The Experimental Engine That Could Get Us Anywhere in the World in 2 Hours

 BY CAROLINE DELBERT

CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES’ INSTITUTE OF MECHANICS/HANDOUT

• An adapted scramjet called a "sodramjet" could reach Mach 16 flight by leveraging sonic booms.

• The experimental engine is Chinese, but based on American ideas dating back 40 years or more.

• Turning sonic booms into combustion addresses a key, "fatal" flaw in scramjet designs.

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A Chinese-made "sodramjet" engine has reached nine times the speed of sound in a wind tunnel test. The engine could power an aircraft to reach anywhere in the world within two hours, the makers say.

Scientists say the sodramjet (short for “standing oblique detonation ramjet engine”) could be the first real hope for hypersonic flight—many times the speed of sound, and something that would bring both global travel and space travel much closer to home.

"With reusable trans-atmospheric planes, we can take off horizontally from an airport runway, accelerate into orbit around the Earth, then reenter into the atmosphere, and finally land at an airport," the scientists, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Mechanics, write in a new study published in the Chinese Journal of Aeronautics. "In this way, space access will become reliable, routine and affordable."

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The idea is a decades-old theoretical variation on a scramjet, itself a variation on the ramjet, building on generations of work on high-speed flight.

Many commercial aircraft today have turbofans or, for smaller jets, turboprops. These have descended from the idea of the turbojet, and on the family tree of jet propulsion, the turbojet and ramjet are something like cousins.

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The same way that, say, researchers continue to work on stellarators along with tokamaks and salt-cooled along with lightwater reactors, research on the lower profile idea of the ramjet has continued since the interwar period. Because of their design, turbojets, turbofans, and turboprops work better in the zone we’ve decided is right for passenger flight. For the most part, that’s subsonic flight within Earth’s atmosphere.

The sodramjet is the latest bleeding edge of a completely different use case. The ramjet led to the scramjet, which was designed to go as much as 15 times the speed of sound. Like the fastest combustion and even rocket cars, the secret is in dropping a great deal of weight from the craft—the scramjet scoops up oxygen from the air instead of in condensed form from a tank.

But that means a more fragile cycle of combustion that, it turns out, can be woofed out by the very sonic boom the engine creates. The scramjet just never reached its full potential.

South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports that the sodramjet follows decades of work on scramjets that began in the United States. But in China, development of scramjet concepts has continued, too. Even so, lead researcher Jiang Zonglin grew frustrated with scramjets and decided to go his own way, based on a theory published by NASA in 1980:

“Jiang and colleagues said they were fed up with scramjets’ fatal design weakness. The scramjet could barely generate any thrust at the speed of Mach 7 or beyond. The fuel consumption was so high that no commercial aviation company could possibly foot the bill. And the pilots—not to mention passengers—could suffer heart attacks if they were required to restart the engine from time to time during a flight.”

Concept demonstration model of the sodramjet engine and its installation in a wind tunnel.

ZONGLIN JIANG, ET. AL./CHINESE JOURNAL OF AERONAUTICS

The key difference in the sodramjet is that the new design uses the sonic boom to add combustion, not blow it out.

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“Turning the shock wave from their enemy to their friend helped them sustain and stabilise combustion at hypersonic speed,” SCMP reports. “The faster the engine flew, the more efficiently the hydrogen fuel burned. The new engine was also much smaller and lighter than previous models.”

Nothing is certain about this design, which can’t even be tested in a full-speed wind tunnel yet—one simply doesn’t exist. A lot remains to be seen, studied, and proven.

The sodramjet, however, seems to be a hypersonic contender at the beginning of an era where this technology will be critical to travel and exploration.

{ https://www.popularmechanics.com/ }

L'Égypte dévoile des «trésors» trois fois millénaires

Les autorités égyptiennes ont dévoilé dimanche au public de nouveaux «trésors» archéologiques découverts dans la nécropole de Saqqarah dont une cinquantaine de sarcophages du Nouvel Empire vieux de plus de 3000 ans.

Ces nouvelles mises au jour ont été effectuées près de la pyramide du roi Téti, premier pharaon de la VIe dynastie de l'Ancien Empire, par une équipe menée par le célèbre égyptologue Zahi Hawass.

«Cette découverte réécrit l'Histoire de Saqqarah et plus particulièrement l'Histoire du Nouvel empire, né il y a 3000 ans», a assuré dimanche à l'AFP M. Hawass, avant d'ajouter que «70% (de cette nouvelle découverte) restent à explorer».

Les sarcophages en bois, datant du Nouvel Empire (XVIe-XIe siècle av. J.-C), ont été retrouvés dans un puits funéraire, selon M. Hawass, qui précise qu'un sarcophage en pierre a également été retrouvé dans un autre puits.

«Nous avons découvert un total de 22 puits funéraires», a-t-il dit à l'AFP. Parmi les découvertes dans ces puits figure celle d'un «soldat à côté duquel reposait sa hache de guerre», a précisé M. Hawass.

En outre, M. Hawass a ajouté que son équipe avait retrouvé «un papyrus d'environ 5m de long contenant le chapitre 17 du livre des morts (...) des masques, des embarcations en bois, des jeux auxquels jouaient les anciens Égyptiens».

L'archéologue estime qu'il s'agit d'une «découverte rare, car la plupart des pièces retrouvées datent du Nouvel Empire. À Saqqarah, c'est plutôt 500 avant J.-C. habituellement».

Plusieurs de ces objets ont été présentés dimanche à la presse, alors que les fouilles se poursuivaient sur le site.

Le ministère des Antiquités et du Tourisme avait révélé dès samedi soir dans un communiqué la teneur de ces découvertes, qu'il avait qualifiées de «majeures».

Le site de Saqqarah, qui se trouve à un peu plus de quinze kilomètres au sud des pyramides du plateau de Gizeh, abrite la nécropole de Memphis, la capitale de l'Égypte ancienne.

Il est classé au patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO et est connu pour la célèbre pyramide à degrés du pharaon Djéser, la première de l'ère pharaonique.

Ce monument, construit vers 2700 avant J.-C par l'architecte Imhotep, est considéré comme l'un des plus anciens à la surface du globe.

Les autorités espèrent inaugurer en 2021 le «Grand musée égyptien» près du plateau de Gizeh, où se trouvent les célèbres grandes pyramides et le Sphinx.

L'Égypte espère que toutes ces découvertes et son nouveau musée vont redynamiser le tourisme mis à mal par l'instabilité politique et les attentats après la révolution de 2011 qui a chassé Hosni Moubarak du pouvoir, et par la pandémie de COVID-19.

VIDÉOS LIÉES, sélectionnées et publiées par peter2011

{ https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/ }

The McCallister Case: Alien Close Encounter and a Stolen Artifact

The Robert McCallister Case has everything, a UFO, a close encounter with the occupant, an alien artifact and a visit from someone who steals the artifact. The case was discovered from Gray Barker a UFO investigator, writer and president of Saucerian Publications a publishing company dedicated to books related to the UFO phenomena.

