Amateur Astronomer Wins 'Cosmic Lottery' with 1-in-10-Million Supernova Shot

A UFO sighting in Dewsbury? Well, not quite..

BY ALEX MILLER

A loud bang and fast-moving flashing lights in the Dewsbury night sky had imaginative residents fearing a UFO attack this week.

It transpired that the commotion was likely to do with a heavy-duty military aircraft on a fly-over.

A mysterious light above Dewsbury.

The GR4 Tornado flew over the region at 3000ft. Footage of the sighting was sent in by Reporter series reader Aron Kennedy.

{ https://www.dewsburyreporter.co.uk/ }

1962 UFO Crash at Nellis Air Force Base Outside of Las Vegas, NV

The Crop Circle Mystery: A Closer Look

{ http://www.urduground.com/ }

Manhattan reported more UFO sightings than any other borough

By Dean Balsamini

{ https://nypost.com/ }

NASA warns of asteroid skimming close to Earth within 48 HOURS

AN ASTEROID darting through space at a staggering 16,553mph is set to brush past Earth within the next 48 hours.

By Joshua Nevett 

The space rock, named Asteroid 2017 DR109, is expected to hurtle past the planet at a hair-raisingly close distance on Saturday February 24, NASA has warned.

At around 5.18am on Saturday, DR109 will come within 0.007AU of Earth, the distance between the US and China 85 times over.

Flying at speeds of 16,553mph, the asteroid will shoot by the planet at a minimum distance of more than one million km away.

However, the asteroid only measures a tiny 11 metres in diameter, meaning its impact on Earth would be negligible.

GETTY

CLOSE SHAVE: Asteroid 2017 DR109 is set to brush past Earth on Saturday February 24

NASA does not consider 2017 DR109 to be a Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) – a space object that makes an exceptionally close approach to Earth.

PHAs are larger than 100 metres in diameter and come within 0.05 AU – approximately 19.5 lunar distances – to Earth, according to NASA’s classification.

NASA monitors all asteroids that come within close range of planet under its Near Earth Object programme.

Using Sentry – a highly automated collision monitoring system – NASA keeps a handle on celestial objects threatening to smash into Earth within the next 100 years.

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“Every 2,000 years or so, a meteoroid the size of a football field hits Earth.”

NASA

Many are not even named because of the sheer number that pass Earth every year.

NASA said: “Every day, Earth is bombarded with more than 100 tons of dust and sand-sized particles.

“About once a year, an automobile-sized asteroid hits Earth's atmosphere, creates an impressive fireball, and burns up before reaching the surface.

“Every 2,000 years or so, a meteoroid the size of a football field hits Earth and causes significant damage to the area.

“Only once every few million years, an object large enough to threaten Earth's civilisation comes along.

"Impact craters on Earth, the moon and other planetary bodies are evidence of these occurrences.”

Some 20 asteroids are forecast to skim past Earth in February alone.

Eight asteroids soared past Earth within 48 hours on February 13 and 14.

Last week NASA named a PHA that is expected to approach Earth on March 7.

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{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

Ancient civilisation used sound energy to 'LEVITATE and contact aliens' – shock claim

ARCHAEOLOGICAL findings suggest previous civilisations used circular structures as energy-generating devices to create man-made portals in time, according to boffins online.

By Callum Hoare 

The research – which extended over a two-year period – suggested that human beings from thousands of years ago produced natural sound harmonic frequencies produced from the surface of the Earth.

In the clip, the narrator explains that the Sumerian civilisation may have inhabited parts of southern Africa thousands of years ago.

The Sumers are one of the earliest known civilisations known to walk the Earth.

They are said to date back to 3,000BC.

UFO MANIA - THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

ALIEN CONTACT: Could previous civilisations spoken with extraterrestrial beings

The technology they apparently used is said to be similar to the way we use laser technology today.

Some of the frequencies recorded are believed to reach more than 380 gigahertz – much greater than any levels used today.

The discovery has left many confused as to what this previous society could possibly have done with the energy they created and whether they could have possibly known more about our planet than we do today.

The video was uploaded to YouTube channel UFOmania yesterday, and has already racked up more than 5000 hits.

And viewers suggested that previous societies have been in contact with extraterrestrial life.

