20 Mystery Facts about the Gobekli Tepe

The Gobekli Tepe is assumed to be a construction that ages more than 12000 years and it was raised by a group of organized hunters in the pre-historic time. This edifice signifies that there was the existence of some cultured and sophisticated civilization, even 10000 years back. Here are some interesting facts about the monument.

Interesting facts about the Gobkeli Tepe

(1) It is assumed that the construction was completed 12000 years back.

(2) The Gobekli Tepe was constructed 6500 years ahead of the Stonehenge

(3) This mysterious construction is 7000 years older than the first Pyramid built in Egypt

(4) It is assumed to be the first temple, ever constructed under the Sun.

(5) In the opinion of a few experts, the site houses 20 or more temples, dedicated to different Gods, observed the community that constructed the temple.

(6) The major part of this site is till unexplored, lying buried under the ground.

(7) It is still unknown that who patronaged the construction of this site.

(8) In the opinion of a few experts, this is actually a burial site and not a temple. Though it is alternatively believed to be a burial site, till date, no graves have been explored on the site.

(9) Sometimes, the Gobekli Tepe is referred as the Desert Stonehenge.

(10) It comes as a wonder to modern mankind as how such gigantic construction was made in the pre-historic age. It seems impossible that people have fabricated the structure elsewhere and carried to the top of the hill.

(11) The construction style mainly deals with a series of oval and circular structures.

(12) If it is to be believed that the construction dates back to 10000 BC, it is a mystery about the existence of such advanced and progressive civilization, when life is assumed to be based on hunting and dealing it with a day-to-day orientation.

(13) All the pillars on this site resemble a T-shape and the height ranges between 3 and 6 meters.

(14) Tentatively, each of these pillar weight around 60 tons.

(15) Archaeologists are yet to give any hint about the construction technique that was probably used to raise this construction.

(16) The gigantic construction established the fact that there was the involvement of organized workforce. However, consider the hostile lifestyle assumed for that period, it is hard to impossible to believe that someone took the leadership to organize such massive workforce.

(17) Archaeologists have no clue as how the flock managed to transport the parts of the construction to such height and amalgamate the pieces there.

(18) There is no evidence about how much time it took for the completion of the entire site. It is assumed that it took at least a few hundred years to complete the entire construction work.

(19) Snakes, Foxes, Cranes, and Wild boars are some of the animals, explored to be depicted on the walls of the construction.

(20) The carvings also includes human figures as well as depiction of abstract ideas.

{ http://www.science-rumors.com/mysterious-places/ }

Take Those UFO Sightings More Seriously

Israeli Archaeologists Find Hidden Pattern at ‘World’s Oldest Temple’ Göbekli Tepe

Neolithic hunter-gatherers who erected massive monoliths in central Turkey 11,500 years ago had command of geometry and a much more complex society than previously thought, archaeologists say

Ariel David

Cryptic carvings at Gobekli Tepe, 'world's oldest temple' Credit:DICK OSSEMAN

The enigmatic monoliths built some 11,500 years ago at Göbekli Tepe have been puzzling archaeologists and challenging preconceptions about prehistoric culture since their discovery in the 1990s. Chiefly, how could hunter-gatherers with a supposedly primitive societal structure build such monumental stone circles on this barren hilltop in what is today southeastern Turkey? How could a largely nomadic society at the dawn of agriculture marshal the resources and know-how to create what its discoverers have dubbed the oldest known temple in the world? 

If anything, a discovery by Israeli archaeologists suggests the Göbekli Tepe construction project was even more complex than previously thought, and required an amount of planning and resources thought to be impossible for those times. Their study of the three oldest stone enclosures at Göbekli Tepe has revealed a hidden geometric pattern, specifically an equilateral triangle, underlying the entire architectural plan of these structures.

This implies that, in contrast to the prevailing assumption among Göbekli researchers until now, these three circles were planned as a single unit and possibly built at the same time, say archaeologists Gil Haklay and Avi Gopher of Tel Aviv University.

Thus, thousands of years before the invention of writing or the wheel, the builders of Göbekli Tepe evidently had some understanding of geometric principles and could apply them to their construction plans, concludes the study published in January in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal. “The initial discovery of the site was a big surprise and we are now showing that its construction was even more complex than we thought,” says Haklay, an Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist and a PhD candidate at Tel Aviv University.

The first phase of construction at Göbekli Tepe, or “potbellied hill” in Turkish, has been dated to between 12,000 and 11,000 years ago. This is the earliest part of the Neolithic, also known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (or PPNA), around the time people in the Northern Levant began domesticating plants and animals, launching the Agricultural Revolution.

