Over a Thousand New Objects and Phenomena Identified in Night Sky

Casual stargazers may look at the black area among stars and think that there’s nothing there except empty space. But the night sky hides many secrets invisible to the naked eye.

Less than a year into its mission, a sky-survey camera in Southern California shows just how full the sky is. The Zwicky Transient Facility, based at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, has identified over a thousand new objects and phenomena in the night sky, including more than 1,100 new supernovae and 50 near-Earth asteroids, as well as binary star systems and black holes. Operated by Caltech, the ZTF is a public-private partnership between the National Science Foundation and a consortium of nine other institutions around the globe, including the University of Washington. The ZTF collaboration’s six latest papers, which describe these discoveries as well as the ZTF’s data mining, sorting and alert systems, have been accepted for publication in the journal Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

A composite ZTF image of the Andromeda galaxy made by combining three bands of visible light. The image covers 2.9 square degrees, which is one-sixteenth of ZTF’s full field of view. Andromeda, also known as Messier 31, is the nearest major galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy, lying 2.5 million light-years away.

Credit: ZTF/D. Goldstein/R. Hurt/Caltech

Eric Bellm, the ZTF survey scientist and a research assistant professor of astronomy at UW, is lead author on a paper describing the ZTF’s technical systems and major findings since the survey began on March 20, 2018. Maria Patterson, a data scientist formerly with the UW Department of Astronomy’s DIRAC Institute, is lead author on another paper describing the ZTF’s alert system for notifying science teams of possible new objects in the sky or significant changes to existing objects.

“The ZTF mission is to identify changes in the night sky and alert the astronomical field of these discoveries as quickly as possible,” said Bellm, who is also a fellow with the DIRAC Institute. “The results and specifications reported in these six papers demonstrate that the ZTF has in place a pipeline to identify new objects, as well as analyze and disseminate information about them quickly to the astronomy community.”

Science teams need quick alerts so that they could, if needed, arrange for follow-up observations of individual objects by other observatories, Bellm added.

The ZTF accomplishes its survey goals through a digital camera, consisting of 16 charge-coupled devices, mounted to the 48-inch-aperture Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar. A single image from the camera covers an area about 240 times the size of the moon; in just one night, the ZTF could image the entire night sky visible from the Northern Hemisphere. So far, the ZTF camera has imaged more than 1 billion stars in our galaxy alone. By comparing new images to old, the ZTF can identify objects that are new, such as a supernova lighting up for the first time, or changes to existing objects, such as a star brightening in luminosity.

The ZTF undertakes surveys for public agencies such as the National Science Foundation, as well as private entities. The sheer volume of data generated by the ZTF necessitated a new approach to data analysis and alerts, according to Bellm.

“Every image that the ZTF takes contributes to at least one survey,” said Bellm. “We needed to put an automated alert system in place that would inform the relevant survey teams – in near-real time – of every potential change or new object that the ZTF would uncover, which could be more than a million in a single night.”

Patterson, Bellm and other UW scientists — including Mario Juric, associate professor of astronomy and senior data fellow with the eScience Institute — led the effort within the ZTF to craft the automated alert system. They utilized two open-source technologies: Kafka, a real-time data-streaming platform, and Avro, a framework to serialize data for transmission and storage. The completed alert system, which was first deployed in June 2018, has successfully generated and distributed up to 1.2 million ZTF alerts each night — with each alert going out to survey teams approximately 10 seconds after it was automatically generated.

The orbit of asteroid 2019 AQ3, discovered by ZTF, is shown in this diagram. The object has the shortest “year” of any recorded asteroid, with an orbital period of just 165 days

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Through these alert systems, the ZTF is sharing every change it finds with our survey partners,” said Bellm. “They are receiving every bit of data.”

Survey partners, in turn, are experimenting with machine-learning classification systems and other analysis tools to sort through the alerts.

The ZTF’s alert system is a proving ground for future “automated, time-domain astronomy” missions such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, said Bellm. The LSST, which is expected to begin its sky surveys in 2022, should generate about 10 million alerts per night, which is about 10 times the maximum alert volume of the ZTF. But the ZTF alert system could form the basis of a scaled-up alert pipeline for the LSST, according to Bellm.

“We are very pleased with the opportunities that the ZTF mission has provided us,” said Bellm. “It is reassuring to know that we have the tools at hand today that are useful not only for ongoing surveys at the ZTF, but also future missions like the LSST.”

The ZTF is funded by the NSF, Heising-Simons Foundation and the ZTF member institutions: Caltech, the University of Washington, the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Oskar Klein Centre at Stockholm University, the University of Maryland, the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, Humboldt University of Berlin, the TANGO Consortium of Taiwan, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Contacts and sources:
James Urton
University of Washington

• Citation:“The Zwicky Transient Facility: System Overview, Performance, and First Results”
  Eric C. Bellm et al. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2019; 131 (995): 018002 DOI: 10.1088/1538-3873/aaecbe
• “The Zwicky Transient Facility: Data Processing, Products, and Archive”
  Frank J. Masci et al. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2019; 131 (995): 018003 DOI: 10.1088/1538-3873/aae8ac
• “The Zwicky Transient Facility Alert Distribution System”
  Maria T. Patterson, Eric C. Bellm, Ben Rusholme, Frank J. Masci, Mario Juric, K. Simon Krughoff, V. Zach Golkhou, Matthew J. Graham, Shrinivas R. Kulkarni, George Helou. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2019; 131 (995): 018001 DOI: 10.1088/1538-3873/aae904

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

11-02-2019 om 22:24 geschreven door peter  

Uranus and Neptune Dynamic Atmospheres Revealed by Hubble Space Telescope

Like Earth, Uranus and Neptune have seasons, which likely drive some of the features in their atmospheres. But their seasons are much longer than on Earth, spanning decades rather than months.

The new Hubble view of Neptune shows the dark storm, seen at top center. Appearing during the planet’s southern summer, the feature is the fourth and latest mysterious dark vortex captured by Hubble since 1993. Two other dark storms were discovered by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989 as it flew by the remote planet. Since then, only Hubble has had the sensitivity in blue light to track these elusive features, which have appeared and faded quickly. A study led by University of California, Berkeley, undergraduate student Andrew Hsu estimated that the dark spots appear every four to six years at different latitudes and disappear after about two years.

This Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 image of Neptune, taken in September and November 2018, shows a new dark storm (top center).’

Credits: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong and A. Hsu (University of California, Berkeley)

Hubble uncovered the latest storm in September 2018 in Neptune’s northern hemisphere. The feature is roughly 6,800 miles across.

To the right of the dark feature are bright white “companion clouds.” Hubble has observed similar clouds accompanying previous vortices. The bright clouds form when the flow of ambient air is perturbed and diverted upward over the dark vortex, causing gases to freeze into methane ice crystals. These clouds are similar to clouds that appear as pancake-shaped features when air is pushed over mountains on Earth (though Neptune has no solid surface). The long, thin cloud to the left of the dark spot is a transient feature that is not part of the storm system.

It’s unclear how these storms form. But like Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, the dark vortices swirl in an anti-cyclonic direction and seem to dredge up material from deeper levels in the ice giant’s atmosphere.

The Hubble observations show that as early as 2016, increased cloud activity in the region preceded the vortex’s appearance. The images indicate that the vortices probably develop deeper in Neptune’s atmosphere, becoming visible only when the top of the storm reaches higher altitudes.

This Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 image of Uranus, taken in November 2018, reveals a vast, bright stormy cloud cap across the planet’s north pole.

Credits: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong and A. Hsu (University of California, Berkeley)

The snapshot of Uranus, like the image of Neptune, reveals a dominant feature: a vast bright stormy cloud cap across the north pole.

Scientists believe this new feature is a result of Uranus’ unique rotation. Unlike every other planet in the solar system, Uranus is tipped over almost onto its side. Because of this extreme tilt, during the planet’s summer the Sun shines almost directly onto the north pole and never sets. Uranus is now approaching the middle of its summer season, and the polar-cap region is becoming more prominent. This polar hood may have formed by seasonal changes in atmospheric flow.

Near the edge of the polar storm is a large, compact methane-ice cloud, which is sometimes bright enough to be photographed by amateur astronomers. A narrow cloud band encircles the planet north of the equator. It is a mystery how bands like these are confined to such narrow widths, because Uranus and Neptune have very broad westward-blowing wind jets.

Both planets are classified as ice giant planets. They have no solid surface but rather mantles of hydrogen and helium surrounding a water-rich interior, itself perhaps wrapped around a rocky core. Atmospheric methane absorbs red light but allows blue-green light to be scattered back into space, giving each planet a cyan hue.

The new Neptune and Uranus images are from the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program, a long-term Hubble project, led by Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, that annually captures global maps of our solar system’s outer planets when they are closest to Earth in their orbits. OPAL’s key goals are to study long-term seasonal changes, as well as capture comparatively transitory events, such as the appearance of Neptune’s dark spot. These dark storms may be so fleeting that in the past some of them may have appeared and faded during multi-year gaps in Hubble’s observations of Neptune. The OPAL program ensures that astronomers won’t miss another one.

These images are part of a scrapbook of Hubble snapshots of Neptune and Uranus that track the weather patterns over time on these distant, cold planets. Just as meteorologists cannot predict the weather on Earth by studying a few snapshots, astronomers cannot track atmospheric trends on solar system planets without regularly repeated observations. Astronomers hope that Hubble’s long-term monitoring of the outer planets will help them unravel the mysteries that still persist about these faraway worlds.

Analyzing the weather on these worlds also will help scientists better understand the diversity and similarities of the atmospheres of solar-system planets, including Earth.

Contacts and sources:
Claire Saravia
 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

11-02-2019 om 22:02 geschreven door peter  

Toch geen sneeuwman: verst waargenomen ruimteobject ooit heeft een andere vorm dan gedacht - HLN.be

De ijsdwerg van 32 op 16 kilometer, die zich in de Kuipergordel bevindt, werd op nieuwjaarsdag gefotografeerd door de ruimtesonde New Horizons, die op 3.500 kilometer afstand van Ultima Thule beelden kon schieten.  