One comment read: “Sound is one of the most abundant forms of free energy on the planet.

“It is the primordial source of all things and is the common denominator of all creation.

“With that being said, if an extraterrestrial race wanted to harvest energy from the planet, it could create such energy with sound.

“Sound was used as energy to levitate objects in order to create the monuments that opened vortices which allowed spacecraft to come and go."

And another added: “I always thought that many ancient rock carvings show a spiral, which could be some kind of sound wave.

“This is something they can only draw and couldn't put into words.

“Many petroglyphs around the world show a spiral of some kind I think it's some kind of sound energy that we cannot understand at this point in time.”

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{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

Researchers find ancient rock art with paintings of whales and sharks in the desert

A dramatic scene has been found by experts exploring the Atacama Desert in Chile as they have come across hundreds of pieces of stunning 1,500 year-old-rock art, depicting the slaughter of whales, turtles and even sharks.

In the north of Chile, located right between the Pacific Ocean and the beginning of the vast Atacama Desert is the archaeological site of El Médano. North of it, researchers have discovered a new archaeological site with more than 300 ancient paintings.

The archaeological site of El Médano features a valuable set of rock paintings which were discovered in 1918 by an amateur archaeologist named Augusto Capdeville.

But, now, a team from the University of La Sorbonne, has located in the vicinity, new previously unknown rock art.

The new site called Izcuña, located a few miles north of Médano depicts drawings which are approximately 1,500 years old.

There, using strokes of red color, the ancient inhabitants of the region made rock art depicting the hung of whales, swordfish, marlin, squid, sea lion, turtles, and sharks.

All the paintings were made with a pigment of a red color and show the harpooned animals, but not their hunters.

Scientists explain how these hunting scenes are based on the everyday experiences of the ancient inhabitants living near Chile’s coastline.

The same scenery was present in the rock art researchers discovered at the beginning of the 20^th century, although those paintings recreated hunting scenes of terrestrial animals.

The value of this finding is enormous because it helps document how the inhabitants of the area extracted a large part of their resources from the ocean, and also what techniques they used for it.

As noted by experts, the ancient inhabitants had advanced fishing and hunting technologies that included fish hook built from shell, bone, cactus spines, copper, and even rafts made of sea lion skin.

As noted by the Daily Mail, archaeologists have discovered around 328 paintings at Izcuña, on 24 blocks of rock.

“Archaeological evidence attests to a society specialized in marine resource exploitation. Its sophisticated fishing and hunting technology included fish-hooks made from shell, bone, cactus spines and copper, and cotton lines, nets, stone weights, harpoons and rafts made of sea lion skin,” explained researchers in the study.

“This specialization and the resource-rich Pacific coast allowed the inhabitants to be hugely productive, thereby facilitating permanent residential camps located near water springs and on natural jetties. From here, small groups could explore vast territories.”

Source: Ballester 2018 – El Médano rock art style: Izcuña paintings and the marine hunter-gatherers of the Atacama Desert

Image credit: Francisco Gallardo

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

Disclosure Time? Unpublished Project Blue Book Documents Released To The Public

One of the officers working on the Blue Book Project dared to rescue photographs, books, texts, documents, letters and trash memos, when the government-funded-initiative, project Blue Book; the study of UFOs was completed in 1969.

Now, thanks to researcher Rob Mercer and John Greenewald founder of The Black Vault, previously unknown documents have been digitized and posted online for the world to see.

The documents—which have all been declassified—were found behind a pile of firewood at a garage auction that took place in Fairborn, Ohio.

The Wright-Patterson Air Base, home of Project Blue Book and rumored to be the place where the remains of the ET ship that crashed in Roswell were taken to, is also located in Fairborn.

This last fact motivated investigator Rob Mercer, who immediately suspected that there was a possibility that the documents were genuine and decided to acquire them.

The investigation to determine the veracity of the find led Mercer to one officer responsible for having saved the archives instead of destroying them: Carmon Marano, a US Air Force lieutenant who worked at Project Blue Book, one of the US government’s attempts to explain the UFO phenomenon and, many times, debunk it before the public.

The Documents, already verified as genuine, have been posted online by John Greenewald, founder of The Black Vault.

Marked with a circle, Lieutenant Carmon Marano. Beneath him, in the center, Hector Quintanilla, the last director of Project Blue Book.