 

Gobekli Tepe

Credit: Halil Fidan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

skip - Gobekli Tepe, Turkey

Gobekli Tepe, Turkey  Credit Google Maps

The site’s builders erected several concentric stone circles, setting into the walls massive T-shaped pillars that reached almost six meters in height, many of which were decorated with reliefs of animals and other motifs. These circles appear to have been built around pairs of pillars positioned roughly in their center.

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Only four circles from the PPNA, dubbed enclosures A, B, C, and D, have been excavated so far, but surveys have shown there are at least 15 more scattered around the hill, as well as half a dozen other similar unexplored sites across southeastern Turkey.

An unexpected pattern

The new study focused on enclosures B,C, and D, which are known to be slightly older than A. Based on the assumption that such a massive construction project would have been beyond the capacities of the small, non-sedentary groups that usually comprise hunter-gatherer societies, most scholars have assumed that all the circles at Göbekli Tepe had to have been built gradually over a long period of time.

“There is a lot of speculation that the structures were built successively, possibly by different groups of people, and that one was covered up while the next one was being built. But there is no evidence that they are not contemporaneous,” Haklay tells Haaretz.

Haklay, who formerly worked as an architect, applied a method called architectural formal analysis, which is used to trace the planning principles and methods used in the design of existing structures.

Architectural analysis of hidden geometry at Gobekli Tepe: drawing superimposed over a schematic plan of Gobekli Tepe

Credit : Plan by K. Schmidt and J. Notroff, DAI

Anthropogenic statue, Gobekli Tepe

Credit: DICK OSSEMAN

Using an algorithm, he identified the center points of the three irregular stone circles. Not surprisingly, those points fell roughly mid-way between the pair of central pillars in each enclosure. What was surprising, however, was that those three points could be linked to form a nearly perfect equilateral triangle. Specifically, the vertices are about 25 centimeters away from forming a perfect triangle with sides measuring 19.25 meters each.

“I certainly did not expect this,” Haklay recalls. “The enclosures all have different sizes and shapes so the odds that these center points would form an equilateral triangle by chance are very low.”

The finding confirms previous research by Haklay and Gopher at other sites showing that architects in the Neolithic or even in the late Paleolithic didn’t build shelters and homes haphazardly but had the ability to apply rudimentary geometric principles and create standard units of measurement.

At Göbekli Tepe, the discovery of the pattern is evidence of a complex abstract design that could not be realized without first creating a scaled floor plan, Haklay says. At a time when the invention of writing was millennia away, this could be accomplished, for example, by using reeds of equal length to create a rudimentary blueprint on the ground, he suggests.

“Each enclosure subsequently went through a long construction history with multiple modifications, but at least in an initial phase they started as a single project,” the archaeologist concludes. “The implication is that a single project at Göbekli Tepe was three times larger than previously thought and required three times as much manpower – a level that is unprecedented in hunter-gatherer societies.”

Suddenly, social stratification

Limestone statue of animal head, Gobekli Tepe Credit: DICK OSSEMAN

The construction would have required hundreds or maybe thousands of workers and could be taken to mark the birth of a more stratified society, with a level of sophistication previously seen only in later, sedentary groups of farmers, says Gopher, an archaeology professor at Tel Aviv University and Haklay’s PhD advisor.

“This is where it starts: The sharing instinct of hunter-gatherer societies is reduced and inequality is growing; someone is running the show – I don’t know if it’s shamans or political leaders, but this is a society that has an architect and somebody who initiates a project like this and has the power to make it happen,” Gopher says.

The new study is “an amazing contribution to the understanding” of this enigmatic site, says Anna Belfer-Cohen, an archaeology professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and an expert on late prehistory. However, given that there are many stone circles at Göbekli Tepe and other sites nearby that have yet to be excavated, we don’t know if the same conclusions can be applied to all these enclosures, cautions Belfer-Cohen, who did not take part in the study.

“These three enclosures may have been built together, but it doesn’t mean that the others were not constructed as single units, perhaps by different groups,” she says. “We have only uncovered the tip of the iceberg of this phenomenon, but it is more likely that there were many different groups that considered this entire area sacred and converged on it to erect the enclosures, rather than a single group that went crazy and just constructed these complexes day and night.”

The new world order

How and why Neolithic hunter-gatherers would mobilize the massive resources needed to build Göbekli Tepe and other sites like it is the subject of much speculation. While some researchers have interpreted the structures as residential spaces, most archaeologists see little evidence of this and consider the sheer monumentality of the complex and the richness of its iconography as evidence of a ritual purpose.

The massive T-shaped pillars and the reliefs on them – animal and human-like - have been interpreted as totems: perhaps representations of protective spirits, possibly long-deceased ancestors, some of whom were believed to take on animal form. The idea that the zoomorphic and anthropomorphic images may represent the venerated dead was reinforced by the recent discovery of modified skull fragments buried at the site, which many researchers consider to be evidence of ancestor cults (similarly to the interpretation of stone masks found throughout the Levant from about 9,000 years ago). 

The identification of the hidden geometrical pattern strengthens the interpretation of Göbekli Tepe as a cultic site, say Haklay and Gopher. The southern side of the triangle runs through the central stone pillars of enclosures B and C, creating a base for the polygon. The axis perpendicular to this line runs through the entire site and ends in the center of enclosure D, which can be interpreted as the top of the pyramid.

Lizard and warthog? Enigmatic zoomorphic carvings at Gobekli Tepe Credit: AlicanA / Shutterstock.com

This suggests that the builders understood and wished to represent the idea of a hierarchy, perhaps intending to crystalize the new order of a less equal and more stratified society, Haklay and Gopher maintain.

The stratification was not limited to human relations: it suggests a change in the perceived relationship between humans and nature, the archaeologists suggest. That’s because of what is found at the top of the triangle, at the center of enclosure D.

While the site’s signature T-shaped pillars have all been interpreted as stylized human figures, the central monoliths of enclosure D are the only ones that are clearly anthropomorphic, bearing reliefs of hands, a belt, and possibly a loincloth. Placing these human depictions at the top of this triangle would have been a powerful message, and represented an ideological departure from the animal-centric canons of Paleolithic art.

“In Paleolithic art humans are rare, and this is true here as well, but you start to see change, the beginning of an anthropocentric world view in which animals and plants are no longer equal to humans but are subordinated to them,” Gopher tells Haaretz.

In other words, Göbekli Tepe may have been designed, consciously or unconsciously, to represent and perhaps explain humanity’s growing ability to manipulate its environment, which, in the coming centuries, would lead to the first domesticated crops in this very region, the researchers say.

"The end of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is more of an ideological transformation than an economic or technological one,” Gopher maintains. “Hunter-gatherers cannot domesticate anything, it’s against their world view, which is based on equality and trust. Once that ideology changes, the entire structure of society is transformed and a new world is born.”

{ https://www.haaretz.com/ }

Live Alien Interview? More Stringfield Bombshells - Richard Dolan Intelligent Disclosure.

Although the UFO news is currently talking up the latest Pentagon admission of the validity of those pesky videos that were released over two years ago, they are still in the “we don’t know what these are” phase of public discourse. But the research of the late Leonard Stringfield shows how weak that position is. Stringfield pioneered the research of UFO crash retrievals.

He made contact with countless individuals. Unlike many of today’s researchers who talk about “whistleblower” testimony, Stringfield was actually careful and professional, vetting his sources to the greatest extent possible. His cases are worth careful review.

Richard and Tracey discuss yet another incredible Stringfield case, this time an alleged one-on-one with an alien being. This was one of Stringfield’s last cases — he died in 1994. You don’t want to miss this one.

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

A Signal from Space Like None Before

The expectations of the gravitational-wave research community have been fulfilled: gravitational-wave discoveries are now part of their daily work as they have identified in the past observing run, O3, new gravitational-wave candidates about once a week. But now, the researchers have published a remarkable signal unlike any of those seen before: GW190412 is the first observation of a binary black hole merger where the two black holes have distinctly different masses of about 8 and 30 times that of our Sun. This not only has allowed more precise measurements of the system’s astrophysical properties, but it has also enabled the LIGO/Virgo scientists to verify a so far untested prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Binary black hole merger where the two black holes have distinctly different masses of about 8 and 30 times that of our Sun.

“The black holes at the heart of GW190412 have 8 and 30 times the mass of our Sun, respectively. This is the first binary black-hole system we have observed for which the difference between the masses of the two black holes is so large!” says Roberto Cotesta, a PhD student in the “Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity” division at the AEI in Potsdam. “This big mass difference means that we can more precisely measure several properties of the system: its distance to us, the angle we look at it, and how fast the heavy black hole spins around its axis.”

A signal like none before

Credit: © N. Fischer, H. Pfeiffer, A. Buonanno (Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics), Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes project

 

GW190412 was observed by both LIGO detectors and the Virgo detector on 12th of April 2019, early during the detectors’ third observation run O3. Analyses reveal that the merger happened at a distance of 1.9 to 2.9 billion light-years from Earth. The new unequal mass system is a unique discovery since all binaries observed previously by the LIGO and Virgo detectors consisted of two roughly similar masses.

GW190412: Binary Black Hole Merger: Numerical simulation of a black-hole binary merger with asymmetric masses and orbital precession (GW190412).

Credit: Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics

Unequal masses imprint themselves on the observed gravitational-wave signal, which in turn allow scientists to more precisely measure certain astrophysical properties of the system. The presence of higher harmonics makes it possible to break an ambiguity between the distance to the system and the angle we look at its orbital plane; therefore these properties can be measured with higher precision than in equal-mass systems without higher harmonics.

