Did ISS Live-Feed Accidentally Capture
Scott C. Waring, the founder of UFO Sightings Daily, claims he has come across a strange video recorded from the International Space Station's (ISS) NASA Space Cam that shows the moment an unidentified flying object rockets into orbit.
"I was watching the NASA live space station cam when I noticed the camera zooming in on a strange object coming from below the space station. At first I thought it was a capsule or satellite, but its speed increased and after 22 minutes it shot up and into deep space. I believed if it was a capsule it would have gone into low earth orbit then lower to land. But when this object shot upward into deep space, it literally blew my mind. This could be USAF top-secret alien tech fused craft, but I don't think so, the person on the camera seemed dismayed and unprepared for its sudden appearance," Waring said in a blog post.
Waring operates the YouTube channel ET Data Base and judging by his past videos and commentaries - he's a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist.
He told tabloid newspaper Daily Express, that at one point, the NASA live camera suddenly "notices something down there and begins to zoom in on it."
Waring said NASA was the one zooming in on the object in the video, "not me."
He said the ISS crew is as "baffled by it as I am. They don't know what it is or why it is there."
"It doesn't like any kind of object I have seen before. If it is military, then it is a top-secret US air force technology," he said.
One video commenter said, "Reminds me of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2). Capable of Mach 20 (13,000 miles/hr). What fascinates me in this video, though, is that it travels upwards away from Earth's orbit! Amazing video."
While the authenticity of the video remains of a question, the probabilities of an alien spaceship are slim to none, but instead could be a top-secret DARPA hypersonic vehicle.
As we've explained on several occasions, DARPA is actively testing these vehicles that can fly between Mach 5 (3,836 mph) and Mach 10 (7,672 mph).
US Army Refuses to Release Records About Tom DeLonge's UFO Organization
John Greenewald of The Black Vault, a website dedicated to collecting declassified government documents, explained in a recent blog post that the research and reports related to the deal are exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests as per Army Regulation 70-57.
Knowing this, Greenewald instead filed a FOIA Request regarding a copy of all records and emails related to Dr. Joseph Cannon of U.S. Army Futures Command (who is working on the agreement) containing keywords such as "TTSA" and "To The Stars."
The Army got back to Greenewald telling him that 29 documents were found relating to his request, and each page was exempt from his request. The Army stated that it was not going to release any records. Motherboard reached out to Halleaux, the Army’s CCDC spokesperson, who said that any documents related to DeLonge’s organization would be classified as “trade secrets and commercial or financial information [that are] privileged or confidential.”
In other words, the public can’t know what the Army and TTSA is working on because of corporate and commercial secrets, namely intellectual property and finances. This includes related email communications. Halleaux told Motherboard that he personally had no idea what the Army and TTSA were up to, and if he did, he couldn’t talk about it.
TTSA now has roughly four-and-a-half years left on its five-year contract with the Army to research and develop future military technology. Halleaux told Motherboard in 2019 that the government believes the “key technologies or capabilities that [the Army] is investigating with TTSA are certainly on the leading edge of the realm of the possible” and comes at a low cost for the government. Regardless, mounting a complex exploration of the various projects outlined in the CRADA such as “adaptive camouflage,” “beamed energy propulsion,” and “quantum communication” will definitely take some serious collaboration, laboratory set-up, equipment gathering, research and time. It is highly unlikely that any actual technology development has occurred in the last six months.
In a written statement to Motherboard, TTSA’s Chief Operating Officer and former director of Advanced Systems Development at Lockheed Martin's Skunkworks, Steve Justice, stated,
“It is easy to assume that TTSA's government [agreement] automatically ‘locks up’ the results of research. However, it must be noted that the discussions with the government that led to the contract language were completed with the knowledge that one of TTSA's prime objectives is public transparency and commercial applications. Note the contract language that specifically identifies two-way sharing of information. The benefit of the [agreement] is to gain access to otherwise inaccessible government laboratories and technical expertise to expose all attributes of unusual materials and share the results. If unusual attributes are found, TTSA may use that information to create applications for public benefit. We cannot speak for any actions the Army might take after studying the results.”
In a follow up request for comment concerning TTSA’s claims concerning the collection of exotic otherworldly and UFO crash debris and materials, Chief Content Officer Kari DeLonge said that she could not comment on whether the company had their hands on truly alien materials, but added that, “we are steadfast and dedicated to responsible analysis and reporting without speculation.”
While the whole weird relationship between UFOs and the Army’s research and development arm has left many people scratching their heads, the real question is why would advanced space faring extraterrestrials keep crashing and leaving their scrap in the deserts of Nevada and New Mexico? Perhaps they are leaving humanity some technological breadcrumbs or they are just jerks dumping their garbage on our planet; whatever the case, the government isn’t saying much.
23 Years Later, the Phoenix Lights Are Still Unexplained
On March 13th, 1997, hundreds of Arizonans called their local law enforcement and a popular UFO reporting hotline to report a series of strange lights moving over their cities and towns. The Phoenix Lights case remains one of the largest UFO sightings in history, and continues to be an established fixture of contemporary UFO discourse.
At roughly 7:00 pm, people in northwestern Arizona began reporting a large craft passing overhead. According to the National UFO Reporting Center, the first call they received came in at 8:16pm from a retired police officer in Paulden, Arizona, a town about two hours north of Phoenix. He reported seeing a series of reddish lights arranged in a V-formation.
Over the next couple days, calls continued to pour in regarding the sighting of multiple lights in the sky, some arranged in the shape of a boomerang, and others as odd moving lights with tails and “fireballs.” Ron Regehr, a veteran UFO researcher with the Mutual UFO Network and a former engineer with Boeing and Northrop Grumman, told Motherboard in an interview that he was part of the team that helped in developing the Defense Support Program Satellites (DSP), a series of infrared sensing tactical satellites that detect the launch of missiles, space launches, and nuclear detonations.
Regehr explained that he generated regular reports about what the DSP detected every 60 days. According to Regehr, he received a phone call from a colleague that the DSP picked up an object over South Eastern Nevada. It traveled in that direction until its signal became too weak, and it was lost over Tucson, Arizona.
Regehr told Motherboard that the event was “significant in that so many people witnessed the event and the extent authorities went to to denounce their experience. But, so many people were polarized that it took on an almost immediate ‘cult like’ life of its own. 23 years later folks are still talking about it!”
The world did not notice the event until USA Today picked up the story in June of that year. Arizona’s governor even held a press conference where he brought in his chief of staff dressed in an alien costume, telling the press that they were “too serious” about the UFO stuff. The military eventually took responsibility for the strange lights explaining that the two events were a series of jets flying in close formation and some military flares.