You can consult and download them directly from this link.

Project Blue Book was a series of studies on UFOs by the United States Air Force (USAF).

The objective of Project Blue Book was to determine if UFOs were a potential threat to national security.

Thousands of UFO reports were collected, analyzed and archived.

This has been the last USAF project related to UFOs that have been made public so far.

According to investigations, towards the end of 1951, several influential high ranking generals of the USAF were so dissatisfied with the state of UFO investigations of the Air Force that they dismantled the so-called Project Grudge and replaced it with Project Blue Book in early 1952.

During the time that Blue Book lasted, which was completed in 1969, 12,618 UFO reports were collected. Experts at the time had concluded that most ‘sightings’ were misinterpretations of natural phenomena (clouds, stars, etc.) or conventional aircraft.

Image credit Shutterstock.

A few sightings were considered frauds.

701 cases—approximately 6%—were classified as unexplained.

The reports were archived and are available under the Freedom of Information Act, but the names of the witnesses and other personal information have been removed.

The decision to terminate Project Blue Book was based on several factors, such as the evaluation of a report written by the University of Colorado entitled “The scientific study of UFOs”, the review of this report by the National Academy of Sciences, the UFO cases previously studied and the experience of the Air Force, which investigated UFO reports between 1940 and 1969.

As a consequence of these investigations, studies, and experiences, the conclusions of the Project Blue Book were:

• 1) No UFO which the Air Force investigated ever posed a threat to National Security.
• 2) The Air Force has not found any evidence that the observations classified as “unidentified” represent objects or technological principles that go beyond the scientific knowledge of the time.
• 3) There has been no evidence to indicate that the observations classified as “unidentified” were extraterrestrial vehicles.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

Controversial Study Claims: Man Began Using Words 1 Million Years Ago

According to a new study, ancient man began using words around One Million years ago, as experts believe without ‘speech,’ ancient humans would not have been able to build boats and sail the planet in order to populate the planet.

“What is the greatest technology we have ever had as a species, the answer is language. Who invented it? Homo Erectus, about one million years ago or more.”

Experts may have just solved the riddle as to how and when ancient humans began speaking.

A controversial new study claims that speech was invented to help them organize, and build boats to populate the world.

Without ‘speech’ ancient man would not have been able to build boats and populate the world, say, researchers.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

If we take a look at human origins, we will find that our earliest known ancestor, Homo erectus took a huge leap forward by starting to walk upright, more than one million years ago.

However, while he could walk like we can today, researchers have not been able to find evidence that he could talk. As noted by experts, language was not something that Homo erectus was capable of.

All of this is based on anatomy, as scientists believe Homo erectus did not have a bone called the Hyoid, which is a bone that helps anchor the tongue. Homo Sapiens did have it.

Therefore, experts suggest that Hom erectus wasn’t really capable of speech, he was only capable of howling.

This means that language is believed to have arrived together with Homo Sapiens.

However, a new controversial study forces us to rethink human origins, saying that Homo erectus must have had the ability to speak.

Researchers now claim that without language, Homo erectus would have never been capable of building the boats needed to travel across Earth’s vast oceans.

Furthermore, experts note that if Homo erectus had not developed speech, he would not have been able to sail across the globe in large numbers populating the planet.

What is the greatest technology we have ever had as a species, the answer is language. Who invented it? Homo erectus, about one million years ago or more. Those are controversial claims. Everybody talks about Homo erectus as a stupid ape-like creature, which of course describes us just as well, and yet what I want to emphasize is that erectus was the smartest creature that had ever walked the Earth,” says Daniel Everett, Professor of Global Studies, at Bentley University, Massachusetts.

Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, professor Everett explained: “Oceans were never a barrier to the travels of erectus.”

Homo erectus was able to travel all over the world. He traveled to the Island of Flores, across one of the greatest ocean currents on Earth.

“They sailed to the island of Crete and various other islands. It was intentional they needed craft and they needed to take groups of twenty or so at least to get to those places. And this is the consensus of the archaeological evidence. Erectus needed language when they were sailing to the island of Flores. They couldn’t have simply caught a ride on a floating log because then they would have been washed out to see when they hit the current,” explained Professor Everett.

