Radiation mapping of Europa may lead to discovery of alien life

A new extensive mapping of Jupiter moon Europa’s radiation pummeling has revealed to the researchers as to where they should look for and till what length they would have to dig deep when hunting for extraterrestrial life.

A new study conducted by a team of researchers represented an almost complete mapping and modeling of the radiation at Europa and provided major clues to the unsolved puzzled.

The study’s lead author, Tom Nordheim, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, said in a statement, “If we want to understand what’s going on at the surface of Europa and how that links to the ocean underneath, we need to understand the radiation.”

By making use of the information received 2 decades ago from the flybys of Galileo of Europa and electron measurements through the NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, the team of researchers closely analyzed the electrons that were blasting the lunar surface. They discovered that the doses of the radiation differ with respect to location. The regions surrounding the equator, get the most intense radiation whereas the regions near the poles, get the least radiation.

The co-author of the study, Chris Paranicas at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, said in a statement, “This is the first prediction of radiation levels at each point on Europa’s surface and is important information for future Europa missions.”

Further, the researchers gauged the depth till which the radiation tends to penetrate into the surface. They also designed Europa’s most extreme radiation’s 3D models. The result told the researchers how deep they have to dig for finding biosignatures that may be preserved.

The depth varied from four to eight inches in the extreme radiation area to around 0.4 inches in the regions surrounding the two poles of the moon.

For achieving that inference, the researchers examined the impact of the radiation on the amino acids that are the fundamental building blocks of proteins, for understanding how the radiation of Europa would affect the biosignatures.

The co-author of the study, Kevin Hand, a Project Scientist of the Europa Lander mission, said in a statement, “The radiation that bombards Europa’s surface leaves a fingerprint.” Further, Hand added, “If we know what that fingerprint looks like, we can better understand the nature of any organics and possible biosignatures that might be detected with future missions, be they spacecraft that fly by or land on Europa.”

{ https://tecake.com/ }

Meer met vloeibaar water gevonden op Mars: “Belangrijke vondst, maar heel voorwaardelijk”

door gjs | Bron: BELGA

FOTO: AFP

Voor het eerst is op Mars een groot ondergronds meer gevonden en nooit eerder een zo grote hoeveelheid vloeibaar water dat voor leven noodzakelijk is, zo hebben wetenschappers woensdag bekendgemaakt. Leven is nog niet ontdekt. Dat meldt het wetenschappelijk vakblad Science. KU Leuven-sterrenkundige Leen Decrin noemt de vondst belangrijk, “maar heel voorwaardelijk”.

De rode planeet is een beetje blauwer geworden. In de zoektocht naar bewijzen voor buitenaards leven hebben wetenschappers een meer met een doorsnede van 19 kilometer gevonden op Mars. Het lag anderhalve kilometer onder het ijsoppervlak aan de Zuidpool.

Het is de eerste keer dat zo een massa stabiel water op Mars is gevonden. Al decennia zochten wetenschappers naar vloeibaar water op de planeet. De vondst schept condities voor leven op langere termijn, zegt Alan Duffy van de Universiteit van Swinburn die niet aan het onderzoek heeft deelgenomen. Dat kan vroeger, of nog actueel leven zijn.

De ontdekking is ook goed nieuws voor bemande Marsmissies. Mogelijk is het onder de zuidelijke pool gevonden water echter niet drinkbaar.

“Spannende ontdekking”

Onder leiding van Roberto Orosi van het Italiaanse Nationaal Instituut voor Astrofysica in Bologna onderzochten wetenschappers data van het radarinstrument tussen mei 2012 en december 2015. De radardata stemmen overeen met die van meren van vloeibaar water onder de Zuidpool en de ijslaag op Groenland op onze planeet. Wetenschappers opperden dat daar microbiologisch leven kan zijn, en dus ook op Mars.

“Het is een spannende ontdekking”, zegt Ashwin Vasavada, wetenschapper bij Nasa die meewerkt aan de Curiosity-missie. “Dit kan veel gevolgen hebben voor de bewoonbaarheid van Mars.”

Heel lang mee bezig

Die vondst was een werk van lange adem, zegt astrofysica Leen Decin, die aan de KU Leuven verbonden is. “Wat je nu ziet is iets waar men al heel lang mee bezig is. Men heeft al eens uitgedroogde ringen gevonden, wat zou kunnen wijzen op opgedroogde rivieren, maar dat hoeft niet per se water geweest te zijn. Nu hebben de wetenschappers aanwijzingen gevonden dat er onder de ijskappen vloeibaar water zit”, legt ze uit.

De ontdekking is belangrijk, omdat vloeibaar water als een soort “katalysator” werkt om uiteindelijk levende organismen te krijgen, zegt Decin. “Om chemische elementen te doen samenwerken en uiteindelijk ook levende elementen te krijgen, is vloeibaar water geen noodzakelijke voorwaarde, maar wel een katalysator. Dat gaat ook op een droge rots, maar dat verloopt veel en veel trager.” Het ondergrondse meer “kan een aanwijzing zijn dat er op Mars een omgeving is waar dat proces zou kunnen plaatsvinden”. Allemaal heel voorwaardelijk dus, maar “dit is het beste bewijs van vloeibaar water op een planeet die niet die van ons is”, zegt Decin.

