery: April 27, 2025
Location of discovery: Mars
Source photo used:
Guys I found this on Mars this morning while having my coffee. I can't imagine what I will find by my second coffee.
This figure carved in stone is similar to another figure I found long ago, the woman on Mars. Maybe you remember, but how is it similar you ask? Well, the woman on mars is wearing a green toga like robe. Here again we have a bipedal species, clearly not human, but wearing a robe or toga. Similar to those worn in Ancient Greece and Rome.
The eyes of this creature are very large and round, its ears smaller but visible on the side of its head. Its mouth is round and a little long like that of a small dog, but not as long. It's wearing a robe that really is unique, you see its sleeves are so long they touch the ground. One arm is bent at the elbow at waist level with its fingers in a certain position which has meaning in the species culture. The folds of the toga are visible as well as the belt area around the waist.
There is also a large skull nearby, which has similarities to that of a prehistoric creature...like a pterodactyl.
Wow, just undeniable proof of a non human species living on Mars thousand or millions of years ago.
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
Alien Orb Followed By US Military Helicopter! April 23, 2025, UFO UAP Sighting News.
Alien Orb Followed By US Military Helicopter! April 23, 2025, UFO UAP Sighting News.
Date of sighting:April 23, 2025
Location of sighting: Flagstaff, Arizona
Source: Email report, scwaring @ yahoo.com
This just sent in last night, a person caught a glowing orb being followed by a US military helicopter passion over his neighborhood in Flagstaff. He said the object had a strange smell left behind as if something was on fire. Similar reports of strange smells exist in eyewitness reports from the MJ12 files. Often an ionized iron...often called ozone, past reports said that such powerful odors is produced by the high voltages interaction between the UFO and static electricity in the atmospheric oxygen. Basically smells like fireworks. This smell is absolute evidence of an alien craft flying low and bold over Flagstaff.
30 misconceptions that have become modern-day 'facts'
Coffee is made from beans, penguins mate for life, and chameleons change color to match their surroundings... These are all 'facts' you probably believe to be true. After all, most people believe them to be so. However, experts have pointed out that many so-called 'facts' are simple misconceptions. Then there are some that are just downright myths!
Mount Everest is the "tallest" mountain in the world While Mount Everest is deemed the tallest mountain in the world, experts claim that, in technical terms, this isn't true. The summit of Mount Everest is officially higher above sea level than the summit of any other mountain. However, Mauna Kea is the tallest when measured from base to summit.
One human year is equivalent to seven dog years While it may be true for some dogs, it's not a rule of thumb. It all depends on the size and breed of the dog.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds This isn't true, as goldfish have very good memories for fish. They can be trained to respond in various ways to certain colors of light and different kinds of music.
You lose your body heat the fastest through your head While this is widely believed to be true, some experts say it's just a myth, and that humans would be just as cold if they went without a hat as if they went without pants.
Different parts of your tongue detect different tastes This was scientifically disproven, as researchers found that all taste sensations come from all regions of the tongue. However, different parts are more sensitive to certain tastes, which may be where this popular belief comes from.
People use just 10% of their brain Neurologists say this is entirely untrue. Humans use nearly every part of their brain, and most of the brain is active all the time.
Chameleons change color to match their surroundings The truth is chameleons actually change color as a response to mood, temperature, communication, and light, instead of the object they're touching.
Blood is blue before it's oxygenated While many believe that deoxygenated blood is blue, it's actually a myth because human blood is always red. However, the level of redness differs depending on how oxygenated it is.
Handling a baby bird will make its mother reject it Most birds have a very poor sense of smell, so in most cases they are unable to even notice human scent on a baby bird.
Alcohol keeps you warm Alcohol causes your blood vessels to dilate, moving warm blood closer to the surface of the skin. This can make you feel warmer temporarily. However, those same veins pumping blood closer to the skin's surface also cause you to lose core body heat.
The Great Wall of China can be seen from space The Apollo astronauts confirmed that you can't see the Great Wall of China from the Moon. In fact, all you can see from the Moon is the white and blue marble of Earth.
Penguins mate for life Penguins are mostly monogamous, but there are some species, such as the emperor penguin, which are only serially monogamous. They'll mate with one penguin for a season, then move onto another penguin the following season.
having your leg hair will make it grow back quicker Many believe shaving body hair makes it grow back quicker, but shaving hair doesn't change its thickness, color, or rate of growth. It might just feel coarse for a period of time as it grows out.
Bulls are enraged by the color red It's a proven fact that bulls only see blue and yellow. They only react to the red cape during bullfights because of the movements.
Fingernails continue to grow after you die The dehydration of the body after death can cause retraction of the skin around hair and nails, giving the illusion that they've grown. However, all tissues require energy to sustain their functions, which isn't possible when dead.
Vitamin C is an effective treatment for a cold Flu sufferers are often encouraged to increase their vitamin C dosage, but most experts have stated that there's little to no evidence that the vitamin can help with treatment of a cold. Instead, it's believed to help build up the immune system to ward off potential flu viruses.
Ostriches bury their head in the sand when they're scared Ostriches swallow sand and pebbles to help grind up food in their stomachs. This means they have to bend down and briefly stick their heads in the earth to collect the pebbles. It has nothing to do with them being scared.
Microwave radiation can cause cancer Most experts believe that microwave ovens don't give off enough energy to damage the genetic material in cells, so they can't cause cancer.
How Were the Pyramids Built? Engineers Suggest a New Theory
How Were the Pyramids Built? Engineers Suggest a New Theory
Story byTheo Burman
The pyramids may have been built using a sophisticated hydraulic system, according to a new study in Egypt.
Evidence of ancient Egyptians using water pressure to lift stone blocks was discovered at the Step Pyramid of Djoser, with a research team concluding its architecture matched that of a "hydraulic elevation mechanism."
Why It Matters
The theory could be the earliest evidence of hydraulic engineering in monumental architecture, and provides an explanation of how the pyramids were erected with tools previously thought unavailable at the time. If correct, it means that the Egyptians had a far greater understanding of hydraulic technology than previously thought.
What To Know
Most mainstream theories propose that the Egyptians used ramps and brute manpower as the primary methods for lifting the limestone blocks that make up the pyramids.
However, the study argues that the internal layout of the Step Pyramid, combined with the surrounding landscape, suggests that engineers may have used a volcano-style mechanism in which water-driven pressure helped elevate stones from within the structure.
The system would have operated in tandem with natural topography and artificially created reservoirs, potentially linking to a tributary of the Nile to create a temporary lake.
Stock Image: General view of the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara on February 9, 2024 in Giza, Egypt.
The main pieces of evidence supporting the hydraulic theory were the discovery of a "dry moat" surrounding the pyramid, as well as a massive stone structure known as the Gisr el-Mudir. These features resemble components of a modern water treatment system, including sedimentation and purification basins.
The Gisr el-Mudir could have functioned as a check dam to trap and regulate water flow, which in turn could have powered the lifting mechanism inside the pyramid. However, this setup implies a level of hydraulic sophistication way beyond all prior assumptions about how advanced ancient Egyptian engineering was.
What People Are Saying
In the abstract of the report, the researchers said: "The Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqâra, Egypt, is considered the oldest of the seven monumental pyramids built about 4,500 years ago. From transdisciplinary analysis, it was discovered that a hydraulic lift may have been used to build the pyramid.
"Based on our mapping of the nearby watersheds, we show that one of the unexplained massive Saqqâra structures, the Gisr el-Mudir enclosure, has the features of a check dam with the intent to trap sediment and water.
"The ancient architects may have raised the stones from the pyramid centre in a volcano fashion using the sediment-free water from the Dry Moat's south section. Ancient Egyptians are famous for their pioneering and mastery of hydraulics through canals for irrigation purposes and barges to transport huge stones."
What Happens Next
Researchers continue to investigate how the pyramids were built, with more focus being put into the possibility of hydraulic power.
Panicking Over AI? What 2,000 Years of Chinese History Can Teach Us (Part I)
Panicking Over AI? What 2,000 Years of Chinese History Can Teach Us (Part I)
In the sweltering summer of 18 AD, a desperate chant echoed across China’s sun-scorched plains: “Heaven has gone blind!” Thousands of starving farmers, their faces smeared with ox blood, marched toward the opulent vaults held by the Han dynasty’s elite rulers.
As recorded in the ancient text Han Shu (book of Han), these farmers’ calloused hands held bamboo scrolls – ancient “tweets” accusing the bureaucrats of hoarding grain while the farmers’ children gnawed tree bark. The rebellion’s firebrand warlord leader, Chong Fan, roared: “Drain the paddies!”
Within weeks, the Red Eyebrows, as the protesters became known, had toppled local regimes, raided granaries and – for a fleeting moment – shattered the empire’s rigid hierarchy.
The Han Dynasty of China (202 BC-AD 220) was one of the most developed civilisations of its time, alongside the Roman Empire. Its development of cheaper and sharper iron ploughs enabled the gathering of unprecedented harvests of grain.
