China's Secret Space Program

COAST TO COAST AM 2020  – In the first half, pioneer in the development of exopolitics, Michael Salla, discussed the secret space program developed by China, and their understanding that the next major war between superpowers will be fought in the “strategic high ground” of space.

A media phenomenon, Coast to Coast AM deals with UFOs, strange occurrences, life after death, and other unexplained (and often inexplicable) phenomena.

https://youtu.be/dVfLiHB9-tw

Other videos, by peter2011

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Strange Structures Found Deep Inside the Earth

University of Maryland researchers conduct first simultaneous analysis of hundreds of earthquakes to identify echoes from features deep inside Earth

University of Maryland geophysicists analyzed thousands of recordings of seismic waves, sound waves traveling through the Earth, to identify echoes from the boundary between Earth’s molten core and the solid mantle layer above it. The echoes revealed more widespread, heterogenous structures—areas of unusually dense, hot rock—at the core-mantle boundary than previously known.

 

“Machine learning in earth science is growing rapidly and a method like Sequencer allows us to be able to systematically detect seismic echoes and get new insights into the structures at the base of the mantle, which have remained largely enigmatic,” Kim said.

The study revealed a few surprises in the structure of the core-mantle boundary.

“We found echoes on about 40% of all seismic wave paths,” said Vedran Lekić, an associate professor of geology at UMD and a co-author of the study. “That was surprising because we were expecting them to be more rare, and what that means is the anomalous structures at the core-mantle boundary are much more widespread than previously thought.”

The scientists found that the large patch of very dense, hot material at the core-mantle boundary beneath Hawaii produced uniquely loud echoes, indicating that it is even larger than previous estimates. Known as ultralow-velocity zones (ULVZs), such patches are found at the roots of volcanic plumes, where hot rock rises from the core-mantle boundary region to produce volcanic islands. The ULVZ beneath Hawaii is the largest known.

This study also found a previously unknown ULVZ beneath the Marquesas Islands.

Source:

•  http://www.ineffableisland.com/2020/06/strange-structures-found-deep-inside.html

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Russian Probe Destroyed By Strange Cigar Shaped Object 30,000 Metres In Length!

Whilst the official explanation for the sudden loss of the Phobos 2 probe on  March 27, 1989 is an onboard computer failure…the subject of alien tampering was raised, and has never really been silenced. The last image taken by the Phobos 2 spacecraft is of a dark shadow, thought to belong to a gigantic craft. This has sparked rumours about the failed Phobos 1 and Phobos 2 missions. Was there something ‘out there’ responsible for this?

Presented by Jaime Maussan

All Content on this channel is fully licensed, and or produced in-house at our studios in UK, Europe and USA.

Other Videos, by peter2011

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NASA Scientists Discover Unexpected Mineral on Mars

Scientists have discovered an unexpected mineral in a rock sample at Gale Crater on Mars, a finding that may alter our understanding of how the planet evolved.

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, has been exploring sedimentary rocks within Gale Crater since landing in August 2012. On sol 1060 (the number of Martian days since landing), the rover collected powder drilled from rock at a location named “Buckskin.” Analyzing data from an X-ray diffraction instrument on the rover that identifies minerals, scientists detected significant amounts of a silica mineral called tridymite.

This detection was a surprise to the scientists, because tridymite is generally associated with silicic volcanism, which is known on Earth but was not thought to be important or even present on Mars. Tridymite requires high temperatures and high silica concentrations to form, conditions which most typically are found in association with silicic volcanism.

{ https://www.nasa.gov/ }

100% Proof That Alien Watch NASA Mission! Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: June 13, 2020
Location of discovery: Earths orbit
NASA Photo: 

• http://tothemoon.ser.asu.edu/data_g/G11/Hasselblad-SuperWideAngle/full/S66-54536_G11-S_f.png
  

I found this UFO in an old NASA photo. The photo is taken in Earths orbit and looking downward towards Earth. Not far below, there is a bronze color disk visible. The disk has a dome or hump at its center and is thin on its edges. This is 100% proof that aliens are watching and recording the human race in space. The transition of humans moving from earth to living in space is a huge step for any species...and this is something very rare. 
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

White Substance Found Growing On Mars In Shadows, UFO Sighting News.