“They needed to be able to paddle. And if they paddled they needed to be able to say ‘paddle there’ or ‘don’t paddle. You need communication with symbols not just grunts. They accomplished too much for this to simply be the sort of communication that we see in other species without symbols,” he added.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

Countless Maya Artifacts And Human Remains Found In World’s Largest Underwater Cave

Researchers have found sacred Maya relics together with a 10,000-year-old Human skeleton in an underwater cave in Mexico.

In what is considered the world’s most important underwater archaeological site, experts have discovered sacred ancient Maya relics, together with human remains and Ice Age Animal Bones. So far, experts have discovered a total of 198 objects, including walls, altars and a Mayan burial site with human remains. Some of these objects date back more than 10,000 years and belonged to the first settlers of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.

The team in charge of the Great Maya Aquifer Project found a human skeleton which is believed to be 10 thousand years old, in what is considered the largest cenote in the world, in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico.

The recently found bone structure is the fourth skeleton found so far, of what are believed to be the first settles in the area.

Image Credit: INAH

Lead Archaeologist Guillermo De Anda reported in a press conference the discovery of a cenote with stairs and altars dedicated to Ek Chuah, the God of war and commerce.

“I think it’s overwhelming. Without a doubt, it’s the most important submerged archaeological site in the world. It is very unlikely that there is another site in the world with these characteristics. There is an impressive amount of archaeological artifacts inside, and the level of preservation is also impressive.”

It is assumed that this space was used as a pilgrimage point by Mayan merchants.

Image Credit: INAH

Archaeologists found a large number of pottery remains and a mask representing the Ek Chuah.

The land routes used by the Maya for trade needed points of “ritual pilgrimage,” according to De Anda.

“On their way inland, they had to make stops at altars and in sacred places to make an exchange with the gods and, in some way, this is one of the traces they have left,” he said.

The so-called Cave of the God of Commerce has a temple and a stairway that allows access to the cave.

Image Credit: INAH

Throughout 347 kilometers of tunnels under the soil of Quintana Roo, archaeological and paleontological remains are concentrated in 198 places.

The team researching the world’s most important underwater archaeological site has the support of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and National Geographic to explore the flooded galleries, where unique elements have been found so far, such as a cave with remains of Pleistocene fauna embedded in the walls.

Experts have uncovered a total of 198 objects in the cave system.

As noted by De Anda, the remains found could account for “a catastrophic event” that allowed these bones to remain in that place.

“We still need to determine what these bones belong to, but the project is integrating a resident paleontologist to understand these contexts and take care of them as they should,” he concluded.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

Serendipitous supernova explosion caught on camera

An Argentine stargazer captured the death of a star in series of nearly 100 images

BY  LISA GROSSMAN

RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME  In September 2016, an amateur astronomer was looking at spiral galaxy NGC 613 (shown), located about 65 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor, and caught a supernova exploding.

SMARTT/QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST, NASA, HUBBLE/ESA, ROBERT GENDLER

An amateur astronomer caught a supernova on camera during the explosion’s earliest moments, giving physicists a glimpse of a long-sought phase of stellar death.

Víctor Buso spotted the supernova from his rooftop observatory in Rosario, Argentina, on September 20, 2016, when he aimed his telescope straight overhead at spiral galaxy NGC 613 to test a new camera. To avoid letting in too much light from the city sky — Rosario is a city of about 1.2 million people — he took a series of about 100 images that were each exposed for 20 seconds, spanning about an hour and a half.

Over the last half-hour of Buso’s observations, the supernova appeared and then doubled in brightness. In 2013, astronomers spotted a supernova within hours of its explosion (SN Online: 2/13/17), but this is one of the first to be spotted before it exploded.

Because there is no way to predict when and where a supernova will go off, this sort of observation is extremely rare, says astrophysicist Melina Bersten of the National University of La Plata in Argentina, who reports details of the supernova in the Feb. 22 Nature.

NOW YOU SEE IT The black spot toward the bottom right of this image is a supernova going off near galaxy NGC 613. An amateur astronomer in Argentina captured the explosion in nearly 100 images taken with a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor camera.

VÍCTOR BUSO AND GASTÓN FOLATELLI

“This is completely unusual, and was something that many people were searching for around the world without success,” Bersten says. “It was incredible.”

