New research plans to keep drones in the air longer by giving them the ability to land

 BY ALEXANDRU MICU

An international team wants to make drones fly for longer — by teaching them how to land.

Examples of various perching and resting actions.
Image credits Hang et al., (2019), Sci. Robot.

Drones today are really awesome gadgets, but they’re still severely limited by their short flight time. Despite a lot of effort being expended into improving their batteries or energy efficiency, drones can still only last minutes in the air.

Now, a new study reports that we don’t need bigger, better batteries to keep drones aloft for longer; it’s as simple as sticking landing gears on them.

Take a breather

The team says they’ve taken inspiration from birds, bats, and their impressive biological landing gears.

Many birds fly in short bursts and perch on elevated positions between bouts, they explain. By taking these elevated positions, they are able to conserve energy while keeping tabs on their surroundings for food or threats. Bats fly in a similar manner, but instead of perching, they simply hang upside down.

So the researchers set to work on incorporating similar abilities into our drones. The design they came up is reminiscent of a hawk’s talons. Drones equipped with this landing gear can land on flat or semi-flat surfaces like a bird, or perform a leaning landing on objects such as window sills.

An Xbox One Kinect sensor built into the design allows drones to automatically find and navigate perches, the team adds. After landing, the drone can turn down its rotors, thus saving battery power and prolonging its ability to fly. Other onboard devices such as cameras can be kept operational, allowing landed drones to keep performing their intended tasks.

The landing gear has only been tested under laboratory conditions so far. Although the results are encouraging, the team says they still need to tweak their design further to get the drones to land and take off autonomously. With some more work, however, they’re confident we’ll soon see drones perching atop buildings and other high surfaces.

The paper “Perching and resting—A paradigm for UAV maneuvering with modularized landing gears” has been published in the journal Science Robotics.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

15-03-2019 om 21:25 geschreven door peter  

Are We Really the Smartest Kid on the Cosmic Block?

by Abraham Loeb (scientificamerican.com)

• The human species is not particularly smart. We fight among ourselves in “lose-lose” situations; we do not promote long-term solutions over short-term fixes; and we have been broadcasting our existence to the galaxy with radio waves for over a century without worrying whether about whether there are any predators or competitors in outer space.

• Mainstream scientists box themselves in under an arrogant presumption that extraterrestrials and alien artifacts do not exist, and go from there. They can only conceive of a civilization or a technology that is based upon our own environment, geology and technology. The human race as a whole suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which those with mediocre abilities insist that they’re unusually talented or smart.

• The only way that our species will mature is to get off this planet and see what’s out there. When an artefact such as Oumuamua passes through our solar system, we need to observe it with an open mind. Could it be technological debris from another civilization? We need to get past the “giggle factor” to explore the unexpected.

• We can only hope that we have not become the laughingstock of our galactic neighborhood by now. But even if we have, we can still get our act together and do better. We should find out first who is on our street by searching with our best telescopes for unusual electromagnetic flashes, industrial pollution of planetary atmospheres, artificial light or heat, artificial space debris or something completely unexpected.

• [Editor’s Note]   Accolades to Harvard Professor Avi Loeb (pictured above) for breaking away from mainstream scientists’ intellectual cul-de-sac. Loeb either knows more than he’s letting on, or has great intuition about the strange cigar-shaped “asteroid”, Oumuamua, that passed through our solar system in 2017 with very unusual transit properties. In a recent ExoNews article, “Alliance War Against Deep State – Major Updates Coming”, Corey Goode recounts how he was debriefed on a U.S. Air Force secret space program mission where astronauts entered, investigated, and video recorded the ancient derelict spaceship months before it was detected moving through our solar system. Corey points out that Linda Moulton Howe has now brought forward two military men who have independent knowledge of this USAF-SSP Oumuamua mission, confirming exactly what Corey first revealed.

Credit: Alberto Ghizzi Panizza Getty Images

It is unclear how many intelligent civilizations have arisen in the Milky Way galaxy so far, but if some have, a pressing question comes to mind: were they or are they more intelligent than we are?

When reading the morning newspaper, it is difficult to avoid the thought that our own intelligence bar is not particularly high nor difficult to surpass. We fight among ourselves in “lose-lose” situations; we do not promote long-term solutions over short-term fixes; and we have been broadcasting our existence to the galaxy with radio waves for over a century without worrying whether about whether there are any predators or competitors in outer space. (If it’s the latter, they might have been ignoring us because we appear so incompetent.)

If other civilizations do exist, one key in becoming aware of them is whether we are intelligent enough to adequately interpret their signals or to identify a piece of their technology if it should appear in our solar system. One fact is clear: if we assign a zero prior probability for such evidence coming our way, as some scientists did in the case of ‘Oumuamua by invoking the principle “it’s never aliens,” we will indeed never find any. We will be like ostriches burying our heads in the sand.

In fact, this attitude may be one sign that our intelligence isn’t very impressive—that the human race as a whole suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which those with mediocre abilities insist that they’re unusually talented or smart.

How can our civilization mature? The same way kids do: by leaving home, going out into the neighborhood, meeting others and comparing notes with them. In other words, we can develop a balanced perspective on our current technological accomplishments by engaging in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Since our own technological development accelerates exponentially with an e-folding time of a few years, it is difficult to imagine what a much more advanced technology crafted by a civilization that had lived for a cosmic timescale—billions of such e-folding times—would look like.

As natural as this suggestion to search might seem, however it is evident that SETI faces a hostile mainstream culture in astronomy. The simple proposal to consider the possibility that ‘Oumumua is technological debris as an explanation for its unusual properties, for example was met with controversy on social media.

{ https://exonews.org/ }

15-03-2019 om 21:05 geschreven door peter  

New Alien Abduction Documentary 2019 So Real, They Will Make You Question Everything!

These people regularly report “missing time”—not being able to account for the elapsed time during which they later learn their visitation occurred. These are the most convincing alien stories that are not well known and that the media has not covered.

 

The encounters reported by the contactees were overwhelming friendly, their aliens benevolent. So, why did things change? What do they want with us?

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

15-03-2019 om 20:37 geschreven door peter  

NASA MAAKT BUITENAARDS LEVEN BEKEND

De tijd is nu gekomen dat de wereld eindelijk kan accepteren dat er intelligent buitenaards leven bestaat. 

En het is niet zomaar iemand die bewijst dat buitenaards leven bestaat, want het is niemand minder dan de ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA.

Ze hebben dat gedaan door het vrijgeven van een foto. Een opname die is gemaakt door de Curiosity Rover op Mars en waar niemand omheen kan. 

Op de NASA foto zie je een grote kale vlakte met her en der wat kleine rotsblokken en heuvels in de verte. Het is een mooie opname van het Mars landschap, maar hij wordt nog veel mooier. 

Want, ergens op die kale vlakte ligt een object dat er uitziet als een stuk metaal met in het midden een perfecte cirkel. Een object dat nooit of te nimmer natuurlijk kan ontstaan en er als volgt uit ziet.

Het maakt niet uit wat je gelooft. Het maakt niet uit of je wel of niet gelooft in ufo’s of buitenaardse wezens. 

Het enige dat je moet geloven is je eigen waarnemingsvermogen en je gezonde logische verstand. Het waarnemingsvermogen dat zegt dat er een vreemd object te zien is op het oppervlak van Mars en je logische denkvermogen dat zegt dat een dergelijk object alleen gemaakt kan zijn door een intelligent wezen. Ergens, ooit. 

Net zoals de volgende piramide en talloze andere objecten op Mars nooit of te nimmer natuurlijk ontstaan kunnen zijn en dat de enige logische verklaring is dat deze zijn gemaakt door intelligente wezens.

Deze week worden er in de Privé 24 pagina’s gewijd aan de ex voetballer Wesley en de Golddigger die er met miljoenen vandoor dreigt te gaan. 

Wat als er nu eens 1 van die 24 pagina’s werd besteed aan de ontdekking op Mars? Zou dan de bevolking zich niet in de ogen wrijven en blij zijn dat ze een keer echt nieuws voorgeschoteld krijgen? 

Nieuws dat zo wereldschokkend is dat vervolgens alle televisieprogrammering wordt omgegooid en er avondvullende programma’s komen waarin dieper wordt ingegaan op wat de ontdekking van buitenaards leven nu werkelijk betekent voor ons mensen. 

Misschien zouden politici wakker schrikken en zich niet langer laten kopen op de Marktplaats van de elite (Bilderberg Conferentie) en beseffen hoe fout ze bezig zijn geweest de afgelopen jaren. 

Nieuws dat echt is, geen fake, wat door iedereen kan worden aanschouwd op de door NASA gemaakte foto’s. 

En NASA zelf die eindelijk door het stof zou gaan en zich verontschuldigen voor het feit dat ze jarenlang bewijs van buitenaards leven op Mars hebben verdoezeld.

Maarja, wat kun je verwachten met een naam als deze. NASA deceives, misleidt.

Dat ze nooit meer dingen zullen wegpoetsen zoals ze in het verleden hebben gedaan en wat in het volgende deel uit een eerder artikel wordt aangetoond. 

En de moraal is dat NASA of ze het willen of niet, eindelijk buitenaards leven bekend heeft gemaakt. 

Wat als er nu een foto is van NASA uit 2013, genomen door één van de NASA rovers op Mars, waarop duidelijk een gebouw is te zien? 

Het gaat om een zwart/wit foto die is genomen op 6 september 2013 en waarop je in de verte duidelijk een soort (flat)gebouw ziet staan, achter de heuvels.

Wanneer je wat verder inzoomt, dan wordt duidelijk dat daar iets staat wat niet anders omschreven kan worden dan als een constructie, een gebouw.

Wie de originele foto wil bekijken, kan dat hier doen. Dan wordt er enkele jaren later opnieuw een foto gemaakt van hetzelfde gebied op Mars en de datum op de foto is dan 11 februari 2017. 

Dit keer is het een kleurenfoto en ziet er als volgt uit.

En wanneer we hier wat inzoomen, dan blijkt opeens het gebouw uit de foto van enkele jaren geleden te zijn verdwenen.

Wie deze originele foto wil bekijken, kan dat hier doen. Er bestaat geen enkele twijfel over de locatie en er bestaat ook geen enkele twijfel over dat er in de zwart/wit foto’s een soort gebouw is te zien. Ook in het geval het gebouw op de slooplijst heeft gestaan.... iemand heeft het dan dus gesloopt, Mars is dan bewoond en dat weet NASA dan ook.

{ http://niburu.co/ }

15-03-2019 om 20:26 geschreven door peter  

“Magnetar” sounds like it could go either way as a comic book superhero or villain but it’s actually one of the rarest kinds of celestial objects – a neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field. Only 23 have ever been discovered and only four of those are of the type whose rapidly decaying magnetic field is sending out radio waves. A distress signal? If it is, it seemed we were too late in receiving from magnetar XTE J1810–197, which suddenly stopped sending radio waves ten years ago. Now, just as unexpectedly, it’s sending them again. Should we respond?

“These bizarre objects are neutron stars possessing magnetic fields a million billion times more powerful than Earth’s field, or some 1,000 times greater that those of normal neutron stars.”

As explained in Sky & Telescope, magnetars are not something you want to approach while wearing a steel belt buckle. Actually, you may not want to get close at all. Here’s what Scientific American says will happen:

“X-ray photons readily split in two or merge. The vacuum itself is polarized, becoming strongly birefringent, like a calcite crystal. Atoms are deformed into long cylinders thinner than the quantum-relativistic de Broglie wavelength of an electron.”

Without knowing what any of those things mean, it still sounds pretty bad. However, astronomers were excited to discover XTE J1810–197 in 2004 because it was the first magnetar to have detectable radio pulsations or waves. The waves were highly variable and continued until late 2008 when they suddenly stopped. Astronomers are a patient and persistent bunch, so a group led by Lina Levin of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester kept on watching the magnetar using the Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory. After squinting into the eyepiece for ten years (figuratively, of course), Levin was rewarded for her perseverance on December 8, 2018, when she detected a pulsed radio signal at 1.52 GHz from XTE J1810–197.

After the high-fives had ended and the champagne was gone, they noticed that something had changed with XTE J1810–197.

“The pulse variations seen so far from the source have been significantly less dramatic, on timescales from hours to months, than seen in 2006.”

Artist’s depiction of a magnetar with magnetic field lines (NASA)

The magnetism of a magnetar is a mystery, although the most likely cause is its dense mass spinning at hundreds to thousands of times per second. The equally massive and mysterious radio waves seem to come from starquakes caused by movement in the magnetar’s crust that realigns its magnetic field.

So, the radio waves aren’t being sent by a dying alien race looking for a place to send their child to live and start their species anew while becoming an indestructible superhero whose arch-enemy is ironically named Magnetar … even if it would make a great movie.

For now, we have to be content with reading Levin’s new study and waiting for future observations.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

15-03-2019 om 19:43 geschreven door peter  

Octopuses are beautiful sea animals that can change their skin color and texture in order to avoid predators, sneak up on prey, and to communicate with other octopuses. But do they dream? A new video has surfaced that shows an octopus sleeping, but what’s strange is that it changes colors in a dramatic way.

Footage that’s been circulating online shows a Caribbean two-spot octopus (or Octopus hummelincki) that’s sleeping in an aquarium at Butterfly Pavilion, which is a non-profit invertebrate zoo located in Westminster, Colorado. Since the aquarium was very well lit, it was easy to see the octopus’ skin color changing from light to dark and then back again to light. Rebecca Otey, who was a science and conservation intern for the zoo, shot the video in October of 2017 before posting it to YouTube.

The beginning of the video shows the sleeping octopus as a pearly-white color, but as the nap went on, its skin turned into a dark pattern that pulsed with its breath, followed by a completely dark color that covered its entire body before slowly fading back to white. The question on everyone’s mind is “why?”

Sara Stevens, who is an aquarist with Butterfly Pavilion, told Live Science that the color changes on octopuses are caused by chromatophores which are specialized pigment cells that either expand or contract to create the colors and patterns on its body. Iridophores and leucophores are the other two types of cells which are believed to detect the colors that the octopus’ skin then turns into. Since octopuses are colorblind, these cells are very important factors in how they end up changing colors to blend into their surroundings.

“The exact processes of how they match colors is still not fully understood, though it’s being very thoroughly studied,” Stevens said, adding, “But current research suggests that the actual cells themselves can match colors.”

Since cephalopods normally alter their colors because of the conditions changing around them (like a predator approaching), why did the octopus in the video change colors while sleeping? One possibility is that it was dreaming about a threat. While research has been conducted into what goes on in the brains of cephalopods while they are asleep, it remains unclear whether they dream the same way that humans do. “It’s been hypothesized that octopus species can exhibit something very similar to REM cycles in humans – but the jury’s still out on whether they’re achieving REM sleep,” Stevens explained.

• Click here to see the incredible video of the octopus changing colors while it was asleep.

While humans only have one brain, octopuses have nine of them – one central brain in its nervous system, and the other eight are at the base of each of its arms that controls its movements. They also have tons of neurons in its body – around 500 million. Stevens also mentioned that while octopuses have great control over the color-changing cells, they may not have complete control all the time.

So, was the octopus dreaming of a predator coming to attack, or was the color change completely out of its control while it was sleeping? We may never know the answer, but it’s still very interesting to witness the remarkable features of this beautiful sea animal.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

15-03-2019 om 19:28 geschreven door peter  

Octopuses change colour while they SLEEP! Footage offers a rare glimpse of the creature's skin switching from light to dark and back as it slumbers - but is it dreaming of an enemy?

• The octopus' body is seen turning from pale white to a dark brown-green colour
• All the while it is asleep on a coral reef it seemingly matches its skin colour to 
• Octopuses have very precise control over their skin colour in response to threat
• It might be camouflaging itself during sleep because of a threat in its dreams    

By YUAN REN FOR MAILONLINE

An octopus has been seen changing the colour of its skin on its entire body from light to dark while it sleeps - and experts say it may be dreaming of a predator.

Footage shows the pale white creature pulsing as vein-like patterns emerge on its skin, becoming increasingly darker and spreading over its entire body.

Octopuses are well known for their advanced abilities to camouflage their bodies in response to threat.

One researcher believes the clip shows evidence of an octopus equivalent of REM sleep, with the marine animal responding to some imagined creature. 

In an interview with LiveScience, Sara Stevens, a specialist with Butterfly Pavilion zoo in Colorado discusses her thoughts on the footage.

'The exact processes of how they match colors is still not fully understood, though it's being very thoroughly studied, Ms Stevens said.

'Current research suggests that the actual cells themselves can match colors. But the jury's still out on whether they're achieving REM sleep.'

Octopuses can actively change their skin colour to either make themselves either invisible, or stand out, with a striking pattern depending on their surroundings. 

They have thousands of colour-changing cells called chromatophores that lie just under the surface of the skin. 

These specialised pigment cells expand and contract and push the pigment to the surface.

The creature's skin colour temporarily changes thanks to this mechanism.

This process is triggered in the wild by a changing environment or by an emerging threat. 

On top of chromatophores, two other types of cells - iridophores and leucophores - are involved in the camouflaging  process.  

Iridophores have layers of reflecting plates that create iridescent greens, blues, silvers and golds, while leucophores are cells which can detect what colours best match the animal's surrounding.

This allows octopuses to appear inconspicuous whatever their environment and change their skin tone to match their surroundings.

Given that octopuses have very precise control over the system by which their skin colour changes, it is rare for them to trigger the response while sleeping. 

In footage captured the octopus at a zoo in Colorado - looking pale white at the start of the video and changing its skin colour over a minute to match the coral reef it is lying on

Octopuses can actively change their skin colour to either make themselves invisible, or stand out with a striking pattern depending on what their environment is. They have thousands of colour-changing cells called chromatophores that lie just under the surface of the skin

These specialised pigment cells are effectively ink sacs can expand and contract and push the pigment to the surface. Through this mechanic, the creature's skin colour temporarily changes

Unlike humans, octopuses have multiple brains rather than just one central nervous system. 

Instead of being in one place, their brain cells are spread all over the body, which gives  the creature very precise control to each part of the body. 

Changing the colouration over its skill is an active process that requires the octopus to activate specific bundles of neurons,  and depends on a complex array of nerves and muscles controlling the expansion and contraction of the pigment sacs. 

But these controls may be activated while the octopus sleeps, if its unconscious mind is sensing a threat. 

One hypothesis is that it may sense threat in its sleep - it could have something to do with what the creature is dreaming about. 

It may be inconclusive, but octopuses species may also experience a dreamlike state like that achieved during REM cycles in humans.  

Butterfly Pavilion announced a naming contest for the new Octopus vulgaris (pictured), also known as the common octopus. The zoo is asking visitors to submit names to the new octopuses residing on its website.

Octopuses live for one to two years on average and adopt a unique biological defence system in the wild - ejecting a thick cloud of ink that dulls its predator's sense of smell. 

They are also known for their intelligence and even collect shells to decorate their dens knowns as octopus gardens.

Talking about the octopuses at the zoo, of which there are a few new additions from the octopus from Florida, Butterfly Pavilion aquarist Sara Stevens, said: 'People are able to relate to octopuses in a way that is unrivalled by any other invertebrate'. 

'Due to their intelligence and almost childlike way in which octopuses interact with the world, our guests seem to connect and fall in love with them very easily.

 'It's an animal that instantly creates a sense of awe and wonder, making them fun and important ambassadors for ocean conservation.'

The Butterfly Pavilion announced a naming contest for the new Octopus vulgaris, also known as the common octopus. 

The Colorado zoo is asking visitors to submit names to the new octopuses residing on its website.  

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

15-03-2019 om 19:27 geschreven door peter  

It’s a bird!
It’s a plane!
It’s … a comet!
It’s an asteroid!
It’s an alien spaceship!
Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog, it’s just little old me …
‘Oumuamua

With apologies to Superman and Underdog, ‘Oumuamua seems to be becoming the description-defying, interstellar, possibly super-powered unidentified aerial phenomena of the 21st century. “Unidentified” because the arguments over what it is have changed continuously since it was first spotted in October 2017 after it had already looped around the Sun and continue to this day as it streaks past Saturn on its estimated 10,000 year solar orbit. One new theory, presented this week in a paper published on the preprint server ArXiv, is that it may be made of the same stuff as Earth because rapidly-forming planets may be seeded by objects like ‘Oumuamua that are spewed out into space until they find a young star, settle into its cosmic dust disk and grow into a planet. A second theory to be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters suggests that the puzzling movement of Oumuamua is not a spin like a comet but a rocking motion like a pendulum.

At this point, even Superman might pause and think, “Until someone tells me what it is, I’m not touching it. Go for it, Underdog.”

“It’s not a very efficient process, but you’re starting out with so many of them that you still end up with plenty.”

Study co-author Susanne Pfalzner of Germany’s Jülich Supercomputing Center explained the theory in New Scientist. A big object like ‘Oumuamua could attract planet food faster than a ball could form randomly. Co-author Michele Bannister, an astrophysicist at Queens University Belfast, thinks it’s a little heartwarming.

“A fraction of planets could have had an ‘Oumuamua at their heart. You’re not going to have any trace of it anymore, but it’s a lovely thought.”

The second theory could explain how a cigar-shaped object like ‘Oumuamua might bump into and assimilate a lot more planetary debris than other objects because of its unusual movement. While most astronomers now agree that ‘Oumuamua is accelerating through space because it’s emitting gases, Yale astronomy professor Gregory Laughlin, an author of the study coming soon in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, told Yale News that the lack of a tail indicated this outgassing is different than a normal comet.

“In the model we’re proposing for ‘Oumuamua, the venting gas does not erupt from a single fixed point on the surface. Instead, the jets migrate along the surface, following the warmth and tracking the direction to the Sun.”

Instead of spinning like a top, ‘Oumuamua is rocking like a pendulum. This movement and other rocks like ‘Oumuamua may not be that unusual. The researchers say nearly every star in the galaxy may eject them during planet formation and they could have been passing through our solar system for a long time.

Long enough to have planted the seed that spawned the Earth? Maybe the authors of these studies need to get together and talk. Is there a Tinder for astronomers?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

15-03-2019 om 18:56 geschreven door peter  

In far more than a few cases of alien abduction, witnesses – or victims – report something very strange, but which can be found all across the planet. They have seen what they describe as a giant-sized owl staring at them. Then, there follows a typically weird and mysterious event, one in which the witness suddenly finds themselves aboard a UFO, and subjected to intrusive procedures. For some ufologists, the most obvious explanation is that the owl is a screen-memory created by the aliens, as they seek to obscure and obfuscate what really happened to the abductee. A screen-memory is one of a non-threatening nature that the mind and subconscious creates to mask and bury a frightening, stressful event. It is not at all implausible, or impossible, that a highly advanced extraterrestrial species might possess the ability to create extremely visual hallucinations in the mind of the targeted abductee, as part of a concerted effort to ensure that the truth of the matter never surfaced. The image of the eerie owl would overwhelm the reality of the situation, thus ensuring that the aliens’ desire to stay in the shadows remained intact. Make no mistake, such cases are everywhere.

Whitley Strieber is the author of what is probably the most widely recognized book on the alien abduction phenomenon: the bestselling Communion, which was published in 1987, the cover of which displays a near-hypnotic image of an alien entity. It may not be a coincidence that immediately after the first abduction experience that Strieber recalled, on December 26, 1985, his mind was filled owl-based imagery. Strieber’s sister had her own experience with an anomalous owl in the early 1960s. Strieber said, in his 1987 book, Communion, that as she drove between the Texas towns of Comfort and Kerrville, “…she was terrified to see a huge light sail down and cross the road ahead of her. A few minutes later an owl flew in front of the car. I have to wonder if that is not a screen memory, but my sister has no sense of it.”

This all brings me to something else – a creature that has become a staple part of a completely different subject: cryptozoology, which is the study and search for unknown animals, such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Or, based on what I’m about to say now, maybe they are not so unconnected, after all. In 1976 the dense trees surrounding Mawnan Old Church, Cornwall, England became a veritable magnet for a diabolical beast that was christened the Owlman. The majority of those that crossed paths with the creature asserted that it was human-like in both size and design, and possessed a pair of large wings, fiery red eyes, claws, and exuded an atmosphere of menace. No wonder people make parallels with the Mothman.of Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

It all began during the weekend of Easter 1976, when two young girls, June and Vicky Melling, had an encounter of a truly nightmarish kind in Mawnan Woods. The girls were on holiday with their parents when they saw a gigantic, feathery “bird man” hovering over the 13th Century church, Jon Downes notes in his book, The Owlman and Others. Since that fateful day, a handful of additional reports of the so-called Owlman have surfaced – collectively suggesting the presence in the area of a somewhat-Mothman-like beast of cryptozoological or supernatural proportions, or possibly a combination of both. But now, however, there is a new angle to the mystery.

In 2016, I received an email from a woman now living in the English town of Lowestoft, but who previously lived very close to Mawnan, and specifically in the small Cornwall village of Gweek, the distance between which, by car, is approximately six and a half miles. It transpires that in 1998 she had a profound UFO encounter while taking the road from Mawnan to Gweek. It was after 11:00 p.m. and the woman was driving home after visiting a friend in Mawnan. She had barely left the little village when she saw what she could only describe as a UFO, one that appeared at the side of the road – around the size of a large beach-ball and glowing bright orange. The next thing she knew, she was parked at the side of the road, with what she was able to determine was around two hours of time unaccounted for.

But there was something else: as she came out of her groggy state, she caught sight of a huge owl-like creature, but which had somewhat humanoid characteristics attached to it, too. It was hovering in the air, at a height of around fifteen feet, but was not employing the use of its wings to keep it aloft. Given the fact that this was practically on the doorstep of where the Owlman was seen back in 1976 (and since, too), the idea that the two issues are unconnected is highly unlikely. The witness admitted she knew of the Owlman legend. Living so close to Mawnan, it would be more astonishing had she not heard of it. There was little more she could tell me, beyond the facts surrounding the sighting of the curious ball of light, the period of missing time, and the appearance of a “humanoid owl,” as I term it.

This particular encounter – which has not been publicized before – set me thinking. What if the Owlman of Cornwall is not a beast of cryptozoological proportions, after all? What if, instead, it is some strange manifestation of the UFO phenomenon, one that is designed to trick the witnesses into thinking they have encountered a large owl, when, in reality, the event was of an otherworldly nature? This neatly dovetails into another aspect of the controversy and a pair of questions that are highly relative, even integral, to the theme of this article: what if the so-called alien Greys are not creating screen-memories, as a means to try and confuse them with regard to the true nature of their experiences? What if they have the ability to literally shapeshift, from the form of a black-eyed extraterrestrial into that of a large owl? And, by and large, we are talking about creatures that the witnesses suggest are usually between four- and five-feet in height.

While some of the cases, such as that 1998 incident highlighted above, do indeed smack of a screen memory, others do not. One such encounter which falls solidly into the second category involves a Scottish woman who we shall refer to as “Maxine,” who I met in 2004. She lives in the Scottish town of Inverness, which is located only a very short distance from the site of yet another famous mystery: Loch Ness, the home, of course, to long-necked Nessie. On a clear summer day in 2007, Maxine was walking her dog along the hills that overlook Loch Ness when she saw what, from her description, can only be described as an alien Grey. When she first saw it, at a distance of a couple of hundred feet, she assumed it was a young child – chiefly because of its short height. As she got closer, and as her dog froze to the spot, she could see that not only was it not a young boy: it wasn’t even human. Maxine and the Grey stared at each other for just a few seconds, after which is stretched its arms out and, in an instant, transformed into what Maxine described as an impossibly large owl: it was practically man-sized. It immediately took to the skies and headed across the loch at a fast rate. Maxine continue to watch, with astonishment, as the alien-owl thing vanished into the trees on the opposite side of the loch.

The most important aspect of Maxine’s encounter is that she is one hundred percent sure that she did not experience missing time. She does not have any vague memories of being taken aboard some kind of futuristic, alien craft. She is not plagued by graphic nightmares involving extraterrestrials. In fact, she is completely sure that what she recalls is exactly what she saw: a small, alien creature literally shapeshifting into the form of an owl. Interestingly, since her experience took place, Maxine has come up with an intriguing theory to try and explain and rationalize the situation. She now believes that the Greys have the ability to transform their physical appearances. This, she also suggests, means that the Greys can spy on us whenever, and wherever, they choose, without being noticed for what they really are. If we see an owl, a black cat, a German Shepherd dog – the list goes on – we may actually be seeing something very different: a shapeshifted E.T. using a piece of brilliant camouflage.

A similar report comes from “Gary,” of Newport Beach, California, who I spoke with in 2014 at the Joshua Tree, California-based Contact in the Desert conference. Unlike Maxine – who has experienced just one UFO-themed incident in her entire life – Gary has had numerous encounters. His, however, are not of the alien abduction type. For Gary, a manager at a Target store, his experiences have been of the Contactee variety: face to face interaction with very human-looking, long-haired aliens and a wealth of interaction and discussion of a mind, body and spirit nature.

As for Gary’s experience with an owl, it occurred out at Giant Rock, California. Close to the town of Landers, Giant Rock is where, from the 1950s to the late 1970s, a famous Contactee named George Van Tassel held yearly outdoor conferences on UFOs. Gary maintains that in November 2001 he rendezvoused at the old rock with an alien name Capsona – a blond-haired, beautiful woman, dressed in a long white gown. The two spent several hours discussing the precarious state of the human race. After which, and with the sun starting to set on the desert, Capsona told Gary to back away, which he did, to a distance of about forty feet. Capsona was suddenly bathed in a white light and was transformed into a roughly four-foot-tall, brilliantly white owl, which took to the skies and that was quickly lost from view. Again, and as with Maxine’s experience, there was no hint of a suggestion of a screen memory. Only that of an extraterrestrial with the stunning ability to shapeshift.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

15-03-2019 om 15:21 geschreven door peter  

UFO disguised as cloud captured near Mount Fuji, Japan

The amazing event apparently happened near Mount Fuji in Japan on March 10, 2019 when a flying saucer shaped cloud appeared next to the volcano.

The phenomenon probably is a lenticular cloud though it is known that UFOs hide themselves in cloud formations.

It is striking that this phenomenon has been observed near Mount Fuji known for it's many UFO sightings.

The following video shows the flying saucer shaped cloud or... could it be a UFO disguised as a cloud?

  

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

15-03-2019 om 15:12 geschreven door peter  

Streetcap1, AKA George Graham UFO researchers 1st and last ever interview on Russia TV Found, UFO Sighting News.

I was sent this video clip by a Russian UFO research this week. In it is the long lost interview of UFO researcher George Graham AKA Streetcap1. He died suddenly a few months after doing this interview with RT News. He was very proud of doing this TV interview and I'm sure he would like it to be shared with the world. 

Streetcap1 first came to be famous when I published his videos and discoveries on my UFO Sightings Daily site several years ago. Since then, he has become a legend in the area. 

I can't help but think that I did warn him not to invite the RT News agency into his home. He didn't listen, and a few months later...he died suddenly. Here is the link to our chat.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k85Oul-lL8k

So, here below is his interview video. 
This for you Streetcap1, RIP.
Scott C. Waring

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

15-03-2019 om 15:02 geschreven door peter  

Saturn Moon Is Actually Alien Space Station Camouflaged, NASA Photo, UFO Sighting News.

NASA photo: 

• https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21436
  

Date of photo: March 7, 2017

Here is an interesting find. There is a moon of Saturn that looks just like the classic flying disk. Planet Saturn has 53 moons at the moment...I say at the moment, because advances in tech make new information available daily. More may be found in coming years. 

This disk moon doesnt appear to be a moon at all, but probably a space station that orbits Saturn. Notice the Saturn ring that is attached to it? This ring is 100% proof that aliens on Saturn created this artificial moon to be a space station in orbit around the planet. Why hide it and make it appear as a natural moon? To help protect it. Aliens can calculate the odds of events happening before they happen, and apparently space is still a dangerous place, so much so that even advanced alien cultures need to hide and protect their ships, space stations, buildings and bases using camaflage to mask their existence. That would defiantly effect theodds of survival, and those are the odds they care most about. 

Look at it this way. If you were an alien species who's planet existed in the universe for the last 10-12 billion years (Earth only 4.5 billion), then your species may have existed on that planet for over a billion years. Meaning your life span may also be infinite due to your technology. Thus, only unpredictable events like accidents could end your life. You may avoid all instances where there is even a 1% chance of death, or even as low as .01% depending on the aliens preferences. Life for them is more valuable since in is much longer than our own. So they hide the best they can.

Check out Youtuber WhatsUpInTheSky37 video below. Its enlightening. 
Scott C. Waring

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

15-03-2019 om 14:52 geschreven door peter  

Trevor Nace

Contributor

This map shows the new location of the magnetic North Pole (the white star).

NOAA NCEI/CIRES

Earth's magnetic North Pole has drifted so fast that authorities have had to officially redefine the location of the magnetic North Pole. The extreme wandering of the North Pole caused increasing concerns over navigation, especially in high latitudes.

Earth's magnetic field is known to have wandered and flipped in the geologic past. Earth's magnetic field is a result of spinning molten iron and nickel 1,800 miles below the surface. As the constant flow of molten metals in the outer core changes over time, it alters the external magnetic field.

What we've seen in the past hundred years is that the location of the magnetic North Pole has moved northward. That migration of the magnetic North Pole was switched into overdrive in the past few years, causing the pole to rapidly move. The increased speed with which the magnetic North Pole has moved prompted authorities to officially update its location. The official location of the magnetic poles is specified by the World Magnetic Model, which acts as the basis for navigation, communication, GPS, etc. around the globe.

The New Location Of Earth's Magnetic North Pole

On Monday, the World Magnetic Model updated their official location of the magnetic north. The model is typically updated every five years and was last updated in 2015. However, the recent rapid movement of the magnetic north prompted scientists to update the model early. In the recent past, the magnetic North Pole has moved 34 miles a year toward Russia. Just a half-century ago, the magnetic North Pole was wandering about 7 miles each year.

Movement of Earth's magnetic pole over time

NOAA

Earth's magnetic North Pole is quickly moving from the Canadian Arctic toward Russia. The model update ensures the accuracy of work in governmental agencies around the world. Specifically, NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the U.S. Forest Service use the magnetic poles in their daily operations from mapping to air traffic control. On a more individual level, smartphones use the magnetic north for GPS location and compass apps.

Is Earth's Magnetic Field About To Flip?

While the rapid movement of Earth's magnetic North Pole may cause concern over the potential flip of magnetic poles, there is no evidence that such a flip is imminent. Geologists can interpret magnetic minerals in rocks around the world to reveal the history of magnetic reversals on Earth.

Earth's magnetic poles have flipped many times in its history, with the latest reversal occurring 780,000 years ago and 183 times in the past 83 million years. When Earth's magnetic poles do flip, it won't be a catastrophic "end of the world" scenario. From examining fossil records, there is no evidence that a magnetic field reversal causes increased extinctions, volcanic activity, etc.

However, one big issue will lie in the extensive use our technology relies on the magnetic poles. A reversal would upend navigation and communication systems around the globe. Thankfully, a pole reversal in the past typically takes thousands of years to flip. This will give us ample time to develop mitigating plans. In reality, when Earth's magnetic field does flip, who knows what planet our descendants will be living on?

{  https://www.forbes.com/ }

15-03-2019 om 01:09 geschreven door peter  

• Media via Hang et al., Sci. Robot. 4, eaau6637 (2019), Credit: Hang et al., Sci. Robot. 4, eaau6637 (2019), Yale University

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

15-03-2019 om 00:58 geschreven door peter  

The Asteroid Bennu Keeps Spinning Faster and Scientists Aren't Sure Why

By Meghan Bartels 

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft's views over asteroid Bennu's north pole, during the probe's early reconnaissance on Dec. 4, 2018.

(Image: © NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)

On a distant space rock being explored by a NASA probe, days are slowly shortening — and scientists are still trying to figure out why.

Right now, the asteroid known as Bennu is spinning once every 4.3 hours. But scientists working on NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission to the space rock have used data gathered before the probe's arrival to calculate that Bennu's rotation rate is speeding up over time — by about 1 second each century.

"As it speeds up, things ought to change, and so we're going to be looking for those things and detecting this speed up gives us some clues as to the kinds of things we should be looking for," Mike Nolan, lead author on the new research and a geophysicist at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, who is also head of the OSIRIS-REx mission's science team, said in a statement released by the American Geophysical Union, which published the new research. "We should be looking for evidence that something was different in the fairly recent past and it's conceivable things may be changing as we go."

• Related: OSIRIS-REx: NASA's Asteroid Sample-Return Mission in Pictures

The new research, despite the ties to the OSIRIS-REx mission, isn't based on measurements from that probe; instead, it looks at data collected by two ground-based telescopes between 1999 and 2005 and by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2012. That last data caught scientists' eyes because it didn't line up with predictions astronomers had calculated with the ground-based data.

"You couldn't make all three of them fit quite right," Nolan said. "That was when we came up with this idea that it had to be accelerating."

It's not an unknown phenomenon, but it is rare, and scientists only confirmed their first example of an asteroid's rotation speeding up in 2007. Even at Bennu, the observations leave the mystery of what's causing it.

One possible explanation is that material moving around on the surface of Bennu or leaving the asteroid entirely could be allowing the rotation rate to speed up. The other explanation is more complicated, the Yarkovsky–O'Keefe–Radzievskii–Paddack (YORP) effect. That effect is caused by sunlight bouncing off the asteroid and slightly tweaking the spin rate faster or slower depending on the shape of the object. For particularly weak asteroids, the YORP effect can actually tear space rocks apart.

The scientists behind the new research suspect it's the YORP effect that Bennu is experiencing. And over the course of the next two years, OSIRIS-REx will provide more data, including detailed boulder analysis and gravitational measurements. Scientists can use those observations to confirm what's going on at Bennu and pin down local YORP levels.

Those numbers can also help scientists understand the behavior of other asteroids, ones that will never see a dedicated spacecraft.

The research is described in a paper published Jan. 31 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

• Zoom! Asteroid Bennu Slips Past in OSIRIS-REx Flyby View
• Hello, Bennu! NASA Asteroid-Sampling Probe Reaches Its Target Space Rock
• NASA Will Need Your Help Mapping Asteroid Bennu

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

15-03-2019 om 00:33 geschreven door peter  

Move over Doctor Who: 'Time machine' created in Russia moves tiny particles a fraction of a second into the past

• Russian physicists have effectively achieved the same principle of time travel 
• They loosely described it as moving in the opposite direction of 'time's arrow' 
• The researchers worked with electrons in the realm of quantum mechanics
• Broken pool balls were able to re-order themselves into their original formation

By VICTORIA BELL FOR MAILONLINE

A 'time machine' that moves tiny particles a fraction of a second into the past was built in Russia, scientists have claimed.

It may not rival Dr Who's Tardis but researchers have described it as being able to move the smaller-than-atom sized objects in the opposite direction of 'time's arrow'. 

The experiments involved electrons - negatively charged particles that make up an atom - found in the realm of quantum mechanics, the study of sub-atomic particles. 

They gave the analogy of a break for a game of pool, in which the balls are substitutes for the electrons.

After the break the 'balls' are scattered in what should be a haphazard way, according to the laws of physics. 

But researchers managed to make them reform in their original triangle 'break' order - appearing as if they were turning back time - using a special quantum computer.

Scroll down for video 

A 'time machine' that moves tiny particles a fraction of a second into the past has built in Russia, scientists have claimed. The team gave the analogy of a break for a game of pool. The 'balls' scattered and should have appeared to split in a haphazard way. But researchers managed to make them reform in their original order in the snooker triangle (pictured)

Researchers, from the Laboratory of the Physics from Moscow Institute of Physics & Technology (MIPT), say that they have effectively defied the second law of thermodynamics with the experiment.

This is a rule within physics that governs the direction of events from the past to the future, stating that everything in our universe tends towards decay.

The 'time machine' is built from a basic quantum computer, which is made up of 'qubits'. 

These are units of information described by a 'one', a 'zero', or a mixed 'superposition' of both, that can be stored on an electron.

In the experiment an 'evolution program' was launched which caused the qubits to become an increasingly complex changing pattern of zeros and ones. 

During this process, order was lost - just as it is when the pool balls are struck and scattered with a cue. Another program then modified the state of the quantum computer in such a way that it evolved 'backwards', from chaos to order.

The state of the qubits was rewound back to its original starting point. 

To an outside observer, it looks as if time is running backwards, said lead researcher Dr Gordey Lesovik, who heads the laboratory of the Physics of Quantum Information.

'We have artificially created a state that evolves in a direction opposite to that of the thermodynamic arrow of time.' 

The 'time machine', described in the journal Scientific Reports consists of a rudimentary quantum computer made up of electron 'qubits'.  

In the experiment an 'evolution program' was launched which caused the qubits to become an increasingly complex changing pattern of zeros and ones. 

During this process, order was lost - just as it is when the pool balls are struck and scattered with a cue. 

Another program then modified the state of the quantum computer in such a way that it evolved 'backwards', from chaos to order. 

It may not be the Tardis, a fictional time machine that appears in Doctor Who, pictured here, but physicists have loosely described as moving in the direction of 'time's arrow'. The team worked with electrons in the realm of quantum mechanics

The state of the qubits was rewound back to its original starting point. 

The scientists found that, working with just two qubits, 'time reversal' was achieved with a success rate of 85 per cent. 

When three qubits were involved more errors occurred, resulting in a 50 per cent success rate. 

The experiment could have a practical application in the development of quantum computers, the scientists said. 

'Our algorithm could be updated and used to test programs written for quantum computers and eliminate noise and errors,' said Dr Lesovik. 

WHAT IS A QUANTUM COMPUTER AND HOW DOES IT WORK?

The key to a quantum computer is its ability to operate on the basis of a circuit not only being 'on' or 'off', but occupying a state that is both 'on' and 'off' at the same time.

While this may seem strange, it's down to the laws of quantum mechanics, which govern the behaviour of the particles which make up an atom.

At this micro scale, matter acts in ways that would be impossible at the macro scale of the universe we live in.

Quantum mechanics allows these extremely small particles to exist in multiple states, known as 'superposition', until they are either seen or interfered with.

A scanning tunneling microscope shows a quantum bit from a phosphorus atom precisely positioned in silicon. Scientists have discovered how to make the qubits 'talk to one another

A good analogy is that of a coin spinning in the air. It cannot be said to be either a 'heads' or 'tails' until it lands.

The heart of modern computing is binary code, which has served computers for decades.

While a classical computer has 'bits' made up of zeros and ones, a quantum computer has 'qubits' which can take on the value of zero or one, or even both simultaneously.   

One of the major stumbling blocks for the development of quantum computers has been demonstrating they can beat classical computers.

Google, IBM, and Intel are among companies competing to achieve this.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

14-03-2019 om 23:59 geschreven door peter  

CIA REMOTE VIEWING PROGRAM DISCOVERS ANCIENT CIVILIZATION ON MARS

DECLASSIFIED TOP SECRET REMOTE VIEWING CIA DOCUMENTS REVEAL THE DISCOVERY OF AN ANCIENT CIVILIZATION THAT ONCE INHABITED THE RED PLANET.

It’s hard to fathom the number of esoteric programs that the CIA has or is currently funding and researching. The clandestine organization has been known to explore myriad outlets for conducting its operations, ranging from sinister to strange. But often the strange ones, particularly those that become declassified because the general populace finds them too bizarre to actually be true, are the most intriguing. When certain programs come to light, it always begs to ask the question, what else are they doing that they aren’t telling us about and what else haven’t they disclosed?

During the Cold War, the CIA conducted several experimental programs involving the human psyche. MKUltra was one of the more malevolent programs aimed at mind control using drugs and other techniques for torture and interrogation purposes. One element of the program involved administering LSD surreptitiously to subjects with the goal of turning them into robot agents that they could then control. The horrific intent of the program eventually came to light and was exposed, despite an attempted cover-up and destruction of all evidence pertaining to it.

But one of the more intriguing (and humane) programs that produced some interesting results was one known as Stargate, which trained operatives in astral projection and remote viewing. These psychic abilities that allow for perception and, if you’re well-practiced, the ability for your astral body to travel anywhere, including distant planets, has cultivated striking imagery and details that often have been confirmed.

Secrets of Remote Viewing

A PSYCHIC JOURNEY TO MARS

During the Cold War, one of the members of Stargate, Joseph McMoneagle, was able to perceive details, which were later confirmed by satellite imaging, of a new type of Russian nuclear submarine being constructed, based simply on coordinates provided to him. The submarine was one of the largest ever built and when he described its magnitude to military engineers, he was scoffed at. It turned out that McMoneagle’s impression was right.

McMoneagle was one of a key group of remote viewing in CIA’s participants that focused on military targets, missing persons and occasionally attempts to see into different time periods. But those attempts were all mundane compared to an unexpected, otherworldly astral journey he would take in 1984. One day he was awoken from a nap and given a sealed envelope that couldn’t be opened until the end of a subsequent viewing session, during which his colleague dictated coordinates for him to view. Soon McMoneagle found himself astral projecting to an unfamiliar locale.

Somewhat recently, the CIA released the transcript of McMoneagle and an agent conducting the viewing. When McMoneagle went into his viewing state, he described a world inhabited by a civilization in dire shape. He described seeing an infrastructure consisting of intersecting roads, aqueducts, channels and pyramids. The transcript is interesting and describes a baffled McMoneagle who often struggles to report the ‘raw data’ his colleague consistently reminds him to stay focused on. Throughout the viewing his astonishment overtakes him leading to tangential periods, sometimes as long as 30 minutes, trying to maintain his focus.

When McMoneagle eventually reports contact with living entities his colleague tells him to initiate communication with them. He describes their situation as being in a critical state, seemingly on the brink of apocalypse. Having purportedly sent members of their civilization on a mission to find a new place to inhabit, these tall shadowed figures appear to be in a state of hibernation awaiting the return of their search party. When he asks if these entities can perceive him, they describe him as something of a hallucination. At the end of the viewing McMoneagle opened his envelope to see where he supposedly projected to – Mars, approximately 1 million years B.C.

Skeptics have written off Stargate and other programs of its ilk as diversionary tactics to steer the Soviets in the wrong direction during the Cold War. The logic being that if the U.S. could subversively convince the Soviets that they were having success in phony psychic programs, the Soviets might then waste time and resources funding similar programs. And of course, there’s no way to know if McMoneagle’s account has any validity without sending a manned mission to Mars to explore the coordinates he was viewing. This probably isn’t going to happen very soon, but McMoneagle said he’d be willing to go, though he is in his 70s.

Whatever the CIA’s original intent may be, many of the members of the Stargate program still practice remote viewing or are willing to talk about it an all seriousness. With the program now having been disclosed and that era of the Cold War being over, it seems there would be no need to continue to maintain secrecy or continue playing along. We would also be remiss to think that the Russians weren’t researching remote viewing long before the U.S. There’s even evidence that they were researching it before Stalin’s reign.

There are other declassified remote viewing CIA documents that were once deemed ‘top secret’ by the CIA, including some that resulted in accurate descriptions of secret Soviet bases on an esoteric island in the middle of the Indian Ocean and another in the middle of the Ural Mountain range. The viewer described details of the bases and their geographic locations in details that were later confirmed. Though the evidence surrounding these particular sessions is somewhat conflicting, the reports affirming the results show astonishment from agents analyzing the program at the amazing accuracy of some of these viewings. And while astral projection and remote viewing are similar in nature, but much different in their scope, the confirmation of results from the remote viewing CIA sessions increases the likelihood that astral projections could have significant accuracy.

Astral Projection and Our Place in the Universe

{ https://marketing.gaia.com/ }

14-03-2019 om 23:43 geschreven door peter  

NASA captures images of supersonic shockwaves in mid-air — and the results are stunning

BY MIHAI ANDREI 

NASA snapped unique plane-to-plane photos of supersonic shockwave interaction.

Image credits: NASA.

When Physical Scientist J.T. Heineck of NASA’s Ames Research first got hold of the long-awaited images, he was thrilled. It was the product of 10 years’ worth of technical development, a long-term project which culminated with the high-quality imagery of shockwaves — areas of rapid pressure changes produced when an aircraft goes supersonic (flies faster than the speed of sound).

Shockwaves produced by aircraft merge together as they travel through the atmosphere. These shockwaves can also propagate to the ground, where they can be heard as a sonic boom.

“I am ecstatic about how these images turned out,” said Heineck. “With this upgraded system, we have, by an order of magnitude, improved both the speed and quality of our imagery from previous research.”

“We never dreamt that it would be this clear, this beautiful,” he added.

Image credits: NASA.

Supersonic travel means that an object exceeds the speed of sound — and, as it passes that speed limit, it ‘breaks the sound barrier’ i.e. produces shock waves. Normally, as an airplane is flying, it pushes its way through the air, pushing molecules in the atmosphere. However, at the speed of sound, the molecules just can’t get away from the plane fast enough — they can only move as fast as sound — and therefore begin to compress, increasing the pressure at the front of the plane.

This increased pressure acts like a barrier on the plane. When the plane accelerates beyond the speed of sound, it bursts through this barrier, causing a rapid change in pressure, producing a shockwave. These shock waves are not conventional sound waves, having different physical properties, and producing a loud “crack” or “snap” noise.

Taking this type of image, where shockwaves are interacting, is extremely challenging. You need two T-38 planes flying at supersonic speeds approximately 30 feet (9 meters) away from each other, as well as another one close by, with a specialized camera capable of operating under these extreme conditions.

“We’re looking at a supersonic flow, which is why we’re getting these shockwaves,” said Neal Smith, a research engineer with AerospaceComputing Inc. at NASA Ames’ fluid mechanics laboratory.

“What’s interesting is, if you look at the rear T-38, you see these shocks kind of interact in a curve,” he said. “This is because the trailing T-38 is flying in the wake of the leading aircraft, so the shocks are going to be shaped differently. This data is really going to help us advance our understanding of how these shocks interact.”

A visual concept presenting the Lockheed X-59.

Image credits: NASA.

The results provide more than just a few pretty pictures — they will allow researchers to better understand how these shockwaves interact with the planes and with each other, ultimately enabling NASA to better understand some of the finer aspects of supersonic flight, which is particularly important for the X-59 — an experimental supersonic aircraft being developed by Lockheed for NASA’s Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator program.

µ

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

14-03-2019 om 23:28 geschreven door peter  

Ruimtetelescoop Hubble maakt haarscherpe foto van botsende sterrenstelsels - HLN.be

De stelsels, die in astronomische kringen bekendstaan onder de gezamenlijke naam NGC 6052, staan zo’n 230 miljoen lichtjaar van de aarde in het sterrenbeeld Hercules. Ontdekker William Herschel (1738-1822) dacht onterecht dat het om één enkel sterrenstelsel ging. 
“Lang geleden trok de zwaartekracht de twee sterrenstelsel naar elkaar toe en bracht ze in de chaotische toestand die we nu waarnemen”, schrijft ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA op haar website. “De sterren van de oorspronkelijke stelsel volgen nu nieuwe banen, die worden veroorzaakt door de effecten van de zwaartekracht.”

Vooral lege ruimte

NASA laat weten dat de chaos in NGC 6052 nauwelijks tot problemen leidt. “Botsingen tussen sterren zelf zijn zeer zeldzaam, omdat sterren in verhouding tot de afstanden tussen hen erg klein zijn. Het grootste deel van een sterrenstelsel is lege ruimte.” Uiteindelijk zullen beide stelsels compleet samenvloeien tot een stabiel systeem.

De ruimtevaartorganisatie meldt ook dat ons melkwegstelsel te langen leste in botsing zal komen met het Andromeda stelsel. Wie zich afvraagt of ze dat nog bij leven zullen meemaken, stelt NASA gerust. Het duurt nog zeker nog vier miljard jaar voordat dat gebeurt. 

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

14-03-2019 om 22:21 geschreven door peter  

Wetenschappers vinden sporen van krachtigste zonnestorm ooit: “Nieuwe uitbarsting kan moderne technologie helemaal verstoren” - HLN.be

Bron: USA Today, National Geographic

Astronomen waarschuwden vorig jaar in een rapport van persbureau Bloomberg voor onze overmatige afhankelijkheid van satellietgegevens, die kan verstoord worden door een zogenaamde zonnestorm. Zelfs de Deense Saxobank voorspelde dat dit jaar een verhoogde zonneactiviteit zware schade zou kunnen aanrichten aan satellieten, telecommunicatie en stroomnetten. Maar zover zijn we gelukkig nog niet.

Wat is een zonnestorm eigenlijk? En hoe ontstaat die?

De zon produceert regelmatig zonnevlammen en plasmawolken, en slingert daarbij magnetische velden en allerlei geladen deeltjes de ruimte in. Meestal merken we weinig van deze zonnestormen, behalve door het kleurrijke Noorderlicht rond de polen, veroorzaakt door geladen deeltjes die botsen met de bovenste atmosfeer.

Vaak zijn de zonnevlammen en plasmawolken niet op de aarde gericht. En zelfs als dat wel het geval is, hebben we altijd het beschermende aardmagnetisch veld nog. Maar dat aardmagnetisch veld kan ons niet beschermen tegen ‘een perfecte zonnestorm‘: een samenloop van omstandigheden die leidt tot extreem, op de aarde gericht, ruimteweer. En dat zeldzame fenomeen zou dus ook GPS-systemen, communicatiemiddelen en zelfs de elektriciteit kunnen verstoren.

Zo vond in 1859 zo’n merkwaardige gebeurtenis plaats: de zon zorgde ervoor dat de telegraafverbinding tussen Europa en Amerika door kortsluiting uitviel. Die storm werd de ‘Carrington-gebeurtenis’ genoemd. Het noorderlicht kon zelfs tot in het huidige Cuba en Hawaii worden waargenomen.

Zes miljoen mensen zonder stroom

In 1989 zorgde een plasmawolk ervoor dat een elektriciteitsnetwerk in Canada werd uitgeschakeld waardoor zes miljoen mensen meer dan negen uur zonder stroom zaten. En in 2003 werd de stroom in het Zweedse Malmö een uur onderbroken door een zonnestorm. Datzelfde jaar moesten de astronauten in het internationaal ruimtestation ISS zich beschermen tegen de verhoogde stralingsniveaus.

Volgens een nieuwe studie zou zich in 660 voor Christus een zonnestorm hebben voorgedaan die nog tien keer krachtiger was dan de ‘Carrington-gebeurtenis’ van 1859. De onderzoekers konden de sporen van die zonnestorm achterhalen in ijskernen op Groenland die al 100.000 jaar oud zijn. “Als die zonnestorm nu zou plaatsvinden, zou hij zware effecten op onze hoogtechnologische samenleving, navigatiesystemen, ruimtevaart en luchtvaart kunnen hebben”, aldus Raimund Muscheler, professor geologie aan de universiteit van Lund.

Nog twee andere zonnestormen

Er zouden ook in 775 en 994 na Christus nog twee andere gigantische zonnestormen hebben plaatsgevonden. Die werden ontdekt in zowel ijsringen als groeiringen van bomen. Volgens Muscheler is er dan ook nood aan een grotere bewustwording van de mogelijkheid van zeer zware zonnestormen, en van de kwetsbaarheid van onze samenleving.

De conclusies van Muscheler en zijn team verschenen in het wetenschapsblad Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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14-03-2019 om 22:16 geschreven door peter