Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
Vrijdag 11 augustus 2017
New Study Explains How Some Planets May Never Become Habitable
New Study Explains How Some Planets May Never Become Habitable
A new study explains how alien planets might skip straight from being too cold to support life to being too hot, without ever becoming habitable. That could trim the number of planets we should investigate for life.
This chart shows, on the top row, artist concepts of the seven planets of TRAPPIST-1 with their orbital periods, distances from their star, radii and masses as compared to those of Earth. On the bottom row, the same numbers are displayed for the bodies of our inner solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. The TRAPPIST-1 planets orbit their star extremely closely, with periods ranging from 1.5 to only about 20 days. This is much shorter than the period of Mercury, which orbits our sun in about 88 days.
TRAPPIST-1 Comparison to Solar System and Jovian Moons
IN THE ZONE
Earth’s location in space is perfect: not too close to but not too far from the Sun, it gives our planet the balmy temperature that helps supports life. However, a new study suggests that it might be even more difficult than previously expected to find a celestial body that falls within this ‘Goldilocks zone.’
The habitable zone of any given star is the area where planets can maintain a temperature that allows liquid water to be found on its surface. Too close to the star, and that water will turn to vapor — too far away, and it’ll turn to ice.
However, stars like our sun gradually get more luminous over time, which changes the parameters of their habitable zone. This means that icy planets can feasibly reach a point where their conditions are warm enough to support life — but according to a recent study in Nature Geoscience, that’s not always the way the situation will pan out.
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
A planet’s ability to support life-sustaining temperatures hinges on at least two factors: the amount of ice on the surface, and the amount of greenhouse gases being released into its atmosphere. Yet many icy planets don’t have the volcanic activity needed to contain any greenhouse gases besides water vapor.
So this study’s team, led by Jun Yang of Peking University, developed a model that could simulate how the climate of an ice-covered planet with only water vapor in the atmosphere would change over time. The results suggested it would take 10 to 40 percent more energy than the Earth receives from the sun before they began to melt.
Without ice to reflect incoming heat, this heat-intensive process was often followed by a speedy uptick in temperature that caused the planet’s oceans to boil off. And without water, these worlds wouldn’t be able to support life after all.
This isn’t necessarily bad news. Thanks to increasingly sharp-eyed instruments, the number of known exoplanets has skyrocketed in the past two decades, from a mere handful in the mid-90s to nearly 2000 today. In February 2014 alone, NASA announced a “planet bonanza” discovery of 715 new planets, found by the Kepler satellite. But identifying which of these distant worlds might be friendly to life is still tricky.
Scientists are able to infer the atmospheric content of a planet based on the way light passes through it, a process that’s already been used to detect water on a distant Earth-sized planet. However, this method doesn’t tell scientists what else is happening on the planet — such as whether it’s in the runaway, ocean-boiling cycle Yang’s team identified.
If we’re on the search for a planet that humans can live on, having this information at hand gives us more insight into which worlds are in contention.
Magnetisch veld van de maan hield langer stand dan gedacht
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Het voor de leefbaarheid van manen en planeten zo belangrijke magnetische veld ging tot wel 2,5 miljard jaar langer mee dan aangenomen.
Die conclusie trekken onderzoekers nadat ze maangesteente dat astronauten tijdens de Apollo 15-missie naar de aarde brachten, bestudeerden. Het gaat om een kleine, jonge steen die waarschijnlijk ontstond tijdens een meteorietinslag die zo’n 1 tot 2,5 miljard jaar geleden plaatsvond.
Elektronen We weten dat de maan in het verleden een magnetisch veld heeft gehad. En dat magnetisch veld laat zijn sporen na in vloeibare gesteenten die aan het magnetisch veld zijn blootgesteld. In die vloeibare gesteenten zitten namelijk elektronen wiens richting bepaald wordt door het magnetisch veld. Wanneer het vloeibare gesteente vervolgens afkoelt, getuigen de elektronen in het gesteente voor altijd van het magnetisch veld dat tijdens het ontstaan van het gesteente heer en meester was.
Apollo-15 Grote vraag was natuurlijk of het magnetisch veld van de maan nog een rol speelde in de tijd dat de maansteen die tijdens de Apollo 15-missie was gevonden, ontstond. Dat is nog niet zo heel gemakkelijk vast te stellen. Om de oorspronkelijke magnetisatie van de steen te achterhalen, moest deze in een ruimte met een gecontroleerde atmosfeer verhit worden. Iets wat nog niet eerder met succes was gedaan. Tot nu. Onderzoeker Sonia Tikoo slaagde erin om middels verhitting het magnetisch veld waar de steen tijdens zijn oorsprong aan is blootgesteld, te meten. En de resultaten zijn verrassend. Toen deze steen 1 tot 2,5 miljard jaar geleden ontstond, had het magnetisch veld van de maan nog een sterkte van zo’n 5 microtesla (ongeveer 10 procent van de kracht van het huidige aardmagnetisch veld).
Magnetisch veld ging langer mee Eerder onderzoek had aangetoond dat de maan in een ver verleden (meer dan 3,5 miljard jaar terug) een krachtig magnetisch veld had. Maar de ondergang van het magnetisch veld zou zo’n 3,5 miljard jaar geleden zijn ingezet, toen de intensiteit rap afnam. Dit onderzoek laat echter zien dat het magnetisch veld van de maan 1 tot 2,5 miljard jaar geleden nog tamelijk krachtig was en dat het magnetisch veld dus tot wel 2,5 miljard jaar langer meeging dan gedacht.
De kern van de maan De bevindingen hebben tal van implicaties. Zo kan het onze kijk op de kern van de maan veranderen. “We dachten dat kleine planetaire lichamen niet heel lang een magnetisch veld konden genereren, omdat ze kleine kernen hebben die snel afkoelen en al vroeg kristalliseren,” stelt Tikoo. De ideeën die we nu hebben over de samenstelling van de kern van de maan kunnen door dit onderzoek dan wel eens op losse schroeven komen te staan, aangezien de snelheid waarmee een kern kristalliseert afhankelijk is van diens samenstelling. “Het (de kern van de maan, red.) bestaat voornamelijk uit ijzer, maar er moet nog meer in zitten: zwavel, koolstof of een ander element.”
Daarnaast heeft het onderzoek ook implicaties voor de leefbaarheid van andere manen en planeten. Wanneer een hemellichaam zijn magnetisch veld kwijtraakt, kunnen ioniserende deeltjes van de zon het hemellichaam rap van zijn water ontdoen. En dat heeft weer gevolgen voor de leefbaarheid van zo’n planeet of maan. Zoiets overkwam bijvoorbeeld Mars dat veel water bezat, maar het kwijtraakte toen het magnetisch veld zo’n 4 miljard jaar geleden verdween. “Wanneer we kijken naar exoplaneten of de manen van exoplaneten die zich mogelijk in een leefbare zone bevinden, moeten we bij het beoordelen van de leefbaarheid ook rekening houden met het magnetisch veld,” vindt Tikoo. “De vraag is dan hoe groot planeten en manen moeten zijn om ze als potentieel leefbaar te kunnen bestempelen.”
Zestien meter grote planetoïde scheert in oktober vlak langs de aarde
Tim Kraaijvanger
De planetoïde 2012 TC4 schiet over twee maanden rakelings langs de aarde. Op 12 oktober bedraagt de afstand tussen dit object en onze planeet slechts 44.000 kilometer.
2012 TC4 is al in 2012 ontdekt door het Pan-STARRS observatorium op Hawaï, maar is nu opnieuw gevonden door ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chili. In 2012 scheerde de asteroïde op een afstand van zo’n 96.000 kilometer langs de aarde. Astronomen wisten in dat jaar al dat de planetoïde in oktober 2017 opnieuw in de buurt van de aarde zou komen, maar slaagden er niet in om de exacte route in kaart te brengen. Logisch ook, want een ruimtesteentje met een doorsnee van zestien meter is lastig te volgen.