On the Trail of UFOs follows podcaster and author Shannon LeGro into the murky and weird UFO world. While it explores several other cases, the series spends its time analyzing the UFO community and the people who claim to have encounters with the anomalous. Breedlove’s previous documentary work includes Terror in the Skies (2019), The Bray Road Beast (2018), and The Mothman of Point Pleasant (2017). Much like his previous work, Breedlove’s focus is on the individuals caught up in the event, and how it altered their lives instead of trying to ascertain whether aliens or monsters are real. As for the Phoenix Lights, Breedlove points out that “it’s a culturally important event because it illustrates how at-risk witnesses were of being ridiculed if they came forward.”
“I’m not sure today that the response to the Phoenix Lights would be as over-the-top as it was in 1997 when you had the governor going on television with a man in an alien costume to poke fun at the very idea of a UFO,” Breedlove said. “Things have changed drastically in 23 years and the Phoenix Lights helps illustrate that fact.”
Scientists Find The First-Ever Animal That Doesn't Need Oxygen to Survive
Some truths about the Universe and our experience in it seem immutable. The sky is up. Gravity sucks. Nothing can travel faster than light. Multicellular life needs oxygen to live. Except we might need to rethink that last one.
Scientists have just discovered that a jellyfish-like parasite doesn't have a mitochondrial genome - the first multicellular organism known to have this absence. That means it doesn't breathe; in fact, it lives its life completely free of oxygen dependency.
This discovery isn't just changing our understanding of how life can work here on Earth - it could also have implications for the search for extraterrestrial life.
Life started to develop the ability to metabolise oxygen - that is, respirate - sometime over 1.45 billion years ago. A larger archaeon engulfed a smaller bacterium, and somehow the bacterium's new home was beneficial to both parties, and the two stayed together.
That symbiotic relationship resulted in the two organisms evolving together, and eventually those bacteria ensconced within became organelles called mitochondria. Every cell in your body except red blood cells has large numbers of mitochondria, and these are essential for the respiration process.
They break down oxygen to produce a molecule called adenosine triphosphate, which multicellular organisms use to power cellular processes.
We know there are adaptations that allow some organisms to thrive in low-oxygen, or hypoxic, conditions. Some single-celled organisms have evolved mitochondria-related organelles for anaerobic metabolism; but the possibility of exclusively anaerobic multicellular organisms has been the subject of some scientific debate.
That is, until a team of researchers led by Dayana Yahalomi of Tel Aviv University in Israel decided to take another look at a common salmon parasite called Henneguya salminicola.
(Stephen Douglas Atkinson)
It's a cnidarian, belonging to the same phylum as corals, jellyfish and anemones. Although the cysts it creates in the fish's flesh are unsightly, the parasites are not harmful, and will live with the salmon for its entire life cycle.
Tucked away inside its host, the tiny cnidarian can survive quite hypoxic conditions. But exactly how it does so is difficult to know without looking at the creature's DNA - so that's what the researchers did.
They used deep sequencing and fluorescence microscopy to conduct a close study of H. salminicola, and found that it has lost its mitochondrial genome. In addition, it's also lost the capacity for aerobic respiration, and almost all of the nuclear genes involved in transcribing and replicating mitochondria.
Like the single-celled organisms, it had evolved mitochondria-related organelles, but these are unusual too - they have folds in the inner membrane not usually seen.
The same sequencing and microscopic methods in a closely related cnidarian fish parasite, Myxobolus squamalis, was used as a control, and clearly showed a mitochondrial genome.
These results show that here, at last, is a multicellular organism that doesn't need oxygen to survive.
Exactly how it survives is still something of a mystery. It could be leeching adenosine triphosphate from its host, but that's yet to be determined.
But the loss is pretty consistent with an overall trend in these creatures - one of genetic simplification. Over many, many years, they have basically devolved from a free-living jellyfish ancestor into the much more simple parasite we see today.
(Stephen Douglas Atkinson)
They've lost most of the original jellyfish genome, but retaining - oddly - a complex structure resembling jellyfish stinging cells. They don't use these to sting, but to cling to their hosts: an evolutionary adaptation from the free-living jellyfish's needs to the parasite's. You can see them in the image above - they're the things that look like eyes.
The discovery could help fisheries adapt their strategies for dealing with the parasite; although it's harmless to humans, no one wants to buy salmon riddled with tiny weird jellyfish.
But it's also a heck of a discovery for helping us to understand how life works.
"Our discovery confirms that adaptation to an anaerobic environment is not unique to single-celled eukaryotes, but has also evolved in a multicellular, parasitic animal," the researchers wrote in their paper.
"Hence, H. salminicola provides an opportunity for understanding the evolutionary transition from an aerobic to an exclusive anaerobic metabolism."
The research has been published in PNAS.
Stunning rainbow cloud caught on video: What to know about the cloud iridescence meteorological phenomenon
Bitter cold, snow forecast for entire eastern US over next several days
What you’re seeing, essentially, is part of a corona -- when a rainbow-like halo engulfs the sun or the moon -- and the bands and colors change as the cloud evolves.
Iridescence is most often seen close to the sun.
It's usually spotted when part of a cloud is forming because that's when all of the water droplets have a similar history and similar size.
Police car films something strange on the road in Rabun County, Georgia. What is it?.png)
In Rabun Conty, Georgia, residents have been thrown into a fright after a bizarre story emerged regarding cops being scared at a road location by what has been described as a “something strange”.
That and more strange events caught on tape. Real or fake?
Hidden island the size of Windsor Castle is uncovered in Antarctica after melting glaciers caused by record high temperatures reveal its rocky shore
A once-hidden island has been uncovered in Antarctica after melting glaciers caused by record high temperatures revealed its rocky shore to passing scientists.
A group of polar researchers from the Thwaites Offshore Research (THOR) project spotted the island as their ship passed through Pine Island Bay in Antarctica.
The island has been named Sif after the Norse goddess of fertility and family, who was also the wife of the warrior god Thor, by the THOR glacier research team.
Researchers on board the Nathaniel B. Palmer ship are studying the Thwaites glacier in Pine Island bay, one of the fastest-retreating glaciers in Antarctica.
The team don't know how long the 634,400 sq ft island has been exposed, but say it was likely revealed by higher than usual temperatures caused by climate change.
Scroll down for video
The new island has been named Sif by researchers who say it was uncovered due to warming temperatures causing ice sheets to melt
'After being the first visitors, we can now confirm that Sif Island is made of granite and that it is covered by remnant ice shelf, and a few seals,' said Julia Smith Wellner from the THOR expedition team
It is big enough for satellites to spot from space but the never-before-seen island has previously been hidden under thick layers of ice, and was only revealed after parts of the glacier broke off and melted.
Cartographers for the British Antarctic Survey estimate the island, made of granite, is about 1,240ft across by 520ft wide - roughly 634,400 sq ft or about the same size as Windsor Castle.