But instead of uplifting the farmers, this technological revolution gave rise to agrarian oligarchs who hired ever-more officials to govern their expanding empire. Soon, bureaucrats earned 30 times more than those tilling the soil.
And when droughts struck, the farmers and their families starved while the empire’s elites maintained their opulence. As a famous poem from the subsequent Tang dynasty put it: “While meat and wine go to waste behind vermilion gates, the bones of the frozen dead lie by the roadside.”
Two millennia later, the role of technology in increasing inequality around the world remains a major political and societal issue. AI-driven “technology panic” – exacerbated by the disruptive efforts of Donald Trump’s new administration in the US – gives the feeling that everything has been upended. New tech is destroying old certainties; populist revolt is shredding the political consensus.
And yet, as we stand at the edge of this technological cliff, seemingly peering into a future of AI-induced job apocalypses, history whispers: “Calm down. You’ve been here before.”
The Link Between Technology and Inequality
Technology is humanity’s cheat code to break free from scarcity. The Han Dynasty’s iron plough didn’t just till soil; it doubled crop yields, enriching landlords and swelling tax coffers for emperors while – initially, at least – leaving peasants further behind. Similarly, Britain’s steam engine didn’t just spin cotton; it built coal barons and factory slums. Today, AI isn’t just automating tasks; it’s creating trillion-dollar tech fiefdoms while destroying myriads of routine jobs.
Technology amplifies productivity by doing more with less. Over centuries, these gains compound, raising economic output and increasing incomes and lifespans. But each innovation reshapes who holds power, who gets rich – and who gets left behind.
As the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter warned during the second world war, technological progress is never a benign rising tide that lifts all boats. It’s more like a tsunami that drowns some and deposits others on golden shores, amid a process he called “creative destruction”.
A decade later, Russian-born US economist Simon Kuznets proposed his “inverted-U of inequality”, the Kuznets curve. For decades, this offered a reassuring narrative for citizens of democratic nations seeking greater fairness: inequality was an inevitable – but temporary – price of technological progress and the economic growth that comes with it.
In recent years, however, this analysis has been sharply questioned. Most notably, French economist Thomas Piketty, in a reappraisal of more than three centuries of data, argued in 2013 that Kuznets had been misled by historical fluke. The postwar fall in inequality he had observed was not a general law of capitalism, but a product of exceptional events: two world wars, economic depression, and massive political reforms.
In normal times, Piketty warned, the forces of capitalism will always tend to make the rich richer, pushing inequality ever higher unless checked by aggressive redistribution.
So, who’s correct? And where does this leave us as we ponder the future in this latest, AI-driven industrial revolution? In fact, both Kuznets and Piketty were working off quite narrow timeframes in modern human history. Another country, China, offers the chance to chart patterns of growth and inequality over a much longer period – due to its historical continuity, cultural stability, and ethnic uniformity.
Unlike other ancient civilisations such as the Egyptians and Mayans, China has maintained a unified identity and unique language for more than 5,000 years, allowing modern scholars to trace thousand-year-old economic records. So, with colleagues Qiang Wu and Guangyu Tong, I set out to reconcile the ideas of Kuznets and Piketty by studying technological growth and wage inequality in imperial China over 2,000 years – back beyond the birth of Jesus.
To do this, we scoured China’s extraordinarily detailed dynastic archives, including the Book of Han (111 AD) and Tang Huiyao (961 AD), in which meticulous scribes recorded the salaries of different ranking officials. And here is what we learned about the forces – good and bad, corrupt and selfless – that most influenced the rise and fall of inequality in China over the past two millennia.
Chinese dynasties and their most influential technologies. Black text denotes historical events in the west; grey text denotes important interactions between China and the west.
One of the challenges of assessing wage inequality over thousands of years is that people were paid different things at different times – such as grain, silk, silver and even labourers.
The Book of Han records that “a governor’s annual grain salary could fill 20 oxcarts”. Another entry describes how a mid-ranking Han official’s salary included ten servants tasked solely with polishing his ceremonial armour. Ming dynasty officials had their meagre wages supplemented with gifts of silver, while Qing elites hid their wealth in land deals.
To enable comparison over two millennia, we invented a “rice standard” – akin to the gold standard that was the basis of the international monetary system for a century from the 1870s. Rice is not just a staple of Chinese diets, it has been a stable measure of economic life for thousands of years.
While rice’s dominion began around 7,000 BC in the Yangtze river’s fertile marshes, it was not until the Han dynasty that it became the soul of Chinese life. Farmers prayed to the “Divine Farmer” for bountiful harvests, and emperors performed elaborate ploughing rituals to ensure cosmic harmony. A Tang Dynasty proverb warned: “No rice in the bowl, bones in the soil.”
Using price records, we converted every recorded salary – whether paid in silk, silver, rent or servants – into its rice equivalent. We could then compare the “real rice wages” of two categories of people we called either “officials” or “peasants” (including farmers), as a way of tracking levels of inequality over the two millennia since the start of the Han Dynasty in 202 BC. This chart shows how real-wage inequality in China rose and fell over the past 2,000 years, according to our rice-based analysis.
Official-peasant wage ratio in imperial China over 2,000 years. The ratio describes the multiple by which the ‘real rice wage’ of the average ‘official’ exceeds that of the average ‘peasant’, giving an indication of changing inequality levels over two millennia.
The chart’s black line describes a tug-of-war between growth and inequality over the past two millennia. We found that, across each major dynasty, there were four key factors driving levels of inequality in China: technology (T), institutions (I), politics (P), and social norms (S). These followed the following cycle with remarkable regularity.
1. Technology triggers an explosion of growth and inequality
During the Han dynasty, new iron-working techniques led to better ploughs and irrigation tools. Harvests boomed, enabling the Chinese empire to balloon in both territory and population. But this bounty mostly went to those at the top of society. Landlords grabbed fields, bureaucrats gained privileges, while ordinary farmers saw precious little reward. The empire grew richer – but so did the gap between high officials and the peasant majority.
Even when the Han fell around 220 AD, the rise of wage inequality was barely interrupted. By the time of the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD), China was enjoying a golden age. Silk Road trade flourished as two more technological leaps had a profound impact on the country’s fortunes: block printing and refined steelmaking.
Block printing enabled the mass production of books – Buddhist texts, imperial exam guides, poetry anthologies – at unprecedented speed and scale. This helped spread literacy and standardise administration, as well as sparking a bustling market in bookselling.
Meanwhile, refined steelmaking boosted everything from agricultural tools to weaponry and architectural hardware, lowering costs and raising productivity. With a more literate populace and an abundance of stronger metal goods, China’s economy hit new heights. Chang’an, then China’s cosmopolitan capital, boasted exotic markets, lavish temples, and a swirl of foreign merchants enjoying the Tang Dynasty’s prosperity.
While the Tang Dynasty marked the high-water mark for levels of inequality in Chinese history, subsequent dynasties would continue to wrestle with the same core dilemma: how do you reap the benefits of growth without allowing an overly privileged – and increasingly corrupt – bureaucratic class to push everyone else into peril?
2. Institutions slow the rise of inequality
Throughout the two millennia, some institutions played an important role in stabilising the empire after each burst of growth. For example, to alleviate tensions between emperors, officials and peasants, imperial exams known as “Ke Ju” were introduced during the Sui Dynasty (581-618 AD). And by the time of the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD) that followed the demise of the Tang, these exams played a dominant role in society.
They addressed high levels of inequality by promoting social mobility: ordinary civilians were granted greater opportunities to ascend the income ladder by achieving top marks. This induced greater competition among officials – and strengthened emperors’ authority over them in the later dynasties. As a result, both the wages of officials and wage inequality went down as their bargaining power gradually diminished.
However, the rise of each new dynasty was also marked by a growth of bureaucracy that led to inefficiencies, favouritism and bribery. Over time, corrupt practices took root, eroding trust in officialdom and heightening wage inequality as many officials commanded informal fees or outright bribes to sustain their lifestyles.
As a result, while the emergence of certain institutions was able to put a break on rising inequality, it typically took another powerful – and sometimes highly destructive – factor to start reducing it.
Emperor Taizong Receiving the Tibetan Envoy (circa AD601-670). This famous Chinese painting depicts the expansion of Chinese influence during the Tang Dynasty.
3. Political infighting and external wars reduce inequality
Eventually, the rampant rise in inequality seen in almost every major Chinese dynasty bred deep tensions – not only between the upper and lower classes, but even between the emperor and their officials.
These pressures were heightened by the pressures of external conflict, as each dynasty waged wars in pursuit of further growth. The Tang’s three century-rule featured conflicts such as the Eastern Turkic-Tang war (AD626), the Baekje-Goguryeo-Silla war (666), and the Arab-Tang battle of Talas (751).