Numerical simulation of a black-hole binary merger with asymmetric masses and orbital precession (GW190412)
© N. Fischer, H. Pfeiffer, A. Buonanno (Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics), Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes project

“During O1 and O2, we have observed the tip of the iceberg of the binary population composed of stellar-mass black holes,” says Alessandra Buonanno, director of the “Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity” division at the AEI in Potsdam and College Park professor at the University of Maryland. “Thanks to the improved sensitivity, GW190412 has begun to reveal us a more diverse, submerged population, characterized by mass asymmetry as large as 4 and black holes spinning at about 40% the possible maximum value allowed by general relativity,” she adds.

AEI researchers contributed to detecting and analyzing GW190412. They have provided accurate models of the gravitational waves from coalescing black holes that included, for the first time, both the precession of the black-holes’ spins and multipole moments beyond the dominant quadrupole. Those features imprinted in the waveform were crucial to extract unique information about the source’s properties and carry out tests of general relativity. The high-performance computer clusters “Minerva” and “Hypatia” at AEI Potsdam and “Holodeck” at AEI Hannover contributed significantly to the analysis of the signal.

Testing Einstein’s theory

LIGO/Virgo scientists also used GW190412 to look for deviations of the signals from what Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicts. Even though the signal has properties unlike all others found so far, the researchers could find no significant departure from the general-relativistic predictions.
An improved international network of detectors using squeezed light

This discovery is the second reported from the third observation run (O3) of the international gravitational-wave detector network. Scientists at the three large detectors have made several technological upgrades to the detectors.

“During O3, squeezed light was used to enhance the sensitivity of LIGO and Virgo. This technique of carefully tuning the quantum-mechanical properties of the laser light was pioneered at the German-British detector GEO600,” explains Karsten Danzmann, director at the AEI Hannover and director of the Institute for Gravitational Physics at Leibniz University Hannover. “The AEI is leading the world-wide efforts to maximize the degree of squeezing, which has already improved the sensitivity of the GEO600 detector by a factor of two. Our advances in this technology will benefit all future gravitational-wave detectors.”

2 done, 54 on the to-do list

The detector network has issued alerts for 56 possible gravitational-wave events (candidates) in O3 (April 1, 2019 to March 27, 2020 with an interruption for upgrades and commissioning in October 2019). Out of these 56, one other confirmed signal, GW190425, has already been published. LIGO and Virgo scientists are examining all remaining 54 candidates and will publish all those for which detailed follow-up analyses confirm their astrophysical origin.

The observation of GW190412 means that similar systems are probably not as rare as predicted by some models. Therefore, with additional gravitational-wave observations and growing event catalogues in the future, more such signals are to be expected. Each of them could help astronomers better understand how black holes and their binary systems are formed, and shed new light on the fundamental physics of space-time.

LIGO Scientific and Virgo Collaborations

LIGO is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by Caltech and MIT, which conceived of LIGO and lead the project. Financial support for the Advanced LIGO project was led by the NSF with Germany (Max Planck Society), the U.K. (Science and Technology Facilities Council) and Australia (Australian Research Council-OzGrav) making significant commitments and contributions to the project. Approximately 1,300 scientists from around the world participate in the effort through the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which includes the GEO Collaboration. A list of additional partners is available at https://my.ligo.org/census.php.

The Virgo Collaboration is currently composed of more than 500 scientists, engineers, and technicians from 99 institutes from Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. The European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) hosts the Virgo detector near Pisa in Italy, and is funded by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France, the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Italy, and Nikhef in the Netherlands. A list of the Virgo Collaboration members can be found at http://public.virgo-gw.eu/the-virgo-collaboration/. More information is available on the Virgo website at http://www.virgo-gw.eu.

Contacts and sources:

• Dr. Elke MüllerPress
• Dr. Benjamin Knispel
  Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics 

Publication

• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration
  GW190412: Observation of a Binary-Black-Hole Coalescence with Asymmetric Masses
  arXiv:2004.08342

Related links

• Partners of LIGO
• Website of VIRGO collaboration

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Comet Atlas Broke Up From UFO Attack Researcher Says

Hello friend, Channel where we will deal with all kinds of mysteries, ufologies, UFO sightings, secrets, hidden truths, theologies and debates on conspiracy issues. My intention is to share with the world all the knowledge that I have learned and that I will learn.

C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS), or Comet ATLAS, is a comet with a near-parabolic orbit, which was discovered by the ATLAS survey on 28 December 2019. Around April 2, 2020, the comet started disintegrating. Such fragmentation events are very common for Kreutz Sungrazers. The comet continues to fade and is not expected to brighten.