• http://www.gigapan.com/galleries/13463/gigapans/191776

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

Whether alien or man-made, one thing is for sure, there are many strange objects equipped with advanced technology flying through our sky. Now, what appears to be a flat, rectangular UFO has been caught on camera by a tourist while visiting an observation point on the highway 89a above Jerome, Arizona on June 11, 2020. 

Tourist states: We had been visiting Jerome, Arizona and drove up to scenic overlook on highway 89a above Jerome. when we exited the car. I walked up to wall at near end of parking lot when I saw a flash of light ahead of me and asked if anyone saw it, but I was only one out of 4 who did. 

My wife was taking photos with her iPhone 7 when she looked at the photos, it showed what I thought I had seen. there is a flash near the wall, that moves to my right, then flashes higher above my right vision. The image, which I sent to Mufon, shows a 4 sided flying object in only one frame and then it is gone. 

  

Other videos of UFOsin Arizona, selected peter2011

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

Formation of UFOs over Bethpage, Tennessee 13-Jun-2020

UFOs flying in the night sky above Bethpage, that’s located along U.S. Route 31E, northeast of neighboring Gallatin. This was taken yesterday (13th June 2020).

Witness report: 

Woke up just before 4 am on June 13th, 2020. Heard noises around the house . Checked front door , checked back door , turned on the patio light but didn’t go outside …. and I noticed a v – shaped pattern of lights over my neighbor’s house! I took my phone out and recorded… this v shaped object was lit up with lights that seem to brighten then dim … or glow and then get dim again … kind of flashing ? Very strange! I watched for about 10 min went back to my room , checked on my small puppy that I left on my bed … she was up so I got her some water and put her back near my husband (who was sleeping ) I waited for her to lay back down and get comfortable and then went back to the back patio and whatever it was was gone !

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A bright radio burst generated by a magnetar (one illustrated) in our galaxy hints that similar objects are responsible for at least some of the fast radio bursts in other galaxies, which have puzzled astronomers for over a decade.

L. CALÇADA/ESO

What Keeps Cleaning The Mars Rovers?

After 14 years, the Mars rover Opportunity is still roving about and taking measurements on the Martian surface, due to these mysterious, recurring “cleaning events,” which have wiped the rover’s heavily-encrusted solar panels completely clean, enabling it to receive solar power and to continue doing its tasks.

The Opportunity is designed to power down during the night and it is during these periods, while it is not recording anything that something (or someone) has been conducting these deep cleaning events, as evidenced by the rover’s own cameras, which have several times photographed from one day to the next, the solar arrays change from completely covered in red dust to sparkling clean. These cleaning events have been attributed to wind but given the encrusted state of the panels and the apparent “power washes” they receive, this just doesn’t seem possible to me.

Ironically, the notorious hacker Gary McKinnon, who allegedly hacked NASA’s databases and discovered crew lists for off-planetary missions called “Solar Warden” is seen on the YouTube comment thread of this video, defending the wind hypothesis, saying, “…the atmosphere is thinner and the gravity is far less so dust blows off easily.”

{ https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/ }

Yes, there's ice on the moon. But it's not the 1st lunar resource we'll use.

By Meghan Bartels 

An image of the moon's south pole shows illumination over time, with the depths of Shackleton Crater near the center of the frame.

(Image: © NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)

Listen to a couple ideas about humanity's future on the moon and you'll likely hear about the game-changing potential of a substance you probably have in your freezer: water ice.

Would-be explorers have high hopes they can harvest ice hidden below the moon's surface, both for astronauts to drink and to make rocket fuels to make round trips cheaper. But the image of robots tearing up the lunar surface and processing frozen water out from other compounds skips a step in considering resources on the moon. Ice will never be the first resource humans use on the moon, experts emphasized at a recent scientific conference.

Instead, it will be sunlight.

"The first and easiest resource that we have there is solar energy," Jake Bleacher, a geologist and chief exploration scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, said during the Lunar Surface Science Virtual Workshop held digitally on May 28.

• Related: Amazing moon photos from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Energy means power, particularly for operating instruments on the lunar surface, as well as for supporting the long-term base on the moon that NASA plans to build as part of the agency's Artemis program, the short-term goal of which is to land humans at the south pole by 2024.

The two resources are direct opposites and both rely on how the moon aligns with the sun. Unlike Earth's, the axis on which the moon rotates is more or less perpendicular to the plane of the solar system, which contains the sun, Earth and moon. It's Earth's axial tilt that gives us seasons, as one hemisphere tilts to receive more sunlight, making incredibly long days at the pole, then much less for a near-constant polar night.

