'Alien abduction' stories may come from lucid dreaming, study hints

By Mindy Weisberger - Senior Writer 

People have described bizarre extraterrestrial encounters that take place in a dreamlike state.

Scientists guided lucid dreamers to emulate encounters with aliens and UFOs during REM sleep. 

(Image credit: David Wall/Getty Images)

Lucid dreaming, in which people are partially aware and can control their dreams during sleep, could explain so-called alien abduction stories, a study suggests.

Claims of such abductions date to the 19th century; the circumstances of the kidnappings often sound dreamlike and trigger feelings of terror and paralysis. Certain dream states are also known to produce such feelings, leading Russian researchers to wonder if dream experiments could provide clues about alleged extraterrestrial experiences. The scientists prompted lucid dreamers to dream about encounters with aliens or unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and found that a number of sleepers reported dreams that resembled actual descriptions of alleged alien abductions. 

• Related: 7 mind-bending facts about dreams 

During lucid dreams, sleepers are aware they are dreaming and can then use that awareness to manipulate what happens in the dream. About 55% of people experience lucid dreaming once or more in their lifetimes, and 23% have lucid dreams at least once a month, according to a 2016 study in the journal Consciousness and Cognition that analyzed five decades' worth of sleep research. 

Recently, researchers with the Phase Research Center (PRC), a private facility in Moscow that researches lucid dreaming, conducted experiments with 152 adults who self-identified as lucid dreamers, instructing them to "find or summon aliens or UFOs" during a lucid dream, the scientists reported July 2 in the International Journal of Dream Research.

The researchers found that 114 of the participants reported dreaming about having some type of successful interaction with an extraterrestrial. Of those, about 61% described meeting "aliens" that resembled extraterrestrials from science-fiction novels and films, while 19% met aliens that "looked like ordinary people," according to the study. 

Little blue men

One female participant spoke of seeing "little men" with blue skin, oversize heads "and huge, bulging eyes," the study authors reported. When the aliens invited her onto their spaceship, "I was blinded by a very bright light, like from a searchlight," she said. "My vision was gone, and I felt dizzy and light." 

Another participant said that he dreamed he was lying in his bed when he felt as though he were being "dragged somewhere," ending up in a room with a white silhouette that reached into his chest and started "doing something inside with tools," the researchers wrote.

Conversations with dream aliens took place in 26% of the encounters, and 12% of the participants spoke with aliens in their dreams and interacted with them physically. UFOs showed up in 28% of the meetings, and 10% of the dreamers who saw UFOs described being brought inside an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

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Of those who described their encounters as "realistic," 24% also experienced sleep paralysis and intense fear. Such emotions often accompany reports of supposed alien abductions, and though individuals who describe being kidnapped by aliens might truly believe that what they experienced was real, these people were likely experiencing an extraterrestrial meeting while in a lucid dream, the study authors reported.

Feelings of paralysis, fear and helplessness in vivid dreams can be so powerful that they blur the line between dreams and reality, so it's no wonder that people who may have unknowingly been dreaming instead insist that they actually met with aliens who stole them away and transported them to UFOs, said PRC head researcher and founder Michael Raduga.

For these unknowing dreamers, "abductions are real," Raduga told Live Science in an email. "They just don't know how to explain it." 

• Originally published on Live Science.

{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 21 - 07 - 2021

UFO Sighted Trying To Abduct Calf Over Chos Malal, Argentina ( July 20, 2021 )

UFO was sighted trying to abduct a calf on a dusty dirt road in Chos Malal, Neuquén Province, Argentina. on July 20, 2021

• credit : Weber Evangelista Rodrigues

UFO Sighted Over San Diego, California ( July 20, 2021 )

UFO sighted over the skies of San Diego, California on July 20, 2021 : Third time this year .

First in Mesa, Arizona, May 9, 2021 : https://youtu.be/ZNND1q-9G2Y 

Second : New York, May 9, 2021 : https://youtu.be/HFRV-j6sCJc 

They Are Already Here

• credit : U.S.F

UFO Sighted Over Makati, Philippines ( July 15, 2021 )

UFO Sighted Over Makati, Philippines on July 15, 2021 

STATEMENT : UAP real footage Makati : All of my video is UAP even image I captured here in the Philippines...