Lees ook

Eerste beeld vrijgegeven van verste ruimteobject ooit door de mens bestudeerd: ijsdwerg Ultima Thule blijkt een sneeuwman te zijn

Maar nieuwe foto’s, data en analyses laten nu een ander beeld zien dan toen. De twee delen van Ultima Thule blijken eerder plat dan rond te zijn. De NASA vergelijkt beide delen nu met een platte pannenkoek en een gekartelde walnoot.

“Dit is een ongelooflijke beeldenreeks, genomen door een ruimtetuig dat een kleine wereld laat zien op 6,6 miljard kilometer afstand van ons”, zegt hoofdwetenschapper Alan Stern van het Southwest Research Institute. “Onze eerste indruk werd gevormd door de weinige beelden die we begin januari kregen, maar nieuwe beelden en data hebben onze kijk veranderd. Belangrijker dan de nieuwe vorm is bovendien de vraag hoé Ultima Thule die vorm heeft gekregen. We hebben nog nooit zoiets gezien dat rond de zon draait.” De wetenschappers keken naar de sterren in de achtergrond, en meer bepaald welke sterren door de vorm van Ultima Thule geblokkeerd waren op de foto’s. Daardoor konden ze nu de vorm beter bepalen.

Ultima Thule is een zogenaamde “contact binary”, de eerste die ooit echt is waargenomen. Oorspronkelijk waren het verschillende objecten die rond elkaar wentelden en na verloop twee grotere ruimtelichamen vormden. Ook die bleven rond elkaar draaien, tot ze bij elkaar kwamen en aan elkaar ‘vastgroeiden’. Het grote deel is 19 kilometer in doorsnee. Dat heeft de naam Ultima gekregen. Het kleinste deel, Thule genaamd, heeft een diameter van ongeveer 14 kilometer.

De mensen achter de missie denken dat de twee delen van Ultima Thule al miljarden jaren aan elkaar vastzitten. Waarschijnlijk zijn ze al samengesmolten in de beginjaren van ons zonnestelsel, zo’n 4,6 miljard jaar geleden.

De wetenschappers verwachten dat New Horizons binnenkort nog meer beelden zal doorsturen.

New Data, New View
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Johns Hopkins APL

✔@JHUAPL

BREAKING2014 MU69 (nicknamed #UltimaThule), is not, as it turns out, quite so round as initially anticipated. Images from @NASANewHorizons confirm the highly unusual, flatter shape of the #KBO: http://bit.ly/jhuapl-MU69 

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11-02-2019 om 21:43 geschreven door peter  

Warmt CO2 het klimaat echt wel op? (en nog drie knellende vragen die klimaatsceptici vaak stellen) - HLN.be

Bron: de Volkskrant

1. “Klimaatverandering is van alle tijden, de mens heeft daarop maar bitter weinig invloed”

• Guus Berkhout en Dick Thoenes in Elsevier, 11 oktober
  

Lees ook

Klimaatscepticus uit team Trump op boegeroep onthaald in Brussel

HALF WAAR

Laat het even inwerken. Zó zag Antarctica er 120 miljoen jaar geleden uit:

Kijk over je schouder naar het verleden, en al snel besef je dat klimaatverandering van alle tijden is. Dat geeft aan dat de planeet heus wel wat gewend is. Maar sceptici halen het verleden vooral van stal om aan te geven: zie je wel, het komt niet door de mens. ‘Klimaat verandert voortdurend, logisch dat het sindsdien dus weer wat opwarmt’, zoals Thierry Baudet pas nog twitterde in een bericht dat anderhalf duizend ‘likes’ kreeg.

“Natuurlijk, het klimaat verandert altijd”, zegt hoogleraar paleo-oceanografie Appy Sluijs (Universiteit Utrecht). “Maar belangrijker is de vraag: waardoor kwam dat? En je ziet dan dat er vaak op de een of andere manier CO2 bij betrokken is, als aanjager van de temperatuur.”

Neem het aflopen van de laatste ijstijd, zo’n twintig- tot tienduizend jaar geleden. De instraling van de zon veranderde, waardoor het warmer werd. Maar daarna kwam er CO2 vrij uit de diepzee en ging de wereldtemperatuur verder omhoog, hand in hand met de toename van broeikasgassen. Bij een andere bekende prehistorische warmteuitbraak, het ‘paleoceen-eoceen thermaal maximum’ van zo’n 56 miljoen jaar geleden, gaven waarschijnlijk vulkaanuitbarstingen de eerste duw, waarna er een enorme bel broeikasgas wegborrelde uit de zeebodem en de temperatuur in enkele duizenden jaren tijd met 5 of 6 graden steeg.

En het recente verleden? Sceptici wijzen hier doorgaans op warme periodes uit historische tijden. De Vikingen vestigden zich op Groenland omdat het er vriendelijk en ‘groen’ was, in de Alpen komen onder de gletsjers soms boomresten vandaan die groeiden in de dagen van de Romeinen, en de middeleeuwen waren zo warm dat men in Engeland wijn verbouwde. Zie de geschatte temperatuur op het noordelijk halfrond (groen en rood) en in Engeland (blauw) sinds het jaar 1000 tot 2000:

Maar duik in de achterliggende studies, en de wetenschap achter zulke aansprekende anekdotes blijkt genuanceerd. Inderdaad wijzen zaken zoals oude koralen en chemische afdrukken in ijskernen en sedimenten erop dat het van ongeveer 900 tot 1300 warmer was op aarde. Warmer dan halverwege de vorige eeuw werd het wereldgemiddelde echter niet, en de opwarming die er was, was ongelijk verdeeld. Zo blijkt uit een omvangrijke reconstructie in Science dat de zuidelijke kant van Groenland precies op een warme plek lag – de rode vlek hieronder. Maar op veel plekken werd het juist koeler (blauw):

Ook het zogeheten ‘holocene klimaatoptimum’, een warmte van zesduizend jaar geleden die de het-valt-wel-meeërs graag aanhalen, beperkte zich vooral tot het noordelijk halfrond, en dan nog vooral de zomers. “Feit is dat op wereldgemiddeld niveau het klimaat de afgelopen tienduizend jaar juist best stabiel was”, zegt Sluijs. 

En dat blijkt inderdaad als je een temperatuurgrafiek van die periode erbij pakt, samengesteld uit een reconstructie  van de prehistorie (de blauwe lijn) en de moderne temperatuurmetingen (de rode lijn). De bobbel lijkt heel wat, maar het gaat hier om tienden van graden:

Minstens zo belangrijk is een andere les van vroeger: klimaatverandering verandert de wereld. Tijdens de laatste echt hete episode – in de steentijd, zo’n 125 duizend jaar geleden – waren Antarctica en Groenland deels gesmolten en stond de zeespiegel zes tot negen meter hoger dan nu, een stand die veel kustgebieden in de problemen zou brengen.

Bovendien gaat de huidige temperatuurstijging, naar historische maatstaven, extreem snel. Zie de rode piek hierboven, die momenteel doorgaat tot één graad, ver buiten het grafiekje.

Na een ijstijd verandert de hoeveelheid CO2 met zo’n honderd deeltjes per miljoen (ppm) in tienduizend jaar, en dat is net zoveel als de afgelopen eeuw. “We schieten dus ongeveer 100 keer zo hard tegen de bal die we aarde noemen”, zegt ijskaponderzoeker Roderik van de Wal (Universiteit Utrecht). “Dat is ongekend. En we weten dat er een zekere traagheid in het systeem zit. Eén graad erbij in een eeuw tijd komt niet zomaar tot stilstand. Eigenlijk is iedereen het er wel over eens dat we om die reden alleen al sowieso nog een graad extra op ons dak krijgen.”

2. “CO2 zou de oorzaak zijn van alle problemen, wat gewoon niet klopt.”

• (Berkhout in De Telegraaf, 29 december)

ONJUIST

Dat de aarde tegenwoordig ongeveer één graad warmer is dan anderhalve eeuw geleden, daarover zijn vriend en vijand het wel eens. Dit is momenteel het beeld van de gemiddelde wereldtemperatuur, gemeten volgens drie methoden:

Maar dan de oorzaak. Het officiële IPCC-standpunt is dat het ‘extreem waarschijnlijk’ is – meer dan 95 procent zeker – dat menselijke broeikasgassen ‘de dominante factor’ zijn van de opwarming. In oktober scherpte het IPCC dat aan. Om precies te zijn: er is meer dan twee derde kans dat de waargenomen opwarming nagenoeg helemaal is toe te schrijven aan de mens.

“Dat vertrouw ik niet”, zegt Berkhout. “Het IPCC zegt: het is allemaal nóg zekerder geworden, het staat nu helemaal vast. Op basis daarvan gaat de politiek nu honderden miljarden uitgeven. Maar hoe kun je dat nou zeggen? Het klimaat is altijd veranderd door natuurlijke oorzaken, en nu zou die natuurlijke kant opeens marginaal zijn?”

Alleen beweert geen wetenschapper dat. De afgelopen decennia was men druk in de weer met het ‘afpellen’ van de natuurlijke factoren die het klimaat beïnvloeden.  Zoals de intensiteit van de zon (de blauwe lijn) tegenover de gemeten temperatuur (rood):

 Skeptical Science

Zulke berekeningen voerde men ook uit voor de schommelingen in de aardbaan, omslagen in de zeestromen, ozon, kosmische straling, veranderend landgebruik enzovoorts. Al die natuurlijke omstandigheden leveren een wiebelende klimaatgrafiek op, die heel aardig meebeweegt met de werkelijk gemeten wereldtemperatuur. Met één verschil: het wordt niet, zoals in het echt, warmer. Alleen door CO2 en andere broeikasgassen toe te voegen aan de mix, gaat de wereldtemperatuur omhoog. Conclusie: CO2 is de hand die de wereldtemperatuur optilt.