Not so on the moon. There, the daily cycle is constant. At the poles, the lack of tilt means light and dark are governed in large part by terrain, as more elevated locations block sunlight from reaching lower areas.

On the dark side of this divide are permanently shadowed regions, many in the craters that scar the moon's surface, where temperatures are always cold enough that water ice remains frozen. On the light side of the divide are locations sometimes nicknamed the "peaks of eternal light" — and it's here that the first lunar resource harvesters would go, exploration experts say.

"The polar location, which was specified by the [Artemis program mandate from the National] Space Council, is enabling because of the existence of the locations of near-permanent sunlight," Sam Lawrence, a planetary scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said during his own presentation on the same day. "It is the illumination that's a resource."

Nevertheless, it's the potential for water ice that prompts the most discussion during these meetings and stars in NASA's written visions for how lunar exploration will become sustainable under the Artemis program.

"We heard a lot about the polar volatiles story and, to be sure, it's a good one," Lawrence said. "But it's the illumination that is the resource we're actually going after with the Artemis missions."

• New image captures 'impossible' view of the moon's surface
• China releases huge batch of amazing Chang'e-4 images from moon's far side
• NASA's Artemis moon program just photobombed a spacewalk (photo)

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

Incredible footage captures the moment SpaceX's droneship 'Ms Tree' catches the rocket's falling nose cone after its latest successful launch

• Ms Tree, formerly known as Mr Steven, caught the rocket fairing 
• It was located in the Atlantic Ocean  anticipating the return of the nose cone 
• Footage posted by Elon Musk on Twitter captured the moment it landed safely   

By JOE PINKSTONE FOR MAILONLINE 

SpaceX last night successfully captured its rocket fairing - part of the nose cone -  after another successful mission launch of Falcon 9.

Footage captured the moment the rocket part returned to Earth via parachutes and was caught by the droneship Ms Tree in the Atlantic Ocean. 

The Falcon 9 two-stage rocket was sent to orbit and was carrying the AMOS-17 communications satellite.  

SpaceX last night successfully captured its rocket fairing after another successful mission launch of Falcon 9 (pictured)

The footage, posted by SpaceX boss Elon Musk on Twitter, captured the moment the rocket part returned to Earth via parachutes and was caught by the droneship Ms Tree in the Atlantic Ocean 

It was the third flight for the Falcon 9 booster which was jettisoned into space during this mission. 

On the boosters previous trip to space it returned to Earth and landed itself.   

Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO, posted a video of the capture to Twitter saying: 'Rocket fairing falls from space & is caught by Ms Tree boat.'

A later tweet was posted with a higher resolution video of the landing. 

The fairing makes up the protective cover at the very top of the Falcon 9 rocket and protects the payload from the intense heat of leaving Earth's atmosphere. 

It is useless once the rocket has left the atmosphere so splits in two and is released. SpaceX is trying to improve the recycling and reuse of different rocket parts

Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO, posted a video of the capture to Twitter saying: 'Rocket fairing falls from space & is caught by Ms Tree boat.' A later tweet was posted with a higher resolution video of the landing

It is useless once the rocket has left the atmosphere so splits in two and is released.  

SpaceX is trying to improve the recycling and reuse of different rocket parts.

Ms Tree, formerly known as Mr Steven, is directed remotely and is intended to catch valuable parts before they splash down in the Atlantic Ocean after launching from Cape Canaveral.   

It failed several times and was first successful last launch.   

Ms Tree, formerly known as Mr Steven, is directed remotely and is intended to catch valuable parts before they splash down in the Atlantic Ocean after launching from Cape Canaveral

THE BILLIONAIRE SPACE RACE

Jeff Bezos in front of Blue Origin's space capsule

Jeff Bezos' space tourism project with Blue Origin is competing with a similar programme in development by Space X, the rocket firm founded and run by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Virgin Galactic, backed by Richard Branson.

Bezos revealed in April 2017 that he finances Blue Origin with around $1 billion (£720 million) of Amazon stock each year.

The system consists of a pressurised crew capsule atop a reusable 'New Shepard' booster rocket.  

Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world and Blue Origin has successfully used a single New Shepard Rocket six times.

