I remember April 1995 very well. It was the month that the stunning and iconic image that has been called ‘Pillars of Creation’ was released. It was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope but now the James Webb Telescope is getting in on the act. Webb snapped images of the Eagle Nebula (home to the ‘pillars’) early on but now astronomers have combined the data form Hubble and Webb to create an amazing 3D animation flight through the nebula. 

The Pillars of Creation are composed mostly of cool molecular hydrogen and dust. They are being worn away by strong winds and ultraviolet radiation emitted by nearby hot, young stars. The pillars, which resemble great big cosmic fingers have additional protrusions, that are larger than the solar system, extending from their tops. Embedded within these fingers are young hot stars. The tallest of the pillars measures three light-years from top to bottom.

The stunning new 3D movie takes viewers on a journey through the structures of the pillars, relying on real observational data from a scientific study led by Anna McLeod, an associate professor at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom. The video allows viewers to get a glimpse at how the two space telescopes can collaborate 

The new visualisation allows viewers to understand how two of the world’s most powerful space telescopes collaborate to deliver a more detailed view. Hubble captures objects glowing in visible light at thousands of degrees, while Webb’s infrared camera is sensitive to cooler objects at just hundreds of degrees and can penetrate the dust to reveal stars embedded within.

The movie does more than just create a fabulous video. It helps viewers to explore a number of different areas and stages of star formation. The central pillar for example is approached and can be observed with an infant protostar embedded at its top. It can be seen glowing bright red in the infrared image. Near the top of the left pillar is a diagonal jet of material that has been ejected from a newborn star. The hot young star cannot be seen but the jet gives away its presence. Finally at the tip of one of the left pillar’s protrusions is a brand new star that is shining brightly. 

Another wonderful benefit of the new 3D visualisation is the creation of a 3D printable model of the Pillars of Creation. The information has been converted into an STL file format that can be downloaded and printed at home using 3D printers. Not only will this be of fabulous interest to fellow geeks but it will also be of immense educational value to schools. 

The videos of the creation can be seen here

Source : 

• Pillars of Creation Star in New Visualisation from NASA’s Hubble and Webb Telescopes

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

27-06-2024 om 19:01 geschreven door peter  

In a 2023 video, CBS News recaps lessons learned from the Chinese spy balloon’s flight:

The demonstration is described in a research paper written by Harvard University’s Eric Keto and Wellesley College’s Wesley Andres Watters, who proposed their image analysis technique in an earlier study. The new study was posted to the ArXiv pre-print server last week and has been submitted to the Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation for review.

Keto and Watters started out with multispectral imagery captured by Planet’s SuperDove satellites during last year’s balloon flights. Such imagery isn’t captured all at once. Instead, the satellite’s sensors record a succession of exposures that reflect different spectral bands. That means an aerial object would be seen at a slightly different location in each of the images that are combined to produce a multispectral view, due to the parallax effect created by a moving satellite.

The researchers said the spy balloons were ideal subjects for their study. “High-altitude balloons are advantageous targets, because the motion of the balloon itself can be ignored in the analysis,” they said.

The aim of their study was to create a baseline for interpreting spectral-band images. The researchers conducted a detailed analysis of imagery that was acquired over British Columbia, Missouri and Colombia — and made a few educated guesses about the relative velocities involved. They took a variety of factors into account, including shifts in the background terrain and the potential effects of atmospheric distortion. (The British Columbia imagery wasn’t that useful, because snow and ice covered up the features that would typically be used for ground reference.)

The analysis not only provided a baseline for tracking moving objects using SuperDove satellite imagery, but also made it possible for the researchers to provide estimates for the altitudes of the balloons. They said one balloon flew over Missouri at a height of about 21,200 meters (69,500 feet), while the other balloon’s altitude was about 21,500 meters (70,500 feet) when it was spotted over Colombia.

Keto and Watters aren’t the only ones looking into how commercial satellite data could be used to track anomalous aerial objects. A team of researchers at RAIC Labs (formerly known as Synthetaic) used Planet’s data archive and RAIC Labs’ AI-based image analysis program to trace the infamous Chinese balloon’s route backward from the U.S. to its point of origin near Hainan.

A 2023 video focuses on how Planet and Synthetaic / RAIC Labs tracked the Chinese balloon:

Such techniques could be used to detect phenomena that are even more exotic than Chinese spy balloons: The study conducted by Keto and Watters is part of Harvard University’s Galileo Project, which is aimed at finding ways to collect high-quality data that could be useful in the search for objects of extraterrestrial origin.

Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who heads up the Galileo Project, said last year in a blog posting that his team has been searching through Planet’s data archive for signs of unusual objects.

“Extraterrestrial equipment can be distinguished from a terrestrial object, not just by resolving unusual bolts or labels imprinted on its hardware but also based on its motion,” Loeb explained. “As mentioned in the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] reports in 2021 and 2022, unusual flight characteristics can serve as an indicator of an extraterrestrial origin.”

Will satellite data analysis become a standard tool for detecting anomalous aerial phenomena? Stay tuned: We’ve reached out to Loeb, Keto and Watters, and we’ll update this report with any additional information we can pass along.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

26-06-2024 om 23:36 geschreven door peter  

A 2-Mile Wide ‘Planet Killer’ Asteroid Is Headed Towards Earth At 58,000 MPH

BY DOUGLAS CHARLES

ISTOCKPHOTO

Mountain-sized “planet-killer” Asteroid 2011 UL21 is headed towards Earth this week and during its trip it will be making a very close approach to our planet.

The asteroid, classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) by NASA, is supposed to go zooming by Earth at 58,000 mph on June 27th.

Asteroid 2011 UL21 is also classified as a near-Earth object (NEO), which means that its orbit can move the space rock within 1.3 astronomical units (AU) of the sun. An AU is the average distance between Earth and the Sun, or about 93 million miles.

VIA NASA-JPL

This asteroid is no tiny space rock either. According to SpaceReference.org, it is comparable in size to Mount Everest – Earth’s highest mountain above sea level – and is between 1.1 and 2.4-miles wide.

Needless to say, a 2-mile wide rock traveling at 58,000 mph would definitely “kill” our planet.

Thankfully, the asteroid will only pass Earth at a distance of around 4.1 million miles. Still, that is the closest it will have come to Earth in the past 110 years, at least.

And while 4.1 million miles may sound like a great distance, in terms of space it isn’t so much. By comparison, Mars is 245.22 million miles from Earth.

According to Gianluca Masi, astrophysicist and director of the Virtual Telescope Project, “There is absolutely no risk for our planet.”

“The term ‘Potentially Hazardous Asteroid’ (PHA) is a precise formal definition, referring to minor planets larger than approximately 140 meters that can come within 7.5 million km from the Earth,” said Masi. “In other words, only the largest asteroids capable of approaching close enough to our planet are flagged as PHAs, which does not mean they are going to hit the Earth, but they nonetheless warrant a better monitoring.”

That being said, there is always the possibility that the gravitational tug of Earth could alter the “planet killer” asteroid’s orbit (called the Yarkovsky Effect). And if that were to ever occur there isn’t much we could do to stop it.

{ https://brobible.com/ }

26-06-2024 om 23:26 geschreven door peter  

Researchers Believe They Will Find UFO, Alien Secrets In The Vatican Archives

BY DOUGLAS CHARLES

ISTOCKPHOTO COMPOSITE

Researchers believe a search of the Vatican’s historic archives will reveal key insights into aliens, UFOs and other previously unexplained paranormal activity.

Sorting through the massive amounts of documents located in the Vatican Apostolic Archives (its official name) will be no easy task, however.

According to the archive’s website, the files are stored on over 85 linear kilometers of shelving. That’s almost 53 linear miles worth of documentation, covering over twelve centuries.

A recent article published on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website explains that “a group of scientists and researchers are seeking access to the Vatican Apostolic Archives to uncover information about UFOs and the paranormal.”

The reason for this has ties to Air Force veteran and Pentagon whistleblower David Grusch’s testimony last year in which he claimed the “Vatican was involved” in the first-ever mission of the United States’ alleged secret UFO retrieval program.

“1933 was the first recovery in Europe, in Magenta, Italy,” Grusch told NewsNation. They recovered a partially intact vehicle, and the Italian government moved it to a secure airbase in Italy until around 1944-1945.

“The Pope back-channeled that and told the Americans what the Italians had and we ended up scooping it.”

Following Grusch’s statements, researcher Roberto Pinotti also came forward with a claim that he has proof that a UFO crash occurred in Italy on June 13, 1933, 14 years before the Roswell incident.

“The historical record is filled with these kinds of events,” Diana Walsh Pasulka, a religious studies professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, told Catholic News Service. “The people at the Vatican, they don’t even know where to look; it’s in their basements.”

“[The Vatican’s archivists are in a] mad rush to digitize what they have; they have to prioritize what they think is most important. They aren’t really prioritizing orbs that are bothering nuns in the 1800s.”

{ https://brobible.com/ }

26-06-2024 om 23:18 geschreven door peter  

Take a deep dive into UFO history in 'After the Flying Saucers Came' by Greg Eghigian (exclusive)

Eghigian credits this newest wave of mania as erupting from a New York Times article in December 2017 regarding a secret government program to study UFOS.

"When that dropped, then subsequent films, photos and more stories, that's when it all exploded," he tells Space.com. "As a mainstream media phenomenon, UFOs were kind of dead for a good long period of time and that’s really the thing that ushered it in. The veteran ufologists refer to people as 'seventeeners,' those people who believe that all UFO stuff started in 2017 and have no idea about the past. 

"For me, I began this project around 2013. I grew up on UFOs and loved this stuff as a kid but lost interest in it when I went off to college. I had some time in the summer and I started digging around a digital archive and found all this stuff. No professor of history had written on the subject since 1975, I thought this seemed like it might be worth a revisit. I knew it was going to be a deep dive, and know there were a lot of rabbit holes but I wasn’t completely ready for just how many there were out there." 

Giving the book a solid foundation in history was an important aspect to this comprehensive UFO exploration for Eghigian as he discovered myriad false accounts, unreliable witnesses and semi-established truths.

"What we do in history is ask ourselves how did we get to where we are? And that happens through choices that are made, but also choices that aren't made. There are lots of different forks in the road at various places in time and institutions and people do things for a variety of reasons. So you excavate that whole complicated history of the choices made and not made that inform how things got framed the way they are now. And the extent to which that's reflective of something that represents the reality on the ground versus the image we have of it. 

"What was really missing from the way people talk about UFOs was somebody who approached it from the outside looking in who had no skin in the ontology game. I'm not here to referee or debunk. I'm going to take people seriously here, but I'm not going to just take their word for things."

Eghigian was most unsettled by many of the more outlandish and imaginative explanations out there that all attempt to explain the true nature of these mysterious phenomena.

"I think some of the bigger rabbit holes that I recall are actually the alternative, speculative theories about where the UFOs are coming from," he notes. "The big ones of course are really the two variations: If these things are real they’re secret technology of the United States or, back then, the Soviet Union. Or they're from another planet. But there's lots of other theories that start to come out of the woodwork pretty quickly. These go from that they are ultra-terrestrials from some other kind of space-time continuum or dimension, they are maybe dead people and that they're a variation on ghosts, to arguments about these are beings that live inside the Earth or live underwater. 

"And then there are people who start to see this in Christian theological ways as demons of Satan. I realized if I started to go too far down that road that the book was never going to get completed, so I largely put my focus solely on the extraterrestrial argument.  

"UFOs don't make history. People make UFOs make history. They are a phenomenon beyond just something that is seen. It's a social phenomenon. It's all the different people and institutions who get involved that try to make this thing important, to try to argue that this matters, and that includes debunkers and irrational people who try to use UFOs as opportunities to make spurious arguments that undermine science." 

According to Eghigian, the fact that military intelligence has declared that there's something real there, and not just the result of computer glitches feels like confirmation for a lot of UFO faithful.

"The UFO world is awash in rumor. This stuff has legs within different segments of academia," he adds. "There are serious people like me who are saying, 'Be ready if you really want us to look into this stuff. Because we academics are slow and we are very, very skeptical. It's the way we operate. So just be careful what you wish for. If we do get into this stuff it's likely not going to play out in the way that a lot of people imagine it playing out.

"It's cooling down a bit but there's still a lot of people excited and enthused about it so I don't think it's going away anytime soon."

 { https://www.space.com/ }

26-06-2024 om 23:06 geschreven door peter  

Study: Active, Seafloor Hydrothermal Systems on Small Ocean Worlds Could Support Life

Ocean worlds are planetary bodies that have a liquid ocean, often under an icy shell or within the rocky interior. In our own Solar System, several moons of Jupiter and Saturn are ocean worlds. Some ocean worlds are thought to have hydrothermal circulation, where water, rocks, and heat combine to drive fluids in and out of the seafloor. Hydrothermal circulation would impact the chemistry of the water and rock of ocean worlds, and could help life to develop deep below the icy surface. In a new study, planetary researchers used computer simulations of hydrothermal circulation, based on a well-understood system on Earth, to measure the influence of lower gravity at values appropriate for ocean worlds smaller than our home planet. The simulations with ocean world (lower) gravity result in fluid circulation much like that occurring on and below Earth’s seafloor, but with several important differences. Lower gravity reduces buoyancy, so fluids don’t become as light when heated, and this reduces flow rates. This can raise temperatures in the circulating fluid, which could allow more extensive chemical reactions, perhaps including those that sustain life.

This graphic illustrates how Cassini scientists think water interacts with rock at the bottom of Enceladus’ ocean, producing hydrogen gas.

Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Southwest Research Institute.

Rock-heat-fluid systems were discovered on Earth’s seafloor in the 1970s, when scientists observed discharging fluids that carried heat, particles, and chemicals.

Many vent sites were surrounded by novel ecosystems, including specialized bacterial mats, red-and-white tubeworms, and heat-sensing shrimp.

In the new study, University of California, Santa Cruz’s Professor Andrew Fisher and colleagues used a complex computer model based on hydrothermal circulation as it occurs on Earth.

After changing variables like gravity, heat, rock properties and fluid-circulation depth, they found that hydrothermal vents could be sustained under a wide range of conditions.

If these kinds of flows occur on an ocean world, like Jupiter’s moon Europa, they could raise the odds that life exists there as well.

“This study suggests that low temperature — not too hot for life — hydrothermal systems could have been sustained on ocean worlds beyond Earth over timescales comparable to that required for life to take hold on Earth,” Professor Fisher said.

The seawater-circulation system that the researchers based their computer models on was found on a 3.5 million-year-old seafloor in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, east of the Juan de Fuca Ridge.

There, cool bottom water flows in through an extinct volcano (seamount), travels underground for about 30 miles (48.3 km), then flows back out into the ocean through another seamount.

“The water gathers heat as it flows and comes out warmer than when it flowed in, and with very different chemistry,” Kristin Dickerson, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

“The flow from one seamount to another is driven by buoyancy, because water gets less dense as it warms, and more dense as it cools,” Professor Fisher added.

“Differences in density create differences in fluid pressure in the rock, and the system is sustained by the flows themselves — running as long as enough heat is supplied, and rock properties allow enough fluid circulation. We call it a hydrothermal siphon.”

“While high-temperature vent systems are driven mainly by sub-seafloor volcanic activity, a much larger volume of fluid flows in and out of Earth’s seafloor at lower temperatures, driven mainly by background cooling of the planet.”

“The flow of water through low-temperature venting is equivalent, in terms of the amount of water being discharged, to all of the rivers and streams on Earth, and is responsible for about a quarter of Earth’s heat loss.”

“The entire volume of the ocean is pumped in and out of the seafloor about every half-million years.”

Many previous studies of hydrothermal circulation on Europa and Enceladus have considered higher temperature fluids.

“Cartoons and other drawings often depict systems on their seafloors that look like black smokers on Earth. Lower-temperature flows are at least as likely to occur, if not more likely,” said Dr. Donna Blackman, also from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The findings show that, under very low gravity — like that found on the seafloor of Enceladus — circulation can continue with low to moderate temperatures for millions or billions of years.

This could help to explain how small ocean worlds can have long-lived fluid-circulation systems below their seafloors, even though heating is limited: the low efficiency of heat extraction could lead to considerable longevity — essentially, throughout the life of the Solar System.

The scientists acknowledge the uncertainty of when the seafloors of ocean worlds will be directly observed for the presence of active hydrothermal systems.

Their distance from Earth and physical characteristics present major technical challenges for spacecraft missions.

“Thus, it is essential to make the most of available data, much of it collected remotely, and leverage understanding from decades of detailed studies of analog Earth systems,” the authors concluded.

• Their paper was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

• A.T. Fisher et al. 2024. Sustaining Hydrothermal Circulation with Gravity Relevant to Ocean Worlds. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets 129 (6): e2023JE008202; doi: 10.1029/2023JE008202

{ https://www.sci.news/ }

26-06-2024 om 22:11 geschreven door peter  

I found a face on Mars in the center of a crater. UFO Sighting News. Video!

Date of discovery: June 26, 2024

Location of discovery: Mars

Source Photo: 

http://viewer.mars.asu.edu/planetview/inst/ctx/F21_043858_1485_XI_31S285W#P=F21_04

3858_1485_XI_31S285W,F21_043810_2049_XN_24N062W,F23_044646_2186_XN_38N205W

,F22_044206_1678_XN_12S068W,Invalid+Record,Invalid+Record,Invalid+Record,Invalid+Re

cord,Invalid+Record,Invalid+Record,Invalid+Record,Invalid+Record,F01_035992_1653_XI_1

4S108W,F02_036378_1411_XN_38S202W&T=15

Knowing what alien species exist out there is of utter most importance, because if we can see their face, we will fear them less knowing already that they exist. I am only trying to help humanity erase the fear that the movies and TV shows try to grow in us all. 