Researchers hope to be able to reveal more about the composition of the island and how it came to be uncovered when their journey finishes at the end of March.
Ships rarely travel as far south as the Palmer so the crew are probably the first to discover the island and may be the first humans to step foot on its rocky shore.
'After being the first visitors, we can now confirm that Sif Island is made of granite and that it is covered by remnant ice shelf, and a few seals,' said Julia Smith Wellner from the THOR expedition team.
Cartographers for the British Antarctic Survey estimate the island, made of granite, is about 1,240ft across by 520ft wide - roughly 634,400 sq ft or about the same size as Windsor Castle
This satellite image shows Sif Island and a series of icebergs - Sif is the large white block in the bottom middle of the image
They took samples from the island in the hope of getting a clearer picture of how the frozen continent is shifting, but won't know for sure until they get to a lab in March.
'This one island could hold a lot of clues,' University of Virginia in Charlottesville glacial geologist Lauren Simkins told Nature News.
As glaciers retreat they release pressure on the continent allowing the ground underneath the ice to rise up - a process called rapid rebound.
This sometimes stabilises the ice by anchoring it in place but can also accelerate the break up of the glacier by creating more cracks.
'Rapid rebound could increase stress on the remaining ice sheet, causing it to break apart more quickly', she said.
'But a rising continental shelf could also anchor glaciers, increasing their stability and slowing their march to the sea.'
When they first spotted the new island, there was a commotion on board as everyone rushed to see the rocky land amongst miles of water and ice.
'I think I see rocks,' shouted an officer aboard the ship.
They looked at charts and maps of the area and realised it was a 'brand new island' likely 'never seen before'.
'There was a commotion as everyone on board rushed to see the rocky, ice-covered outcrop and suggest potential names.
'But the hubbub quickly gave way to excitement about the scientific implications of the find,' says Wellner, a marine geologist at the University of Houston in Texas.
Thwaites Glacier is in West Antarctica and is sometimes called the Doomsday Glacier due to its potential impact on global sea levels
Climate scientist Peter Neff examined the new images and satellite data to try and determine how long it has been uncovered for.
He said it looks like 'Sif Island' has been slowly revealed since about 2010.
The THOR project is an international mission tasked with studying the stability of the massive Thwaites glacier in Pine Island Bay, Western Antarctica.
Researchers say the melting ice on the new rock will help them better determine how quickly changes are happening and what this means for the glacier.
Ships rarely travel as far south as the Palmer so the crew are likely the first to discover the island and may be the first humans to step foot on its rocky shore
'New islands emerging as ice sheets retreat is not particularly surprising', Paul Cutler, a programme director in glaciology at the US National Science Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia told Nature News.
'New islands have appeared over the past few years in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland' but this is 'an exciting opportunity to piece together the geological history of a vastly under-studied region of Earth'.
The new discovery comes as NASA recorded a record high temperature for the continent - at 64 degrees Fahrenheit with melted ice spotted from space.
This is also not the first island in Antarctica to be effected by rising temperatures.
The island is big enough for satellites to spot from space but the never before seen island has previously been hidden under thick layers of ice
Satellite images last week revealed 20 per cent of snow on Eagle Island melted in just 10 days due to the extreme temperatures.
The warm spell began on February 5 and ran through to February 13, peaking on February 6, with temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula reaching 64.9°F (18.3°C).
'I haven’t seen melt ponds develop this quickly in Antarctica,' said glaciologist Mauri Pelto of Nichols College in Massachusetts.
'You see these kinds of melt events in Alaska and Greenland, but not usually in Antarctica.'
Sometimes called the Doomsday Glacier due to the potential impact its collapse could have on sea levels, Thwaites is unusually broad and fast.
Already, Thwaites accounts for about four per cent of global sea-level rise as warming waters cause it to melt from the underside.
Researchers have long held concerns that a tipping point in the stability at its foundations could result in a run-away collapse of the glacier.
There are multiple teams studying the glacier at the moment to determine the risk it poses to global sea levels and the newly uncovered island will feed into that work.
KLIMAATVERANDERING ONTHULT GLOEDNIEUW EILAND VOOR DE KUST VAN ANTARCTICA
Het ons tot voor kort onbekende eiland was altijd bedekt met een dikke laag ijs, die door de opwarming van het gebied nu grotendeels is verdwenen.
Het eiland bevindt zich in de Pine Island-baai, die weer onderdeel uitmaakt van de Amundsenzee, gelegen voor de kust van West-Antarctica. In deze baai komen onder meer de beruchte Pine Island- en Thwaites-gletsjer uit. Beide gletsjers zijn de laatste tijd vaak in het nieuws door de snelle veranderingen die ze ondergaan. Zo laat de Pine Island-gletsjer regelmatig grote brokken ijs los en is de grote, snel smeltende Thwaites-gletsjer momenteel reeds verantwoordelijk voor zo’n 4% van de wereldwijde zeespiegelstijging.
International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration
Wetenschappers houden de laatstgenoemde gletsjer – niet in de laatste plaats omdat deze in zijn eentje een zeespiegelstijging van zo’n 65 centimeter kan veroorzaken – nauwlettend in de gaten. En er werd zelfs een expeditie opgezet die helemaal om deze gletsjer en zijn omgeving draait. De International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration doet momenteel ter plekke onderzoek naar de stabiliteit van de gletsjer en de bijdrage die deze gletsjer en omgeving kan leveren aan de wereldwijde zeespiegel. Zo werden er eind vorig en begin van dit jaar diepe gaten in de gletsjer geboord, wat leidde tot de ontdekking van warm water dat het ijs van onderaf aantast en zo waarschijnlijk bijdraagt aan de versnelde smelt van de gletsjer die zich qua oppervlakte grofweg kan meten met Groot-Brittannië.
Nieuw eiland
Wetenschappers die aan deze belangrijke onderzoeksexpeditie deelnemen, hadden – afgaand op wat we van de Thwaites-gletsjer weten – ongetwijfeld wel verwacht getuige te zijn van grote en snelle veranderingen in het gebied. Maar dat ze er op een gloednieuw eiland zouden stuiten..dat had niemand zien aankomen.
Sif
De onderzoekers hebben het eiland ‘Sif-eiland’ gedoopt. “Ons project (dat onder de vlag van de International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration valt, red.) draagt de naam THwaites Offshore Research, of kortweg Thor,” vertelt onderzoeker Julia Wellner, vanuit Antarctica aan Scientias.nl. “Thor is een Noorse God en zijn vrouw Sif is de godin van de aarde. Haar naam leek goed te passen bij een stukje land dat we tijdens ons project hebben ontdekt.” Wellner is voornemens om de naam – na terugkeer in de bewoonde wereld – officieel in te dienen en hoopt dat deze door instanties bevoegd om het eiland een naam te geven, wordt omarmd. “Ik hoop dat Sif blijft hangen.”