At its peak, the capsule reached 65 miles (104 kilometres), just above the official threshold for space and landed vertically seven minutes after liftoff. 

Crewed missions for astronauts or tourists have yet to be announced.

SpaceX appears to be leading the way in the billionaire space race with numerous launches carrying NASA equipment to the ISS and partnerships to send tourists to space by 2021.  

On February 6 2018, SpaceX sent rocket towards the orbit of Mars, 140 million miles away, with Musk's own red Tesla roadster attached. 

Elon Musk with his Dragon Crew capsule

NASA has already selected two astronauts who will be on-board the first manned Dragon mission. 

SpaceX has also started sending batches of 60 satellites into space to help form its Starlink network. 

Musk hopes this will provide an interconnected web of satellites around Earth which will beam down free internet to people all around the world. 

Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic are taking a different approach to conquering space. 

It has repeatedly, and successfully, conducted test flights of the Virgin Galactic’s Unity spaceplane. 

The first took place in December 2018 and the latest took place on February 22nd.

The flight accelerated to over 2,000 miles per hour (Mach 2.7). 

More than 600 affluent customers to date, including celebrities Brad Pitt and Katy Perry, have reserved a $250,000 (£200,000) seat on one of Virgin's space trips, 

The billionaire mogul has previously said he expects Elon Musk to win the race to Mars with his private rocket firm SpaceX. 

Richard Branson with the Virgin Galactic craft

SpaceShipTwo can carry six passengers and two pilots. Each passenger gets the same seating position with two large windows - one to the side and one overhead.

The space ship is 60ft long with a 90inch diameter cabin allowing maximum room for the astronauts to float in zero gravity.

It climbs to 50,000ft before the rocket engine ignites. SpaceShipTwo separates from its carrier craft, White Knight II, once it's passed the 50-mile mark.

Passengers become 'astronauts' when they reach the Karman line, the boundary of Earth's atmosphere.

The spaceship will then make a sub-orbital journey with approximately six minutes of weightlessness, with the entire flight lasting approximately 1.5 hours.  

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

Planets with DUSTY atmospheres could be harbouring alien life as they trap water and keep temperatures down, study suggests

• Researchers examined the impact atmospheric dust has on planet habitability
• They found that in tidally locked planets dust can increase the habitable zone
• These life sustaining dusty worlds would be like Tatooine in the Star Wars saga 
• These tidally locked dusty planets are expected to orbit just inside the habitable zone of most red dwarf stars - the most common star type found in the universe

By RYAN MORRISON FOR MAILONLINE 

Alien life may be common throughout the universe, researchers claim, saying it could be thriving on planets orbiting distance stars with a dusty atmosphere.   

Exoplanets outside the the solar system are less likely to be too hot or cold if they have a dusty atmosphere and are tidally locked, according to the study.

They would look similar to the land depicted in David Lynch's 1984 sci-fi blockbuster Dune, or Luke Skywalker's home planet Tatooine in Star Wars.

This discovery, by researchers from the University of Exeter, dramatically extends the number of planets able to host life - and expands the possible habitable zone.    

The dust in the atmosphere of planets orbiting near the inner edge of the habitable zone of red dwarf stars, collects in the atmosphere and stops water leaving.

A visualization of three computer simulations of terrestrial exoplanets, showing winds (arrows) and airborne dust (color scale), with an M-dwarf host star in the background. 

Met office physicist Dr Ian Boutle, based at the University of Exeter, explained: 'On tidally locked planets - where the same side always faces the star - dust cools it.

'At the same time, the night-side is kept warmer - therefore widening the habitable zone for such planets to exist in.'

He added: 'Dust can slow down a planet's water loss at the inner edge of the habitable zone - and warm planets at the outer edge.'

These tidally locked dusty planets are expected to orbit just inside the habitable zone of most red dwarf stars - the most common star type found in the universe 

These worlds would look similar to the land depicted in David Lynch's 1984 sci-fi blockbuster Dune, or Luke Skywalker's home planet Tatooine in Star Wars (pictured)

Also known as the 'Goldilocks zone', it is the area where the temperature is just right - by allowing water - essential for life as we know it - to flow on the surface.

On Earth and Mars dust storms have both cooling and warming effects - with the former typically winning out but planets in a synchronised orbit 'are very different'. 

'Here, the dark sides are in perpetual night, and the warming effect wins out, whereas on the dayside, the cooling effect wins out,' said Boutle.

'The effect is to moderate the temperature extremes, thus making the planet more habitable, similar to the world shown in the sci-fi movie Dune.'

His team performed a series of simulations of rocky, Earth-sized exoplanets using state-of-the-art climate models.

It showed for the first time that naturally occurring mineral dust will have a significant impact on whether an exoplanet can support life.

'The results highlight the need to consider the potential effects of dust when studying terrestrial exoplanets,' said Dr Boutle.

This airborne material, mainly comprising particles of carbon-silicate from the surface, effects a climate system. The phenomenon has been ignored, until now.

It makes worlds habitable over a greater range of distances from their star - widening the window for those capable of sustaining life.

Planets orbiting close to suns smaller and cooler than Earth's, known as M-dwarfs, are likely to exist in 'synchronised rotation-orbit states' - resulting in permanent day and night sides - also known as being tidally locked like the Moon.

The experiments by the Met Office researcher, found dust cools down and warms up the hotter day and night sides, respectively.

For planets in general, they suggested cooling by airborne dust plays a significant role at the inner edge of the habitable zone.

This is where it gets so hot planets lose their surface water and become inhabitable - a scenario thought to have occurred on Venus.

What's more, the study showed dust can obscure the presence of key biomarkers such as water vapour, methane and oxygen.

The findings will also boost efforts to discover alien microbes and more complex forms of life, by narrowing down the best places to look and opens up a wider habitable zone.

Stock image

'This should be taken into consideration when interpreting observations about the habitability of exoplanets,' said Boutle.

The presence of mineral dust is known to play a substantial role in climate - both regionally on Earth and globally on Mars.

Co author Professor Manoj Joshi, of the University of East Anglia, said the possibility of exoplanets supporting life depends on the atmospheric make-up as well as the amount of light from its star. 

'Airborne dust is something that might keep planets habitable, but also obscures our ability to find signs of life on these planets,' he said.

'These effects need to be considered in future research.'

The quest to identify habitable planets far beyond our solar system is an integral part of current and future space missions.

Many missions are focused on answering the question of whether we are alone.

Latest calculations suggest there could be two trillion galaxies in the universe. The Milky Way alone has at least 100 billion alien planets, and possibly many more.     

Research has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Scientists study the atmosphere of distant exoplanets using enormous space satellites like Hubble

Distant stars and their orbiting planets often have conditions unlike anything we see in our atmosphere. 

To understand these new world's, and what they are made of, scientists need to be able to detect what their atmospheres consist of.  

They often do this by using a telescope similar to Nasa's Hubble Telescope.

These enormous satellites scan the sky and lock on to exoplanets that Nasa think may be of interest. 

Here, the sensors on board perform different forms of analysis. 

One of the most important and useful is called absorption spectroscopy. 

This form of analysis measures the light that is coming out of a planet's atmosphere. 

Every gas absorbs a slightly different wavelength of light, and when this happens a black line appears on a complete spectrum. 

These lines correspond to a very specific molecule, which indicates it's presence on the planet. 

They are often called Fraunhofer lines after the German astronomer and physicist that first discovered them in 1814.

By combining all the different wavelengths of lights, scientists can determine all the chemicals that make up the atmosphere of a planet. 

The key is that what is missing, provides the clues to find out what is present.  

It is vitally important that this is done by space telescopes, as the atmosphere of Earth would then interfere. 

Absorption from chemicals in our atmosphere would skew the sample, which is why it is important to study the light before it has had chance to reach Earth. 

This is often used to look for helium, sodium and even oxygen in alien atmospheres.  

This diagram shows how light passing from a star and through the atmosphere of an exoplanet produces Fraunhofer lines indicating the presence of key compounds such as sodium or helium 

Read more:

• dx.doi.org/10.10...

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

Dusty alien planets could be more likely to harbor life, study suggests

By Chelsea Gohd

A visualization showing computer simulations of three terrestrial exoplanets, depicting winds (arrows) and airborne dust (color), with an M-dwarf host star in the background.

(Image: © Denis Sergeev/University of Exeter)

Dusty alien planets might have a better chance at harboring life, a new study suggests.

Scientists studying the potential habitability of alien worlds look at a number of key factors, including temperature and composition (is it a rocky planet? Is it gaseous?). But in a new paper, scientists explore one often overlooked variable that could indicate whether life could exist on an exoplanet: dust. 

Now, we know that dust plays a role in climate here on Earth and also on Mars. According to this new study from researchers at the University of Exeter in the U.K., the Met Office (the U.K.'s national weather service) and the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, planets with significant amounts of airborne mineral dust could be habitable within a greater range of distance from their star. This creates a wider window of exoplanets that might be capable of harboring life. 

• Related: 10 exoplanets that could host alien life

In this study, researchers looked at M-dwarf planets, exoplanets which orbit close to cooler stars smaller than our sun. These planets usually orbit their stars in synchronous rotation, so there is a permanent day side of the planet facing the star and a permanent night side facing away. They performed a number of simulations of terrestrial planets and, using climate models, showed how the presence of substantial amounts of airborne mineral dust on the planet affected it. 

They found that dust would cool the hot day side of such an exoplanet and would warm its cold night side. 

"On Earth and Mars, dust storms have both cooling and warming effects on the surface, with the cooling effect typically winning out," Ian Boutle, lead author of this study from the Met Office and the University of Exeter, said in a statement. 

"But these 'synchronized orbit' planets are very different. Here, the dark sides of these planets are in perpetual night, and the warming effect wins out, whereas on the dayside, the cooling effect wins out. The effect is to moderate the temperature extremes, thus making the planet more habitable,"

However, while dust might be a key factor in some planets' habitability, it also complicates scientists' ability to observe these planets. "Airborne dust is something that might keep planets habitable, but also obscures our ability to find signs of life on these planets. These effects need to be considered in future research," co-author Manoj Joshi, a professor at the University of East Anglia said in the same statement. 

This research included work from undergraduate physics students, aiming to not only expand our understanding of exoplanet habitability, but to also support early-career researchers.

"To be able to involve undergraduate physics students in this, and other projects, also provides an excellent opportunity for those studying with us to directly develop the skills needed in such technical and collaborative projects," co-author Nathan Mayne, a professor at the University of Exeter, said in the statement. 

This work was published June 9 to the journal Nature Communications. 

• 7 ways to discover alien planets
• Photographing an exoplanet: How hard can it be?
• The strangest alien planets in pictures

Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

There are two things you can count on besides death and taxes – the Sun and the Moon … unless you’re on Saturn. While the Sun, feeble as it might shine on Saturn, isn’t going anywhere, its largest moon, Titan, is pulling away from the planet at a rate 100 times faster than astronomers think it should. Will Saturn lose its largest and most interesting moon? Can Earth pick it up?

Pictured: This undated NASA handout shows Saturn's moon, Titan, in ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths. The Cassini spacecraft took the image while on its mission to. gather information on Saturn, its rings, atmosphere

“Tidal friction within Saturn causes its moons to migrate outwards, driving them into orbital resonances that pump their eccentricities or inclinations, which in turn leads to tidal heating of the moons.”

“Pumping your eccentricities” is not a good thing for humans to do, and now it seems it’s bad for moons too, at least in the case of Saturn and other large gas giants. In a new study published in Nature Astronomy, scientists use data from the Cassini–Huygens spacecraft – which mapped Titan’s surface by radar starting in 2004 and continuing well beyond its planned completion in 2008 (Cassini finally crashed into Saturn in 2017) – to study the orbital expansion of Titan. While Earth and its Moon have a push-pull relationship with Earth domination, Saturn gaseous state give it less influence over its moons, causing them to move away – a little understood process. (Earth’s Moon is moving away too, but very slowly.)

Saturn and its moon Titan, as seen by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. 

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

Jim Fuller, assistant professor of theoretical astrophysics at Caltech and study co-author, explained in the NASA press release that he predicted four years ago that Titan is moving away much faster than expected. Two teams (from NASA, ESA and the Italian Space Agency) were formed and applied different techniques to measure changes in Titan’s orbit over ten years to test his theory. One used astrometry, which compared Titan’s position in relation to stars and planets, while the other used radiometry, which used electromagnetic radiation to calculate Titan’s gravitational pull.

“By using two completely different datasets, we obtained results that are in full agreement, and also in agreement with Jim Fuller’s theory, which predicted a much faster migration of Titan.”