SCW

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

26-06-2024 om 22:02 geschreven door peter  

New Mexico’s History Of UFO Sightings

New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment, holds a unique and significant place in the annals of UFO history. The state is home to some of the most famous and intriguing UFO sightings and incidents in the world, drawing both skeptics and believers. From the legendary Roswell incident to the lesser-known yet equally perplexing Hobbs burn case, New Mexico’s UFO history is rich and varied.

The Roswell Incident

The Roswell incident of 1947 is perhaps the most iconic UFO event in New Mexico’s history. Something undeniably crashed on a ranch near Roswell, leading to the recovery of mysterious debris by the military. Initial press releases claimed the recovery of a “flying disc,” only to be retracted the next day in favor of a weather balloon explanation. Over the years, theories have ranged from top-secret military projects like Project Mogul to extraterrestrial spacecraft. Despite the controversy and lack of definitive evidence, the Roswell incident remains a cornerstone of UFO lore and has significantly influenced popular culture.

The Farmington Armada

In March 1950, the town of Farmington witnessed a remarkable series of events known as the Farmington Armada. Over three days, hundreds of residents reported seeing numerous flying objects in broad daylight. Descriptions varied from silver discs to elliptical shapes, often seen in formation. This mass sighting involved credible witnesses, including police officers and business leaders, adding to its legitimacy. The sheer number of objects and the duration of the sightings make the Farmington Armada one of the most substantial UFO events in New Mexico.

Kirtland Air Force Base Incidents

Kirtland Air Force Base has been the site of several significant UFO sightings. On November 4, 1957, military radar operators tracked an unknown object that violated the base’s perimeter. This object exhibited capabilities far beyond conventional aircraft, such as hovering and rapid acceleration. Another notable event occurred in September 1959, when multiple radar stations across New Mexico tracked an object moving at unprecedented speeds, clocking in at around 2,200 miles per hour. These incidents highlight the potential national security implications of unidentified aerial phenomena.

The Hobbs Burn Case

One of the more obscure yet fascinating cases is the Hobbs burn incident of 1964. An eight-year-old boy in Hobbs was reportedly burned by a UFO. According to contemporaneous news accounts, a black, top-shaped object emitted a column of fire that set the boy’s hair on fire and caused severe burns. The FBI was involved in the investigation, and samples of the boy’s shirt, hair, and skin were sent to FBI labs for analysis. Despite extensive investigations, no conventional explanation was found. This case, like many others, underscores the enigmatic nature of some UFO reports.

Historical Preservation and Research

David Marler, Executive Director of the National UFO Historical Records Center, has dedicated his life to preserving the history of UFO sightings. His center holds the largest collection of UFO materials in North America, including civilian and military case files, original Air Force documents, and interviews with credible witnesses. Marler’s approach is not to promote belief in extraterrestrial visitors but to preserve and document the historical record. His efforts ensure that future generations can access and study these phenomena with an objective, evidence-based approach.

Technological and Scientific Context

New Mexico is also home to significant technological and scientific facilities that have contributed to UFO research. The Very Large Array, a radio telescope facility west of Socorro, is used by astronomers to observe natural radio waves from space. Radar technology, infrared sensors, and satellites have all played roles in detecting and analyzing unidentified aerial phenomena. These tools provide objective measures that can corroborate eyewitness reports, adding a layer of scientific credibility to the study of UFOs.

VIDEO:

• New Mexico’s History Of UFO Sightings

New Mexico’s history with UFO sightings is both rich and complex. From the well-known Roswell incident to the mysterious Hobbs burn case, the state has been a focal point for UFO activity for decades. Through the efforts of researchers like David Marler and the preservation of historical records, the stories of these sightings continue to intrigue and inspire curiosity. Whether one is a skeptic or a believer, the UFO history of New Mexico offers a fascinating glimpse into the unknown and a reminder of the enduring human quest to understand our place in the universe.

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

26-06-2024 om 21:29 geschreven door peter  

After helium leaks and thruster problems with Boeing’s Starliner capsule, NASA has been pushing back the return date from the International Space Station. On Friday, the agency announced they no longer had a planned return date. Instead, they will keep testing the capsule, trying to understand its issues, and seeing if they can make any fixes. Plenty of supplies are on the station, so there’s no urgent need to bring the two astronauts back to Earth.

Another reason NASA decided to cancel the planned departure of Wednesday, June 26 is because of conflicting timelines with a series of planned spacewalks on the ISS, set for today (Monday, June 24), and Tuesday, July 2. The delay also allows mission teams time to review propulsion and system data.

After years of delays and two recent scrubbed launch attempts, Starliner finally launched on June 5, 2024 with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board. Although two of the spacecraft’s thrusters failed during the flight, the spacecraft managed to reach the ISS and delivered 227 kg (500 lbs) of cargo. Additionally, five small leaks on the service module were also detected, and the crew and ground teams have been working through safety checks.

“We are taking our time and following our standard mission management team process,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program in a NASA blog post. “We are letting the data drive our decision making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking. Additionally, given the duration of the mission, it is appropriate for us to complete an agency-level review, similar to what was done ahead of the NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 return after two months on orbit, to document the agency’s formal acceptance on proceeding as planned.”

Safety and gaining a better understanding of the issues with Starliner are NASA and Boeing’s motivations for the delay in returning the spacecraft and crew back to Earth.

This first crewed flight of Starliner was supposed to validate the spacecraft as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP), with the hope of it working alongside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon to make regular deliveries of cargo and crew to the ISS. This mission is the second time the Starliner has flown to the ISS and the third flight test overall. During the first uncrewed test flight (OFT-1), which took place back in December 2019, the Starliner launched successfully but failed to make it to the ISS. After making 61 corrective actions recommended by NASA, another attempt was made (OFT-2) on May 22nd, 2022. That flight successfully docked to the ISS, staying there for four days before undocking and landing in the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

Wilmore and Williams are now  working with the Expedition 71 crew, assisting with station operations as needed and completing add-on in-flight objectives for NASA’s certification of Starliner.

Stich said that despite all the issues, Starliner is performing well in orbit while docked to the space station.

“We are strategically using the extra time to clear a path for some critical station activities while completing readiness for Butch and Suni’s return on Starliner,” he said, “and gaining valuable insight into the system upgrades we will want to make for post-certification missions.”

Mission managers will evaluate future return opportunities for Starliner and NASA said they will host a media telecon with mission leadership following a readiness review. NASA added that Starliner is actually cleared for return in case of an emergency on the space station that would require the crew to leave orbit and come back to Earth.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

25-06-2024 om 23:50 geschreven door peter  

“The Chang’e-6 lunar exploration mission achieved complete success,” Zhang Kejian, director of the China National Space Administration, said from mission control. Chinese President Xi Jinping extended congratulations to the mission team, the state-run Xinhua news service reported.

Chang’e-6 followed a flight plan similar to the one used for Chang’e-5, a mission that brought back samples from the moon’s Earth-facing side in 2020. After entering lunar orbit, the spacecraft sent a lander down to the moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin region.

The lander used an onboard drill and robotic arm to collect and store samples on its ascent stage. It also gathered data about its surroundings with a radon detector, a negative-ion detector and a mini-rover. Data and telemetry were relayed between Chang’e-6 and Earth via China’s Queqiao-2 satellite.

On June 4, Chang’e-6’s ascent stage lifted off for a rendezvous with the orbiting spacecraft. The samples were transferred to a re-entry capsule, and the spacecraft left lunar orbit several days ago for the trip back to Earth. The re-entry capsule was released as the spacecraft sped about 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) over the South Atlantic Ocean, CNSA said in a mission update.

After an initial round of processing at the landing site in China’s Inner Mongolia region, the capsule is due to be airlifted to Beijing, where the mission’s precious cargo will be removed for distribution to researchers.

The samples are expected to include volcanic rock and other materials that could shed fresh light on the moon’s origins and compositional differences between the near side and the far side. Scientists may also learn more about resources in the moon’s south polar region. That region is of high interest because it’s thought to harbor deposits of water ice that could be used to support future lunar settlements.

NASA is targeting the south polar region for a series of robotic missions — leading up to a crewed landing during the Artemis 3 mission, which is currently scheduled for 2026. China has its own lunar ambitions, including plans for sending astronauts to the lunar surface by 2030.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

25-06-2024 om 23:37 geschreven door peter  

If all stars shone as brightly as main sequence stars like our Sun do, it would be easy to catalogue the stars in our neighbourhood. But they don’t. Some are so small and dim that they’re considered failed stars. We call them brown dwarfs or substellar objects.

When we look up at the night sky with the unaided eye, our view is dominated by main sequence stars and giant stars, many of which are far beyond our stellar neighbourhood. Many stars are too dim to see, like red dwarfs and brown dwarfs. In fact, Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf and our nearest neighbour, wasn’t discovered until the early 20th century.

In the early days of astronomy, measurements of proper motions showed that some stars that appear fixed in place are closer than other stars. All stars move and have proper motion; it’s just not always noticeable in the span of a single lifetime. High proper motion surveys of stars led to the selection of certain stars for measurements of their parallax, which helped locate more stars correctly in space. Then, in the early 20th century, as astronomy and photography were used in conjunction, photographic astrometry triggered a wave of discoveries of our solar neighbours. Those efforts showed that our nearest neighbours are red dwarfs (M dwarfs).

In the 1990s, as technology advanced, infrared sky surveys found more dim stars. “A second wave of discoveries started in the late 1990s with the advance of infrared sky surveys,” the authors write. Missions like the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) gave us a new, unprecedented look at the sky. It found M dwarfs, brown dwarfs, and substellar objects like L, T, and Y types, and even minor planets in the Solar System. (Definitions of brown dwarfs and other substellar objects overlap.) By the year 2,000, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey came online, strengthening our catalogue of the sky.

In 1997, Henry et al. published an important paper on the solar neighbourhood titled “The solar neighborhood IV: discovery of the twentieth nearest star.” It showed that the discovery of LHS 1565, about 3.7 pc from Earth, spelled trouble for our census of the neighbourhood. “It ranks as the twentieth closest stellar system and underscores the incompleteness of the nearby star sample, particularly for objects near the end of the main sequence,” Henry et al. wrote. “Ironically, this unassuming red dwarf provides a shocking reminder of how much we have yet to learn about even our nearest stellar neighbours.”

Since about 1997, there’s been a burst of discoveries of stars within the Sun’s neighbourhood. The authors say that these seem to have filled in the gaps in our 10 pc neighbourhood. But some of the knowledge was still based on two assumptions. The first was that the survey out to 5 parsecs was complete, and the second was that the density was uniform out to 10 parsecs. “The first of these is not true, and the second is in question,” the authors write.

Where does that leave us? Up to 90 star systems could still be missing.

“Using all neighbours the luminosity and mass functions and the star-to-brown dwarf (BD) number ratio can be studied,” the authors state. Astronomers don’t fully understand the ratio of brown dwarfs to other stars, but two recent papers (1,2), in particular, have continued the work to better understand and catalogue our stellar neighbourhood’s dim members.

Earlier this year, Kirkpatrick et al. published a study claiming that a complete survey of nearby stars is possible, largely thanks to Gaia data. They found 462 objects (including the Sun) in 339 systems within 10?pc. of the Sun.

In previous work, the authors of this new paper added 16 more stars to the list. These were late M-dwarfs, some of the coolest and dimmest main sequence stars, and brown dwarfs. They also discovered a new white dwarf companion to an existing M dwarf.

But how complete is this newest survey?

The problem lies in the difficulty of detecting dim stars like brown dwarfs and late M-dwarfs. The further we look, the more difficult they are to detect. They’re also more difficult to detect in the direction of the galactic plane.

The authors say that our neighbourhood stellar catalogue is still likely missing 93 stellar systems, “… corresponding to a deficit of ?21.5%,” they write. In terms of individual stars, it’s not much better: “…138 missing objects corresponding to a deficit of ?23.0%,” they write.

They broke it down even further to individual star types. We’re probably missing 28.1% of AFGK stars, -31% of white dwarfs, and ?27.8% of M-dwarfs. There’s also a higher deficit for late M-dwarfs. These deficits are higher than expected. What does it mean?

“The estimated deficits of systems and individual objects within 10?pc exceed expectations, in particular for the well-known AFGK stars,” the authors write. They conclude that the general assumption of a constant stellar density in the solar neighbourhood is incorrect. They say that small-scale density fluctuations can at least partly explain the deficits.

“Our statistical estimates show that the probability of these discrepancies being caused by random fluctuations is around 40%,” the authors conclude.

We clearly have more work to do.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

25-06-2024 om 23:31 geschreven door peter  

By ADRY TORRES FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

A bizarre, ring-shape UFO that appeared in the skies above Venezuela was recorded by a pair of stunned friends.

The now-viral video shows the dark, circular spot hovering in the clouds over Valencia, a city in the northern Venezuelan state of Carabobo.

'A flying saucer,' one of the young men shouts as they drove down a rode on a sunny afternoon.

He then asks one of his pals for the time on the clock to document the recording.

'Bro, look here: 4:54 pm on the 17th of June in 2024,' he says. 'Look at what is here in the sky in Valencia, Carabobo.' 

A bizarre, ring-shape UFO that appeared in the skies above Venezuela was recorded by a pair of stunned friends

Pictured: A poster for Jordan Peele's Nope released in 2022

The excited man then asks one of his friends to share the video with another person.

Although Venezuelan authorities have not made any public statements, local meteorologist Luis Vargas rained on their parade with several theories that ruled out a possible UFO sighting.

'This could be a smoke vortex or black ring that occurs after an explosion through a circular structure such as an industrial chimney or something similar,' he wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

He also indicated that the circular shape may have been produced by a volcano.

'They are also more common in volcanic activities as can be seen … and are known as ring clouds,' Vargas said.

Venezuelan meteorologist Luis Vargas downplayed a video filmed in the northern city of Valencia on June 17 that showed a ring-shaped UFO figure in the sky and took to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, to share two pictures (left and right) explain that it was most like smoke that was produced by an explosion from a chimney

The meteorologist also mentioned that circular shape that was spotted in the sky may have been produced by volcanic activity (seen here)

One user on X linked the odd-looking shape to military exercises that had taken place at a camp ahead of Monday's commemoration of the Battle of Carabobo, the 1821 fight for independence between fighters led by Venezuela General Simón Bolivar and the Spanish. 

The victory at Carabobo led to the independence of Venezuelan and the creation of the Republic of Gran Colombia. 

Another social media user linked the ring-shaped clouds to smoke from a cigar.

'It was me who was smoking a cigar, and I started making figures with the smoke,' José Pérez said. 'But yes, his explanation is the most coherent and valid. I don't think UFOs will arrive in Valencia, because we never have electricity, water and there are always lines for gasoline.'

Another joked that the UFO arrived ahead of next month's presidential election to remove President Nicolás Maduro and his regime.

'It is a UFO hired to search for those who leave on July 28,' Alba Ferrero said.

Wilmer Palacios joked: 'Those from Valencia are the chose ones.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

25-06-2024 om 22:32 geschreven door peter  

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) set up a secret group to investigate UFO sightings in the 1950s - and it came to a very similar conclusion to the recent reports from the US

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) came to a "very strong" verdict following a clandestine probe into UFO sightings.

A second report was released in 2006 (file) 

( Image: Getty Images)

In the US, the Pentagon has been releasing reports investigating UFO encounters following the establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Their most recent report this March, unsurprisingly, found no signs of extraterrestrial life.

Brits are now beginning to discover that their own government has engaged in similar investigations.

The revelation comes from a post on X (formerly Twitter) from the account for BBC TV programme QI. It read: "In 1950 the UK Ministry of Defence created a secret organisation to look into UFOs called the Flying Saucer Working Party. It disbanded within a year."

Sir Henry Tizard, serving as Chief Scientific Adviser at the MoD at the time, launched the covert Flying Saucer Working Party back in October 1950. When their comprehensive final dossier was disclosed in June 1951, much like their American counterparts, they deduced that every phenomenon they examined did not defy earthly explanation.

Each mysterious sighting, the group concluded, was a consequence of one or more of four factors: astronomical or meteorological phenomena, misidentification, optical illusions and psychological delusions, or hoaxes.

Their findings concluded: "We accordingly recommend very strongly that no further investigation of reported mysterious aerial phenomena be undertaken, unless and until some material evidence becomes available."

A second investigation into UFOs, known as Project Condign, was finalised in 2000 but only made public in 2006. Again, it determined that the majority of UFO sightings could be attributed to either mistaken identity or atmospheric conditions.

Social media users have been quick to comment on the recent post about the brief existence of the Flying Saucer Working Party, with one user quipping: "Great name for a band." Meanwhile, another sceptically remarked: "'It disbanded within a year' - that's what THEY want you to think."

Disclose Screen

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

25-06-2024 om 22:07 geschreven door peter  

Webb Observes Intricate Structures in Ionosphere of Jupiter

Jupiter’s upper atmosphere is composed of a neutral thermosphere and charged ionosphere. Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have spotted unexpected small-scale intensity features such as arcs, bands and spots in Jupiter’s low-latitude ionosphere in the region above the Great Red Spot.

This graphic shows the region observed by Webb: first its location on a NIRCam image of the whole planet (left), and the region itself (right), imaged by Webb’s Near-InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec).

Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / Jupiter ERS Team / J. Schmidt / H. Melin / M. Zamani, ESA & Webb.

Jupiter is one of the brightest objects in the night sky, and it is easily seen on a clear night.

Aside from the bright northern and southern lights at the planet’s polar regions, the glow from Jupiter’s upper atmosphere is weak and is therefore challenging for ground-based telescopes to discern details in this region.

However, Webb’s infrared sensitivity allows scientists to study Jupiter’s upper atmosphere above the infamous Great Red Spot with unprecedented detail.

The gas giant’s upper atmosphere is the interface between the planet’s magnetic field and the underlying atmosphere.

Here, the bright and vibrant displays of northern and southern lights can be seen, which are fuelled by the volcanic material ejected from Jupiter’s moon Io.

