Nick Pope's Missing Tollbooth experience part two -
Nick Pope and the ‘Missing Toll Booth Encounter’ - PART I
Nick Pope and the ‘Missing Toll Booth Encounter’ - PART II
Nick Pope and the ‘Missing Toll Booth Encounter’ - PART II
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The famous psychic Uri Geller says ‘massive alien invasion’ is coming
The famous psychic Uri Geller claims that the Earth is waiting for a massive invasion of aliens. He says he stumbled upon a conversation between “higher beings” 4,000 light-years away.
According to dailystar.uk,Uri Geller warned NASA to prepare for a massive alien invasion of Earth, which will take place in the near future.
Geller is confident that the giant energy source , which astronomers have discovered at a distance of 4000 light years, is most likely a message from “higher beings” from space.
He believes that the aliens are already heading in our direction.
The famous psychic Uri Geller
He announced on Instagram: “A team mapping radio waves in the universe has discovered something unusual that releases a giant burst of energy three times an hour and it’s unlike anything astronomers have seen before.
“No doubt in my mind that this is connected to alien intelligence way way superior than ours.
“Start deciphering their messages! They are preparing us for a mass landing soon!”
Astronomers said they have never seen anything like the mysterious new phenomenon before. They believe that it could be a neutron star or a white dwarf with a superstrong magnetic field (magnetar).
Astrophysicist Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker of Curtin University in Australia said: “This object appeared and disappeared for several hours during our observations.
“It was kind of spooky for an astronomer because there’s nothing known in the sky that does that.
“And it’s really quite close to us — about 4,000 light years away. It’s in our galactic backyard.”
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Uri Geller (/ˈʊəri ˈɡɛlər/ OOR-ee GHEL-ər;[1] Hebrew: אורי גלר; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other illusions. Geller uses conjuring tricks to simulate the effects of psychokinesis and telepathy. Geller’s career as an entertainer has spanned more than four decades, with television shows and appearances in many countries. Magicians have called Geller a fraud due to his claims of possessing truly psychic powers.[2]
Geller was born on 20 December 1946 in Tel Aviv, which was then part of British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel). His mother and father were of Austrian-Jewish and Hungarian-Jewish background respectively. Geller is the son of Itzhaak Geller (Gellér Izsák), a retired army sergeant major, and Margaret “Manzy” Freud (Freud Manci). Geller claims that he is a distant relative of Sigmund Freud on his mother’s side.[3]
At the age of 11, Geller’s family moved to Nicosia, Cyprus, where he attended high school, the Terra Santa College, and learned English. At the age of 18,[4]: 9 he joined the Israeli Army‘s Paratroopers Brigade,[5] with which he served in the 1967 Six-Day War and was wounded in action.[6][7] He worked as a photographic model in 1968 and 1969; during that time, he began to perform for small audiences as a nightclub entertainer,[8] becoming well-known in Israel.[9]
Geller first started to perform in theatres, public halls, auditoriums, military bases and universities in Israel.[10] The parapsychologist Andrija Puharich met Geller in 1971 and assisted him in traveling to the United States.[11][12]
Geller became famous demonstrating on television what he claimed to be psychokinesis, dowsing, and telepathy.[13] His performance included spoon bending, describing hidden drawings, and making watches stop or run faster. Geller said he performs these feats through willpower and the strength of his mind.[14] His apparent ability to bend metal objects during his television appearances came to be known as the “Geller effect” and made Geller a celebrity.[11] Geller’s actual methods were revealed to be stage magic tricks largely due to the work of magician and investigator James Randi.[15][16][17]
In 1973, Geller appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, an appearance recounted in the Nova documentary episode “Secrets of the Psychics” hosted by Randi on PBS.[18]: 9’30″–11’34″ In the documentary, Randi says that “Johnny had been a magician himself and was skeptical” of Geller’s claimed paranormal powers, so prior to the date of taping, Randi was asked “to help prevent any trickery”; accordingly, the show prepared their own props without informing Geller, and did not let Geller or his staff “anywhere near them”.[18]: 9’48″–10’10″ When Geller joined Carson on stage, he appeared surprised that he was not going to be interviewed, but instead was expected to display his abilities using the provided articles. Geller said, “This scares me”, and, “As you know, I told your people what to bring”, and “I’m surprised because before this program your producer came and he read me at least 40 questions you were going to ask me”. Geller was unable to display any paranormal abilities, saying, “I don’t feel strong”, and expressed his displeasure at feeling he was being “pressed” to perform by Carson.[19] According to Adam Higginbotham:
Nancy Grace Roman Will be Launching on a Falcon Heavy Rocket
In 2026, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST) – aka. the “Mother of Hubble” – will take to space and begin addressing some of the deepest mysteries of the Universe. This will include capturing the deepest field images of the cosmos, refining measurements of the Hubble Constant (aka. Hubble’s Law), and determining the role of Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the evolution of the cosmos. Alongside its next-generation partner, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the RST will acquire infrared images with over 200 times the surveying power of its predecessor with the same rich level of detail.
On Tuesday, July 19th, NASA announced that it had awarded SpaceX with a Launch Services (NLS) II contract to provide the rocket that will deploy the RST mission to space. As specified in the NLS II, the launch will take place in October 2026 (May 2027, at the latest) and consist of a Falcon Heavy rocket transporting the RST from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to orbit. This indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract is valued at approximately $255 million and covers the launch and other mission-related costs.
Previously known as the Wide-Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST), the RST was originally proposed in 2010 as a successor to Hubble. The proposal was based on the same design as Hubble, with a 2.4-meter (7.9-foot) field of view primary mirror and two scientific instruments. This includes the Wide-Field Instrument (WFI), a 300.8-megapixel camera covering the visible and near-infrared spectrum, and the Coronograph Instrument (CGI) – a high-contrast spectrometer that incorporates starlight-suppression technology.
In May 2020, NASA renamed the telescope to honor Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first Chief Astronomer and a tireless advocate for space-based astronomy. By March 2021, NASA announced that the RST would be getting an upgrade with the addition of a K-band filter. This effectively expands the RST’s infrared imaging range to 0.5 to 23 micrometers – 500 to 23,000 nanometers (nm) – ranging from the near- to the far-infrared spectrum. With these capabilities, the RST’s science program will include dedicated investigations addressing several enduring mysteries in modern cosmology.
These include the study and characterization of exoplanets, which will narrow the search for habitable planets and Earth analogs and complete the census of exoplanets. In particular, the RST will use its tremendous field of view to detect thousands of smaller, rocky planets that orbit closely to their parent stars – in their habitable zones (HZs). These planets will be designated for follow-up observations by Webb, which will use its extremely-sensitive IR optics to obtain spectra from their atmospheres and surfaces.
Its powerful optics will also conduct the deepest surveys of the Universe to reveal the earliest stars and galaxies, which formed roughly 100 million years after the Big Bang. These scientific operations will complement the ESA’s EUCLID mission and allow astronomers to investigate possible causes of cosmic acceleration. Current theories include the existence of Dark Energy or Modified Newtonian Gravity (MOND), which states that General Relativity breaks down on cosmological scales. These operations will also address questions about the fate of the Universe, like if it will tear itself apart someday (the Big Rip theory).
The telescope’s wide-field surveys will also enable new studies into the nature of Dark Matter and its role in cosmic evolution. Furthermore, the RST mission also includes a substantial general investigator program that will allow for further studies of astrophysical phenomena. This will enable opportunities to collaborate with other science missions and space agencies and advance other scientific goals. This is very good news for NASA, its partner agencies, and space-based astronomy fans!
After years of waiting for James Webb to get to space and start shooting the most breathtaking and detailed images ever seen, it’s encouraging to know that the next next-generation telescope is not far behind. While delays are always possible, Roman’s comparatively simple design will likely make for a speedier launch schedule. It’s also good news for SpaceX, which has secured many high-priority and lucrative contracts with NASA in recent years.
These include contracts to build the Human Landing System (HLS) for the Artemis Program – the Starship HLS – that will transport “the first woman and the first person of color” to the lunar surface by 2025. It also includes the launch services for the Lunar Gateway, which will consist of the core elements – Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) – launching in 2024 (also using a Falcon Heavy rocket).