Omdat de afstand tot 2012 TC4 in oktober slechts 44.000 kilometer is, hopen astronomen meer te weten te komen over het object. Wellicht lukt het om informatie te verzamelen over de samenstelling van de planetoïde.
Stel dat 2012 TC4 in de toekomst in botsing komt met de aarde, dan vormt dit gelukkig geen groot gevaar voor de mensheid. In 2013 verbrandde er een twintig meter grote planetoïde boven het Russische Tsjeljabinsk. Wetenschappers vermoeden dat 4000 tot 6000 kilo puin van de meteoriet het aardoppervlak haalde. Wanneer planetoïde 2012 TC4 ooit in de atmosfeer terechtkomt, dan is het effect ongeveer gelijk.
Cassini begint aan zijn laatste vijf baantjes rond Saturnus
Caroline Kraaijvanger
En tijdens die baantjes komt Cassini wel heel dicht bij de gasreus in de buurt: de sonde tikt zelfs Saturnus’ atmosfeer aan.
Tijdens de vijf laatste rondjes rond Saturnus zal Cassini herhaaldelijk dwars door de bovenste laag van Saturnus’ atmosfeer duiken. De eerste van de vijf duikvluchten staat gepland voor komende maandag.
Onontgonnen gebied En het wordt spannend. Want opnieuw begeeft Cassini zich in onontgonnen gebied. Maar NASA heeft er alle vertrouwen in dat het goed gaat komen. Onderzoekers verwachten dat de omstandigheden waar Cassini tijdens de duikvluchten mee te maken krijgt, vergelijkbaar zullen zijn met die tijdens scheervluchten langs Titan: een maan van Saturnus die eveneens gezegend is met een dikke atmosfeer. “Cassini’s scheervluchten langs Titan hebben ons voorbereid op deze snelle vluchten door het bovenste deel van Saturnus’ atmosfeer,” stelt onderzoeker Earl Maize. “Dankzij onze ervaringen denken we wel te weten hoe het ruimtevaartuig gaat reageren op de atmosferische dichtheden die onze modellen voorspellen.”
Dieper of hoger? Op 14 augustus zal Cassini het dichte wolkendek van Saturnus tot zo’n 1630 kilometer naderen. En dan zal ook moeten blijken of de atmosfeer van Saturnus werkelijk zo dicht is als onderzoekers denken. Mocht de atmosfeer een grotere dichtheid hebben, dan zullen de volgende duikvluchten niet meer zo diep gaan. Mocht de dichtheid alles meevallen, dan kan Cassini tijdens de laatste twee duikvluchten nog zo’n 200 kilometer dieper gaan en data verzamelen over de atmosfeer die zich nog dichter bij de toppen van Saturnus’ wolken bevindt.
Tijdens de duikvluchten zal Cassini Saturnus’ poollichten, temperatuur en de stormen op de polen van de gasreus bestuderen. Tevens zal de sonde met zijn radar proberen om diep in de atmosfeer te gluren. Het worden Cassini’s laatste verrichtingen. Op 15 september zal de sonde zich in de atmosfeer van Saturnus boren. Tijdens die laatste duik hopen onderzoekers dat Cassini nog enige data kan verzamelen en naar de aarde stuurt. Maar op een gegeven moment zal Cassini te maken krijgen met een atmosfeer die zo dicht is dat de sonde niet langer in staat is om de antenne op de aarde gericht te houden en op dat moment zal het contact met Cassini voorgoed verloren gaan. Enkele momenten later zal Cassini uiteenvallen.
Wetenschappers hebben de Marsrover Curiosity gebruikt om foto’s te maken van wolken op Mars. Deze foto’s zijn achter elkaar geplakt, waardoor je zelf ziet hoe wolken voorbij drijven boven het oppervlak van de rode planeet.
Mars heeft een elliptische baan om de zon. Dit betekent dat de afstand tot de zon varieert. Wanneer Mars het verst verwijderd is van de zon, dan ontstaan er wolken nabij de evenaar. Curiosity heeft vorige maand foto’s gemaakt van de wolken, terwijl Mars pas volgende maand het verste punt tot de zon bereikt. De wolken zijn dus al opvallend vroeg te zien.
“Waarschijnlijk ontstaan de wolken door waterijskristallen die op stofdeeltjes condenseren”, zegt wetenschapper John Moores van de universiteit van York. Hij is lid van het Curiosity-onderzoeksteam. “De slierten ontstaan doordat de ijskristallen vallen en verdampen. Curiosity heeft geen hoogtemeter om de hoogte van de wolken te bepalen, maar op aarde ontstaan deze vormen op hoog boven het aardoppervlak.” Daarmee wijst Moores op zogenoemde hoge wolken, die in Nederland en België zo’n vijf tot dertien kilometer boven het oppervlak ontstaan.
De beelden van Curiosity zijn flink bewerkt, want anders zouden de wolken amper te zien zijn. De foto’s zijn ’s ochtends vroeg gemaakt. Toen Curiosity in de middag opnieuw de lucht fotografeerde, waren de wolken verdwenen.
Ook de sterren rond het superzware gat in de Melkweg doen wat Einstein wil
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Voor het eerst is er een aanwijzing gevonden dat de sterren de subtiele effecten die Einstein voorspelde in zijn algemene relativiteitstheorie, vertonen.
In het hart van de Melkweg bevindt zich een superzwaar zwart gat. Het zwarte gat heeft een massa die vier miljoen keer groter is dan de massa van de zon. Rond het zwarte gat cirkelt een klein groepje sterren. Het sterke zwaartekrachtsveld van het zwarte gat is een perfecte omgeving om de algemene relativiteitstheorie waar Einstein meer dan honderd jaar geleden met op de proppen kwam, te toetsen.
DE VERY LARGE TELESCOPE
De onderzoekers bestudeerden de sterren rond het superzware zwarte gat met behulp van verschillende telescopen, waaronder ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Het onderzoek vereiste heel nauwkeurige bepalingen van de positie van de ster en daarbij kwam met name ESO’s VLT goed van pas. “In de loop van onze analyse realiseerden we ons dat om de relativistische effecten voor S2 te kunnen bepalen, je de volledige omloopbaan heel precies moet kennen,” vertelt onderzoeker Andreas Eckart.
Hoe dan? De onderzoekers bestudeerden de banen van de sterren die rond het zwarte gat cirkelen en vergeleken die vervolgens met voorspellingen die op basis van onder meer de algemene relativiteitstheorie zijn gedaan. Zo stuitten ze op een kleine verandering in de beweging van één van de sterren – aangeduid als S2 – die overeenkomt met de voorspellingen van de algemene relativiteitstheorie. Die verandering – die maar klein is – is het gevolg van relativistische effecten.
Bijzonder onderzoek Het onderzoek is bijzonder. Het is namelijk voor het eerst dat astronomen een meting van de sterkte van algemeen-relativistische effecten hebben verkregen voor sterren die om een superzwaar zwart gat draaien. En de onderzoekers willen daar duidelijk over zijn: dat is echt nog niet zo gemakkelijk. “Ik was verbaasd hoe goed we de methoden die we met gesimuleerde sterren hebben ontwikkeld konden toepassen op de nauwkeurige gegevens van de binnenste, snel bewegende sterren nabij het superzware zwarte gat,” vertelt onderzoeker Marzieh Parsa.
Een artistieke impressie van het effect van de algemene relativiteit op de omloopbaan van de ster S2 in het galactisch centrum. Je ziet dat de baan die de ster volgt ietsje afwijkt ten opzichte van de vorige omloop (15 jaar eerder). En dat is het gevolg van algemeen-relativistische effecten.