De volgende stap is verder onderzoek met de nieuwe robotjeeps, legt de KUL-wetenschapster uit. De huidige generatie van die onbemande tuigen kan nu al boren in de rotslaag van Mars, maar de nieuwste modellen geraken een stuk dieper. “Daarmee kan gezocht worden naar stalen van dat vloeibaar water, waarin heel misschien aanwijzingen van levende organismen - en dat kan heel primitief zijn - teruggevonden worden.” Wetenschappers kunnen ook op zoek gaan naar fossielen in de rotslagen van levensvormen die vroeger op de planeet geleefd zouden kunnen hebben.

Mars is vroeger warm en vochtig geweest. Minstens 3,6 miljard jaar geleden moeten er een grote hoeveelheid vloeibaar water en meren aanwezig zijn geweest.

Onder leiding van Roberto Orosi van het Italiaanse Nationaal Instituut voor Astrofysica in Bologna onderzochten wetenschappers data van het radarinstrument tussen mei 2012 en december 2015. De radardata stemmen overeen met die van meren van vloeibaar water onder de Zuidpool en de ijslaag op Groenland op onze planeet. Wetenschappers opperden dat daar microbiologisch leven kan zijn, en dus ook op Mars.

“Het is een spannende ontdekking”, zegt Ashwin Vasavada, wetenschapper bij Nasa die meewerkt aan de Curiosity-missie. “Dit kan veel gevolgen hebben voor de bewoonbaarheid van Mars.”

Heel lang mee bezig

Die vondst was een werk van lange adem, zegt astrofysica Leen Decin, die aan de KU Leuven verbonden is. “Wat je nu ziet is iets waar men al heel lang mee bezig is. Men heeft al eens uitgedroogde ringen gevonden, wat zou kunnen wijzen op opgedroogde rivieren, maar dat hoeft niet per se water geweest te zijn. Nu hebben de wetenschappers aanwijzingen gevonden dat er onder de ijskappen vloeibaar water zit”, legt ze uit.

De ontdekking is belangrijk, omdat vloeibaar water als een soort “katalysator” werkt om uiteindelijk levende organismen te krijgen, zegt Decin. “Om chemische elementen te doen samenwerken en uiteindelijk ook levende elementen te krijgen, is vloeibaar water geen noodzakelijke voorwaarde, maar wel een katalysator. Dat gaat ook op een droge rots, maar dat verloopt veel en veel trager.” Het ondergrondse meer “kan een aanwijzing zijn dat er op Mars een omgeving is waar dat proces zou kunnen plaatsvinden”. Allemaal heel voorwaardelijk dus, maar “dit is het beste bewijs van vloeibaar water op een planeet die niet die van ons is”, zegt Decin.

De volgende stap is verder onderzoek met de nieuwe robotjeeps, legt de KUL-wetenschapster uit. De huidige generatie van die onbemande tuigen kan nu al boren in de rotslaag van Mars, maar de nieuwste modellen geraken een stuk dieper. “Daarmee kan gezocht worden naar stalen van dat vloeibaar water, waarin heel misschien aanwijzingen van levende organismen - en dat kan heel primitief zijn - teruggevonden worden.” Wetenschappers kunnen ook op zoek gaan naar fossielen in de rotslagen van levensvormen die vroeger op de planeet geleefd zouden kunnen hebben.

Mars is vroeger warm en vochtig geweest. Minstens 3,6 miljard jaar geleden moeten er een grote hoeveelheid vloeibaar water en meren aanwezig zijn geweest.

De ontdekking is belangrijk, omdat vloeibaar water als een soort “katalysator” werkt om uiteindelijk levende organismen te krijgen, zegt Decin. “Om chemische elementen te doen samenwerken en uiteindelijk ook levende elementen te krijgen, is vloeibaar water geen noodzakelijke voorwaarde, maar wel een katalysator. Dat gaat ook op een droge rots, maar dat verloopt veel en veel trager.” Het ondergrondse meer “kan een aanwijzing zijn dat er op Mars een omgeving is waar dat proces zou kunnen plaatsvinden”. Allemaal heel voorwaardelijk dus, maar “dit is het beste bewijs van vloeibaar water op een planeet die niet die van ons is”, zegt Decin.

De volgende stap is verder onderzoek met de nieuwe robotjeeps, legt de KUL-wetenschapster uit. De huidige generatie van die onbemande tuigen kan nu al boren in de rotslaag van Mars, maar de nieuwste modellen geraken een stuk dieper. “Daarmee kan gezocht worden naar stalen van dat vloeibaar water, waarin heel misschien aanwijzingen van levende organismen - en dat kan heel primitief zijn - teruggevonden worden.” Wetenschappers kunnen ook op zoek gaan naar fossielen in de rotslagen van levensvormen die vroeger op de planeet geleefd zouden kunnen hebben.