Bersten and her colleagues analyzed the light from the supernova and found that it matches models of the first phase of a supernova called the shock breakout phase, in which a shock wave from a massive star’s collapse ricochets back from the star’s core and pushes stellar material outward.

Citations

• M.C. Bersten et al. A surge of light at the birth of a supernova. Nature. Published online February 21, 2018. doi:10.1038/nature25151.

Further Reading

• E. Conover. Supernova spotted shortly after explosion. Science News Online, February 13, 2017.
• C. Crockett. 30 years later, supernova 1987A is still sharing secrets. Science News. Vol. 191, February 18, 2017, p. 20.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

“Tropische superstormen zijn zo krachtig dat schaal 5 niet meer volstaat” -  HLN.be

Bron:  AD.nl

Tropische stormen of cyclonen worden al naar gelang hun kracht ingedeeld volgens de schaal van Saffir-Simpson. Bedoeling daarvan is bewoners in bedreigde gebieden voor te bereiden op de verwachte schade en risico’s. Een orkaan van categorie 2, 3 en 4 is bijvoorbeeld tien, vijftig, honderd keer zo verwoestend als een zwakke orkaan van categorie 1. Tot nu toe is categorie 5 het gevaarlijkst. Dan gaan de daken eraf van de meeste huizen en bedrijven. Bij een stormvloed langs de kust wordt de meeste laagbouw weggespoeld en kunnen de golven tot wel vier kilometer landinwaarts gaan.

Lees ook

VS maakten voorbije 22 jaar meeste klimaatgerelateerde rampen mee, maar keren Klimaatakkoord toch rug toe

320 kilometer

Volgens klimatoloog Michael Mann van Pennsylvania State University dekt categorie 5 niet langer de lading. Een nieuwe categorie 6 zou een betere aanduiding zijn om de werkelijke kracht aan te geven van stormen van 320 kilometer per uur”, zegt hij in de Britse krant The Guardian. Uitbreiding van de schaal zou volgens hem benadrukken dat er wel degelijk een klimaatverandering gaande is die stormen krachtiger maakt dan ooit. 

Aanpassing is ook nodig omdat het schadebeeld vertekend is, aldus Mann. Sinds de schaal van Saffir-Simpson werd opgesteld, in 1969, is er veel verbeterd in de stevigheid van bouw en infrastructuur. Dat er desondanks gebouwen omwaaien, zegt wat over de toegenomen kracht, aldus de wetenschapper. Recente stormen als de orkaan Patricia in 2015 met geschatte windstoten van tegen 400 kilometer per uur (8 doden, bijna 400 miljoen euro schade) en orkaan Winston in 2016 (44 doden, 4 miljard euro schade) passen volgens Mann in een nieuwe buitencategorie. Volgens de Nieuw-Zeelandse klimaatminister James Show zou orkaan Winston zeker een zes hebben gekregen ‘als die categorie had bestaan.’ 

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Amateur-astronoom test zelfgebouwde telescoop en ziet iets wat geen enkele wetenschapper ooit al heeft gezien -  HLN.be

Bron: Belga

“Beroepsastronomen zoeken al lang naar een dergelijk evenement”, (de start van) een ontploffende ster, schreef Alex Filippenko van de Universiteit van Berkeley. “Het is zoals de ‘kosmische jackpot’ winnen”, “uitzonderlijk”. “De metingen van Victor Buso vormen een geheel van data zonder voorgaande”, weet Federico Garcia van het Franse Commissariaat voor Kernenergie. 

Lees ook

Astronomen zagen ster 10,5 miljard jaar geleden ontploffen

Supernova

Op 20 september 2016 beslist de door sterren gepassioneerde Argentijn een nieuw fototoestel op zijn telescoop te testen. Hij had de telescoop zelf gebouwd op het dak van zijn huis in de stad Rosario, ten noorden van Buenos Aires. Hij kiest voor zijn eerste foto’s sterrenstelsel NGC 613, op ongeveer tachtig miljoen lichtjaar van ons, in het sterrenbeeld Beeldhouwer. Bingo: een enorme ster beleeft de laatste uren van haar leven in een cataclystische ontploffing die bekendstaat als een supernova.

Spectaculair fenomeen

De fenomenen die daarmee gepaard gaan, zijn hevig. Want volgens de theorie wordt de materie van de ster aan snelheden van duizenden kilometer per seconde uitgespuwd. Vanwege de ongelooflijke hoeveelheid uitgestoten energie is het evenement helder en is het van op onze planeet te zien. Maar het is een zeldzaam en vooral niet te voorzien evenement. Astronomen ontdekken het in het algemeen pas na enkele dagen en nooit sinds het begin. Dat geluk had Victor Buso wel.

Hij sloeg alarm via de Amerikaanse vereniging van waarnemers van variabele sterren AVVSO en bracht een kettingreactie op gang. Een batterij astronomen en natuurkundigen richtte zijn instrumenten op het fenomeen. Sommigen observeren het vervolg gedurende meer dan twee maanden. Volgens de studie in het Britse Nature laten de nieuwe data toe beter de fysieke structuur te begrijpen van een ster vlak voor ze ontploft, alsmede de natuur zelf van de explosie.

Eén kans op tien miljoen

De ploeg wetenschappers kon uitmaken dat de initiële massa van de ster ongeveer twintig keer die van onze Zon was. Ze zagen ook de helderheid van de supernova spectaculair toenemen. Op minder dan een half uur tijd verveelvoudigde die met factor 3, zegt de Franse universiteit Paris Diderot. Volgens Melina Bersten van het Instituut voor Astrofysica van La Plata in Argentinië had Victor Buso “maar één kans op tien miljoen of zelfs 100 miljoen” om het spektakel te kunnen aanschouwen.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Mysterious Bright Object falls from the sky over Bahia, Brazil

Residents of Salvador, the capital of Brazil's northeastern state of Bahia, reported a bright object falling from the sky with a huge flash before it exploded at low altitude on February 20, 2018.

Residents of Monte Gordo, in the district of Camaçari in the metropolitan region of Salvador heard the explosion too.

Credit image: Canal TV Noticias - Juliana Almirante – G1.Globo.

Land owner Edinei da Silva Almeida said that he was burning vegetation when he heard the explosion. Then Mr. Edinei da Silva Almeida accompanied by his neighbors started looking in the direction of the explosion and soon they found a strange object in an area of vegetation near a material store. The object looks like iron and weighs about 2.9 kg and is 15 cm in size.

Credit images: Juliana Almirante – G1.Globo. 

While most of the experts believe that it was a small piece of a meteorite that fell to the ground, the Brazilian Meteorological Monitoring Network (Bramon) suggests there is also the possibility that a part of a rocket, which was sent by Russia to the International Space Station, may have come loose and have fallen in Bahia reports Globo.1.com.

Whatever it may have been remains a mystery for the time being.

  

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/  }

I-Team: Mystery metal studied in Las Vegas

Pulsating aurora mysteries uncovered with help from NASA's THEMIS mission

by Mara Johnson-Groh, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Sometimes on a dark night near the poles, the sky pulses a diffuse glow of green, purple and red. Unlike the long, shimmering veils of typical auroral displays, these pulsating auroras are much dimmer and less common. While scientists have long known auroras to be associated with solar activity, the precise mechanism of pulsating auroras was unknown. Now, new research, using data from NASA's Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms—or THEMIS—mission and Japan's Exploration of energization and Radiation in Geospace—shortened to ERG, or also known as Arase—satellite, has finally captured the missing link thought responsible for these auroras. The answer lies in chirping waves that rhythmically pulse the particles that create the auroras.

Earth's magnetic bubble—the magnetosphere—protects the planet from high-energy radiation coming from the Sun and interstellar space, but during particularly strong solar events, particles can slip through. Once inside, the particles and the energy they carry are stored on the nightside of the magnetosphere, until an event, known as a substorm, releases the energy. The electrons are then sent speeding down into Earth's upper atmosphere where they collide with the other particles and produce the characteristic glow.

Pulsating auroras, however, have a slightly different cause. The magnetosphere is home to a type of plasma wave known as whistler mode chorus. These waves have characteristic rising tones—reminiscent of the sounds of chirping birds—and are able to efficiently disturb the electrons. When these waves make their appearance within the magnetosphere, some of the electrons scattered by the wave careen down into Earth's atmosphere, causing the pulsating auroras.