ORIGINAL VIDEO OWNER : Jonev D Lubiyo

ORIGINAL VIDEO URL : https://youtu.be/JYf2uI0lVe4

note : welcome new Secureteam subs. Please send my kind regards to Tyler : I do not watch but is this his music ? : make you feel at home lol

UFO Sighted Over Hästveda, Sweden ( July 18, 2021 )

STATEMENT : UFO over "Hästveda" Northeastern Scania (18/07/2021) (06:42) Cylindrical UFO over the village of "Hästveda" in Northeastern Scania (18/07/2021) (06:42) This was the second of five cylindrical UFOs we saw that night between circa 05:30 to 09:30 We will try to get better footage if it returns tonight with multiple camera angles.

ORIGINAL VIDEO OWNER : Matter in Motion

ORIGINAL VIDEO URL : https://youtu.be/HoPIAV2NdSQ

RELATED VIDEOS

Golden UFO Passing Over China Recorded By The ISS

Gold colored UFO accompanied by a strange flash of light spotted by the ISS on July 21 2021.

UFO discovered by Tom Brown

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XmsQ...

Video Source NASA Live Stream

RELATED VIDEO

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

The image of Wrinkle ridge in Elysium Planitia on Mars was taken by the HiRISE camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft on April 2, 2008.

The image shows what looks like two hatches fixed to the surface of Mars. 

The sun reflects off the first rectangular hatch, which may be metallic, while the opposite side shows a dark rectangular shadow where the sun's light is blocked by the second hatch. 

The hatches of about 7 x 12 meters are slightly open. This is a doorway that gives access to an underground basement? 

Suppose it's not about something natural but artificially, we may wonder, other than who built it, what was it used for? 

Google Mars coordinates: 8°50'17.09"N 150°36'32.13"E

  

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

VIDEO: UFO spotted over Junagadh and Jamnagar, India

Unidentified Flying Object UFO spotted over Junagadh and Jamnagar district of Gujarat.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

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

Researcher affirms that “UFOs come from the Moon” (Video)

A “sky watcher” captured on video a surprising formation of UFOs on the Moon. Are they coming from our satellite?

We have learned that the Earth, from our perspective of smallness, seems flat, but, everything seems to indicate that it is round or at least that is what we were taught.

From there it is the starting point to come to understand that the universe is so big and vast that we cannot assure that we are alone in it.

Everything matches, when unknown objects appear in the sky.

The UFO phenomenon continues to speak, thus a construction of rational thought is being created, to elucidate and found spaces to try to know what we are watching happen in the sky.

The images in the video (below) show three flying objects in an apparently triangular formation, and gliding at a high speed so that later 2 more appear following the same trajectory.

{ https://mysteriousthing.com/ }

A new study on DNA has revealed that people living today are only between 1.5% and 7% modern humans. No, this doesn’t mean that we’re over 90% alien (or are we…?), but it does indicate that we have very old DNA belonging to our ancient ancestors.

According to the study, only a very small percentage of our genome is uniquely human. Researchers extracted DNA belonging to skeletal remains of Neanderthals and Denisovans as well as from 279 people living in different parts of the world today. Then the experts took that information regarding sequenced genomes and developed a family tree for Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans.

They found two important factors that really stood out: the first bombshell was that between 1.5 and 7% of our genome is unique to our species which means that at least 93% of our genome is a result of a mixture between Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans. The second discovery was that in the past 600,000 years, there were numerous bursts of genetic adaptations regarding brain development and function of humans.

By creating the evolutionary trees, the team of researchers were able to find very important times in history when Homo sapiens adapted and separated from our ancient ancestors. In order to find out how closely related we actually are to Neanderthals and Denisovans, experts had to study both the genes as well as when the genes were turned into proteins.

In an interview with Inverse, Nathan Schaefer, who is a bioinformatician at the University of California, San Francisco, explained this in further detail, “When you ask that question, we are very similar to Neanderthals.” “We have, you know, around 20,000 genes, and somewhere around 40 of them have these actual coding differences that all humans have one version, and the Neanderthals have the other version.” “That’s already like, ‘Wow, we’re really, really close to them.”

Fernando Villanea, who is a population geneticist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, but wasn’t involved with the study, told Inverse, “Their results support the most exciting new views on the interactions between humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans.” He went on to talk about the human brain development over the past several hundred thousand years, “These adaptation events which define our species possibly happened around [600,000] and [200,000] years ago in Africa.”

In other words, this new study seems to indicate that the most genetically unique difference between modern humans and Neanderthals and Denisovans is our cognitive development over the past several hundred thousand years as explained by University of California, Santa Cruz computational biologist Richard Green, “We can tell those regions of the genome are highly enriched for genes that have to do with neural development and brain function.”

As for the researchers’ next steps regarding their studies, Schaefer stated, “What I’m interested in doing now is trying to learn more about how genes work and what these genes do.” The study was published in the journal Science Advances.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

One of the signs that a planet may have once supported life is the presence of methane gas. While it can have inorganic causes, it’s most often due to decaying organic matter as it is on Earth. That’s why scientists have been searching for it in Mars – the one planet where we have both landers and orbiters constantly scanning the surface. While methane has been detected on the Red Planet, its source has never been pinpointed … until now.

“During its five years of operation, the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS) on board the Curiosity rover has detected six methane spikes above a low background abundance in Gale crater.”

Curiosity

While new rover on the block Perseverance and its ground-breaking (air-breaking?) Ingenuity helicopter have been getting all of the recent publicity, Curiosity has been trudging along and reliably doing its job since 2012. In that time, it has picked up six blips or ‘burps’ of methane in and around the Gale crater, a 96-mile impression in diameter impression dating back 3.8 billion years. However, it didn’t know the exact locations where the gas was emitted from the ground so it could rover over for a look. According to a new not-yet-peer-reviewed study published in Research Square, researchers at the California Institute of Technology decided to take a new approach – they modeled the methane gas particles where they were detected and split them into small groups. Using the wind speed and direction at the time of detection, along with geographic and topographical maps of the crater and its surrounding area, they were able to trace the methane ‘burps’ back to their belching points.

“Inside Gale crater, the northwestern crater floor casts the strongest influence on the detections. Outside Gale crater, the emission region with the strongest influence extends towards the north. The contrasting results from two consecutive methane measurements point to an active emission region to the west and the southwest of the Curiosity rover on the northwestern crater floor.”

Reviewing the data, Live Science points out that one of those locations is just a few dozen miles from Curiosity’s current location. While that may not seem very far, Curiosity has only traveled about 15.7 miles in total since it landed in 2012. The European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) is constantly looking for methane, but it has been unable to detect those recorded by Curiosity. This could change with these new coordinates. However, it would be ideal if Curiosity could get an up-close look or sniff. Methane has a 330-year lifespan, so this could be life existed just a few centuries ago … and perhaps is still there producing it today.

Curiosity roving

Before you ask, Perseverance is about 2,300 miles from Curiosity – to far to travel or send the Ingenuity helicopter. Perseverance has different instruments and missions, but Curiosity’s data can still help it find methane, if it’s being emitted nearby and hasn’t been blown away by Ingenuity. The first manned Mars mission can’t come soon enough.

And yes … the Alien Methane Burps would be a good band name.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Throughout the long history of planet Earth, our world has undergone several cataclysmic events of varying magnitude. Arguably the most widely recognized of these, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, involved an impact between Earth and a massive asteroid or comet estimated to have been as much as nine miles wide. The result of this impact had been the mass extinction of most life forms on the planet, with as much as three-fourths of all species on Earth at the time—both animals and plants—being wiped from existence.

Although the mass extinctions that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period had long been recognized by scientists, confirmation of a large-scale impact event as its underlying cause did not begin to surface until the 1980s with the work of experimental physicist Luis Alvarez and his son Walter. The following decade, the discovery of the Chicxulub crater which forms much of the Gulf of Mexico, provided additional evidence that an asteroid impact had been responsible.

Smaller-scale impact events have also been proposed for other mass extinctions recognized throughout time, including the die-offs of megafauna that began to occur at the end of the last ice age. While some of these impact events remain disputed, the reality of cataclysms throughout time is something that many scientists have sought to understand, resulting in a variety of theories about what their various causes might be, and how often they occur.

Among the more unique theories in this regard had been first proposed by William Napier and Victor Clube in 1979, as detailed in their Nature paper titled “A Theory of Terrestrial Catastrophism.” The study took a novel approach, in that it looked at whether subtle gravitational disturbances in our Solar System might cause comets to occasionally become jostled from their positions in the Oort cloud, sending them hurtling toward the inner Solar System and thereby on a potential collision course with any number of our planetary neighbors, or even Earth itself.

In the 1979 paper, Napier and Clube theorized that galactic spiral arms containing small planets which our solar system passes through could account for the current locations of comets, as well as various transient objects in our solar system. They also noted that many apparent extinction events recognized in the fossil record appear to convey impacts with comets that collided with our planet. Napier and Clube concluded that such impacts likely occurred every 30 million years or so, sometimes resulting in large-scale impacts on par with the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.

The authors found additional support for their theory in locations other than Earth, too. One example had been evidence of the long-term frequency in appearances of craters on the moon, as well as inner planets within our solar system. The authors identified what they believed to be “brief periods of enhanced bombardment,” as well as a nearly constant rate of craters appearing on the moon and inner planets within the last three billion years. This, they attributed “the decay of primordial bodies and the capture of [small planets] into the Oort cloud upon the sun’s passage through Gould’s belt of the Orion arm.”

The authors considered a wide range of theories about the effects such impact events might have had throughout time, citing evidence in stratigraphic records that seemed to convey “patterns indicating transitions between geological periods, catastrophic extinctions and ice ages.”

Things might have ended there in 1979 as far as Napier and Clube’s idea goes, had it not been for the continuing interest it generated among a few scientists. In the middle 1980s, their original idea began getting a makeover when researcher Michael R. Rampino began to expand on it, who during the following decade teamed up with Bruce Haggerty and gave Napier and Clube’s concept an all-new name: the Shiva hypothesis.

Named for the Hindu god of destruction, the Shiva hypothesis as it is known today essentially entails intervals at which cataclysms occur and, in theory, might even be predictable on account of changes in the position of the Sun in relation to the Milky Way. As recently as 2020, Rampino has continued publishing evidence that may support this idea, which analyzed the ages of ten recognized extinction events involving tetrapods throughout time. According to his research, Rampino found “a statistically significant (99% confidence) underlying periodicity” of such events occurring roughly every 27.5 million years.

As Rampino and his colleagues noted in 2020, “These findings suggest that global cataclysmal events with an underlying periodicity of ~27.5 [million years] were the cause of the coordinated periodic extinction episodes of non-marine tetrapods and marine organisms.”

The Shiva hypothesis also appears to share certain elements with (or may have even inspired) other emerging theories about the causes behind extinction events that occur over time. One notable example involves the so-called “Nemesis hypothesis,” which entails the hypothetical existence of a red or brown dwarf which is responsible for extinction events that occur every 26 million years. The idea was first presented in 1984 by paleontologists David Raup and Jack Sepkoski in a paper titled “Periodicity of Extinctions in the Geologic Past” that appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Today, there is still much work to be done as far as determining whether a periodicity or “cycle” of cataclysms that led to extinction events on Earth truly exists. Nonetheless, if ever proven, it could possibly do more than just explain what led to widespread die-offs throughout time; it might even help prevent future deadly impact events that may eventually return to threaten life on our planet.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Jeff Bezos Launches into Space on Blue Origin’s First Astronaut Flight

Jeff Bezos Launches into Space on Blue Origin’s First Astronaut Flight

Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos launched into space on Tuesday, carried aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft in its first human flight. Bezos, the richest person in the world, was joined by his brother, Mark Bezos, female aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and a Dutch student, Oliver Daemen.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

UFO Found On Moon In 1967 NASA Lunar Photo, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: June 29, 2021

Location of discovery: Earths moon

Source photo: 

• https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunarorbiter/frame/?3162

This UFO was found by Youtuber Terry's Theories and he found it in an old NASA archive from a 1967 Lunar orbiter mission. When he zooms in I see a detailed metallic ship over horizon. Its 100% clear to me that this is an alien craft that was sent to this location to both observe and to warn the astronauts that...this moon is taken. Humanity intrigues aliens, but only to a point. We also disgust aliens with our illogical and self destructive decisions and behaviors. Therefore they have not make worldwide contact yet. But the time is coming close, and I predict alien species will unite and agree upon a formal disclosure to humanity this decade. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

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

Ring UFO Over Ogden, Utah, USA On July 15, 2021, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: July 15, 2021

Location of sighting: Ogden, Utah, USA

Source: MUFON 

 

Donut UFOs or ring UFOs as I call them are not new. They have been documented throughout time. For instance in the Bible the famous Ezekiels Wheel comes down before him, rotating like a wheel and out steps a human like being. Also back in 1957 a US Army sergeant took many photos of a ring UFO as it made a white cloud slowly around itself at the US military base Fort Belvoir. 

 

This my friends is a real UFO. It's flying like a disk, but can fly sideways like a wheel. It is unmanned and often controlled by an alien AI and sometimes controlled by an alien far away. This video below is undeniable proof that UFOs exist. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

 

Eyewitness states: 

Nearly flat, donut looking object traveled across the sky, looked almost like a balloon, but it was way faster and there was no wind; not even a breeze. 

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

UFO Sighting- Caught on Camera [Montello WI, June 13, 2021]

While trying to photo the milky-way I spotted a UFO above my house. I was able to quickly take four photos of this UFO. What is this thing?

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

Donut-shaped UFO flying over South Ogden, UT 15-Jul-2021

This daytime footage of a donut-shaped unidentified flying object was filmed over South Ogden, a city in Weber County, Utah. This happened on 15th July 2021.

Witness report: 

Nearly flat, donut looking object traveled across the sky, looked almost like a balloon, but it was way faster and there was no wind; not even a breeze.

RELATED VIDEO, selected and posted by peter2011

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

Hubble Space Telescope Is Back in Action After NASA Fixes Odd Glitch – The Wall Street Journal

After a month of frantic tinkering, NASA said Friday that its aging Hubble Space Telescope was on the mend, recovering from a computer problem that crippled what many astronomers call the most productive scientific instrument ever built.

As the bus-size observatory circled Earth, space agency engineers worked by remote control to switch Hubble from its vintage electronics to backup hardware. In the final step, they powered up a payload computer that restored control of its six cameras and sensors, which peer through visible, infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths of light to the edge of space and the dawn of time.

“We are absolutely delighted that the observatory is up and running again,” said Kenneth Sembach, director of the Baltimore-based Space Telescope Science Institute, which handles the Hubble science operations. “All indications are that it’s doing well and we will get back to doing science again this weekend.”

In more than a million mind-expanding images of the universe snapped over the past 31 years, the solar-powered telescope has presented to astronomers and amateur stargazers alike a psychedelic tapestry of infant stars, dying supernovae, colliding galaxies, towering billows of stellar dust, dark matter and black holes feasting on spiral nebulae.

Hubble data has been used in more than 18,000 scientific papers that have documented the accelerating expansion of the universe, the evolution of galaxies and studies of planets beyond our solar system, NASA officials said.

“I think there’s a very credible case that the Hubble Space Telescope is the most scientifically productive instrument ever made,” said Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s astrophysics division. “The output of peer-reviewed published papers from Hubble certainly exceeds any of its competitors in any field of science.”

But then on June 13, Hubble was hobbled—and not for the first time. Technical problems that threatened to end the mission have plagued the telescope since the moment it reached its orbital perch some 340 miles above our planet’s surface on April 25, 1990.

Since its launch in 1990, five space shuttle missions have repaired, upgraded and replaced systems on the telescope.

Photo: /Associated Press

Since its launch—with flawed optics causing its photos to be so blurry that the $4.7 billion observatory was initially deemed an embarrassing failure—five space shuttle missions repaired, upgraded and replaced systems on the telescope. All five of its main instruments were fixed, and a $50 million set of corrective lenses was installed to address its manufacturing flaws.

Last repaired by space shuttle astronauts in 2009, Hubble has lasted twice as long as originally expected, space agency officials said.

The latest trouble began when a voltage overload in an onboard payload computer built in the 1980s tripped a circuit breaker and shut down the telescope. It was the most serious technical failure that NASA project engineers had encountered in the 11 years since the last shuttle repair.

“We did a lot of debugging,” said James Jeletic, deputy project manager for the Hubble Space Telescope Project at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. After three weeks of painstaking analysis, they decided to switch the telescope to its remaining backup systems.

“Every single thing worked as planned,” Mr. Jeletic said. “The computer came back up. All the backup hardware works fine. I don’t think we’re biting our fingernails anymore.”

• Write to Robert Lee Hotz at sciencejournal@wsj.com

{ https://newsfeeds.media/category/news/ }

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope spots four mysterious 'free-floating' planets that appear to be alone in deep space, unbound to any host star

• Four 'rogue' planets discovered with similar masses to that of our home planet 

• They were found by NASA's Kepler telescope using gravitational microlensing 

• The planets may have been ejected by heavier planets within their solar system 

By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has found a mysterious population of 'free-floating' or 'rogue' planets that aren't bound to any host star. 

Based on a technique called gravitational microlensing, researchers reveal there are four new rogue planets in total, which likely have similar masses to that of Earth. 

Gravitational microlensing relies on chance events where from a certain viewpoint, one star passes in front of another star. 

The planets may have originally formed around a host star before being ejected by the gravitational tug of other, heavier planets in the system, the experts say. 

The host star is likely still burning brightly in space, but just with fewer planets in its orbit. 

Scroll down for video 

The four newly discovered planets that are consistent with planets of similar masses to Earth

(stock image)

'We don't know exactly how far away they are,' study author Professor Iain McDonald at the University of Manchester told MailOnline.

'They are not among the nearest stars, but closer than the centre of our Galaxy. So it's probably most accurate to say they are several thousand light years away. 

Professor McDonald said they're not sure exactly what these planets are like, but are 'probably rocky' with frozen oceans. 

'If a planet like the Earth was flung out into deep space, far from the heat of a star, we'd expect the oceans to freeze over and the atmosphere to condense out onto the surface,' he said. 

'Life could still continue, but only in places like hydrothermal vents, where there is another energy source.' 

This is an artist impression of the Kepler Space Telescope that was decommissioned by NASA in 2018 after nearly a decade of service

The now retired Kepler telescope spent nearly a decade in space looking for Earth-size planets orbiting other stars, but scientists are still analysing its data. 

Kepler launched in 2009 and was decommissioned by NASA in 2018 when it ran out of fuel needed for further science operations. 

It was launched specifically by NASA with the aim of identifying planets outside of our own Solar System, known as exoplanets. 

For this project, researchers used data obtained in 2016 during the K2 mission phase of NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope – an extension of its original mission.  

During its two-month K2 campaign, Kepler monitored a crowded field of millions of stars near the centre of our Galaxy every 30 minutes in order to find rare gravitational microlensing events. 

Gravity from the closer star acts as a lens and magnifies the distant star over the course of the transit. 

The study team found 27 short-duration candidate microlensing signals that varied over timescales of between an hour and 10 days. 

Many of these had been previously seen in data obtained simultaneously from the ground. 

However, the four shortest events are new discoveries that are consistent with planets of similar masses to Earth. 

These new events do not show an accompanying longer signal that might be expected from a host star, suggesting that these new events may be free-floating planets.   

'These signals are extremely difficult to find,' said Professor McDonald. 

'Our observations pointed an elderly, ailing telescope with blurred vision at one the most densely crowded parts of the sky, where there are already thousands of bright stars that vary in brightness, and thousands of asteroids that skim across our field. 

Artist's impression of a free-floating planet. Such planets may perhaps have originally formed around a host star before being ejected by the gravitational tug of other, heavier planets in the system

'From that cacophony, we try to extract tiny, characteristic brightenings caused by planets, and we only have one chance to see a signal before it’s gone. 

'It’s about as easy as looking for the single blink of a firefly in the middle of a motorway, using only a handheld phone.'    

Since its launch in 2009, Kepler spotted thousands of exoplanets outside our solar system, despite experiencing mechanical failures and being blasted by cosmic rays. 

In 2013, Kepler's primary mission was concluded when a second reaction wheel broke, which meant that the space craft couldn't hold a steady gaze at its original field of view.

But Kepler was given a 'new lease on life' by NASA on its K2 mission, which required it to shift its field of view to new portions of the sky about every three months. 

NASA initially assumed that K2 would only be able to conduct 10 campaigns with the remaining fuel, but it went on to complete an astonishing 16 campaigns. 

Confirming the existence and nature of free-floating planets will be a major focus for NASA's upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and possibly the ESA's Euclid mission – both expected to detect microlensing events.  

'Kepler has achieved what it was never designed to do, in providing further tentative evidence for the existence of a population of Earth-mass, free-floating planets,' said study author Eamonn Kerins at the University of Manchester.

'Now it passes the baton on to Roman that will be designed to find such signals, signals so elusive that Einstein himself thought that they were unlikely ever to be observed.'     

The results have been published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.    

WHAT IS THE KEPLER TELESCOPE?

The Kepler mission has spotted thousands of exoplanets since 2014, with 30 planets less than twice the size of Earth now known to orbit within the habitable zones of their stars.

Launched from Cape Canaveral on March 7th 2009, the Kepler telescope has helped in the search for planets outside of the solar system. 

It captured its last ever image on September 25 2018 and ran out of fuel five days later.

When it was launched it weighed 2,320 lbs (1,052 kg) and is 15.4 feet long by 8.9 feet wide (4.7 m × 2.7 m).

The satellite typically looks for 'Earth-like' planets, meaning they are rocky and orbit within the that orbit within the habitable or 'Goldilocks' zone of a star.

In total, Kepler has found around 5,000 unconfirmed 'candidate' exoplanets, with a further 2,500 'confirmed' exoplanets that scientists have since shown to be real. 

Kepler is currently on the 'K2' mission to discover more exoplanets. 

K2 is the second mission for the spacecraft and was implemented by necessity over desire as two reaction wheels on the spacecraft failed. 

These wheels control direction and altitude of the spacecraft and help point it in the right direction.

The modified mission looks at exoplanets around dim red dwarf stars.  

While the planet has found thousands of exoplanets during its eight-year mission, five in particular have stuck out.

Kepler-452b, dubbed 'Earth 2.0', shares many characteristics with our planet despite sitting 1,400 light years away. It was found by Nasa's Kepler telescope in 2014

1) 'Earth 2.0'

In 2014 the telescope made one of its biggest discoveries when it spotted exoplanet Kepler-452b, dubbed 'Earth 2.0'.

The object shares many characteristics with our planet despite sitting 1,400 light years away.

It has a similar size orbit to Earth, receives roughly the same amount of sun light and has same length of year.

Experts still aren't sure whether the planet hosts life, but say if plants were transferred there, they would likely survive.

2) The first planet found to orbit two stars

Kepler found a planet that orbits two stars, known as a binary star system, in 2011.

The system, known as Kepler-16b, is roughly 200 light years from Earth. 

Experts compared the system to the famous 'double-sunset' pictured on Luke Skywalker's home planet Tatooine in 'Star Wars: A New Hope'.

3) Finding the first habitable planet outside of the solar system

Scientists found Kepler-22b in 2011, the first habitable planet found by astronomers outside of the solar system.

The habitable super-Earth appears to be a large, rocky planet with a surface temperature of about 72°F (22°C), similar to a spring day on Earth.

4) Discovering a 'super-Earth'

The telescope found its first 'super-Earth' in April 2017, a huge planet called LHS 1140b.

It orbits a red dwarf star around 40 million light years away, and scientists think it holds giant oceans of magma.

5) Finding the 'Trappist-1' star system

The Trappist-1 star system, which hosts a record seven Earth-like planets, was one of the biggest discoveries of 2017. 

Each of the planets, which orbit a dwarf star just 39 million light years, likely holds water at its surface.

Three of the planets have such good conditions that scientists say life may have already evolved on them.

Kepler spotted the system in 2016, but scientists revealed the discovery in a series of papers released in February this year. 

Kepler is a telescope that has an incredibly sensitive instrument known as a photometer that detects the slightest changes in light emitted from stars

How does Kepler discover planets?

The telescope has an incredibly sensitive instrument known as a photometer that detects the slightest changes in light emitted from stars.

It tracks 100,000 stars simultaneously, looking for telltale drops in light intensity that indicate an orbiting planet passing between the satellite and its distant target.

When a planet passes in front of a star as viewed from Earth, the event is called a 'transit'.

Tiny dips in the brightness of a star during a transit can help scientists determine the orbit and size of the planet, as well as the size of the star.

Based on these calculations, scientists can determine whether the planet sits in the star's 'habitable zone', and therefore whether it might host the conditions for alien life to grow. 

Kepler was the first spacecraft to survey the planets in our own galaxy, and over the years its observations confirmed the existence of more than 2,600 exoplanets - many of which could be key targets in the search for alien life

Read more:

• Kepler K2 Campaign 9 – I. Candidate short-duration events from the first space-based survey for planetary microlensing | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | Oxford Academic
• ESA Science & Technology - Euclid

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Kepler Data Reveal Four Earth-Mass Free-Floating Exoplanets

Using data from NASA’s Kepler/K2 mission, astronomers have detected four new microlensing events that are consistent with free-floating planets of similar masses to Earth.

Gravitational microlensing is an observational effect that was predicted in 1936 by Albert Einstein using his general theory of relativity.

When one star in the sky appears to pass nearly in front of another, the light rays of the background source star become bent due to the gravitational attraction of the foreground star.

This star is then a virtual magnifying glass, amplifying the brightness of the background source star, so astronomers refer to the foreground star as the lens star.

If the lens star harbors a planetary system, then those planets can also act as lenses, each one producing a short deviation in the brightness of the source.

Roughly one out of every million stars in our Milky Way Galaxy is visibly affected by microlensing at any given time, but only a few percent of these are expected to be caused by extrasolar planets.

“These signals are extremely difficult to find,” said Dr. Iain McDonald, an astronomer in the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester and Open University.

“Our observations pointed an elderly, ailing telescope with blurred vision at one the most densely crowded parts of the sky, where there are already thousands of bright stars that vary in brightness, and thousands of asteroids that skim across our field.”

“From that cacophony, we try to extract tiny, characteristic brightenings caused by planets, and we only have one chance to see a signal before it’s gone.”

“It’s about as easy as looking for the single blink of a firefly in the middle of a motorway, using only a handheld phone.”

Dr. McDonald and colleagues analyzed archival data obtained in 2016 during the K2 mission phase of NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope.

They found 27 short-duration candidate microlensing signals that varied over timescales of between an hour and 10 days.

Many of these had been previously seen in data obtained simultaneously from the ground.

However, the four shortest events are new discoveries that are consistent with planets of similar masses to Earth.

These new events do not show an accompanying longer signal that might be expected from a host star, suggesting that these new events may be free-floating planets.

“Kepler has achieved what it was never designed to do, in providing further tentative evidence for the existence of a population of Earth-mass, free-floating planets,” said Dr. Eamonn Kerins, an astronomer in the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester.

“Now it passes the baton on to other missions that will be designed to find such signals, signals so elusive that Einstein himself thought that they were unlikely ever to be observed.”

The results appear in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

_____

• I. McDonald et al. 2021. Kepler K2 Campaign 9 – I. Candidate short-duration events from the first space-based survey for planetary microlensing. MNRAS 505 (4): 5584-5602; doi: 10.1093/mnras/stab1377

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Hubble's meest recente prachtige opname: bolvormige sterrenhoop NGC 6380

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