Mars is vroeger warm en vochtig geweest. Minstens 3,6 miljard jaar geleden moeten er een grote hoeveelheid vloeibaar water en meren aanwezig zijn geweest.

{ https://www.nieuwsblad.be/ }

Vloeibaar ‘meer’ op Mars gevonden

door jvt | Bron: BELGA

Foto: AFP Wetenschappers hebben aanwijzingen gevonden van een bestaand ‘meer’ met vloeibaar water op Mars.

{ http://www.standaard.be/ }

See the Dramatic Increase in Near-Earth Asteroids NASA Has Discovered (Video)

Incredible NASA Video Shows All Known Asteroids in the Solar System

Animation showing asteroids in the solar system between Jan 1, 1999, and Jan 31, 2018

© YouTube / NASA

The differences are stark. In 1999, identified NEAs speckled the inner solar system thinly, in a light dusting. Many more were discovered by 2009, and Earth's neighborhood looks absolutely swamped in the present-day portion of the video. [In Pictures: Potentially Dangerous Asteroids]

But even that last frame doesn't impart just how crowded near-Earth space actually is. Astronomers have detected just 18,000 near-Earth objects (NEOs, a classification that also includes comets) to date, out of a population thought to number in the millions.

via GIPHY

There's good news, though: NASA scientists have found and tracked about 95 percent of the potential civilization-enders out there — rocks at least 0.6 miles (1 km) wide — and none of them pose a threat to Earth for the foreseeable future.

The space agency's NEO Observations Program is also working to discover and track 90 percent of the NEOs that are at least 450 feet (140 meters) wide by 2020 — a very ambitious goal laid out by Congress in 2005. It would take something of a miracle for NASA to do this on the prescribed timetable, however; scientists estimate that just one-third of the 450-footers out therehave been spotted to date.

The NEO Observations Program, which was created in 1998, is responsible for about 90 percent of all 18,000-odd NEO discoveries, NASA officials said.

The research and data-analysis hub of the program is the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), which is located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. (CNEOS was originally known as the Near-Earth Object Program Office; the name was changed in 2016.)

"We compute high-precision orbits for all asteroids and comets and map their positions in the solar system, both forward in time to detect potential impacts, and backward to see where they've been in the sky," CNEOS Director Paul Chodas said in a statement Monday (July 23). "We provide the best map of orbits for all known small bodies in the solar system."

The newly released video also maps all of the known asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it's a sight to behold. The belt is home to the vast majority of all known space rocks, the current tally of which tops 780,000, according to NASA researchers.

• Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+.
• Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+.
• Originally published on Space.com.

According to a new study, there were two time periods in the history of the Earth’s Moon when it was likely to have had pools of water filled with living microbes that may have traveled there from Earth. Are we still related?

In the study, published in the journal Astrobiology and summarized in a press release, astrobiologists Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University and Ian Crawford from Birkbeck University of London admit that the Moon would have had to be much different than it is today to support life. Specifically, it would have needed water, an atmosphere and a magnetic field similar to the one Earth has that was capable of deflecting solar radiation. A good source for two of the three conditions is volcanic activity.

Using data from recent lunar missions which shows water ice on the Moon and evidence of mantle water early in its life, Schulze-Makuch and Crawford used simulations to identify two time periods with favorable conditions for volcanic activity — 4 billion years ago and 3.5 billion years ago. The first period was right after the creation of the Moon, when a much larger Earth collided with another planetary body, creating a cloud of vaporized rock and liquid that eventually became the Moon. That vaporized liquid could have formed both surface water and an atmosphere. About 500,000 years later, the study shows a high level of volcanic activity on the still-young Moon which would have spewed enough water vapor for an atmosphere and ground water.

What about the third condition – the magnetic field? Schulze-Makuch believes the Moon was created with one and lost it over time. Put the conditions together and the Moon was ready for life.

“We basically had what we would call habitable conditions,” he said. “Or at least the most basic parameters for that.”

Where did it come from? While it’s possible that underwater volcanic activity could have sparked a chemical reaction to create life, Schulze-Makuch points out that there was already life on Earth 3.7 billion years ago – right in between those periods of lunar volcanic activities, and it was “likely” that one of those life-changing asteroids that hit the Earth on a regular basis could have launched life forms — microbes, anaerobic bacteria, and photosynthesizing cyanobacteria — to the then-fertile surface of the Moon where it could breath a sigh of relief along with lunar air.

Is it time to break out the champagne and raise a toast to life on the Moon?

“Whether life ever arose on the Moon, or was transported to it from elsewhere, is of course highly speculative and can only be addressed by an aggressive future program of lunar exploration. An important aspect of such an exploration program would be obtaining samples from paleoregolith deposits dating from time of peak mare volcanism to determine if hydrated conditions (or other evidence for habitable conditions, including possible biomarkers) existed at that time.”

In other words, if we want to find out if we have long-lost Moon cousins, it’s time to crank up the lunar exploration programs and send rovers, robots and humans to the Moon for more samples.

Is NASA up for it? Are Musk or Bezos?