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Fungus Structures In Crater On Moon, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Fungus Structures In Crater On Moon, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Mother And Daughter Witness Huge Mysterious Dancing Orbs In The Sky Over Alaska
Mother And Daughter Witness Huge Mysterious Dancing Orbs In The Sky Over Alaska
Sheri and Tiffany were at a casual get-together when they noticed the massive moving orange orbs outside a restaurant in Ninilchik. The two conclude the unexplainable bright lights are UFOs that are mining the minerals out of their mountain ranges, explaining the growing number of natural calamities in the area.
Astronomers Have a New Way to Find Exoplanets in Cataclysmic Binary Systems
Have you heard of LU Camelopardalis, QZ Serpentis, V1007 Herculis and BK Lyncis? No, they’re not members of a boy band in ancient Rome. They’re Cataclysmic Variables, binary stars that are so close together one star draws material from its sibling. This causes the pair to vary wildly in brightness.
Can planets exist in this chaotic environment? Can we spot them? A new study answers yes to both.
Cataclysmic Variables (CVs) undergo large increases in brightness. All stars vary in brightness to some degree, even our own sun. But CVs increased brightness is much more pronounced than stars like our Sun, and they happen irregularly.
There are different types of cataclysmic variables: classical novae, dwarf novae, some supernovae, and others. All types share the same basic mechanic. A pair of stars orbit each other closely, and one of the stars is more massive than the other. The more massive one is called the primary star, and it draws gas from the lower mass star, which astronomers call the donor star. The primary star in a CV is a white dwarf, and the donor star is usually a red dwarf. The red dwarf stars are cooler and less massive than the white dwarfs. They have masses between 0.07 and 0.30 solar masses and a radius of about 20% of the Sun’s. White dwarf primary stars have a typical mass of around 0.75 solar masses but much smaller radii, about the same as Earth’s.
When the primary star draws material from the donor star, the material forms an accretion disk around the primary star. The material in the accretion disk heats up, and that causes increased luminosity. The increase can overpower the light from the pair of stars. If there’s a dim third body—a planet—in the system, then its gravity can affect the transfer of material from the donor to the primary star. These perturbations affect the system’s brightness, and that’s at the heart of the new study.
The authors of the study show how the chaotic environments around CVs can host planets and explains how astronomers can spot them. The study is “Testing the third-body hypothesis in the cataclysmic variables LU Camelopardalis, QZ Serpentis, V1007 Herculis and BK Lyncis.” It’s published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS.) The lead author is Dr. Carlos Chavez, from the Universidad Autónoma De Nuevo León in Mexico.
Material drawn to the primary star gathers in an accretion ring and heats up, creating increased luminosity. But the material transfer to the disk isn’t steady; it rises and falls as the stars in the CV orbit each other. Chavez and his colleagues examined four cataclysmic variables in their study: LU Camelopardalis, QZ Serpentis, V1007 Herculis and BK Lyncis. The four CVs exhibit very long photometric periods (VLPPs), which are periods of enhanced luminosity that don’t conform to the binary’s orbital periods.
There’s a point between both stars and the third body called the L1 point, or Lagrangian One point. It’s a gravitational equilibrium point between the stars. The L1 point is dynamic, and its position changes as the stars move. Lead author Chavez showed in a previous paper that a third body, a planet, can cause oscillations in the L1 point.
As the L1 point changes, the amount of material drawn into the primary star—the mass transfer rate—changes. A change in the mass transfer rate creates a change in the luminosity of the entire three-body system.
By measuring the changes in brightness of the four CVs, the researchers calculated the distances and masses of potential third bodies in the systems based on the brightness changes in each system. Their calculations show that the variations have much longer periods than the orbital periods of the stars. According to the team, two of the four CVs they studied have “bodies resembling planets” orbiting them.
“Our work has proven that a third body can perturb a cataclysmic variable in such a way that can induce changes in brightness in the system,” Dr. Chavez said in a press release. “These perturbations can explain both the very long periods that have been observed – between 42 and 265 days- and the amplitude of those changes in brightness. Of the four systems we studied, our observations suggest that two of the four have objects of planetary mass in orbit around them.”
This isn’t the first time scientists have tackled CVs and tried to find an explanation for the variations in the luminosity. In 2017 a separate team of researchers published a paper presenting the four CVs and their VLPPs. They suggested that planets were the cause. But they said that “… the third-body orbital plane should be greater than 39.2 degrees for this mechanism to be effective in disturbing the inner binary effectively.”
“Here we explore a new possibility, namely that the secular perturbation by a low eccentricity and low inclination third object explains the VLPP and also the change of magnitude observed in these four CVs,” Chavez and his co-authors write in their paper. They say that “… a third body on a close near-circular planar orbit could produce perturbations on the central binary eccentricity.”
According to Chavez, their work amounts to a new way to detect exoplanets. Planet-hunters find most exoplanets using the transit system. As an exoplanet transits in front of its star, there’s a detectable dip in starlight. While effective—we’ve found thousands of planets this way—the transit method has limitations. It only works when things are lined up right. We have to be looking at it from the side, as it were, or else the planet doesn’t transit the star from our point of view, and there’s no dip in starlight.
But the method Chavez and his colleagues developed doesn’t depend on planetary transits. It relies on the intrinsic change in luminosity that’s observable from different angles.
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James Webb discovers the oldest galaxy in the universe - a 13.5-billion-year-old system of stars formed 300 million years after the Big Bang
NASA's James Webb Telescope (JWST) has uncovered a 13.5 billion-year-old galaxy that is now the oldest in the universe seen by human eyes.
The galaxy, called GLASS-z13 (GN-z13), formed just 300 million years after the Big Bang that occurred 13.8 billion years ago.
The previous record holder, discovered by the Hubble Telescope in 2015, was GN-z11 that dates back 400 million years after the universe birthed.
JWST captured a look at GN-z13 using its Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument, which is capable of detecting light from the earliest stars and galaxies.
This telescope uses a broad range of infrared light to 'see' back in time, which is done by analyzing the time it takes for light to travel through space.
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The galaxy, called GLASS-z13 (GN-z13), was formed just 300 million years after the Big Bang that occurred 13.8 billion years ago, making it the oldest in the universe
While investigating the area are GN-z13, JWST also spotted GN-z11.
Scientists from the Harvard and Smithsonian Centre of Astrophysics in Massachusetts note that although they are both old, each of the galaxies are very small, New Scientist reports.
GN-z13 is around 1,600 light years across and GLASS z-11 is 2,300 light years.
This is compared to our own Milky Way that is around 100,000 light years in diameter.
The paper, published in arXiv, notes that both galaxies have a mass of one billion suns, which is because they formed shortly after the Big Bang occurred.
While investigating the area near GN-z13 (top), JWST also spotted GN-z11 (bottom)
The previous record holder, discovered by the Hubble Telescope in 2015, is GN-z11 (pictured) that dates back 400 million years after the universe birthed
The team suggests this occurred as the galaxies were growing and gobbled up stars in the region.
'These two objects already place novel constraints on galaxy evolution in the cosmic dawn epoch,' researchers shared in the paper.
'They indicate that the discovery of GNz11 was not simply a matter of good fortune, but that there is likely a population of UV luminous sources with very high star-formation efficiencies capable of compiling.'
Gabriel Brammer at the Niehls Bohr Institute in Denmark, part of the GLASS team and a co-discoverer of GN-z11, told New Scientist that further analysis will be needed to confirm the distance to the two galaxies.
'They're very convincing candidates,' he said. 'We were pretty confident that JWST would see distant galaxies. But we're a little bit surprised how easy it is to detect them.'
Brammer made headlines this week when he released a never-before-seen image snapped by the JWST.
The paper notes that both galaxies have a mass of one billion suns, noting this is because they formed shortly after the Big Bang occurred. Pictured are the galaxies locations
Gabriel Brammer, part of the GLASS team and a co-discoverer of GN-z11, said further analysis will be needed to confirm the distance to the two galaxies. Brammer made headlines this week when he released a never-before-seen image snapped by the JWST
(pictured)
The astronomer shared a stunning photo of the spiraling arms of the 'phantom galaxy,' formally known as NGC 628 or Messier 74, which sits 32 million light years from Earth.
Webb took the image of NGC 628 on July 17 and sent the data back to Earth where it was stored in the Barbara Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes, (MAST), which is open to the public.
Brammer's image caught the attention of other astronomers and space enthusiasts, who wanted to learn more about how he made the image and what it was that they are looking at.