Op Sif
Natuurlijk hebben de onderzoekers kort na de ontdekking van het eiland hun werk even neergelegd om het eilandje te bezoeken. Daarmee zijn ze niet alleen de ontdekkers van het eiland, maar waarschijnlijk ook de eerste mensen die het eiland hebben bezocht. “Het eiland was in het verleden bedekt door een ijsplaat: gletsjerijs dat richting de oceaan is gestroomd en op het water is gaan drijven,” zo vertelt Wellner. “Het eiland lag altijd al boven de zeespiegel, maar we hebben het nooit gezien, omdat het onder het ijs lag. De ijsplaat heeft zich in de laatste jaren echter teruggetrokken, waardoor het eiland bloot is komen te liggen.”
Opwarming
Onderzoek ter plaatse wijst uit dat het eiland nu slechts nog wat restjes van die ijsplaat herbergt. Het is allemaal zeer waarschijnlijk te herleiden naar de opwarming van de aarde, aldus Wellner. “De Thwaites-gletsjer is de snelst veranderende ijsmassa op West-Antarctica en de reden dat we hier zijn. Dus we wisten al dat het ijs zich hier terugtrekt. Dat is dan ook geen verrassing. Maar het eiland is dat wel.”
Julia Smith Wellner@houston_wellnerAfter being the first visitors, we can now confirm that Sif Island is made of granite and that it is covered by remnant ice shelf, and a few seals. Photos by CD Hillenbrand (BAS) and Laura Taylor (UH). @glacierthwaites @glacieroffshore @GAViglione #nbp2002 @BAS_News @UHEAS
Waardevol
En de ontdekking van het eiland kan wel eens heel waardevol blijken te zijn voor de missie van Wellner en collega’s. Ze hebben namelijk goede hoop dat het eiland meer kan vertellen over hoe het gebied er in het verleden uitzag en door de tijd heen veranderd is. Daarom hebben ze op het eiland onder meer al enkele stenen verzameld die later uitgebreid geanalyseerd kunnen worden. “Eén van de belangrijkste dingen die we zullen gaan doen, is het dateren van de periode waarin de gesteenten blootlagen. We willen achterhalen of ze in de laatste 100 of 1000 of 10.000 jaren ook al eens ijsvrij zijn geweest en zo meer te weten komen over hoe het ijs zich in het verleden heeft gedragen.”
Het komt niet elke dag voor dat onderzoekers een nieuw eiland ontdekken. Maar Wellner sluit niet uit dat het in de toekomst nog wel vaker gebeurt. “Het is zeker mogelijk dat er doordat het ijs zich steeds sneller terugtrekt, meer nieuwe eilanden worden ontdekt.”
Bronmateriaal:
Interview met Julia WellnerDIT LIJKT EEN ONDERGRONDSE TUNNEL OP MARS TE ZIJN - EN WIE WEET WAT ER BINNEN TE VINDEN IS
Het gaat mogelijk om een lavatunnel waarin het in een grijs verleden goed toeven was voor eventueel Martiaans leven.
Wie zijn ogen vluchtig over de door HiRISE – een instrument aan boord van de Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter – gemaakte foto laat glijden, ziet misschien enkel een zwarte vlek. Maar in werkelijkheid is het een diepe put, zo blijkt uit een vervolgopname, eveneens gemaakt door HiRISE. En mogelijk zelfs de ingang tot een tunnel die zich wellicht meters of zelfs kilometers onder het oppervlak van Mars uitstrekt.
Afbeelding: NASA / JPL / UArizona.
Ontstaan
“We weten niet precies hoe de put is ontstaan,” vertelt onderzoeker Rosse Beyer, verbonden aan het NASA Ames Research Center. “Maar we denken dat deze op dezelfde manier ontstaan is als de putten die we in lavatunnels zien in vulkanische gebieden op aarde, zoals op Hawaii.” De tunnels waar Beyer naar verwijst, ontstaan tijdens erupties, waarbij lava zich ondergronds een weg baant en het oppervlak van de lavastroom afkoelt en als het ware een korst vormt, waaronder het warme, vloeibare lava kan blijven stromen. “Wanneer de vulkanische activiteit tot een einde komt, lopen deze grote tunnels leeg. Naarmate de tijd vordert, kan natuurlijke erosie ervoor zorgen dat een deel van de tunnel dat zich dicht bij het oppervlak bevindt, instort. Zo’n gat in het dak van de tunnel wordt ook wel een ‘skylight‘ genoemd. Van bovenaf gezien lijkt het een diepe put, tot je erin gaat en ziet dat een tunnel zich vanuit deze put in twee richtingen uitstrekt.”
Op de beelden die HiRISE heeft gemaakt, is niet goed te zien of we hier met zo’n ‘skylight‘ in een lavatunnel te maken hebben. In de wanden van de put die HiRISE in beeld heeft gebracht, zijn geen openingen te vinden. Maar wellicht bevinden die zich in de wanden die HIRISE niet kan zien. Beyer acht het in ieder geval heel aannemelijk dat we bij afdaling in deze put vertakkingen vinden die zich verder onder het oppervlak van Mars uitstrekken. “De put lijkt heel diep en afgaand op het feit dat deze zich bevindt in een gebied dat ooit vulkanisch actief was, denken we dat het wel om een ‘skylight‘ in een lavatunnel gaat.”
Afmetingen
De put is ovaalvormig en zo’n 180 bij 114 meter groot. Van de diepte kan Beyer in dit stadium slechts een voorzichtige inschatting maken. “We weten waar de zon zich bevond (toen deze foto’s gemaakt werden, red.) en aangezien het zonlicht de bodem van de put niet raakt, moet deze zeker 100 meter diep zijn.”
Leven in een lavatunnel
Voor onderzoekers zijn deze diepe putten en tunnels – waarvan er al meerdere op Mars, maar ook op de maan zijn aangetroffen – heel interessant. “Meer te weten komen over grotten op Mars en de maan is vanuit een geologisch standpunt heel nuttig, zeker als je beter wilt begrijpen hoe deze werelden door de tijd heen veranderd zijn.” Daarnaast worden de grotten ook wel gezien als een geschikte leefplek voor toekomstige Mars- en maankolonisten. “Waar aardse kolonisten op bijvoorbeeld Mars onder meer mee te maken krijgen, zijn extreem lage temperaturen en het feit dat Mars geen sterk magnetisch veld of een dikke atmosfeer heeft. De combinatie van de aardatmosfeer en het aardmagnetisch veld beschermt ons tegen zonnevlammen en kosmische straling, maar Mars heeft dat dus niet. Als je een leefgebied in een grot zou kunnen creëren, zou de temperatuur wat stabieler zijn; net zoals grotten op aarde een constante temperatuur hebben, zouden ook grotten op Mars dat hebben (ze zijn wel wat kouder dan op aarde, maar de temperatuur schommelt in ieder geval niet enorm). Verder zou ondergrondse huisvesting ook extra bescherming bieden tegen zonnevlammen en kosmische straling.”
Of we toekomstige Marskolonisten in de toekomst in deze lavatunnels aan gaan treffen, is – ondanks de ogenschijnlijke voordelen van een leven ondergronds – echter nog niet zeker. “Eén van de redenen dat we op aarde niet in grotten wonen, is het feit dat het wat onhandig is. En datzelfde zullen we op Mars zien; toegang krijgen tot deze lavatunnels kan wel eens lastig zijn en mogelijk bevinden ze zich ook niet in gebieden waar Marskolonisten willen zijn.”
Als het leven in deze lavatunnels – even afgezien van hun toegankelijkheid – voor ons vrij behaaglijk is, kan het dat natuurlijk ook zijn voor andere, buitenaardse levensvormen. En dat is nóg een reden om deze putten en tunnels eens van dichtbij te bekijken. “Het kunnen goede plekken zijn om te zoeken naar leven,” bevestigt Beyer. “We weten dat grotten op aarde vaak ook florerende ecosystemen kennen.” Maar hij wil daar wel een belangrijke kanttekening bij plaatsen. “Op aarde zien we vrijwel overal waar we kijken, leven en op Mars niet.” Met dat in het achterhoofd acht Beyer het niet zo heel waarschijnlijk dat we in deze grotten sporen van levende Martianen aan gaan treffen. “Misschien is het wel waarschijnlijker dat we er bewijs vinden van vergaan Martiaans leven, uit een tijdperk waarin de omstandigheden voor leven wat gunstiger waren.” Maar ook dat zou natuurlijk wereldnieuws zijn.
Time Travel Technology is Real and We Can See The Future Now
Researchers find 139 new minor planets beyond Neptune; will this help in tracking down the mysterious Planet Nine?
The team of researchers, led by graduate student Pedro Bernardinelli and professors Gary Bernstein and Masao Sako, believe that the latest findings could aid future searches for the hypothetical Planet Nine and other undiscovered planets as the study describes a new approach to finding similar objects.
Usage of Dark Energy Survey
The researchers used the data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), which completed six years of data collection in January, to discover the TNOs. However as DES was designed to study galaxies and supernovas, the researchers had to develop a new way to track the movement. The experts said that the dedicated TNO surveys take measurements as frequently as every hour or two, which allow researchers to more easily track their movements.
Pedro Bernardinelli said: "Dedicated TNO surveys have a way of seeing the object move, and it's easy to track them down. One of the key things we did in this paper was figure out a way to recover those movements."
Chances of finding 500 new TNOs
After several months of method-development and analysis, the researchers found 316 TNOs, including 245 discoveries made by DES and 139 new objects that were not previously published. Pluto, the best-known TNO, is 40 times farther away from the sun than the Earth is, and the TNOs found using the DES data range from 30 to 90 times the Earth's distance from the sun. Some of these objects are on extremely long-distance orbits that will carry them far beyond Pluto.
The researchers said that there are chances of finding new TNOs, possibly as many as 500, based on the data estimates, in the near future.
300 New Minor Planets Found Beyond Neptune in Our Solar System, Hunt for Planet X Continues
This updated catalog of trans-Neptunian objects and the methods used to find them could aid in future searches for undiscovered planets in the far reaches of the solar system.
Using data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), researchers have found more than 300 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), minor planets located in the far reaches of the solar system, including more than 100 new discoveries. Published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, the study also describes a new approach for finding similar types of objects and could aid future searches for the hypothetical Planet Nine and other undiscovered planets. The work was led by graduate student Pedro Bernardinelli and professors Gary Bernstein and Masao Sako.
The goal of DES, which completed six years of data collection in January, is to understand the nature of dark energy by collecting high-precision images of the southern sky. While DES wasn’t specifically designed with TNOs in mind, its breadth and depth of coverage made it particularly adept at finding new objects beyond Neptune. “The number of TNOs you can find depends on how much of the sky you look at and what’s the faintest thing you can find,” says Bernstein.
Because DES was designed to study galaxies and supernovas, the researchers had to develop a new way to track movement. Dedicated TNO surveys take measurements as frequently as every hour or two, which allows researchers to more easily track their movements. “Dedicated TNO surveys have a way of seeing the object move, and it’s easy to track them down,” says Bernardinelli. “One of the key things we did in this paper was figure out a way to recover those movements.”
Using the first four years of DES data, Bernardinelli started with a dataset of 7 billion “dots,” all of the possible objects detected by the software that were above the image’s background levels. He then removed any objects that were present on multiple nights—things like stars, galaxies, and supernova—to build a “transient” list of 22 million objects before commencing a massive game of “connect the dots,” looking for nearby pairs or triplets of detected objects to help determine where the object would appear on subsequent nights.
With the 7 billion dots whittled down to a list of around 400 candidates that were seen over at least six nights of observation, the researchers then had to verify their results. “We have this list of candidates, and then we have to make sure that our candidates are actually real things,” Bernardinelli says.
To filter their list of candidates down to actual TNOs, the researchers went back to the original dataset to see if they could find more images of the object in question. “Say we found something on six different nights,” Bernstein says. “For TNOs that are there, we actually pointed at them for 25 different nights. That means there’s images where that object should be, but it didn’t make it through the first step of being called a dot.”
Bernardinelli developed a way to stack multiple images to create a sharper view, which helped confirm whether a detected object was a real TNO. They also verified that their method was able to spot known TNOs in the areas of the sky being studied and that they were able to spot fake objects that were injected into the analysis. “The most difficult part was trying to make sure that we were finding what we were supposed to find,” says Bernardinelli.
After many months of method-development and analysis, the researchers found 316 TNOs, including 245 discoveries made by DES and 139 new objects that were not previously published. With only 3,000 objects currently known, this DES catalog represents 10% of all known TNOs. Pluto, the best-known TNO, is 40 times farther away from the sun than Earth is, and the TNOs found using the DES data range from 30 to 90 times Earth’s distance from the sun. Some of these objects are on extremely long-distance orbits that will carry them far beyond Pluto.
Now that DES is complete, the researchers are rerunning their analysis on the entire DES dataset, this time with a lower threshold for object detection at the first filtering stage. This means that there’s an even greater potential for finding new TNOs, possibly as many as 500, based on the researchers’ estimates, in the near future.
The method developed by Bernardinelli can also be used to search for TNOs in upcoming astronomy surveys, including the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory. This observatory will survey the entire southern sky and will be able to detect even fainter and more distant objects than DES. “Many of the programs we’ve developed can be easily applied to any other large datasets, such as what the Rubin Observatory will produce,” says Bernardinelli.
This catalog of TNOs will also be a useful scientific tool for research about the solar system. Because DES collects a wide spectrum of data on each detected object, researchers can attempt to figure out where the TNO originated from, since objects that form more closely to the Sun have are expected to have different colors than those that originated in more distant and colder locations. And, by studying the orbits of these objects, researchers might be one step closer to finding Planet Nine, a hypothesized Neptune-sized planet that’s thought to exist beyond Pluto.
“There are lots of ideas about giant planets that used to be in the solar system and aren’t there anymore, or planets that are far away and massive but too faint for us to have noticed yet,” says Bernstein. “Making the catalog is the fun discovery part. Then when you create this resource; you can compare what you did find to what somebody’s theory said you should find.”
Gary Bernstein is the Reese W. Flower Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics in the Department of Physics & Astronomy in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
Masao Sako is an associate professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
Pedro Bernardinelli is a graduate student in the Department of Physics & Astronomy in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Dark Energy Survey is supported by funding from the United States Department of Energy Office of Science; the National Science Foundation; funding agencies in the United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, Germany, and Switzerland; and the participating institutions. A complete list of funding organizations and collaborating institutions is at The Dark Energy Survey website.
Other Penn researchers and graduates involved in this study are Matthew Belyakov, Dillon Brout, Tongtian Liu, Jennifer Locke, William Saunders, Lakshay Sharma, and Aditya Inada Somasundaram. The preprint version of this research article is available on ArXiv.
This research was supported by National Science Foundation grants AST-1515804 and AST-1615555 and Department of Energy grant DE-SC0007901.
Contacts and sources:
Publication:
Trans-Neptunian Objects Found in the First Four Years of the Dark Energy Survey. Pedro H. Bernardinelli, Gary M. Bernstein, Masao Sako, Tongtian Liu, William R. Saunders, Tali Khain, Hsing Wen Lin, David W. Gerdes, Dillon Brout, Fred C. Adams, Matthew Belyakov, Aditya Inada Somasundaram, Lakshay Sharma, Jennifer Locke, Kyle Franson, Juliette C. Becker, Kevin Napier, Larissa Markwardt, James Annis, T. M. C. Abbott, S. Avila, D. Brooks, D. L. Burke, A. Carnero Rosell, M. Carrasco Kind, F. J. Castander, L. N. da Costa, J. De Vicente, S. Desai, H. T. Diehl, P. Doel, S. Everett, B. Flaugher, J. García-Bellido, D. Gruen, R. A. Gruendl, J. Gschwend, G. Gutierrez, D. L. Hollowood, D. J. James, M. W. G. Johnson, M. D. Johnson, E. Krause, N. Kuropatkin, M. A. G. Maia, M. March, R. Miquel, F. Paz-Chinchón, A. A. Plazas, A. K. Romer, E. S. Rykoff, C. Sánchez, E. Sanchez, V. Scarpine, S. Serrano, I. Sevilla-Noarbe, M. Smith, F. Sobreira, E. Suchyta, M. E. C. Swanson, G. Tarle, A. R. Walker, W. Wester, Y. Zhang. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 2020; 247 (1): 32 DOI: 10.3847/1538-4365/ab6bd8
Shape shifting Farallon Islands lighthouse, San Francisco turns into statue of Christ the Redeemer, Brazil
Why Would the Government Lie About Aliens?
If you think the government has more information about UFOs than it’s letting on, you’re not alone. In fact, you’re in the majority. A 2019 Gallup poll revealed 68 percent of people feel that way. Thirty-three percent of all respondents said that they believe UFOs were built by aliens from outer space.
The Venn diagram center of those two groups clings to one of the most enduring conspiracy theories: The Government (it’s always with a capital G for believers) is squirreling away information about alien spacecraft. This idea appears, and has for years, on internet forums, social media, TV shows, memes, movies, and, of course, fiction, like Max Barry’s “It Came From Cruden Farm.”
Almost as interesting as any government secret is why it’s kept secret. And for alien UFOs, the conspiratorial answers span a whole spectrum: They’d cause too much peace, make too much chaos, give too many people too much technology, or, maybe—as is the case in Barry’s story—just be a real disappointment. Because the why here has so many potential answers, believers can choose the one that makes most sense to them or tick off “all of the above.”
Even powerful politicians, it turns out, think there may be more to the saucer story than meets the public eye. That’s why, when presidents become presidents, sometimes they, too, take an interest in the extraterrestrial. On Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2014, for instance, Bill Clinton revealed that during his time in office, he’d asked his people to look into both the Area 51 and Roswell files. “If you saw that there were aliens there, would you tell us?” Kimmel asked.
“Yeah,” said Clinton. (But if you’re inclined to believe in a cover-up, isn’t this affirmative just further evidence of disinformation?)
The president in Max Barry’s story similarly uses his power to seek out ufological secrets—immediately after his inauguration. The Air Force chief of staff, to the president’s surprise but perhaps not the reader’s, confesses that, yes, there is a specimen from space. It is, just as last year’s would-be raiders suspected, tucked away inside Area 51, a notoriously secretive Air Force installation in Nevada, whose existence wasn’t officially acknowledged till 2013 (although, you know, we knew).
It makes a certain sense that in this story, and in popular consciousness, the government holds these celestial secrets. After all, it alone meets the classic criteria of guilt: Means. Motive. Opportunity. Those elements make the conspiratorial conviction feel juuuust plausible enough. And if a hypothetical narrative is juuuust plausible enough, adherents have juuuust enough ground to remain standing on it—which is part of why this conspiracy theory has long, sturdy legs.
First of all, the government has the means to pull off an alien cover-up. Unlike individual humans or companies attempting to enforce dubious nondisclosure agreements, the military and intelligence communities have the authority to classify information, making it an actual crime to spill the secrets. This confidential information, sequestered in a limited number of brains, can also be geographically sequestered: Military installations take up millions and millions of acres across the U.S. That’s a lot of land to hide behind.
Area 51 is the most famous home of aliens-on-Earth conspiracies. Together, this base and the “secret squirrel” spots it abuts span 2.9 million acres, which is nearly twice the size of Delaware. Guards can put a halt to curious civilians’ trespassing by using “deadly force,” also known as “killing them.” The public doesn’t know what goes on inside Area 51 today, and we probably won’t for decades to come. To think that there must be something truly incredible inside—that has the mouthfeel of truth.
The government is also generally better at cover-ups than your average Fortune 500 company or UFO-hunting individual. Take the real-world 1947 events in Roswell: After a rancher found crash debris on his land, the military first said it came from a flying saucer, then reversed course and called it a weather balloon. That wasn’t true, and officials knew it: The wreckage was from a classified project called Mogul, a high-altitude nuclear-test detector. The government wasn’t covering up aliens, but it did prove itself able to keep the truth hidden for decades.
Information stays shhh within government if it would damage national security. But some scientists have suggested that contact with ETs would actually increase the likelihood of peace on Earth: The existence of extraterrestrials could bring us all together as Earthlings—united not by nationality but by planetarity. We could connect with the cosmos, look at it with a new sort of wonder, and a gratitude that we are not—that none of us are—alone. Plus, whether they’re beaming blueprints through space or propelling their bodies through it, the others certainly have better tech than we do. They could teach us how they built warp drives, or developed self-contained life-support systems, or reined in their social media giants. And if they didn’t teach us, we could strip their spaceship to pieces, figure out how it worked, and reverse-engineer our own—kind of like pre-engineer children deconstruct the electronics in their houses for fun. It could be a renaissance, a high-tech respite from international conflict.
That’s a nice idea. But researchers don’t agree on how people would react to such a revelation. More importantly, no one really has any idea what would happen with the body politic, just as you can guess at how you’d behave if you met Bigfoot, but you don’t actually know. And besides, maybe it’s not in a government’s best interest to unite the people: After all, wars always balloon someone’s bank accounts, and a truly global society could topple country-level leaders. You could see a rationale behind keeping the cosmic visits quiet even if they’d ultimately be good for the little guy.
In the universe of Barry’s story, federal studies suggested that an alien visit wouldn’t swing positive or neutral but ultranegative. Researchers predict conflicts between the great powers, more spying, more assassinations, the dissolution of moderate religion, the blowup of radicalism, immigration issues, etc. These hypothetical woes have the same tenor as the government’s true fears about UFOs, at least in the past, according to a document called the Robertson Panel report. In 1953, the CIA sponsored a small group of scientists and military personnel to evaluate the national security risks UFOs did or did not pose and what to do about it. “The group believed that the Soviets could use UFO reports to touch off mass hysteria and panic in the United States,” National Reconnaissance Office Historian Gerald Haines wrote of the report. Governments don’t, in general, want any sort of hysteria or panic within their borders. Ergo, maybe they’d hide, cover up, lie about the potential source of that potential panic. Especially if—as in movies like War of the Worlds, Independence Day, and The Day the Earth Stood Still—the extraterrestrial visitors put forth an apocalyptic threat, rather than a peaceful “How do you do, cosmic cousins?”
Some, though, believe the government is hiding the greatest discovery in human history because its people want to hang on to those spoils. Maybe military engineers are reverse-engineering the saucer (or whatever) in secret. That would keep the technology hidden from foreign nations, giving the U.S. an unbeatable advantage.
Defensive or offensive alien innovation isn’t the only stuff conspiracists think the government might keep from us. Go on the right forums, or WikiLeaks databases, and you can find the idea that ETs have shown us how to get virtually free energy—by harnessing “zero-point energy,” or basically pulling power out of the ether. A government might hide that so it can keep its people poor and dependent, keep big companies in business, and keep the ultimate source of power (literal and figurative) for itself.
In Barry’s story, the motivation for secrecy overturns these tropes, which position the alien as competent and powerful. Instead, Barry’s ET, which the president calls a “sentient sofa,” is the extraplanetary version of an alt-right troll that failed to launch from its parents’ basement. Upon learning this, the president decides to keep the talking couch locked in Area 51. Regardless of the motive, though, the outcome is the same: A high-level politician chooses, as Barry’s does, to keep keeping secrets. “Bury it,” he says.
But if the government says it doesn’t have aliens, believers can say that’s just a lie, further proof of a cover-up. And let’s say 2 million people do one day raid Area 51, and they fail to find anything. Maybe they just didn’t see the secret basement door whose seams are so tight they don’t show up at all. Maybe the Air Force moved the sentient sofa as soon as rumors of a raid spun up. And if a president, like the one in Barry’s story, doesn’t speak of the alien secrets, maybe he just found the truth—and decided it didn’t deserve to be out there.
Ex-government adviser claims UFO cover-up as RAF prepare to release secret files
The Royal Air Force is set to declassify a cache of UFO sighting files this spring into the public domain – as the government faces calls for greater transparency
The Royal Air Force is set to declassify a cache of UFO sighting files this spring into the public domain
(Image: Getty Images/Science Photo Libra)
The government is covering up the truth about UFO sightings, a leading former Ministry of Defence expert has claimed.
The Royal Air Force is set to declassify a cache of UFO sighting files this spring into the public domain.
The UK Government's UFO unit closed in 2009 after concluding that in more than 50 years they had never received any hard evidence of a potential extraterrestrial threat.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “It had been assessed that it would be better to publish these records, rather than continue sending documents to the National Archives, and so they are looking to put them onto a dedicated gov.uk web page.”
Ahead of the release, Nick Pope – who investigated UFOs for the MoD – has said the government should show greater transparency.
He said: “I'm not surprised there's such a high level of belief in a government cover-up. I know from first-hand experience that the authorities haven't always been as forthcoming as they might have been about their level of interest in UFOs.
“This survey shows high levels of interest and belief in UFOs and extra-terrestrial life.
"I think it reflects a number of recent revelations, including the declassified videos of US Navy jets chasing UFOs, and the news that the UK government is about to release more of its UFO files.”
Pope is now calling on governments to take the matter seriously and enact contingency plans in the event of an alien invasion.
He added: “There needs to be a government plan for first contact with extraterrestrials - irrespective of whether they turn out to be hostile or friendly.
There needs to be a government plan for first contact with extra-terrestrials a leading UFO expert says
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
"Even if you think it's unlikely, it's common sense to have a plan for something when the consequences would be so impactful.”
It comes as a poll of 2,000 people found 50% believe in aliens and there is a real risk to world order from a War of the Worlds style extraterrestrial attack.
Those people also believe an attack within the next 50 years is possible.
The study also found nearly three quarters believe that worldwide governments are hiding information, fearing they know more about extraterrestrial life than they're letting on.
More than two-thirds reckon authorities should have a plan for first contact with other life forms.
Of the alien believers surveyed, 71 % think Earth has already been visited at some point by aliens, suspecting it happened thousands of years ago – but 29% imagine they’re yet to make their first landing.