Are we?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Oh man, look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show

We’ve come a long way since one of our ape-like ancestors first threw a bone into the sky and apparently got the idea to someday build a space station. One of our Solar System’s most enduring mysteries might have just been solved – or at least gotten a lot closer to being solved. According to a new studypublished in Science, Mars might indeed be home to a massive body of liquid water under its southern ice cap. If confirmed, this would mark the discovery of the largest known body of liquid water on Mars. Even better, the discovery has given the astronomical community a huge boost in our search for life on Mars. 

Mars’ south polar ice cap

This groundbreaking discovery is based on a new analysis of radar data gathered by the MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) instrument, a low-frequency radar sensor aboard the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft. The Mars Express has been in orbit around the Red Planet since December 2003, and spent 2012 to 2015 investigating the Planum Australe region of Mars’ southern ice cap.

The awesomely-named Mars Express

The radar profiles collected from that region indicate the presence of a lake of liquid water stretching 20 kilometers (12 miles) wide and over 1 meter in depth. Roberto Orosei, a scientist at Italy’s National Institute of Astrophysics who led the research, says these radar profiles are similar to those collected in studies of bodies of water hiding under ice caps here on Earth:

The reflections from the bottom are stronger than surface reflection. This is something that to us is the tell-tale sign of the presence of water. This condition on Earth happens only when you observe subglacial water, like in Antarctica. The radar data tell us that this water must contain a large amount of salts. This is because the ice above it is very transparent, and this would not be possible if the ice was too warm, too close to the melting point.

Scientists here on Earth have discovered evidence that there might be entirely undiscovered ecosystems in waters under the Antarctic ice sheet brimming with unknown forms of life. Could microbial Martians be hiding under Mars’ southern ice cap? Let’s just hope that water isn’t too salty to sustain life, which is of course a distinct possibility. As usual, this research is just the tip of the iceberg (or is it ice cap?) and much more data is needed to confirm the presence of this body of Martian water. If these findings are confirmed, though, it would greatly increase our chances of finally answering one of David Bowie’s lingering questions.

NASA finds evidence of liquid water on Mars, boosting hopes of finding life beyond Earth - TomoNews

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Groot meer met vloeibaar water gevonden op planeet Mars - HLN.be

Bron: Belga, Reuters, BBC

Het meer zou zich vlakbij de ijskap aan de Zuidpool van Mars bevinden, op 1,5 kilometer onder de oppervlakte zitten en een diameter van ongeveer 20 kilometer hebben. De diepte van het meer kon nog niet bepaald worden, maar het onderzoeksteam schat die op minstens een meter. Het zou het allereerste effectieve bewijs zijn van vloeibaar water op de planeet. 

Lees ook

Ook Mars heeft poollicht en NASA heeft nu ontdekt hoe ultraviolette gloed ontstaat

Professor Roberto Orosei van het Italiaanse National Institute for Astrophysics leidde de studie, die gepubliceerd werd in het wetenschappelijke tijdschrift Science. “Dit is een plek op Mars waar leven mogelijk zou kúnnen zijn”, zegt hij. “Het is niet meteen de ideale vakantieplek, maar er zijn organismen op Aarde die overleven in vergelijkbare omstandigheden. Er zijn micro-organismen op Aarde die zelfs in ijs kunnen overleven.”

Hoe werd de ontdekking gedaan?

Met Marsis, een radar aan boord van de Mars Express-satelliet van de Europese ruimtevaartorganisatie ESA. Een dergelijk instrument onderzoekt het oppervlak van de planeet en de laag daar meteen onder door er een signaal naartoe te sturen en dan te kijken wat er terugkomt. (lees hieronder verder)

Wat betekent het voor leven?

Nog niets. “We weten al lang dat de oppervlakte van Mars geen ideaal decor is voor leven zoals wij het kennen, vandaar dat de zoektocht zich concentreert op de lagen er meteen onder”, zegt dokter Manish Patel van de Open University. “Daar is voldoende bescherming voor schadelijke straling vanuit de ruimte en is er een iets gunstiger druk en temperatuur. En belangrijkst van al: water kan er bestaan in zijn vloeibare vorm. En dat laatste is essentieel voor leven.”

Volgens de nieuwe waarnemingen is er dus effectief water aanwezig op de rode planeet, maar een bewijs van leven is er (nog) niet. “We hebben nu wel een plaats waar we ernaar kunnen zoeken”, aldus nog Patel. “Een beetje als een schatkaart.”  

Dokter Claire Cousins van de Britse University of St Andrews waarschuwt wel dat het water extreem koud zou kunnen zijn. “Dat zou ook een uitdaging zijn voor potentieel leven”, zegt ze. Om vloeibaar te blijven in ijskoude omstandigheden zoals op Mars zouden er bovendien veel zouten in het water zitten volgens de onderzoekers, die uitgaan van een watertemperatuur tussen -70 en -10 graden Celsius. (lees hieronder verder) 

En nu?