The incident most probably happened some time in the 60s. Robert McCallister was a boy at the time and on that day during the Christmas holiday season he was in a forest near Salt Lake City (USA) setting up traps to catch coyotes. As he was walking around to check if he had caught something he suddenly confronted a disc-shaped craft hovering about 2 meters above the ground. His first thought was that the object was a hovercraft something he had read about recently in a magazine and therefore was not afraid. The object hovered silently, it had a diameter of about 4.5 meters and featured triangular ports about a meter apart. From behind some rocks a group of strange looking individuals emerged. They were tall and wore helmets similar to those worn by old-time divers. The helmets were attached to a cable.

The same cable was also attached to a type of chair (no details exist of how this chair looked) that was floating in the air at a height of about 3 meters. On the chair sat an old man with white hair and a broad smile. This man did not have a helmet nor wore a uniform similar to the other individuals. Instead he wore a blue tunic and sandals. After a few moments both the old man on the chair and the three individuals floated towards the disc. One of the ports opened and they all entered inside, including the chair. After the port had closed something unexpected happened. The port opened again and the old man appeared; he looked at Robert for a few moments and then approached him. The man took Robert by the hand and started showing him around the discs exterior. Although the man spoke an unknown language, gestures indicated that he was explaining a few things regarding the craft. The man noted the ball-point pen in Robert’s pocket. Robert gave it to him and the man took a piece of paper from his pocket and scribbled on it. When the man handed back the pen Robert insisted that he should keep it as a present. The man accepted the gift with a smile and offered him one of their own pens, he reached out to his pocket and gave it to Robert.

After this exchange of pens the man floated back to the craft´s interior. From the craft’s port the man waved to Robert to move away from the craft most probably to ensure that he maintains a safety distance during take-off. But after a few moments the port opened again and the same man waved at him to move even further away. When he was about 100 meters away Robert turned to look at the craft as it was rising slowly and without any sound. Suddenly, it shot upwards at an incredible speed and disappeared. Once back home he shared his story with his parents and older brother. They laughed at him and did not believe him despite him showing them the pen. The pen was made by a black plastic tube with a glass or plastic point from which ink flowed onto the paper.

Upon his return to school after the Christmas and new-year holidays, Robert shared his story and the “alien artifact” with his teacher and classmates. Although they did not take him seriously he was allowed to pass the pen around for observation by his classmates. A few days later Robert was home alone doing his homework; parents and younger siblings had gone shopping and his older brother was at basketball practice. He heard a knock on the door. There stood a short smiling man trying to communicate through gestures. The man presented a deaf/mute card (item sold outlining the sign-language alphabet). Thinking that the man seeking a contribution Robert offered some coins. The man refused and continued to make gestures; he pointed at the card and then at the “alien-pen” placed on the boy’s shirt pocket as if requesting it to note something down on the card. Robert did not hesitate and gave the pen thinking that the man will write something down that will help their communication. The moment he got hold of the “alien-pen” the short man ran towards the back of the house . Robert heard a car rev-up and then the screech of tires as the car left the scene.

Was this short man part of a government agency dedicated to retrieving alien artifacts and silencing witnesses?

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

L’affaire McCallister : une rencontre rapprochée avec des extraterrestres et un artefact volé

Les plus belles images de la sonde New Horizons

Par Joël Ignasse 

La sonde New Horizons continue son exploration de la ceinture de Kuiper.

Le 19 janvier 2006, une fusée Atlas-V propulsait la sonde New Horizons dans l'espace en direction de Pluton et de la ceinture de Kuiper. Elle vogua d'abord vers la planète Jupiter qu'elle a survolée le 28 février 2007 à une distance de 23 millions de kilomètres. La manœuvre lui a permis de bénéficier de l'assistance gravitationnelle de la géante gazeuse et de prendre la route de Pluton.

A la découverte de la Ceinture de Kuiper

La ceinture de Kuiper est une vaste zone en forme d'anneau composée d'une myriade de petits corps et de plusieurs planètes naines dont Pluton. Elle est située au-delà de l'orbite de Neptune entre 30 et 55 unités astronomiques. Gigantesque et quasi inexplorée, cette partie du Système solaire recèle pourtant bien des secrets : c'est un réservoir de comètes périodiques qui abrite des astres probablement contemporains des débuts du Système solaire, tandis que d'autres ont pu s'y former puis migrer secondairement et se rapprocher du Soleil. C'est sans doute le cas de Cérès et de Triton (une lune de Neptune). Avec 2.372 km de diamètre, Pluton est le plus gros membre de cette ceinture de Kuiper mais pas le plus massif puisque Eris, découverte en 2005, la dépasse. C'est notamment à cause de cette dernière que Pluton a été déchue de son statut de planète pour devenir une planète naine selon la définition adoptée par l'Union astronomique internationale le 24 août 2006, soit à peine 8 mois après le lancement de New Horizons. 

Des milliers d'images et de mesure de Pluton

Si cette nouvelle définition n'a pas fait que des heureux (surtout de l'autre côté de l'Atlantique), elle n'altère en rien l'intérêt et les résultats qu'obtiendra la sonde. Après des années d'hibernation, elle sera réveillée quelques mois avant d'atteindre son premier but. Et le 14 juillet, après un voyage de près de 6,5 milliards de kilomètres, l'engin survolera la planète désormais naine à seulement 11.000 km de sa surface. De ce passage historique, il restera des milliers d'images et de mesure qui révèlent la complexité de ce monde recouvert de glace sous laquelle réside peut-être un océan liquide comme sur son satellite Charon.

New Horizons

La sonde New Horizons est dans l'espace depuis 15 ans.

Jupiter

Première planète photographiée par la sonde New Horizons.

Io

La surface de Io, survolée ici le 28 juin 2007 par la sonde New Horizons. On y aperçoit une éruption volcanique au sommet.

Europe

Europe est l'un des quatre plus gros satellites de la planète Jupiter. Cette vue est celle d'un lever d'Europe au-dessus de Jupiter.

Etoiles

Une des photos de l'espace lointain prise par la sonde New Horizons.

Pluton

New Horizons a réalisé un survol historique de la planète naine Pluton le 14 juillet 2015.

Surface de Pluton

De nombreuses images de la surface de Pluton continuent d'être analysées par les scientifiques.

Le cœur de Pluton

Le cœur de Pluton ou la région Tombaugh est une vaste plaine glacée de 2000 km de large.

Montagnes dans le cœur de Pluton

Rangée de montagnes dans le "coeur" de Pluton : une image de l'instrument Lorri de New Horizons.

"Dark side" de Pluton

Quelques minutes après son survol, New Horizons a photographié la face cachée de Pluton.

Macule Cthulhu

La région de Cthulhu sur Pluton héberge de hautes montagnes dont le sommet est couvert de glace de méthane.

Charon

Cette image de Charon a été prise le 13 juillet 2015, c'est-à-dire 24 heures avant le survol au-dessus de Pluton.

Nyx et Hydra

Nyx et Hydra sont deux petites lunes qui orbitent autour de Pluton.

Arrokoth

L'astéroïde Arrokoth a été visité par la sonde le 1er janvier 2019.

Disque de poussière du système solaire

L'instrument Student Dust Counter (SDC) mesure la taille et la distribution des particules de poussières se trouvant sur la trajectoire de New Horizons et dont la masse est comprise entre 10−12 et 10−9 g.

VIDÉOS LIÉES, sélectionnées et publiées par peter2011

{ https://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/ }

NASA's OSIRIS-REx probe could make a 2nd stop at infamous asteroid Apophis

An artist's depiction of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft at work at the asteroid Bennu.

(Image: © NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)

"I thought for sure extended-mission targets were going to be flyby kind of opportunities, more traditional," Lauretta said. "Those are pretty easy to design in the inner solar system. But when [the OSIRIS-REx mission designer] came back and said we could put the spacecraft into orbit around a second large near-Earth asteroid, I was really excited."

But of course, the priority for the OSIRIS-REx team has been the primary mission of the spacecraft (formally dubbed the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer): collect and deliver a sample from the asteroid Bennu for scientists to analyze in their laboratories on Earth.

That task is going smoothly: OSIRIS-REx collected its space rock on Oct. 20 and will leave Bennu for the long journey home sometime this spring, arriving in September 2023. And just like the Japanese Hayabusa2 asteroid-sampling mission, which returned its samples from an asteroid called Ryugu in December, only a small capsule will actually return to Earth, jettisoned by the main spacecraft, which will then be free to explore other destinations — assuming, of course, the paperwork comes through.

The OSIRIS-REx team plans to propose an extended mission to NASA in the summer of 2022, Lauretta said. Visiting Apophis is one option for what that extended mission could look like, but so far, it's the only target that engineers have found the spacecraft could visit long-term. And a flyby might not do the spacecraft justice in terms of its capabilities and current condition, which Lauretta said is "excellent."

"We don't have a solution that gets us to rendezvous with another asteroid at all right now," Lauretta said. "It really is the unique nature of the Apophis close approach to the Earth in 2029 that even enables us to do this."

Same spacecraft, new asteroid, new science

OSIRIS-REx has lost only one mode of one instrument; otherwise, everything is in working order, Lauretta said.

In fact, a second asteroid visit would give scientists the opportunity to use an instrument that never actually studied Bennu: OSIRIS-REx was equipped with two lasers for the spacecraft to shoot off the rock and study the echo to facilitate its landing and sampling maneuver. But when the spacecraft arrived, mission personnel learned the asteroid was far too rocky for the system to work and devised an alternative navigation system.

Most lasers don't last long in space, so having two working lasers on a spacecraft older than a decade is rare, Lauretta said. "Having two fresh lasers that we've never used, I'm actually kind of excited about that," he said. "Especially because we built the hardware and we never got to use it. I just feel bad for the instrument. Like, aww, you got all the way to Bennu and all you got to do is get checked out and then we turned you off and you never got to see any action."

In general, an observation campaign at Apophis would likely look quite similar to what the spacecraft did at Bennu.

First, there's a long chain of approach observations, starting with the asteroid seen as just a speck of light, slowly growing into a whole new world. That sequence would begin perhaps around April 8, 2029. OSIRIS-REx won't have a front-row seat to Apophis' close approach, which will occur on April 13.

Particularly prominent might be a change in how the asteroid spins. A second possibility the spacecraft could explore is that the close approach would sculpt the space rock's surface as Earth's gravity tugs at Apophis

"It could trigger mass movement on the surface, and we would definitely be looking for that," Lauretta said. "Even though we might not see the motion due to the gravitational interaction with the Earth, we could see evidence that things had moved recently: freshly exposed surfaces, maybe even a population of particles that were kicked up, that are in orbit around Apophis."

But Lauretta isn't convinced that the drama of the asteroid's flyby is necessary to justify sending OSIRIS-REx on to Apophis once its precious cargo is delivered. Bennu and Apophis belong to different asteroid families with similar structures, and OSIRIS-REx was designed to create incredibly detailed portraits of large space rocks.

"In order to get as much science out of this vehicle as possible, it would be great to go to a different asteroid with a different composition, and collect the same kind of high-fidelity data that we had to generalize our understanding of the physical environment of asteroid surfaces as we've learned from the OSIRIS-REx mission," Lauretta said.

Sending OSIRIS-REx to visit a second asteroid could also help solve perhaps the biggest mystery the spacecraft discovered at Bennu: streams of particles shooting off the rock into space. "Those surprised us so much at Bennu," Lauretta said. "That's a day that I'll never forget, when I saw that first image of what looked like an eruption from the asteroid. And we don't know what's causing those."

The ejections could depend on Bennu's water-rich composition, or they might be a more common trait. As an asteroid of similar size and structure but very different stony material, Apophis could settle that question. "One of the hypotheses is that this is due to micrometeoroids impacting the asteroid," Lauretta said. "If that's the case, Apophis should have just as many particles as Bennu."

And then there's that ineffable quality that Apophis carries with it, from its discovery in 2004, when scientists' measurement of its orbit was uncertain enough that in some scenarios, its 2029 flyby went very, very badly indeed, with the asteroid slamming into Earth. Additional observations cleared up the concern, but it's a difficult reputation to shake for an asteroid named after a mythological Egyptian serpent of chaos.

"It really does enable some unique science," Lauretta said. "Quite honestly, any large asteroid that popped up as a rendezvous target would be super exciting for us. The fact that it was Apophis! Apophis is just famous, so everybody knows exactly what I'm saying when I tell them the asteroid that we want to target."

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

{ https://www.space.com/ }

Now-dead radio telescope finds bizarre venomous-spider star

By Rafi Letzter 

This thing has a bite.

Neutron stars are among the densest objects in the universe.

(Image: © Shutterstock)

Astronomers have discovered black widows and redbacks in space. While these cosmic objects don't kill and eat their mates, the stars share their eight-legged counterparts' violent behavior toward companions.

In addition to the run-of-the-mill spider stars, the researchers also discovered a bizarre black widow-redback crossbreed. The scientists used the now-destroyed Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico to discover the weirdo stars.

Spider stars are types of millisecond pulsars, or neutron stars that act like precise clocks in the sky, whirling around at least once every 30 milliseconds and flashing like a lighthouse with each rotation. Neutron stars, the tiny, compressed cores of old, exploded stars, often rip material from other stars locked in binary orbits with them and use the push of that infalling material to get up to pulsar speed. Spider stars are rare and special versions of these stars though: They orbit so close to their binary companions that they blast away their surfaces, inhaling vast amounts of material like a spider tearing its partner limb from limb. 

In a new paper, researchers identify three new black widows and a redback in the Milky Way. They also found a spider star that defies categorization, almost like a crossbreed of the two species.

• Related: The 12 strangest objects in the universe

When a spider star has reduced its companion to significantly less than a tenth the mass of the sun (usually 0.02 to 0.03 times the sun's mass), that star is called a black widow. Redbacks have heftier companions that boast more than a tenth of the sun's mass. These binary companions of redbacks pass between the spider star and Earth periodically, creating temporary eclipses. The shriveled companions of black widows don't typically pull off that trick. 

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The seeming crossbreed star is difficult to categorize. For now, researchers have labeled it a redback because its companion sometimes eclipses its ticking light. And that companion has a mass at least 0.055 times the mass of the sun (possibly larger), which would be quite heavy for a black widow, though quite light for a redback. For now, the exact mechanisms of that system are still a mystery.

Studies like this might get harder in the future. The paper, published Jan. 1 to the arXiv database, relied on data collected between 2013 and 2018 using the Arecibo 305-m radio telescope which has since collapsed, as Live Science reported.

• Originally published on Live Science.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

Pluto's atmosphere gets its blue haze from icy organic compounds, study suggests

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured this image of the blue haze around the dwarf planet Pluto during its historic flyby in 2015.

(Image: © NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI/SPL)

NASA's New Horizons mission, which flew by Pluto in 2015, unexpectedly revealed Pluto also possesses haze hugging the dwarf planet's frozen surface. Since Pluto, Titan and Triton are all icy worlds with atmospheres rich in nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide, researchers had thought they might all possess similar kinds of hazes.

Previous research found Titan's haze was the result of solar ultraviolet rays triggering chemical reactions in the icy moon's upper atmosphere. These created simple organic compounds that went on to help form ever larger and more complex organic molecules.

However, scientists now find the hazes on Pluto and Triton might have significantly different origins than Titan's.

"Although Titan and Pluto seem very similar, their haze properties can be drastically different," study lead author, Panayotis Lavvas, a planetary scientist at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in Reims, France, told Space.com.

When the researchers analyzed computer models of haze formation, they discovered that if the same chemical reactions at work on Titan happened on Pluto, they could only create about half the haze particles that prior work detected on the dwarf planet. (Since Pluto's atmosphere is roughly 175 degrees Fahrenheit, or 80 degrees Celsius, colder than Titan's, its atmospheric chemistry runs slower.)

In the new study, Lavvas and his colleagues suggest that as on Titan, sunlight triggers chemical reactions in Pluto's upper atmosphere, forming simple compounds such as hydrogen cyanide, a molecule made up of one hydrogen, one carbon and one nitrogen atom. Their models suggested hydrogen cyanide might freeze to produce tiny ice particles.

As these microscopic ice particles settle downward due to gravity, other gases condense around these seeds to coat them. As such, haze particles on Pluto may be largely made of a variety of ices, instead of more complex organic compounds as on Titan. The sizes, amounts and atmospheric distributions of these ice grains in the computer models closely match those of the haze particles detected on Pluto, the scientists noted.

In addition, these ice particles on Pluto should interact less with incoming solar energy than haze particles on Titan, the researchers said. As such, they should play a smaller role in controlling heat in Pluto's atmosphere than previously thought, Lavvas said.

When it comes to Triton, since it possesses an even colder atmosphere than Pluto's, the scientists noted its hazes should prove even icier.

"This comparison of Titan, Pluto and Triton illuminates the important differences in the mechanisms of haze formation in planetary atmospheres," Lavvas said.

• The scientists detailed their findings online Dec. 21 in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

Recently, we showed you a cool new direct image taken of a brown dwarf, an object midway in mass between a planet and a star. But that image doesn’t show the brown dwarf’s surface features. No existing image does. These objects are too far away – and too dim – to reveal themselves in that way. Now, though, a brown dwarf’s surface appearance has been revealed by researchers. The new study indicates bands and stripes in the atmosphere of Luhman 16B – one of two objects in the Luhman 16 binary brown dwarf system – the closest known brown dwarfs to Earth at only 6.5 light-years. Scientists said their new technique for revealing the stripes and bands on Luhman 16B will also be useful someday in mapping surface features on Earth-like planets in distant solar systems. Now that would be something to see!

• EarthSky lunar calendars are back in stock! We’re guaranteed to sell out. Get one while you can.!

In our solar system, the gas giant planets Jupiter and Saturn both sport stripes and bands. Scientists had wondered if brown dwarfs had any such stripes. Or would their atmospheres appear more chaotic? Based on the study of Luhman 16B, they believe that at least some brown dwarfs do have banded atmospheres.

As astronomer Daniel Apai at the University of Arizona – lead author of the new study – said in a statement:

We wondered, do brown dwarfs look like Jupiter, with its regular belts and bands shaped by large, parallel, longitudinal jets? Or will they be dominated by an ever-changing pattern of gigantic storms known as vortices like those found on Jupiter’s poles?

The researchers published the peer-reviewed study in The Astrophysical Journal on January 7, 2021.

The results provide a new glimpse of these mysterious worlds that are too massive to be considered planets, but not massive enough to ignite their nuclear fuel to become stars. And while it seems that brown dwarfs might look a lot like gas giant planets, at least in some cases, they’re still not planets. They are their own unique cosmic objects.

View larger. | WISE image of the brown dwarf binary system Luhman 16, closest known brown dwarfs to Earth at just over 6 light-years. This is the 3rd-closest-known system to our sun (after the Alpha Centauri system and Barnard’s Star). In the inset, the system is resolved into a pair. But no surface features are revealed for this brown dwarf system, or any other.

Image via NASA Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

Apai and his colleagues determined that Luhman 16B looks a lot like Jupiter. High-speed winds flow parallel to its equator, just like wind patterns on the gas giant. These winds help mix the atmosphere and redistribute heat that originates from deeper down. The researchers also found that there are vortex-type storms at the brown dwarf’s poles, also similar to what we see on Jupiter. While scientists didn’t know exactly what the atmospheres of brown dwarfs would look like, for the most part, some computer models had predicted an appearance quite similar to what was seen on Luhman 16B. Apai said:

Wind patterns and large-scale atmospheric circulation often have profound effects on planetary atmospheres, from Earth’s climate to Jupiter’s appearance, and now we know that such large-scale atmospheric jets also shape brown dwarf atmospheres.

Knowing how the winds blow and redistribute heat in one of the best-studied and closest brown dwarfs helps us to understand the climates, temperature extremes and evolution of brown dwarfs in general.

This is a section of Jupiter’s atmosphere. Jupiter – the biggest planet in our solar system – is dominated by global winds, giving it a banded appearance. But Jupiter also has localized vortices, vast storms, at its poles. Researchers have long wanted to know if brown dwarfs – objects midway in mass between Jupiter and a star – looked like Jupiter, with a striped or banded atmosphere. Or would brown dwarfs look more like our sun, with a chaotic atmosphere? See the image below.

Like Jupiter, the atmosphere of Luhman 16B appears to be dominated by global winds. In other words, this brown dwarf has stripes and bands in its atmosphere, like Jupiter. This image is a video still from the video at top. Watch that video to see all the amazing details in the atmosphere of Luhman 16B, derived via data analysis by the University of Arizona scientists.

Brown dwarf surfaces can’t be seen directly. They’re too dim, and too far away, to reveal themselves in that way. So how did Apai and his team figure out what Luhman 16B looks like?

They used newly-developed algorithms designed for NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to measure the brightness patterns of the two closest known brown dwarfs, Luhman 16A and Luhman 16B, only 6.5 light-years from Earth, and both about the size of Jupiter (but much more massive than Jupiter). Luhman 16A is approximately 34 times Jupiter’s mass, and Luhman 16B is about 28 times Jupiter’s mass. Luhman 16B is also about 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit (830 degrees Celsius) hotter than our sun (but still not hot enough to be a star). As Apai explained:

The TESS space telescope, although designed to hunt for extrasolar planets, also provided this incredibly rich and exciting dataset on the closest brown dwarf to us. With advanced algorithms developed by members of our team, we were able to obtain very precise measurements of the brightness changes as the two brown dwarfs rotated. The brown dwarfs get brighter whenever brighter atmospheric regions turn into the visible hemisphere and darker when these rotate out of view.

Daniel Apai, Associate Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona, who led the new study.

Image via University of Arizona.

Even though TESS, or any other existing telescope, can’t see brown dwarfs in detail, the brightness of the brown dwarfs can be measured, which provides clues as to their appearance. Apai said:

No telescope is large enough to provide detailed images of [exo-]planets or brown dwarfs. But by measuring how the brightness of these rotating objects changes over time, it is possible to create crude maps of their atmospheres, a technique that, in the future, could also be used to map Earth-like planets in other solar systems that might otherwise be hard to see.

And that’s exciting, isn’t it?

In the case of Luhman 16B, the researchers were able to collect data from multiple rotations of the brown dwarf. This, and also the fact that TESS isn’t hindered by daylight, allowed the scientists to obtain the most detailed view of a brown dwarf’s atmosphere to date.

It’s a preliminary, but fascinating, look at these bizarre objects. This new method will allow astronomers to observe in more detail the atmospheres of other brown dwarfs as well as gas giant exoplanets, according to Apai:

Our study provides a template for future studies of similar objects on how to explore – and even map – the atmospheres of brown dwarfs and giant extrasolar planets without the need for telescopes powerful enough to resolve them visually.

Brown dwarfs are unique objects, too massive to be considered planets, but not massive enough to become stars. Most are about the size of Jupiter, but much more massive.

Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ UCB/ Institute for Research on Exoplanets.

Being able to “see” these worlds in this way will help astronomers better understand how both brown dwarfs and gas giant exoplanets form and evolve. That data will also show in what ways these objects are similar, and how they are different. As we’ve seen with Luhman 16B, they may appear quite similar on the outside with their banded atmospheres, but what about deeper down? Are their compositions similar or significantly different?

In May 2020, astronomers using the Very Large Telescope in Chile found that Luhman 16B’s companion, Luhman 16A, also has a banded atmosphere, although with fewer but broader stripes. At the time, it was thought that Luhman 16B had patchy clouds, but now the new study shows it is banded as well, and likely has more bands than Luhman 16A, making it look even more like Jupiter than its companion.

• Bottom line: New observations of the closest known brown dwarf show that it looks a lot like Jupiter, with bands of powerful jet streams in its atmosphere.
• Source: TESS Observations of the Luhman 16 AB Brown Dwarf System: Rotational Periods, Lightcurve Evolution, and Zonal Circulation*
• Via University of Arizona

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

Astronomers spot the fastest spinning magnetar ever seen

View larger. | In 2013, the Planck space telescope released the most detailed map to date of the cosmic microwave background, the relic radiation from the Big Bang. It was the mission’s first all-sky picture of the oldest light in our universe, imprinted on the sky when it was just 380,000 years old. Now a new, independent study agrees with Planck’s results. That’s good news for astronomers trying to pin down the universe’s age and rate of expansion.

Image via ESA.

How old is our universe? That’s one of humanity’s oldest and most fundamental questions. Now, astronomers using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), high in the Andes of northern Chile, have announced a new measurement of the cosmic background radiation, our universe’s oldest light, discovered in 1965 and sometimes called an echo of the Big Bang. The new measurement suggests the universe is 13.77 billion years old, give or take 40 million years. This new result agrees strongly with results from the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite, which measured the cosmic background radiation from 2009 to 2013. And it agrees with what’s called the Standard Model of particle physics, developed in the 1970s and refined in the years since then. The Standard Model encapsulates scientists’ best current understanding of how elementary particles and the fundamental forces of nature relate to one another.

• The new peer-reviewed results were published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics on December 30, 2020.

Agreement between independent studies gives scientists confidence their work is correct. Non-agreement does the opposite: it makes scientists think their ideas need more work. In 2019, a study had suggested the age of the universe might be hundreds of millions of years younger than Planck’s data had indicated. The new results from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, on the other hand, agree with Planck’s results. Simone Aiola of the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics – a co-author on the new study – commented:

Now we’ve come up with an answer where Planck and ACT agree. It speaks to the fact that these difficult measurements are reliable.

• The 2021 lunar calendars are here! Running low. Order yours before they’re gone!

Like the Planck satellite, the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile also studies the cosmic microwave background. Here’s a portion of a new ACT image, covering a section of the sky 50 times the width of a full moon. This image represents a region of space 20 billion light-years across.

Image via ACT Collaboration/ The College of Arts and Sciences.

The new measurements don’t just tell us the age of the universe. They also suggest how fast the universe is expanding. 

The rate at which the universe is expanding is described by what’s called the Hubble Constant. Writing at his blog on January 6, 2021, astrophysicist Brian Koberlein described the Hubble Constant in the context of the cosmic microwave background in this way:

In the early universe, there were small fluctuations of density and temperature within the hot dense sea of the Big Bang. As the universe expanded, the fluctuations expanded as well. So the scale of fluctuations we see in the cosmic microwave background today tells us how much the universe has grown. On average, the fluctuations are about a billion light-years across, and this gives us a value for the rate (the Hubble parameter) as somewhere between 67.2 and 68.1 kilometers per second per megaparsec.

The new data from ACT gives a Hubble constant of 67.6 kilometers per second per megaparsec. The Planck researchers had previously estimated 67.4 km per second per megaparsec. Steve Choi at Cornell University, first author of the new paper, said:

I didn’t have a particular preference for any specific value; it was going to be interesting one way or another. We find an expansion rate that is right on the estimate by the Planck satellite team. This gives us more confidence in measurements of the universe’s oldest light.

Steve Choi at Cornell University, lead author of the new study.

Image via Cornell University.

It’s worth noting, however, that – though the values for the Hubble Constant derived from data by Planck and ACT agree well – neither agrees well with values for the Hubble Constant derived via distant variable stars and supernovae (exploding stars). Brian Koberlein explained:

… you can use variable stars and distant supernovae to create a cosmic distance ladder that tells you the rate of expansion. The problem is, this alternative method gives a larger value for the Hubble parameter. If the supernova method is right, then the universe is younger and has expanded more quickly than the [work on the cosmic background radiation] seems to support. For a while, the hope has been that new observations and new methods of measuring cosmic expansion would solve this problem …

But, Koberlein said, the new study from ACT dashes those hopes.

According to Michael Niemack, a co-author of the new paper:

The growing tension between these distant versus local measurements of the Hubble Constant suggests that we may be on the verge of a new discovery in cosmology that could change our understanding of how the universe works. It also highlights the importance of improving our measurements of the cosmic microwave background with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope as well as the future Simons Observatory and CCAT-prime projects that we are now building.

The universe is ancient, but how ancient? The current answer appears to be 13.77 billion years, give or take 40 million years.

Image via NASA/ WMAP Science Team/ Wikipedia.

To calculate the universe’s age, scientists need to estimate how far light from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) – the “afterglow” of the Big Bang and the measurable record of when photons first escaped the “fog” of the early universe – has traveled to reach Earth. But that is not an easy task, so astronomers use triangulation by measuring the angle in the sky between two distant objects. With Earth as the third point of the triangle, they can then estimate the distance of both objects from Earth.

ACT is able to measure slight fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background with great precision, which helps to refine the estimates. Suzanne Staggs at Princeton University commented:

The Planck satellite measured the same light, but by measuring its polarization in higher fidelity, the new picture from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope reveals more of the oldest patterns we’ve ever seen.

• Read more: The oldest quasar yet detected

Stunning view of some of the oldest known galaxies in the universe, from the Hubble Space Telescope in 2015.

Image via ESA/ NASA/ Smithsonian Magazine.

• Bottom line: New observations of the oldest light in the universe indicate that the cosmos is 13.77 billion years old, and help resolve inconsistencies with other previous estimates.
• Source: The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: a measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background power spectra at 98 and 150 GHz
• Via Cornell University
• Via The College of Arts and Sciences

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{ https://earthsky.org/ }

A mysterious 'wobble' is moving Mars' poles around

By Brandon Specktor  

Like a teetering top, Mars refuses to rotate on a straight axis.

Mars and its two moons, Phobos and Deimos

(Image: © NASA/ JPL)

The Red Planet is wiggling and wobbling as it spins, research in the journal Geophysical Research Letters confirms, and astronomers have no idea why.

Like a toy top that teeters as it loses speed, the poles of Mars are wandering ever-so-slightly away from the planet's axis of rotation, moving about 4 inches (10 centimeters) off-center every 200 days or so, researchers reported in a study published Oct. 13, 2020. That makes Mars only the second known planet in the universe to exhibit this phenomenon — known as the Chandler wobble — with Earth being the first, according to the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) news blog, Eos.org.

• Related: Here's what NASA's Opportunity rover saw before 'lights out'

This wobble — named for astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler, who discovered the phenomenon more than a century ago — is an effect seen in planets that aren't perfectly round, science writer Jack Lee wrote at Eos. On Earth, the wobble is much more pronounced: Our planet's poles wander roughly 30 feet (9 m) from its axis of rotation, wobbling in a circular pattern that repeats every 433 days or so.

This wonky wobble has negligible effect on our planet, according to Eos, but still presents a puzzle. Scientists have calculated that the wobble should naturally die down within a century of its origin, but our planet's current wobble has been going strong for much longer than that. Something — perhaps a combination of pressure changes in the atmosphere and oceans, one 2001 study proposed — seems to be perpetually reigniting the wobble, though the exact mechanism is still unknown.

RELATED CONTENT

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The Mars wobble is just as puzzling. The authors of the new study detected the wobble using 18 years of data collected by three satellites orbiting the Red Planet: Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Global Surveyor. This small shift in the Martian poles should also resolve itself naturally, the team calculated, but currently appears to be going strong.

Devoid of oceans, Mars and its wobbly rotation may be governed by atmospheric pressure changes alone, according to Eos, but further study of our tipsy neighbor is required to know for sure.

• You can read more about the Mars wobble at Eos.
• Originally published on Live Science.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

Wandering polar vortex may cause a wild, snowy winter

By Laura Geggel  

Snowier, colder weather may be heading to the Eastern U.S.

A model showing of warm (red) air may impact the cold (blue) polar vortex that swirls over the North Pole.

(Image: © Atmospheric and Environmental Research)

High above the North Pole, the polar vortex, a fast-spinning whirl of frigid air, is doing a weird shimmy that may soon bring cold and snowy weather to the Eastern U.S., Northern Europe and East Asia for weeks on end, meteorologists say.

While it's not unusual for the polar vortex to act up, this particular reconfiguration — wandering around and possibly splitting in two — may be tied to climate change in the rapidly warming Arctic, said Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research in Massachusetts, part of Verisk Analytics, a risk-assessment company.

"Expect a more wintery back-half of winter here in the Eastern U.S. than what we had in the first half," Cohen told Live Science.

• Related: The reality of climate change: 10 myths busted

The Arctic is heating up faster than any other region in the world. As a result, sea-ice cover there is shrinking — in September 2020 and December 2020, the Arctic sea-ice cover shrunk to its second-lowest and third-lowest minimum on record for those months, respectively, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The warmer-than-usual temperatures in the Arctic are likely throwing the polar vortex out of whack, Cohen said. The polar vortex is a vast area of low pressure that sits high above the Arctic in the stratosphere — the layer above the troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere where most weather conditions happen. This low-pressure system is usually filled with cold, swirling air. During the winter, a jet stream of air that keeps the polar vortex in place sometimes weakens, allowing the vortex's chilly air to extend southward. 

Here's an animated video Cohen made illustrating the process. 

Cohen and colleagues have suggested that less Arctic sea-ice cover means there's more moisture from the sea migrating inland over normally dry Siberia. This moisture then turns into snow, which reflects heat back into space and is making Siberia colder than normal; that in turn disrupts a thermal band in the troposphere extending over Eurasia. This discombobulated band can then destabilize the polar vortex, causing colder winters east of the Rockies in the U.S. and in Northern Europe and East Asia, Cohen and his colleagues wrote in a 2019 review in the journal Nature Climate Change.

"Think of the polar vortex like a quiet, fast spinning top that spins in place," Cohen said. "Then, you have this energy [from the troposphere] that starts banging" on the spinning polar vortex, making it wobble and wander. 

He added that this season, "snowfall across Siberia has been above normal so far. Therefore, I do believe it has contributed to the weak polar vortex."

(Image credit: NOAA)

Not everyone agrees with this increased-Siberian-snow-and-wobbly-polar-vortex connection, but it is clear that a weakened polar vortex leads to colder winters in certain parts of the Northern Hemisphere. It's also accepted that so-called sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events can weaken the polar vortex and make it teeter around. SSWs happen when large-scale atmospheric waves associated with weather systems reach into the stratosphere and disrupt the polar vortex, causing it to slow down and heat up as much as 90 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) within a few days.

Cohen noted that SSWs can be triggered by weather conditions associated with the Arctic's disappearing sea ice. SSWs happen an average of six times every 10 years, and right now we're experiencing a big SSW, The Washington Post reported. 

It's possible the SSW was caused by a high-pressure, low-pressure system, said Amy Butler, a research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Chemical Sciences Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.

"Over the last few weeks, there was a persistent high-pressure system over much of the North Atlantic and northern Europe/Asia, and a low-pressure system over the North Pacific," Butler told Live Science in an email. This high-pressure, low-pressure duo is known to disrupt the stratosphere, where the polar vortex lives. 

It's also possible that the extreme bomb cyclone (a rapidly-forming winter storm with hurricane-strength winds) in the North Pacific a few days ago, contributed to the SSW, "but that will have to be investigated further," she said.

• Related: Images of melt: Earth's vanishing ice caps

On Jan. 5, the polar vortex's counter-clockwise winds reversed direction (a clue that a sudden atmospheric warming event had happened) and the vortex wandered from its usual location centered over the North Pole, toward Europe and the North Atlantic, Butler said. During that time, it began to (but didn't completely) split, Cohen said.

The polar vortex might split further in about 10 days, "but it's unclear if this will happen," Butler said. "Forecast models struggle with predicting a splitting of the vortex more than a week in advance."

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Disruptions to the polar vortex are key for forecasts, as about two weeks after they happen, the troposphere gets a wallop of weird weather, which can last for weeks. Because of this week's polar vortex disruption, "there's indications we'll see some colder weather within two weeks … in the Eastern U.S., Northern Europe and East Asia," Cohen said. 

For now, it's up in the air whether that means snowstorms or a rash of cold air, he said.

Meanwhile, "warmer-than-normal conditions can also occur over the Canadian Arctic and subtropical Asia and Africa," Butler said. "These effects could potentially persist for 4-6 weeks after the sudden stratospheric warming." 

• Originally published on Live Science.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

Mount Shasta: Legends, Mysteries And UFOs

Located in Siskiyou County in Northern California, Mount Shasta rises 14,162 feet above sea level. Its beautiful snow-capped peak and easy gentle climbs attract more than 15,000 climbers every year.

However, Mount Shasta is more than just a mountain. The name of Mount Shasta itself is shrouded in mystery. Some believe it is named after a local Native American tribe.

Some believe it is a variation of the French word chaste, meaning “pure.” Others have pointed out that Shasta is Sanskrit for “One who lives according to divine law.” Whatever its name, Mount Shasta has been the location of many strange and miraculous events.

Since before the 19th century, there have been persistent rumors that a strange race of beings reside in the vicinity of—or deep inside—Mount Shasta. Some believe they are extraterrestrials.

Others speculate that they are the surviving remnants of the once great civilization of Lemuria. These accounts have survived for over a century, and have been kept alive by such authors as Billie Hershberger, Wishar Cerve and others.

In 1925 the Rosicrucian William Spencer Lewis published an article ‘Descendants of Lemuria: A Description of an Ancient Cult in California’ under the pseudonym ‘Selvius.’

Lewis claims that Mount Shasta is the home of the last descendants of the ancient Lemurians, whose village is ‘nestled at the foot of a partially extinct volcano.’ The village is secluded and protected by an invisible boundary so that only four or five strangers have ever set foot there.

Lewis claims that the number of strange experiences reported by visitors to the area is sure evidence of the presence of some mystical force. In particular, he claims that Professor Edgar Lucin Larkin, director of the Mount Lowe Observatory, had seen the temple of the mystic village while examining the area through his telescope.

He also notes that at one time a delegate from the mystic village had visited San Francisco and that tall, white-robed, gray-haired, barefoot saints had been seen on the highways and in the streets throughout the area, occasionally even shopping in local stores, paying for their purchases with gold nuggets. Eyewitnesses have also reported strange boats that sail upon the Pacific Ocean only to fly through the air to the mountain.

In any case, there are numerous reports of tall robed strangers visiting local towns and villages to exchange gold dust and gold nuggets for food, clothing and other products.

The strangers appear to be human, except for several peculiarities. They are always described the same. They are “tall, graceful and agile, with distinctive features such as large foreheads and long curly hair; the strangers wore unusual clothes, including headdresses with a special decoration that came down from the forehead to the bridge of the nose.”

Visits from these strangers began to cause considerable interest, and numerous local residents began to investigate the area. Several investigators were surprised to come upon areas which glowed with “powerful illuminations” with no known source. Others claimed to hear strange music.

Reportedly, those who came too close would find themselves suddenly and temporarily paralyzed; or they would be accosted by a “heavily covered and concealed person of a large size who would lift him up and turn him away.”

There are a few accounts of campers who claim to have been visited at their campsite by very tall, friendly people dressed in robes who would hold long philosophical conversations about love, spirituality and the fate of our planet. Needless to say, these antics brought more visitors to the area.

People attempted to chase down and photograph the tall strangers, but in each case, the strangers would either run away or simply vanish. Their rare appearances in local towns continued.

“Those who have come to stores in nearby cities, especially at Weed, have spoken English in a perfect manner with perhaps a tinge of the British accents, and have been reluctant to answer questions or give any information about themselves. The goods they have purchased have always been paid for in gold nuggets of far greater value than the article purchased, and they have refused to accept any change, indicating that to them gold was of no value and that they had no need for money of any kind.”

Other strange effects were noticed. Bright lights would flash causing cars to stall along nearby roadways. Others claimed to see bizarre-looking cattle, “unlike anything seen in America.” The cattle would reportedly run back towards the area inhabited by the strangers.

Mount Shasta is also the location of some of the earliest known UFO sightings.

“There are hundreds of others who have testified to having seen peculiarly shaped boats which have flown out of this region high in the air over the hills and valleys of California and have been seen by others to come on to the waters of the Pacific Ocean at the shore and then continue out on the seas as vessels … and others have seen these boats rise again in the air and go upon the land of some of the islands of the Pacific.”

{ https://anomalien.com/ }

Des astronomes font la découverte d'une «Super-Terre»

Just about everyone with an interest in the world of UFOs will know of the primary theories for what happened at Roswell, New Mexico in July 1047: A UFO crash, a secret military experiment, a weather-balloon, and a Mogul balloon. There are, however, some lesser known scenarios for what happened. So, with that said, here are my top weird theories for the Roswell affair. Here’s number one:  The late Jim Keith was the author of a number of conspiracy/UFO-themed books, including Casebook on the Men in Black; The Octopus (co-written with Kenn Thomas); and Black Helicopters Over America. In a small article titled Roswell UFO Bombshell, Keith described his clandestine meeting with “a longtime researcher / instructor of engineering at a school in New Mexico” who claimed to know the truth of Roswell.

As for what Keith was told, it goes like this:

“According to my source, the true story behind the alleged UFO crash was that there was an accident involving a B-29 flying from the Army Air Force Base in Sandia (Albuquerque) to Roswell…my source states that either an atomic bomb or what is termed a ‘bomb shape,’ or ‘test shape,’ the shell of a nuke lacking explosives and atomic capability, and sometimes filled with concrete to add weight, was accidentally or purposefully jettisoned above Corona, New Mexico, directly on the flight path between Sandia and Roswell. Along with the bomb, metal foil used for radar jamming, termed ‘chaff,’ may have also been dropped.”

In 2010, Anomalist Books published the final title from the late Mac Tonnies: The Cryptoterrestrials. Highly thought-provoking and deeply controversial in equal measures, the book focused on the idea that UFOs are not the products of alien races, but of very ancient, terrestrial people that dwell deep underground and who masquerade as extraterrestrials to camouflage their true identity. Tonnies speculated that the Cryptoterrestrials are likely very impoverished, but utilize subterfuge, hologram-style technology, and staged-events to suggest otherwise to us. He even theorized they may have made use of large, balloon-style craft, too. And on this very matter – of the Cryptoterrestrials using balloons in covert missions – Tonnies said: “Maybe the Roswell device wasn’t high tech. It could indeed have been a balloon-borne surveillance device brought down in a storm, but it doesn’t logically follow that it was one of our own.”

Nick Redfern

The Collins Elite is a quasi-official group within the U.S. Government that believes the UFO mystery is one of demonic origins. Yes, fork-tails, horns, fiery pits, and maybe even spinning heads – that kind of thing. It must be stressed that the conclusions of the group were chiefly belief-driven, rather than prompted by hard evidence. One of the conclusions of the group was that Roswell was nothing less than a brilliant Trojan Horse. For the members of the Collins Elite, deceptive demons had, essentially, used a kind of “cosmic alchemy” to create both (A) the so-called “memory-metal” found by Mack Brazel on the Foster Ranch; and (B) the curious bodies – or body-parts – also located on the ranch. In other words, Roswell – perceived by the Collins Elite, at least – was an ingenious ruse, a staged-crash, designed to have us believe vulnerable ETs are in our midst, when it’s really the all-powerful minions of Satan.

Timothy Cooper provoked a wealth of controversy in the 1990s, thanks to an enormous body of allegedly leaked, and, supposedly highly secret, documentation in his possession on everything from crashed UFOs to alien autopsies and from sinister deaths in the UFO field to alien viruses. One such document –titled UFO Reports and Classified Projects – offers a non-UFO-themed explanation for what occurred at Roswell. The relevant extract reads as follows: “One of the projects underway at that time incorporated re-entry vehicles containing radium and other radioactive materials combined with biological warfare agents developed by I.G. Farben for use against allied assault forces in Normandy in 1944. When a V-2 warhead impacted near the town of Corona, New Mexico, on July 4, 1947, the warhead did not explode and it and the deadly cargo lay exposed to the elements which forced the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project to close off the crash site and a cover story was immediately put out that what was discovered was the remains of a radar tracking target suspended by balloons.”

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{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

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How and Why Some People Report "Hearing from the Dead" According to Scientists

Spiritualist mediums might be more prone to immersive mental activities and unusual auditory experiences early in life, according to new research.

This might explain why some people and not others eventually adopt spiritualist beliefs and engage in the practice of ‘hearing the dead’, the study led by Durham University found.

Mediums who “hear” spirits are said to be experiencing clairaudient communications, rather than clairvoyant (“seeing”) or clairsentient (“feeling” or “sensing”) communications.

The Fox sisters: Kate (1838-92), Leah (1814-90) and Margaret (or Maggie) (1836-93). Lithograph after a daguerreotype by Appleby. Published by N. Currier, New York. In 1848, two sisters from upstate New York, Maggie and Kate Fox, reported hearing ‘rappings’ and ‘knocks’ that they interpreted as communication coming from a spirit in their house. These events and these sisters would eventually be considered the originators of Spiritualism.

Credit: N. Currier, New York

The researchers conducted a survey of 65 clairaudient spiritualist mediums from the Spiritualists’ National Union and 143 members of the general population in the largest scientific study into the experiences of clairaudient mediums.

They found that these spiritualists have a proclivity for absorption – a trait linked to immersion in mental or imaginative activities or experience of altered states of consciousness.

Mediums are also are more likely to report experiences of unusual auditory phenomena, like hearing voices, often occurring early in life.

Many who experience absorption or hearing voices encounter spiritualist beliefs when searching for the meaning behind, or supernatural significance of, their unusual experiences, the researchers said.

The findings are published in the journal Mental Health, Religion and Culture. The research is part of Hearing the Voice – an interdisciplinary study of voice-hearing based at Durham University and funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Spiritualism is a religious movement based on the idea that human souls continue to exist after death and communicate with the living through a medium or psychic.

Interest in Spiritualism is increasing in Britain with several organisations supporting, training, and offering the services of practising mediums. One of the largest, the SNU, claims to serve at least 11,000 members through its training college, churches, and centres.

Through their study, the researchers gathered detailed descriptions of the way that mediums experience spirit ‘voices’, and compared levels of absorption, hallucination-proneness, aspects of identity, and belief in the paranormal.

They found that 44.6 per cent of spiritualist participants reported hearing the voices of the deceased on a daily basis, with 33.8 per cent reporting an experience of clairaudience within the last day.

A large majority (79 per cent) said that experiences of auditory spiritual communication were part of their everyday lives, taking place both when they were alone and when they were working as a medium or attending a spiritualist church.

Although spirits were primarily heard inside the head (65.1 per cent), 31.7 per cent of spiritualist participants said they experienced spirit voices coming from both inside and outside the head.

When rated on scales of absorption, as well as how strongly they believe in the paranormal, spiritualists scored much more highly than members of the general population.

Spiritualists were less likely to care about what others thought of them than people generally, and they also scored more highly for proneness to unusual hallucination-like auditory experiences.

Both high levels of absorption and proneness to such auditory phenomena were linked to reports of more frequent clairaudient communications, according to the findings.

For the general population, absorption was associated with levels of belief in the paranormal, but there was no significant corresponding link between belief and hallucination-proneness.

There was also no difference in levels of superstitious belief or proneness to visual hallucinations between spiritualist and non-spiritualist participants.

Spiritualists reported first experiencing clairaudience at an average age of 21.7 years. However, 18 per cent of spiritualists reported having clairaudient experiences ‘for as long as they could remember’ and 71 per cent had not encountered Spiritualism as a religious movement prior to their first experiences.

The researchers say their findings suggest that it is not giving in to social pressure, learning to have specific expectations, or a level of belief in the paranormal that leads to experiences of spirit communication.

Instead, it seems that some people are uniquely predisposed to absorption and are more likely to report unusual auditory experiences occurring early in life. For many of these individuals, spiritualist beliefs are embraced because they align meaningfully with those unique personal experiences.

Lead researcher Dr Adam Powell, in Durham University’s Hearing the Voice project and Department of Theology and Religion, said: “Our findings say a lot about ‘learning and yearning’. For our participants, the tenets of Spiritualism seem to make sense of both extraordinary childhood experiences as well as the frequent auditory phenomena they experience as practising mediums.

“But all of those experiences may result more from having certain tendencies or early abilities than from simply believing in the possibility of contacting the dead if one tries hard enough.”

Dr Peter Moseley, co-author on the study at Northumbria University, commented: “Spiritualists tend to report unusual auditory experiences which are positive, start early in life and which they are often then able to control. Understanding how these develop is important because it could help us understand more about distressing or non-controllable experiences of hearing voices too”

Durham’s researchers are now engaged in further investigation of clairaudience and mediumship, working with practitioners to gain a fuller picture of what it is like to be on the receiving end of such unusual and meaningful experiences.

Contacts and sources:

• Simon Wesson
• Taylor and Francis Group

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