The resulting demand for more military spending drained imperial coffers, forcing salary cuts for soldiers and tax hikes on the peasants – breeding resentment among both that sometimes led to popular uprisings. In a desperate bid for survival, the imperial court then slashed officials’ pay and stripped away their bureaucratic perks.
The result? Inequality plummeted during these times of war and rebellion – but so did stability. Famine was rife, frontier garrisons mutinied, and for decades, warlords carved out territories while the imperial centre floundered.
So, this shrinking wage gap cannot be said to have resulted in a happier, more stable society. Rather, it reflected the fact that everyone – rich and poor – was worse off in the chaos. During the final imperial dynasty, the Qing (from the end of the 17th century), real-terms GDP per person was dropping to levels that had last been seen at the start of the Han Dynasty, 2,000 years earlier.
4. Social norms emphasise harmony, preserve privilege
One other common factor influencing the rise and fall of inequality across China’s dynasties was the shared rules and expectations that developed within each society.
A striking example is the social norms rooted in the philosophy of Neo-Confucianism, which emerged in the Song dynasty at the end of the first millennium – a period sometimes described as China’s version of the Renaissance. It blended the moral philosophy of classical Confucianism – created by the philosopher and political theorist Confucius during the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BC) – with metaphysical elements drawn from both Buddhism and Daoism.
Neo-Confucianism emphasised social harmony, hierarchical order and personal virtue – values that reinforced imperial authority and bureaucratic discipline. Unsurprisingly, it quickly gained the support of emperors keen to ensure control of their people, and became the mainstream school of thought in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Statue of Confucius, in Parque Rodó in Montevideo.
However, Neo-Confucianist thinking proved a double-edged sword. Local gentry hijacked this moral authority to fortify their own power. Clan leaders set up Confucian schools and performed elaborate ancestral rites, projecting themselves as guardians of tradition.
Over time, these social norms became rigid. What had once fostered order and legitimacy became brittle dogma, more useful for preserving privilege than guiding reform. Neo-Confucian ideals evolved into a protective veil for entrenched elites. When the weight of crisis eventually came, they offered little resilience.
To be continued …
Top image: Collection of Han Dynasty tomb bricks, featuring statue of Han stonecutter, on display at Nanyang Museum of Han Dynasty Stone Carving, Henan Province, China.
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
Panicking Over AI? What Chinese, British, and American History Can Teach Us (Part 2)
Panicking Over AI? What Chinese, British, and American History Can Teach Us (Part 2)
China’s final dynasty experienced severe difficulties based on its internal contradictions, and was unable to absorb the introduction of important new technologies without disruption. The historical experiences of Britain and the United States also have lessons to teach us about the impact of significant new technologies, and about how those impacts can be managed—or mismanaged—to promote the greater good, or to harm it.
The Last Dynasty
China’s final imperial dynasty, the Qing, collapsed under the weight of multiple uprisings both from within and without. Despite achieving impressive economic growth during the 18th century – fuelled by agricultural innovation, a population boom, and the roaring global trade in tea and porcelain – levels of inequality exploded, in part due to widespread corruption.
The infamous government official Heshen, widely regarded as the most corrupt figure in the Qing dynasty, amassed a personal fortune reckoned to exceed the empire’s entire annual revenue (one estimate suggests he amassed 1.1 billion taels of silver, equivalent to around US$270 billion (£200bn), during his lucrative career).
Imperial institutions failed to restrain the inequality and moral decay that the Qing’s growth had initially masked. The mechanisms that once spurred prosperity – technological advances, centralised bureaucracy and Confucian moral authority – eventually ossified, serving entrenched power rather than adaptive reform.
When shocks like natural disasters and foreign invasions struck, the system could no longer respond. The collapse of the empire became inevitable – and this time there was no groundbreaking technology to enable a new dynasty to take the Qing’s place. Nor were there fresh social ideals or revitalised institutions capable of rebooting the imperial model. As foreign powers surged ahead with their own technological breakthroughs, China’s imperial system collapsed under its own weight. The age of emperors was over.
A grandfather and grandson beg for food amid the collapse of China’s Qing dynasty in the late 19th century.
The world had turned. As China embarked on two centuries of technological and economic stagnation – and political humiliation at the hands of Great Britain and Japan – other nations, led first by Britain and then the US, would step up to build global empires on the back of new technological leaps.
In these modern empires, we see the same four key influences on their cycles of growth and inequality – technology, institutions, politics and social norms – but playing out at an ever-faster rate. As the saying goes: history does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
Rule Britannia
If imperial China’s inequality saga was written in rice and rebellions, Britain’s industrial revolution featured steam and strikes. In Lancashire’s “satanic mills”, steam engines and mechanised looms created industrialists so rich that their fortunes dwarfed small nations.
In 1835, social observer Andrew Ure enthused: “Machinery is the grand agent of civilisation.” Yet for many decades, the steam engines, spinning jennies and railways disproportionately enriched the new industrial class, just as in the Han dynasty of China 2,000 years earlier. The workers? They inhaled soot, lived in slums – and staged Europe’s first symbolic protest when the Luddites began smashing their looms in 1811.
During the 19th century, Britain’s richest 1% hoarded as much as 70% of the nation’s wealth, while labourers toiled 16-hour days in mills. In cities like Manchester, child workers earned pennies while industrialists built palaces.
But as inequality peaked in Britain, the backlash brewed. Trade unions formed (and became legal in 1824) to demand fair wages. Reforms such as the Factory Acts (1833–1878) banned child labour and capped working hours.
Although government forces intervened to suppress the uprisings, unrest such as the 1830 Swing Riots and 1842 General Strike exposed deep social and economic inequalities. By 1900, child labour was banned and pensions had been introduced. The 1900 Labour Representation Committee (later the Labour Party) vowed to “promote legislation in the direct interests of labour” – a striking echo of how China’s imperial exams had attempted to open paths to power.
Slowly, the working class saw some improvement: real wages for Britain’s poorest workers gradually increased over the latter half of the 19th century, as mass production lowered the cost of goods and expanding factory employment provided a more stable livelihood than subsistence farming.
And then, two world wars flattened Britain’s elite – the Blitz didn’t discriminate between rich and poor neighbourhoods. When peace finally returned, the Beveridge Report gave rise to the welfare state: the NHS, social housing, and pensions.
Income inequality plummeted as a result. The top 1%’s share fell from 70% to 15% by 1979. While China’s inequality fell via dynastic collapse, Britain’s decline resulted from war-driven destruction, progressive taxation, and expansive social reforms.
Wealth share of top 1% in the UK,inequality before 1895 is not well documented; dotted curve is conjectured based on Kuznets curve. Sources: Alvaredo et al (2018), World Inequality Database.
However, from the 1980s onwards, inequality in Britain has begun to rise again. This new cycle of inequality has coincided with another technological revolution: the emergence of personal computers and information technology — innovations that fundamentally transformed how wealth was created and distributed.
The era was accelerated by deregulation, deindustrialisation and privatisation — policies associated with former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, that favoured capital over labour. Trade unions were weakened, income taxes on the highest earners were slashed, and financial markets were unleashed. Today, the richest 1% of UK adults own more 20% of the country’s total wealth.
The UK now appears to be in the worst of both worlds – wrestling with low growth and rising inequality. Yet renewal is still within reach. The current UK government’s pledge to streamline regulation and harness AI could spark fresh growth – provided it is coupled with serious investment in skills, modern infrastructure, and inclusive institutions geared to benefit all workers.
At the same time, history reminds us that technology is a lever, not a panacea. Sustained prosperity comes only when institutional reform and social attitudes evolve in step with innovation.
The American Century
While China’s growth-and-inequality cycles unfolded over millennia and Britain’s over centuries, America’s story is a fast-forward drama of cycles lasting mere decades. In the early 20th century, several waves of new technology widened the gap between rich and poor dramatically.
By 1929, as the world teetered on the edge of the Great Depression, John D. Rockefeller had amassed such a vast fortune – valued at roughly 1.5% of America’s entire GDP – that newspapers hailed him the world’s first billionaire. His wealth stemmed largely from pioneering petroleum and petrochemical ventures including Standard Oil, which dominated oil refining in an age when cars and mechanised transport were exploding in popularity.
Yet this period of unprecedented riches for a handful of magnates coincided with severe imbalances in the broader US economy. The “roaring Twenties” had boosted consumerism and stock speculation, but wage growth for many workers lagged behind skyrocketing corporate profits. By 1929, the top 1% of Americans owned more than a third of the nation’s income, creating a precariously narrow base of prosperity.
When the US stock market crashed in October 1929, it laid bare how vulnerable the system was to the fortunes of a tiny elite. Millions of everyday Americans – living without adequate savings or safeguards – faced immediate hardship, ushering in the Great Depression. Breadlines snaked through city streets, and banks collapsed under waves of withdrawals they could not meet.
Unemployed men queued outside a Great Depression soup kitchen in Chicago, 1931.