Paolo Tortora, study coauthor and professor of aerospace systems at the University of Bologna in Italy, gave the results — Titan is moving away from Saturn 100 times faster than previously thought — about 4 inches (11 cm) per year. For comparison, Earth’s Moon is moving away at 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) per year. One conclusion from this is that Saturn’s rings and moons all started out much closer to the planet and are moving away faster than once believed. This will eventually help scientists put a timeframe on the entire process and better understand it.

At 4 inches per year, Titan is a long way from escaping Saturn’s gravity, but it’s certainly possible. What happens after that? While it has never been seen in any solar system, a report in 2019 studied the idea and dubbed escaping moons “Ploonets” – predicting they would enter their own orbit around their star. That’s probably what will happen to Titan and the Moon. It may not affect Saturn, but this will be catastrophic to Earth – if it wasn’t a catastrophic event that sent the Moon on its way in the first place.

Yes, Ploonets would be a great name for a band and “Pumping Your Eccentricities” a great idea for a song.

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Sprawled out across South central Colorado and North central New Mexico is a 120-mile-long-by-forty-mile wide, four-thousand-square-mile tract of semiarid desert scrubland called the San Luis Valley. Surrounded by the sweeping, jagged peaks of the Sangres de Cristos mountains, which are adorned with pristine wilderness, this is the largest alpine valley in the world. It is a remote place, sun beaten, sparsely populated, and almost inhospitable in its dryness, home to more cattle than people. This is a parched, isolated land long considered sacred by the local Native people, and it also happens to be ground zero for a variety of high strangeness and also the location of perhaps one of the earliest cases of a mysterious livestock mutilation on record, which launched the mystery into the mainstream.

One thing that can be said about this quiet valley is that it is absolutely infested with UFOs. Over the years there have been an estimated 257 UFO sightings per 10,000 in population within a clearly defined area, a degree of intensity that has prompted the Computer UFO Network (CUFON) to crown it as the highest per capita UFO sighting hotspot in the United States and possibly even the world. UFOs are constantly sighted here. With the UFOs come other strangeness as well, and the valley has become a hotspot for the phenomenon of cattle mutilations. This is when cattle or other livestock are found dead and in very strange circumstances. The carcasses are usually cut up, drained of blood, missing soft-tissue organs or other extremities, dismembered, or otherwise mutilated in a variety of ways, always showing a surgical precision to the cuts not consistent with the attack of a predator such as a coyote or mountain lion. There are typically other oddities as well, such as a lack of flies or strange substances seeping from the wounds, which are sometimes even cauterized. Dead, butchered cattle will be reported miles away from where they disappeared or in inaccessible places. There is never any sign of tracks of any perpetrator around the body, no scuff marks or sign of a struggle, and sometimes there aren’t even tracks from the dead animal, as if it has just materialized there or been carefully placed from the air. Usually there is no blood at all, and a distinct lack of decomposition or damage from scavengers. Even insects are usually said to shun these mystery corpses. It is all very bizarre, and the San Luis Valley supposedly just happens to be the origin of all of it.

Although the cattle mutilation phenomenon usually involves cows, the animal death that is believed to have been the first to kick off the phenomenon in the San Luis valley was not a cow, but a horse. The horse in question was an Appaloosa named Lady, which was cared for by a man named Harry King, who lived with his mother and sister on the King Ranch, at the base of the Blanca Massif near the town of Alamosa. One day in September of 1967, Lady failed to come on out to the fence to get her usual treat and water. This was very unusual for Lady, as she always came out at the same time every day. It was odd enough that King became worried and decided to go look for the horse, but he was unprepared for the gruesome scene he was about to find.

He found Lady out in the field lying on her side, which was already very strange, but as King drew closer he could see that Lady was in fact dead, and stripped of all flesh from the head to the shoulders, the bones and skull full exposed while the rest of the body was intact. Or at least, sort of intact. It was found that there were swaths of flesh missing from the animal’s flanks, which seemed to have been cut out with precision using a very sharp instrument, and the heart, lungs, and brain were missing. The entire carcass seemed to be drained of blood as well, and oddly there was no splatter from the cuts that had been inflicted. There were other bizarre clues in the area as well. Pervading the whole scene was allegedly a strong, distinctly chemical smell, and not far from the carcass were found what were later described as “giant horse-like tracks,” as well as scorch marks on the ground that looked like exhaust marks from a rocket taking off. The tracks of Lady herself reportedly ended 100 yards away from where the mutilated body was sprawled out, with no other footprints between them to give away who could have possibly placed it there. There was also found a flattened ring of bushes with indentations that formed a circle within it, and on these bushed was supposedly found a green, gelatinous substance that irritated the skin when touched. Nearby was found a shard of metal with horse hair in it, and the bushes, burn marks, and the metallic object were all later found to be imbued with levels of radioactivity.