'For a tiny bit more context, the purple color cast here is actually 'real' in the sense that emission from interstellar cigarette smoke (PAH molecules) makes the filters used for the blue and red channels brighter relative to the green,' Brammer wrote in a tweet.
The James Webb telescope has been described as a 'time machine' that could help unravel the secrets of our universe.
The telescope will be used to look back to the first galaxies born in the early universe more than 13.5 billion years ago, and observe the sources of stars, exoplanets, and even the moons and planets of our solar system.
The vast telescope, which has already cost more than $7 billion (£5 billion), is considered a successor to the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope
The James Webb Telescope and most of its instruments have an operating temperature of roughly 40 Kelvin – about minus 387 Fahrenheit (minus 233 Celsius).
It is the world's biggest and most powerful orbital space telescope, capable of peering back 100-200 million years after the Big Bang.
The orbiting infrared observatory is designed to be about 100 times more powerful than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA likes to think of James Webb as a successor to Hubble rather than a replacement, as the two will work in tandem for a while.
The Hubble telescope was launched on April 24, 1990, via the space shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
It circles the Earth at a speed of about 17,000mph (27,300kph) in low Earth orbit at about 340 miles in altitude.
JWST Finds Galaxies Just 300-400 Million Years After the Big Bang, and It’s Just Getting Started
By now, almost everyone has seen the first-release images from JWST and marveled at these amazing views of the infrared universe the telescope was launched to explore. The view of SMACS 0723 seen above illustrates the promise JWST holds. While there are many more early-release images in the observation pipeline, we’re starting to see the first research papers come out. As expected, studies of distant galaxies are grabbing headlines already.
Wow, are these findings amazing! In the last couple of days, websites and social media have been alive with images of a blob that, in reality, is one of the oldest (earliest) galaxies ever seen. It’s one of two—GL-z11 and GL-z13—that show us what they looked like when the Universe was extremely young, about 300 million years after the Big Bang. When confirmed, they’ll mark a milestone in studies of the infant Universe.
A Look back in Time and Across Space
Thanks to JWST and its high-resolution infrared instruments, astronomers can now observe the earliest epochs in cosmic history. Of course, Hubble Space Telescope paved the way for some of this. For example, it provided the first look at galaxy GNz11. Now, JWST is following up with a study of that galaxy and the discovery of another one called GL-z13.
These galaxies exist at a time that has been, until now, largely unexplored. So, a consortium of astronomers (led by Rohan P. Naidu of the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian) proposed a JWST search for luminous galaxies in the first several hundred million years after the Big Bang (at a redshift of z > 10). This work was done as part of the JWST Early Release program and the exploration will likely continue for quite some time.
The search revealed that the two galaxies—GL-z11 and GL-z13—are likely billion-solar-mass galaxies. That’s pretty remarkable given their presence in the early Universe, especially since the first stars began forming around one to two hundred million years after the Big Bang. These galaxies are also bright enough that astronomers will be able to do follow-up spectrographic studies to determine more about them. Computer modeling indicates that these galaxies are somewhat small and may well have disks in place, even at their young age.
Based on the early observations with JWST, it seems very likely GL-z11 and GL-z13 have a population of hot, young stars (which would be very bright in ultraviolet light), and that each galaxy could be bursting with star-formation regions. These stars and regions should be very good candidates for follow-up observations using JWST’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph.
Are There More of These Galaxies Out There?
One exciting implication of this discovery is that these two distant galaxies in the early Universe may be just the tip of the iceberg. There could be many more in every direction JWST looks. Remember the excitement when Hubble Space Telescope (HST) performed its first deep-field study? It pointed at what looked like a fairly vacant area of the sky, looking to see what was “out there.” The observations revealed distant galaxies out as far as HST could see. Other deep-field observations in other directions in the sky delivered the same result. It turns out the universe is galaxies all the way out.
So, if these two galaxy discoveries are any indication, JWST is about to explode our view of the infant Universe the same way HST did with its deep field observations. Of course, astronomers will work to confirm these galaxies spectroscopically. And, if what they promise plays out across the sky—with the discovery of at least two (and maybe more) galaxies at redshifts between 11 and 13 in every direction JWST looks—then we’ll be in for some interesting times. At the very least, this amazing infrared observatory is pushing the cosmic frontier much farther out, peeking beyond what we currently know. In the very near future, it could look all the way out to the brink of the Big Bang itself. Stay tuned!
The post JWST Finds Galaxies Just 300-400 Million Years After the Big Bang, and It’s Just Getting Started appeared first on Universe Today.
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Energy Entity Shoots Out Of Storm July 20, 2022, Greer, Ohio UFO Sighting News.
Is This Life On Mars Or Debris? July 22, 2022, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Another Facelift for the UFO Coverup 'Same Playbook' Again!
Really fast UFO filmed over Surrey, BC, Canada 20-Jul-2022
This really fast UFO was filmed in the sky above Surrey, a city in British Columbia, Canada on 20th July 2022.
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NASA wil op 29 augustus weer naar de Maan te vliegen
Cape Canaveral
© AP
Artemis-1, de eerste missie waarmee de Amerikanen terug naar de Maan reizen, kan op 29 augustus vertrekken, zo heeft de NASA meegedeeld, uitgerekend de dag waarop 53 jaar geleden voor het eerst een mens voet zette op de Maan. Alternatieve data zijn 2 of 5 september.
Het Artemis-programma beoogt, ten vroegste in 2025, opnieuw mensen op de Maan neer te zetten en terug te halen, waarbij voor het eerst een vrouw en een kleurling. Het Amerikaanse ruimtevaartbureau NASA wil dit, naar analogie van het Apollo-programma, stapsgewijs bereiken. Artemis zal dus een onbemande missie zijn, in het bijzonder om de gigantische nieuwe draagraket te testen, net als de Orion-capsule die in 2024 bij de tweede missie wel bemand zal zijn.
De lancering vindt plaats op Cape Canaveral. De SLS-draagraket moet de Orion naar onze natuurlijke satelliet slingeren. De capsule komt in een baan rond de Maan en komt dan naar de Aarde terug. Naargelang de precieze lanceringsdatum zou de vlucht 39 tot 42 dagen duren.
De Orion is in 2014 al eens in de ruimte getest, na lancering met een Delta-IV draagraket. De capsule maakte twee omlopen rond onze planeet, om in het bijzonder het hitteschild uit te testen.
De laatste keer dat een mens over het oppervlak van de Maan wandelde was met Apollo-17 in 1972.
Japanese Researchers Show how Microgravity Affects Astronauts’ Muscles and Nerves
It’s well-known that spending long periods in microgravity can adversely affect astronaut health and physiology. According to decades of research performed aboard the International Space Station (ISS), like NASA’s much-popularized Twins Study, these effects include the loss of muscle mass and bone density, as well as changes to cardiovascular health, eyesight, organ function, and gene expression. There’s even the possibility that astronauts will experience mood swings and psychological problems while in space or during recovery here on Earth.
According to a recent study by a team of Japanese researchers, one of the lesser-studied effects is how long periods spent in microgravity can damage the skeletal muscles that are important to maintaining our posture. This group of muscles – located mostly in our limbs, back, and neck – are rightly known as our “anti-gravity” muscles because they are load-bearing and allow us to stand upright and move against the force of gravity. This research and the countermeasures they propose could have significant implications for astronauts returning from long-term stays in space.
The research was led by Dr. Yoshinobu Ohira, a Professor of space medicine at Doshisha University’s Research Center for Space and Medical Sciences (RCSMC) in Kyoto, Japan. He was joined by fellow researchers with the RCSMC, the Organization for Research Initiatives and Development (ORID) at Doshisha University, the Kindai University Faculty of Medicine (Osaka), Matsumoto University (Nagano), and Toyohashi SOZO University (Aichi). The paper that describes their findings recently appeared in the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.
As they indicated in their study, the team reviewed the neuromuscular properties of the soleus and adductor longus muscles (and their respective dorsal ganglia) in astronauts who had spent extended periods in space. These muscles are located in the calf and inner thigh (respectively) and are responsible for load-bearing and helping us remain upright in normal gravity. When subjected to microgravity, these muscles are “unloaded” and have nothing to work against, leading to the gradual atrophy of their fibers and nerves.
Their study considered how the neuromuscular system’s morphological, functional, and metabolic properties respond to gravitational unloading in microgravity and lower gravity environments. This consisted of running human and rodent simulation models and examining how motoneuron signals between the skeletal muscle and central nervous system (afferent and efferent activity, respectively) regulated neuromuscular properties. Their research appeared in a special issue titled “Space Neurosciences” that commemorates the Moon Landing (NASA’s Apollo 11 mission).
Their analysis confirmed that these signals play a key role in regulating muscle properties and brain activity. This consists of a decrease in the structural unit of muscles (sarcomeres), resulting in a decrease in their development, eventually leading to muscular atrophy – as seen in the soleus and the adductor longus muscles. Their results indicate that exposure to low-gravity environments affects the muscles and nerves, leading to the deterioration of motor control.
This is consistent with symptoms reported by astronauts upon returning to Earth, where they experienced difficulty walking despite regular exercise aboard the ISS – using treadmills, cycles, and resistance training. Their work also showed that additional challenges might arise when astronauts are exposed to microgravity for six months or more, such as they would be while in transit to Mars. In summary, their review indicates that existing countermeasures are inadequate when combatting the effects of gravitational unloading.
Luckily, their research also points the way toward some possible solutions. For starters, they recommend stimulating the soleus muscle during exercise, which can be done by running or walking slowly on a treadmill with a rear foot-strike landing. Adding bungee cords for added resistance and periodic passive stretching of the soleus muscle also appears to reduce the risk of atrophy. This research could play an important role in developing appropriate countermeasures for future long-duration space missions.
These include continued operations aboard the ISS, which were recently extended to January 2031 (according to NASA’s latest announcement). It will also come in handy as astronauts begin to conduct long-term missions to the Moon, which will entail the creation of lunar habitats – like Artemis Base Camp, the International Moon Village, and the Sino-Russian International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Then there are the crewed missions that NASA and China plan to send to Mars in the next decade, which will involve 6 to 9-month transits.
Ensuring the long-term health of astronauts is part of a constellation of research that will help ensure the health and safety of astronauts as we venture farther from Earth. This research is especially important considering that someday (perhaps sooner other than later) civilians and potential settlers will follow. If humanity’s future does lie in space, every aspect of living and working beyond Earth must be taken into account, and potential solutions devised.
Further Reading:
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A Dormant Black Hole has Been Discovered Just Outside the Milky Way
What happens when a massive star dies? Conventional wisdom (and observational evidence) say that it can collapse to form a “stellar-mass” black hole. Astronomers detect black holes by the X-ray emissions they emit.
But, what if the black hole isn’t giving off high levels of X-ray emissions? Then, it could be a very rare object indeed: a dormant black hole. Not many of these have been seen. So, it’s exciting to know that a team of astronomers has found one. It’s called VFTS 243. They detected it in Very Large Telescope observations of stars in the Tarantula Nebula, in the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud.
Finding a Needle in a Galactic Haystack
VFTS 243 is the first dormant black hole to be unambiguously detected outside the Milky Way Galaxy. While there are likely billions of stellar-mass black holes out there, dormant ones are much harder to find. “We identified a ‘needle in a haystack’,” said team leader Tomer Shenar, a Marie-Curie Fellow at Amsterdam University, the Netherlands.
It’s not for lack of looking, and astronomers have searched. “It is incredible that we hardly know of any dormant black holes, given how common astronomers believe them to be”, said team member Pablo Marchant of KU Leuven.
This newly found dormant black hole is at least nine times the mass of our Sun. It’s in a 10.4-day orbital dance with a hot, blue star 25 times the mass of the Sun. The black hole itself has about 9 solar masses. It’s considered dormant because it’s not emitting large amounts of X-rays. Normally, that would happen as material spirals into its accretion disk from the nearby companion star.
Implications for Black Hole Formation
Although astronomers know the general story about how a massive star evolves to become a stellar-mass black hole, there are many details of the process to explore. This discovery gives the team a new way to look at the black hole “factory”. Typically, a stellar-mass black hole forms as the core of a dying massive star collapses. However, for a dormant black hole, it’s not clear if the collapse was followed by a powerful supernova explosion. This new one may have taken a very different route to “black hole-hood”. In fact, there are some interesting clues that point to an alternate evolutionary path. First, it’s in a near-circular orbit and its motions indicate there was little ejected material from an explosion. In addition, there’s no evidence of a form of rebound called a “black hole kick” as the object collapsed. So, what happened?
“The star that formed the black hole in VFTS 243 appears to have collapsed entirely, with no sign of a previous explosion,” said Shenar, who noted that the team’s discovery has implications for understanding the properties of core-collapse supernovae as well as gravitational-wave detections. “Evidence for this ‘direct-collapse’ scenario has been emerging recently, but our study arguably provides one of the most direct indications. This has enormous implications for the origin of black-hole mergers in the cosmos.”
Calling the Black Hole Police
There’s more than a bit of irony in this discovery since team members are sometimes referred to as the “black hole police.” That’s because Shenar and other colleagues have frequently debunked proposed sightings of other black holes. So, the fact that they searched for and found this dormant black hole is an interesting experience. And, their search took a while and a lot of data.
To find VFTS 243, the collaboration used observations of nearly a thousand massive stars in the Tarantula Nebula. The data came from the VLT FLAMES Tarantula Survey, and team members used it to identify stars that might have black holes as companions. Because alternative explanations exist for such objects, identifying these companions as dormant black holes is extremely difficult.
“As a researcher who has debunked potential black holes in recent years, I was extremely skeptical regarding this discovery,” said Shenar. His skepticism was shared by co-author Kareem El-Badry of the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard, in the USA. Thanks to El-Badry’s reputation as a skeptic, Shenar calls him the ‘black hole destroyer’. “When Tomer asked me to double check his findings, I had my doubts,” said El-Badry. “But I could not find a plausible explanation for the data that did not involve a black hole.”
Next Steps
Despite the nickname ‘black hole police’, the team expects very active scrutiny of their dormant black-hole discovery. They also hope that their work will enable the discovery of other stellar-mass black holes orbiting massive stars. As an example of just how plentiful these objects are, the team predicts thousands of them exist in Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds.
“Of course I expect others in the field to pore over our analysis carefully, and to try to cook up alternative models,” said El-Badry. “It’s a very exciting project to be involved in.”
The post A Dormant Black Hole has Been Discovered Just Outside the Milky Way appeared first on Universe Today.
Source:Shocking Creatures That Are Not From This PlanetHere’s M74 Like You’ve Never Seen it Before, Thanks to Judy Schmidt and JWST
The JWST is grabbing headlines and eyeballs as its mission gains momentum. The telescope recently imaged M74 (NGC 628) with its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI.) Judy Schmidt, a well-known amateur astronomy image processor, has worked on the image to bring out more detail.
M74 is a large spiral galaxy that holds somewhere in the neighbourhood of 100 billion stars. It’s about 32 million light-years away from us and is a great example of a Grand Design Spiral Galaxy. The JWST imaged the galaxy as part of the PHANG Survey. PHANG (Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS) studies nearby galaxies in high resolution and is intended to “… understand the interplay of the small-scale physics of gas and star formation with galactic structure and galaxy evolution,” according to the PHANG website.
The survey uses several telescopes to study galaxies, but now that the JWST is operating, it’s making a huge contribution to the effort.
Judy Schmidt (Judy Schmidt@SpaceGeck on Twitter) is involved with the Planetary Society and is one of those rare people who looks at an astounding image from the JWST and thinks, “Hmmmm…Not bad, but I can improve it.” (We’re just kidding and don’t mean to speak for her.) But it does speak to her rare skill set.
In the image description on Judy’s Flickr page, she writes, “Squeezing some color out of the various filters showing all the glowing dust in the center of NGC628.”
She lists the filters as:
To understand the impact the JWST is having, compare a Hubble image of M74 to Judy’s processed JWST image. The Hubble image is a composite of the telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys data taken in 2003 and 2005.
Visit Schmidt’s Flickr feed for more of her work. She’s also on Twitter as @SpaceGeck, and her website is https://geckzilla.com/.
“A very processed (maybe even over-processed) version of Jupiter from JWST,” Schmidt writes in her description. “Here, we’re viewing the planet only in infrared, and the ring, usually invisible, is plain for all to see. The colors are definitely unusual.”
“There is some discussion over what the red blip at the south pole and the disconnected layer of atmosphere on the eastern limb are. Real? Artifacts? We’ll wait for the scientists to figure it out, but I’m leaning toward real. 
”
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