The Filming of a UFO Shooting a Beam at an Airborne Missile As Recounted By Former Lt. Robert Jacobs | VIDEO
| ... Jacobs’ account has been entirely corroborated by another officer, retired Major (later Dr.) Florenze J. Mansmann, who carefully studied the Top Secret film at Vandenberg AFB, California prior to its confiscation by CIA agents. Mansmann said that his frame-by-frame analysis of the footage, using a magnifier, revealed that the UFO—which appeared to the unaided eye as small, white dot—was actually a domed, disc-shaped craft that had pivoted on is vertical axis before emitting each beam of light. |
 8-23-11 |
Aliens exist and Earth will be hit in Independence Day-style attack, say Brits
More than two thirds of believers say the Government must put a plan in place to deal with a sudden ET spaceship, a poll has revealed
Ruth McKee
Half of us believe that aliens exist and that Earth will face an Independence Day-style attack in the next 50 years
(Image: © 2017 Yiu Yu Hoi)
Half of us believe that aliens exist and that Earth will face an Independence Day-style attack in the next 50 years.
More than two thirds of believers say the Government must put a plan in place to deal with a sudden ET spaceship invasion, a poll reveals.
And worringly, 71% of them say this planet is already secretly hosting aliens, who may have first touched down on Earth thousands of years ago.
UFO expert Nick Pope said: “These fascinating findings say as much about distrust of government denials on UFOs as they do about people’s belief in extra-terrestrial visitation.
“This new survey supports my view that there needs to be a Government plan for first contact with extra-terrestrials, irrespective of whether they turn out to be hostile or friendly.
“Even if you think it’s unlikely, it’s common sense to have a plan for something when the consequences would be so impactful.”
Londoners, the Welsh and those in the South West of England were the biggest believers in extra-terrestrial life.
New sci-fi series War of the Worlds, that inspired the new study, airs on FOX at 9pm on Thursdays.
UFO investigator Nick added: “This intriguing new survey shows high levels of interest and belief in UFOs and extra-terrestrial life.
“I think it reflects a number of recent revelations, including the declassified videos of US Navy jets chasing UFOs, and the news that the UK government is about to release more of its UFO files.
“I’m not surprised there’s such a high level of belief in a government cover-up."
Coronavirus is Messing With the Hunt for Life on Mars
While the pandemic remains an organizational wild card for mission leads, ESA spokesperson Ninja Menning confirmed in an email that “the delay is not primarily due to concerns over COVID-19.”
At the press conference, Wörner said that most of the spacecraft’s components are ready to launch, but he stressed that more “verification activities will ensure a safe trip” and that “we cannot allow ourselves any margin of error.” This high degree of caution about the EDL sequence is especially understandable considering that the first lander in the ExoMars program, called Schiaparelli, crashed during its attempt to touch down on Mars in 2016.
The pandemic has disrupted many other space agencies and industries. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California has told the majority of its staff to stay home after an employee tested positive for COVID-19, and industry conferences, such as Satellite 2020, have cancelled events as a precaution.
NASA’s Perseverance rover and China’s first Martian rover are both still scheduled to launch to Mars this summer at this time, with landings set for 2021.
{ https://www.vice.com/en_us }Molten iron rain falls through the skies of scorching-hot exoplanet
WASP-76 b may be the most extreme exoplanet we know of.
There's a new contender for the "most exotic exoplanet" title.
The crown may have rested for a while now on the head of HD 189733 b, a cobalt-blue alien world where molten-glass rain whips sideways through the air at up to 5,400 mph (8,790 km/h). But a new study reports that iron rain likely falls through the thick, turbulent air of WASP-76 b, a bizarre "ultrahot Jupiter" that lies about 640 light-years from the sun, in the constellation Pisces.
WASP-76 b zips around its host star once every 1.8 Earth days, an orbit so tight that the gaseous planet is "tidally locked," always showing the star the same face. Temperatures on this dayside climb above 4,350 degrees Fahrenheit (2,400 degrees Celsius) — hot enough to vaporize metals — whereas the nightside is a much cooler (but still ridiculous) 2,730 F (1,500 C), researchers said.
"These are likely the most extreme climates we could ever find on a planet," said study lead author David Ehrenreich, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
"We have to stretch our understanding of what is a climate, what is a planetary atmosphere, to understand this object," Ehrenreich told Space.com.
WASP-76 b was discovered in 2013. The alien planet is about as massive as Jupiter but nearly twice as wide, likely because the massive radiation loads the exoplanet receives from its host star puff up its atmosphere considerably. (And one quick note about the object's distance: Some sources say that WASP-76 b is about 390 light-years away, but that number is inaccurate, Ehrenreich said. He and his colleagues calculated WASP-76 b's distance using data from Europe's ultraprecise star-mapping spacecraft Gaia.)
For the new study, the researchers studied WASP-76 b using the Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO), an instrument installed on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile.
ESPRESSO detected a strong signature of iron vapor at the "evening" border that separates WASP-76 b's dayside from its nightside. But no such signature was spotted at the "morning" border on the other side of the planet, where the nightside melds into day.
"Something must be happening on the nightside that makes iron disappear," Ehrenreich said.
The best explanation, he added, is that winds and WASP-76 b's rotation carry vaporized iron from the dayside to the nightside. The nightside is cool enough for the iron vapor to condense into clouds, which then dump rain into the air over there. That rain could consist of compounds such as iron sulfide or iron hydride.
But, "given the conditions, the most likely [scenario] is that iron condenses into liquid droplets of pure iron," Ehrenreich said. (This iron rain probably eventually makes its way back to the dayside again via atmospheric circulation, perpetuating the cycle, he added.)
And that rain probably isn't sprinkling down in a gentle mist, because the big temperature disparity between WASP-76 b's two halves generates winds of startling ferocity. The iron in the planet's dayside air, for example, is hurtling toward the nightside at about 11,000 mph (18,000 km/h), Ehrenreich said.
WASP-76 b's exoticism doesn't end there. The dayside atmosphere may be much more puffed up than that of the nightside because of the higher heat loads, the researchers said. So the "evening" and "morning" borders between the two hemispheres might be marked by towering clouds that fall from the light toward darkness.
"And the drizzle of this fall would not be water droplets but iron droplets," Ehrenreich said.
The craziness of WASP-76 b has more than just gee-whiz appeal. The new information about this odd exoplanet should help scientists refine and test climate and global circulation models, leading to a better understanding of exoplanetary atmospheres in general, Ehrenreich said. And WASP-76 b also serves as a compelling reminder for researchers to keep an open mind, because nature churns out a dizzying diversity of worlds.
"Exoplanets are a real treasure trove full of surprises," Ehrenreich said. "The more you look, the more you find."
He and his colleagues aim to dig up more such surprises. The new results, which were published online today (March 11) in the journal Nature, come from the very first science observations ever made with ESPRESSO, back in September 2018. The researchers are now conducting a broad survey of exoplanet atmospheres using ESPRESSO, which could reveal if WASP-76 b is an outlier or a member of a very weird class of worlds.
"What we have now is a whole new way to trace the climate of the most extreme exoplanets," Ehrenreich said in a statement.
Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life.
Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall.
Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
Extreem weer ontdekt op exoplaneet, het regent er zelfs vloeibaar ijzer - HLN.be
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