Dit is zoals dat er, volgens een Zwitsers onderzoek in Nature Geoscience, uitziet. Met alleen natuurlijke factoren zou de temperatuur min of meer rechtdoor lopen (paars), maar de waarnemingen (zwart) gaan omhoog , samen met de voorspelde opwarming door broeikasgassen (rood)

Dat komt overigens niet onverwacht. Bekend is immers dat CO2 een broeikasgas is: het molecuul absorbeert (net als andere broeikasgassen) warmtestraling vanaf de aarde en straalt het weer uit naar alle kanten, waardoor er meer warmte blijft hangen in de dampkring. En het CO2-gehalte in de dampkring neemt toe door menselijke uitstoot, zoals deze metingen op Hawaii door het Amerikaanse onderzoeksinstituut NOAA laten zien:

Er is meer dat op CO2 wijst. De nachten warmen meer op dan de dagen, precies zoals verwacht op een planeet die meer moeite heeft zijn infraroodstraling kwijt te raken. Hogere luchtlagen koelen wat af, wat een aanwijzing is dat de opwarming niet van de zon komt, maar uit de dampkring zelf. 

En anderhalve eeuw metingen brengen een ijzeren wetmatigheid aan het licht: hoe meer broeikasgassen, des te hoger de temperatuur. Dat ziet er dan zó uit - let op de vele recente jaartallen rechtsboven:

Voor de liefhebber: de twee correleren met een zogenoemde ‘r’ van 0,94, een bijna perfect verband. “Ik ken in het klimaat niets maar dan ook niets dat zo’n sterke correlatie vertoont”, zegt klimaatwetenschapper Geert Jan van Oldenborgh van het KNMI.

Maar zijn broeikasgassen ook de hoofddader? Kan er niet stiekem een andere, nog onbekende factor in het spel zijn? Klimaatwetenschappers achten dat hoogst onwaarschijnlijk. Zo wees een recente statistische analyse uit dat er geen aanwijzing is voor zo’n nog verborgen x-factor. “Geloof me, die is er ook gewoon niet”, zegt Van Oldenborgh. “Reken maar dat we ons allemaal gek hebben gezocht. Want als je hier een gat in kunt schieten, sta je meteen in Nature.”

“Mensen die beweren dat we alleen maar naar CO2 kijken en niet naar andere factoren, snappen er gewoon niets van”, zegt atmosfeerwetenschapper Bart Verheggen (Amsterdam University College). “Dat gaat er volledig aan voorbij dat we het systeem al heel lang bestuderen, en dat wat we zien en meten juist heel goed samenvalt met wat we al weten over CO2 en andere broeikasgassen. Er zijn meerdere bewijslijnen, en samen geven die een coherent beeld.”

De Britse atmosfeerwetenschapper Ed Hawkins vatte zijn frustratie over het onbegrip afgelopen zomer pesterig samen in een Twitterbericht:

3. “De IPCC-modellen overschatten de waargenomen opwarming”

• (Kees le Pair, pamflet ‘Nieuw klimaat alarm’, augustus 2018)

ONDUIDELIJK

Vertrouwd refrein bij de tegenbeweging: de klimaatmodellen overdrijven de boel! De modellen, ingewikkelde computerprogramma’s die het opwarmende klimaat nabootsen, voorspellen dat de wereldtemperatuur oploopt tot zo’n anderhalve graad rond het jaar 2040. Maar tot dusver gaat de echt gemeten opwarming veel langzamer, stellen de critici.

In Elsevier illustreerde Berkhout dat, samen met emeritushoogleraar chemische technologie Dick Thoenes, met deze grafiek:

De grafiek komt niet uit een wetenschappelijk tijdschrift, maar van een omstreden presentatie die atmosfeerwetenschapper John Christy van de Universiteit van Alabama drie jaar geleden hield voor het Amerikaanse congres (PDF). Daar ziet de grafiek er al wat wetenschappelijker uit:

Let op dat Elsevier de onzekerheidsmarges wegliet, zodat de lijntjes meer los van elkaar lijken te staan dan ze in werkelijkheid doen. En zelfs dan is er op de grafiek veel aan te merken: het gaat alleen over de hogere luchtlagen, en technische zaken zoals de keuze van het nulpunt en de manier van gladstrijken zijn zo gekozen dat het verschil tussen waarneming en model extra groot lijkt. Toen NASA-klimaatwetenschapper Gavin Schmidt de grafiek hertekende, kreeg hij dan ook een grafiek waarin de satellietwaarnemingen veel minder achterlopen op de modellen:

Let wel: “De verschillen zijn niet verdwenen’, moet ook Schmidt toegeven. Dat heeft alleen waarschijnlijk meer te maken met de metingen dan met de modellen, vermoeden kenners. Zo zijn ballonmetingen berucht onbetrouwbaar, alleen al omdat men er goedkope wegwerp-apparatuur gebruikt. Ook satellietwaarnemingen zijn weinig precies, zegt satellietonderzoeker Stef Lhermitte (TU Delft). ’Onder die meetreeksen zitten zeer veel onzekerheden en aannames.”

Een andere kwestie speelt op de grond. Ook daar lopen de echt gemeten temperaturen sinds 1979 zo’n 35 procent achter op de modellen, volgens berekeningen van onder meer de onafhankelijke Britse wiskundige Nic Lewis. “Dit blijft een van de belangrijkste onderwerpen”, vindt klimaatpublicist Marcel Crok. “De mainstream weigert gewoon toe te geven dat de modellen de opwarming sinds 1979 met 35 procent overschatten.”

Dat ziet er, op een grafiek van het IPCC, zó uit. Kijk een beetje heen door alle details en let op de

blauwe lijntjes (de modellen): die lijken inderdaad wat sneller omhoog te gaan.

Geert Jan van Oldenborgh van het KNMI wijst er echter op dat het beeld wordt verstoord door twee afkoelende vulkaanuitbarstingen, de El Chichon in 1982 en de Pinatubo in 1994: die twee blauwe kuiltjes naar beneden die u hierboven ziet. De effecten daarvan zijn in de modellen sterker dan in het echt – met als gevolg dat de modelopwarming daarna wat steiler omhoog lijkt te gaan. “Waarschijnlijk schrijven we aan een vulkaanuitbarsting te veel afkoelende zwaveldruppeltjes in de atmosfeer toe”, zegt hij. “En als je lager begint, ga je harder omhoog.”

En bekijk bovenstaande grafiek vooral als geheel. Opvallend is dat de modellen de waargenomen trends (in grijs) over de hele eeuw juist prima berekenen. Sinds 2014 maakt de temperatuur bovendien een inhaalslag, waardoor de modellen minder achterlopen. “Ik ben juist iemand die de observaties heilig vindt’, zegt Van Oldenborgh. ’Maar in dit geval zitten de modellen opvallend goed.”

Maar in de discussie over de klimaatmodellen heeft elk argument een tegenargument. Zo wijst Lewis erop dat de 35 procent achterstand ook blijft als je de periode ná de vulkanen onder de loep neemt. “Geert Jan verdedigt het onverdedigbare”, mailt hij.

Zo kun je de zaak, afhankelijk van je aannames, op verschillende manieren bekijken. Volgens een recente analyse van de Amerikaanse klimaatwetenschapper Zeke Hausfather gingen de oudere IPCC-modellen 28 procent te langzaam en gaan de huidige modellen 9 procent te hard; volgens een andere, pas verschenen studie in Nature komen juist de klimaatmodellen die het ‘warmst’ staan afgesteld het beste overeen met de werkelijkheid.

De enige zekerheid is dat er nog veel onzeker is – en dat alle afwijkingen ten opzichte van de modellen tot dusver nog binnen de marges van het toeval vallen. Volgens een Britse statistische analyse zal het nog jaren duren voordat we echt kunnen zeggen of de modellen al dan niet te warm staan afgesteld.

Een ongemakkelijke situatie, vindt Lewis. “Natuurlijk zit er grote onzekerheid in de modellen. Maar het is de bovenkant en het gemiddelde van de verwachtingen waarop we ons klimaatbeleid baseren, niet de uitschieters aan de onderkant.”

U kunt natuurlijk ook zelf inschatten hoe de vlag ervoor staat, door onderstaande animatie van de Britse klimaatsite Carbon Brief te bekijken. In 40 seconden heeft u dan een aardig gevoel hoe de modellen het vroeger deden - en hoe ze het nu doen:

4. “Hoe meer CO2, hoe groener de aarde.”

• (Berkhout in De Telegraaf, 25 januari)

WAAR, MAAR VALSE VERGELIJKING

In elk geval is er één voordeel. In een CO2-rijke, warmere broeikaswereld mag je meer plantengroei verwachten. Toch?

Die vreugdekreet ligt menig klimaattwijfelaar in de mond bestorven – en het is wat de wetenschappelijke studies inderdaad laten zien. Ongeveer een kwart tot de helft van de begroeide planeet werd de afgelopen dertig jaar groener, bleek enkele jaren geleden uit een omvangrijke satellietstudie, doordat de groeiseizoenen langer worden en planten een hoger tempo van fotosynthese krijgen bij meer CO2. Intussen breidden de bossen in Siberië en Canada noordwaarts uit, en neemt het Amazonewoud al zo’n dertig jaar lang meer koolstof op dan het uitstoot, misschien omdat de natuur toewerkt naar een nieuw evenwicht.

In  totaal ziet dat er ongeveer zó uit:

Al met al zetten planten tegenwoordig zo’n 30 procent meer CO2 om in wortels, stengels, bladeren en vruchten dan vóór de industriële revolutie, blijkt uit de studie waaruit bovenstaande plaatje komt. Een gegeven, dat prompt werd opgepikt en als uithangbord werd gebruikt door rechts Amerika.

“De zogenaamde koolstofvervuiling heeft meer gedaan voor het groen op de planeet dan al het klimaatbeleid van de wereld bij elkaar”, aldus de openlijk klimaatsceptische denktank het Competitive Enterprise Institute in een persbericht. Sindsdien klinkt dat argument uit vele kelen. Zoals die van Thierry Baudet:

Maar zo simpel ligt het niet. Zo werd zo’n 4 procent van de begroeide planeet niet groener maar juist bruiner, en zijn er ook streken waar de bomen krompen, vermoedelijk door de stijgende temperatuur.

En niet alle vergroening komt door CO2, bracht een gedetailleerde analyse in november aan het licht. In Siberië, Europa en de VS profiteert de groene natuur vooral van CO2, in Australië is toegenomen regen de belangrijkste oorzaak, in Afrika en Azië zijn landbouw en bemesting hoofdreden. Zie onderstaand kaartje: de punten staan voor significante vergroening, de kleuren voor de hoofdoorzaak gunstigere temperatuur (roze), meer zonlicht (geel), meer regen (blauw), meer landbouw (groen), stikstofbemesting (oranje) en CO2 (groen):

Bovendien is het de vraag hoe lang de groene golf aanhoudt, zegt hoogleraar tropische bosecologie Lourens Poorter (Wageningen Universiteit). “We hebben het hier over een korte-termijneffect. Na een tijdje zijn de planten eraan gewend en zakt hun fotosynthese-capaciteit weer in.” Zie de groene natuur als een bak waarin CO2 wordt opgeslagen: in een broeikaswereld wordt de bak groter, maar ook die raakt uiteindelijk vol. Planten sterven en vergaan, en daarbij komt een groot deel van hun koolstof weer vrij. “In Italië zijn de bomen sneller gaan groeien“, noemt Poorter als voorbeeld. ‘Maar ze gaan er ook sneller dood.’

Afgezien daarvan zou je haast vergeten dat CO2 nog iets doet: namelijk, de wereld opwarmen en de oceanen verzuren. En terwijl de wereld vergroent, groeit ook de CO2-concentratie in de dampkring: de planten slagen er bij lange na niet in om de extra uitstoot te compenseren.

Een mooi moment misschien om het voorgaande nog even in 52 seconden op u te laten inwerken, in deze videosamenvatting van Nasa:

Goeiige opa’s die oprecht bezorgd zijn over de toekomst

Het is na afloop van het gesprek, in de hal van het deftige Haagse Marriott Hotel, als Guus Berkhout, emeritus hoogleraar geofysica en oud-bestuurslid van de TU Delft, de verslaggever nog even staande houdt.

“Weet je? Ik ben niet zo tevreden over dit interview”, bekent Berkhout, een hartelijke man met een rond gezicht en springerige witte krullen. “Kijk, wij hebben ruim dertig jaar ervaring, we hebben geëxcelleerd in de wetenschap, onze kennis wordt wereldwijd gebruikt en toegepast. Het zou mooi zijn als je zou schrijven: er zijn bezorgde wetenschappers met onze staat van dienst die erop wijzen dat we met het draaien aan de CO2-knop het klimaat niet naar believen kunnen veranderen.”

Berkhout is een van de drijvende krachten achter een netwerk van enkele tientallen gepensioneerde heren, allen met een exacte achtergrond en haast allemaal oud-prominenten uit wetenschap en bedrijfsleven, die nadrukkelijk afstand nemen van de huidige klimaatkoers. Die zal ons in ‘kou en ellende’ storten en zelfs uitmonden in een ‘volksopstand’ en ‘massasterfte’, voorspelde een van hen – natuurkundige en oud-directeur van onderzoeksfinancier STW Kees le Pair – afgelopen zomer in een pamflet. Een tekst, die ook Berkhout, De Groot en 25 anderen ondertekenden.

Onder hen mannen voor wie je vroeger nette kleding zou aandoen als je ze opzocht. Oud-rector van de TU Delft Karel Wakker. Oud-rector van de TU Eindhoven en winnaar van een Spinozapremie Rutger van Santen. Oud-onderzoeksdirecteur van Unilever B.G. Linsen. Emeritushoogleraren, zo’n twaalf in totaal. De meesten kennen elkaar van vroeger, van de universiteit of clubs als ingenieursvereniging KIVI-NIRIA. Soms lopen ze elkaar tegen het lijf op een reünie of academische plechtigheid; vaker vinden ze elkaar in praatgroepen of klimaatkritische weblogs als Climategate. (Bekijk hier een Excel-sheet met hun gegevens).

“Bekijk opwarming positief”. Enkele weken geleden maakte Berkhout bekend dat hij een financier heeft gevonden, in de persoon van vastgoedmiljonair Niek Sandmann, om ‘breed klimaatonderzoek’ te laten doen, ‘waarbij CO2 slechts één onderdeel is’. Meer financiers hebben zich gemeld, zegt hij.

Ach, laat ze, mopperende mannen van vroeger. Er zit geeneens een klimaatwetenschapper tussen. Een op de drie van hen werkte ooit voor Shell, turfde de linkse website Sargasso. Dit is de generatie van de jaren zestig en zeventig, de ingenieursgeneratie die ons land beveiligde tegen het water en het voorzag van stabiele energie. Niet gek dat ze in opstand komen nu de nieuwe generatie het weer helemaal anders wil. Windmolens, alsjeblieft zeg.

Maar dat zou te makkelijk zijn. “We zijn allemaal gepensioneerd, en financieel onafhankelijk”, zegt De Groot. “De enige reden waarom we ons hierover nog druk maken, is omdat onze wetenschappelijke integriteit ons ertoe verplicht.”

Hun onderliggende zorg is oprecht. We worden misleid, is hun stellige overtuiging. Door de Al Gores van deze wereld, de klimaatgoeroes met hun praatjes van hel en verdoemenis. “Maar zet daar vraagtekens bij, en je wordt meteen uitgemaakt voor klimaatontkenner”, zegt Berkhout.

De Groot: “Deniers. Dat zet ons meteen in de foute hoek. Bij de holocaustontkenners.”

Berkhout: “Terwijl we gewoon vragen hebben.”

De Groot: “Ik denk: laat het nu eerst eens een tijdje gebeuren, en laten we ons aanpassen aan de klimaatverandering. In plaats van hier op stel en sprong zoveel geld aan te besteden. We lijken wel vergeten dat we enorm goed zijn in ons aanpassen aan het zeeniveau. Dat hebben we altijd gedaan.”

Berkhout: “Onze boodschap is: beste politici, wacht even met die peperdure CO2-maatregelen. We dreigen wel onze betrouwbare energie-infrastructuur ten gronde te richten.”

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

11-02-2019 om 21:30 geschreven door peter  

11-02-2019 om 20:51 geschreven door peter  

This could be the plot of a new movie … or the start of a sci-fi-becoming-reality revolution. A gang of chimpanzees at the Belfast Zoo took advantage of some fallen branches to build a ladder and scale the wall around their living quarters. Is this an accident, a lesson … or a warning?

“I was petrified, obviously, having the kids, and I tried not to show fear but inside I was a bit like: what happens if it attacks us or tries to take the kids or runs over?”

What happens if it begins speaking, demands that the rest of the animals be released and calls for an end to meat-eating or the big kid gets peeled like a banana … which they don’t like anyway despite what you filthy humans think? A better movie, but fortunately (maybe) not what happened this past weekend after four chimps found trees knocked down by a storm, leaned them up against a wall and climbed them to freedom. Cue the triumphant John Williams score.

Well done!

“Don’t escape, you bad little gorilla.”

That’s not exactly an expression of terror, Mister Screenwriter, but it’s what a little girl commented in the video of the escape (see the video and photos here) which was posted on social media, much to the chagrin of Belfast Zoo officials who experienced their second escape in just two weeks. A red panda bolted when an electrical fence was disabled during a power failure. That creature was captured after roaming the streets of Belfast – possibly trying to convince stupid humans that it was not related to pandas at all but in fact is a rare and endangered species. Perhaps this is the escape that should be made into a movie, since it follows another red panda escape in 2017 from a zoo in Norfolk, Virginia. Should the defiant Ailurus fulgens (“don’t call us pandas”) and angry chimps (“don’t call us monkeys”) join forces next time?

Do I look like a bear?

“They’re intelligent primates and know they’re not supposed to be out of their enclosure, so got back in themselves.”

That’s what Belfast zookeeper Alyn Cairns hopes local residents believe – that the chimps knew they did something wrong and returned to their prison rather than realizing they did something right and upped their demands. It’s not that farfetched – in 2018, researchers discovered white-faced capuchins in Panama using stone tools as hammers to open nuts and shellfish, and another group in Japan taught chimpanzees how to play the human game rock-paper-scissors. Have primates entered their own Stone Age? Are we accelerating their evolution? Isn’t that a violation of the Prime Directive? Should we be mixing movie metaphors?

“But we just had to stay calm. It may have been a different story if it had been aggressive but it absolutely wasn’t. It made us feel at ease. We just walked past it and it was absolutely grand.”

Cue the sinister music as the humans dance and sing about how superior they are while the chimps tap messages to each other in their dark cages and plot their next move.

Are these escapes, coupled with the new evidence of primate intelligence, a sign that maybe it’s time we put an end to zoos and instead returned some of the land we’ve taken back to our fellow Earth creatures?

Or are they a warning of something worse?

Next time we take hostages.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

11-02-2019 om 20:10 geschreven door peter  

The Middle East is a land of rich traditions and deep culture going back millennia. Here is a place long considered to be one of the cradles of civilization itself, and which harbors a history steeped in the strange and the spiritual. It should perhaps not be so surprising at all that this region of the world should hold many unexplained mysteries and tales of the paranormal, and indeed it does. Here is a selection of cases of profoundly odd experiences by those who have made their way through this land of myth and legend, to come back with stories that defy all rational explanation.

A lot of the weirder paranormal encounters in the Middle East have been experienced by soldiers and servicemen, a topic which I have covered here at MU before, and it is a theme I have revisited on more than one occasion. Such reports are many, and one supremely creepy case comes to us from a military witness who tells of a tale his superior officer had to tell after being deployed in the region. The story is described as follows:

He was in the spooky, vague “Middle East” when there was a commotion from the soldiers watching the perimeter. Apparently, they could see a man about 100 yards away from the camp. He had appeared out of nowhere, no one saw him walking up. The man was just standing there, not doing anything threatening. But since it was a strange man in a war zone, they broke out all the high tech gear to see what was going on. They could see his face, his clothes, his height, but he looked bizarrely distorted and was not giving off a heat signature (they have infrared jimjams and whatnot, it’s the freaking military not a piddling ghosthunting troupe here). He was not the temperature of a human being, he was the temperature of the air around him. They had no idea what was going on and people were freaking out.

They called different people up to come look at the man, it wasn’t just a few soldiers who saw this- dozens of people came to look and everyone confirmed that it was definitely a person. Eventually they decided to send out a team to check this guy out. When they got about 50 yards away, the man started walking- only it didn’t look like he was walking toward or away from them, only walking in place. They froze, expecting an attack. But the man never got any closer..

It looked like it was trying to walk but instead of moving like a regular person, its bones were breaking and splintering backwards and forwards at the joints. I can’t think of a better way to describe it. Its head was jerking around like a puppet. When the convoy got a few yards closer, it disappeared entirely. The team hauled ass back to camp and as soon as they returned, the man-thing reappeared in its spot. Everyone took turns watching it for an hour or so until it disappeared for good. Didn’t walk away, didn’t fly or melt or explode, just stood there for a looooong time then vanished.

What was this specter? Why did it crawl out of the night to terrify these men before creeping back to from whence it came, wherever that may be? From the country of Iraq comes another bizarre account given by a witness who says he spent a total of 28 months deployed with the Army on and off in the country between the years of 2005 and 2009. His strange encounter would happen in the scorching summer of 2006, and it is hard to classify what it could possibly be. The witness says:

In the late summer of 2006 my unit was moved from Mosul to Sinjar, which as some of you may know is the home to the recently persecuted Yezidi tribe, they were an awesome bunch of people with more compassion than I was accustomed to seeing over there, they also had a unique set of beliefs and held Mt. Sinjar as a holy site. Mt. Sinjar just so happened to be the tallest terrain feature around and so it was also the best site for a communications re-transmission station, with a re-trans station come retrans security and that is where the weird begins.

I was on duty with another soldier pulling security on top of the mountain, basically watching avenues of advance to make sure no one got the drop on the commo guys. Around 0300 (3am) we saw very clearly in our nvg’s a person approaching us from the base of the mountain, just walking up this goat trail. Not knowing if it was a Yezidi or someone else we radioed it in and kept eyes on him. At this point I removed my night vision to give my eyes a break and looked down the hill there was no one there. My battle buddy confirmed he still had eyes on but even with good illumination and the fact that the figure was only about 150 meters away I couldn’t see him. Weirded out I looked through the TWS (thermal sight) and couldn’t see him there either. I put my nvg’s back on and there he was 100 meters out just watching.

So my question is what was it? What doesn’t show on thermals but can be effected by infra red?
Shadow person? Ghost? Hallucination?

What was it, indeed? Another report from Iraq seems to suggest some sort of shape-changing spirit or demon, and apparently happened in Baghdad, Iraq. The witness describes himself as having been in the United States Army at the time during a deployment in Iraq, and on this evening he found himself on an extra guard shift through the wee morning hours. He was relieved at around 4 AM and headed back to his room, and it is then when something very bizarre would creep up out of the night. According to the witness:

I stopped dead in my tracks. In front of me about 30 feet or so was a black and white cat. I don’t know why but the sight of it caused me to jump and for some reason I was just afraid, not typical like “oh shit” kinda fear but more of like and overwhelming anxiety/paranoia. The cat just sat there and didn’t move but looked directly at me. Then I noticed something a little odd. I have a cat back in the states who’s the absolute light of my life. A black cat with white paws, a white chest and a little sliver of white running down the length of his face. This cat looked exactly like mine. Now obviously I knew that it wasn’t, but the sight of a familiar looking feline friend was enough for me to somewhat relax the jumpy feeling I had previously felt.

I took about three steps forward, slung my rifle to my side and crouched down with one arm outstretched in an attempt to coax the cat to come over. My lips pursed to make a little”tch-tch” noise when I became completely paralyzed with fear. From my eye level standing of about 6ft to my eye level crouching of about 3ft the animal I was seeing looked completely different as if my visual perspective completely changed the appearance of the animal. Like one of those optical illusion perspective based art sculptures. What I was looking at no longer looked like a cat but a large broad dog like animal crouched with its head lowered just inches off of the ground. All rationality abandoned me at this point all I could do was stare back at whatever it was. I couldn’t make out much of a face, the only light source around was from a street lamp about 50 meters behind me past the T-wall.

What I was able to make out were its eyes, which I could see clearer than day light and they were human. Look into a mirror and open your eyes as wide as you possibly can, that’s pretty much what I was looking at. It just stared at me and I stared back. I will tell you now that I have never been more terrified in my entire life. I slowly stood back up half expecting whatever I was looking at to take on the appearance of a cat once again but it didn’t. The thing did not move a fucking inch through this whole encounter. At this point my weapon wasn’t even enough to make me feel safe. I backed away slowly all the while keeping my eyes on what was in front of me. I had just about reached the gap in the T-wall again where the thing just disappeared. It didn’t back away and vanish into the shadows it just kind of steadily wasn’t there anymore. But right before it vanished entirely I heard what sounded like a low but somehow loud guttural growling noise that resonated off of the T-walls surrounding the area with the rooms. Needless to say as soon as I passed back through The T-wall I fucking bolted.

I ran as fast as my legs could carry me with all my gear on to my team leaders room across the gravel road. I took a moment to calm myself down before entering his room. I slept on his floor that night blaming it on the fact that we had to get up early and the alarm on my phone hasn’t been working lately. I haven’t seen anything since then but every other night or so when I’m by myself I’ll get that same horribly overwhelming sense of anxiety/paranoia that I got when I first saw the thing.

It is interesting to note that shape-shifting entities play a big role in many supernatural encounters throughout the Middle East region. One account was relayed to me personally in the wake of one of my former Middle East articles, and also comes from a soldier deployed in the Middle East at the time. He says that he was with out on a patrol mission in a bleak desert environment in an unspecified location when they saw what appeared to be a pack of hyenas roaming about the wilderness. This was already unnerving enough as it is, but what made it even odder was that amongst the yipping, growling pack seemed to be a dark, humanoid figure with glowing eyes. The witness told me:

I had no idea there were even hyenas out in those parts, and here is a whole pack of them just sort of scampering about. We sort of figured we’d scare them off with some shots, and then one of the guys said something like “What the hell is that?” and pointed out what looked like a dark figure like a man walking with them. The hyenas seemed to be cavorting about him, like pets, and it was surreal as fuck. Then we see that it seems that whoever it is has glowing eyes, you can see them sort of glinting in the night.

About now we are all pretty creeped up and our weapons are drawn. One of the guys calls out to this dude and tells him to halt. At first he just sort of ignored us, but when he called out again the guy froze and those goddam hyenas did as well. They all just sat there in the scrub looking at us. Then, and I shit you not, the human figure just sort of, I don’t even know how to describe it, he just sort of hunches over and then he is a hyena too. Me and the other guys just sort of noped it out of there after that.

If there is any truth to this encounter then it is interesting to note that some areas of the Middle East and surrounding regions and North Africa actually do have folklore tied to such creatures, so-called were-hyenas, often called the bouda in some areas of Africa. In Arab folklore, the were-hyenas were known as the kaftar, and said to be vampiric in nature, feeding off the blood of the living, especially that of children. Did this witness see these legendary creatures? What is going on here? Another very weird account of Middle Eastern shape-shifters comes from a commenter on Reddit, who tells of human/animal hybrids thus:

So basically when I was a kid there was an old folktale that many people kinda believed, but didn’t, but did… if you get my meaning. There were beautiful women, especially one in particular, that had the legs of a goat, and in some stories a horse or some other creature. A colleague from work even claimed that his family was visited by one back in the 80s when he was about 8 or 9. Personally I remember reading sometime back of a woman who encountered several people like this at a party who had these attributes. It seems that animal human hybrids, and sightings of them are still a thing, especially in Africa and here in the Middle East. Even globally, werewolves and vampires seem to exist outside of books and films.

Besides military high strangeness and shape-changing oddities, there are also some quite creepy accounts from haunted places apparently very saturated with some paranormal forces. One such place is called Jazirat Al Hamra, which translates to “Red Island” and is a ghost town in the United Arab Emirates founded in the 14th century as a thriving fishing and pearl-diving village, only to later be mysteriously abandoned in 1968 for unknown reasons. There have long been accounts of paranormal activity here, and it is considered to be a haunt for the nefarious djinn of Arab lore. One commenter on the site YourGhostStories says he decided to go investigate these claims of ghostly activity, and explains:

We reached there by 2.30 am. Most of my friends were spooked and unwilling to enter the village, but I convinced them to come along and told them that they could sit in the car while we explored the place. We were about 12 people in 3 cars: 2 SUVs and 1 sedan. We decided to leave the sedan outside near the main road in case the road is bad and the car gets stuck somewhere in the village. So we cramped into the 2 SUVs and entered the village. We found the very thing we were looking for.

“I couldn’t have mistaken the sheer neglect and the complete seclusion of the place. The crumbling walls of the once lived-in homes, the narrow, sandy alleys that meandered around the village. The walls of the derelict village were made up of shells and corals and sands were a peculiar red. It was very quiet, except for the sea crashing against the shore. The village is a maze of narrow streets and narrower alleyways, covered in a thick layer of sand, punctuated by mounds of ruble and prickly overgrown bushes. The place was truly very creepy. The alleys are so narrow that when you look out of the car window you are faced with the dark black interior of one of the abandoned house.

We reached a large clearing in the middle of the village where we decided to get out of the cars and snap some pictures of the old houses. We were entering houses together and taking pictures. It was funny to see how nobody wanted to be left alone. Even the ones that didn’t want to get out of the car came cause they didn’t want to be left alone in the car. Few of my friends decided to get their picture taken in front of the old fort. The camera was a digi-cam and when she clicked the picture, she showed us that there was what seemed like a shadow holding my friend around his waist with the head on my friend’s chest. We were freaked and tried to click a few more pictures of the same scene, trying to get that image to show up. Well nothing came up in the other pictures. There were no lights or lamps in the village and the only light that came was from the moon and the camera flash, so we didn’t know what to make of the picture.

Anyway we continued to explore the houses around the village. The atmosphere around that place was most unwelcoming. While exploring we came up on a house, which we entered and each and 5 of my friends and myself had the same reaction. We felt like we were punched in the gut and had the urge to throw-up. We ran out of the place as we could see shadows emerging from nowhere and thought that this was enough of ghost hunting for the day. We got in the car and everyone was still complaining about having the worst stomachache ever. We raced out of the village and came upon the main road when we started feeling a bit better. We drove away thinking that was one of the experiences that we would not forget easily.

Jazirat Al Hamra

There is also supposedly a very haunted house in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to which has gravitated all manner of strange tales and weirdness. The house itself is rather decrepit, filthy and nondescript, easily passed by amongst a myriad of other dwellings that look just like it. At first glance it seems to be just a graffiti covered hovel, but according to locals there is a sinister force residing within, of which the Arab News says:

Taxi drivers won’t go near it. It acts as a magnet for the “shabab,” who are drawn inexorably to its scarred and graffiti-covered walls but almost invariably stop short of crossing the threshold. Well-known among the expatriate community as a place of horror, Jeddah’s most haunted house has become a legend in its own lifetime. To date, the story goes, 16 people have entered the depths of this decaying pile, never to be seen again.

The derelict house stands a hundred meters or so from the seafront on the north Corniche. The braver members of the street-cruising society have daubed its facade with graffiti and the place is, quite literally, falling apart. As it deteriorates into its component parts, so the mystery and myth surrounding it increases in inverse proportion. 

Certainly, just a look at it, even in daylight, produces an involuntary shudder. Crows flap untidily around the crumbling upper works like black rags tossed in the wind. Going through the rusting gates is to walk into a thick silence as the dull roar of the Corniche traffic fades into silence The eyeless window sockets of the house, once full of warmth and bustle, stare lifelessly at the derelict garden. She is an old lady now, ignored in her decline, but still standing proud though damaged by the vicissitudes of maltreatment by man and nature.

She still retains some of her former magnificence; the Italianate tile and plaster facade, where it still exists, towers over the remains of wrought iron railings that edge the marbled front patio. Ornate ironwork rawshans decorated with diamonds of blue and white translucent glass, once fixed over the main windows, lie buckled and rusting like iron lacework on a bed of wind-blown rubbish, slowly sinking into a sea of creepers.

The Haunted House of Jeddah

Sixteen people have entered to never return? Is this for real? What in the world is going on here? Who knows? Lastly we come to what seems to be a haunted villa in the United Arab Emirates, where a witness on YourGhostStories had just bought a one bedroom flat at a place called Sharjah, on the outskirts of Dubai. After a few days of living at the villa without incident, things would slowly creep into the realm of the strange, when the witness says:

Me and my wife used to sleep in one bedroom and the child on the other. It was on Friday night when this first incident took place. Me and my wife heard loud screams of our children and they had barged into our room terrified and sweating profusely. They were so terrified that it took us almost half an hour to calm them down. When asked, the children told us that they saw some shadow on the wall which was seen hanging from a ceiling fan and moving like a pendulum. We just shrugged it off saying it must have been a bad dream but the children were reluctant to go and insisted to sleep in our bedroom. The same day both the children were struck with high fever and it lasted for a week.

Second incident was at the swimming pool when we were having a night swim in this sweltering summer heat. I was sipping my beer and watching the children play with my wife, suddenly I saw my wife screaming on top of her voice. The children were also equally terrified. I immediately rushed to check what’s wrong and my wife was in a complete state of shock in an unconscious state. After some when she regained conscious, my wife told me that she felt two hands grab her legs and trying to pull her in the deeper section of the pool. This was amplified when I saw the imprints of 5 large fingers over her calf muscles on both the legs. Things were just getting out of hand and we finally decided to call a priest to do some purification. The moment the priest entered the house he could sense that that the house had a spirit which died of unnatural causes. He recited some spells and sprinkled some holy water and things seem to come back to normal which was only a temporary phenomenon.

One night when we were sleeping, we could hear an elderly couple quarrel in Arabic which was coming from my children bedroom, Children were fast asleep and I asked my wife not to leave the children alone and went myself to see what was happening. I opened the door slowly and was shocked to find no one in the room but the quarrel was getting louder and uglier. Me and my wife with the children rushed out in the middle of the night and as we rushed out we both could hear a very loud women scream and after that there was a pin drop silence. We spent until dawn in my 4×4 SUV. We approached the owner and after too much of argument, he told us that he had leased the house to a couple who were spending quite a few years. They used to indulge in frequent quarrels due to financial issued and one fine day, the man murdered his pregnant wife and killed himself by hanging from a ceiling fan. We immediately vacated the place and took a house somewhere else so as to avoid further incidences No wonder the owner was giving it at a dirt cheap rate.”

Here we have looked at shape-changing specters, ghosts, and maybe even demons and Djinn, all part of the landscape of Middle Eastern paranormal phenomena. Is there anything to these tales of high strangeness and paranormal mayhem? Do these things lurk in the periphery in this land steeped in legend and myth? We can only guess at the answers to such questions, but at the very least it seems that, although not quite as represented in mainstream paranormal lore, the Middle East has quite a few mysteries waiting to be uncovered by those who are brave enough to go and check it out.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

11-02-2019 om 19:56 geschreven door peter  

The site of one of America’s most legendary and mysterious encounters with the unknown has recently changed hands and is now under new private ownership. A 78-acre ranching property located in Lincoln County, New Mexico 75 miles northwest of Roswell has been sold to Dinwiddie Cattle Co. LLC for an undisclosed amount. The parcel of land is only part of a larger land transaction, but it’s what happened on this particular parcel that makes this real estate transaction so noteworthy – and potentially depressing for those of us who need to know the truth about what happened in Roswell.

The property sold in this transaction contains the lands that were once the J.B. Foster ranch, home to the 1947 crash of an object recovered by the U.S. Army Air Forces. The crash and ensuing investigation would become one of the most disputed and researched UFO incidents of all time and in many ways contributed the modern fascination with UFOs.

The site has changed hands several times in the decades since the infamous 1947 Roswell Incident but has remained exclusively privately owned, making investigations of the alleged crash site difficult. The previous owners, Bogle Ltd. Co. of Dexter, eventually allowed tours of the site last year in what was the first public access to the site in nearly 70 years. The new owners, however, so far seem nonplussed with the whole UFO crash thing.

“I just don’t know a whole lot about it,” new owner Tommy Dinwiddie told the Roswell Daily Record. “The guy who is running the ranch over there for me knows quite a bit about it, and after we kind of get our feet on the ground running it, we will do some more talking about it and figuring out what we want to do.” 

Other countries have made public monuments or parks out of the sites of famous UFO incidents. Is the Roswell property remaining in public hands in order to discourage study of the site, or is all of this merely much ado about a wayward weather balloon and an empty stretch of desert?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

11-02-2019 om 19:33 geschreven door peter  

Members of the Armed Forces get to witness or participate in all sorts of secret activities and events that the public is never told of. There’s a good reason a lot of the military’s activities stay under wraps, though. Now that the world’s superpowers have the ability to wipe out all life on Earth several times over, it’s far better to let people sleep at night by keeping things on a need-to-know basis.

But I need to know. I really need to know. Like a lot of us who read this site, I need to know what’s in the secret bunkers and hangars. I need to know what those strange lights and triangles in the sky are, and I need to know what types of secret apocalyptic weapons are being tested in remote missile ranges in the desert. Or do I? Maybe ignorance is bliss, particularly for those of us who have children.

Maybe those ostriches are on to something.

At any rate, we were given a small glance behind the curtain of terrifying military secrecy this week when a retired US Air Force spy plane pilot recounted his now-declassified experience witnessing a secret and long-rumored Russian technology known as the “dome of light.” Robert Hopkins shared his chilling experiences with Tyler Rogoway at The Warzone, and I’m once again genuinely creeped out about what this story may suggest about what the Russian military may possess that we don’t yet know about.

Hopkins witnessed the event while flying a US spy plane originating from the remote Shemya Air Force Base on the Aleutian Island chain near Alaska. At the time, the Soviets were conducting tests of intermediate-range ballistic missiles nearby, and US spy planes were there to keep an eye on their adversary’s missile capabilities. That’s when things got super weird.

Shemya Air Force Base was a key part of America’s missile defenses and intelligence operations during the Cold War .

According to Hopkins, both he and his copilot witnessed what can only be described as a “dome of light” moving through the air. At nearly the exact moment a Soviet missile launched, the pair saw a “translucent, milky white wall” moving outward from the launch site towards the Northern Pacific Ocean. The wall of light spanned from the ground to as far as Hopkins and his copilot could see and crossed directly over their aircraft, leaving only the night sky in its wake. The pair were mystified by the event but nonetheless continued their mission as planned.

Afterwards, both Hopkins and his copilot confirmed that they witnessed the same phenomenon, but neither one could explain what the saw. The two eventually reasoned that it was likely some type of atmospheric event like an aurora – until the pair witnessed the exact same phenomenon again prior to another Soviet missile launch.

The two pilots’ sightings would eventually spark the interest of US intelligence agencies and government officials. The Warzone provides a comprehensive breakdown of all that is publicly known about the “dome of light” phenomenon including several mentions by US Senators and intelligence review publications. I highly encourage readers to head over to The Warzone and read the full article -that is, readers who weren’t planning on sleeping tonight.

Was this some type of superweapon like Nikita Khrushchev alleged the Soviet Union possessed, a surveillance countermeasure, or something far weirder? Some of Nikola Tesla’s stranger research even touched upon or hinted at technologies which sound eerily similar to what US spy pilots witnessed during these “dome of light” events. To this day the rumored “dome of light” technology remains a mystery.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

11-02-2019 om 19:17 geschreven door peter  

Strange flashing UFO lights caught on camera over Burleson, Texas

Driving down I-35 westbound and Rendon Crowley Rd., next to Texas Health Huguley Hospital, I was on the phone with my girlfriend, driving ahead of me, and we both witness strange red/white flashing lights in the sky a little in the distance.

We drove parallel to these lights and it looked like they were linked in a chain together 3 lights majority stay red followed by one majority staying white, then 2 more majority red (still flickering the opposite color red to white or white to red). They formed a broken V-shape, while spread out seemingly linked together somehow.

I wanted a better look so we exited the highway, turned around, and then came into the view of the strange lights. They were remaining still the first time we drove by them. As we approached they seemed to form a hexagonal shape, and started to glow the same color, but would randomly flicker the opposite light individually (red to white).

As we got closer to the spot we first witness them, they drifted away further and further ahead.

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

11-02-2019 om 18:54 geschreven door peter  

Two Aliens Ships Found On Asteroid Vesta In Feb 2019, Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Feb 11, 2019

Location of discovery: Asteroid Vesta

Source:

•  https://nasaviz.gsfc.nasa.gov/10979

 This is asteroid Vesta and on it I found two diamond shaped ships resting on its surface. NASA also happens to think that this might not be an asteroid, but a small planet...the size of the state of Arizona. 

The two ships I found are both similar in length and width, but slightly different in design. One is more shiny and metallic than the other, which makes me believe there is a thick layer of dust on one of the craft make for a dull appearance. Just that fact that NASA states..."Even though Vesta is only the size of Arizona, the astroid may be a planet." This really is exciting news, and makes me wonder...just how many planet discoveries are going to be made in our solar system over the next few decades? Probably a lot. 

Scott C. Waring

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

11-02-2019 om 18:12 geschreven door peter  

There are UFOs in the skies over Central Jersey

If you've seen something strange in the sky over Central Jersey — and you haven't been enjoying an adult beverage or suffering from a lack of sleep — you're not alone.

According to the National UFO Reporting Center, Central Jersey residents have reported seeing objects in the sky that are mystifying and can not be explained. In short, they were seeing unidentified flying objects — UFOs.

And if you did see an UFO, you're not crazy. They may not be flying saucers or aliens taking a sightseeing trip to Earth, but simply objects you literally can not identify. UFOologists say that about 90 percent of all sightings turn out to have plausible explanations, yet about 10 percent remain perplexing.

The National UFO Reporting Center, in Seattle, was founded in 1974 by UFO investigator Robert J. Gribble. The Center's mission is to be a central and transparent clearinghouse of UFO sightings throughout the United States, including Central Jersey. The center's website is updated daily.

• More: Authorities investigating UFO sightings from 3 commercial pilots
• More: These are the best cities for UFO sightings
• Sightings

One of the UFO latest sightings in Central Jersey was in South Amboy where someone told the National UFO Reporting Center that at about 12:28 a.m. on Feb 1 "two circles in the sky changed colors several times from blue to orange."

That was the second UFO sighting in South Amboy since Dec. 1. At about 6:51 p.m. on Dec. 10, someone reported "a bright light beamed in the sky and descended in a linear pattern, then quickly disappeared."

Just three days before, there had been a detailed UFO sighting in Branchburg.

"On 12/07/2018 at 16:45 I was driving westbound on Burnt Mills Road in Branchburg, when I witnessed what first appeared to be a jet contrail, however instead of getting longer, it stayed the same size and began rotating in a clockwise direction. It was the shape of a line, or cylinder, and I could see that it was illuminated because the sun has already set and was behind the object, but it was fully illuminated bright white on its east side, opposite the sun.

"As I noticed it wasn't growing and instead rotating, another, smaller object appeared slightly to the north of it. I drove through a forested section of the road and came to a clearing and pulled off to the shoulder to view them some more. 

"I then noticed 2 more similar shaped objects to the north of the first 2. They were moving very slowly in the sky, and as I tracked them, I could see movement relative to the other objects, and saw that they were traveling west towards the twilight. The first object I saw eventually disappeared to the west, followed by the 2nd, and finally the last 2 disappeared. 

"I am certain they were not planes, helicopters or hot air balloons. 

"I have never seen anything quite like these lights in the sky before. I have logged thousands of miles sailing offshore and many moonless nights at sea, and although I have seen some very strange things in the sky, nothing viewed has ever compelled me to write about before. 

"I would like to know if there were any other witnesses as it was rush hour and there were many cars driving around at that time. This is a fairly rural area, the objects were traveling over farmland and possibly parts of Route 78."

Not all of the reports to the National UFO Reporting Center are as detailed.

On July 7, 2017 someone in Linden reported a "blinking light" in the sky at about 6:43 p.m. It was "first solid red...then blinking red...then blinking green six or seven times..then red twice."

Occasionally Peter Davenport, director of the National UFO Reporting Center, adds a comment to the reports. In response to someone on the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers University at 7:38 p.m. Nov. 29, 2017 seeing an aircraft "releasing white air," Davenport wrote, "Possibly contrails, we suspect."

The National UFO Reporting Center receives many of its reports through a telephone hotline at 206-722-3000 which is staffed 24 hours a day. You can also report a sighting online at www.ufocenter.com/reportform.html. The site warns that it doesn't tolerate nonsense: "If you are thinking of submitting a hoax or joke report, save yourself the time and trouble. It will be ignored and immediately discarded."

The National UFO Reporting Center makes all the reports open to the public on the website. And those who report UFOs are guaranteed anonymity. Every month summaries of recent sightings are posted.

Even with contemporary high-tech gadgets, it's difficult to gather evidence about sightings. A Stockton man going for a bike ride on the D&R Canal towpath with his kids at 3 p.m. Oct. 1, 2017 saw "a single, extremely bright, but small, white to pale yellowish light at very high altitude." For the next hour the light moved slowly across the sky and never reached the horizon.

"I did attempt to take a few pictures with my iPhone because it is all I had, but nothing can be seen in the photos," the person wrote.

In Piscataway at about 4:40 p.m. Aug. 1, 2017, someone was driving home from work when they saw a fast-moving disk-shaped object with a dome high in the sky. "It flew very smooth and faster than any plane I've seen."

Unfortunately, those words are the only account we have. "I wanted to try to take a picture but could not safely pull to the side of the road. Incident happened quickly and not enough time to get phone and take photo."

At about 5:10 p.m. June 17, 2017, someone saw a "black circular, ball-like object hovering in the sky over Old Bridge."

But, by the time the observer grabbed a camera from inside the house and ran back outside, the object was gone. "I hope someone in the area photographed it."

There were no other UFO reports around Old Bridge at that time. However, it should be noted that since Jan. 1, 2017, there have been more UFO sightings in Old Bridge — four — than any other Central Jersey town.

Sometimes the sightings come when you least expect it. Also in Old Bridge at about noon on Oct. 12, 2018, a person said "I took my usual walk on the usual route. I walked across the street and lifted my neck to stretch and there was an object above me. The best way to describe it. A jellyfish. It was moving quickly."

The report adds interesting details to fill out the picture. "Only saw a couple of birds on my walk and no leaves high in the air. The leaves were bristling on the ground because it was windy."

The author then adds facts to heighten the report's credibility: "My vision is excellent except I wear reading glasses. I'm in my 40s."

Someone taking out the garbage in Califon at 8:43 p.m. Oct. 4, 2017 saw a "craft hovering with amber, orange lights, for a few minutes and then completely disappeared like it had been vacuumed up into thin air."

Occasionally, a report will contain a personal, emotional response. A Somerville resident who was waiting for his Uber ride to work on the overnight shift reported seeing at about 10:33 p.m. Jan. 10, a triangular-shaped object "zoomed" about 1,000 to 1,500 feet above his house.

The sighting, the reporter wrote, was "not scary at all, but just mystifying." After looking at the reports on the the National UFO Reporting Center 's website, the resident wrote it was "humbling to know that all the other people who reports such things are not crazy like I thought I was."

"I am now a believer!"

• Staff Writer Mike Deak: 908-243-6607; mdeak@mycentraljersey.comµ

{ https://eu.app.com/}

11-02-2019 om 01:26 geschreven door peter  

Researcher discovers leg bone fossil on Mars; requests Trump to make him head of NASA

The extraterrestrial researcher urged Donald Trump to make him the head of NASA so that he can expose all realities associated with alien life on Mars

Popular extraterrestrial researcher Scott C Waring is known for spotting anomalies on the images of other planets and moon released by NASA. In his website 'UFO Sightings Daily', the researcher has many times alleged that the United States space agency is the part of a major alien coverup. To substantiate his views, Waring has now claimed to have discovered a fossilized bone on the Martian surface.

Scott C Waring has made this finding after analyzing an image of Mars published on NASA's official website.

"I found this fossilized bone on Mars this week and it has been run over by the Mar rover. Now scientists at NASA often say how careful they are not to hurt or destroy their chances of finding life on Mars. If a person had found this at a park or beach...it would turn into an investigation into a murder...since it looks a lot like a leg bone. But since its Mars NASA makes it into their personal road, driving over and ignoring any real evidence of life on Mars," wrote Waring on his website.

In the latest web post, Scott C Waring also urged Donald Trump to make him the head of NASA, so that he can disclose all the dark secrets associated with alien life on the Red Planet. Waring also assured that alien life on Mars is a reality, and the evidence he found is too compelling that even NASA could not deny the bitter facts.

Even though the findings of Scott C Waring used to generate the interest of conspiracy theorists, experts used to dismiss his claims all the time stating that the discoveries of the self-proclaimed researcher are pure cases of pareidolia. As per experts, pareidolia is the peculiar nature of the human brain to form known images on unknown patterns.

A few days back, John Brandenburg, a top American physicist had sensationally revealed that alien life had once thrived on Mars. The physicist also added that he has found the evidence of a nuclear war that might have wiped out life from the Red Planet.

Source photo: 

https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?rawid=0719MR0030550060402769E01_DXXX&s=719

{ https://www.ibtimes.co.in/ }

11-02-2019 om 01:09 geschreven door peter  

NASA astronaut's picture of India from ISS shows alien UFO lurking in sky?

The weird UFO incident happened when NASA astronaut Scott Kelly tried to capture the image of India from the outer space

View image on Twitter

Scott Kelly

✔@StationCDRKelly

Day 233. Once upon a #star over Southern India. #GoodNight from @space_station! #YearInSpace

• 15.7K

12:56 AM - Nov 16, 2015

• 6,703 people are talking about this

After analyzing the image, many conspiracy theorists strongly argued that the image of the UFO was accidentally clicked by Scott Kelly, and this picture indicates that aliens are visiting astronauts at the ISS regularly.

However, theories surrounding the alien UFO were quickly debunked after experts revealed the real secret behind the anomaly. Many experts who checked the image found that the UFO found on the right side of the image is actually a part of the ISS itself. To prove their theory, they even adjusted the brightness of the image and concluded that the image released by Scott Kelly is no way suspicious in any aspect.

This is not the first time conspiracy theorists are going crazy over UFO sightings near the International Space Station. Earlier, popular UFO researcher Tyler Glockner released a video that shows multiple flying objects hovering near the ISS when Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti was taking a tour inside the space station.

When Samantha opened up a hatch to show something outside the space station, two unidentified flying objects made a close flyby near the window, and it made many people believe that alien life is a reality. Some conspiracy theorists even went ahead and argued that space agencies like NASA, ESA, and ISRO are well aware of extraterrestrial existence, though these establishments refuted such speculations.

11-02-2019 om 00:55 geschreven door peter  

SpaceX COVER-UP? Videos resurface of live feeds being CUT 'as UFOs appear' on anniversary

CLAIMS Elon Musk is covering up alien life have re-emerged on the first anniversary of SpaceX’s Falcon rocket launch.

Elon Musk launched the SpaceX mission 17 years ago, privatising the space race. 

And today marks one year since the Falcon Heavy – a rocket with the highest payload capacity of any launch vehicle – was launched.

But – while it was a huge achievement – conspiracy theorists have been more interested in SpaceX’s live feed spotting some very mysterious objects.

‘TR-3B’ spotted before feed cut

It isn’t just Falcon 9 live feeds that have sparked conspiracists into meltdown.

Footage of the Dragon satellite in December appeared to show a dark triangular object moving past the craft.

Just moments after the object appears, the feed switches to a different angle.

Blake and Brett were the first to spot the incident once again and suggested the craft was a TR-3B.

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

11-02-2019 om 00:37 geschreven door peter  

Hidden World Under Antarctica Revealed: Scientists Find A World They’ve Never Imagined

The Discovery has been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Despite the fact that satellites orbiting earth have helped map our planet’s surface in great detail, there was a gap around an area of the South Pole, which is not covered by satellites due to the inclination of their orbits.

Now, scientists have finally revealed what is there, and it comes as a surprise.

Scientists exploring Antarctica have found massive mountain ranges and vast canyons that run for hundreds of miles beneath the continents thick ice.

Hidden beneath south Antarctica, researchers used ice-penetrating radar to discover massive canyons cutting through three expansive subterranean mountain ranges under the Antarctic ice shelf.

The findings are the first to emerge from extensive ice-penetrating radar data collected in Antarctica as part of the European Space Agency PolarGAP project and have been published in the journal, Geophysical Research Letters.

Although there is extensive satellite data that helps obtain images of the surface of the Earth and its deep interior, there was a gap around the area of the South Pole, which is not covered by satellites due to the inclination of the orbits.

Therefore, the PolarGAP project was designed to fill the gap in the coverage of satellite data from the South Pole and, in particular, to acquire the missing data reports the British Antarctic Survey, which participated in the research.

Scientists warn as global warming advances, these massive valleys could play an important role in the flow of the ice.

“As there were gaps in satellite data around the South Pole, no one knew exactly what was there,” said Dr. Kate Winter, lead author of the study and a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in Northumbria University’s Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences.

“We now understand that the mountainous region is preventing ice from East Antarctica flowing through West Antarctica to the coast. In addition, we have also discovered three subglacial valleys in West Antarctica which could be important in the future.

“If the ice sheet thins or retreats, these topographically-controlled corridors could facilitate an enhanced flow of ice further inland and could lead to the West Antarctic ice divide moving. This would, in turn, increase the speed and rate at which ice flows out from the center of Antarctica to its edges, leading to an increase in global sea levels.”

Dr. Winter adds: “The data we have gathered will enable ice sheet modelers to predict what will happen if the ice sheet thins, which will mean we can start to answer the questions we couldn’t answer before.”

The mission marked the first time scientists were able to map three vast subglacial valleys in West Antarctica. The largest valley, known as Foundation Trough, is more than 350 kilometers long and 35 kilometers wide. Its length is equivalent to the distance from London to Manchester, while its width equals more than one and a half times the length of the island of Manhattan in New York.

Two of the remaining valleys are equally vast. The Patuxent canal is more than 300 kilometers long and more than 15 wide, while the Offset Rift Basin is 150 long and 30 wide.

Scientists warn that if climate change causes the ice sheet to be reduced, these valleys could increase the speed at which ice flows from the center of Antarctica to the sea, raising global sea levels.

VIDEO:

{ http://aliensdocs.com/ }

10-02-2019 om 23:49 geschreven door peter  

10 Space Missions Set to Explore New Frontiers

10-02-2019 om 23:34 geschreven door peter  

10-02-2019 om 23:04 geschreven door peter  

Video – UFO Chased and Destroyed the Russian Meteor!

Footage of what appears to be a UFO shooting down the meteor that crashed in Russia. “They” are protecting us, and this planet. The meteorite that crashed on Russia was hit by an unidentified flying object causing it to explode and shatter over the Urals, it has been claimed.

{ https://www.etupdates.com/ }

10-02-2019 om 21:02 geschreven door peter  

NASA wants to send humans to Venus – here’s why that’s a brilliant idea

Popular science fiction of the early 20th century depicted Venus as some kind of wonderland of pleasantly warm temperatures, forests, swamps and even dinosaurs. In 1950, the Hayden Planetarium at the American Natural History Museum were soliciting reservations for the first space tourism mission, well before the modern era of Blue Origins, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. All you had to do was supply your address and tick the box for your preferred destination, which included Venus.

Today, Venus is unlikely to be a dream destination for aspiring space tourists. As revealed by numerous missions in the last few decades, rather than being a paradise, the planet is a hellish world of infernal temperatures, a corrosive toxic atmosphere and crushing pressures at the surface. Despite this, NASA is currently working on a conceptual manned mission to Venus, named the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept – (HAVOC).

But how is such a mission even possible? Temperatures on the planet’s surface (about 460°C) are in fact hotter than Mercury, even though Venus is roughly double the distance from the sun. This is higher than the melting point of many metals including bismuth and lead, which may even fall as “snow” onto the higher mountain peaks. The surface is a barren rocky landscape consisting of vast plains of basaltic rock dotted with volcanic features, and several continent-scale mountainous regions.

It is also geologically young, having undergone catastrophic resurfacing events. Such extreme events are caused by the build up of heat below the surface, eventually causing it to melt, release heat and re-solidify. Certainly a scary prospect for any visitors.

Hovering in the atmosphere Luckily, the idea behind

NASA’s new mission is not to land people on the inhospitable surface, but to use the dense atmosphere as a base for exploration. No actual date for a HAVOC type mission has been publicly announced yet. This mission is a long term plan and will rely on small test missions to be successful first. Such a mission is actually possible, right now, with current technology. The plan is to use airships which can stay aloft in the upper atmosphere for extended periods of time.

As surprising as it may seem, the upper atmosphere of Venus is the most Earth-like location in the solar system. Between altitudes of 50km and 60km, the pressure and temperature can be compared to regions of the Earth’s lower atmosphere. The atmospheric pressure in the Venusian atmosphere at 55km is about half that of the pressure at sea level on Earth. In fact you would be fine without a pressure suit, as this is roughly equivalent to the air pressure you would encounter at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Nor would you need to insulate yourself as the temperature here ranges between 20°C and 30°C.

The atmosphere above this altitude is also dense enough to protect astronauts from ionising radiation from space. The closer proximity of the sun provides an even greater abundance of available solar radiation than on Earth, which can be used to generate power (approximately 1.4 times greater).

The conceptual airship would float around the planet, being blown by the wind. It could, usefully, be filled with a breathable gas mixture such as oxygen and nitrogen, providing buoyancy. This is possible because breathable air is less dense than the Venusian atmosphere and, as result, would be a lifting gas.

The Venusian atmosphere is comprised of 97% carbon dioxide, about 3% nitrogen and trace amounts of other gases. It famously contains a sprinkling of sulphuric acid which forms dense clouds and is a major contributor to its visible brightness when viewed from Earth. In fact the planet reflects some 75% of the light that falls onto it from the sun. This highly reflective cloud layer exists between 45km and 65km, with a haze of sulphuric acid droplets underneath down to about 30km. As such, an airship design would need to be resistant to the corrosive effect of this acid.

Luckily we already have the technology required to overcome the problem of acidity. Several commercially available materials, including teflon and a number of plastics, have a high acidic resistance and could be used for the outer envelope of the airship. Considering all these factors, conceivably you could go for a walk on a platform outside the airship, carrying only your air supply and wearing a chemical hazard suit.

Life on Venus?

The surface of Venus has been mapped from orbit by radar on the US Magellan mission. However, only a few locations on the surface have ever been visited, by the series of Venera missions of Soviet probes in the late 1970s. These probes returned the first – and so far only – images of the Venusian surface. Certainly surface conditions seem utterly inhospitable to any kind of life.

The upper atmosphere is a different story however. Certain kinds of extremophile organisms already exist on Earth which could withstand the conditions in the atmosphere at the altitude at which HAVOC would fly. Species such as Acidianus infernus can be found in highly acidic volcanic lakes in Iceland and Italy. Airborne microbes have also been found to exist in Earth’s clouds. None of this proves that life exists in the Venusian atmosphere, but it is a possibility that could be investigated by a mission like HAVOC.

The current climatic conditions and composition of the atmosphere are the result of a runaway greenhouse effect (an extreme greenhouse effect that cannot be reversed), which transformed the planet from a hospitable Earth-like “twin” world in its early history. While we do not currently expect Earth to undergo a similarly extreme scenario, it does demonstrate that dramatic changes to a planetary climate can happen when certain physical conditions arise.

By testing our current climate models using the extremes seen on Venus we can more accurately determine how various climate forcing effects can lead to dramatic changes. Venus therefore provides us with a means to test the extremes of our current climate modelling, with all the inherent implications for the ecological health of our own planet.

We still know relatively little about Venus, despite it being our nearest planetary neighbour. Ultimately, learning how two very similar planets can have such different pasts will help us understand the evolution of the solar system and perhaps even that of other star systems.

Attribution:The Conversation

{https://www.etupdates.com/ }

10-02-2019 om 20:42 geschreven door peter