While scientists have long believed this mechanism to be responsible for pulsating auroras, they had no definitive proof until now. The multipoint observations from the ERG satellite and ground-based all-sky cameras from the THEMIS mission allowed scientists to pinpoint the cause and effect, seeing the event from start to end. The results were published in the journal Nature.

Research done with NASA's ground-based camera and Japan's spacecraft in the near-Earth laboratory has applications further afield. Chorus waves have been observed around other planets in the solar system, including Jupiter and Saturn. Likely, the processes observed around Earth can help explain auroral features on these gas giants as well as on planets around other stars. The results also help scientists better understand how plasma waves can influence electrons—something that occurs in processes across the universe.

 Explore further: Scientists directly observe electron dynamics of the Northern Lights

More information: S. Kasahara et al. Pulsating aurora from electron scattering by chorus waves, Nature (2018). DOI: 10.1038/nature25505 

{ https://phys.org/ }

Neptune’s Great Dark Spot is also shrinking

BY MIHAI ANDREI

After just yesterday we wrote that Jupiter’s emblematic Giant Red Storm was quieting down, Neptune’s own giant storm is about to suffer the same fate.

Dark spot on Neptune full color (left) and blue light (right).

Although not as famous and easily visible as the Great Red Spot, Neptune’s Great Dark Spot (creative names, I know) has its own remarkable history. Also an anticyclonic storm, the first Dark Spot was first observed in 1989 by NASA’s Voyager 2. It was big enough to cover the entire Atlantic, from the US to Europe’s West Coast, but unlike Jupiter’s storm, it had a much shorter lifespan. I say “the first” Dark Spot because, since its discovery in 1989, several others have appeared and disappeared, and the initial one is long gone. Hubble discovered two dark storms that appeared in the mid-1990s and then vanished. The current storm was first observed in 2015, but it’s already shrinking.

We don’t really know that much about Neptune. The farthest planet from the Sun (sorry Pluto) remains largely a mystery, with most of our information coming from remote observations or from the Voyager days. The way it was discovered says a lot about this: Neptune was the first and only planet in our Solar System found by mathematical predictionrather than by empirical observation. Astronomers believe that Neptune has a solid rock core, a mantle consisting of water, ammonia and methane ices, and an atmosphere. The top of the atmosphere is covered by top clouds, while the rest consists of hydrogen, helium, and methane  The Dark Spot is interesting because it allows astronomers to indirectly deduce certain aspects about Neptune’s atmosphere.

The Great Dark Spot is thought to represent a hole in the methane cloud deck of Neptune, generating large white clouds made of frozen methane. The dark spot itself might also contain hydrogen sulfide, a substance commonly found in crude petroleum, natural gas, volcanic gases, and hot springs.

It seems a bit strange if you think about it — why would white clouds, including ice, create a dark spot? Well, it isn’t that they’re necessarily dark, just that they’re less bright than the rest of the atmosphere. Joshua Tollefson from the University of California at Berkeley explained.

“The particles themselves are still highly reflective; they are just slightly darker than the particles in the surrounding atmosphere.”

This series of Hubble Space Telescope images taken over 2 years tracks the demise of a giant dark vortex on the planet Neptune. The oval-shaped spot has shrunk from 3,100 miles across its long axis to 2,300 miles across, over the Hubble observation period. Image credits: NASA, ESA, and M.H. Wong and A.I. Hsu (UC Berkeley).

But other than this, we don’t really know much about the nature of these storms. We don’t know why or how they form, and no missions other than Voyager and Hubble are able to visualize them.

“We have no evidence of how these vortices are formed or how fast they rotate,” said Agustín Sánchez-Lavega from the University of the Basque Country in Spain. “It is most likely that they arise from an instability in the sheared eastward and westward winds.”

Unlike Jupiter’s storms, Neptune’s storms don’t last as long. Neptune doesn’t have atmospheric conveyor belts, which keep the storm trapped, and it doesn’t have the proper atmospheric conditions to fuel the storm. So quite soon, the Dark Spot will fade away — but another one will eventually rise up to take its place.

 “It looks like we’re capturing the demise of this dark vortex, and it’s different from what well-known studies led us to expect,” said Michael H. Wong of the University of California at Berkeley, referring to work by Ray LeBeau (now at St. Louis University) and Tim Dowling’s team at the University of Louisville.

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