Now It Makes Sense: Incoming Comet C/2019Y4 Atlas & CV19 Cycle of Destruction & Rebirth

Videos, selected peter2011

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Alien Faces Found On Mars Near Two Animals, @NASA Photo, UFO Sighting News.

 

Date of discovery: May 1 2020

Location of discovery: Mars

Photo: 

• http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16701

This NASA photo is just amazing. I found two faces of actual aliens that once lived, breathed and walked on Mars. The fact that the two faces are squished together implies a more heart felt bond...most likely there two were male and female...mates. They created this statue to allow future generations to remember the love they felt. Or even a gift to show the female how much she means to the male. 

 

Also there is a four legged creature on Mars. The head looks like a cat sitting up on its hind quarters. Another statue, but it doesn't look like its a statue, this one has a smoothness of the skin as if its a living animal. 

 

Now the last objects, is a fossilized creature with a rough drive out skin and a human like face. It too docent look like a statue, but the remains of a living creature that has become fossilized...turned to stone. 

I just don't know what it's going to take for NASA to admit the truth about life on Mars? Perhaps we no longer need NASA to confirm such things. Perhaps NASA has become a corrupt and covert agency that never had any intention of informing the public about discoveries of life. 

Scott C. Waring - UFOlogist

 

Above screenshot I colored the two faces to make it easier to see. The two faces almost overlap, rub against each other. I have seen many faces that were like this...probably a symbol of male/female family, or a unity of a social bond of some type. Below is the untouched screenshot. 

Videos, peter2011

{

Two Apparent Alien Skulls and a Nazi Briefcase Discovered in Remote Mountain Woods

Two extraterrestrial-like skulls were found next to a Nazi briefcase buried deep in a mountain forest. Scientist Vladimir Melikov made a shocking discovery several years ago along with a team of explorers while researching the Russian Caves of Mount Bolshoi.

At the time of the discovery, newspapers reported about it with mentioned of a Nazi briefcase and two strange skulls that were found in the caves of the Caucasus region.

These strange skulls were discovered near a Nazi serviette of a remote mountainous area. The news has formed several conspiracy theories. One of them is that Hitler had worked with extraterrestrials.

It raised the shocking prospect of Hitler’s time machine called “The Bell,” and his UFOs.

Videos, by peter2011

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

UFO sighting: Aurora, Ontario, Canada 26-Apr-2020

This UFO sighting report was just submitted to me through our report page. It happened in Aurora, ON, Canada on 26th April.

Witness report:

 Hello first off I would like to say im a little reluctant at first in reporting this sighting.   Sighting occurred after 8:45pm whilst it was still light out and was captured on video and photo stills for over 40 or more minutes.  I have tried to come up with logical explanations such as Star, helicopters, planes, Planets (Venus has been visible this past week), and or international space station, satellites etc. but But from my limited knowledge all the previous listed possibilities that i listed i believe move across the sky and or orbit the planet, correct?  Thus an object that hasn’t moved in the sky for the length of time stated seems to open it self up to a sighting . 

The footage was captured out my window whislt i was watching TV and waiting for dinner to be ready.  The first notice ofit i was like wow that a real bright Northern star which so happened to be facing west in the last minutes of light befor the sun would give into night.   You will see clearly time marked stills and vidoe that adorn all 40 plus digital images (video and stills combined).  the footage was taken on three different devises and the a tripod was used on one of the three cameras used. (iPhone 11, iPad mini and a 12mps Nikon digi camera on tripod). What makes this footage interesting is that being shot from my window you can clearly see trees and roof tops of homes around plus my backyard tree to which you can see the object in reference to it not moving remaing in the same location for 40 plus minutes well into the dark night sky.   

where it gets interesting  when i imported the media to my iMac  aND ZOOMED in too the object individual still pictures that i notice that the glowing dot actually consist of a glowing ring around a circular glowing light. You can clearly see this in several photo’s and i encourage all to DL and zoom in with your favourite photo viewer so to in hopes tell me ive capture nothing more then an explainable object in the sky like a weather balloon or such…  Just the fact that it had what looked like no movement and all cameras captured identical behaviour  makes-it hard to explain that it was something from our planet.

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

Trump calls military UFO footage ‘a hell of a video’

President Trump is among the Americans amazed by the out-of-this-world goings-on in a trio of videos recently released by the military showing apparent unidentified flying objects.

“I just wonder if it’s real,” the president lightheartedly told Reuters during a White House interview. “That’s a hell of a video.”

AFP PHOTO /US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE/HANDOUT

The videos, one taken in 2004 and two in 2015, were released after federal officials determined the footage “does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems,” and “does not impinge on any subsequent investigations,” the department said in a statement

One of the videos — which were initially publicized in 2017 and 2018 — shows a dark circular object flying far in front of a military jet.