Afbeelding: ESO / M. Parsa / L. Calçada.
Geruststellend Onderzoeker Vladimir Karas noemt de resultaten “geruststellend”. “Het is heel geruststellend dat S2 relativistische effecten vertoont zoals die worden verwacht op basis van zijn nabijheid tot de extreme massaconcentratie in het centrum van de Melkweg. Dit opent nieuwe wegen voor theoretisch en experimenteel onderzoek in deze tak van wetenschap.”
Want wetenschappers zijn nog lang niet klaar met de sterren rond het superzware zwarte gat in het hart van onze Melkweg. Sterker nog: de spannendste waarnemingen moeten nog komen. Volgend jaar zal de ster S2 het zwarte gat zeer dicht naderen en onderzoekers gaan dat op de voet volgen en proberen om de omloopbaan nog nauwkeuriger dan op dit moment mogelijk is, te meten. En men verwacht dat de relativistische effecten dan nog duidelijker zichtbaar zullen zijn. Net als eventuele effecten die niet in het straatje van Einstein passen.
Vier aardachtige planeten ontdekt rond nabije ster Tau Ceti
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Twee van de planeten bevinden zich in de leefbare zone en kunnen in theorie dus vloeibaar water herbergen.
De vier planeten bevinden zich rond Tau Ceti. Deze zonachtige ster staat op zo’n 12 lichtjaar afstand en is vanaf het aardoppervlak met het blote oog te zien. Het bestaan van de vier planeten leiden onderzoekers af uit kleine schommelingen in de beweging van Tau Ceti. Deze schommelingen worden veroorzaakt door de zwaartekracht van de vier planeten.
Hierboven zie je Tau Ceti en de vier planeten afgebeeld. Daaronder zie je onze zon en de binnenste vier planeten.
Afbeelding: Fabo Feng.
Klein De vier planeten zijn rotsachtig en qua grootte vergelijkbaar met de aarde. De kleinste planeet heeft een massa die ongeveer 1,7 keer groter is dan de massa van de aarde. Volgens de onderzoekers behoren de pas ontdekte planeten tot de kleinste planeten die ooit rond nabijgelegen zonachtige sterren zijn ontdekt.
Leefbare zone Twee van de vier planeten kunnen tot de superaardes gerekend worden. Dit zijn rotsachtige planeten die groter zijn dan de aarde, maar kleiner dan Neptunus. De twee superaardes staan het verst van Tau Ceti af en bevinden zich in de leefbare zone. Dit is een denkbeeldige zone rond de ster die niet zo ver van de ster verwijderd is dat eventueel vloeibaar water op het oppervlak van de planeten bevriest, maar zich ook niet zo dicht bij de ster bevindt dat eventueel vloeibaar water op het oppervlak van de planeten verdampt. In andere woorden: op het oppervlak van de planeten kan in theorie vloeibaar water – een belangrijke vereiste voor het ontstaan en in standhouden van leven zoals wij dat kennen – te vinden zijn.
Of er op de twee superaardes leven te vinden is, is overigens twijfelachtig. Rond de ster bevindt zich namelijk eveneens een enorme puinschijf. Onderzoekers denken dan ook dat de leefbaarheid van de planeten flink wordt aangetast door een intensief bombardement van planetoïden en kometen.
Brein van vrouwen blijkt veel actiever te zijn dan dat van mannen
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Het onderzoek kan bijvoorbeeld helpen verklaren waarom vrouwen een grotere kans op Alzheimer hebben dan mannen.
Wetenschappers bestudeerden meer dan 46.000 SPECT-scans die in negen verschillende klinieken waren gemaakt. Met behulp van deze scans werd de bloedstroom in het brein van 119 gezonde mensen en 26.683 mensen met psychiatrische problemen (van ADHD tot stemmingswisselingen en van bipolaire stoornissen tot schizofrenie) inzichtelijk gemaakt. En die bloedstroom vertelt weer meer over de activiteit in specifieke delen van de hersenen. De scans waren gemaakt terwijl proefpersonen rustten of verschillende cognitieve taken uitvoerden.
Actiever brein Uit het onderzoek blijkt dat de meeste hersengebieden van vrouwen significant actiever zijn dan die van mannen. Dat gold met name voor de prefrontale cortex – een deel van het brein dat van belang is voor de concentratie en impulsbeheersing – en het limbisch systeem – een deel van het brein dat betrokken is bij emoties en angst. De visuele en coördinerende hersengebieden waren bij de mannen weer meer actief.
Belangrijk onderzoek “Dit is een heel belangrijk onderzoek,” stelt onderzoeker DAniel G. Amen. De studie geeft meer inzicht in de verschillen die er zijn tussen de hersenen van mannen en de hersenen van vrouwen. “De kwantificeerbare verschillen die we tussen mannen en vrouwen geïdentificeerd hebben, zijn belangrijk voor het begrijpen van het op geslacht gebaseerde risico op hersenstoornissen zoals de ziekte van Alzheimer.” Onderzoek wijst bijvoorbeeld uit dat Alzheimer vaker voorkomt onder vrouwen. Bovendien blijken vrouwen vatbaarder te zijn voor depressies en angststoornissen, terwijl ADHD en antisociale gedragsstoornissen bijvoorbeeld weer veel vaker onder mannen voorkomen.
Verklaringen Het onderzoek kan bovendien een aantal verschillen tussen het gedrag van mannen en vrouwen helpen verklaren. Zo is op basis van de hersenactiviteit goed te verklaren waarom vrouwen empathischer zijn en meer zelfcontrole hebben. De verhoogde bloedstroom in het limbische systeem kan weer deels verklaren waarom vrouwen vatbaarder zijn voor angst, depressie, slapeloosheid en eetstoornissen, zo stellen de onderzoekers in het blad Journal of Alzheimer Disease. Het onderzoek opent de deur naar een beter begrip van de verschillen die er tussen het brein van mannen en vrouwen zijn. En kan uiteindelijk leiden tot behandelingen op maat, waarbij het brein van mannen net iets anders wordt aangepakt dan dat van vrouwen.
Overigens tonen steeds meer onderzoeken aan dat organen die in het mannenlijf zitten lang niet altijd vergelijkbaar zijn met dezelfde organen in het vrouwenlijf. Zo blijkt het hart van mannen bijvoorbeeld net iets anders te verouderen dan dat van vrouwen en kan een hartinfarct bij vrouwen gepaard gaan met heel andere symptomen dan bij mannen. Ook hebben onderzoekers aangetoond dat het mannenbrein een andere bedrading heeft dan het vrouwenbrein. Het laat zien hoe belangrijk het is om man- en vrouwverschillen in alle fases van wetenschappelijk onderzoek mee te nemen. Iets waarvoor Ineke Klinge, universitair hoofddocent Gender Medicine aan de Universiteit Maastricht in 2014 in een interview met Scientias.nl al pleitte.
Government secrecy is running rampant in an age where more and more people are demanding transparency. Did you know that the U.S. Government classifies over 500 million pages of documents each year? Justification for the mass classification of information is (apparently) done for the sake of “national security,” but as we know:
“The dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts, far outweigh the dangers that are cited to justify them. There is a very grave danger that an announced need for an increased level of security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of censorship and concealment. That I do not tend to permit, so long as it’s in my control.” – JFK (source)
If a scholar wanted to research political, historical, scientific, or any other type of archival work, it would prove difficult and limiting seeing that most of their government’s activities are kept a secret. It is truly impossible to access the factual history of their country. The declassification of classified documents (a small portion) does not occur until decades after that information has been concealed, one great example of that is the UFO phenomenon, once believed to be a “conspiracy theory” by the masses before the substantial release of government documents showing otherwise. You can read more about that and access some of those documents here. Evidence is now pointing to the fact that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is no different.
The office is supposed to legally protect the inventions of entrepreneurs and companies, some of whom have developed ground breaking technology. Unfortunately, that’s not the case as new documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal how the Patent Office has been using a secret system to withhold the approval of some applications.
This 50-page document was obtained by Kilpatrick Towsend & Stockton, LLP, who commonly represent major tech companies that include Apple, Google and Twitter (to name a few). You can view that entire document HERE. (1)
The program delaying patent applications is called the Sensitive Application Warning System (SWAS). Usually, when an application is submitted for a patent approval it requires a couple of examiners who work with the Patent office to go through their process of approval. This process usually takes approximately 1 to 2 years, but applications that are filed in SAWS must be approved from several people, and can be delayed for a number of years.
“There is no official channel to notify an applicant once their patent is placed in the system, and the Patent Office has denied requests to divulge what applications are on the SAWS list.” (source)
The documents also indicate areas of technology that might have a patent application placed in the SAWS program – these include smartphones, internet-enabling systems and more. This information is set to be published in an online journal called “Law360” to inform the public. Tech Columnist Alyssa Bereznak at Yahoo News states that most companies are fully aware of this.
I first came across this recent information in her article, which you can view here, but I felt compelled to add more information.
As you will see below, there is more information that has surfaced prior to these documents that suggest this type of “invention secrecy” goes far beyond these technologies.
One great example (out of many) of delayed patent applications comes from Dr. Gerald F. Ross. He filed a patent application for a new invention he had devised to defeat the jamming of electromagnetic transmissions at specified frequencies. It was not until June 17, 2014 (almost 37 years later) that this patent was granted. (2)
Invention Secrecy Is Still Going Strong
As great as it is to see new information pertaining to invention secrecy come to light, it’s also important to note (as reported by the Federation of American Scientists; see annotated bibliography) that there were over 5000 inventions that were under secrecy orders at the end of Fiscal Year 2014, which marked the highest number of secrecy orders in effect since 1994.(3)
This is all thanks to an act many people are unaware of. It’s called the “Invention Secrecy Act” and it was written up in 1951. Under this act, patent applications on new inventions can be subject to secrecy orders. These orders can restrict their publication if government agencies believe that their disclosure would be harmful to national security.(4)(5)
As mentioned earlier, “national security” has become an excuse and justification for the classification of a large amount of information on a variety of topics that the public is deliberately kept in the dark about. Apparently, many of these projects and inventions go far above and beyond presidential knowledge.
“It is ironic that the U.S. should be fighting monstrously expensive wars allegedly to bring democracy to those countries, when it itself can no longer claim to be called a democracy when trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars, have been spent on projects which both congress and the commander in chief know nothing about.” (source) – Paul Hellyer, Former Canadian Defense Minister.
So what type of technology is under restriction under the Invention Secrecy Act? We don’t really know, but a previous list from 1971 was obtained by researcher Michael Ravnitzky. Most of the technology listed seems to be related to various military applications. You can view that list HERE. (6)
As Steven Aftergood from the Federation of American Scientists reports:
“The 1971 list indicates that patents for solar photovoltaic generators were subject to review and possible restriction if the photovoltaics were more than 20% efficient. Energy conversion systems were likewise subject to review and possible restriction if they offered conversion efficiencies in “excess of 70-80%.” (source)
Secrecy is No Secret
A couple of years before the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951, the National Security Act was created. As a result, a number of intelligence groups and executive bodies followed. None of these groups had any active congressional oversight. The United States has a history of government agencies existing in secret for years. The National Security Agency (NSA) was founded in 1952, its existence was hidden until the mid 1960’s. Even more secretive is the National Reconnaissance Office, which was founded in 1960 but remained completely secret for 30 years. Along with this secrecy is the information these agencies obtained, and continue to obtain until this day.
Special Access Programs are another great example of secrecy. From these we have unacknowledged and waived SAPs. These programs do not exist publicly, but they do indeed exist. They are better known as ‘deep black programs.’ A 1997 US Senate report described them as “so sensitive that they are exempt from standard reporting requirements to the Congress.” (7)(8)
We don’t really hear about black budget programs, or about people who have actually looked into them. However, the topic was discussed in 2010 by Washington Post journalists Dana Priest and William Arkin. Their investigation lasted approximately two years and concluded that America’s classified world has:
“Become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.” (9)
Today, it seems to be evidently clear that secrecy has lead to what Dwight Eisenhower warned us about:
“In the council of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential disaster of the rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” (source)
What Has All This Secrecy Led To?
The fact that so much information is concealed from the public domain has led to a kind of “breakaway civilization.” A term coined by Richard Dolan.
Someone, or some groups are “in the know.” This or these groups who have had access to information over many decades that the public hasn’t is no doubt living and perceiving the world in a different way from what the masses do. This has led to a world within worlds, a separate civilization apart of our own who have access to knowledge that we don’t. Who are they? What are they doing? Why are they doing it? What do they know?
You can read what Richard has to say about it here.
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“They published it, and they issued it in the summer of 1964, while I was there working in the war room. They titled it ‘An Assessment: An Evaluation of a Possible Military Threat to Allied Forces in Europe.’ . . . I was working in the war room one early morning . . . I’m sitting there nodding off, and this American Air Force full Colonel looked at me and he says, ‘Wake up.’ He went over to the vault . . . we kept classified documents in there . . . the Colonol went over to the vault and pulled out this document and through it on my desk and he says ‘Read that, that’ll wake you up.’ Ladies and gentlemen my life changed. I opened the first page and I couldn’t put it down. . . . I was shocked, I was stunned, by the implications of what I read in that study. . . . The study briefly, and I have to briefly lay this out, the study simply concluded this: They concluded that the planet Earth and the human race had been under some kind of survey or observation going on for hundreds if not thousands of years. They concluded in 1964 that there were at least four different groups coming here, observing us, surveilling us, analyzing us, closely watching us — what we were up to, what we were doing. They concluded that there did not appear to be a military threat involved because the repeated demonstrations of incredibly advanced technology demonstrated to us that if they had been hostile or malevolent, there was absolutely nothing we could do. If they were evil in their intent and they were hostile toward us, it would have been over a long time ago.”
Above is an excerpt of a lecture given by Robert (Bob) Dean, a retired US Army Command Sergeant Major who served for 28 years. In the lecture below, he provides a wealth of mind-altering information that corroborates with what many other whistleblowers have shared.
The lecture was given in July 2009 at the European Exopolitics Summit, which took place in Barcelona and was filmed by Project Camelot.
Dean is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of people with verified credentials coming forward to share what they have experienced during their military careers. With regards to the statement above, former Canadian Defence Minister Paul Hellyer has also mentioned the same report that Dean refers to, stating in an interview with RT news that “they decided to do an investigation, and they investigated for three years, and they decided that, with absolute certainty, that four species, four different species, at least, have been visiting this plant for thousands of years.” He also mentions “there’s been a lot more activity in the last few decades, since we invented the atomic bomb.” (source)
“Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. . . . We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time. I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is
The fact that hundreds of such people, many of whom hold high-ranking positions, have been speaking up about this topic for decades is fascinating. It’s pretty hard to believe that so many people with verified credentials would all lie about something that could so easily damage their careers.
Image of the infamous Phoenix Lights sighting.
Although there is no definitive way to prove to the ‘mainstream’ world that ET is real, we now have hundreds of thousands of documents from multiple countries putting to rest the question “Do UFOs exist?” We know they do from these documents, which show objects are tracked on radar, spotted by the pilots sent to intercept, and in some cases, simultaneously tracked on ground radar.
Information like this, particularly the fact that agencies are working to uncover the truth, shouldn’t really come as a surprise.
The CIA has a long history of putting resources toward studying this phenomenon, in fact, as well as investigating what other countries know about it as well.