In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal reshaped American institutions. It introduced unemployment insurance, minimum wages, and public works programmes to support struggling workers, while progressive taxation – with top rates exceeding 90% during the second world war. Roosevelt declared: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much – it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
In a different way to the UK, the second world war proved a great leveller for the US – generating millions of jobs and drawing women and minorities into industries they’d long been excluded from. After 1945, the GI Bill expanded education and home ownership for veterans, helping to build a robust middle class. Although access remained unequal, especially along racial lines, the era marked a shift toward the norm that prosperity should be shared.
Meanwhile, grassroots movements led by figures like Martin Luther King Jr. reshaped social norms about justice. In his lesser-quoted speeches, King warned that “a dream deferred is a dream denied” and launched the Poor People’s Campaign, which demanded jobs, healthcare and housing for all Americans. This narrowing of income distribution during the post-war era was dubbed the “Great Compression” – but it did not last.
As oil crises of the 1970s marked the end of the preceding cycle of inequality, another cycle began with the full-scale emergence of the third industrial revolution, powered by computers, digital networks and information technology.
As digitalisation transformed business models and labour markets, wealth flowed to those who owned the algorithms, patents and platforms – not those operating the machines. Hi-tech entrepreneurs and Wall Street financiers became the new oligarchs. Stock options replaced salaries as the true measure of success, and companies increasingly rewarded capital over labour.
By the 2000s, the wealth share of the richest 1% climbed to 30% in the US. The gap between the elite minority and working majority widened with every company stock market launch, hedge fund bonus and quarterly report tailored to shareholder returns.
But this wasn’t just a market phenomenon – it was institutionally engineered. The 1980s ushered in the age of (Ronald) Reaganomics, driven by the conviction that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”. Following this neoliberalist philosophy, taxes on high incomes were slashed, capital gains were shielded, and labour unions were weakened.
Deregulation gave Wall Street free rein to innovate and speculate, while public investment in housing, healthcare and education was curtailed. The consequences came to a head in 2008 when the US housing market collapsed and the financial system imploded.
The Global Financial Crisis that followed exposed the fragility of a deregulated economy built on credit bubbles and concentrated risk. Millions of people lost their homes and jobs, while banks were rescued with public money. It marked an economic rupture and a moral reckoning – proof that decades of pro-market policies had produced a system that privatised gain and socialised loss.
Inequality, long growing in the background, now became a glaring, undeniable fault line in American life – and it has remained that way ever since.
Wealth share and income share of top 1% in the US: World Inequality Database; income share: Picketty & Saez (2003). Dotted curves are conjectured based on Kuznets curve.
So is the US proof that the Kuznets model of inequality is indeed wrong? While the chart above shows inequality has flattened in the US since the 2008 financial crisis, there is little evidence of it actually declining. And in the short term, while Donald Trump’s tariffs are unlikely to do much for growth in the US, his low-tax policies won’t do anything to raise working-class incomes either.
The story of “the American century” is a dizzying sequence of technological revolutions – from transport and manufacturing to the internet and now AI – crashing one atop the other before institutions, politics or social norms could catch up. In my view, the result is not a broken cycle but an interrupted one. Like a wheel that never completes its turn, inequality rises, reform stutters – and a new wave of disruption begins.
Our Unequal AI Future?
Like any technological explosion, AI’s potential is dual-edged. Like the Tang dynasty’s bureaucrats hoarding grain, today’s tech giants monopolise data, algorithms and computing power. Management consultant firm McKinsey has predicted that algorithms could automate 30% of jobs by 2030, from lorry drivers to radiologists.
Yet AI also democratises: ChatGPT tutors students in Africa while open-source models such as DeepSeek empower worldwide startups to challenge Silicon Valley’s oligarchy.
The rise of AI isn’t just a technological revolution – it’s a political battleground. History’s empires collapsed when elites hoarded power; today’s fight over AI mirrors the same stakes. Will it become a tool for collective uplift like Britain’s post-war welfare state? Or a weapon of control akin to Han China’s grain-hoarding bureaucrats?
The answer hinges on who wins these political battles. In 19th-century Britain, factory owners bribed MPs to block child labour laws. Today, Big Tech spends billions lobbying to neuter AI regulation.
Meanwhile, grassroots movements like the Algorithmic Justice League demand bans on facial recognition in policing, echoing the Luddites who smashed looms not out of technophobia but to protest exploitation. The question is not if AI will be regulated but who will write the rules: corporate lobbyists or citizen coalitions.
The real threat has never been the technology itself, but the concentration of its spoils. When elites hoard tech-driven wealth, social fault-lines crack wide open – as happened more than 2,000 years ago when the Red Eyebrows marched against Han China’s agricultural monopolies.
To be human is to grow – and to innovate. Technological progress raises inequality faster than incomes, but the response depends on how people band together. Initiatives like “Responsible AI” and “Data for All” reframe digital ethics as a civil right, much like Occupy Wall Street exposed wealth gaps. Even memes – like TikTok skits mocking ChatGPT’s biases – shape public sentiment.
There is no simple path between growth and inequality. But history shows our AI future isn’t preordained in code: it’s written, as always, by us.
Top image: Photo of an early IBM 7030 computer, in the 1960s, on display at National Cryptologic Museum.
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
Quality Of 3D Printing With Lunar Regolith Varies Based On Feedstock
Quality Of 3D Printing With Lunar Regolith Varies Based On Feedstock
By Andy Tomaswick
Some of the 3D printed BPY objects that were tested. Credit - J. Garnier et al.
Lately, there's been plenty of progress in 3D printing objects from the lunar regolith. We've reported on several projects that have attempted to do so, with varying degrees of success. However, most of them require some additive, such as a polymer or salt water, as a binding agent. Recently, a paper from Julien Garnier and their co-authors at the University of Toulouse attempted to make compression-hardened 3D-printed objects using nothing but the regolith itself.
Getting things into space is expensive, so it should be no surprise that any 3D printing technology that requires shipping large amounts of things from Earth is at a disadvantage. Various projects, like one being run by a company called AI Spacefactory, utilize additives like polymers that must be made on Earth and then shipped to the Moon before being combined with regolith in situ.
Dr. Garnier hoped to get around that requirement by using selective laser melting (SLM) on a specific type of regolith analog. Known as Basalt of Pic d'Ysson (BPY), this volcanic rock is collected from the Pic d'Ysson, an ancient, extinct volcano in France. It started growing in popularity as a lunar regolith simulant in the early 2000s due to its chemical and mineral composition similarity to basaltic rocks found on the Moon itself.
Lunar regolith will also be a massive pain for explorers in the beginning, as Fraser discussed with Dr. Kevin Cannon
BPY has already been the target of several studies in lunar 3D printing. ESA researchers have published a paper detailing a "solar sintering" technique that uses the Sun's power to fuse PBY powder. Project MOONRISE, which we've reported previously, also used BPY as a feedstock in its zero-gravity 3D printing applications.
However, most of those studies have found that the BPY wasn't up to snuff when 3D printed, at least in terms of the compression strength of the resultant material. Despite the Moon's lower gravity, there are still stresses on the structures of buildings and equipment on the Moon. If a material's compressive strength can't handle that weight, even in the lower gravity, then it's not much use as a building material.
Measurements for the compressive strength of 3D printed BPY vary dramatically based on the type of 3D printing technique used. Powder Bed Fusion processes, which are regularly used to print metals on Earth, had a compressive strength of 4.2 MPa, slightly more than a standard masonry brick. However, that was with a porosity of almost 50% - meaning nearly half the structure was full of holes. Combining 3D printed BPY with a geopolymer binder can increase its strength, but at the cost of requiring the geopolymer to be shipped from Earth.
What might we manufacture on the Moon? Fraser discusses that question with Dr. Alex Ignatiev
The researcher DR. Garnier and his co-authors focused on trying to uncover what properties of the BPY could lead to better mechanical properties. They varied characteristics like whether the powder was primarily "crystalline" or "amorphous". Crystalline powder has a very ordered structure, with some properties, such as compressive strength, varying widely depending on the direction the ordered crystal structure points. On the other hand, amorphous powder is much more disordered, with its physical properties being the same in all directions.
Experiments showed a doubling in the compressive strength of powder that was 100% crystalline compared to powder that was 100% amorphous, highlighting the importance of the regolith structure selected to build the building materials of any future lunar base.
Optimizing that mix between amorphous and crystalline structure remains on the list of things to do for future work, as well as optimizing the size of particles in the feedstock and the parameters used in the SLM process to create the final material. There's still a long way to go before astronauts can print something usable on the surface of the Moon. But as the date for humanity's return draws closer, it's probably only a matter of time before a mission does make use of the resources available on our lunar neighbor - and they might do so by melting it with a laser.