A second, identified as GOFAST.wmv, shows a small object racing over land at astonishing speed

The third, GIMBAL.wmv, shows a circular object first speeding, then seeming to slow and come closer to the pilot’s camera.

All of the videos are well-known to UFO buffs, but some Americans were blase about them, saying they were more worried about the coronavirus pandemic as the US death toll topped 60,000.

“At this point, Aliens taking control of the world doesn’t seem that bad,” Caroline Jea tweeted.

{ https://nypost.com/ }

Researchers Find Nitrogen-Bearing Organics in Ancient Martian Meteorite

 by Enrico de Lazaro

Four-billion-year-old carbonates in a Martian meteorite called Allan Hills (ALH) 84001 contain nitrogen-bearing organic molecules, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Communications.

A fragment of the ALH 84001 meteorite. The whole size is 1.5 cm.

Image credit: Koike et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-15931-4.

Questions concerning life on Mars have driven intensive studies of the planet for decades, including focused investigation of possible organic molecules.

NASA’s rover Curiosity reported various organic materials including sulfur and chlorine-bearing hydrocarbons from 3.5-billion-year-old mudstones in Gale crater. Chlorine-bearing methane was also found from an earlier exploration by NASA’s Viking landers, which was considered to be of Martian origin.

These previous investigations suggested the existence of organic matter in the near-surface system on Mars. However, little is known about the origin, distribution, preservation, and evolution of such organics, as well as their possible relationship with Martian biological activity.

Along with robotic exploration, complementary knowledge has been obtained from detailed geochemical investigations of Martian meteorites.

“One meteorite in particular, ALH 84001, named for the region in Antarctica it was found in 1984, is especially important,” said Dr. Mizuho Koike of JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Dr. Atsuko Kobayashi from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Caltech and their colleagues.

“It contains orange-colored carbonate minerals, which precipitated from salty liquid water on Mars’ near-surface 4 billion years ago.”

“As these minerals record Mars’ early aqueous environment, many studies have tried to understand their unique chemistry and whether they might provide evidence for ancient life on Mars.”

“However, previous analyses suffered from contamination with terrestrial material from Antarctic snow and ice, making it difficult to say how much of the organic material in the meteorite were truly Martian.”

Orange-colored carbonate grains in the ALH 84001 meteorite.

Image credit: Koike et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-15931-4.

In the study, the researchers analyzed several carbonate grains peeled off from a fragment of ALH 84001.

“We used state-of-the-art analytical techniques to study the nitrogen content of the ALH 84001 carbonates and found the first solid evidence for 4-billion-year-old Martian organics containing nitrogen,” the authors explained.

“After the careful contamination checks, we determined the detected organics were most likely truly Martian,” they added.

“We also determined the contribution of nitrogen in the form of nitrate — one of the strong oxidants on Mars today — was insignificant, suggesting the early Mars probably did not contain strong oxidants and was less-oxidizing.”

Nitrogen-bearing organic matter was either synthesized locally or delivered meteoritically on the early Mars. The former case requires an abiotic reduction of N (e.g., N₂, NO_x → NH₃) to start the ammonia-related chemical reactions. The latter case is also possible if adequate amounts of nitrogen-bearing components were supplied. This organic matter survived in the 4-billion-year-old Martian (near) surface fluids and was trapped into ALH carbonates during precipitation. The carbonates resided in the subterranean system, preserving the organic components over long geological times.

Image credit: Koike et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-15931-4.

“There are two main possibilities: either nitrogen-bearing organic molecules came from outside Mars, or they formed on Mars,” Dr. Kobayashi said.

“Early in the Solar System’s history, Mars was likely showered with significant amounts of organic matter, for example from carbon-rich meteorites, comets and dust particles. Some of them may have dissolved in the brine and been trapped inside the carbonates.”

“Alternatively, chemical reactions on early Mars may have produced the nitrogen-bearing organics on-site,” Dr. Koike said.

“Either way, these findings show there was organic nitrogen on Mars before it became the Red Planet we know today.”

“Early Mars may have been more Earth-like, less oxidizing, wetter, and organic-rich. Perhaps it was ‘blue’.”

_____

• M. Koike et al. 2020. In-situ preservation of nitrogen-bearing organics in Noachian Martian carbonates. 
• Nat Commun 11, 1988; doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-15931-4

NASA wants private moon landers from 3 companies. Here's how they'll work.

By Mike Wall 

SpaceX, Dynetics and a Blue Origin-led team have different ideas for the moon.

NASA has selected a Blue Origin-led team, Dynetics and SpaceX's Starship to develop new moon landers for astronauts for the agency's Artemis lunar program.

(Image: © NASA)

The moon landers that three commercial teams are developing to ferry astronauts to and from the lunar surface for NASA are a diverse bunch.

On Thursday (April 30), NASA announced that it had awarded contracts to three commercial teams, each of which will develop a human landing system for use by the space agency's Artemis program. Artemis aims to put two astronauts down near the moon's south pole in 2024 and establish a sustainable presence on and around Earth's natural satellite by the late 2020s.

SpaceX, Dynetics and a team led by Blue Origin will split a total pot of $967 million, which will fund 10 months of development work. NASA will then tab one or more of these teams to mature their systems. In the end, the space agency will procure crewed lunar transportation services from the options that are left on the table.

• Related: NASA unveils plan for Artemis 'base camp' on the moon beyond 2024

The options are, at this early stage anyway, quite varied, for the commercial teams are taking very different approaches to their landers. SpaceX, for example, will continue developing its Starship deep-space transportation system, which Elon Musk's company envisions making Mars colonization and other bold exploration feats economically feasible.

SpaceX's Starship megarocket

The 165-foot-tall (50 meters) Starship will launch off Earth atop a giant rocket called Super Heavy. Both of these elements will be reusable; each Super Heavy will come back down for a vertical landing shortly after liftoff, and each Starship will fly many missions once it's aloft, Musk has said. (Starship needs Super Heavy only to get off our planet; the spacecraft will be powerful enough to launch itself off the surface of the moon or Mars.)

Starship will be capable of carrying up to 100 people at a time, Musk has said. NASA wouldn't come close to filling the possible seats on each Artemis flight — the 2024 landing mission, for example, will carry just two astronauts — but the agency would doubtless find a use for all of the vehicle's space and power. (Starship will be able to haul 100 tons of payload to the lunar surface.)

This SpaceX concept shows the company's massive Starship vehicle on the moon as a lunar lander for NASA Artemis astronauts.  (Image credit: SpaceX)

Thursday's announcement deepens SpaceX's involvement with NASA's moon-exploration plans, which was already extensive. For example, the company is eligible to deliver robotic NASA payloads to the lunar surface using Starship, work the space agency says will help pave the way for crewed Artemis visits. 

And last month, SpaceX secured a contract to supply Gateway, the small space station that NASA plans to build in lunar orbit as a jumping-off point for surface missions, using an extra-large version of its Dragon cargo capsule. Gateway is an important part of the agency's long-term moon plans but will probably not be involved in the 2024 landing, agency officials have said. 

• Related: What is NASA's Artemis program?

Dynetics' 2-person lander

Whereas Starship represents a single-stage approach to lunar landing, Alabama-based Dynetics will develop "a two-stage architecture, with a common ascent and descent element and anytime abort capability," Lisa Watson-Morgan, Human Landing System program manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said in a teleconference with reporters on Thursday.

"It has a unique low-slung crew module, putting the crew very close to the lunar surface for safe access," Watson-Morgan added.

A moon lander concept from Dynetics, one of three U.S. contractors selected by NASA to develop Artemis lunar landers for astronauts. 

(Image credit: Dynetics)

A moon lander concept from Dynetics, one of three U.S. contractors selected by NASA to develop Artemis lunar landers for astronauts. 

(Image credit: Dynetics)

The Dynetics lander's crew module is designed to accommodate two astronauts on trips to and from lunar orbit, including stays on the moon's surface of about a week, representatives of the company, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Leidos, said in a statement. But that's the nominal use case; the lander could also fit four fully suited astronauts on brief trips to or from the lunar surface if need be.

Blue Origin's 'National Team'

The third team is led by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, with participation from Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper. This group will develop a three-stage architecture, which features descent, ascent and transfer elements. 

The descent stage will be based on Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander and BE-7 engine, which the company has been working on for a few years now. The ascent stage will leverage Lockheed's experience developing the Orion crew capsule. (Lockheed is prime contractor for Orion, NASA's next crewed vehicle, which will carry agency astronauts toward the moon and other deep-space destinations.) 

This Artemis moon lander concept from Blue Origin's National Team includes systems by team partners Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper.  (Image credit: Blue Origin)

The transfer element will be based on Northrop Grumman's Cygnus freighter, which flies robotic cargo missions to the International Space Station under a separate NASA contract. Draper, meanwhile, will lead descent guidance and provide flight avionics, Blue Origin representatives said in a statement.

NASA solicited proposals for human landing systems in late September 2019, and submissions were due in early November. At the time, the agency was hoping the call would inspire innovative concepts, Watson-Morgan said.

"And boy did they deliver," she said Thursday of the three awardees.

Watson-Morgan also highlighted the diversity of architectures, saying it achieves the "dissimilar redundancy of approaches that we wanted."

• SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy Mars rocket in pictures
• Blue Moon: Here's how Blue Origin's new lunar lander works 
• Moon master: An easy quiz for lunatics

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. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

NASA picks SpaceX, Dynetics and Blue Origin-led team to develop Artemis moon landers

Flashy 'dance' of two monster black holes captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

Although the UFO news is currently talking up the latest Pentagon admission of the validity of those pesky videos commonly known by their filenames 'Flir,' 'Go Fast,' and 'Gimbal,' that were released over two years ago, they are still in the "we don't know what these are" phase of public discourse.

But the research of the late Leonard Stringfield shows how weak that position is. Stringfield pioneered the research of UFO crash retrievals. He made contact with countless individuals.

Unlike many of today's researchers who talk about "whistleblower" testimony, Stringfield was actually careful and professional, vetting his sources to the greatest extent possible. His cases are worth careful review.

Richard and Tracey discuss yet another incredible Stringfield case, this time an alleged one-on-one with an alien being. This was one of Stringfield's last cases. He died in 1994. You don't want to miss this one.

  

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

During the coronavirus shutdown there’s a lot of binge-watching being done, affording those who’ve never been able to it before watch all of the episodes of their favorite television programs or for those too young to have seen them the first time around to be introduced to some classics. The Museum of Binge-Worthy TV Shows ought to have a special wing for the various Star Trek series and this writer is one who has visited that wing regularly and recently saw (for the umpteenth time) “The Tholian Web,” the ninth episode of the third season of the original Star Trek. That could be why an article caught my eye shortly after comparing Elon Musk’s ever-growing network of small communications satellites to the Tholian Web.

The article (you can read it here in Soul:Ask) starts with the conspiracy theories that Elon Musk is in cahoots with the Pentagon, that the idea of a Starlink network of 12,000 satellites providing worldwide Internet links is just a cover-up (a “Trojan horse”), that the satellites will actually be able to connect to each other via lasers to create a web around the globe and that the lines of satellites clearly visible in the night skies around the world have already begun to cross paths like the Thorian web around the Enterprise and that the purpose of the two is the same – imprisonment of everyone inside. Whoa!

OK, those dots are much farther apart than the lines of Starlink satellites in the sky, and there’s no evidence that these small satellites have any more powers than Internet communications. However, the map of the 12,000 satellites (on up to 30,000 or more) does form a grid pattern around the Earth. And we’ve already seen many instances of equipment and events on Star Trek becoming reality. Could Gene Roddenberry have been predicting/warning about just such a space chain-link fence? Let’s take a look at The Tholian Web plot and see if there are any signs.

The USS Enterprise enters uncharted space (as always) searching for her sister ship, the USS Defiant. The Defiant is found adrift, and Captain Kirk, First Officer Spock, Chief Medical Officer Dr. McCoy, and Navigator Ensign Chekov transport to it wearing environmental suits for protection – sounds an awful lot like what’s going on around the world right now, doesn’t it? It appears the Defiant crew killed each other (panic caused by an invisible enemy?), but what’s worse is that the entire ship appears to be fading away (like out jobs?). due to equipment malfuntions (like the ventilators?), the group barely makes it back, but Kirk doesn’t and he and the Defiant vanish.

Spock determines that the local space is experiencing periods of “interphase” where two parallel dimensions touch each other and they just need to wait until it happens again. While waiting, the Enterprise is attacked by the Tholians (Iranians?) for violating their space and two Tholian ships commence building a Tholian web around the Enterprise (Starlink will imprison Earth with the U.S. and the Pentagon in control?). Uhura and Scott have visions of Kirk in his environmental suit telling them to hurry (leakers?). However, other crew members are showing signs of insanity from being infected by the Tholian space (coronavirus?). (Spoiler alert!) In the nick of time, Dr. McCoy develops an antidote (antidote!!), Spock finds Kirk and beams him aboard just as his oxygen runs out (the ventilator again?) and slips through the last tiny unfinished hole in the web.

Whoa! Roddenberry and his writers predicted the Starlink web AND the coronavirus epidemic. Or did they?

Starlink has a long way to go to become a Tholian web

That little fun exercise is the same process people go through when linking the prophecies of Nostradamus to current events – look at events after they happen for similarities. No one who’s watched The Tholian Web dozens of times could have predicted it was going to happen in 2020 … and it didn’t really happen. Starlink is a looooong way from a Tholian web prison, and Dr. McCoy always seemed to find an antidote for whatever was ailing the crew. The hazmat suit is definitely a twist you don’t see often on Star Trek, but we have seen them for years in many situations. Equipment failures and lack of oxygen are happening now and they’re killing people, just like Kirk’s dilemma, but was that really a prediction or a coincidence?

It might be fun to try and link some other Star Trek episodes to world events. On the other hand, most of us would prefer that the coronavirus, the lockdown and the binge-watching were over and we could all boldly go back to that comfortable charted space known as work.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }