Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
01-11-2018
Thousands of Octopuses Are Gathering On The Deep-Sea Ground
Thousands of Octopuses Are Gathering On The Deep-Sea Ground
Actually, the scientists were looking for deep-sea corals and sponges. What they found, however, was the single largest cluster of octopus found by anyone.
Chad King, chiefscientist on the Exploration Vessel Nautilus, said:
"What’s really amazing is we never saw an end to them. And we still don’t know the full extent of how many octopuses are down there. We know there are at least a thousand, there could be a lot more."
It seems they want to take over Earth because humankind has failed.
New UFO documentary "Above Majestic" makes No. #1 on Amazon & Itunes on 1st day
New UFO documentary "Above Majestic" makes No. #1 on Amazon & Itunes on 1st day
The documentary film "Above Majestic" went to number one on Amazon and iTunes documentary section on its release day.
Side note Facebook has banned ads for "Above Majestic" due to “Issues of National Importance”.
For this film to make number 1 while also being banned is a testament to those that believed that we are not alone.
SphereBeingAlliance@blueavians
HISTORIC EVENT FOR UFOLOGY AND THE TRUTH COMMUNITY ABOVE MAJESTIC DEBUT MAKES #1 ON AMAZON & #1 ON ITUNES ALL THE WHILE BEING BANNED BY FACEBOOK ADS!!! YOU CANT STOP THE INFORMATION!! SHARE EVERYWHERE!!!
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Confirmed: The Eye of The Sahara IS the Location of Atlantis
Confirmed: The Eye of The Sahara IS the Location of Atlantis
The evidence is simply overwhelming...the Richat Structure needs to be excavated. The birth of Rome, Egypt, Carthage could all have been former colonies of the Atlantis, even the Mesopotamia people’s. Not only that, but many Mesopotamia civilizations (around 30) write of a massive flood that caused massive damage.
Ontvoeringen door buitenaardsen, een zwarte driehoek en een enorme voetafdruk. Dit maken politieagenten zoal mee
Ontvoeringen door buitenaardsen, een zwarte driehoek en een enorme voetafdruk. Dit maken politieagenten zoal mee
Politieagenten maken geregeld vreemde dingen mee, zo blijkt uit een verslag van de website Officer.com.
Verschillende politieagenten hebben hun paranormale ervaringen gedeeld met de site. Die variëren van een UFO-waarneming of geesten tot spookachtige geluiden in een kelder.
Een agent uit Maine vertelt dat hij een vrouw had gevonden die al drie dagen vermist was. Toen hij haar vroeg waar ze was geweest, zei de vrouw dat ‘ruimtewezens haar hadden meegenomen’.
Medisch onderzoek
Ze zei dat ze aan boord van het ruimteschip was onderworpen aan een medisch onderzoek en vroeg de agent om haar naar het ziekenhuis te brengen, omdat ze heel erg pijn in haar buik had.
Dit klinkt misschien nogal vergezocht, maar kennelijk heeft de vrouw bewijs laten zien aan de agent en de artsen in het ziekenhuis.
Ze haalde een gladde, ovaalvormige steen tevoorschijn, die de agent omschreef als regenboogkleurig en die ze meegenomen zou hebben uit het schip.
Nooit meer
“Toen ik de steen heen en weer bewoog, kreeg hij de kleuren van benzine in een modderpoel,” zei de politieagent.
De agent, die later een juwelierszaak begon, zei: “Ik heb stenen van over de hele wereld gezien, maar ik heb sindsdien nooit meer zoiets gezien.”
Een politieagent uit South Carolina zag naar eigen zeggen een UFO. Het ging om een zwarte driehoek.
Enorme voetafdruk
Een agent uit Georgia ging langs bij een bejaard stel dat op een afgelegen boerderij woonde.
De bewoners hoorden geregeld mysterieus getik op de ramen. De agent ging op het erf op onderzoek uit en stuitte tot zijn verbazing op een enorme voetafdruk.
Vanaf begin oktober neemt de bladval toe in ons land om eind oktober op zijn hoogtepunt te zijn. Daarna houden we de eerste weken van november last van veel bladval. Pas na half november is de grootste intensiteit er uit. Met de bladvalindicator kunnen schommelingen in de bladvalintensiteit van dag tot dag worden weergegeven.
Er is op dit moment echter geen sprake van een hoogtepunt in bladval. De laatste jaren lijkt het alsof de seizoenen met ongeveer een maand naar achter zijn opgeschoven. De zomer en de nazomer duren langer dan normaal en in het voorjaar duurt het ook langer voordat de lente begint.
Zoals wij al heel vaak schreven, gaan we naar een periode van zonneminima, wat weinig activiteit op de zon betekent, met als gevolg aanzienlijk koudere temperaturen op aarde.
En zo kan dat het van een mooie nazomer, zomaar ineens winter wordt. In Engeland spreekt men van de koudste Halloween in 100 jaar en in de volgende korte video zie je de eerste sneeuwval in County Durham.
Ook een normaal vrij gematigd land voor wat temperatuur betreft, Ierland, had te maken met sneeuw. De volgende foto is genomen in Lugnaquilla in County Wicklow waar ook sprake was van temperaturen tot 5 graden onder nul.
In Zwitserland hield de natuur zich keurig aan de wintertijd, want in de nacht dat de klokken een uur achteruit gingen, kwam de sneeuw met bakken uit de lucht. Op sommige plekken, zoals in Arosa, viel wel 70 centimeter sneeuw en de koeien wisten even niet wat hen overkwam. Zo loop je nog in een nazomerzonnetje en zo sta je in de sneeuw.
Ook in het Turkse skigebied Uludag was het raak en is de winter begonnen per eind oktober:
Zelfs Marokko ontkwam niet aan de sneeuw. Afgelopen zondag daalde de temperatuur plotseling en viel in Ifrane, het "Zwitserland" van Marokko, 30 centimeter sneeuw. Dit is ongewoon vroeg, want hoewel daar sneeuw voor komt, is dat meestal pas in januari.
Ook in centraal Frankrijk zorgde zware sneeuwval voor heftige toestanden, waarbij talloze automobilisten gedwongen werden om de nacht in de auto door te brengen en waar meer dan 200.000 gezinnen zonder elektriciteit zaten.
En dat alles terwijl volgens klimaatoplichters zoals Al Gore, sneeuw iets zou zijn uit het verleden.
Naast de sneeuw is er natuurlijk ook nog het noodweer en de overstromingen in Italië en terwijl wij steeds meer moeten betalen om de niet bestaande wereldwijde opwarming tegen te gaan, worden de tekenen van de komende mini ijstijd steeds duidelijker.
On October 20, 2018 a family went to Lake Tahoe for vacation. They got a tour on a boat on the lake.
A family member filmed the lake before the tour begins. After they got home he checked the video and noticed that an object flew with tremendous speed over the lake.
He said that he did not see the object while filming the lake. The video has submitted to Mufon for further investigation.
Earth Size Cube UFO Returns To Sun In SOHO @NASA Photos! Oct 31, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Earth Size Cube UFO Returns To Sun In SOHO @NASA Photos! Oct 31, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Oct 31, 2018 Location of sighting: Earths Sun Source: NASA SOHO images I found the same cube UFO near our sun last night. The UFO is very similar in shape and has a yellowish plume as if its been using the suns material as a propulsion of some sort. The UFO is the same cube shape and about the size of Earth itself. It strange that NASA has not made some kind of announcement about this UFO since every sun camera in the world of astronomy probably caught it. However, SOHO may be one of the few countries with cameras recording the sun, since special filters are needed or the camera would be destroyed instantly. Scott C. Waring
The filmmaker has opened up about how the gruesome scene was made possible
(Image: Spyros Melaris)
Mr Melaris was in charge of the team behind the film claiming to show an alien from the 1947 Roswell UFO crash being dissected by doctors.
The film left UFO hunters convinced it was evidence for the Roswell incident, which was a claim aliens crashed a flying saucer in the New Mexico desert near Roswell in 1947.
Op-shop props, friends and family as the cast and a leg of lamb. All came together as a hoax ‘alien autopsy’.
Source:Supplied
The “dead alien” had grey-white skin and was the size of a ten year old boy.
Source:AFP
Footage from the documentary The Roswell Incident: Aliens Revealed purported to show a dead alien| with six toes.
Source:News Corp Australia
The ‘Roswell alien” was supposed to have had six toes.
Source:News Corp Australia
Conspiracy theorists believe the US Government covered up the evidence by storying the flying saucer and dead bodies in a secret military base.
However, the 1995 footage was later exposed as a hoax.
The filmmaker filmed the footage in his former girlfriend’s home in Camden, North London.
The creative artists used a foam alien sculpture filled with animal flesh to mislead viewers.
The famous footage was sold to TV stations in 33 countries.
The 56-year-old said to The Sun: “It was not an easy task and, apart from the look and feel, the film had to be correct in every aspect
The film achieved worldwide acclaim
(Image: Spyros Melaris)
— the props, the costumes, every little detail.
"I was fortunate to have access to professional filming and editing equipment. More importantly, I also had access to a handful of very talented people.
"For me, ‘The alien autopsy’ film was a challenge. Could it be done?
“As a magician, I wanted to create the biggest illusion ever performed on a global stage.
The footage was filmed in Camden, London
(Image: Spyros Melaris)
"It was never meant to be anything else for me. Once it was created, and it achieved worldwide acclaim, experts saying it was real, others said it was not, no one proved it either way.
“The film had a life of its own and Santilli did a very good job of keeping it alive. I am very proud of the film and my team who helped me create it.
"I regret the film created some negativity as well as bewilderment. I am in show business. I only ever wanted to entertain."
The team used animal organs for the alien’s internal organs, which were made using a scalpel and coated with latex.
The film used surgeons’ outfits from the 1940s and medical instruments from prop providers in both the UK and the USA.
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Alien life could thrive on Jupiter's moon Europa: Saltwater and volcanic rock under the distant world's surface 'are all that's needed to form life's key building blocks'
Alien life could thrive on Jupiter's moon Europa: Saltwater and volcanic rock under the distant world's surface 'are all that's needed to form life's key building blocks'
Scientists have shed new light on how the ingredients for life formed Mars
Organic carbon appeared when Martian rock was broken down by a salty brine
This same process could have spawned the chemical on Jupiter's moon Europa
Scientists have shed new light on how the ingredients for life formed on Mars, and it could guide our search for aliens on other distant worlds.
A study of Martian meteorites shows that salt water and volcanic rock were all that was needed to form organic carbon on Mars - one of the key buildings blocks of life.
A similar process could have spawned the chemical at any spot in the solar system where igneous rocks are surrounded by salty brines, researchers said.
This includes the mysterious subsurface oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus - icy worlds that some scientists believe host alien life.
Scroll down for video
Pictured is a high-resolution microscopic image of a grain from a Martian meteorite. Organic carbon - one of the key building blocks for life - was found between the intact 'prongs'
Scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC, studied a trio of Martian meteorites that fell to Earth: Nakhla, Tissint and NWA 1950.
Nakhla crashed into Egypt in 1911, while both Tissint and NWA 1950 were found in Morocco in 2011 and 2001 respectively.
Experts showed the rocks contained organic carbon that is consistent with organic carbon compounds detected by the Mars Science Laboratory's rover missions.
This proved the chemicals came from Martian soil, rather than from Earth after they landed.
State-of-the-art microscope imaging revealed the compounds likely formed when Martian rocks were broken down by a surrounding salty liquid brine.
Minerals within the rocks likely corroded when they came into contact with the brine, forming organic carbon.
Researchers say the process that formed organic carbon on Mars could have spawned the chemical anywhere in the solar system where igneous rocks are surrounded by salty brines. This includes the mysterious subsurface oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa (pictured)
Organic carbon is a key building block of life as we know it alongside water and an oxygen and nitrogen-rich atmosphere.
The chemical needs to be present for life to grow, and the new study opens up several spots across the solar system to the possibility of alien life.
These include Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, which are both believed to house igneous rock surrounded by a salty subsurface ocean.
'Revealing the processes by which organic carbon compounds form on Mars has been a matter of tremendous interest for understanding its potential for habitability,' study coauthor Dr Andrew Steele said.
'The discovery that natural systems can essentially form a small corrosion-powered battery that drives electrochemical reactions between minerals and surrounding liquid has major implications for the astrobiology field.'
State-of-the-art microscope imaging revealed organic carbon likely formed on Mars when minerals in Martian rocks were broken down by a surrounding salty liquid brine
WHAT EVIDENCE DO SCIENTISTS HAVE FOR LIFE ON MARS?
The search for life on other planets has captivated mankind for decades.
But the reality could be a little less like the Hollywood blockbusters, scientists have revealed.
They say if there was life on the red planet, it probably will present itself as fossilized bacteria - and have proposed a new way to look for it.
Here are the most promising signs of life so far -
Water
When looking for life on Mars, experts agree that water is key.
Although the planet is now rocky and barren with water locked up in polar ice caps there could have been water in the past.
In 2000, scientists first spotted evidence for the existence of water on Mars.
The Nasa Mars Global Surveyor found gullies that could have been created by flowing water.
The debate is ongoing as to whether these recurring slope lineae (RSL) could have been formed from water flow.
Meteorites
Earth has been hit by 34 meteorites from Mars, three of which are believed to have the potential to carry evidence of past life on the planet, writes Space.com.
In 1996, experts found a meteorite in Antarctica known as ALH 84001 that contained fossilised bacteria-like formations.
However, in 2012, experts concluded that this organic material had been formed by volcanic activity without the involvement of life.
Signs of Life
The first close-ups of the planet were taken by the 1964 Mariner 4 mission.
These initial images showed that Mars has landforms that could have been formed when the climate was much wetter and therefore home to life.
In 1975, the first Viking orbiter was launched and although inconclusive it paved the way for other landers.
Many rovers, orbiters and landers have now revealed evidence of water beneath the crust and even occasional precipitation.
Earlier this year, Nasa's Curiosity rover found potential building blocks of life in an ancient Martian lakebed.
The organic molecules preserved in 3.5 billion-year-old bedrock in Gale Crater — believed to have once contained a shallow lake the size of Florida's Lake Okeechobee — suggest conditions back then may have been conducive to life.
Future missions to Mars plan on bringing samples back to Earth to test them more thoroughly.
Methane
In 2018, Curiosity also confirmed sharp seasonal increases of methane in the Martian atmosphere.
Experts said the methane observations provide 'one of the most compelling' cases for present-day life.
Curiosity's methane measurements occurred over four-and-a-half Earth years, covering parts of three Martian years.
Seasonal peaks were detected in late summer in the northern hemisphere and late winter in the southern hemisphere.
The magnitude of these seasonal peaks – by a factor of three – was far more than scientists expected.
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Aliens may lurk on Europa! Saltwater and volcanic rock 'are all that's needed to form life'
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31-10-2018
Inferno planets & the Goldilocks zone: Here are Kepler’s most awesome discoveries (PHOTOS, VIDEO)
Inferno planets & the Goldilocks zone: Here are Kepler’s most awesome discoveries (PHOTOS, VIDEO)
Undoubtedly, the sheer number of exoplanets and alien worlds uncovered by the space telescope is the statistic that immediately deserves plaudits. But delve deeper and the detail of Kepler’s work is jaw dropping. NASA astrophysics director Paul Hertz says the craft has brought humans one step closer to finding life outside Earth. High praise indeed.
NASA Kepler and K2✔@NASAKepler
With today’s announcement of the retirement of the @NASAKepler space telescope, we’re officially passing the planet-hunting torch to @NASA_TESS, which will search 200,000 of the brightest near the for new worlds! Learn more about the mission: http://nasa.gov/tess
Launched in 2009, Kepler’s mission was actually born in the early 80s as scientists began to turn their attention to finding planets with similar characteristics to home. Here are just some of the cool discoveries made possible due to the intergalactic telescope.
Kepler hot jupiters
Months after launch, Kepler found five extrasolar planets known as hot jupiters. The giant gas infernos became known as Kepler-4b, -5b, -6b, -7b and -8. Temperatures on these celestial objects were found to reach above 2,000 degrees fahrenheit.
The Kepler space observatory gave scientists testing the concept of the Circumstellar Habitable Zone (CHZ) an eye in the sky and more ways to analyse their theory. Sometimes known as the ‘Goldilocks zone’, the habitable zone is the distance between a planet and its nearest star. It’s basically the threshold of temperature that would give water the best possible chance to pool.
NASA Kepler and K2✔@NASAKepler
Memorial Day weekend is almost here ... and the chance to take a virtual trip 492 light years away to Kepler-186f, and Earth-size planet orbiting a small, red star. https://go.nasa.gov/2J3jrqn
Among the planets thought to provide the best possible chances of life are Kepler-62f – which NASA’s telescope found in 2014. The exoplanet orbits a cool red dwarf star about 580 light years away.
Alien megastructure debunk
As well as hunting down places for humans to possibly move to, Kepler also kept an eye on the intricacies of light travelling through space. One of its most intriguing observations was the dimming of a mysterious entity known as Tabby’s Star. Curiously speculated to be an ‘alien megastructure’, Kepler helped uncover the truth: the dimming was caused by clouds of dust.
Earth-sized inferno planet
Kepler’s vast catalogue of findings make it almost impossible to list every one. However, a major milestone for the NASA mission came in 2013 when Kepler found its first earth-sized rocky planet. The exoplanet, named Kepler-78b, is close to 20 percent larger than Earth, with a molten rock surface. With an orbit pattern of just 8.5 hours, the fiery planet speeds around its nearest star.
‘Twin’ solar system
In one of its final acts, the Kepler telescope was able to confirm the location of a planetary system similar to our own. Dubbed the Kepler 90 solar system, NASA’s craft successfully tracked down eight planets in the zone situated approximately 2,544 light years from Earth.
On Sept. 11, NASA began a 45-day "active listening" campaign in an attempt to rouse the solar-powered Opportunity, which went silent on June 10 after a raging dust storm plunged its environs into darkness.
The 45-day deadline passed late last week. But NASA will continue active listening — a strategy that involves both sending commands to Opportunity and listening for any peeps the six-wheeled robot may make — for several more months at least, agency officials announced yesterday (Oct. 29). [Mars Dust Storm 2018: What It Means for Opportunity Rover]
"After a review of the progress of the listening campaign, NASA will continue its current strategy for attempting to make contact with the Opportunity rover for the foreseeable future," NASA officials wrote in a mission update yesterday (Oct. 29).
"Winds could increase in the next few months at Opportunity's location on Mars, resulting in dust being blown off the rover's solar panels," they added. "The agency will reassess the situation in the January 2019 time frame."
The change in strategy comes in the commitment to keep pinging Opportunity. Mission team members and NASA officials had previously said they would continue to listen for any signal from the rover at least through January.
Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004, a few weeks after its twin, Spirit. Both robots roamed around different parts of the Red Planet, looking for signs of past water activity — and finding lots of such evidence.
Spirit and Opportunity's prime missions were pegged to last just three months, but the duo continued exploring Mars for years. Spirit last communicated with its handlers in 2010 and was declared dead a year later. Opportunity had been going strong, roving along the rim of the 14-mile-wide (22 kilometers) Endeavour Crater, until the dust storm hit this summer.
That storm grew to encircle the entire planet by June 20. But it began dying down about a month later, and the dust had cleared so much by Sept. 11 that mission managers thought Opportunity might be getting enough sunlight to recharge its batteries. So the active listening campaign began.
Opportunity has been through quite an ordeal, enduring bitterly cold Martian nights without a working heater to keep its electronic innards warm. So it's possible that the venerable rover, which has covered more ground on the surface of another world than any other vehicle, has frozen to death or fallen victim to some "fault mode" from which it cannot recover.
But perhaps Opportunity lives still, and is just waiting for a strong, dust-dislodging November wind followed by a wakeup call from home. We shall see.
Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There," will be published on Nov. 13 by Grand Central Publishing.
NASA is preparing technology for use on its Mars 2020 rover mission, due to land on the Red Planet in February 2021 — and it's breaking world records along the way.
Landing on Mars is notoriously challenging because of the planet's thin atmosphere, which makes it difficult to slow down a spacecraft enough to land gently on its surface. In order to land their heaviest yet rover on Mars, NASA had to redesign an existing landing-parachute design — the same one that protected the Curiosity rover — with even stronger materials, including the Kevlar traditionally found in bulletproof vests. [NASA's Mars Rover 2020 Mission in Pictures]
This high-definition NASA image shows the final supersonic parachute test for NASA's 2020 Mars rover. NASA tested the parachute during a Sept. 7, 2018 suborbital rocket launch to mimic Mars landing conditions.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The agency conducted its final test of its new parachute in September as part of its Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment (ASPIRE) project. The results are in and the parachute has been approved for the 2020 launch.
"Like all our prior Mars missions, we only have one parachute and it has to work," John McNamee, project manager of Mars 2020 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said in a statement. "The ASPIRE tests have shown in remarkable detail how our parachute will react when it is first deployed into a supersonic flow high above Mars. And let me tell you, it looks beautiful."
Last month, the 180-pound parachute, plus a camera designed to watch it deploy, was launched on a sounding rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The rocket carried it to about 23 miles (37 kilometers) above Earth's surface, where the atmosphere's density is about as dense as 6 miles (10 km) above Mars' surface, the height at which the Mars 2020 parachute is due to deploy.
During the test, the parachute deployed completely in just four-tenths of a second, the fastest inflation of such a large parachute, according to NASA. That will mark the end of the parachute tests, but not the end of Mars 2020 preparations.
The second stage of the sounding rocket that launched the ASPIRE parachute test separates from the payload on Sept. 7, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
"We are all about helping 2020 stick its landing 28 months from now," Ian Clark, the test's technical lead from JPL, said in the statement. "I may not get to shoot rockets to the edge of space for a while, but when it comes to Mars — and when it comes to getting there and getting down there safely — there are always exciting challenges to work on around here."
The biggest airplane ever built, which will tote a variety of satellite-launching rockets into the sky, just got a step closer to flight.
Stratolaunch Systems, which was established in 2011 by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, got the giant plane up to 90 mph (145 km/h) during "medium-speed taxi testing" at California's Mojave Air and Space Port earlier this month.
Stratolaunch's dual-fuselage plane features a wingspan of 385 feet (117 meters) — greater than the length of a football field, including the two end zones. The vehicle is designed to haul satellite-carrying rockets up to an altitude of about 35,000 feet (10,700 m), at which point the launchers will drop away and power their payloads up to orbit.
Stratolaunch Systems' airplane, the biggest aircraft ever built, performed a "medium-speed taxi test" at California's Mojave Air and Space Port in October 2018.
Credit: Stratolaunch Systems via Twitter
This air-launch strategy will enable satellites to be lofted relatively cheaply and frequently, and with a great deal of flexibility, company representatives have said.
A variety of different rockets will eventually fly between the two fuselages, if all goes according to plan. For example, Stratolaunch plans to begin using the Pegasus rocket, which debuted in 1990 and has more than 40 flights under its belt, for the company's first operational missions in 2020.
Pegasus can haul about 815 lbs. (370 kilograms) to low-Earth orbit. Stratolaunch is also developing two more powerful rockets, known as the Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) and the MLV-Heavy, which will be able to loft about 7,500 lbs. (3,400 kg) and 13,200 lbs. (6,000 kg), respectively. The MLV's first flight is targeted for 2022, whereas the MLV-Heavy is still in early development, company representatives said.
Stratolaunch is also working on a fully reusable space plane that could carry satellites or people. This vehicle is in the design-study phase.
Stratolaunch isn't the only company working to launch space missions from the air. Virgin Orbit recently mated its LauncherOne rocket and Cosmic Girl mothership for the first time (on the ground), and Virgin Galactic is performing rocket-fired test flights of its six-passenger SpaceShipTwo suborbital space liner.
SpaceShipTwo launches from the belly of a plane called WhiteKnightTwo.
Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There," will be published on Nov. 13 by Grand Central Publishing.
The description on the video reads: “The object was dropping a lot of glowing material while flying. She did know what this object was, but she was sure this was not something man made.
“It did not produce any sound at all. When I analysed the footage I noticed the object ejected a lot of material.”
Many of UFO Today’s followers were convinced the footage was of genuine UFO activity.
YouTuber David Leach wrote: “Excellent viewing. Leaking a lot of material. Near the end it looks like a smaller UFO breaks off and goes upward.”
UFO sighting: ‘Alien spaceship’ shot down over Scotland
(Image: GETTY • YOUTUBE)
Starman 2710 added: “Came through the portal to fast and lost control?”
AKIJPN continued: “Definitely looks like some flying object is flying loosing its control. Amazing.”
However, there does seem to be a more logical explanation for the strange phenomenon.
According to locals who have taken to the social news aggregator site Reddit, the strange sightings are actually caused by people attaching sparklers to kites.
The UFO was actually a kite
(Image: YOUTUBE)
There have apparently been several instances over the last month with residents not too concerned of an alien invasion.
Reddit user Space Pecs said it is “the third time this month” that a kite with sparklers has been launched.
Bory Truro replied: “Didn't have much of a clue at first, but now that you mention it, it does look a lot like someone stuck a sparkler on a kite.”
For nearly 20 years, NASA has been planning and constructing a telescope unlike any ever built before: the James Webb Space Telescope. It will change the way scientists see the most distant galaxies and intensify the hunt for extraterrestrial life; it will answer outstanding questions about the birth and death of stars and planets. It is the future of astronomy—but it’s causing trouble. JWST’s high price and decade of delays could stymie the development of future telescopes, impacting the course of astronomy for the next 30 years.
Billed as a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST is a tennis court-sized, general-purpose space telescope with a 6.5-meter (21-foot) mirror that will be sent to a gravitationally stable point nearly a million miles from Earth. It will create incredibly detailed images from the infrared light of objects in space, including nebulae, exoplanets, galaxies, and stars. Looking even further ahead, NASA’s planned successor to JWST, called the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), will observe the sky with resolution similar to Hubble’s but with a far wider field of view. That would allow astronomers to answer some of the fundamental questions about dark energy, a mysterious force that seems to be driving the universe’s accelerating expansion. It would also provide a platform to test state-of-the-art components for its own successor. Four teams of scientists are already working on different concepts for the flagship mission to follow WFIRST, which would launch in the 2030s or 2040s. Three of those concepts would follow up on potentially life-harboring exoplanets spotted by JWST, while the fourth would aim to understand the origins of galaxies and the universe itself. These missions would all be expensive, similar in cost to JWST.
“[Today’s astronomers] are the first humans in history that have a chance to answer the compelling questions about whether there is life beyond Earth,” MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager recently told the Senate.
Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST)
Photo: NASA
But as the JWST’s price tag has increased incrementally, from hundreds of millions of dollars to $9.6 billion, some scientists working on its successors are uneasy. Where does the extra money come from to pay for JWST’s budget overruns, and how have these delays affected public perception of these large missions? And if NASA scraps or removes certain parts from WFIRST, that might handicap future space-based efforts to detect signs of life outside the Solar System. While Congress views astronomy research more favorably, President Trump’s 2019 budget request has already suggested scrapping WFIRST.
As of now, the future of these missions and how JWST will impact them is uncertain, Scott Gaudi, Ohio State University professor and member of the WFIRST team, told Gizmodo.
As early as 1989, astronomers had an early concept of JWST as a “Next Generation Space Telescope,” the successor to Hubble. While originally envisioned as having a mirror eight or more meters (26+ feet) in diameter, budget constraints caused scientists to de-scope various goals, resulting in the 6.5-meter (21-foot) telescope concept that would become the James Webb Space Telescope. As plans developed, NASA in 2002 selected an aerospace company called TRW to build the spaceship and mirror with an $825 million budget and a scheduled launch in 2010. Northrop Grumman acquired TRW, and soon took over the telescope’s construction.
NASA’s JWST Clean Room ‘Transporter’ in 2016.Photo: NASA/Chris Gunn
Delays have marred JWST’s entire developmental history. Most recently, an independent review revealed that increase in project scope, the complexity of the telescope, overoptimism, and human errors have plagued its construction. Those human errors include the time when someone at Northrop Grumman used the wrong solvent to clean valves, and the time when loose nuts fell into the telescope during a test, according to the review. But as early as 2005, the launch had been pushed to 2013 and the cost to $4.5 billion due to “funding shortfalls,” “requirement changes,” and other issues. Fabrication began in 2011, but by then the launch was pushed to 2018 and the budget to an estimated $8 billion. Today, the JWST’s estimated cost is up to $9.66 billion, and its projected launch date is some time in 2021.
Then there’s the mere fact that huge advances in astronomy have occurred during the telescope’s development. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine explained in a Congressional hearing this past July that the study of today’s most ubiquitous astronomy topics, like dark energy and exoplanets, was only beginning when the JWST project began. “This isn’t simply mismanagement or cost overruns or delay,” Congressman Don Beyer (D-Virginia) said during the hearing. “The world of science itself is changing in ways that have impacted the project.”Essentially, the price and scope of the project have expanded as scientists have learned more about the universe and encountered more cosmic mysteries.
By 2010, it was already time to plan a successor for JWST. Every decade, committees of scientists survey the state of astrophysics and decide what kind of experiments the entire community would like to see next, including small- and medium-sized missions as well as the flagship missions. For the largest missions, teams of scientists work on multiple concepts, and the Decadal Survey committee uses these concepts to set the field’s priority for NASA.
Even back then, astronomers worried about how JWST’s cost would affect the future of observation. But then NASA received a 2.4-meter (7.8-foot) mirror from National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The mirror was initially designed for use in espionage, but would work nicely in a space telescope. The Decadal Survey moved forward with a telescope called WFIRST—a telescope with Hubble’s resolution but 100 times the viewing area. A telescope like this would help scientists determine the true nature of dark energy, a mysterious force that seems to be speeding up the universe’s expansion and that could determine the universe’s ultimate fate. NASA scrapped other concepts, like the exoplanet-hunting Space Interferometry Mission, in response.
WFIRST “was a Frankenstein creation,” Jessie Christiansen, astrophysicist at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech, told Gizmodo. “It was something no one really asked for until they got the mirror donated by the NRO.” But, according to the Decadal Survey, such a telescope would “settle essential questions in both exoplanet and dark energy research, which will advance topics ranging from galaxy evolution to the study of objects within our own galaxy.” WFIRST has expanded in both scope and cost since the 2010 decadal survey.
Primary Mirror Assembly WFIRST
Photo: Harris Corporation / TJT Photography
The telescope’s wide-field surveying instrument would be relatively simple compared to some instruments flown on previous NASA missions, Gaudi told Gizmodo. But WFIRST would also be the first to fly a technology in space that is important for two proposals for the next flagship space telescope: a “coronagraph.” A coronagraph is a device that blocks stars’ bright light, making the dimmer planets orbiting the star visible. If scientists hope to find life around other stars, they’ll need to image the light produced by and reflected by the planet directly. The issue is that the planet may be billions of times dimmer than the star it orbits. Scientists hope to one day spot Earth-like planets using this technology.
And here’s the most important part: Observing the light directly from planets, rather than just observing the periodic dimming produced when the planet passes in front of its star, could tell scientists whether the presence of life has altered the planet’s atmosphere the way it has on Earth. Climate change aside, life fills Earth’s atmosphere with carbon dioxide, oxygen, methane, and other biological building blocks. Therefore, determining whether life exists on other planets requires observing these planet’s atmospheres to see what molecules they contain.
Image: Origins Space Telescope
Preparations for the 2020 Decadal Survey are already underway. Four teams of astronomers are preparing concept studies for WFIRST’s successor, a flagship telescope mission that would launch some time in the late 2030s or early 2040s. As happened in 2010, the survey will determine what astronomy’s most important scientific questions are, and how best to answer them using ambitious, potentially yet-to-be-developed technology. The decadal committee will move forward with a recommendation based on the goals and design of one or multiple concepts. It’s clear that hunting for signs of extraterrestrial life will play an enormous role in the discussion. Two of the concepts incorporate a coronagraphlike WFIRSTs, and three list analyzing exoplanets among their primary goals. All of them would cost billions of dollars.
The Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor (LUVOIR) is the most ambitious of these four missions—and it would be truly enormous, with either an 8- or 15-meter (26- or 49-foot) mirror. It would be a sequel to JWST. Another, the Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Mission (HabEx), is built from the bottom up with observing exoplanets in mind. Both would rely on a coronagraph and a starshade, an external component that blocks the light of other stars.
HabEx coronagraphImage: NASA
Two other proposed telescopes wouldn’t rely on a coronagraph or a starshade. The Origins Space Telescope (OST) would look for exoplanets around cooler stars in the infrared wavelengths, where the difference in brightness between the star and planet isn’t as great. Its goals also include observing the formation of planets and the growing complexity of stars and galaxies. Finally, there’s Lynx, which is instead focused on high-energy astrophysical mysteries, such as the dawn of black holes and the birth and death of stars. It would be an x-ray telescope using sensitive instruments, and serve as the sequel to the wildly successful Chandra X-ray Telescope.
The National Academy of Sciences has already hinted that it favors a telescope equipped with a coronagraph or some sort of starlight-shading device, like LUVOIR or HabEx, when it comes to hunting for extraterrestrial life. From the recent Exoplanet Science Strategy report:
A coronagraphic or starshade-based direct imaging mission is the only path currently identified to characterize Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of a large sample of nearby Sun-like stars in reflected light... NASA should lead a large strategic direct imaging mission capable of measuring the reflected-light spectra of temperate terrestrial planets orbiting Sun-like stars.
Another more recent report from the National Academies outlining a strategy for the future of astrobiology calls starshades and coronagraphs “essential.”
It’s important to note that there a host of other Earth-based telescopes under development, like the Giant Magellan Telescope and the Thirty Meter Telescope. These ground-based telescopes are better for observing planets around cooler, small M-dwarf stars, Aki Roberge, scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center working on LUVOIR, recently told Gizmodo. Space telescopes equipped with starlight-blocking coronagraphs could better observe planets around Sun-like stars. Extraterrestrial life might exist on either, and both are part of a healthy astrobiology strategy.
Image: HabEx starshade (NASA)
The decadal space telescope proposals are already beginning to feel the heat from JWST. On June 1, NASA astrophysics director Paul Hertz emailed the concept teams, imposing a $3 billion to $5 billion cost goal for the studies. According to a press release, “With recent delays and budget constraints surrounding the two major flagship missions, the new direction will better ensure that the next flagship mission be executed on time and within budget.” However, he revised that memo two weeks later, and instead reminded teams that the second phase of their design process was beginning in which they should design a less costly architecture than their first designs. The National Academies has also recommended that these concepts think about cost and schedules. These concept studies are due to NASA by June 2019.
Some, like LUVOIR physicist John O’Meara, worry that the difficulties with JWST will cause members of the astronomy community to give up on large missions such as these in general. It’s a sentiment that some, like former NASA administrator Charles Bolden, have expressed before. “I hope they don’t do that,” said O’Meara.
JWST’s mirrors being tested at the Marshall Space Flight Center’s X-ray and Cryogenic Facility.Photo: NASA/MSFC/Emmett Given
“I’m really concerned about the state of funding,” Laura Lopez, assistant professor at Ohio State University working on the Lynx team, told Gizmodo. “It feels like a precarious situation where we don’t know what will happen next year, let alone in the next 15 years.” Any large missions like these would require sustained funding for more than a decade.
And there are plenty of smaller missions whose futures might be in jeopardy due to the cost and scope of these larger projects, missions of a similar scope as Kepler and TESS.
JWST could impact these future missions directly or based on how it affects WFIRST. This past summer, Congress has held hearings grilling NASA and Northrup Grumman about the JWST’s cost overruns and delays. Northrup Grumman CEO Wes Bush told Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) that the company would not pick up the most recent $800 million cost increase. It’s unclear what will happen next.
Image: Lynx
WFIRST faces clear threats. This past year, President Trump’s proposed budget included scrapping the telescope entirely. Scientists are confident that the more space-friendly Congress won’t let that happen, but Gaudi has heard talk threatening the existence of the coronagraph as well. Should WFIRST lose its coronagraph, scientists will miss an important opportunity to try the light-blocking technology out in space before flying it on the ultimate exoplanet-hunting telescope.
Gizmodo heard several times that flying a coronagraph without testing it on some previous mission could be a very bad idea with far-reaching implications on cost and schedule. “We may save roughly $300 million by de-scoping a coronagraph,” David Spergel, Princeton astrophysicist working on WFIRST’s development, told Gizmodo, “but I suspect in the long run, it could cost a billion in development cost of LUVOIR or HabEx when the time comes to upgrade to a coronagraph capable of detecting Earth-like planets.” Gaudi said that flying a coronagraph on WFIRST would make LUVOIR or HabEx “much more palatable to pretty much everyone.”
Scientists have reminded Congress as to the coronagraph’s importance. “WFIRST’s coronagraph instrument is a technology demonstration,” Seager said recently at a Senate hearing. “It’s critical to do this to buy down more ambitious missions in the future already under study.”
Webb at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Dec. 1, 2017.Photo: NASA/Chris Gunn
For what it’s worth, the astronomers Gizmodo spoke with generally agree that JWST will be well worth the wait. But flagship telescopes are meant to advance significantly upon existing instruments—and improvement requires money. Scrapping or de-scoping WFIRST could further delay humanity’s dream to spot life on other planets, should the Decadal Survey ultimately decide to recommend a coronagraph-based mission. So, too, could fear or budgetary consequences stemming from the JWST delay.
Of course, what happens next with WFIRST is up in the air. Scientists are waiting to see what happens with the reconciliation of upcoming budgets, “and how Congress will respond to the additional delays of JWST,” said Gaudi. Given the country’s chaotic political climate, no one knows what will and won’t get funding in the future. But long-term investments require money—and representatives who are willing to allocate that money to support them.
“I’m just doing my best to provide Congress with as much information as I can so they make the best possible decision,” said Gaudi. “I hope they are ambitious and optimistic about the science.”
Open Minds UFO Radio: Chris is one of the hosts of the Mad Scientist Podcast. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering focusing on the study of nanomaterials for use as catalysts and adsorbents from Northeastern University. He has a bachelors degree in chemical engineering and philosophy from the University of New Hampshire. The Mad Scientist podcast covers the history and philosophy of science and fringe science claims and examines how societies accept technologies and sciences.
In this episode, we discuss the science necessary to prove whether an extraterrestrial civilization made a particular object. We also discuss scenarios related to the discoverers might handle such a discovery, and how mainstream science may react.
I found this article from 2016 and of course they just say it is mountain erosion.
Eric Rignot, a professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, said:
"This is just a mountain that looks like a pyramid. Pyramid shapes are not impossible — many peaks partially look like pyramids, but they only have one to two faces like that, rarely four."
A decade ago, we thought our solar system was special; today, we know it's no such thing. That revolution is thanks to the work of NASA's Kepler space telescope, which has officially reached the end of its mission.
Since Kepler's launch in 2009, scientists have spotted a total of 2,681 confirmed planets orbiting other suns within the data gathered by the instrument. Another 2,899 potential Kepler planets are still being vetted by scientists.
An artist's depiction of Kepler-22b, one of the 2,681 confirmed exoplanet discoveries made to date in the instrument's data.
Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech
Bill Borucki, who first dreamed up the Kepler mission and was its principal investigator until his retirement from NASA in 2015, knows many of those thousands of planets as individuals. Take, for example, Kepler-22b, which he calls one of the most interesting planets in the batch. [Gallery: A World of Kepler Planets]
"It's a planet in between the size of the Earth and Neptune, unlike any planet in our solar system; it's a planet that may very well be a water world, a world covered in an ocean, and it's in the habitable zone," Borucki said during a news conference held yesterday (Oct. 30) to mark the end of Kepler's in-space work. "It might very well have an atmosphere on a water planet that could lead to life, so it's an extremely interesting planet. It's one of my favorites."
An artist's depiction of the Kepler-444 solar system, which is made up of small, rocky planets orbiting a relatively old star.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/AMES/Univ. of Birmingham
But he's not just excited about individual worlds — the Kepler mission has identified plenty of solar systems as well, where it has spotted multiple planets orbiting one star. He's excited for what we may one day learn about the Kepler-444 system in particular, he said.
"These are small, rocky planets, and they were formed around a star that's some six and a half billion years older than our star, than our own planetary system," Borucki said. "If life has been developing over six and a half billion years before Earth was formed, there may be some very interesting lifeforms for us to find as we search these early planets."
But while Borucki is fascinated by planets that could potentially host life, he's also struck by the sheer diversity of the more than 600 solar systems Kepler has studied. Take, for example, the existence of hot Jupiters — gas giants tucked so close to their stars that they orbit in a matter of days, completely unlike our own Jupiter strolling around the sun over the course of nearly 12 Earth years.
An artist's depiction of the long-lived Kepler space telescope and some of the planets it discovered during its near-decade in space.
Credit: NASA
Discoveries like these have forced scientists to stop assuming that our solar system is like those all around us, added Padi Boyd, the project scientist for Kepler's successor mission, NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
"Kepler kind of just cracked that out of being the typical expectation," Boyd said during the news conference. "Putting our own solar system into that greater context, I think is a really interesting portrait of the galaxy — our solar system is not typical. Maybe no solar system is typical; maybe they're all very different."
That wealth of solar systems has warmed the hearts of the sci-fi fans on the mission as well. For Kepler's project system engineer at NASA Ames, Charlie Sobeck, the mission has turned the type of universe he grew up with while watching "Star Trek" into reality. "I had no trouble believing that there were planets out there of all different kinds, so I had to wonder, why did it affect me so much when Kepler showed that there were lots of planets out there everywhere?" he said during the news conference.
"There's just a big difference between believing and knowing," Sobeck said. "It hit me like a sledgehammer in the chest when Kepler showed us that there really, really are planets out there of all different kinds."
NASA Retires Kepler Space Telescope, Passes Planet-Hunting Torch
NASA Retires Kepler Space Telescope, Passes Planet-Hunting Torch
This illustration depicts NASA's exoplanet hunter, the Kepler space telescope. The agency announced on Oct. 30, 2018, that Kepler has run out of fuel and is being retired within its current and safe orbit, away from Earth. Kepler leaves a legacy of more than 2,600 exoplanet discoveries.
Credits: NASA/Wendy Stenzel
After nine years in deep space collecting data that indicate our sky to be filled with billions of hidden planets – more planets even than stars – NASA’s Kepler space telescope has run out of fuel needed for further science operations. NASA has decided to retire the spacecraft within its current, safe orbit, away from Earth. Kepler leaves a legacy of more than 2,600 planet discoveries from outside our solar system, many of which could be promising places for life.
"As NASA's first planet-hunting mission, Kepler has wildly exceeded all our expectations and paved the way for our exploration and search for life in the solar system and beyond," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Not only did it show us how many planets could be out there, it sparked an entirely new and robust field of research that has taken the science community by storm. Its discoveries have shed a new light on our place in the universe, and illuminated the tantalizing mysteries and possibilities among the stars.”
Kepler has opened our eyes to the diversity of planets that exist in our galaxy. The most recent analysis of Kepler’s discoveries concludes that 20 to 50 percent of the stars visible in the night sky are likely to have small, possibly rocky, planets similar in size to Earth, and located within the habitable zone of their parent stars. That means they’re located at distances from their parent stars where liquid water – a vital ingredient to life as we know it – might pool on the planet surface.
The most common size of planet Kepler found doesn’t exist in our solar system – a world between the size of Earth and Neptune – and we have much to learn about these planets. Kepler also found nature often produces jam-packed planetary systems, in some cases with so many planets orbiting close to their parent stars that our own inner solar system looks sparse by comparison.
"When we started conceiving this mission 35 years ago we didn't know of a single planet outside our solar system," said the Kepler mission's founding principal investigator, William Borucki, now retired from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. "Now that we know planets are everywhere, Kepler has set us on a new course that's full of promise for future generations to explore our galaxy."
Launched on March 6, 2009, the Kepler space telescope combined cutting-edge techniques in measuring stellar brightness with the largest digital camera outfitted for outer space observations at that time. Originally positioned to stare continuously at 150,000 stars in one star-studded patch of the sky in the constellation Cygnus, Kepler took the first survey of planets in our galaxy and became the agency's first mission to detect Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of their stars.
"The Kepler mission was based on a very innovative design. It was an extremely clever approach to doing this kind of science," said Leslie Livesay, director for astronomy and physics at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who served as Kepler project manager during mission development. "There were definitely challenges, but Kepler had an extremely talented team of scientists and engineers who overcame them.”
Four years into the mission, after the primary mission objectives had been met, mechanical failures temporarily halted observations. The mission team was able to devise a fix, switching the spacecraft’s field of view roughly every three months. This enabled an extended mission for the spacecraft, dubbed K2, which lasted as long as the first mission and bumped Kepler's count of surveyed stars up to more than 500,000.
The observation of so many stars has allowed scientists to better understand stellar behaviors and properties, which is critical information in studying the planets that orbit them. New research into stars with Kepler data also is furthering other areas of astronomy, such as the history of our Milky Way galaxy and the beginning stages of exploding stars called supernovae that are used to study how fast the universe is expanding. The data from the extended mission were also made available to the public and science community immediately, allowing discoveries to be made at an incredible pace and setting a high bar for other missions. Scientists are expected to spend a decade or more in search of new discoveries in the treasure trove of data Kepler provided.
"We know the spacecraft's retirement isn't the end of Kepler's discoveries," said Jessie Dotson, Kepler's project scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. "I'm excited about the diverse discoveries that are yet to come from our data and how future missions will build upon Kepler's results."
Before retiring the spacecraft, scientists pushed Kepler to its full potential, successfully completing multiple observation campaigns and downloading valuable science data even after initial warnings of low fuel. The latest data, from Campaign 19, will complement the data from NASA’s newest planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, launched in April. TESS builds on Kepler's foundation with fresh batches of data in its search of planets orbiting some 200,000 of the brightest and nearest stars to the Earth, worlds that can later be explored for signs of life by missions, such as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation in Boulder, Colorado, operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
For the Kepler press kit, which includes multimedia, timelines and top science results, visit:
Illustration of hot clumps of gas that orbit the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
Credit: ESO/Gravity Consortium/L. Calçada.
Scientists have known for a long time that at the very heart of the Milky Way lies a supermassive black hole, about four million times more massive than the Sun. As its name suggests, we can’t image a black hole directly, but cutting-edge telescopes can tease out the infrared light emitted by interstellar gas as it swirls into the black hole. Now, an international team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics reported evidence of knots of gas that appear to orbit the galactic center. This remarkable observation is the closest look yet at our galactic supermassive black hole and, at the same time, offers new opportunities to test the laws of physics.
The point of no return
To image things in the vicinity of Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, researchers looked to the GRAVITY project. Using a special technique called interferometry, four eight-meter-wide telescopes at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile were combined to produce images that only a hypothetical telescope as large as entire countries could produce. By the same technique, in the future, a ‘planet-sized’ instrument called the Event Horizon Telescope hopes to produce an actual image of a black hole.
The new observations measured the brightness and position of infrared flares in the vicinity of Sagittarius A*. These flares actually trace a tiny circle in the night’s sky, the researchers found, moving clockwise.
Yepun telescope, part of the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Very Large Telescope.
Credit: ESO.
These kinds of outbursts had been detected before. However, this was the first time that astronomers precisely measured the flares’ positions and motions before they dissipated. Each flare moved at about 30% light speed in a 45-minute orbit around what we can only suppose is a black hole.
Earlier this year, the same team measured the relativistic distortion of light from a star, S2, during its closest approach to Sagittarius A*.
These hot spots might be produced by shock waves in magnetic fields, much as solar flares erupt from the sun. Due to the immense gravitational forces present in the vicinity of the black hole, space-time itself is twisted into something resembling a lens, which causes these hot spots, circling at 30% the speed of light, to flash beacons of light across the cosmos. And by further studying these flares, researchers hope to tease out the black hole’s spin or rotation.
All of this, of course, assuming Einstein’s general theory of relativity is correct, which implies that the orbits of objects around a black hole are determined solely by the black hole’s mass and spin. If not, then the theory might need some refinement to accommodate for any observed inconsistencies.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.