200 Solar Orbiter Photos Turned into a High-Resolution Image of the Sun
200 Solar Orbiter Photos Turned into a High-Resolution Image of the Sun
By Evan Gough
There's no better word for this image of the Sun than Spectacular, which means something impressive, dramatic, or remarkable that creates a spectacle or visual impact. It comes from the Latin word spectaculum, which means a show, spectacle, or public exhibition. Ancient Romans would agree with the word choice if you could somehow show the image to them.
This composite image of the Sun was constructed from 200 individual images captured by the ESA's Solar Orbiter. It shows the Sun's corona, its million-degree atmosphere, in UV. The spacecraft captured the photos on March 9th, 2025, when it was about 77 million km from the Sun.
The Solar Orbiter pointed at different regions of the Sun in a 5x5 grid. During each pointing, the spacecraft captured six high-resolution and two wide-angle images with its Extreme Ultraviolet Imager, an instrument designed to study the Sun's chromosphere and Corona.
The grey region shows the 5x5 grid in one position on the Sun's surface.
Image Credit: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/EUI Team, D. Berghmans (ROB) LICENCE CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The image shows coronal loops, solar prominences, and filaments. Interested readers can download a high-resolution image, allowing them to zoom in on incredible detail.
It's easy to lose yourself in the incredible details of the image. The looping structures on the Sun's limb are prominences. They're plasma and magnetic field structures that have their roots in the photosphere and extend into the corona. They can last weeks and even months, extending for hundreds of thousands of kilometres. Sometimes, they detach from the Sun and become coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
When CMEs strike Earth, they can trigger geomagnetic storms that, if strong enough, can damage power grids and cause other mayhem. That's one of the primary reasons scientists study the Sun. CMEs and the constant solar wind are collectively called space weather.
Studying the Sun also helps scientists understand stellar physics and stellar evolution. Many of the Sun's processes, like nuclear fusion and plasma dynamics, are present elsewhere in the Universe, making the Sun a natural laboratory for observing those processes.
If you'd like to download the large, high-res image, visit this.
Two UFOs Over Arlington, Illinois On April 22, 2025, NUFORC, UAP Drone Sighting News.
Two UFOs Over Arlington, Illinois On April 22, 2025, NUFORC, UAP Drone Sighting News.
Date of sighting: April 22, 2025
Location of sighting: Arlington, Illinois, USA
Source: from NUFORC website
A new report just came into NUFORC, a glowing object was seen with another smaller one seeming coming out of it. This larger craft has only a huge flashing light, so powerful we cannot see the shape of the craft, but I put it through a few filters until I found a yellow one that shows its true shape. This is 100% an alien craft. Very rare close up catch.
Scott C. Waring - Utah, USA
Eyewitness states:
Two lights observed in the sky from Arlington Heights station—one large and bright, the other smaller and dimmer. This morning, while at the Arlington Heights station, I observed two lights in the sky—one larger and brighter, the other smaller and dimmer. The larger light had greater intensity, and both lights moved very slowly at first, then began rotating rapidly. I opened the FlightRadar app to check for aircraft in the area, but none were visible on the radar at that time.
While searching over some NASA photos, I found on on Mercury that really caught my eye. There is a structure with three huge spheres on its top and a center tower that goes down to the ground. The object is big, I mean a mile high and a mile wide, but it's blocked by a black wall structure that goes 360 degrees around it to prevent it from being seen from far away. However the NASA satellite caught it. Proof of life? Mercury has more life on it than any planet in our solar system, including Earth.
Fantastic Historical Accounts of Sea Monsters, Mermaids, and Dead Specimens
It seems like sea serpents and various monsters of the deep have been spotted for centuries. Reports of such things go way back, and in addition to sightings, there were even news stories at the time that described sea monsters and mermaids being subdued and killed as well. Here we will go back through the ages to look at early accounts of sea monster sightings, and some that go even further.
Reports of sea monsters go pretty far back into history. One such report is recorded in the thirty-eight volume Natural History, which was published around 77 AD by the Roman author Pliny the Elder. In addition to chronicling Roman culture and the cultures of faraway lands, there are also some odd accounts buried away within its pages. In one such account, Pliny recorded that in the ancient town of Carteia, which was once located near the Strait of Gibraltar in Spain, there was a problem with someone stealing fish from the pickling tubs fishermen were processing their catches in. The fishermen took measures to prevent this, but the thefts continued unabated. They then decided to use guard dogs, and this is where things would get weird.
Apparently one day the dogs started going nuts, and when the fishermen ran to see what was happening rather than a human thief they spotted quite the unusual sight. There coiled around a fish tub was a giant octopus-like monster covered in dried brine and exhaling a hideous and rank stench. The dogs would not go near the thing, so the fishermen approached only for the creature to whip around its tentacles and lash out at them. They were only able subdue the beast after employing the use of long, three-pronged spears, with which they killed it. A report of the aftermath reads:
“The 'head' of this creature alone was said to be equivalent in size to a cask of fifteen aphorae (equivalent to 135 gallons of fluid), and could hardly be encircled by a man with both arms. The tentacles were upwards of thirty feet long, covered with knots -- "like those upon a club" -- and the suckers were said to be as large as an urn with equally large teeth (which implies a squid, as they have a tooth in each sucker). The body was carefully preserved as a curiosity, and weighed seven hundred pounds. Pliny noted that the author of this account stated that other squids and octopai of an equal size were known to occasionally wash ashore, and that these animals did not live beyond two years.”
What in the world was this thing? The Bahamian island known as Isabela is also home to a rather curious historical oddity. It seems that during his journey to the New World, Christopher Columbus himself killed a mysterious serpent here. Columbus's diary entry for October 21, 1492 described how the explorer killed and later skinned a 5 foot long creature described as a "serpent," that he had seen in a lake on the island. The next day, a similar serpent was reportedly killed in another lake on the island by Martin Alonso Pinzon, who was captain of one of the ships under Columbus's command.
Sadly, both specimens were never properly preserved so it is impossible to know just what kind of animals were killed. Further complicating matters is the rather loose definition of the word "serpent" in the vernacular of the era. In Columbus's day, the term "serpent" could be applied not only to large snakes, but to practically anything large and reptilian. Crocodilians, lizards, and even mythical dragons were all equally known to be referred to as serpents. This muddies the waters a bit when searching for an answer to the mysterious diary entry because Columbus could have killed an actual serpent by our understanding of the word, which is to say a giant snake, or it could have been a large type of lizard, a crocodile or alligator, or who knows what else. Considering that the entry offers frustratingly few details, it is impossible to say.
An expedition led by Florida State Museum's assistant curator, Bill Keegan, in 1987 uncovered the remains of an alligator in the ruins of a village on Isleta believed to have been visited by Columbus. It was suggested that the serpent described by Columbus may have been an alligator, which were previously unknown to have ever inhabited the Bahamas and so making it a rather interesting find in its own right. If alligators existed at one time n the Bahamas, it could mean that they were merely imported from elsewhere, but could also represent an unknown population of the animal's historical range or even a new species. However, the presence of alligator bones in a village that Columbus just happened to have visited is far from concrete evidence to link the alligator remains to the diary entry, and so what exactly was killed on that day long ago remains a mystery.
Columbus would later go on to log yet another mysterious sighting in the Caribbean when in September 1494, while sailing along the east coast of the Dominican Republic, he and his crew apparently sighted what was described as a gigantic turtle the size of a whale, with a long tail and fins on its sides. The enormous creature was keeping its head out of the water. Is there any truth to these historical accounts?
Another case takes us to 1639, when a large serpentine beast was said to have been seen gliding through the waters off the coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts, with witness accounts of the Beast of Cape Ann recording that the animal was not only seen swimming out at sea, but soon also approaching land, where it was said to have slithered onto the shore and coiled itself like a snake. The creature would allegedly be seen by hundreds of people and was all over the news at the time, with headlines like “A Monstrous Sea Serpent, The largest ever seen in America,” and other similarly spectacular titles. The creature was typically described as being an enormous serpent around 100 feet in length, which carried its head about 8 feet above the surface. Was any off this real or was it just ab hoax or a slow news day?
Moving up in years to 1830 we have a report of an actual mermaid that was supposedly killed on the island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. An account of the incident reads:
“Some seventy years ago, people were cutting seaweed at Sgeir na Duchadh, Grimnis, Benbecula. Before putting on her stockings, one of the women went to the lower end of the reef to wash her feet. While doing so she heard a splash in the calm sea, and looking up she saw a creature in the form of a woman in miniature, some few feet away. Alarmed, the woman called to her friends, and all the people present rushed to the place. The creature made somersaults and turned about in various directions. Some men waded into the water to seize her, but she moved beyond their reach. Some boys threw stones at her, one of which struck her in the back. A few days afterwards, this strange creature was found dead at Cuile, Nunton, nearly two miles away.