Scientists of the PRC and the Soviet Far East have begun joint study of UFO’s. The first meeting of ufologists of the two countries has ended in the small maritime townlet of Dalnegorsk. The Soviet and Chinese specialists on anomalous phenomena have mapped out a program for investigating incidents that are already known and have also arranged to directly exchange video and photographic materials on new similar phenomena. Dalnegorsk has not been chosen by chance as the place for such acquaintance. In the last few years the number of cases of visual observation of UFO’s has noticeably increased there. In just the last four years alone no less than 10 UFO’s have been recorded. Specialists link their heightened interest in places here with the variety and wealth of useful minerals in Maritime Kray. Similar, incidents have also occurred in mountainous regions in China whose climatic conditions and natural landscape resemble our own.
In many cases, these testimony are given by the people involved in the incident, the military personnel mentioned in the actual files. For example, here is one dealing with an incident that took place over the Atlantic, and here is the witness testimony to match it from Graham Bethune, a retired Navy commander pilot. You can read more about that story here.
Ladies and gentlemen, my government, NASA, which many of us in the United States say stands for Never A Straight Answer, proceeded to erase 40 rolls of film of the Apollo Program — the flight to the Moon, the flight around the Moon, the landings on the Moon, the walking guys here and there. They erased, for Christ’s sake, 40 rolls of film of those events. Now we’re talking about several thousand individual frames that were taken that the so-called authorities determined that you did not have a right to see. Oh, they were ‘disruptive,’ ‘socially unacceptable,’ ‘politically unacceptable.’ I’ve become furious. I’m a retired Command Sergeant Major. I was never famous for having a lot of patience.
Listen to the full lecture below.
Who’s Really in Control of Space?
This thing has gotten so highly-classified . . . it is just impossible to get anything on it. I have no idea who controls the flow of need-to-know because, frankly, I was told in such an emphatic way that it was none of my business that I’ve never tried to make it to be my business since. I have been interested in this subject for a long time and I do know that whatever the Air Force has on the subject is going to remain highly classified.”
– Senator Barry Goldwater, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee (source)
According to Herman Oberth, one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics, “flying saucers are real and . . . they are space ships from another solar system. I think that they possibly are manned by intelligent observers who are members of a race that may have been investigating our Earth for centuries.”
If all of this information is true, it’s quite clear that “Never A Straight Answer” is indeed an appropriate name for NASA. I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again — the United States has a history of government agencies existing in secret for years. The National Security Agency (NSA) was founded in 1952, but its existence was hidden until the mid 1960s. The National Reconnaissance Office, too, was founded in 1960, but remained completely secret for 30 years.
In the interest of a short read, and given that there is a long lecture presented within this article, I’m going to link to some other related articles that go into more detail regarding the secret space program, as well as the moon landing and film/footage from the moon, which Dean refers to above.
NASA staat voor Never A Straight Answer. Sergeant-majoor is woest dat de overheid dit voor ons achterhoudt
In 1964 wisten we al dat er tenminste vier verschillende groepen waren die naar de aarde kwamen, ons in de gaten hielden en die ons bestudeerden.
Men concludeerde dat ze geen bedreiging vormden omdat ze meerdere keren hadden laten zien dat ze over ongelooflijk geavanceerde technologieën beschikten.
Als ze vijandig of kwaadaardig waren, zouden we weerloos zijn geweest. Als ze kwade bedoelingen hadden, zou het al lang over zijn geweest voor ons.
Hoogste niveau
Dit zijn de woorden van de Amerikaan Robert (Bob) Dean, die 28 jaar in het leger diende en zich opwerkte tot sergeant-majoor eerste klas.
Tijdens een interview met zender RT sprak de Canadese oud-minister van Defensie Paul Hellyer ook over vier buitenaardse soorten die de aarde al duizenden jaren bezoeken.
In andere landen wordt eveneens op het hoogste niveau onderzoek gedaan naar dit fenomeen.
Serieus
Op de website van de CIA staat een document dat laat zien hoe de spionagedienst informatie verzamelde over een samenwerkingsverband tussen de Sovjet-Unie en China.
Bijna 20 jaar geleden besloten wetenschappers uit beide landen gezamenlijk onderzoek te doen naar UFO’s.
Het gaat hier opnieuw om een document waaruit blijkt hoe serieus overheden in het verleden onderzoek hebben gedaan naar dit fenomeen.
Ufologen uit de twee landen kwamen bijeen in de stad Dalnegorsk. De specialisten wisselden videomateriaal en foto’s uit en werkten aan een programma om incidenten te onderzoeken.
Never A Straight Answer
“Dames en heren, mijn overheid, de NASA, wat volgens veel Amerikanen staat voor Never A Straight Answer (nooit een eerlijk antwoord), vernietigde 40 filmrolletjes van het Apolloprogramma – de vlucht naar de maan, de vlucht rond de maan, de maanlandingen en de maanwandelingen,” zei Dean.
“Ze vernietigden 40 filmrolletjes,” benadrukte hij. “Het gaat hier om duizenden frames waarvan de zogenaamde autoriteiten niet willen dat je ze ziet. Ik ben woest.”
Onderstaande presentatie verzorgde Dean in juli 2009 in Barcelona:
The stela of Montoro is carved with dozens of peculiar symbols.Leonardo García Sanjuán and Marta Díaz-Guardamino / Antiquity 2017
At 1.5m high and 85cm wide, the stela of Montoro is an imposing artefact. It is a stone slab covered in engravings thought to date from the Iron Age. The symbols themselves are all more or less recognisable as letters from extinct languages. But no one can read what the symbols say.
Archaeologist Leonardo García Sanjuán of the University of Seville began studying the stela after reading a short notice on the discovery published in the Montoro Archaeological Museum newsletter. He could see that there was something unusual about it, and went out to see it with his colleague Marta Díaz-Guardamino at Southampton University in the UK.
The slab had first been unearthed by a farmer ploughing his field in Montoro in southern Spain in 2002. He dumped it in a heap of other stones at the side of the field and thought nothing more about it. Two years later, a couple of rangers from the regional government's environmental department discovered it and noticed a series of strange markings covering one of its sides.
The rangers took it to the local museum, where it stayed more or less undisturbed for eight years until García Sanjuán and Díaz-Guardamino came to visit in 2012. They were puzzled to find that the letters – or graphemes – just didn't make any sense.
"It's rare to find something like this – the inscriptions on this stela cannot be read. There isn't a single script that makes sense of them," García Sanjuán told IBTimes UK.
The majority of the symbols were easily identifiable, as they had been taken from a range of different languages. On top of this, some were arranged in a circular or spiral pattern while others were carved in no discernible order.
"They seem to be an assorted collection of graphemes taken from different scripts and put together on this stone," García Sanjuán said.
Deciphering the indecipherable
So what does this strange collection of graphemes mean? To answer this, one of the key problems was first finding out how old they were. This could give the archaeologists some clue about the cultural context in which they were written.
Straight away, the team came up against difficulties. The farmer whose field the stone came from wasn't keen to let the archaeologists start digging up parts of his land to find other contemporary artefacts they could use to estimate the stela's age.
The stone slab stands at 1.5 metres high.Leonardo García Sanjuán and Marta Díaz-Guardamino / Antiquity 2017
"He had only given us permission to excavate one small pit. We were not very lucky, and did not find any dating material there. So now we have to go by indirect evidence," García Sanjuán said.
The writing includes elements of a north-eastern palaeo-Hispanic script, Graeco-Iberian script, Proto-Sinaitic and Proto-Canaanite inscriptions, epigraphic South Arabian and Phoenician scripts. People from these cultures were all more or less active in the Iberian Peninsula during the Iron Age. The engravings are estimated to have been made between the 9th and the end of the 3rd century BCE.
The stone is remarkable for these peculiar inscriptions, said John Koch, a Celtic language and literature researcher at the University of Wales who was not involved in the research.
"There are a lot of stelae but none of them are like this. You've got these Bronze Age ones that don't have writing on them, and that have pictures of warriors and weapons instead. Then centuries later you've got ones with writing on them - strings of signs in order, sometimes with a line below and above them as well," Koch said.
"But this is completely different. In terms of arrangement it looks like the old warrior stelae. But it has letters and some look like the later ones that have real writing on them."
This stone could fill an important gap in the cultural shift from the earlier pictoral carvings to the later written inscriptions. But even so, it's still not clear how the stela came to be made. Thinking about what was going on in Spain in this period led García Sanjuán and Díaz-Guardamino to two potential hypotheses about the its origin.
The stela was found in a field by the Torre de Villaverde.Leonardo García Sanjuán and Marta Díaz-Guardamino / Antiquity 2017
Illiterate locals or armies on the move?
The first hypothesis was that the stela was engraved in the early Iron Age, between the 9th and 5th centuries BCE.
"What we have here perhaps would be local people – who were very probably illiterate people – replicating on a stone the signs that they have seen of or been told about, which they probably did not understand," García Sanjuán said. "This would reflect very early contact between local people and people from outside Iberia – most likely Phoenicians coming from the eastern Mediterranean."
The other option is that the markings were made a few hundred years after this in the late Iron Age, between the 5th and 3rd centuries BCE. This was a time when the Roman Empire was expanding. The Romans defeated the Carthaginians in the second Punic war, and imperialism began to spread across Iberia.
"If you think for a moment – in the 3rd century BCE, southern Spain was a very busy part of Europe. The Carthaginians had a very powerful kingdom," García Sanjuán said.
The family of the well-known Carthaginian general Hannibal – the Barcas – became established in Iberia around this time with grand expansionist strategies. They wanted to control Iberia and to exploit the iron, gold and silver they expected to find there. But in doing so they upset allies of Rome, and Rome declared war on the Carthaginians in retaliation.
The archaeologists excavated a small part of the field where the stela was found - but discovered no helpful artefacts to date the stela.Leonardo García Sanjuán and Marta Díaz-Guardamino / Antiquity 2017
"At that time there were very big armies with thousands of people marching across Iberia. The Romans and the Carthaginians had many foreigners in their armies who were paid to fight for them."
These people had very different ethnic backgrounds. The stone could in some sense be a mark of the diversity of some long-forgotten military unit, or it celebrates the diversity of people fighting together in an army.
The former hypothesis – that of the illiterate locals who were imitating writing – would be the much more exciting one if it is true, said Koch.
"These people could be trying to write something, but I don't think they succeeded. It looks more like they're getting the idea that these stelae should have letters on them. That's part of the status that writing brings," Koch said. "So this could be a way of competing culturally with literate people. They haven't quite found the way to adapt the writing to their languages yet, but they seem to be trying."
But at this stage, with no additional evidence to put the stela in context, these hypotheses remain somewhat speculative. Until more artefacts are found, its true origin can only be imagined. But one thing remains certain – the stela is an exceptional find, and it was made in exceptional circumstances.
"It's a very special stone. Somebody took the trouble of carving it with all these motifs and placing it somewhere. It must have been very important to the people who made it," García Sanjuán said.
The research is published in the journal Antiquity.
Archaeologists have been studying the stela for several years, but its exact age remains elusive.Leonardo García Sanjuán and Marta Díaz-Guardamino / Antiquity 2017The farmer who owns the field where the stela was discovered is reluctant to allow further excavation.Leonardo García Sanjuán and Marta Díaz-Guardamino / Antiquity 2017The inscriptions are graphemes from scripts from as far away as present-day Syria.Leonardo García Sanjuán and Marta Díaz-Guardamino / Antiquity 2017The nature of the people who carved the graphemes remains a mystery for now.Leonardo García Sanjuán and Marta Díaz-Guardamino / Antiquity 2017
This article was first published on August 8, 2017
Stenen plaat uit ijzertijd stelt experts voor raadsel. Niemand weet wat deze mysterieuze symbolen betekenen
Een stenen plaat die bedekt is met vreemde symbolen stelt wetenschappers voor een raadsel. De plaat, beter bekend als de ‘stele van Montoro’, is gevonden in een weiland in Spanje.
Experts kunnen de symbolen maar niet ontcijferen.
Het voorwerp dateert uit de ijzertijd en bevat onderdelen van de Spaanse, Griekse, Iberische, Kanaänitische en Zuid-Arabische taal.
Weiland
De stele van Montoro is 1,5 meter hoog en 85 centimeter breed. De graveringen zijn tussen de negende en derde eeuw voor Christus aangebracht, blijkt uit onderzoek dat deze maand in Antiquity is verschenen.
De plaat werd in 2002 ontdekt door een boer die zijn weiland aan het omploegen was en langs de kant van de weg gedumpt.
Twee jaar later werden de vreemde symbolen opgemerkt en kwam het voorwerp uit bij het archeologisch museum van Montoro, waar het acht jaar bleef liggen, schrijft de International Business Times.
Onleesbaar
In 2012 analyseerde Garcia Sanjuan van de Universiteit van Sevilla de plaat. Hij kwam tot de ontdekking dat de symbolen zijn afgeleid van verschillende talen.
“De inscripties op deze stele zijn onleesbaar,” zei hij. “Er is geen enkel schrift waar je dit mee kunt vergelijken.”
Mysterie
Hij sprak van een zeldzame vondst. Tot er meer voorwerpen worden gevonden blijft de plaat waarschijnlijk een mysterie.
“Het [voorwerp] moet erg belangrijk zijn geweest voor de mensen die dit hebben gemaakt,” zei dr. Sanjuan.
A 'classic flying saucer; shape snapped by Pierre Beake over the Col de Vence
People saw those lights above the mountain. There was no noise and they moved so slowly.
Pierre Beake
Pierre Beake has captured several images of mystery objects which appear to look like a classic flying saucer, floating rocks, and a number of orbs or strange lights which appeared in his native France and the south west of England.
Mr Beake has spent years photographing the rocky Col de Vence area near Nice in the south of France, which is reportedly the scene of many paranormal events, in the hope of obtaining evidence of UFOs.
The majority of his bizarre photographs have been taken there.
Mr Beake produced his album of images at the 27th annual Glastonbury Symposium, an annual conference dedicated to the paranormal, conspiracy theories, alternative thought, and new age philosophies.
Pierre Beake*Jon Austin
The 'mysterious lights' that were snapped in the 1970s.
He told the symposium: "It is one hour from Nice. It is a rocky place where you get a strange feeling. I go once a week to Col de Vence. Why there are so many paranormal things there I do not know."
Referring to one image of what appeared to be a number of lights above the rocks, he said: "People saw those lights above the mountain. There was no noise and they moved so slowly."
He said it happened in the 1970s and had never happened again.
He said: "It was very rare and can't be army helicopters, because you would have heard them.
Pierre Beake*Jon Austin
Two separate 'flying rocks' snapped by Pierre Beake in France.
If you, like me, are an overly sweaty nerd with no musical ability who has always dreamed of being a less sweaty nerd with some musical ability, now’s your chance: a team of astronomers and musicians have created a programthat allows you make songs with the sounds of planets orbiting the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. While their program won’t make you less prone to perspiration, you will definitely have something that can rightfully be called a work of art.
The player is part of a bigger program, aptly called System Sounds, which is the brainchild of a group of astronomers who’ve been studying the “resonant chain” of the TRAPPIST-1 star’s seven Earth-sized exoplanets, which were announced to the world back in February. A resonant chain describes how the alien planets’ gravitational tugs work together to keep them all in stable and circular orbits around each other and their host star. As astronomer Dan Tamayo explained to Gizmodo back in May, TRAPPIST-1 represents the longest resonant chain “that has ever been discovered in a planetary system.”
THE CREATORS : Andrew Santaguida , Matt Russo and Dan Tamayo
According to the astronomers, the TRAPPIST-1 system’s resonant chain is mathematically quite eloquent, as the planets seem to conduct their own symphony within the system.
“Seven Earth-sized planets around a nearby star is enough to get anyone excited, especially when several of them have the potential to support liquid water,” System Sounds co-creator Matt Russo, a postdoctoral researcher at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, told Gizmodo. “But what makes TRAPPIST-1 really remarkable is that all seven of its planets are locked in a resonant chain, where the lengths of the planet’s years form simple whole number ratios with each other. This is what’s responsible for both the system’s harmony and its rhythm.”
The researchers created their own software to “translate” data from NASA’s K2 mission, which measured the orbital periods of the planets, into musical notes (here it is on GitHub, ya nerds). Users can speed up or slow down the tempo and/or volume to their liking using handy toggle tools in the new program.
“We simply sped up the motion of TRAPPIST-1's seven planets until their orbital frequencies produced musical notes,” Russo explained. “To make them a little more familiar we played these notes on a piano, once per orbit. To showcase more of the rhythmic structure, we then let a drum play for every time two neighboring planets are at their closest. This is when they give each other a gravitational tug and keep themselves locked in this stable pattern.”
While you can’t add vocals within the program, nothing’s stopping you from throwing your own spin on a sick TRAPPIST-1 beat. Maybe there’s been a space DJ living inside you all along—now’s your chance to let it out.
Saturn (back) and it's moon Titan (front) as captured by Cassini in 2012.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. Or in this case, one space telescope’s extra data is another researcher’s gold mine.
In a new study published in the journal Science Advances on July 28, scientists detail evidence of a chemical compound called vinyl cyanide in the atmosphere of our favorite moon of Saturn, Titan. Vinyl cyanide’s presence is intriguing because in 2015, researchers from Cornell University identified the compound as a potential alternative to components called phospholipids. Here, on our warm, rocky planet, we Earthlings have phospholipids in our cell membranes, but on cold alien worlds, vinyl cyanide might—just might—serve the same purpose, providing cells with a basic structure and defensive layer.
And when we say cold alien worlds, we mean it. Titan—if you’re thinking of booking a vacation there—has a brisk average surface temperature of -290 degrees Fahrenheit.
Maureen Palmer, a NASA researcher and lead author of the new study, first started digging through data from the renowned Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (or, ALMA) three years ago as an undergraduate researcher in NASA’s Astrobiology Institute’s summer research program. ALMA became fully operational in 2013 and produces images of far-flung galaxies up to ten times sharper than those from the Hubble Space Telescope.
But Palmer wasn't looking at those sharp images for her research. Instead she bypassed the distant, mysterious suns and planets millions of light-years away, and headed straight for images of something much closer to home.
Before scientists can use ALMA to look at distant objects in outer space, astronomers need to standardize the information collected by those images. The researchers aim the radio telescope at something well-known, like Titan, and measure its brightness. Once the researchers have that information, they can compare their images of a newborn planet, for instance, to Titan, and figure out the brightness of their subject.
But Palmer and the other members of her team didn’t look at those target photos. Instead, they saw an opportunity in the massive byproduct of Titan images.
“There’s this untapped resource of calibration data,” Palmer says, “which we realized had only been used for calibration data, but could be used for astrobiology purposes too.”
When the team dug into that data, they realized they had strong evidence of vinyl cyanide starting 200 kilometers, or 124 miles, up in Titan’s atmosphere. Previous studies on other instruments could not definitively prove the compound’s existence on Titan, says Palmer. Instead, it took ALMA’s higher sensitivity to detect the compound hidden amongst the 95 percent nitrogen and five percent methane composition of Titan’s atmosphere.
The team believe that methane rain might have also carried vinyl cyanide down to Titan’s surface. If so, they estimate that on Titan’s second largest liquid lake, Ligeia Mare, there could be enough vinyl cyanide to form 10 million of theoretical membranes per cubic centimeter, assuming these alien cells are about the size of a human red blood cell. Palmer notes that even if the numbers are off and there’s less vinyl cyanide than they believe, these numbers could still be significant. The study notes that coastal ocean waters on Earth hold about a million bacteria per cubic centimeter.
However, as with a lot of the theories around alien life, Palmer notes that there’s skepticism around the vinyl cyanide cell membrane theory. Not only have cells with vinyl cyanide not been found on other planets—or moons—at the moment, vinyl cyanide-based cells don't exist anywhere.
“There’s definitely controversy because they haven’t been made in a lab,” she says, “so it’s not sure that it’s possible to form them.”
In the meantime, as we wait to hear if there’s actually alien life elsewhere in the universe, you can go digging through this data trash/treasure heap yourself.
“It’s publicly [available] data,” Palmer notes. “You can download it...if you have enough space on your hard drive.”
Editor's note: An earlier version of this article identified the planet that Titan orbits as Jupiter—we apologize to Saturn for the error.
Brit astronomers are probing two new "super-Earth" planets in the hunt for life in our universe.
They are among four newly discovered planets orbiting Tau Ceti – the nearest Sun-like star to Earth, 12 light years away.
Scientists believe two of the planets are located in an area that is not too cold or hot to support liquid surface water – vital for sustaining alien life.
The discovery was made by observing wobbles in the movement of the star, caused by orbiting planets.
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BREAKTHROUGH: Two potentially habitable "super-Earths" have been discovered
As a planet orbits, it causes its parent star to wobble by a tiny degree.
Astronomers can see the signature of this effect in the star’s light.
"We're getting tantalisingly close to observing the correct limits required for detecting Earth-like planets”, said lead researcher Dr Fabo Feng, from the University of Hertfordshire.
“We're getting tantalisingly close to observing the correct limits required for detecting Earth-like planets”
Lead researcher
"Our detection of such weak wobbles is a milestone in the search for Earth analogues and the understanding of the Earth's habitability through comparison with these."
Stars the size of the Sun are the best targets for finding habitable Earth-seized planets.
Tau Ceti is similar to our Sun in size and brightness, and like our Sun hosts a multi-planet system.
Scientists hope that direct imaging of the two outer planets could show them to be rocky and habitable.
UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
SOLAR SYSTEM: The discovery was made by observing wobbles in the movement of the star
But, they did warn that a massive disc of debris around the star could be bombarding them with asteroids and comets, reducing their habitability.
Co-author Dr Mikko Tuomi, also from the University of Hertfordshire, said improved techniques were making it easier to distinguish between light signals caused by the presence of planets and stellar activity.
Two Tau Ceti signals previously identified in 2013 are now known not to have a planetary origin.
"But no matter how we look at the star, there seems to be at least four rocky planets orbiting it," Dr Tuomi said.
"We're slowly learning to tell the difference between wobbles caused by planets and those caused by stellar active surface.
"This enabled us to verify the existence of the two outer, potentially habitable, planets in the system."
The discovery comes as NASA offered an up-close look at the Trappist-1 exoplanets – believed to be key in the hunt for life.
UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
NEW PLANETS: Researchers revealed Tau Ceti could host alien life
They are also considering launching the Titan Mare Explorer, which would probe the world in a bid to find aliens.
It would take seven years to reach the moon of Saturn and spend six months on the surface looking for proof of life.
And in June, the space agency said it had discovered more than 200 new planets – 10 of which were the right size and temperature to sustain life.
Physicists Say They’ve Figured out How Spacecraft Could Make It Through a Wormhole
Science Photo Library
IN BRIEF
A new paper asserts that a physical body might be able to pass through a wormhole in spite of the extreme tidal forces that are at play.
A physical object, such as a person or a spacecraft, could theoretically make it through a wormhole in the centre of a black hole, and maybe even access another universe on the other side, physicists have suggested.
In what looks like the logical extension of the plot of Interstellar – where astronauts try to hunt down another universe after the catastrophic effects of climate change destroy Earth – physicists have modelled what would happen to a chair, a scientist, and a spacecraft, if each one ended up inside the spherical wormhole of a black hole.
“What we did was to reconsider a fundamental question on the relation between the gravity and the underlying structure of space-time,” said one of the team, Diego Rubiera-Garcia from the University of Lisbon in Portugal.
“In practical terms, we dropped one assumption that holds in general relativity, but there is no a priori reason for it to hold in extensions of this theory.”
So let’s take a step back first, and go through some of the basics. According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, at the centre of a black hole lies a singularity – the point at which the forces of gravity are at their most intense, and time and space effectively end.
Watch: What are Wormholes?
If an object approaches the event horizon, it would be crushed in one direction, and stretched in another, thanks to the extreme tidal forces of gravity at play inside a black hole. If the object stays intact long enough to make it to the centre of a black hole, it will be infinitely long and thin: basically, it’s been spaghettified beyond recognition.
Physicists have been playing around with the assumption of a singularity in the centre of a black hole for years, because until we can actually prove it exists, there could be any number of possibilities that still work – in theory.
Earlier this year, physicists from the University of Cambridge in the UK argued that there’s no reason why a singularity necessarily has to be on the inside of a black hole. They suggest that in a universe with five or more dimensions – which isn’t out of the question for us – a ‘naked’ singularly could exist, which is not bound by an event horizon.
Of course, this would mean big, huge things for our current understanding of how the laws of physics govern our Universe, because it basically needs Einstein’s theory of general relativity to be wrong.
“If naked singularities exist, general relativity breaks down,” said one of the team, Saran Tunyasuvunakool, back in January. “And if general relativity breaks down, it would throw everything upside down, because it would no longer have any predictive power – it could no longer be considered as a standalone theory to explain the Universe.”
If you feel you are in a black hole, don’t give up. There’s a way out.
Einstein being wrong isn’t out of the question, either. Stephen Hawking has been battling for decades with the way general relativity appears to clash with quantum mechanics in black holes – a problem known as the information paradox.
So assuming that the stipulations of general relativity aren’t set in stone, the new study from Rubiera-Garcia’s team argue that if you remove singularity from a black hole, what you get in the centre instead is a finite-sized wormhole.
Then, they figured out what could happen if various objects – a chair, a scientist, and a spacecraft – made it beyond the event horizon and into the wormhole. These objects are referred to as ‘observers’.
They modelled these observers as an aggregation of points connected by physical or chemical interactions that hold everything together as the object travels along a geodesic line. A geodesic line is simply the path in spacetime that a free-falling object follows.
“Each particle of the observer follows a geodesic line determined by the gravitational field,” says Rubiera-Garcia. “Each geodesic feels a slightly different gravitational force, but the interactions among the constituents of the body could nonetheless sustain the body.”
Publishing in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, the researchers demonstrate this by showing how the time spent by a light ray in a round trip between two parts of the body is always finite.
This means that finite forces, no matter how strong, could compensate for the impact of the gravitational field near and inside the wormhole on a physical body travelling through it.
“Thus, different parts of the body will still establish physical or chemical interactions and, consequently, cause and effect still apply all the way across the throat of the wormhole,” they explain.
So while the theory of general relativity predicts that an object approaching a black hole will be crushed along one direction and stretched along another infinitely, if we assume that the centre of a black hole is a wormhole with a finite radius, the object can only be crushed just as much as the size of the wormhole.
This means according to Rubiera-Garcia’s hypothesis, an object could survive a journey through a wormhole and make it out the other side – and potentially to another universe – technically intact, but it would be crushed to the size of the finite wormhole. At least it’s not completely destroyed, right?
“For a theoretical physicist, the suffering of observers is admissible (one might even consider it part of an experimentalist’s job) but their total destruction is not,” Rubiera-Garcia and his team quip in an opinion piece.
Until we figure out how to actually see a black hole, all of this is going to remain well and truly in the realm of pure hypotheticals. But we’re beginning to see how black holes might not be the horrible, existence-obliterating death traps we thought they were.
As Hawking said at a conference back in August 2015 about his solution to the information paradox: “The message of this lecture is that black holes ain’t as black as they are painted. They are not the eternal prisons they were once thought. … If you feel you are in a black hole, don’t give up. There’s a way out.”
The Curiosity rover, seen here snapping a selfie in 2016, has turned its camera to the sky and taken some shots of fast-moving clouds in the Red Planet's atmosphere
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
The Curiosity rover snapped this shot of wispy clouds directly overhead
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/York University)
Even robots exploring other planets need to take some time to unwind and just watch the clouds for a while. The Curiosity rover, which just last week celebrated its fifth anniversary on the Red Planet, has now sent back some of the clearest photos yet taken of extraterrestrial clouds.
The slideshows are made up of two sets of eight images, taken early in the morning of July 17. For the first set, the camera was pointed directly above the rover, while the second set of snaps captured the sky above the southern horizon.
To get the resulting level of clarity in the movement of the clouds, the images were enhanced by Curiosity's science team at York University. By generating an "average" of the light across all the frames of each group, and then subtracting the average from each individual frame, the changes in movement from one shot to the next could be emphasized.
Curiosity snapped this image of clouds over the southern horizon
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/York University)
This shot was taken in the sky directly above the Curiosity rover
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/York University)
Clouds may be an everyday occurrence here on Earth, but due to the elliptical orbit of Mars they're much more seasonal, forming a belt around the equator when the planet is at its furthest point from the Sun. Their presence two months before that happens means this is relatively early for the appearance of the cloud belt.
"It is likely that the clouds are composed of crystals of water ice that condense out onto dust grains where it is cold in the atmosphere," says John Moores, a scientist on the Curiosity team. "The wisps are created as those crystals fall and evaporate in patterns known as 'fall streaks' or 'mare's tails.' While the rover does not have a way to ascertain the altitude of these clouds, on Earth such clouds form at high altitude."
Check out the movement of the clouds in the video below.
So what about the closest star that would actually remind us of our own beloved sun? We now know that it probably hosts a handful of Earth-like planets, including a pair that might be able to support life.
Tau Ceti is the center of the nearest solar system that's similar to ours, an assumption made stronger by the discovery of four rocky super-Earths orbiting the star just 12 light years away.
A comparison of the rocky planets around Tau Ceti and our sun.
Fabo Feng
Two of the four planets are in the habitable zone around the star where temperatures could be just right for liquid water, and perhaps alien life, to be present.
An international team of scientists devised a new, more accurate and sensitive method of detecting planets by looking for "wobbles" in the star's movement caused by the minute gravitational tug of orbiting planets, while also better ruling out false positives coming from activity on the star itself.
"But no matter how we look at the star, there seem to be at least four rocky planets orbiting it," said Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire, in a release. "We are slowly learning to tell the difference between wobbles caused by planets and those caused by stellar active surface. This enabled us to essentially verify the existence of the two outer, potentially habitable planets in the system."
Tuomi is one of the co-authors on a paper detailing the discovery, which has been accepted for upcoming publication in the Astrophysical Journal.
Tau Ceti is particularly prevalent in science fiction that imagines future civilizations visiting the relatively nearby star system. Unfortunately, the odds of life on the potentially habitable rocky planets in the system might not be great after all. A massive disc of debris around the star means that the planets are likely being bombarded by asteroids and comets, making it hard for life to emerge.
Then again, certain life forms are known to be pretty tough, so perhaps we'll discover one day that a civilization of Tau Cetian tardigrades thrives on the system's planets.
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New Study Explains How Some Planets May Never Become Habitable