When law enforcement arrived they tried to write it off as death by lightning strike, but this explanation didn’t match any of the evidence at all. Several days later, the police brought out a pathologist by the name of Dr. John Altshuler for a more expert opinion. The body at this point had been there for several days, yet there was no sign of bloating or decomposition, and no flies like one would expect to be buzzing about. Indeed, the corpse supposedly had very little deterioration at all, and oddly seemed to have been completely ignored by scavengers. He quickly ascertained that besides the heart and brain, the animal was also weirdly missing its thyroid gland and all of the tissue from within its spinal cord. Why? Who knows? Altshuler also concurred that the cuts were clean and had been expertly done, and dismissed suggestions from the police that it could have been the work of coyotes or other predators. He was completely puzzled by the state of the carcass, and would later say:

I have done hundreds of autopsies. You can’t cut into a body without getting some blood. But there was no blood on the skin or the ground. No blood anywhere. The outer edges of the skin were cut firm, almost as if they had been cauterized by a modern day laser, but there was no cauterizing laser technology like that in 1967.

After the discovery of the body, reports from locals saying they had seen strange lights in the sky near the King Ranch at around the time of the incident, as well as black helicopters afterwards, all added to the mystery, and combined with the bizarre state of the carcass before long reporters were flocking in and it was hitting the news. The horse, now given the rather morbid nickname “Snippy” due to its enigmatic condition, became a local celebrity and people were whispering that it was everything from the work of aliens and flying saucers, to Satanic cults, to secret government experiments. At the same time another pathologist, this one a Dr. Robert Adams, was sent by the U.S. Air Force to examine the corpse as part of the Condon Committee, a precursor to the UFO study project called Project Blue Book. According to Adams, the condition of the horse’s body was due to “no unearthly causes, at least not to my mind.”

The case of Snippy the horse is widely accepted as starting the trend of the cattle mutilation phenomenon, as dozens of reports began to come from all over the valley before spreading out into the world at large, with the San Luis Valley being ground zero for all of it. The valley alone would experience nearly 1,000 such reports from 1967 to the present, with a major peak seen in the 1980s, and around 10,000 cases have been reported nationwide after the Snippy incident. Over the years other elements have been added to the lore. Sometimes shadowy figures are seen hunched over the dead animals extracting blood with metal tubes. A popular detail in some reports is that unmarked black helicopters will chase people away from the scenes of these mutilations, and accounts of ranchers being approached by military personnel and told to keep quiet, making it all very ominous indeed.

Snippy’s remains would end up being displayed on the sidewalk in front of the Chamber of Commerce, after which they passed to a private museum and decades later ended up on e-Bay. In the meantime, the cattle mutilation phenomenon has been discussed and dissected for years. It has been explained away as lightning strikes, the work of predators, or simple vandals, but the thing is none of the evidence fits in with any of this. There is also the fact that many of these ranchers are very experienced, and know what a dead cow or whatnot should look like, so why is it that they should be so startled? The phenomenon of cattle mutilations seems to be far from settled, and has happened all over the world, yet it is interesting to know that it all seems to have originated in this one lonely valley with a sweet little horse named Lady.

For further reading on Snippy and much more of the high strangeness of the San Luis Valley, researcher Christopher O’Brien has documented numerous strange cases across the valley and written The Mysterious Valley (1996), Enter the Valley (2007), and Stalking the Herd (2015).

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Aphotograph taken by the Curiosity Mars Rover shows an abandoned mining crawler or at least a part of the crawler likely used to take Mars materials.

The same photo also shows what looks like a strange human-like figure dressed in a black suit on top of the ridge apparently inspecting something, but of course it just could be an incorrect perception of a natural mars object.

About the mining crawler, although our brains are not used to seeing alien technology, this object is clearly a machine or part of a machine previously used by an unknown intelligent specie.

Link image:

• http://gigapan.com/galleries/13375/gigapans/205531

Videos, selected by peter2011

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