Verder onderzoek. “De metingen moeten nu ook elders op Mars gedaan worden”, aldus dokter Matt Balme van de Open University. “En we moeten op zoek gaan naar soortgelijke waarnemingen. Als het mogelijk is moeten alternatieve verklaringen onderzocht worden en – hopelijk – uitgesloten. Misschien is dit een aanleiding om een nieuwe missie te ondernemen naar Mars en een boring te doen naar het water. Dat zou wel een zeer ambitieuze onderneming zijn.”

Dat wordt beaamd door professor Orosei. “Daar geraken en het ultieme bewijs bovenhalen zal geen eenvoudige opdracht zijn. We zullen er een robot voor naar Mars moeten voor sturen, die door 1,5 kilometer ijs kan boren. Dat zal technologische ontwikkelingen vergen die nu nog niet beschikbaar zijn.”

 EPA

 AFP

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

UFO Researcher Finds Two Shipwrecks When Searching For Amelia Earhart Plane, July 25, 2018, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: July 25, 2018
Google Earth coordinates: 3°35'41.48"S 174° 7'8.85"W
Island name: Mckean Island 

I was looking for Amelia Earhart Electra silver plane on Google Earth map and accidentally came across two shipwrecks. I have found planes before and even found 65% of the Flight MH370 off Cape of Good Hope, South Africa last year, but no one took me seriously because I am just a blogger. Click here to see the Flight MH370 video post. 

I have found  several shipwrecks and made videos of three of them, but had found around 20 using Google Earth map, just not all were high enough quality to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. 

I will keep searching for Amelia Earharts plane. Her achievements in history demand it. 
Scott C. Waring

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

White UFO Over Malaysia Frightens Eyewitness Enough To Delete Video, July 21, 2018, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: July 21, 2018

Location of sighting: Malaysia

 

This white UFO was seen over Malaysia this week. The eyewitness uploaded the video, then became frightened and deleted it. Why? Because many who see a real UFO fear that the gov or MIB or any organisation that protects these craft will punish you for uploading the video. It happens a lot actually. 

 

This UFO does have some similarities to the Canadian drone project CL-227/CL-327. I would say the UFO is 70% similar, but still it does not resemble it any more than that. The UFO has no blades, not landing legs. The top head of the UFO is flat, not round like the military drone. Also that drone was used back in 1975-1988 in Canada. 

 

In conclusion this is clearly a UFO, its not a CL-227 drone. 

Scott C. Waring

 

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

Glowing UFO Over China During Sunset, July 18, 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News

 

Date of sighting: July 18, 2018

Location of sighting: Chongqing, China

 

This eyewitness caught a UFO over China last week. The UFOs you see in this video are actually just one craft. These glowing lights are part of its propulsion system. Bob Lazar said the smaller craft he worked on in Area S4 inside Area 51 had three main engines that glowed at certain times. Reminds me of the sighting over the Chinese airport years ago that shut down the airport. 

Scott C. Waring

The remote Eveno-Bytantaisky, Zhigansky, and Verkhozansky districts in Siberia, Russia saw their day turn into a 'complete darkness' for almost three hours on Friday, July 20, 2018.

Credit image: Siberiantimes.

Even though they should have 24 hour light at this time of year the region, larger than Italy, was hit by a mysterious phenomenon that turned the day into night.

No-one wanted to be on the street because the feeling was as if something heavy in the air was pressing on your chest", said one resident.

At first it looked like it was a strong thunderstorm coming, the sky went dark, and got darker and darker, but this time unlike anything else we have seen before the darkness had a rich yellow undertone, it was very unusual said another resident.

Credit image: Siberiantimes.

Officials expressed doubts over the theory that smoke from raging wildfires in other districts or a thick layer of dusk had blotted out the sun. Besides officials stated that there was no dust, reports Siberiantime.

Head of Verkhoyansk town Yevgeny Potapov said that the sun didn’t disappear in his area, but something strange happened on that day.

Credit image: Siberiantimes.

Coincidence or not but the phenomenon in Siberia appeared days before the Saturn-Moon conjunction and full moon near Mars while on July 27 the Moon will undergo an eclipse which will be the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century.

There is still no official explanation of the weird phenomenon in the sky over Siberia from meteorological, defense, or other deferral officials.

Sun disappears- Day turns to Night and nobody knows WHY!

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

{ http://www.openminds.tv/ }

Aliens might have lived on the Moon, scientists say

 Rohan Khanna

LONDON: The Moon might once have been home to aliens. Extraterrestrial life might have made its way to our nearest neighbour after a meteorite blast, scientists have suggested. And when it did, the atmosphere might have been far more habitable than it is today, ready to support life, if only briefly.

That is according to two senior planetary researchers who found that the Moon might have had conditions to support simple lifeforms some four billion years ago. The same conditions might have arrived during a peak of volcanic activity 3.5 billion years ago, claim the researchers.

GETTY

MOON: Scientists believe Earth life might have been blasted into space – landing on the Moon

GETTY

LIFE IN SPACE: Could our nearest neighbour actually the hold the key to aliens?

During that time, the Moon was spewing out vast amounts of very hot gases, including water vapour. Those gases might have formed into liquid water on the surface as well as creating an atmosphere that could keep it there.
“If liquid water and a significant atmosphere were present on the early Moon for long periods of time, we think the lunar surface would have been at least transiently habitable,” said Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at Washington State University, who wrote the paper with Ian Crawford, a professor of planetary science and astrobiology at the University of London.

The Moon is also thought to have been wrapped in a magnetic field that would have kept any lifeforms who lived there safe from deadly solar winds. The earliest evidence of life on Earth comes from about 3.5 and 3.8 billion years old, in the form of cyanobacteria. During that time, the solar system was a violent place marked by frequent meteorite impacts — it is possible that some life could have been carried up to the moon in the wake of one of those blasts, the researchers suggest.

“It looks very much like the Moon was habitable at this time,” Mr Schulze-Makuch said. “There could have actually been microbes thriving in water pools on the Moon until the surface became dry and dead.”

“It looks very much like the Moon was habitable at this time”

Prof Schulze-Mach

The researchers now hope that the speculation will encourage Nasa and other space agencies to undertake an “aggressive future program of lunar exploration”. That could examine moon deposits from the period to find if they include signs of life, or simulating the conditions of the early Moon on Earth or the International Space Station, to see whether life could exist there.
Post fetched from RSS feeds

{ http://www.wikiwow.in/ }

Have ancient aliens RETURNED? UFO spotted over famous NAZCA lines sparks frenzy

THIS is the moment sky-gazers film a what appears to be a flying saucer-like UFO above the famous Nazca Lines in Peru.

By Paul Harper

Outlandish conspiracy theories have claimed they were created by ancient aliens thousands of years ago.

The new video, recorded by Rafael Mercado of the Peruvian Association of Ufology, shows a hovering elongated object similar to a zeppelin or a flying saucer in the evening sky.

The footage was accompanied with the message: "Are we looking at a UFO over the Nazca Lines?

“Draw your own conclusions."

YOUTUBE/GETTY

ALIEN LIFE PROOF?: Footage captured a UFO over the Nazca lines

Social media users have debated the flying object's authenticity.

One suggested it was just “cloud” while another compared the object to an “unidentified flying sausage”.

But a user called 'RocioPeru' claimed to have seen “dozens of UFOs” in Nazca.

The Nazca Lines, a group of pre-Hispanic geoglyphs etched into the desert sands, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994.

Some geoglyphs are 30 metres (98 feet) wide and stretch over a nine-kilometre (5.6-mile) distance.

There are around 300 different figures which mostly depict plants and animals, including a hummingbird, monkeys and a 1,000-foot-long pelican.

Some archaeologists believe they date back to around 200 BC.

They were first spotted by Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejia Xesspe while he was hiking through the foothills. 

Newly-unearthed mysterious designs have fuelled alien conspiracy theories, an expert has claimed.

Archaeologists have discovered scores of mammoth intricate drawings etched into southern Peru’s ancient desert.

The drawings include crude figures of a killer whale and a woman dancing, while some are more puzzling still, such as the 35m-long "Astronaut", which depicts a bizarre other-worldly figure.

Mystery skeletons unearthed in a tomb near the Nazca line in Peru last year with elongated heads were dubbed “humanoid beings" by scientists studying them.

However the claims were slammed as a hoax by many researchers.

Cigar Shaped UFO Filmed Hovering Above The Nazca Lines.

• Nazca Lines SHOCK: Mysterious white scribbles created to attract ALIENS in Peru
• Nazca Lines: New discoveries to unlock universe mystery
• Shocking DNA results on three-fingered 'alien' mummy REVEALED

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

No 'lost tribes' or aliens: what ancient DNA reveals about American prehistory

The moon may have been habitable during its early history — twice

BY TIBI PUIU

With a stark appearance dotted by thousands of craters and almost no atmosphere, the moon is perhaps one of the last places in the solar system you’d call ‘habitable’ — but that’s not to say it’s been like this forever. According to simulations run by astrobiologists at Washington State University and the University of London, the moon may have fostered the necessary conditions for life to survive on its surface during its distant past.

Lunar life?

Despite ambitions to one day colonize the moon, not much serious consideration has ever been given to the thought of a once habitable moon. Recent developments, however, have shown that there is much to learn about the bright white bulb that lights the night’s sky.

Until not too long ago, scientists used to think that the moon had virtually no atmosphere. However, recent studies have confirmed that our moon does indeed have an atmosphere, consisting of gases like sodium and potassium, which aren’t found in Earth’s atmosphere, or those of Mars or Venus, for that matter. It is true that it’s extremely thin — fewer than 1,000,000 moles can be found in each cubic centimeter of the lunar atmosphere, which is comparable to the density of the outermost fringes of Earth’s atmosphere, where the International Space Station orbits — but it’s still something.

Perhaps the most important revelation about the moon is the presence of water. Almost a decade ago, researchers reported that our moon holds at least hundreds of millions of metric tons of water ice on its surface. Far more water is thought to be present in the lunar mantle, trapped by minerals that formed very early in the moon’s history.

There is also reason to believe that an early moon may have been protected by a magnetic field, which could have shielded surface-dwelling life forms from the harmful touch of solar winds.