“The upper portion of the creature was about the size of a well-fed child of three or four years of age, with an abnormally developed breast. The hair was long, dark, and glossy, while the skin was white, soft, and tender. The lower part of the body was like a salmon, but without scales. Crowds of people, some from long distances, came to see this strange animal, and all were unanimous in the opinion that they had gazed on the mermaid at last. Mr Duncan Shaw, factor for Clanranald, baron-bailie and sheriff of the district, ordered a coffin and shroud to be made for the mermaid. This was done, and the body was buried in the presence of many people, a short distance above the shore where it was found. There are persons still living who saw and touched this curious creature, and who give graphic descriptions of its appearance.”
It is unclear what happened to the body, or if any of this even happened at all. In 1852, a letter stated to be from a Captain Jason Seabury of the ship “Monongahela” outlined a very peculiar encounter at sea. In the letter Captain Seabury stated that on the morning of January 13, 1852, the man on look out reported 'white water', a sign of sea-life activity. Thinking that it might be a sperm whale, the Captain took a closer look through his telescope but could not determine if it was a whale or a pod of porpoises. He then saw a patch of black skin, and at that moment the man on the lookout tower proclaimed that whatever it was was no whale, as it was too large. Seabury ordered his men to be prepared to launch, then waited to see if the creature would surface again. They would not be disappointed.
After around an hour of carefully watching the waves, the Captain could see a body that moved slowly with a motion 'like the waving of a rope when shaken and held in the hand.'Silently the crew watched in amazement as more of the body surfaced, exposing its enormous length, and then the tail began to “vibrate,” agitating the water, and the head of the strange beast rose and lifted above the surface. Captain Seabury, realizing they were looking at a legendary sea-serpent, ordered his men to the boats, which they grudgingly did, afraid of pursuing the mystery beast. The chase was on, and continued until the creature slowed down and eventually came to a stop. At this point they managed to harpoon it, but it put up such a fierce fight that two additional harpoons were sunk into it. All of this was being done as bad weather threatened them, but they continued with their task. The monster continued its fight, diving deep down into the water, but the lines held onto it until the lines suddenly went slack.
Just when they thought they had lost it, one of the crewmen shouted that the beast had surfaced and appeared to be in its thrashing death throes before lying still. The crew warily pulled the creature in, and they were finally able to get a closer look at it. It was apparently 103 feet 7 inches long, 19 feet 1 inch around the neck, 24 feet 6 inches around the 'shoulders', and 49 feet and 4 inches around at the fullest part of the body. The head was long and flat with ridges, and the tongue "had its end like the head of a heart.” The tail ran almost down to a point, terminating instead in a flat, firm cartilage. The serpent's back was black, fading to brown on the sides, then yellow; along two-thirds of its belly was a white streak. In addition, there were random dark spots scattered all across its skin. Upon examining the head closer it was found the jaws contained 94 teeth, very sharp and with an exposed section as large as a man's thumb above the gum line. The teeth pointed backward into the mouth. In addition, the serpent had two spiracles -- breathing holes on top of its head much as whales' possess -- so the beast had to surface to breath. The serpent also had four 'swimming paws' which were like lumps of hard loose flesh. The joints in the serpent's back were very loose, and it seemed as if it could move each vertebrae separately from the others, allowing for smooth motion when it swam. The creature was dismantled, with its head preserved and its heart and one of its eyes preserved in large jars of liquor. Nobody knows what happened to these pieces of evidence after that, and it is certainly a wild ride.
On January 18, 1875, the Pauline was sailing roughly twenty miles off Cape São Roque, on the northeastern side of Brazil, when, at around 11:00 a.m., something bizarre happened that the crew would never forget. Captain George Drevar would write a report on what happened as follows:
“The weather fine and clear, the wind and sea moderate. Observed some black spots on the water, and a whitish pillar, about thirty-five feet high, above them At the first glance I took all to be breakers, as the sea was splashing up fountain-like about them, and the pillar, a pinnacle rock bleached with the sun; but the pillar fell with a splash, and a similar one rose. They rose and fell alternately in quick succession, and good glasses showed me it was a monster sea-serpent coiled twice round a large sperm whale.
The head and tail parts, each about thirty feet long, were acting as levers, twisting itself and victim around with great velocity. They sank out of sight about every two minutes, coming to the surface still revolving, and the struggles of the whale and two other whales that were near, frantic with excitement, made the sea in this vicinity like a boiling cauldron; and a loud and confused noise was distinctly heard.
This strange occurrence lasted some fifteen minutes, and finished with the tail portion of the whale being elevated straight in the air, then waving backwards and forwards, and lashing the water furiously in the last death-struggle, when the whole body disappeared from our view, going down head-foremost towards the bottom, where, no doubt, it was gorged at the serpent’s leisure; and that monster of monsters may have been many months in a state of coma, digesting the huge mouthful.
Then two of the largest sperm whales that I have ever seen moved slowly thence towards the vessel, their bodies more than usually elevated out of the water, and not spouting or making the least noise, but seeming quite paralyzed with fear; indeed, a cold shiver went through my own frame on beholding the last agonizing struggle of the poor whale that had seemed as helpless in the coils of the vicious monster as a small bird in the talons of a hawk. Allowing for two coils round the whale, I think the serpent was about one hundred and sixty or one hundred and seventy feet long, and seven or eight in girth. It was in color much like a conger eel, and the head, from the mouth being always open, appeared the largest part of the body. I think Cape San Roque is a landmark for whales leaving the south for the North Atlantic.”
Amazingly, Driver would see something similarly strange not long after, of which he would write:
“I wrote thus far, little thinking I would ever see the serpent again; but at 7 A.M., July 13th, in the same latitude, and some eighty miles east of San Roque, I was astonished to see the same or a similar monster. It was throwing its head and about forty feet of its body in a horizontal position out of the water as it passed onwards by the stern of our vessel. I began musing why we were so much favored with such a strange visitor, and concluded that the band of white paint, two feet wide above the copper, might have looked like a fellow-serpent to it, and, no doubt, attracted its attention.
While thus thinking, I was startled by the cry of 'There it is again,' and a short distance to leeward, elevated some sixty feet in the air, was the great leviathan, grimly looking towards the vessel. As I was not sure it was only our free board it was viewing, we had all our axes ready, and were fully determined, should the brute embrace the Pauline, to chop away for its backbone with all our might, and the wretch might have found for once in its life that it had caught a Tartar. This statement is strictly true, and the occurrence was witnessed by my officers, half the crew, and myself; and we are ready, at any time, to testify on oath that it is so, and that we are not in the least mistaken. A vessel, about three years ago, was dragged over by some sea-monster in the Indian Ocean.”
In 1883, a man known only as “Mr. Hoad” was taking a stroll along a rural place called Brungle Creek, in New South Wales, Australia, when right after a flood he stumbled cross something very bizarre, indeed. According to the witness, he found there on the shore a weird creature measuring around 30 feet in length, with a lobster-like curved tail and in the place of where a head should be merely what looked like an elephant’s trunk. At the time, newspaper reports were making it out to be the body of a creature from Australian lore called a “Bunyip,” and the author Charles Fort would say of the discovery in his book Lo!:
Remains of a strange animal, teleported to this earth from Mars or the moon -- very likely, or not so likely -- found on a bank of a stream in Australia. See the Adelaide Observer, Sept. 15, 1883 -- that Mr. Hoad, of Adelaide, had found on a bank of Brungle Creek, a headless trunk of a pig-like animal, with an appendage that curved inward, like the tail of a lobster.
Another descriptions reads:
“The body was a headless trunk of a strange animal covered with short, strong hair and an overall pig-like appearance. The terminal appendage curls inward, and resembles the tail of a huge lobster. There was damage on the corpse where it was felt the head and feet should be, and it was assumed these had been eaten away by animals. The flesh in these damaged spots was described as looking like dried ling fish, and the body overall was in a similar state of preservation and shows no sign of decay.”
Making matters even more confusing is that there are also reports that another man by the name of Henry Wilkinson, who also reportedly came across the “headless trunk of a strange animal,” with a pig-like appearance and a “terminal appendage that curls inward, and resembles the tail of a huge lobster,” also along the shore of Brungle Creek. What is sometimes called “Hoad’s Monster” was claimed by the newspapers to be sent to the Sydney Museum for further scientific analysis, but there is no further word on it after that, and no known physical evidence remaining. This was likely just a sensationalized newspaper account with nothing behind it, and making it even murkier is that subsequent retellings of the story over the years have added details such as hair covering the body or flippers, but we will probably never know for sure.
Another report from the 19th century comes from the crew of the British steamer the Emu, which made a stop at the south Pacific atoll known as Suwarrow Island on their way to Sydney, Australia. While they were there, natives excitedly told them of a type of large and mysterious creature they had seen off the coast, which they called the “Devil Fish,” and they even claimed that one had washed ashore. They were led to the carcass and saw that it was 60-feet long, covered with brownish hair, and had the head of a horse, with two formidable tusks jutting from its lower jaw. It was massive, weighing about 70 tons, so they were unable to move it, but the Emu crew secured as many of the remains as they could, including the beast’s skull. It is unknown what became of these remains, but the most common explanation was that they had misidentified a beaked whale. What did they really find out there at that island? Who knows?
As we can see, reports of strange things in the sea go way back, and some of these are even more spectacular in that there was actual physical evidence gained, making it frustrating that these alleged specimens have disappeared into the mists of time to fall into the cracks of history. Indeed, all of these reports have sort of been forgotten to time, and it is good to every once in a while dig them back up and look at them with fresh eyes.
What Makes These Mysterious Moons the Most Puzzling in Our Solar System?
What Makes These Mysterious Moons the Most Puzzling in Our Solar System?
Here’s what makes some of the most mysterious moons in our solar system so captivating — and why they’ve become prime targets in the search for life beyond Earth.
Image Credit: SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, CSA, Webb Titan GTO Team IMAGE PROCESSING: Alyssa Pagan (STScI).
They’re not planets, yet they may be more intriguing. Moons like Europa and Enceladus have oceans beneath their icy crusts, Phobos is slowly falling toward Mars, and Triton orbits backward. These aren’t just barren satellites — they are worlds with geologic activity, strange orbits, and potential for life. And scientists are only beginning to understand what secrets these mysterious moons may be hiding.
Here’s what makes some of the most mysterious moons in our solar system so captivating — and why they’ve become prime targets in the search for life beyond Earth.
Europa and Enceladus: Oceans Beneath Ice
Among all the moons in the solar system, Europa (orbiting Jupiter) and Enceladus (orbiting Saturn) stand out as the most promising places to search for alien life.
1. Europa
Europa’s smooth, icy surface is crisscrossed with brownish lines — likely fractures in its outer shell. Below that ice lies a global ocean that may contain twice as much water as Earth. Scientists believe the ocean is kept warm by tidal forces created by Jupiter’s gravity, which flex the moon’s interior and generate heat.
Active geological resurfacing, possibly from erupting water
Oxygen and other materials on the surface that may mix with the ocean below
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will fly by the moon dozens of times to investigate whether it could support life.
2. Enceladus
Enceladus is smaller than Europa but just as mysterious. In 2005, NASA’s Cassini spacecr
aft captured stunning images of plumes of water vapor erupting from its south pole — shooting ice particles and organic molecules into space.
Key discoveries:
Cryovolcanic geysers that erupt through surface cracks
Organic compounds, silica particles, and salt — all signs of an underground ocean
Detection of phosphates, essential for life as we know it
The presence of heat, water, and organic material make Enceladus one of the most exciting candidates for extraterrestrial life in the solar system.
Phobos and Deimos: Mars’s Mysterious Moons
Talking about mysterious moons, Mars has two tiny ones, Phobos and Deimos, and both present puzzles that still don’t have clear answers.
Phobos, the larger of the two, is slowly spiraling toward Mars and may eventually crash into the planet or break apart and form a ring. It’s oddly shaped, heavily cratered, and appears to be made of carbon-rich rock, not unlike certain asteroids.
Theories about its origin include:
A captured asteroid from the outer solar system
A re-accreted fragment from a massive impact on Mars
Deimos is even smaller and more distant, with a smoother appearance. Both moons challenge traditional models of how natural satellites form, and Japan’s upcoming Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission hopes to return samples from Phobos to help solve the mystery.
A photograph of Titan. Image Credit: Space Science Institute.
Triton and Titan: Outliers with Odd Behavior
Two other moons, mysterious moons — Triton (Neptune’s largest moon) and Titan (Saturn’s largest) — are full of strange surprises.
1. Triton
Triton is the only large moon in the solar system that orbits in the opposite direction of its planet’s rotation. This retrograde motion suggests it was once a captured object, possibly a dwarf planet from the Kuiper Belt.
It’s geologically active, with ice volcanoes, nitrogen geysers, and a frozen crust. Triton may also harbor a subsurface ocean.
NASA is currently studying potential flyby missions to Triton under its Trident concept, which would aim to investigate its active surface and interior.
2. Titan
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is the only moon with a dense atmosphere and features rivers, lakes, and seas — of liquid methane and ethane.
Despite the frigid temperatures, Titan’s chemistry is considered a potential analog for early Earth. NASA’s upcoming Dragonfly mission will send a rotorcraft to fly across Titan’s surface and explore its complex organic chemistry in the 2030s.
These moons aren’t just rocks in orbit — they are worlds in their own right, with active geology, unique atmospheres, and potential habitats for life. What makes them mysterious moons isn’t just their strange behaviors, but how little we still know about them.
In the coming decades, space agencies will focus on missions to these moons to answer questions that could reshape our understanding of planetary formation — and perhaps even the origin of life.
Each of these mysterious moons represents a new frontier in the search for answers about the solar system’s past — and our place in it.
For decades, scientists have searched the sky, scannedradio signals, and sent probes across the solar system in hopes of answering a haunting question: Why haven’t we found alien life? Given the sheer number of planets orbiting distant stars, it seems unlikely that Earth is the only place where life emerged. So what’s going on?
This mystery, known as the Fermi Paradox, is named after physicist Enrico Fermi who famously asked, “Where is everybody?” While the universe should be teeming with life, the silence remains unbroken. Today, researchers have proposed several compelling ideas that could explain why we still haven’t made contact.
The Great Filter: Are We Already Past It, or Is It Still Ahead?
One of the most unsettling explanations is the Great Filter. This theory suggests that somewhere along the path from simple chemistry to advanced space-faring civilizations, there is a step that’s incredibly unlikely. If the filter is behind us — perhaps the leap from single-celled to complex organisms — that’s good news. It would mean life is rare, but we’ve already overcome the hardest part.
But if the filter lies ahead — say, in the form of self-destruction through war, climate collapse, or runaway artificial intelligence — then humanity might be racing toward a wall that most civilizations never survive.
Simulation Hypothesis: Are We Living in a Construct?
So why haven’t we found alien life? Another popular idea is the simulation hypothesis, which argues that we might not be living in the base reality at all. If an advanced civilization could simulate consciousness, they might create entire digital worlds — including ours. In that case, we wouldn’t find alien life simply because the simulation wasn’t designed to include it.
This theory has gained traction in philosophical circles and among some physicists, but it opens up more questions than answers. Who created the simulation? Could we break out of it? And what would finding extraterrestrial life mean in such a scenario?
The Dark Forest Hypothesis: Everyone Is Hiding
In a universe where unknown threats could lurk in any corner, broadcasting your location might be a fatal mistake. That’s the premise behind the dark forest hypothesis, a chilling idea popularized by author Liu Cixin. According to this view, every civilization is both hunter and prey, hiding in silence to avoid being noticed — or eliminated.
If true, then maybe other civilizations are out there but choose to stay quiet. They might have observed us already and decided it’s safer not to interact.
Shutterstock.
Could We Be Looking the Wrong Way?
It’s also possible that alien life simply doesn’t resemble what we expect. Life could be based on elements or chemistry unfamiliar to us. We might be scanning the wrong frequencies, or even missing signs that are right under our noses. Some researchers have suggested that alien probes could be lurking in our own solar system — hidden in places we haven’t fully explored, like the Moon’s far side or inside near-Earth asteroids.
Are We Too Early — Or Too Late?
Timing could be everything. The universe is nearly 14 billion years old. Human beings have only been around for a tiny fraction of that. Civilizations could have risen and fallen before Earth even formed. Or we might be early bloomers, among the first to reach this level of development.
Either way, our timing might explain the silence. We may be shouting into a void that hasn’t had time to echo back — or where the echoes have long faded.
As our tools improve — with missions to distant moons like Europa and Titan, and powerful telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope — we may finally catch a glimpse of something that answers this age-old question. But for now, the mystery remains unsolved. And maybe that’s the point. Perhaps the search itself is what defines us. What do you think is the most likely explanation? Are we truly alone, or just not looking in the right way?
Almost a Quarter of all Lunar Ejecta Eventually Hits Earth
Almost a Quarter of all Lunar Ejecta Eventually Hits Earth
By Mark Thompson
Lunar crater
The Moon's surface is covered by impact craters, ranging from microscopic pits to massive basins over 1,000 kilometres across. These craters formed primarily during the Late Heavy Bombardment period about 4 billion years ago, when the inner Solar System experienced an intense period of asteroid and comet impacts. Unlike Earth, where weathering, erosion, and tectonic activity continually reshapes the surface, the Moon lacks an atmosphere and significant geological activity, allowing these impact features to remain preserved for billions of years. This remarkably preserved cratering record serves to capture crucial history of the formation and evolution of our Solar System.
Lunar craters over the South Pole
(Credit : NASA)
During the formation of craters a significant quantity of the ejected lunar material achieves the Moon’s escape velocity and reaches Earth. Studying these rocks helps us to understand how material moves between the two bodies. A team of researchers have turned their attention to this study and their paper has recently been published. The research, led by Jose Daniel Castro-Cisneros utilises better computer models than previous studies to track how Moon debris reaches Earth.
The study uses simulations to examine more starting conditions over longer time periods to better estimate how much lunar material reaches Earth and whether it contributes to near Earth objects. The team also hoped that by studying Moon debris trajectories, they would be able to piece together Earth's impact timeline and how it affected life and geology. They are also especially interested in objects like Kamo'oalewa, believed to be between 36-100 metres in diameter orbiting near Earth that might actually be a piece of the Moon.
Previous studies of lunar ejecta were improved upon by using the REBOUND simulation package to track particles from the Moon for 100,000 years. Unlike earlier work that used separate phases, the team simultaneously model Earth and the Moon using a more realistic ejection velocity distribution. They recorded data every five years and collision events defined as ejecta reaching 100 km above Earth's surface, providing a more comprehensive picture of how material transfers from the Moon to Earth.
Crater Tycho displaying its wonderful system of rays thought to be lunar ejecta.
The model employed, used simplified vertical impacts, though natural oblique impacts would direct more material toward Earth at lower angles, the approach simplified the process. Current environmental conditions were assumed but historically, when the Moon was closer and experiencing heavier bombardment (over 1.1 billion years ago), even more lunar material would have reached Earth. Future research should incorporate oblique impact models and ancient orbital configurations to better understand early Earth-Moon material exchange.
The team were able to conclude that, following lunar impacts, Earth collects about 22.6% of the ejected material over 100,000 years, with half of these collisions occurring within the first 10,000 years. The collision rate follows a power-law distribution over time (a relationship where a change in one quantity results in a proportional relative change in another) independent of the initial size of those quantities. Material launched from the Moon's trailing side has the highest Earth collision probability, while the leading side produces the lowest. When hitting Earth, lunar ejecta travel at 11.0-13.1 km/s and predominantly strike near the equator (with 24% fewer impacts at the poles). These impacts are nearly symmetrically distributed between morning and evening hours, peaking around 6 AM/PM.
This research significantly advances our understanding of lunar-Earth material exchange, showing that nearly a quarter of lunar impact ejecta reaches Earth—half within just 10,000 years. The findings about equatorial impact concentration and the importance of lunar launch location reveal previously unknown patterns in this process. These results enhance our understanding of the Earth-Moon system's shared impact history while supporting the lunar origin hypothesis for objects like Kamo’oalewa.
Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are rocky bodies orbiting our Solar System that pass relatively close to Earth's orbit. Scientists have identified over 30,000 NEOs ranging from small boulders to massive rocks spanning several kilometres in diameter. These celestial bodies are of particular interest to astronomers not only for their scientific value in understanding the formation of our Solar System but also because they pose potential impact hazards to our planet. Space agencies like NASA continuously monitor these objects through programs such as the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission, calculating their trajectories to provide early warnings of possible collisions.
Near Earth Object Comet Hartley-2 captured by NASA's EPOXI mission
(Credit : NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD)
Despite significant advances in asteroid detection technology in recent decades, important gaps remain. Ground-based survey programs like the Catalina Sky Survey and Pan-STARRS have collectively discovered over 90% of near-Earth asteroids larger than 1 kilometre, significantly reducing the risk from globally devastating impacts. However, detection rates drop dramatically for smaller objects, with less than 40% of potentially hazardous asteroids in the 140-meter range currently cataloged. Detection challenges include limitations of ground-based telescopes (affected by weather, daylight, and atmospheric interference), blind spots near the sun, and the inherently dark, low-albedo nature of many asteroids.
A Catalina Sky Survey Observatory at dusk at Mount Lemmon Observatory in the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson, Arizona
(Credit : Daniel Oberhaus)
International and U.S. defence protocols have identified the urgent need for rapid-response spacecraft reconnaissance capabilities, particularly for asteroids around 50 meters in diameter—objects large enough to cause significant regional damage yet small enough to evade detection until they're dangerously close. Even after the completion of advanced survey initiatives like NEO Surveyor and the Rubin Observatory, approximately half of these 50-meter objects will remain undiscovered until they're nearly upon us. This sobering reality means that for many potential impact scenarios, a quickly deployed flyby mission may represent our only chance to gather critical data before impact.
The Rubin Observatory against the Milky Way
(Credit : Rubin Observatory/NSF/AURA/B)
In a recent paper authored by Nancy L. Chabot and team from Johns Hopkins University, they assert that a planetary defence flyby reconnaissance mission must demonstrate capabilities to quickly reach a small ~50-meter NEO, determine its Earth impact probability, and gather essential physical data to inform decision makers. This presents significant technical challenges, including managing flyby speeds up to 25 km/s and high solar phase angles while collecting crucial data from such a small target.
The core principle of planetary defence is that we don't choose which asteroids threaten us—we must be prepared to respond to whatever object presents a danger. Therefore, the team argues that the mission's true purpose isn't simply demonstrating asteroid flyby technology, but developing robust capabilities specifically tailored for the small, short-warning-time objects most likely to require rapid space-based studies, an essential advancement in our planetary defence readiness.
Glowing Craft Over Roswell, New Mexico April 12, 2025, UFO UAP Sighting News.
Glowing Craft Over Roswell, New Mexico April 12, 2025, UFO UAP Sighting News.
Date of sighting: April 12, 2025
Location of sighting: Roswell, New Mexico, USA
Source: Email report at scwaring @ yahoo.com
Wow something over Roswell caught the attention of some people last week. The object was glowing and moving fast, but then suddenly ejected itself from the glowing sphere and a long craft exits outward but continues to travel the same direction. Now this almost looks like a rocket launch, but there are no launches near Roswell, also aliens themselves may have thought about hiding from humans by disguising their ships to mimic rocket launches. It's not redicuoulous, it's actually ingenious of them. You see, UFOs have been known to change shape, sometimes from a disk into a plane and have even been seen creating a cloud around itself to disappear. Aliens pride themselves on being smarter than humans, but the truth is...they are not. They only have greater tech advantages. This is a UFO disguising itself as a rocket where no rocket launches exist. Aliens logic is flawed.
This just in. Some UFO lights were seen over Phoenix a few days ago and wow, one of them is so big! I was just in the CIA files yesterday and they noted UFO often having up to four different flashing colors, so bright that the hull of the craft could not be seen by the jet pilots intercepting them. This video shows similar UFOs and one of them is massive is size and looks to me to be 100 meters across. This is 100% proof that the aliens that caused the Phoenix lights...never left, they live there in an underground base about 5 miles below the surface.
Now I made a short clip of a close up and another similar but in a different color which I did in order to help the viewers truly see the shape of the alien craft.
Scott C. Waring - Utah...email me your reports.
Eyewitness states:
We saw blinking lights circling each other, and they started forming a triangle; and then stopped mid-air! I ran in to get my phone to record it, and one had moved away. You can still see two blinking dots… when one, out of nowhere, gets SUPER bright! No idea why?
For decades, scientists have searched the sky, scanned radio signals, and sent probes across the solar system in hopes of answering a haunting question: Why haven’t we found alien life? Given the sheer number of planets orbiting distant stars, it seems unlikely that Earth is the only place where life emerged. So what’s going on?
This mystery, known as the Fermi Paradox, is named after physicist Enrico Fermi who famously asked, “Where is everybody?” While the universe should be teeming with life, the silence remains unbroken. Today, researchers have proposed several compelling ideas that could explain why we still haven’t made contact.
The Great Filter: Are We Already Past It, or Is It Still Ahead?
One of the most unsettling explanations is the Great Filter. This theory suggests that somewhere along the path from simple chemistry to advanced space-faring civilizations, there is a step that’s incredibly unlikely. If the filter is behind us — perhaps the leap from single-celled to complex organisms — that’s good news. It would mean life is rare, but we’ve already overcome the hardest part.
But if the filter lies ahead — say, in the form of self-destruction through war, climate collapse, or runaway artificial intelligence — then humanity might be racing toward a wall that most civilizations never survive.
Simulation Hypothesis: Are We Living in a Construct?
So why haven’t we found alien life? Another popular idea is the simulation hypothesis, which argues that we might not be living in the base reality at all. If an advanced civilization could simulate consciousness, they might create entire digital worlds — including ours. In that case, we wouldn’t find alien life simply because the simulation wasn’t designed to include it.
This theory has gained traction in philosophical circles and among some physicists, but it opens up more questions than answers. Who created the simulation? Could we break out of it? And what would finding extraterrestrial life mean in such a scenario?
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
Druk op onderstaande knop om je bestand , jouw artikel naar mij te verzenden. INDIEN HET DE MOEITE WAARD IS, PLAATS IK HET OP DE BLOG ONDER DIVERSEN MET JOUW NAAM...
Druk op onderstaande knop om een berichtje achter te laten in mijn gastenboek
Alvast bedankt voor al jouw bezoekjes en jouw reacties. Nog een prettige dag verder!!!
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.
.jpg)