However, closer to the equator, the structure of the planet’s upper atmosphere is influenced by incoming sunlight.

Because Jupiter receives only 4% of the sunlight that is received on Earth, astronomers predicted this region to be homogeneous in nature.

University of Leicester astronomer Henrik Melin and his colleagues observed the Great Red Spot in July 2022 using the Integral Field Unit of Webb’s Near-InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec).

Their Early Release Science observations sought to investigate if this region was in fact dull, and the region above the iconic Great Red Spot was targeted for Webb’s observations.

They were surprised to discover that the upper atmosphere hosts a variety of intricate structures, including dark arcs and bright spots, across the entire field of view.

“We thought this region, perhaps naively, would be really boring. It is in fact just as interesting as the northern lights, if not more so. Jupiter never ceases to surprise,” Dr. Melin said.

Although the light emitted from this region is driven by sunlight, the team suggests there must be another mechanism altering the shape and structure of the upper atmosphere.

“One way in which you can change this structure is by gravity waves — similar to waves crashing on a beach, creating ripples in the sand,” Dr. Melin said.

“These waves are generated deep in the turbulent lower atmosphere, all around the Great Red Spot, and they can travel up in altitude, changing the structure and emissions of the upper atmosphere.”

“These atmospheric waves can be observed on Earth on occasion, however they are much weaker than those observed on Jupiter by Webb.”

“We hope to conduct follow-up Webb observations of these intricate wave patterns in the future to investigate how the patterns move within the planet’s upper atmosphere and to develop our understanding of the energy budget of this region and how the features change over time.”

• The findings appear in the journal Nature Astronomy.
• H. Melin et al. Ionospheric irregularities at Jupiter observed by JWST. Nat Astron, published online June 21, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02305-9

{ https://www.sci.news/feedb }

25-06-2024 om 21:35 geschreven door peter  

Hey @NASA @NASAjpl @NASA_Johnson could you please answer this question? UFO Sighting News.

Hey everyone, I decided to tweet to three NASA accounts and see if they respond or not. So I made this video and sent it off to them. They will see it for sure, but the real question is...are they prepared to answer it?

Also I'm currently keeping the NASA like to this photo a secret for now, otherwise NASA would delete it immediately. 

Scott C. Waring - Utah

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

25-06-2024 om 21:25 geschreven door peter  

Alien City Fragments On Mars In Rover Photo, June 24, 2024, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: June 24, 2024

Location of discovery: Mars

Source Photo: 

• http://gigapan.com/gigapans/235109

Guys I found some interesting evidence of ancient aliens on Mars today. Strongly I found many pyramid like structures with huge openings in them. This to me is signs of a semi intelligent life form that stood about 6 to 7 inches tall. Some of these structures however were torn open, as if someone or something was hunting them, carving up their homes so easily as if they were made of butter. Absolute proof of alien life? We passed that point decades ago with my research. 

Scott C. Waring - Utah, USA

 { https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

25-06-2024 om 21:20 geschreven door peter  

De binnenkern van onze planeet heeft zijn rotatie vertraagd, dat is bevestigd

 Door Janine

NASA/JPL-Université Paris Diderot - Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris / Pexels

De binnenkern vertraagt ​​al meer dan tien jaar, bevestigt een nieuwe studie. Wat veroorzaakt dit fenomeen en wat kan er in de toekomst gebeuren?

De binnenkern draait nu langzamer dan het aardoppervlak

In het centrum van onze aarde bevindt zich een vaste, dichte, hete binnenkern, bestaande uit ijzer en kleine hoeveelheden nikkel. De straal bedraagt ​​1.221 kilometer en de temperaturen bereiken die van het zonneoppervlak, rond de 5.200°. Dergelijke hitte is voldoende om ijzer te smelten, maar de enorme druk van de planeet zorgt ervoor dat de binnenkern vast blijft. De druk bedraagt ​​bijna 3,6 miljoen atmosfeer.

De kern roteert in dezelfde richting als het aardoppervlak, maar iets sneller, waardoor elk millennium een ​​volledige rotatie meer wordt bereikt. Tenminste, dat dachten wij, of dat was tot enkele jaren geleden zo. Nu heeft een nieuw onderzoek, uitgevoerd door het team van wetenschappers van de Universiteit van Zuid-Californië, aangetoond dat het hart van onze planeet zijn rotatie heeft vertraagd en dat het proces al in 2010 begon. Het onderzoek bevestigde dat nu dus de binnenkern langzamer roteert dan het aardoppervlak.

Waarom de binnenkern van de aarde langzamer beweegt

NASA (ADAPTED FROM GODDARD MEDIA STUDIOS)

De kwestie van de beweging van de kern is al twintig jaar omstreden: verschillende onderzoeken beweerden dat de rotatie van de kern groter was dan die van het aardoppervlak. De nieuwe studie bewijst echter onomstotelijk dat dit niet langer het geval is.

John Vidale, hoogleraar aardwetenschappen aan het USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, zei: "Toen ik voor het eerst de seismogrammen zag die deze verandering suggereerden, was ik verbaasd, maar toen we nog twee dozijn waarnemingen vonden die op hetzelfde patroon wezen, was het resultaat onvermijdelijk. De binnenkern was voor het eerst in vele decennia vertraagd. Andere wetenschappers hebben onlangs soortgelijke en andere modellen beargumenteerd, maar onze laatste studie biedt de meest overtuigende resolutie.”

Maar waarom is de rotatie van de binnenkern van de aarde vertraagd? Wetenschappers denken dat dit fenomeen te wijten is aan de beweging van de aardmantel, die de afgelopen veertig jaar iets langzamer is geworden in plaats van andersom.

Seismische golven onthullen de beweging van de binnenkern

Deze vaste bol, omringd door zijn vloeibare buitenkern die ook uit ijzer en nikkel bestaat, ligt meer dan 4.800 km onder de grond en het is een echte uitdaging om hem te bereiken. Om de beweging ervan te begrijpen, zijn wetenschappers afhankelijk van seismische golven. Voor het nieuwe onderzoek maakten Vidale en Wei Wang van de Chinese Academie van Wetenschappen gebruik van de golven van herhaalde seismische gebeurtenissen, dat wil zeggen gebeurtenissen die in hetzelfde gebied plaatsvonden en identieke seismogrammen opleverden.

De onderzoekers kozen als locatie de Britse Zuidelijke Sandwicheilanden, waar zich tussen 1991 en 2023 121 seismische episodes voordeden. Met behulp van gegevens van kernproeven kwamen ze tot de conclusie dat de vertraging van de binnenkern werd veroorzaakt door de vermenging van de vloeibare buitenkern, die een groot deel van het magnetische veld van de aarde genereert, maar ook door de zwaartekracht van de rotsachtige mantel.

Voorlopig blijven de gevolgen voor het aardoppervlak pure theorie: Vidale schat dat deze verandering de duur van een dag met slechts een paar fracties van een seconde kan veranderen, dus onmerkbaar, maar toekomstig onderzoek zal meer duidelijkheid verschaffen over de kwestie en over waarom de kern zijn rotatie precies vertraagt.

{ https://www.curioctopus.nl/ }

25-06-2024 om 21:07 geschreven door peter  

The Pentagon’s UFO Secrets Exposed: The Truth Behind the Alien Autopsy

In a stunning revelation, researchers have uncovered a hidden Pentagon report on UFOs that has set off a wave of investigations and debates. This report has rekindled interest in the infamous alien autopsy and the mysterious events in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.

The Alien Autopsy Controversy

One of the most persistent mysteries in UFO research is the alien autopsy film. This film has resurfaced repeatedly, most recently due to a series of leaked emails involving prominent figures in the UFO research community. Among these figures is Dr. Kit Green, a former CIA employee who is both a medical doctor and a PhD. According to an 11-page document, Green was shown a film in the 1980s that closely resembled the alien autopsy footage released in 1995.

These leaked emails, sent to billionaire Bob Bigelow, were meant to remain confidential. They describe how Green and other scientists, working under the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), believed the alien autopsy film to be authentic at the time. Green, in particular, concluded that the film was genuine based on his expertise and previous exposure to similar footage during a Pentagon briefing in the late 1980s.

Verification and Doubts

The authenticity of the leaked emails has been confirmed by several sources, though the opinions on the alien autopsy film have evolved over time. Initially, many in the UFO research community, including Green, considered the film to be real. However, subsequent evaluations led some to believe the film was a hoax, causing significant embarrassment among those who had vouched for its authenticity.

Dr. Kit Green’s evaluation of the film was particularly noteworthy. He provided a medical opinion on the procedures depicted in the film, suggesting that despite minor inaccuracies, the overall presentation seemed genuine. This opinion was shared in internal communications within the CIA, further complicating the narrative.

The Roswell Connection

The alien autopsy film is closely tied to the Roswell incident, another cornerstone of UFO lore. The leaked emails revealed that internal CIA communications had discussed the film and its potential authenticity, with some officials believing the footage was real. This has reignited debates among UFO researchers about the events in Roswell and the possibility of a government cover-up.

A Hoax Unveiled

Despite the initial belief in its authenticity, further investigations into the origins of the alien autopsy film have revealed a more prosaic truth. The film was not the work of a mysterious military cameraman but a creation by Keith Bateman and his colleagues at AK Music in the early 1990s. This revelation came from Bateman himself, who described how the film was made using rudimentary special effects and local actors.

The film, initially shot in color and later altered to appear aged and damaged, was presented to Ray Santilli, who then used it as a basis for the infamous alien autopsy footage. Santilli’s claims of having met a military cameraman and possessing genuine alien autopsy film have been debunked by those involved in the production.

The Impact and Legacy

The alien autopsy film, despite being exposed as a hoax, had a profound impact on the UFO community and popular culture. It demonstrated how easily even seasoned researchers and experts could be misled by convincing fabrications. The leaked emails and the ensuing controversy highlight the ongoing fascination with UFOs and the quest for truth in this enigmatic field.

VIDEO:

• https://youtu.be/FK19JUuIJMg

The Pentagon’s hidden UFO secrets, as exposed through these revelations, offer a cautionary tale about the complexities of UFO research and the potential for misinformation. While the alien autopsy film has been debunked, the interest in UFOs and the search for extraterrestrial life continue to captivate researchers and the public alike. As new information comes to light, the debate over what really happened in Roswell and beyond will undoubtedly persist, fueling both skepticism and belief in the unexplained mysteries of our universe.

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

25-06-2024 om 20:33 geschreven door peter  

The output from the study reveals the most polluted areas of the Mediterranean and the main entry points from the mainland. It will help us to improve our understanding of the processes and mechanisms that transport debris across the ocean and even help us to perhaps predict movement. The results also show that the amount of debris in the Mediterranean covers around 95 square kilometres.

Unfortunately the research does not help resolve the issue of pollution but it does help us understand the scale. The team propose future satellites should be equipped with detectors to monitor the debris. It would increase the ability to detect plastic in the open ocean by a factor of 20 and help to model the impact of marine pollution on first, tourism and the marine ecosystem. 

One element of the studies conclusion is that population density, geography and rainfall patterns play an important part in the accumulation of marine litter. Dry arid lands like deserts that play host to cities seem to contribute much less to marine litter while those that are much more temperate with higher rainfall seem to contribute more. 

It is also interesting to note that the majority of litter that originates from land masses seems to be confined to 15 kilometres form the coast and subsequently returns after a few days of months. The team conclude that satellite based monitoring is an essential element in our battle against litter in the ocean. The technology can also be used for the detection of other floating objects such as the loss of ships, oil spills and even search and rescue elements. 

Source : 

• Satellites to monitor marine debris from space

 { https://www.universetoday.com/ }

24-06-2024 om 23:37 geschreven door peter  

The output from the study reveals the most polluted areas of the Mediterranean and the main entry points from the mainland. It will help us to improve our understanding of the processes and mechanisms that transport debris across the ocean and even help us to perhaps predict movement. The results also show that the amount of debris in the Mediterranean covers around 95 square kilometres.

Unfortunately the research does not help resolve the issue of pollution but it does help us understand the scale. The team propose future satellites should be equipped with detectors to monitor the debris. It would increase the ability to detect plastic in the open ocean by a factor of 20 and help to model the impact of marine pollution on first, tourism and the marine ecosystem. 

One element of the studies conclusion is that population density, geography and rainfall patterns play an important part in the accumulation of marine litter. Dry arid lands like deserts that play host to cities seem to contribute much less to marine litter while those that are much more temperate with higher rainfall seem to contribute more. 

It is also interesting to note that the majority of litter that originates from land masses seems to be confined to 15 kilometres form the coast and subsequently returns after a few days of months. The team conclude that satellite based monitoring is an essential element in our battle against litter in the ocean. The technology can also be used for the detection of other floating objects such as the loss of ships, oil spills and even search and rescue elements. 

Source : 

• Satellites to monitor marine debris from space

 { https://www.universetoday.com/ }

24-06-2024 om 23:37 geschreven door peter  

Microgravity causes a redistribution of fluids around the body and can cause conditions like ‘puffy face bird leg syndrome.’ The name aptly describes the effect, the face swells up and the legs thin. It results in an increase in venous pressure in the upper body, this is fine for healthy people but heart failure sufferers are at a much higher risk. Given that there are over 100 million people around the world that suffer heart failure it is essential this is explored. 

Looking at the wide spectrum of heard failure, conditions can be grouped into two categories; a weak hart that cannot pump effectively and a heart that cannot relax and fill properly. All possible conditions need to be studied with specific ways to treat and mitigate the risk during space travel. 

This is a study that is difficult to collect real data in space so we have to turn to computer modelling to simulate the effects. The team led by Dr Loon showed that a microgravity environment leads to an increase in cardiac output (the quantity of blood pumped by the heart in a given period of time.) This is not a problem for most people but with heart failure patients it is accompanied by a rise in pressure in the left atrial region of the heart, to dangerous levels. If left unchecked, it can lead to a condition where fluid accumulates in the lungs known as a pulmonary edema, making it difficult to breathe!

With the increase in corporate interest in space travel, space tourism is slowly becoming a reality. People can already pay for trips into space but as costs come down, the number of people heading out into space will increase. Eventually, trips into space will be as common as trips to other countries. It is imperative we understand the impact on our health and what we can do to make space as widely accessible as possible without putting our health at risk. 

Source : 

• Heart failure in space: scientists calculate potential health threats facing future space tourists in microgravity

 { https://www.universetoday.com/ }

24-06-2024 om 23:28 geschreven door peter  

Leaked! Shocking UFO Encounters Revealed – Must See Before They Vanish!

In a surprising turn of events, reports of encounters between the military and extraterrestrial visitors have surfaced, igniting a firestorm of speculation and concern. These incidents suggest a clandestine conflict occurring right under our noses, concealed by government secrecy. It’s time to delve into this astonishing evidence and the government’s desperate attempts to keep it hidden.

Military Encounters and Government Secrecy

At a recent public hearing, former military personnel David Grusch, David Fraver, and Ryan Graves shared their startling experiences with unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Fraver and Graves recounted frequent sightings of strange aerial phenomena during their service. Grusch, while not a direct witness, disclosed knowledge of a government program dating back to the 1930s, tasked with collecting technology from these mysterious sources. The Pentagon, however, continues to deny these claims, asserting that such events never took place.

The hearing underscored a significant issue: a lack of transparency within the government. Even some members of Congress are kept in the dark about these matters. This opacity has prompted calls from several senators for a new committee dedicated to making all information about UFOs public, emphasizing the importance of this knowledge for national security.

Public Demand for Transparency

The public’s curiosity about the unknown phenomena in the skies is growing, driven by a desire to feel informed and safe. Ryan Graves highlighted the public’s right to know about these occurrences. An intriguing revelation came from an 87-year-old insider from Israel, who claimed that the United States has established agreements with extraterrestrial beings. According to him, these collaborations include joint space exploration endeavors, suggesting that Elon Musk’s plans to colonize Mars might be redundant since an underground base on Mars already exists where humans and aliens cooperate.

Communicating with Extraterrestrial Life

Efforts to communicate with extraterrestrial life have a long history. In 1977, NASA launched the Voyager Golden Records into space, containing Earth’s sounds, music, greetings in various languages, and images. Despite this, it’s debatable whether aliens would understand these symbols. The records included a star map and a time element using uranium decay, aiming to provide context to any alien finders.

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and Public Fascination

The fascination with UFO sightings is not new. Last year alone, 1,100 UFO sightings were reported. British Columbia, for example, is becoming a hotspot for such sightings. A viral video from southeastern Colorado by Vivian Gomez showed a bizarre figure, sparking debates about its nature—alien, ghost, or otherwise. Such incidents highlight how quickly people turn to extraordinary explanations for unusual phenomena.

Military Testimonies and Ongoing Investigations

During the formal session, three military veterans shared their firsthand UFO encounters. Retired Navy Commander David Fravor described a 2004 incident involving a tic-tac-shaped object with capabilities far beyond current technology. Ryan Graves, a former Navy pilot, established a support group, Americans for Safe Aerospace, for pilots who report such encounters. Graves revealed that these objects exhibit advanced maneuvers, often ignored by authorities.

Cover-Ups and Public Safety Concerns

David Grusch, a former intelligence officer, disclosed disturbing practices of cover-ups and intimidation faced by those reporting UFO sightings. This lack of transparency poses significant safety risks, as emphasized by Democratic Representative Robert Garcia from California. Greater openness about UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) could improve national security and public safety.

Speculations and Theories

Various speculations abound, from the existence of hybrid beings resulting from human and alien DNA experiments to Dr. Young-ha Chi’s theory that alien abductions are attempts to address climate change by creating a hybrid species better suited to manage Earth’s challenges.

The Need for Answers

The demand for clear, honest information about unidentified aerial phenomena is growing. People want to understand what is happening in the skies above and feel secure in the face of potential extraterrestrial threats. As discussions about these mysterious events intensify, the call for transparency and answers continues to echo louder.7

• https://youtu.be/e4icK7ZGFcE

In conclusion, the recent revelations and public hearings about UFO encounters have stirred significant intrigue and concern. The push for transparency and disclosure is crucial for addressing the public’s growing curiosity and ensuring national security. As we navigate these uncharted territories, the quest for truth remains paramount.

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

24-06-2024 om 23:05 geschreven door peter  

A New Study Debunks A Long-Standing Myth About the Inhabitants of Easter Island

Without satellites, archaeologists would have spent years or decades searching for these clues.

BY DORIS ELÍN URRUTIA

 

Xinhua News Agency/Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images

“That gives credit to the Rapa Nui people, their ancestors, and the ingenuity they had for surviving on this island,” Carl Lipo, archaeologist and professor at Binghamton University in New York, told reporters on Monday. He is the lead author of the new study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances.

“You know, 14 by seven miles doesn’t give you a lot of different things you could do with it, but they made the most of what they had. And certainly there’s a linkage of this ingenuity of carving and manipulating rocks [into moai statues] and understanding of the rock’s properties. It’s something really clearly embedded in their culture,” Lipo said. “Europeans when they arrived to this island were bewildered by the fact that there were spectacular statues and very few numbers of people. They assumed that in order to move these gigantic statues, there must have been much larger populations. Really that’s a European perspective,” he added.

Satellite imagery allowed the researchers to do this debunking work faster than otherwise possible. “Satellite imagery enabled us to produce an island-wide estimate of rock mulch, where a field study would have taken years, if not decades, of walking around to map these things,” Lipo said.

Their work shows that the Rapa Nui people were likely able to sustain their population size centuries ago. But their work also looks forward.

“What inspired us to do this particular study is the fact that ecologists often continue to use Rapa Nui as a case study for collapse and ecological failure,” Lipo said. “They use it for modeling and for policy setting over and over again, which we think is really misguided. Easter Island is a great case of how populations adapt to limited resources on a very finite place and how they did so sustainably.”

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

23-06-2024 om 23:31 geschreven door peter  

New Research Challenges Demographic Collapse Hypothesis for Easter Island

Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is often used as an example of how overexploitation of limited resources resulted in a catastrophic population collapse. A vital component of this narrative is that the rapid rise and fall of pre-contact Rapanui population growth rates was driven by the construction and overexploitation of once extensive rock gardens. However, the extent of island-wide rock gardening, while key for understanding food systems and demography, must be better understood. New research by Binghamton University and Columbia University archaeologists shows that the extent of this agricultural infrastructure is substantially less than previously claimed and likely could not have supported the large population sizes that have been assumed.

Map of Easter Island and its location in the southeastern Pacific.

Image credit: Davis et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.ado1459.

In their research, Binghamton University’s Professor Carl Lipo and colleagues used modern technology to more accurately gauge the number of rock gardens on Easter Island an its pre-contact food production.

“The volcanic island was formed from eruptions a million years ago, giving the rain ample time to wash away the potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen plants need to grow,” Professor Lipo said.

“The salt-laden ocean spray further hurts soil fertility.”

“The soils on Rapa Nui were never particularly productive. When people reached the island, they had to deal with those constraints.”

“Their first method was slash-and-burn agriculture, which involved cutting down the island’s trees.”

“This temporarily returned nutrients to the soil, but once the trees ran out, the islanders resorted to other methods: composting plant waste and rock mulch.”

“The fertility benefits of composting aren’t enough to support a culture’s food supply. Rock mulch did — but it was a highly labor-intensive process.”

“Islanders broke off parts of the exposed bedrock and then turned these chunks of stones into the soil, which both restored nutrients and protected it from further weathering.”

Rock mulch has been traditionally used in other places, such as among the Maori people in New Zealand, Indigenous peoples in the American Southwest and in the Netherlands.

“We do it ourselves with non-organic fertilizer; essentially, we use machines to crush rock into tiny pieces, which is effective because it exposes a lot of surface area,” Professor Lipo said.

“The people in Rapa Nui are doing it by hand, literally breaking up rocks and sticking them in dirt.”

“While the gardens could grow dry-land taro and yams, the primary crop was sweet potatoes of dozens of different varieties. Not every rock pile is an ancient garden, however,” said Binghamton University’s Dr. Robert DiNapoli.

But how many gardens were on Easter Island? When they first encountered the island, Europeans reported that 10% of the land was covered by gardens. Researchers have previously relied on satellite imagery to map rock gardens, but that resulted in misidentifications — including, for example, roads.

Rapa Nui is one of Earth’s most remote human-populated locations. It is over 2,000 km from the nearest inhabited island (Pitcairn) and over 3,700 km from the South American mainland. The island is small (164 km2) and has relatively limited soil productivity and freshwater sources.

Image credit: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen / CC BY-SA 3.0.

The study authors used shortwave infrared (SWIR) satellite imagery and machine learning to generate a more accurate estimate: around 180 acres were covered by mulching stones, much less than previously believed.

“Primarily used for geological mapping, SWIR imagery can differentiate between mineral compositions and moisture content,” said Dr. Dylan Davis, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University.

“The distinct mineralogical characteristics and moisture patches allow the rock gardens to stand out better from their surroundings.”

Using the updated estimate of the number of gardens, the researchers calculated that approximately 3,000 people lived on Easter Island at the time of European contact.

The earliest European accounts indicate a population of 3,000 to 4,000 people, which tracks with the artifacts discovered on the island.

“What we’re actually seeing here is that the island couldn’t sustain that many people to begin with based on ecological constraints,” Dr. Davis said.

“People actually modified their landscapes to increase the amount of what they could intensively cultivate and that number was still very small.”

“This isn’t an example of ecological catastrophe but of how people survived despite really limited natural resources in a fairly sustainable way for a long time.”

“The misconceptions about the island’s population size come from its large and striking moai statues, and the assumption that it would take large groups of people to erect such statues,” Professor Lipo said.

“Ecologists also tend to use Easter Island as a model for how population size can lead to ecological catastrophe.”

“We can’t use Easter Island as an example that’s convenient for stories.”

“We need to understand the island in its own context because what it’s really telling us is something very different than what people believe.”

• The findings appear today in the journal Science Advances.
• Dylan S. Davis et al. 2024. Island-wide characterization of agricultural production challenges the demographic collapse hypothesis for Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Sci. Adv 10 (25): eado1459; doi: 10.1126/sciadv.ado1459

{ https://www.sci.news/ }

23-06-2024 om 22:55 geschreven door peter  

“The underlying problem we want to solve is the measurement of the flux of solid particles in space,” Dr. Christou tells Universe Today. “The smallest particles (what we normally refer to as ‘dust’) can be efficiently counted with small-area impact detectors mounted on spacecraft, while objects larger than a meter or two (asteroids) we can find at the telescope. However, anything between a couple of hundred microns and a meter fall into a kind of gap; they are too rarefied to count with impact detectors and also too small to see with a telescope. The best way to look for those particles is to see them burning up as meteors in the atmosphere, essentially by treating entire planets as area detectors.”

For the study, the researchers used a survey simulation toolkit known as SWARMS (Simulator for Wide Area Recording of Meteors from Space) to ascertain the feasibility if a camera onboard a future Venus orbiter could observe meteors within Venus’ atmosphere. Parameters for SWARMS included using the same meteoroid populations observed on Earth for Venus, along with atmospheric modeling and the type of instrument, with the researchers putting a hypothetical meteor camera onboard the upcoming European Space Agency’s EnVision orbiter.  

In the end, the researchers found the number of meteors their orbiter camera could observe in the Venusian atmosphere would be 1.5 to 2.5 times greater than on Earth. The team notes this indicates the feasibility of observing meteors within the Venusian atmosphere, assuming the data would be successfully sent back to Earth. So, what were the most significant results from this study?

Dr. Christou tells Universe Today, “I’d say the two principal results are (a) that meteors at Venus occur well above the cloud layers, and (b) that they should be consistently brighter than their Earth counterparts. Point (a) removes one potential obstacle in detecting those particles in the orbital camera while point (b) tells us that any camera design flight-proven in Earth orbit should perform at least as well and probably better at Venus.”

Regarding follow-up studies, Dr. Christou tells Universe Today, “There were a number of assumptions made in the study that we want to explore in later work. One of the assumptions is that the camera is at a fixed altitude above the surface. We want to better understand the implications of observing from an elliptical orbit where the altitude and therefore the range to the target changes with time and location. In addition, Venus’s orbit is close to Earth’s, and it may just be possible to detect the brightest meteors (we call these fireballs) with telescopes from the ground as we have done with Jupiter. A future study will better quantify this possibility.”

This study comes as NASA plans to launch the VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) orbiter sometime between 2029 and 2031, whose goal is to obtain high-resolution maps of Venus’ surface using synthetic aperture radar and near-infrared spectroscopy to penetrate Venus’ thick atmosphere. The images obtained will provide updated data from NASA’s Magellan probe in the 1990s, as this is the most recent surface data available regarding Venus’ surface activity. Additionally, the European Space Agency is slated to launch EnVision in 2032 with the goal of mapping Venus’ surface using synthetic aperture radar, as well. Therefore, since this study involves putting a hypothetical meteor camera onboard the EnVision orbiter, what plans are in the works for putting such a camera on a future spacecraft?

Dr. Christou tells Universe Today, “There are no specific plans to my knowledge, however with the current level of international interest in exploring Venus, I believe this is the right time to advocate for it. Actually, there is an instrument called Mini-EUSO recording meteors from the ISS with a detection rate of ~16,000 meteors for every month of observing time. In comparison, a meteor survey of the kind we explore in the paper requires to detect ~200 meteors every month. This indicates that the concept is technically mature and could be implemented over the next 5-10 years say.”

Venus was the sole focus of this study due to its thick atmosphere, while also having the thickest atmosphere of the terrestrial planets additionally comprised of Mercury, Earth, and Mars. Given the results of this study, a future Venus orbiter designed to observe and detect meteors within Venus’ atmosphere could be feasible while providing valuable scientific knowledge pertaining to the properties and populations of meteoroids throughout the solar system.

However, Venus is not the only planet comprised of a thick atmosphere, as the gas giants of the outer solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) boast even thicker atmospheres mostly comprised of hydrogen and helium with no visible surfaces underneath. Therefore, could this meteor survey method potentially be used to identify meteors on those planets?

Dr. Christou tells Universe Today, “In some sense, we already have! In 1994, the world observed the fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 enter the atmosphere of Jupiter. More recently, amateur astronomers have observed the meteors caused by smaller, decameter-class objects against the disk of the planet. To observe fainter meteors, one would have to bring the detector and the planet closer together but, given that the gas giants have 1-2 orders of magnitude (with an order of magnitude being a factor of 10) more surface area than Earth, the potential is definitely there. Actually, such fainter meteors were detected by Voyager 1 during the brief encounter in 1979 and again more recently by the Juno orbiter. These incidents bode well for future orbital surveys.”

Studying meteoroids and meteors enables scientists to better understand the composition and properties of other planetary bodies throughout the solar system which also teaches us about the formation and evolution of the solar system, as well. As the exploration of Venus expands in the coming years, studying meteors within its thick atmosphere could provide even more clues to how we came to be, overall.

Dr. Christou concludes by telling Universe Today, “Meteors should be ubiquitous to planets and moons with appreciable atmospheres. For instance, one should expect to see meteors on Titan and even on Triton, the largest moon of Neptune where the atmospheric pressure at the surface is 100,000x lower than Earth.”

Will scientists send a Venus orbiter to study meteors within the Venusian atmosphere in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

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

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

23-06-2024 om 22:01 geschreven door peter  

Aliens Against Nuclear War: Edgar Mitchell’s Revelations

The idea that extraterrestrial beings have intervened to prevent nuclear conflict on Earth sounds like the plot of a science fiction movie. However, when such claims come from Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, they command attention. Mitchell, a former NASA astronaut and a decorated United States Navy officer, openly discussed his belief in UFOs and extraterrestrial intervention, stirring significant intrigue and controversy.

The Astronaut’s Background

Edgar Dean Mitchell was not just any astronaut; his credentials were impeccable. He served as a Navy aviator, earned a doctorate in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14 in 1971, he spent nine hours on the lunar surface, contributing significantly to space exploration. Beyond his impressive career, Mitchell became a prominent ufologist, providing his insights on UFOs and extraterrestrial life.

Mitchell’s UFO Beliefs

In a 2008 radio interview, Mitchell revealed that he was convinced UFOs are real and that the U.S. government has been covering up their existence for over 50 years. He stated that many UFO sightings are, in fact, extraterrestrial spacecraft, and he was 90% certain of this. Mitchell’s convictions were based on testimonies from credible sources within military and intelligence agencies, many of whom had top security clearances

The Roswell Incident and Military Cover-ups

Mitchell grew up in Roswell, New Mexico, the site of the infamous 1947 Roswell UFO incident. He claimed to have spoken with numerous reliable sources who confirmed that the Roswell crash involved an alien spacecraft. According to Mitchell, high-ranking military officials and government personnel had confided in him about their knowledge of extraterrestrial visits and the subsequent cover-up efforts. He believed this concealment was driven by a desire to prevent public panic and maintain control over advanced alien technology.

Extraterrestrial Intervention in Nuclear Conflicts

One of Mitchell’s most startling claims was that extraterrestrials intervened during the Cold War to prevent a nuclear conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. In a 2015 interview with the Daily Mirror, he stated that aliens had visited Earth and were particularly interested in the White Sands missile range in New Mexico, where the first nuclear bomb was tested in 1945. Mitchell believed that these extraterrestrial beings were concerned about humanity’s destructive capabilities and took measures to ensure nuclear weapons were not used.

Mitchell recounted stories from military officers who witnessed UFOs disabling missiles and test flights being interrupted by alien spacecraft. These accounts, he said, came from reliable sources who had served at missile bases during the tense periods of the Cold War. According to Mitchell, these extraterrestrial interventions were driven by a desire to preserve peace on Earth.

The Institute of Noetic Sciences

After retiring from NASA, Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences in 1972 to explore the relationship between consciousness and the cosmos. He believed that his transformative experience of viewing Earth from space had awakened a deeper understanding of universal connectedness. This institute became a platform for investigating phenomena such as telepathy and psychic abilities, which Mitchell saw as interconnected with the broader mysteries of the universe.

WikiLeaks and Further Revelations

In 2015, emails released by WikiLeaks included correspondence between Mitchell and John Podesta, then-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. In these emails, Mitchell urgently requested a meeting to discuss extraterrestrial disclosure and zero-point energy, a theoretical source of limitless energy. He emphasized that extraterrestrials were peace-loving beings who would not tolerate violence and were willing to share advanced technologies to ensure Earth’s sustainability.

VIDEO:

• ALIENS AGAINST NUCLEAR WAR | EXCLUSIVE ALIEN DOCUMENTARY | V MOVIES ORIGINAL

• https://youtu.be/0wtWqEhmFaE

Edgar Mitchell’s claims about extraterrestrial intervention in nuclear conflicts and his broader beliefs about UFOs and alien life continue to spark debate. Whether viewed as credible testimony or the musings of a man transformed by his space experiences, Mitchell’s statements challenge us to reconsider our understanding of humanity’s place in the universe.

His legacy is not just that of an astronaut who walked on the moon, but of a man who dared to explore the profound and often controversial questions about life beyond our planet. Edgar Mitchell’s life and work remind us that the quest for knowledge often leads us to the boundaries of the unknown, urging us to look beyond the familiar and explore the extraordinary possibilities that lie ahead.

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

23-06-2024 om 21:34 geschreven door peter  

Dr Garry Nolan, a Professor of pathology at Stanford University, said that unidentified anomalous phenomenon provide a planetary defence, acting 

Dr Garry Nolan, a Professor of pathology at Stanford University 

(Image: Stanford Medicine)

A professor at one of the world's top universities says that aliens have '100%' visited earth and says that UAPs actually protect humans.

Dr Garry Nolan, a Professor of pathology at Stanford University, said that unidentified anomalous phenomenon provide a planetary defence, acting as a protection for humans, according to Sunday World.

Unidentified anomalous phenomenon provide a planetary defence, he said 

(Image: Youtube/)

The Nobel Prize nominee added: "I am deeply aware of the situation. I find the results and general observations compellingly worth trying to understand,” Professor Nolan continued.

"Sets of spheres seen in photos that were ‘unnoticed’ over decades. Who would know to ‘hoax’ them repeatedly until Patrick noticed them? Full credit to him.”

Patrick said: “The sphere network has indeed been around for a very long time, it appears to be fully up-to-date and adaptive.

"This suggests that whoever built it is still around and maintaining it - a second species. Harvard researchers suggest aliens may live among us.”

A Harvard study released in early June stated: “UAP have been reported in various forms, including spheres, discs, triangles, and other shapes, ranging in size from small orbs to large craft.

“Many exhibit flight patterns and manoeuvres that defy conventional aerodynamics, such as sudden changes in direction, high speeds, and the ability to hover without apparent propulsion systems.

"...This is the 'cryptoterrestrial' hypothesis, namely the notion that UAP may reflect activities of intelligent beings concealed in stealth here on Earth (e.g., underground), and/or its near environs (e.g., the moon), and/or even "walking among us" (e.g., passing as humans)."

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/ }

23-06-2024 om 00:36 geschreven door peter  

By MATTHEW PHELAN SENIOR SCIENCE REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

A bright, glowing UFO, a classic 'cigar'-shape reported by witnesses for decades, has now been caught on military-grade night vision video.

The unknown, seemingly slow and silently moving object, 'looked like a blur with [the] naked eye,' according to the Montana local who spotted it this June.

The blur only took on a more defined shape with the aid of the witness's night vision camera, made by military contractor SiOnyx which also makes consumer models.

The unusual, long cylinder of light appears to slowly glide at an angle in front of an expansive starfield above 'Big Sky Country' — just before disappearing behind a mountain range visible from the witness's location along Airport Road in Belgrade. 

The sighting occurred less the four miles to the east of Montana's Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport, also in Belgrade, although the eerie video contains no sounds of commercial air traffic as the UFO drifts across the starry night sky.

A bright white, glowing UFO - in a classic 'cigar'-shape common to these airborne mysteries - was caught on military-grade night vision this month by a Montana local (above)

'It sort of looks like Starlink satellites,' noted Alejandro Rojas, an advisor to tech start-up Enigma Labs, whose UFO database received the witness's submission, 'which look like a long train of satellites in a row. But these look like one solid object' 

'Sometimes we get videos like this that are baffling,' said Alejandro Rojas, advisor to tech start-up Enigma Labs, whose UFO database received the witness's submission.

'It sort of looks like Starlink satellites,' Rojas told DailyMail.com, 'which look like a long train of satellites in a row. But these look like one solid object.' 

Enigma has built a massive catalog of UFO incidents — now more technically known as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) — to separate what is truly unusual in our skies from what is merely a trick of the eye.

In recent years, the term UAP has come into more common use to describe UFOs, as its more cautious framing presumes less about the events witnessed. 

An aerial phenomena could be anything from airborne gases heated into a plasma, like the famous Northern Lights, to reflections off of ice crystals in a cloud, and on up to more exotic cases of actual, solid and sturdy objects, like a 'flying' alien craft.

The Montana witness spotted the UAP in the early hours of the morning on June 5, 2024, about ten minutes before 3am Mountain Time.

'We love getting these videos out to the public for researchers to help us figure out,' Rojas told DailyMail.com via email.

'In some cases, they demonstrate a true mystery and help demonstrate why the Pentagon and NASA say they are taking UAP seriously,' according to Rojas, who is now a founder and president of the new UAP research nonprofit UAP Discovery.

In the video, the unusual, long 'cigar' UFO appears to slowly glide at an angle past the stars - just before disappearing behind a mountain range visible from the witness's location along Airport Road in the city of Belgrade (above, a view from the spot where the UFO was seen)

Above, the Northern Lights and the stars of the Milky Way visible above Lake McDonald, the largest lake in Montana's Glacier National Park - very far to the north of this UAP sighting

'NASA and the Pentagon say there is a lack of data, and that is the problem we seek to solve,' Rojas explained. 

Enigma Labs, he noted, is now 'getting hundreds of videos a week on our app, and although the vast majority turn out to be something mundane, at least a few turn out to be more difficult to explain.'

This Montana UAP sighting, Enigma case #294125, may prove to be related to a particular quirk of the hardware and software behind SiOnyx's night vision, which the firm has delivered to the US Army as part of a roughly $20 million contract. 

Some owners of one of SiOnyx's consumer models, the SiOnyx Aurora Sport, have reported that it 'doesn't seem to handle high light contrast very well.' 

'If you have a well lit area and a darker area in the frame at the same time, either the lit area will be blown out or the dark area will be too dark to see clearly,' as one member of the Reddit group r/NightVision noted in 2020.

The result this kind of 'blown out' contrast issue could lead to a train of glowing Starlink satellites, reflecting light from the sun, to look like one long, solid object. 

The unknown and seemingly slowly and silently moving object, the witness said 'looked like a blur with naked eye,' taking a more defined shape only with the aid of his digital night vision camera — made by US Army contractor SiOnyx (above one of SiOnyx's night vision products)

It's unclear which of the company's night vision offerings was used by the witness, who reported their sighting to Enigma anonymously, but the UAP tracking start-up hopes to crowdsource the case for more clues from the public. 

But across more than a century, cigar-shaped UAP have persisted as a perennial category in eyewitness reports. 

In 1977, for example, 15 children in the Welsh village of Broad Haven — 14 boys and one girl — all reported to their teachers that they saw a curious silver, cigar-shaped aircraft in fields behind their school.

The incident, in which this object hovered over this tiny hamlet (population 856), is now the subject of a new four-part BBC documentary, Paranormal: The Village That Saw Aliens. 

Like countless cigar-shaped UFOs dating back to late 1800s, when witnesses described them as 'air ships,' this case remains unsolved to this day.

In May, Enigma's team revealed nine, highly unusual and never before seen videos taken of UFOs or UAP — including several cases of glowing, hazy UFO 'orbs.'

Those videos, uploaded to Enigma's database by citizen investigators in California, Arizona, Utah and Nevada, show UAP appearing out of nowhere without a sound and disappearing into thin air.

This week, Enigma shared one additional new video case with DailyMail.com: a June 8, 2024 sighting from Watford City, North Dakota taken just after midnight.

'We were out camping and someone spotted a shooting star,' the witness told Enigma in their submission.  

But, the witness continued, 'after taking a long look at it and discarding everything else that [it] could be,' the campers all ultimately grew to be less sure it was a shooting star as the object appeared to hover in the night above them.

'UAP are really a numbers game,' Rojas pointed out. 

'If one out of a thousand turn out to be strange, collecting them en masse is the best way to get to the ones that are worth researching.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

23-06-2024 om 00:19 geschreven door peter  

Bizarre moment RADAR picks up a structure above 'UFO hotbed' during rocket experiment

• Scientists experienced a radar anomaly at Utah's Skinwalker Ranch
• The area is notorious for UFO sightings and paranormal activity
• Ground radar and rockets have found electromagnetic disturbances 

By JAMES GORDON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 

A group of scientists have been trying to understand what is causing a radar blip in the middle of Utah wilderness that is a notorious 'UFO hotbed'.

In a series of experiments that see the group using both ground-penetrating radar and rockets, they try to determine what may also be causing the electromagnetic disturbance from above. 

The experiments were set at the 512-acre Skinwalker Ranch in northeastern Utah in the Uinta Basin.

The area is notorious for UFO sightings and other paranormal-related mysteries. 

A group of scientists have been trying to understand what is causing a radar blip in the middle of Utah wilderness

In a series of experiments that see the group using both ground penetrating radar and rockets, they try to determine what may also be causing the electromagnetic disturbance from above

The scientists used radar in order to detect what may be behind a specific anomaly they're repeatedly experienced at a specific area of the ranch called The Triangle. 

The ground penetrating radar (GPR) they used sends radio signals into the ground, but some are also sent up into the sky, enabling the detection of objects that might be lingering above. 

The team noted how in the past, when they were scanning the area using GPS, there were times when all data would suddenly be lost, and the GPS signal would give readings that were below the surface of the ranch. 

So far, the team have been unable to identify what is behind the sudden blocking of the GPS signal. 

The history of Skinwalker Ranch is steeped in mystery. It's been called a supernatural place while others say it's 'cursed'

The team used ground penetrating radar to analyze both above and below the ground

Rockets were fired into the sky in an attempt to detect any objects overhead

The ground penetrating radar (GPR) sends radio signals into the ground, but some are also sent up into the sky, enabling the detection of objects that might be lingering above

Rockets were fired into the sky only for the same GPS dead spots to appear as in previous experiments

In a curious result, the rocket appeared to head directly into the mesa despite being fired upwards

In this latest episode of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, the scientists attempt to uncover more of the mysteries of the area. 

Rockets were fired into the sky only for the same GPS dead spots to appear as in previous experiments. 

While a second team conducted GPR surveys, a similar phenomena was uncovered with major blips picked up at the exact same time as the rocket launch, some 40ft in the air.

Although the team had been attempting to uncover an underground tunnel that may lie below, the scientists were perplexed when the data they received appeared to have been altered by an unknown force. 

The scientists used all manner of equipment including rockets, cameras and radars

Despite the rockets being fired directly upwards, the readings showed it being fired into the mesa

The readings surprised scientists who were analyzing the results in real time

A radar blip appeared to occur at a spot that had been pinpointed previously, 40ft in the air

There appeared to be a disturbance in the radar and GPS readings for no obvious reason

The point where the rocket appeared to go inside the mesa is where a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon) was seen entering and exiting the area on a previous occasion

Only seconds after launch the data produced some unusual readings appearing to show that the rocket had gone directly into the mesa, despite them witnessing from the ground that the rocket had fired straight up, to a height of around 2000ft. 

However, the point where the rocket appeared to go inside the mesa is where a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon) was seen both entering and exiting the area on a previous occasion. 

The team at first believe they may have uncovered some sort of electromagnetic disturbance, but others in the group say an object was discovered that appears and disappears if only for a few seconds.

Earlier this month, the team believed they had exposed a possible 'portal' on the haunted ranch, where the team has witnessed a mutilated cow who died under mysterious circumstances. 

The discovery adds to the mystique surrounding Skinwalker Ranch, where past events have included encounters with mutilated cattle and other unexplained phenomena.

This discovery adds to the mystique surrounding Skinwalker Ranch, where past events have included encounters with mutilated cattle and other unexplained phenomena

Rancher Terry Sherman, who bought the property in the 90's became so spooked that he sold the property and moved his family of four away. Sherman found several heads of his cattle mutilated after purchasing the land in 1996

The history of Skinwalker Ranch is steeped in mystery. It's been called a supernatural place while others say it's 'cursed.'

Rancher Terry Sherman, who bought the property in the 90's became so spooked that he sold the property and moved his family of four away. 

Sherman found several heads of his cattle mutilated after purchasing the land in 1996.

Additionally, Sherman witnessed unexplainable encounters, one in which Sherman saw a wolf-like creature three times the size of a normal wolf. 

Another researcher saw an bizarre creature with piercing yellow eyes surveilling him from a tree, among other mysterious instances. 

The ranch later became the focus of Pentagon investigations into UFOs through programs like the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). 

In 2020, a bombshell report in Popular Mechanics describes the Pentagon's UFO program on 'Skinwalker Ranch.' 

Using black-budget money under the auspices of the Defense Intelligence Agency, in 2008 AATIP contracted private space technology company Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) to provide the government with technical reports and research into UFOs, according to the magazine.

The ranch later became the focus of Pentagon investigations into UFOs through programs like the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)

BAASS controlled 'Skinwalker Ranch' in Utah - which the company proposed as a 'possible laboratory for studying other intelligences and possible interdimensional phenomena.'

Two previously unreleased technical reports submitted through the contract were published in full or in part by Popular Mechanics, revealing research into the medical effects of contact with anomalous flying objects and the frequency of unexplained phenomenon near nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile silos. 

In 2008, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) awarded a $10 million contract to BAASS under a contracting program known as the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP).

A lifelong enthusiast of space travel and the paranormal, Bigelow purchases the Skinwalker Ranch, after various strange and paranormal events were reported there.

Bigelow proposed to use the ranch to study paranormal phenomenon, and a visit to the ranch by a DIA scientist in 2007 may have inspired the creation of the AATIP, according to Popular Mechanics.

Former AAWSAP contractor and astrophysicist Eric Davis shared what colleagues had told him of the DIA scientist's experience in an interview with researcher Joe Murgia.

A lifelong enthusiast of space travel and the paranormal, Bigelow (pictured left next to NASA astronaut Mike Gernhardt) purchased the Skinwalker Ranch, after various strange and paranormal events were reported there

Bigelow proposed to use the ranch to study paranormal phenomenon, and a visit to the ranch by a DIA scientist in 2007 may have inspired the creation of the AATIP

'In the living room of the former NIDS double wide observation trailer/staff quarters. A 3D object appeared in mid-air in front of him and changed shape like a changing topological figure. It went from pretzel-shaped to Möbius strip shaped. It was 3D and multi-colored. Then it disappeared,' he said.

According to former Senator Harry Reid, whatever happened at Skinwalker was enough to convince the DIA to seriously investigate paranormal and UFO phenomena.

'Something should be done about this. Somebody should study it.' I was convinced he was right,' Reid told New York Magazine.

A 2009 BAASS report commissioned by the Pentagon mentions Skinwalker Ranch in Utah as a 'possible laboratory for studying other intelligences and possible interdimensional phenomena.'

In 2016, Bigelow sold Skinwalker Ranch for $4.5 million to 'Adamantium Holdings', a shell corporation whose true owners have never been traced.

After this sale, all roads leading to the ranch were blocked, the perimeter was secured with cameras and barbed wire, and signs went up warning strangers not to approach.

Anyone who approached the ranch after reported being immediately confronted by guards and ordered to leave.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

22-06-2024 om 20:56 geschreven door peter  

Inside the mystery of one of America's deadliest roads - as experts find 'evidence' of UFOs and portals at spot where 15 people have died

• READ MORE: Four 'UFOs' are captured on camera at Skinwalker Ranch 

By WILL POTTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

A team of investigators have claimed to have discovered evidence of interdimensional portals under a bridge where a staggering number of drivers have been killed. 

Ex-CIA agent Andy Bustamante and journalist Paul Beban, who delve into paranormal and extraterrestrial activity on their show Beyond Skinwalker Ranch, alleged that they found the cause of the mysterious motor deaths. 

The bridge, found on the Miller Ranch in Colorado, has seen at least 15 drivers lose their lives, alongside 16 cattle mutilations across the past 25 years. 

Using LIDAR ground laser technology, they claimed to find evidence of underground vacuums under the bridge that were highly strange.

In fact, by the end of the episode, a 3-D model of the bridge constructed from the LIDAR had some points located completely underground - something the investigators say might be due to time-slowing anomaly. 

A bridge nearby to the Miller Ranch in Colorado has seen over a dozen deaths just a short walk from mysterious cattle mutilations - which a team of investigators claim may be linked to secret 'portals' underground 

A 3-D model of the bridge constructed from the LIDAR had some points located completely underground - something the investigators say might be due to time-slowing anomaly

Read More

• Bizarre moment RADAR picks up a structure above 'UFO hotbed' during rocket experiment 

In the show, the team of investigators said the bridge at the ranch is 'one of the deadliest stretches of road in the country, and we just have no idea why.' 

They claimed that after using LIDAR technology to survey the ground underneath the bridge, they potentially found 'portals' that could lead to another dimension. 

The team also used electromagnetic pulses through the bridge, which they claim were interrupted by radio waves. 

Describing the radio waves as 'data packets', they alleged that the frequent pulses may form part of an encrypted message from beyond. 

'What's fascinating is that one is electrical energy, one is radio frequency, so there should be no relationship here,' one investigator pointed out. 

The bridge came under scrutiny not only because of the high number of deaths, but also its proximity to the cattle ranch where a number of livestock have been mutilated. 

At least 16 cattle have been killed and dismembered over the past 25 years, with no explanation. The cows are often found without any blood or tracks around them, missing organs and limbs that have been cut with neat precision.  

The experiment came as part of the show's delving into the UFO-hotbed site Skinwalker Ranch in Utah, and claim that unexplained phenomena in other parts of the country are linked to the site.  

Scientists found strange radio wave pulses emanating from the bridge when they ran electromagnetic current through it 

Describing the radio waves as 'data packets', the investigators alleged that their tests may have uncovered an encrypted message from beyond

In another recent experiment at the Skinwalker Ranch, the group attempted to understand what is causing a radar blip in the middle of Utah wilderness where a number of 'UFOs' have been reported. 

The ground penetrating radar (GPR) they used sends radio signals into the ground, but some are also sent up into the sky, enabling the detection of objects that might be lingering above.

The team noted how in the past, when they were scanning the area using GPS, there were times when all data would suddenly be lost, and the GPS signal would give readings that were below the surface of the ranch.

Although the team had been attempting to uncover an underground tunnel that may lie below, the scientists were perplexed when the data they received appeared to have been altered by an unknown force. 

In a series of experiments at Skinwalker Ranch, the group used both ground penetrating radar and rockets, they try to determine what may also be causing the electromagnetic disturbance from above

The testing at the ranch comes as Skinwalker Ranch has grown in infamy in recent decades, particularly due to eerie UFO sightings and cattle mutilations. 

Rancher Terry Sherman, who bought the property in the '90s, has revealed several mysterious phenomena at the ranch, that spooked him so much that he eventually sold the property and moved his family of four away.

In one instance, Sherman found several heads of his cattle mutilated after purchasing the land in 1996.

Additionally, Sherman witnessed unexplainable encounters, one in which Sherman saw a wolf-like creature three times the size of a normal wolf.

Another researcher saw an bizarre creature with piercing yellow eyes surveilling him from a tree, among other mysterious instances.

The ranch later became the focus of Pentagon investigations into UFOs through programs like the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

22-06-2024 om 20:38 geschreven door peter  

Structures In Crater On Moon In NASA Map! Link Below. June 2024, UFO Sighting News. 

Date of discovery: May 9, 2024, but video made June 21, 2024

Location: Earths moon

 

Guys I found this on May 9, 2024, but finally got my things unpacked so that I can make a video of it. There are two structures about 250 meters across in the center of this crater. If you want a clear focused screenshot, then watch this video carefully or you wont be able to get it. When you enlarge the map, NASA blurs and pixelates your image so it's no longer clear. In this video, I teach you how to beat that. 100% proof of intelligent life on Earths moon. 

 Scott C. Waring 

 

Map location: 

https://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc/

projection=SINU&c_lon=0&c_lat=0&x=589279.0660258001&y=-320626.66061455&resoluti

n=73.05454999604635&layers=LUNA_WAC_GLOBAL

 { https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

22-06-2024 om 20:25 geschreven door peter  

Fragment van een papyrus met verhalen over Jezus' kindertijd ontdekt: het onthult nieuwe details

Door Janine

Biblioteca statale e universitaria di Amburgo

Jarenlang bewaarde een bibliotheek in Hamburg, Duitsland, een oude papyrus, in de veronderstelling dat het een onbelangrijk document was. De waarheid is echter heel anders, althans volgens de twee experts die het fragment lange tijd hebben bestudeerd en de inhoud ervan hebben onthuld. Het zou de oudst bekende kopie zijn van een van de apocriefe evangeliën, die vertelt over de wonderen die Jezus verrichtte toen hij nog een kind was.

Het oudste exemplaar van het Kindheidsevangelie van Thomas bevindt zich in Hamburg: niemand wist het

We zijn in de Carl von Ossietzky Staats- en Universiteitsbibliotheek in de stad Hamburg, in Noord-Duitsland. Jarenlang werd gedacht dat een van de bewaard gebleven papyri niets anders was dan een alledaags document, een privébriefje of een boodschappenlijstje. In werkelijkheid, zeggen twee experts die de gelegenheid hebben gehad om het fragment van de papyrus te analyseren, zou het een van de belangrijkste documenten zijn om de eerste eeuwen van het christendom te begrijpen.

De studie, gepubliceerd in de Journal of Papyrology and Epigraphy, beweert dat dit fragment de oudste kopie is die ooit is gevonden van het Kindheidsevangelie van Thomas. Terwijl de eerdere versie dateert uit de 9e eeuw, zou de papyrus die in Hamburg bewaard werd minstens 1600 jaar oud zijn en geschreven zijn tussen de 4e en 5e eeuw. Toch bewaarde de bibliotheek het document jarenlang en niemand realiseerde zich ooit het belang ervan, totdat prof. Lajos Berkes het woord “Jezus” in de tekst opmerkte. En hij besloot op onderzoek uit te gaan.

Dit is wat de papyrus zegt over de kindertijd van Jezus

Het fragment bevat 13 regels geschreven in het Grieks en komt uit het laat-oude Egypte, toen het christendom al een wijdverspreide en waarschijnlijk staatsreligie was geworden. Zoals bevestigd door de twee geleerden die de papyrus analyseerden, Lajos Berkes en Gabriel Nocchi Macedo, gaat de inhoud niet over boodschappen of andere alledaagse zaken. In plaats daarvan vertelt het een verhaal uit de kindertijd van Jezus dat bekend staat als het levend maken van mussen van klei.

De episode is al bekend, omdat hij voorkomt in recentere kopieën van het Kindheidsevangelie van Thomas, en vertelt over het tweede wonder van de jonge Jezus. Op 5-jarige leeftijd is Jezus aan het spelen aan de oever van een rivier en maakt hij kleine musjes met klei. Jozef berispt hem omdat hij op een ongepaste dag werkt, waarop Jezus in zijn handen klapt en leven geeft aan de musjes, die wegvliegen van de rivier.

Een deel van de apocriefe evangeliën

Er wordt weinig gesproken over het Kindheidsevangelie van Jezus, dat wordt toegeschreven aan de apostel Thomas maar in werkelijkheid in de 2e eeuw is geschreven. Het is in feite één van de apocriefe evangeliën, teksten die zijn uitgesloten van de officiële bijbelse canonvorming van de Katholieke Kerk omdat ze vaak als onbetrouwbaar werden beschouwd of in ieder geval in tegenspraak zijn met de vier testamentaire evangeliën. Het Kindheidsevangelie vertelt bijvoorbeeld over een reeks wonderen die Jezus tussen zijn 5e en 12e levensjaar verrichtte, maar andere evangelies verzamelen gezegden, weer andere episoden uit het leven, enzovoort.

Het belang van de Hamburgse ontdekking ligt niet alleen in de oudheid van het handschrift, dat hoe dan ook een essentieel element is. Naast dit aspect stelt het bestuderen van een papyrus uit de 4e tot 5e eeuw ons in staat de verspreiding van deze evangeliën in de eerste eeuwen van het christendom te begrijpen. De ontdekking schuift de oudste kopie van het Kindheidsevangelie van Thomas daarom niet simpelweg enkele eeuwen terug, maar biedt nieuwe informatie over de context van het kopiëren en bestuderen van deze teksten. Die toen al buiten de traditionele canon werden beschouwd, maar die ons op de een of andere manier hebben bereikt.

{ https://www.curioctopus.nl/ }

22-06-2024 om 18:46 geschreven door peter  

The observations of the Crab Nebula, particularly the high rotational speed of the pulsar, seemed to conflict with current supernova theory. In the model for lower mass stars like that which was the progenitor star of the Crab Nebula, the oxygen in the core ignites as the core collapses. This process does not have sufficient energy to generate such a fast rotating pulsar. 

A team of astronomers have addressed this curiosity using MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) onboard the James Webb Space Telescope to collect data from the Crab Nebula. The team was led by Tea Temim from the Princeton University in New Jersey. They report that the gas composition of the cloud suggests the star may have been more evolved with some iron in the core which could have led to a higher energy supernova than previously thought.

With Webb’s sensitive infrared instruments, the iron and nickel emission lines can be seen with more clarity than ever before. Studying the bright lines in the spectrum of the nebula has allowed a much more reliable estimate of the iron and nickel ratio to be deduced. They found it was a higher percentage compared to the Sun which was expected for a more energetic supernova. 

The results are promising but the readings were taken from two small regions of the nebula so to rule out variations across the entire 11 light years further readings are needed. If the data from Webb is representative from the entire nebula then it’s possible one of the mysteries of the nebula may finally be solved.

Source  : 

• Investigating the Origins of the Crab Nebula With NASA’s Webb

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

22-06-2024 om 18:32 geschreven door peter  

Distant Titan is an oddball in the Solar System. Saturn’s largest moon—and the second largest in the entire Solar System—has an atmosphere denser than Earth’s. It also has stable lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons on its surface.

New research shows that waves on these seas are eroding Titan’s coastlines.

The research is “Signatures of Wave Erosion in Titan’s Coasts,” and it’s published in Science Advances. The lead author is Rose Palermo, an MIT graduate and research geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey.

In 2007, the Cassini spacecraft spotted lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons, mostly methane and ethane, on Saturn’s moon Titan. Titan and Earth are the only two bodies in the Solar System known to have surface liquids. Scientists have only Cassini data from Titan to work with, and they’ve been poring over the data in an effort to understand this strange world.

The moon’s seas are one of the most intriguing features throughout the entire Solar System. But they’re difficult to observe because of the thick atmosphere. Researchers have wondered if waves shape the coastlines, but there are conflicting signs about the nature of the seas. They could be rough, or they could be smooth. A paper from 2014 suggested that transient features in Titan’s northern sea, Ligeia Mare, could be waves.

But there’s no certainty.

“We found that if the coastlines have eroded, their shapes are more consistent with erosion by waves than by uniform erosion or no erosion at all.”

Rose Palermo, lead author, U.S. Geological Survey

“Some people who tried to see evidence for waves didn’t see any, and said, ‘These seas are mirror-smooth,'” lead author Palermo said in a press release accompanying the research. “Others said they did see some roughness on the liquid surface but weren’t sure if waves caused it.”

It seems likely that there would be waves on Titan. To investigate this question, researchers at MIT compared Titan’s shorelines to shorelines on Earth to see if they match.

The seas and lakes on Titan look much like some on Earth. They appear to be flooded valleys and depressions. But scientists are uncertain if these bodies of water are eroding their coastlines like those on Earth. “Spacecraft observations and theoretical models suggest that wind may cause waves to form on Titan’s seas, potentially driving coastal erosion, but the observational evidence of waves is indirect, and the processes affecting shoreline evolution on Titan remain unknown,” the authors write in their paper.

The problem is that there’s no reliable way to connect shoreline morphology directly to the mechanisms that shape it, even on Earth. To try to understand how erosion affects Titan’s coastlines, the researchers started with Earth. They examined how different coastal erosion mechanisms shape Earth’s coastlines, then applied the framework to Titan.

There are basically two types of coastal erosion: wave-driven erosion and uniform erosion. Each type produces different coastlines.

Wave erosion is driven by wind and produces a change proportional to the strength of the waves. Waves are usually stronger the farther they travel before they hit a coast. Wave erosion creates long, smooth stretches of coast where the coast is fully exposed and bays in protected areas where less erosion occurs. The distance the wind can blow to generate waves on a particular water body before striking a coast is called ‘fetch.’

“Wave erosion is driven by the height and angle of the wave,” Palermo explained. “We used fetch to approximate wave height because the bigger the fetch, the longer the distance over which wind can blow and waves can grow.”

Uniform erosion is different. It doesn’t rely on mechanical wave action. The compositional differences between Earth and Titan are apparent when it comes to uniform erosion. “Titan’s crust consists mainly of water ice, but its surface solids may also include heavy hydrocarbon molecules, such as benzene, that are soluble in liquid methane and ethane, such that the liquid lakes and seas may slowly dissolve the solid coasts of the north polar terrain,” the authors explain in their research.

Over a long enough period of time, uniform erosion occurs at the same rate in all locations, producing distinct morphological features: shorelines that are generally smooth even inside bays with sharp headlands that punctuate them.

“Here, we test the hypothesis that coastal erosion has shaped Titan’s seas by investigating whether coastline shapes are most consistent with wave-driven erosion, uniform erosion, or no coastal erosion,” the authors write.

The different morphological features produced by wave-driven erosion and uniform erosion are obvious. Wave-driven erosion tends to smooth exposed sections of the coastline where fetch is large and preserve the coastline where fetch is small inside embayments.

Uniform erosion is different. It widens embayments and smooths out small-scale roughness on the coastline regardless of fetch. Headlands are the exception, which sharpen into thick-necked points that stick out into the main basin.

“We had the same starting shorelines, and we saw that you get a really different final shape under uniform erosion versus wave erosion,” said co-author Taylor Perron, Professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT. “They all kind of look like the Flying Spaghetti Monster because of the flooded river valleys, but the two types of erosion produce very different endpoints.”

“We found that if the coastlines have eroded, their shapes are more consistent with erosion by waves than by uniform erosion or no erosion at all,” Perron said.

But these are just simulations, and they have to be tested rigorously. The team’s next step was to quantify these differences in the real world. The researchers explain that they “developed a technique focusing on local relationships between shoreline roughness and fetch area” to understand and quantify the differences. Specifically, they quantified what they call “roughness” to differentiate wave-driven erosion from uniform erosion. “Simply put, a lower roughness means a smoother stretch of shoreline compared to the rest of the lake, and a higher roughness means a comparatively rough stretch of shoreline,” they write.

The researchers say that “… shoreline roughness and normalized fetch area can be used to fingerprint wave-driven and uniform erosion and distinguish them from a coastline consisting only of flooded river valleys,” as shown in the first image.

So, what does this all boil down to?

“Our results suggest that the coastlines of Titan’s largest liquid bodies are most consistent with shorelines that have been modified by wave erosion and river incision,” the researchers write in their paper. They analyzed four coastlines and found a less than 5% probability of uniform erosion in a saturation-limited scenario and a less than 20% probability of uniform erosion in a fetch-limited scenario. That leaves wind-driven erosion as the most likely cause of erosion, which seems to confirm that Titan’s lakes and seas experience waves. “Therefore, our results suggest that the largest seas and lakes are not consistent with erosion by uniform processes (i.e., dissolution), as previously hypothesized for some of Titan’s landscapes,” they conclude.

That’s the scientific way of presenting their results, and their paper is like part of a long conversation with other scientists. In the press release, they state their conclusion more plainly for the rest of us.

“We can say, based on our results, that if the coastlines of Titan’s seas have eroded, waves are the most likely culprit,” said Perron, Professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT. “If we could stand at the edge of one of Titan’s seas, we might see waves of liquid methane and ethane lapping on the shore and crashing on the coasts during storms. And they would be capable of eroding the material that the coast is made of.”

“Waves are ubiquitous on Earth’s oceans. If Titan has waves, they would likely dominate the surface of lakes,” says Juan Felipe Paniagua-Arroyave, associate professor in the School of Applied Sciences and Engineering at EAFIT University in Colombia, who was not involved in the study.” It would be fascinating to see how Titan’s winds create waves, not of water, but of exotic liquid hydrocarbons.”

The next step is to determine how strong Titan’s winds have to be to create coastal erosion. The researchers also hope to decipher which directions the wind is predominantly blowing from.

“Titan presents this case of a completely untouched system,” Palermo said. “It could help us learn more fundamental things about how coasts erode without the influence of people, and maybe that can help us better manage our coastlines on Earth in the future.”

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

22-06-2024 om 18:21 geschreven door peter  

Mars holds a very special place in our hearts. Chiefly because of all the other planets in the Solar System Mars is probably the place we are going to find some tantalising clues or maybe even evidence of prehistoric life. NASA Perseverance Rover has been trundling around the Jezero Crater looking for evidence that it was once hospitable to life. To that end it has not only been collecting rock samples but air samples too and scientists can’t wait to get their hands on them. 

The Mars Perseverance Rover is part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission. It launched on 30 July 2020 and landed in the Jezero Crater successfully on 18 February 2021. The site was picked because it’s a dried up river bed and if there is any evidence of ancient primitive life on Mars, it is a likely location. Perseverance is equipped with a host of instruments including a drone named Ingenuity to survey the planet. 

One exciting element of the mission is the collection of rock samples as part of the Mars Sample Return Campaign. Twenty four core samples have been collected to date and deposited on the surface ready for collection by a future mission. It’s not just rock samples that have been collected though. Known as ‘headspace’ there is air in the space around the rock samples and it is this that has got scientists excited. 

Not only do the rocks hold secrets about Mars but the atmosphere does too. It’s an atmosphere rich in Carbon Dioxide but is expected to have trace amounts of other gasses  too. Information about the current climate can be gained from the trapped gasses but it’s also possible to learn about the evolution of the atmosphere through analysis of the rocks. There is one particularly important tube that has been filled entirely with gas from the atmosphere. 

With the sample sat on the surface of Mars potentially for many years, the gas trapped will interact with the rock in the sample tube. It will only be when the tubes are opened up when they arrive back here on the Earth that the interaction will cease. It’s hoped to understand more about the levels of water vapour near the Martian surface. 

It isn’t just the water vapour that is of interest but the levels of trace gas too are of interest. Through analysing the gas samples we can tell if there are gasses like neon, argon and xenon which are non reactive gasses. Because these gasses do not react then there presence in the tube samples may suggest that Mars stated with an atmosphere. We know that it had a much thicker atmosphere in the past but we don’t know whether it has always been there or whether it developed later.  

There are many benefits that will come from analysing the samples even, the prevalence of dust that will help future human exploration. As Justin Simon from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston said “The gas samples have a lot to offer Mars scientists, even those who don’t study Mars would be interested because it will shed light on how the planet forms and evolves.”

Source : 

• Why Scientists Are Intrigued by Air in NASA’s Mars Sample Tubes

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

22-06-2024 om 18:04 geschreven door peter  

Existence of lost temple dedicated to the Greek goddess of war is discovered in 2,500-year-old graffiti

• READ MORE: 'Miracle plant' used by the ancient Greeks rediscovered in Turkey

By MATTHEW PHELAN SENIOR SCIENCE REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Archeologists have discovered a lost ancient Greek temple dedicated to the goddess of war, after translating a newly found case of 2,500-year-old graffiti. 

Among over 2,000 remnants of ancient Greek graffiti, one scholar has uncovered a diagram of this lost temple to Athena, ancient Greece's goddess of war and wisdom.

The graffiti, which experts said was made by a shepherd or herder, depicts a now bygone temple on the very same site as Athens' historic, still-standing Parthenon.

'The structure,' according to the University of Tennessee classics professor who made the discovery, 'is identified by its inscription as 'the Hekatompedon' and was produced by an individual named Mikon.'

Among over 2,000 remnants of ancient Greek graffiti, one scholar has uncovered a diagram (above) of a lost temple to Athena, ancient Greece's goddess of war and wisdom 

'The structure,' according to the University of Tennessee classics professor who made the discovery, ' is identified by its inscription as 'the Hekatompedon' and was produced by an individual named Mikon.' Above, the professor's sketch of Mikon's 2,500-year-old graffiti

Hekatompedon was once the official ancient name for the temple to Athena, but it translates literally to '100-footer' in ancient Greek, a reference to the temple's size.

Crucially, however, the alphabet used in this graffiti dates it back to the 6th century BC — at least 50 years before the construction of the Parthenon structure, also dedicated to Athena, even began.

'Mikon's graffito supports the scenario that the Hekatompedon in the decree was an operational temple on the south side of the Acropolis,' classics professor Merle Langdon wrote in his new study, published in the American Journal of Archaeology.

This earlier temple would have been dismantled, and many of its columns and other structures could have been reused, for the ancient Greek structures still standing atop the hill where the Parthenon rests today, within the Acropolis of Athens. 

Translated from this ancient Greek alphabet, the engraved inscription simply reads 'the Hekatompedon [—] of Mikon,' according to Langdon who was the first to discover the graffiti.

The professor noted that there are two possible temple 'candidates' known to archeologists that could match the diagram that Mikon drew in his graffiti.

One nicknamed 'the Bluebeard Temple' by archeologists and another called 'the Gigantomachy Temple,' a neutral temporary term used while scholars still debate what the remnants of these historic structures might have once really been.

The Bluebeard Temple, which is theorized to have been built on the north side of the Acropolis around the second quarter of the 6th century, was named by archeologists for a prominent three-headed serpent with a blue beard, found among in its ruins.

The Gigantomachy Temple, also called the Old Temple of Athena by some scholars, dates back to roughly the same 6th century period. 

It's remnants were also found on the Acropolis in Athens, but its exact original location is still debated by scholars.

Langdon and his co-author, archeologist Jan van Rookhuijzen, said they would stop short of trying to definitively identify 'the drawn temple' any further, as 'the debate on the architectural history of the Archaic Acropolis has not come to a resolution.'

Hekatompedon, ancient Greek for '100-footer,' was the official ancient name for the temple to Athena. But the alphabet used in this graffiti dates it back to the 6th century BC, over 50 years before construction on the Parthenon even began. Above, on the hill, the Parthenon today

Above, a closer look at the Parthenon today - sitting atop the Acropolis in Athens, Greece

In other words, the complete history of the lost temple to Athena, that Mikon called 'the Hekatompedon' is still shrouded in mystery and remains yet to be written. 

For years, the team has studied the 6th century BC sketches, scrawlings and graffiti made by the ancient Greek's in this region — drawings that include ships, horses, and 'erotic scenes.'

'Why the shepherds produced so many graffiti is not known,' van Rookhuijzen wrote in an article at The Conversation, discussing he and Langdon's new study.

'It may have simply been a form of escapism during the dull moments of their job.'

The hill where Mikon's graffiti was located, along the north and east of Vari, Attica, is now a southern suburb of Athens. 

The landscape has become a boon to scholars as it is literally covered in ancient shepherd graffiti.

Langdon and van Rookhuijzen employed high-resolution photographs and detailed reproductions to analyze the long-dead shepherd's writing style, hunting for clues in his letter forms, handwriting, and spelling to better date and authenticate the find.

Above, the site where Langdon and his co-author found Mikon's ancient graffiti (red arrow). the shepherd's inscription - made on the exposed marble of Vari's Barako Hill near Athens - has now suffered from two millennia's worth of erosion

The team compared the Mikon drawing and its writing style to other previously discovered architectural drawings and inscriptions from the wider Athens area.

Mikon's sketch of the temple, they concluded is 'the earliest known testimony of admiration of the architecture of the Acropolis,' based on its faithful and favorable depiction of the structure's columns and roof-like entablature.

They also noted that Mikon's graffiti is now the earliest recorded instance of a person using 'Hekatompedon' to mean a large temple or building.

'Our occurrence is earlier than the 37 other known examples of this name in the Greek world,' the team wrote in their new study, 'including 12 from Attica.'

But the ancient graffiti still has some mysteries left to decode, as the shepherd's inscription — made on the exposed marble of Vari's Barako Hill — has now suffered from over two millennia's worth of erosion

'This impedes a full appraisal of both the drawing and the inscription,' the researchers noted, 'of which some letters are illegible.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

22-06-2024 om 00:23 geschreven door peter  

“Mikon is not otherwise known, but he was most likely a shepherd who made the graffito while grazing his flocks,” explained Janric van Rookhuijzen, an archaeologist and co-author of the study, in a recent article. “The version of the Greek alphabet used is very ancient, making it clear that the drawing was made as early as the 6th century BCE.”

Photograph of the graffiti 

(American Journal of Archaeology/Langdon et al)

Close-up view of the words τὸ hεκατόµπεδον.

Credit: Langdon et al., American Journal of Archaeology (2024)

Sketch of the graffiti, indicating reasonably secure lines and letters 

(American Journal of Archaeology/Langdon et al)

The graffito (a term sometimes used to describe a singular piece of graffiti) was found among over 2,000 ancient engravings on marble outcrops in the hills north and east of Vari. These engravings, typically created by local herders, include simple drawings of animals, ships, and buildings, as well as short inscriptions. The particular graffito in question looks like a building facade, showing at least five

The term “Hekatompedon” refers to a structure approximately 100 feet in length. In ancient Greek architecture, this term was often used to describe large temples. But, it also means something else.

“The term is known to be the official ancient name of the famous temple dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena – later known as the Parthenon,” van Rookhuijzen explained. “It is likely that Mikon wanted to depict a building on the Acropolis of Athens.”

However, the inscriber, Mikon, pre-dated the Parthenon by several decades.

Patch of bedrock where the graffito is located (arrow); the earthen road is visible in the background 

(American Journal of Archaeology/Langdon et al)

“Because the alphabet he used can be firmly dated to the 6th century BCE, the drawing must be at least 50 years older than the Parthenon, which was begun around 450 BCE,” van Rookhuijzen wrote.

According to the researchers, they believe that the graffito likely depicts an archaic temple on the Acropolis of Athens, possibly the so-called Bluebeard Temple or the Gigantomachy Temple. These temples are thought to have stood on the Acropolis at the end of the sixth century BCE, but were destroyed by the Persians in 480 BCE.

The Acropolis of Athens.

(Image: Unsplash)

Utilizing high-resolution photographs and detailed sketches, the work of this long-dead shepherd was analyzed for the various letter forms, orthography, and layout to determine its authenticity. The team compared this drawing and writing style to other known examples, as well as other known architectural drawings and inscriptions from the area.

Based on their research, they note this is the earliest written record of the term “Hekatompedon” being used to describe a large temple or building. Moreover, noting the style of the graffito, as it features lines for columns and a cross line that represents an entablature (the horizontal lintel that sits on top of the columns), the study argues that this was probably some kind of symbolic gesture of admiration for the temple.

In simple terms, Mikon probably just dug big buildings, and shepherds and herders were notorious for their graffiti. The hill where this drawing was discovered is covered in ancient shepherd graffiti, including images of horses, boats, and, of course, ancient erotica.

“Why the shepherds produced so many graffiti is not known – it may have simply been a form of escapism during the dull moments of their job,” van Rookhuijzen mused.

“However, the graffito made by Mikon shows how a small scribble may be the key to tackling the historical riddles behind one the world’s most iconic archaeological sites.”

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

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

21-06-2024 om 23:53 geschreven door peter  

Footage Of UFO Landing At Holloman AFB With Aliens Walking Out Exists, Producer Told James Fox

There is a UFO/alien controversy surrounding Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, where one of three UFOs allegedly landed in May 1971. The incident has been recently discussed by “Moment of Contact” filmmaker James Fox, who says the full  video of the UFO landing exists, including the alien entities walking out of the craft.

However, as it is so often in such cases, instead of the government releasing a film of the entire incident to author/filmmaker Robert Emenegger as promised, it only released 8 seconds of this special footage that ultimately made it into the film. Holloman Air Force Base is the United States Air Force base established in 1942 and located six miles southwest of the central business district of Alamogordo, New Mexico.

The story begins in 1971 when Emenegger and producer/director Allan Sandler were invited by US intelligence to Norton Air Force Base in California to discuss the significant UFO phenomenon that had occurred previously and create a documentary film about it.

Apparently, Mr. Fox recalls the Holloman incident on Julian Dorey Podcast, published on February 25, 2023. He says that he interviewed Sandler and Emenegger about it and they as well believe the UFO landing film footage exists. He points out this happened not far from Socorro, where Lonnie Zamora had his famous sighting roughly a year prior of a similarly shaped “tic tac” white craft and beings walking around the UFO.

There is no official record of the reason why the US government allowed giving secret UFO footage for a documentary film. It is believed that the administration of President Nixon did it to look strong in the science field for the upcoming 1972 re-election campaign.

Emenegger said that he was promised by the USAF officials to get the authentic UFO landing footage that happened at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico in 1971. It showed the alien visitors emerging out of the craft that met with the US military. Even though Emenegger was skeptical about it, the Air Force assured him that the footage was authentic.

One of the military’s officials named Paul Shartle, who was in charge of the audio-video department, said in a 1988 national television broadcast with Mike Farrell that he had watched the 16mm film of three disc-shaped craft. One of them landed and the others flew away.

“I saw footage of three disc-shaped crafts one of the crafts landed and two of them went away. It appeared to be in trouble because it oscillated all the way down to the ground. However, it did land on three pods, a sliding door open a ramp was extended, and out came three aliens. They were human-sized. They had an odd gray complexion and a pronounced nose. They wore tight-fitting jumpsuits, thin headdresses that appeared to be communication devices, and their hands in their hands they held a translator I was told.”

Mr. Fox revealed on the podcast that Allan Sandler told him on the phone call that he had seen three discs escorted by a military jet. “He was not sure of the altitude, but he estimated that they were at roughly 10 to 12,000 feet,” Mr. Fox said. He continued: “Paul Shartle (One of the military’s officials at Norton Air Force Base in California who was in charge of the audio-video department) admitted that he had seen it and that it was not of Earth origin.”

Sandler told Mr. Fox that two of the discs peeled away while one wobbled to the ground. He said it was like a leaf floating down from the sky, and it looked like it was in trouble. Mr. Fox said that the wobbling movement was similar to the footage he had seen of a UFO before. He does not think that Allan knew how the UFO hovered. The disc eventually went to the ground.

“He said James, just like in a sci-fi movie, the seamless door opens and out come these beings that had very large noses, slits for mouths, and their eyes were almost like a vertical slit, like a cat’s eye, very, very big. They had… I’m just like… I [Fox] need to make this abundantly clear to your audience. I’m not saying what’s true or what’s not true, or if it happened or if it’s alien or whatever it is. I’m just telling you what I was told by people who saw it, and claimed to have seen it. They came out and they met with the base commanders, and then they either got into a Jeep or were about to get into a Jeep or do something and then the film footage just cuts.”

Emenegger claimed that he personally visited the landing site and inspected the area where the extraterrestrial craft had been stored, and that the US military and the alien visitors had held meetings that lasted for several days.

Additionally, Emenegger’s production team was granted access to highly classified documents at DoD facilities, and they received assistance from military officials who had expertise in UFO-related matters, such as Col. William Coleman of Project Blue Book and Col. George Weinbrenner, who headed Foreign Technology at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.

Paul Shartle, who showed the footage to Allan Sandler, faced some men in dark suits that showed up from an unknown location and warned him not to speak of the incident. They confiscated the footage, stating that it was not supposed to have happened. Sandler did not inform Emenegger for over 40 years.

Emenegger completed extensive research and film production only to feel cheated when the authorization to use real footage was withdrawn. Despite this setback, he went ahead and released his documentary “UFOs: Past, Present, and Future,” which was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1974. The documentary was groundbreaking because it provided information from the Department of Defense (DoD).

The United States Air Force (USAF) required Emenegger to add animated footage of the alleged Holloman UFO landing. According to Emenegger, some frames from the original footage were used during the editing stage with USAF authorization, which was not entirely missing from the frames. The viewers spotted a genuine bright disc coming down slowly in the distance against the backdrop of Holloman’s surrounding landscape.

David Cameron, a UFO researcher, shared in an interview that he was involved in confirming that the Pentagon was not covering up UFO sightings. He recounted the story of the Holloman Air Force Base film, where the government allowed producers to use eight seconds of footage of a landed alien ship in a documentary, but the classified part where an alien got out was removed.

Mr. Fox explains that the point of the story is that there is compelling evidence of an event occurring involving an unidentified object and that there may be film footage of the incident. Despite the existence of this evidence, the story has been overshadowed by other sensational claims, such as secret meetings between President Eisenhower and aliens.

While it is unclear what exactly happened, there is substance to the story and it should not be dismissed outright. However, the addition of other claims has muddied the waters and made it difficult to investigate the case of the president making contact with extraterrestrial life.

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

21-06-2024 om 22:51 geschreven door peter  

“Imagine you’ve been observing a distant galaxy for years, and it always seemed calm and inactive,” explained Paula Sánchez Sáez, an astronomer at ESO in Germany and lead author of the study accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. “Suddenly, its [core] starts showing dramatic changes in brightness, unlike any typical events we’ve seen before.”

Follow-up analysis by a host of the most advanced space observatories confirmed the incredible event while pointing to a likely culprit: a massive black hole lying at the heart of galaxy SDSS1335+0728, which is located 300 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, had seemingly awakened from a long slumber and was devouring the gas in its immediate surrounding. This activity resulted in the massive and growing glow witnessed by astronomers.

Of course, people in this field regularly observe unexpected changes in the cosmos. However, events like supernova explosions or other tidal disruption events which generate large amounts of light typically last for a very short time, ranging from a few days to a few hundred days, before their brightness runs out. In this case, the researchers behind the discovery say they knew something was different when the increase in brightness first spotted in 2019 not only persisted but began to increase over time.

Since then, they have spent half a decade pouring through archived data collected by other space observatories, including the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), to search for an explanation. That analysis found that SDSS1335+0728 was emitting more light in the visible spectrum and ultraviolet, optical, and infrared wavelengths. Then, in February 2024, the galaxy started emitting X-rays. According to Sánchez Sáez, who is also affiliated with the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS) in Chile, such behaviour is “unprecedented.”

The team followed up on their findings by studying archival data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and the eROSITA instrument on IKI and DLR’s Spektr-RG space observatory. That work, along with supporting data collected by the Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR), the W. M. Keck Observatory, NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, confirmed the original findings: astronomers had indeed witnessed a black hole appear out of nowhere.

“The most tangible option to explain this phenomenon is that we are seeing how the [core] of the galaxy is beginning to show (…) activity,” says co-author Lorena Hernández García from MAS and the University of Valparaíso in Chile. “If so, this would be the first time that we see the activation of a massive black hole in real-time.”

This artist’s impression shows two stages in the formation of a disc of gas and dust around the massive black hole at the centre of the galaxy SDSS1335+0728. The core of this galaxy lit up in 2019 and keeps brightening today — the first time we observed a massive black hole become active in real-time.

Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

“These giant monsters usually are sleeping and not directly visible,” added study co-author Claudio Ricci, from the Diego Portales University, also in Chile. “In the case of SDSS1335+0728, we were able to observe the awakening of the massive black hole, [which] suddenly started to feast on gas available in its surroundings, becoming very bright.”

Hernández García says this process was so rare that it had “never been observed before.” Some previous studies had reported galaxies that were thought to be inactive suddenly becoming active, but this was the first time astronomers had seen it unfolding in real-time.

While the team of astronomers admits they don’t exactly know what makes a black hole appear out of nowhere, they believe it is unlikely to be a one-time event. They even believe it could happen much closer to home, at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy.

“This is something that could happen also to our own Sgr A*, the massive black hole (…) located at the centre of our galaxy,” said Ricci.

Moving forward, the team says that additional observations and data analysis should shed even more light on their discovery. They also believe that collecting more data on SDSS1335+0728, which the Chilean-led Automatic Learning for the Rapid Classification of Events (ALeRCE) broker has classified as having an ‘active galactic nucleus’ (AGN), could benefit other researchers trying to understand the life cycle of black holes.

“Regardless of the nature of the variations, [this galaxy] provides valuable information on how black holes grow and evolve,” Sánchez Sáez said. “We expect that instruments like [MUSE on the VLT or those on the upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT)] will be key in understanding [why the galaxy is brightening].”

• Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.

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

21-06-2024 om 22:28 geschreven door peter  

Eind 2019 begon het tot dan toe onopvallende sterrenstelsel SDSS1335+0728 plotseling helderder te stralen dan ooit tevoren. Om te begrijpen waarom, hebben astronomen gegevens van diverse instrumenten in de ruimte en op de grond, waaronder de Very Large Telescope (VLT) van de Europese Zuidelijke Sterrenwacht (ESO), gebruikt om bij te houden hoe de helderheid van het stelsel is veranderd. In een vandaag gepubliceerd onderzoeksartikel komen ze tot de conclusie dat ze getuige zijn van veranderingen die nog nooit eerder in een sterrenstelsel zijn waargenomen – waarschijnlijk als gevolg van het plotselinge ontwaken van het enorme zwarte gat in diens kern.

Nog nooit zijn astronomen er getuige van geweest dat een zwart gat ontwaakt. Tot nu, zo lijkt.

Want onlangs hebben onderzoekers mogelijk gezien hoe het zwarte gat in het hart van het verder heel onopvallende sterrenstelsel SDSS1335+0728 opeens actief werd. Dat is te lezen in het blad Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Helderheidsverandering
“Stel je voor dat je een ver sterrenstelsel al jaren waarneemt en dat het altijd rustig en inactief leek te zijn,” vertelt onderzoeker Paula Sánchez Sáez. “En dan begint zijn kern plotseling dramatische helderheidsveranderingen te vertonen – op een manier die je nog nooit eerder hebt gezien.” Het klinkt misschien als het begin van een spannende sciencefictionfilm, maar voor Sánchez Sáez en collega’s was het het begin van een opwindend onderzoek. Want de helderheidsveranderingen die de onderzoeker beschrijft, zagen zij in werkelijkheid plaatsvinden.

Lastig te duiden
En die helderheidsveranderingen waren in beginsel niet zo gemakkelijk te duiden. Want hoewel onderzoekers sterrenstelsels wel vaker zien oplichten – bijvoorbeeld door toedoen van een supernova-explosie of een tidal disruption event (waarbij een ster zich te dicht bij een zwart gat in de buurt waagt en uit elkaar wordt getrokken) – was de helderheidsverandering die SDSS1335+0728 onderging, duidelijk anders. Want waar een supernova of tidal disruption event de helderheid doorgaans enkele tientallen of hooguit honderden dagen beïnvloedt, duurde de helderheidsverandering in SDSS1335+0728 maar voort. Zelfs zo’n vier jaar nadat de onderzoekers de helderheid van het sterrenstelsel voor het eerst zagen toenemen, nam de helderheid nog steeds toe!

Ongekend
Ook spotten de onderzoekers nog niet eerder waargenomen helderheidsvariaties. Zo blijkt SDSS1335+0728 nu veel meer licht op ultraviolette, optische en infrarode golflengten af te geven dan een paar jaar geleden. En in februari van dit jaar begon het sterrenstelsel ook röntgenstraling uit te zenden. “Dit gedrag is ongekend,” stelt Sánchez Sáez.

Primeur
En eigenlijk is er maar één verklaring voor. Namelijk dat het zwarte gat in het hart van dit sterrenstelsel actief begint te worden. “Als dat inderdaad zo is, zou het voor het eerst zijn dat we een enorm zwart gat zien ontwaken,” stelt onderzoeker Lorena Hernández García.

Zwarte gaten: hoe zit het ook alweer?
Een zwart gat is een gebied in de ruimte waar de zwaartekracht zo immens sterk is dat niets – zelfs licht niet – eraan kan ontsnappen. Hierdoor zijn zwarte gaten volslagen donker en in feite dus onzichtbaar. Dat verandert echter als zo’n zwart gat ‘actief’ wordt, oftewel gas naar zich toe gaat trekken. En dat is wat onderzoekers in SDSS1335+0728 – een sterrenstelsel op zo’n 300 miljoen lichtjaar afstand – gezien denken te hebben. “In het geval van SDSS1335+0728 waren we er getuige van hoe het centrale zwarte gat zich plotseling tegoed begon te doen aan gas dat in zijn omgeving voorhanden was, waar het heel helder van werd,” legt onderzoeker Claudio Ricci uit. Dat gat verdwijnt namelijk niet direct in het zwarte gat, maar begeeft zich eerst in een baan rond het zwarte gat en vormt daar een zogenoemde accretieschijf. Het gas in zo’n accretieschijf wordt heel heet en begint te gloeien. Hierdoor neemt de helderheid van het sterrenstelsel waarin het zwarte gat zich bevindt, toe. Eerder hebben onderzoekers wel vastgesteld dat zwarte gaten die eerder inactief waren, actief zijn geworden. Maar tot voor kort waren ze nog nooit daadwerkelijk getuige geweest van het actief worden – of ontwaken – van een zwart gat.

Hoewel de waargenomen helderheidsverandering van SDSS1335+0728 het beste te verklaren is door het feit dat het zwarte gat in het hart van dit sterrenstelsel is ontwaakt, houden de onderzoekers nog een kleine slag om de arm. En dat komt doordat er ook nog andere – maar wellicht minder plausibele – verklaringen denkbaar zijn voor de helderheidsverandering die SDSS1335+0728 ondergaat. Zo zou er bijvoorbeeld ook een ongekend traag verlopend tidal disruption event aan ten grondslag kunnen liggen. Of misschien wel een ander proces dat we op dit moment helemaal niet kennen. Vervolgwaarnemingen zijn dan ook nodig om met zekerheid te kunnen stellen dat onderzoekers zojuist – voor het eerst – getuige zijn geweest van het ontwaken van een zwart gat. “We verwachten dat instrumenten zoals MUSE van de VLT (Very Large Telescope, red.) of die van de komende Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) van cruciaal belang zullen zijn om te begrijpen waarom de helderheid van dit sterrenstelsel toeneemt,” zo stelt Sánchez Sáez.

Alsof het nooit anders is geweest: wetenschappers geven mensen een extra duim - en die wennen daar vervolgens bizar snel aan.

Bronmateriaal

• "Astronomen zien een enorm zwart gat ontwaken" - ESO
  
• Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: ESO / M. Kornmesser

{ https://scientias.nl/ }

21-06-2024 om 22:04 geschreven door peter  

Infrared astronomy is necessary when studying particularly dusty nebulae since the clouds of dust and gas obscure most of the visible light of the stars within them. Thanks to its advanced infrared optics, Webb was able to detect slightly longer wavelengths using its MIRI instrument. Mary Barsony, an astronomer with the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe (part of the SETI Institute), was the lead author of a new paper that describes the results. As she related in a recent NASA press statement.

“Our jaws dropped. After studying this source for decades, we thought we knew it pretty well. But we would not have known this was two stars or that these jets existed without MIRI. That’s really astonishing. It’s like having brand new eyes.”

Radio telescopes are another way to study nebulae, though they are not guaranteed to reveal the same features as infrared instruments. In the case of WL 20S, the absorbed light was visible in the submillimeter range, making ALMA the ideal choice for follow-up observations. However, the high-resolution mid-infrared data was needed to discern WL 20S as a pair of stars with individual accretion disks. This allowed the team to resolve stellar jets composed of ionized gas that is not visible at submillimeter wavelengths.

“The power of these two telescopes together is really incredible. If we hadn’t seen that these were two stars, the ALMA results might have just looked like a single disk with a gap in the middle. Instead, we have new data about two stars that are clearly at a critical point in their lives, when the processes that formed them are petering out.”

The combined MIRI and ALMA results revealed that the twin stars are nearing the end of their formation period and may already have a system of planets. Future observations of these stars with Webb and other telescopes will enable astronomers to learn more about how young stars transition from formation to their main sequence phase. “It’s amazing that this region still has so much to teach us about the life cycle of stars,” said Ressler. “I’m thrilled to see what else Webb will reveal.”

Further Reading: 

• NASA

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

21-06-2024 om 20:40 geschreven door peter  

There have been numerous, almost fanciful ideas proposed from great big balloons covered in sticky stuff like giant fly paper in orbit to pickup bits and bobs floating around. Nets have also been proposed even lasers to piece by piece destroy the offending objects. If I were a betting man I would go for something along the lines of a net travelling through space at similar velocity, scooping up the debris and controlling its gentle deorbit until either landed safely for collection or burnt up in the atmosphere. 

The ideas are there, what we are lacking, is data to assess their feasibility. Enter Astroscale, a company that was founded in 2013 and develops in-orbit solutions. They have been selected by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency – JAXA – for the first phase of Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration. The purpose to demonstrate how the technology for removing large pieces of debris. This has led to the development of ADRAS-J (Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan.)

ADRAS-J was launched on 18 February and started its rendezvous phase four days later. On 9 April it began its approach from a few hundred kilometres and from 16 April it began its automated relative navigation approach taking it to within a few hundred metres using the onboard infrared camera. On 23 May it approached to 50 metres, a first for any spacecraft to arrive in such proximity to a large piece of debris. 

The item is the upper stage of a Japanese rocket that measures 11 metres long and 4 metres in diameter. Now the two are so close, ADRAS-J will demonstrate proximity operations and collect images of the rocket to assess its movements. This is a particularly interesting object for ADRAS-J to study becausey it has no technology or infrastructure to enable docking or servicing so is a challenging piece of debris to remove.

Source : 

• Historic Approach to Space Debris: Astroscale’s ADRAS-J Closes in by 50 Meters

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

21-06-2024 om 20:32 geschreven door peter  

A tardigrade, or water bear.

DR. DIANE R. NELSON Getty Images

{ https://scientias.nl/ }

21-06-2024 om 18:35 geschreven door peter  

Jaime Maussan, a Mexican journo and UFO boffin who reckons he's got the extraterrestrial cadavers, is on the hunt for Yank and Euro scientists to prove they're real.

Jaime Maussan reckons he's got the extraterrestrial cadavers 

(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Two unearthed 'alien' mummies from Peru have sparked a firestorm of debate after x-ray and ultrasound data was revealed in March, with experts worried they might be ancient humans nicked by grave robbers.

Jaime Maussan, a Mexican journo and UFO boffin who reckons he's got the extraterrestrial cadavers, is on the hunt for Yank and Euro scientists to prove they're real.

Chatting to the Daily Mail, Maussan spilled the beans that more "analyses are being done", and he's taking the Peruvian Government to court for the rights to cart the bodies off to top-notch labs in the States.

READ MORE: 

• Conjoined twins slam evil trolls after one gets married in fairytale wedding

Maussan, no stranger to controversy and having ruffled feathers for the best part of ten years, is floating the theory that these mummies could be alien-human "hybrids", with his team claiming the new finds are packing "30 percent unknown" DNA.

But the sceptics aren't buying it, with history buff Christopher Heaney telling the Daily Mail: "Personally, I am not convinced that they are humanoid. I think they're human".

Over the past twelve months, Maussan and his squad have been banging the drum for more scientific eyeballs on the remains, even causing a stir with a contentious showcase to Mexico's bigwigs in Congress and butting heads with Peru's Ministry of Culture.

In April, the drama hit fever pitch when cops busted into a press conference hosted by Maussan in Peru, aiming to nick one of the bodies on show known as "Montserrat".

Now, Maussan is hitting back with a whopper of a lawsuit against Peru's government, demanding damages and the right to cart the strange specimens off to the States for some poking and prodding by independents.

"The lawsuit is already in for $300 million (£235.5 million)," Maussan dished out to the Daily Mail.

On his Sunday show "No Humano", Maussan let slip it's going to be an eight-month wait for any news on the courtroom front. This isn't about lining his pockets though, he's keen to splash the cash on a museum showcasing the mummies.

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

21-06-2024 om 18:02 geschreven door peter  

Expert Claims Test On Roswell Metal Fragment Yielded Proof UFO Crash In 1947

BY CASS ANDERSON

I’m typically an extreme skeptic when it comes to evidence of extra terrestrial life on earth. But evidence from a new Discovery channel show has at least piqued my curiosity and bolsters the theory that a UFO crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico back in 1947.

In a short clip released from the show (video below), they reveal that they tested the metal allegedly found at the crash in Roswell in 1947 which people have for generations claimed to be a UFO. The man on camera claims the test results came back as 100% aluminum.

Why is this important? Because no matter how hard we’ve tried, humans have simply been unable to make 100% pure aluminum. We consider ‘pure aluminum’ to be 99% aluminum and our highest possible purity is 99.9999% but for aluminum to be 100% suggests it came from a UFO at Roswell.

Skeptic as I am, I’m inclined to think that whatever test was used to evaluate this aluminum was highly accurate but probably not accurate enough to test out to the .0001%.

{ https://brobible.com/ }

21-06-2024 om 17:43 geschreven door peter  

UFOs Are Invading Japan's Airspace—and Authorities Are Digging Deep to Find the Truth

ktsimage//Getty Images

Members of the Japanese government will investigate recent sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), to determine if the sightings are credible. The group will work to determine if the spotted craft are in any way a threat to Japan’s security.

While the Japanese group is open to exploring all sightings, their focus is very much on the possibility of earthbound threats, especially from neighboring China, rather than extraterrestrial ones.

A High-Level Effort

US Air Force

Japanese F-15J pilot scramble to their planes during an air defense exercise, 2017.

According to Jiji Press, the group consists of approximately 80 Japanese lawmakers, including the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s parliamentary affairs leader, and three former defense ministers. The group, mostly drawn from Japan’s legislative body, or Diet, believes the UAP phenomenon is under-scrutinized by the government, especially in light of recent sightings of unidentified objects in and around Japan.

The as-yet-untitled group has decided to include the term “unidentified anomalous phenomena” in its name. “UAP” is a term recently promulgated by the U.S. Department of Defense to differentiate its own investigative effort from past efforts to study unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, which have strong associations with flying saucers and possible extraterrestrial sightings.

So far, the group lacks any direct government or agency support, like the Ministry of Defense or the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Japanese equivalent of NASA. That said, as lawmakers, the investigators can approve spending to involve those agencies in UAP analyses.

A New Threat?

SOPA Images//Getty Images

A television at Seoul’s Yongsan Railway Station displays news about North Korea conducting a drill to launch the Hwasal-2 strategic cruise missile off its west coast. A low-flying, subsonic cruise missile like Hwasal-2 could be mistaken for a UFO.

Like most countries, Japan has traditionally not paid a lot of attention to UFO sightings. A number of factors have boosted awareness of UAPs: a number of high-profile sightings reported by U.S. military pilots, radar operators, and other personnel; the development of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones; and China’s use of balloons to collect intelligence regarding foreign countries.

The broad concern is that China or Russia could be behind the sightings. The greatest concern is that either country might have experienced a technological breakthrough that allows its aircraft to conduct aerial maneuvers that are impossible by today’s standards. In 2004, for example Navy personnel reported monitoring craft that could fly up to 7,200 miles an hour, faster than the fastest-known aircraft, and quickly changing altitude, going from 20,000 feet to 80,000 feet in a matter of moments. Any military aircraft capable of such maneuvers would have a decisive advantage over an American or Japanese aircraft.

Another possibility is that a foreign power might conduct espionage against Japan using drones or balloons, and that sightings of such devices could be chalked up to sightings of alien craft—and as a result, not be taken seriously. A Chinese drone could literally operate in plain sight, with eyewitnesses ridiculed by the authorities, as it gathered sensitive intelligence about Japanese political, military, and economic targets.

In 2020, the Ministry of Defense ordered the Self Defense Forces to create a reporting protocol for UAPs. In February 2023, shortly after a Chinese spy balloon flew over the United States, the Japanese government reported that three previous sightings of unidentified flying objects were “strongly suspected” to have been of Chinese origin. The sightings, in 2019, 2020, and 2021, took place across Japan and involved overflying Japanese airspace, a breach of international law under the Chicago Convention on International Aviation.

After the incidents were made public, Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada told the press that the Self-Defense Forces, Japan’s armed forces, will be allowed to use weapons, including air-to-air missiles, in dealing with craft that violate Japanese airspace. In 2021, the Asahi Shimbun reported that members of the Air Self Defense Force had on at least two occasions reported seeing unusual flying craft.

Japan vs. the Flying Saucers

U.S. Navy Photo

An SM-3 missile is launched from the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer JS Kirishima, October 2010. The SM-3 is capable of intercepting targets in low Earth orbit.

Japan is an island archipelago of 14,125 islands, and relies on air and sea routes for trade with the outside world. It also imports most of its food and energy from abroad, vital to keeping the world’s fourth largest economy humming. As a result, Japan maintains strong air and naval forces to keep those routes open, and its alliance with the United States means it has a powerful partner against aggressive neighbors such as China, Russia, and North Korea.

The Self Defense Forces of Japan are some of the most technologically advanced in the world. Japan is set to purchase 147 F-35 Lightning II fighter jets, which will be the second largest F-35 fleet outside of the United States. Meanwhile, the two countries co-fund the SM-3 exoatmospheric ballistic missile interceptor, which shoots down incoming missile warheads, and Japan operates what is generally considered the most advanced non-nuclear powered attack submarines in existence, the Taigei class. Japan is also set to double its spending on security, including defense spending, by 2027.

All of that spending is focused on countering known, specific threats, such as North Korean Hwasong ballistic missiles, Chengdu J-20 fighters of the Chinese Air Force, and missile submarines of the Russian Navy. If, like the balloons that flew over Japan from 2019 to 2021, there are other threats that are being reported, but disregarded because they are catalogued as “UFOs”, that creates a blind spot for the Self Defense Forces that an adversary can continue to exploit.

As UAP study group chairman and former Defense Minister Hamada said, “Leaving something unknown is a problem for national security.”

The new Japanese effort to study UAPs is several steps behind the United States, whose All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, is currently investigating UAP sightings. Like the U.S., Japan is more interested in the possibility of enemies from China piloting mysterious craft instead of little green men from Mars.

{ https://www.popularmechanics.com/ }

21-06-2024 om 15:56 geschreven door peter  

UFO over Gastonia, North Carolina on May 14, 2024, UAP Sighting News.

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

21-06-2024 om 15:26 geschreven door peter  

From UFO Disclosure to UAP Transparency: Richard Dolan Explores the Evolution

Richard Dolan, a prominent UFO historian, delves into the evolving terminology and its implications in his insightful analysis on “The Richard Dolan Show.” The shift from “UFO” to “UAP” and from “Disclosure” to “Transparency” is more than mere semantics; it reflects broader societal and institutional attitudes toward these phenomena and attempts at narrative control.

The Evolution of Terminology

In the early days of UFO sightings, the term “flying saucers” was commonly used. This term carried connotations of science fiction and public hysteria, which often overshadowed serious investigations. Over time, the term evolved to “unidentified flying objects” (UFOs), a phrase coined by the United States military to bring a veneer of scientific objectivity and bureaucratic stability to the study of these phenomena.

In recent years, however, there has been a notable shift toward the term “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP) and more recently, “unidentified anomalous phenomena.” This transition reflects an ongoing effort to rebrand and destigmatize the subject, making it more palatable for scientific study and public discussion. Dr. Richard Haynes, a NASA scientist and active UFO researcher, is credited with popularizing the term UAP in the 1990s, aiming to strip away the cultural baggage associated with UFOs and encourage serious investigation.

From Disclosure to Transparency

For decades, the UFO community has championed the concept of “disclosure,” which implies a revealing of hidden or secret information about UFOs by an established authority, often envisioned as a dramatic, definitive revelation by the President or another high-ranking official. This notion of disclosure suggests a moment of truth, where the existence and nature of UFOs would be laid bare for public scrutiny.

In contrast, the term “transparency” has recently come into vogue, particularly in political and military circles. Transparency implies an ongoing process of openness and accountability but lacks the promise of a complete or final revelation. This shift from “disclosure” to “transparency” can be seen as a form of virtue signaling, providing a semblance of accountability while still allowing those in power to control the narrative and the extent of information released.

The Role of Language in Shaping Perception

Dolan emphasizes the power of language in shaping public perception and controlling narratives. He draws parallels with George Carlin’s critique of “soft language,” which dilutes the truth and makes serious issues seem less immediate and real. Similarly, George Orwell’s exploration of political jargon and euphemisms in “Politics and the English Language” highlights how language can obscure harsh realities and manipulate public thought.

The rebranding of UFOs to UAPs and the shift from disclosure to transparency can be seen as modern examples of these linguistic strategies. By changing the terminology, authorities can influence how the public perceives and discusses these phenomena, often reducing the urgency and altering the nature of the conversation.

Implications for the Future

While the shift to UAP and the emphasis on transparency have opened the door to broader discussions and bipartisan support in Congress, they also come with potential pitfalls. The term UAP encompasses a wide range of phenomena, including any airborne objects that cannot be immediately identified. This broad definition can dilute the focus on truly unexplained phenomena and make it easier for authorities to dismiss or downplay significant sightings.

• https://youtu.be/Frn7yppD0is

Moreover, the promise of transparency without the commitment to full disclosure may lead to continued obfuscation and control of the narrative. As Dolan notes, the institutional structures that have grown around the UFO secret over the past 80 years are deeply entrenched, involving significant financial interests and powerful players. Genuine disclosure, if it ever comes, is likely to be disruptive and challenging to the status quo.

In conclusion, Richard Dolan’s analysis on “The Richard Dolan Show” sheds light on the significant shifts in language and terminology surrounding UFOs and UAPs. Understanding these changes is crucial for anyone interested in the study of unidentified phenomena and the broader societal and institutional forces at play. The transition from UFO disclosure to UAP transparency reflects deeper efforts at narrative control and highlights the ongoing challenges in achieving true openness and understanding in this enigmatic field.

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21-06-2024 om 15:18 geschreven door peter