These sorts of developments — some backed by solid evidence, others more speculative — form the basis of a new study that examined the habitability potential during the moon’s geological history.

Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at Washington State University, and Ian Crawford, a professor of planetary science and astrobiology at the University of London, performed simulations that suggest very simple lifeforms may have lived on the moon — and it could have happened twice in its distant past.

One habitable episode may have occurred shortly after the moon formed around four billion years ago from a debris disk. The second may have occurred around 3.5 billion years ago during a period of heightened lunar volcanic activity.

Outgassing in both periods may have formed pools of liquid water on the moon’s surface but also a thick atmosphere that could have been stable enough to last for millions of years.

“If liquid water and a significant atmosphere were present on the early Moon for long periods of time, we think the lunar surface would have been at least transiently habitable,” Schulze-Makuch said.

If the moon was indeed habitable at some point, what are the odds of life surfacing there? There’s really no way to tell, but if the moon ever had any life one of two things might have happened. Life could have spontaneously appeared from chemical building blocks under just the right conditions, as it could have on Earth. Alternatively, microorganisms like cyanobacteria may have been transported by meteorites. The early solar system used to be extremely chaotic and Earth was frequently bombarded by small and giant cosmic bodies alike. It’s possible that meteorites containing bacteria could have been blasted off the surface of Earth onto the moon.

A future program of lunar exploration might be able to determine just how likely it was for life to arrive on the moon. One line of inquiry would be obtaining samples from deposits that correspond to the period of heightened volcanic activity. In parallel, experiments that simulate early lunar environments on Earth and the International Space Station could study the survivability of microorganisms.

The findings appeared in the journal Astrobiology. 

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

It sounds like a crime committed in a Greek candy shop, but it’s actually more like a horror movie created by astronomers. According to a new study, the Andromeda galaxy was once and possibly still is a cannibalistic star conglomeration that consumed a sibling of the Milky Way and some of its own smaller siblings … and could one day eat the Milky Way too. If there’s no sound in space, what’s that chomping, slurping and burping noise?

'CANNIBAL' Andromeda galaxy ATE Milky Way's big sibling according to SHOCKING new study

The terrifying report, published in Nature Astronomy, comes from University of Michigan astronomers Richard D’Souza and Eric Bell. They were studying the Local Group – the collection of at least 54 galaxies that lists the Milky Way and Andromeda as its largest and has its gravitational center right between the two of them. It’s predicted that the Local Group will someday – possibly 4 billion years from now – become the Local One as all of the members collapse into the center.

Collapse? Or should we say ‘are consumed by one giant cannibalistic galaxy that is probably Andromeda’?

Andromeda

That may be what the models developed by D’Souza and Bell are suggesting when they used them to analyze the faint halo of stars surrounding Andromeda. Once thought to be the crumbs of many small galaxies eaten by Andromeda, the simulations instead showed that the stars were potentially from a single large galaxy surpassed in size only by Andromeda and the Milky Way. Furthermore, that giant galaxy was most likely a fraternal twin of the Milky Way that astronomers never knew existed. The astronomers named it M32p after the M32 halo around Andromeda that’s the faint reminder of what it once was … and a faint predictor of what may happen to its surviving sibling.

But first, Andromeda would probably turn the Milky Way into a form of the mysterious M32 – a small, dense satellite galaxy made of both old and new stars that has long puzzled astronomers like Bell … until now.

“M32 is a weirdo. While it looks like a compact example of an old, elliptical galaxy, it actually has lots of young stars. It’s one of the most compact galaxies in the universe. There isn’t another galaxy like it.”

Milky Way

The model shows that this “weirdo” is actually the remaining center of Milky Way sibling M32p, likened to the nearly indestructible pit of a galactic peach sloppily chomped to near extinction by a cannibalistic celestial companion. While the pit remains whole, the rest of the M32 peach is now part of Andromeda’s huge galactic disc, which the simulation shows is sturdy enough to have survived many galactic collisions.

Will the Disc of Andromeda (a great name for a band) be all that’s left in four billion years when the Large Group becomes one? Will there be anyone left to sing along?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

One of the worst threats to hang over the head of humankind in recent times is that of the grim specter of nuclear war, the effects of which we got a brief and tragic taste of back in World War II with the bombs dropped to horrific effect on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The thought that the whole world could be reduced to such devastation is a fear that constantly looms over us in this day and age, with good reason, but this must surely be a modern fear, right? After all, nuclear weapons are devices of sadistic human ingenuity that has only come about within the last century with the development of our macabre technology, are they not? However, according to ancient texts and some anomalous evidence, it has been alleged by certain conspiracy theorists that nuclear strikes were possibly carried out thousands of years ago, far back in the mists of time.

One of the main historical oddities that has been used to illustrate the possibility of an ancient nuclear war is supposedly contained within the 8th century Sanskrit epic the Mahabharata, which chronicles the Kurukshetra War and battle between Rama and the demon Ravana. Within these pages are claimed to be references to some catastrophic event that in many ways sounds exactly like what one would expect a nuclear strike to look like, such as an annihilating explosion described as being “brighter than a thousand suns,” which caused all trees to instantly ignite into flame, and reduced everything in its path to ashes. Indian historian, Kisari Mohan Ganguli, has said of such weapons of mass destruction in old texts:

Indian sacred writings are full of such descriptions, which sound like an atomic blast as experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki… The passage tells of combat where explosions of final weapons decimate entire armies, causing crowds of warriors with steeds and elephants and weapons to be carried away as if they were dry leaves of trees.

Interestingly, the texts also mention that survivors of the catastrophe later fell down ill and lost their hair, which undeniably sounds very much like radiation sickness, thousands of years before they should have known what that was. According to one purported rough translation, one section reads:

A single projectile charged with all the power in the Universe…An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor…it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race. The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out, pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white. After a few hours, all foodstuffs were infected. To escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves into the river.

Besides this text, there are various archeological sites throughout the region and indeed the world that supposedly hold evidence of such nuclear destruction in an era long before World War II. One is the site of the mysterious ancient city of Jodhpur, which lies along the edge of the great Thar desert in India, and is said to have long been plagued by unusually high levels of radiation since ancient times. Inhabitants here have long been said to have much higher incidences of cancer, birth defects, and other related complications than other areas, and radiation readings here have quite often gone off the charts. Why should that be?

Another is skeletons supposedly unearthed at the ancient ruins of the city of Mohenjo-Daro, Pakistan, in 1927, which are infused with high radiation levels and appear to have been people who dropped spontaneously where they stood to lie there in the streets, as if from some great weapon of mass destruction that struck them down instantly. Many of these skeletons, which are strangely devoid of the decay one would expect, were purportedly found lying face down right in the streets, in some cases still holding hands as if they had been anticipating the doom that was coming for them, and some of the rocks of these ruins seem to have been partially crystallized as if by some incredibly intense flash of heat. Indeed, British Indian researcher David Davenport claimed to have found rocks with evidence that they had been mysteriously fused and blasted into glass with heat as high as 1500°C. Something very unusual happened here in around 2,500 BCE, but what it was remains unclear.

Mohenjo-Daro

Speaking of anomalous fused glass, there are other sites around the world that exhibit the same phenomenon. In December of 1932, a surveyor from the Egyptian Geological Survey by the name of Patrick Clayton found a mysterious sheet of glass buried in the sands of the Great Sand Sea, near the Saad Plateau in Egypt. Such mysterious glass chunks have been found in such disparate places as the deserts of Libya, the Sahara, Mojave, and others. Experts who have looked at such unusual glass formations have often likened them to the sort of glass left behind by nuclear tests at places like the White Sands missile range, in southern New Mexico. Engineer Albion W. Hart famously once likened the glass left behind at the missile range to similar deposits he had personally witnessed in the deserts of Africa, but speculated that the ones he had seen would have had to have come from a blast roughly 10,000 times more powerful than the detonations at White Sands.

Some scientists have tried to explain these vast glass deposits as the result of some meteorite impact, but the lack of any crater makes such speculation problematic. There is also the high purity and transparency exhibited by much of this glass, which is not consistent with a meteorite strike. So what caused these weird glass deposits? No one really has a clue. Evidence such as this and the other accounts we have looked at have caused some theorists to proclaim that it all points to some sort of event or events involving nuclear weapons far in the past, although how this could have occurred is left to speculation, such as that it was due to time travelers, aliens, or both.

Whatever the cause may be, it on the surface seems when looking at these cases that at least the evidence for some sort of ancient nuclear apocalypse is rather solid and undeniable, but did any of this actually really happen? Unfortunately, there are many problems with this idea, not the least of which is that no official historical or archeological account gives any mention of such a cataclysm, and there has been much doubt cast upon the veracity of the claims of ancient texts describing such doomsday events. There has also been much criticism aimed at the methodologies used and the way the findings made at places like Mohenjo-Daro were analyzed and interpreted, with later studies showing that the bodies were not merely lying in the streets, but had actually merely been displaced from their original graves. Their bodies were also explained as being so well preserved due to the dry and hot climate of the region.

Other findings such as the fused glass and radiation have also been looked at with a skeptical eye, likely caused by rational reasons, and since the buildings themselves are mostly intact it seems odd to presume a nuclear blast should have swept through this site. The ancient texts describing some doomsday scenario have also been called into question, with Brian Dunning from the site Skeptoid perusing the translated version of the Mahabharata for any references to a nuclear war and finding none, leaving him forced to maintain that such tales are fabricated at best. You can read Dunning’s rather thorough deconstruction of the ancient nuclear war theory here.

Despite all of this debunking, the matter is not really settled for some, and many mysteries remain. There are certainly many conspiracy theorists who stand by the notion that such an ancient nuclear war really did happen, that the evidence proves it, and it seems that the debate will keep going on for some time. It is curious to wonder about how, if such an event ever really took place, did this all come to pass? Why would such sophisticated agents of destruction be available so many thousands of years ago and who would have been behind deploying them and for what reasons? We will never know either way, but we can hope that it never happens again.

Vimana - Ancient Nuclear War, Dwarka and Mohenjo-Daro

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }