Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 10 MONTHS.
ON 06/04/2024 MORE THAN 1.951.050
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
26-11-2019
6,800-YEAR-OLD RITUAL SITE THREE TIMES BIGGER THAN STONEHENGE'S SARSEN CIRCLE DISCOVERED
6,800-YEAR-OLD RITUAL SITE THREE TIMES BIGGER THAN STONEHENGE'S SARSEN CIRCLE DISCOVERED
A huge ancient ritual site dating back over 6,800 years has been discovered in Poland. It is believed to have been used by neolithic people for between 200 and 250 years, with new features added every few dozen years, archaeologists have said.
The circular structure is 360 feet in diameter, which is over three times the size of the inner Sarsen Circle at Stonehenge and roughly the same size as the monument's outer ditch.
The structure, which has been called a "roundel" because of its circular shape, was first spotted in 2017. Since then archaeologists have been working at the site to understand its significance. In an article on PAP, a website run by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education Website, researchers have announced radiocarbon dating indicates the site was built before 4,800 B.C.
The roundel is located in the village of Nowe Objezierze, about 50 miles east of Berlin, Germany. It consists of a central area surrounded by three gates that lead to the interior. It then has four ditches circling it. Each ditch is larger and deeper than the last, and it appears they were dug at relatively regular intervals, with a new one being added every few dozen years. The ditches were about 4 to 6.5 feet deep.
Other similar circular enclosures dating to between 4,850 B.C. and 4,600 B.C. are found in a fairly limited area of Europe, including around the River Danube. These are generally thought to have had a ritual purpose and served as some sort of astronomical calendar.
Discussing the new roundel in Poland, project leader Lech Czerniak, from the University of Gdańsk, told PAP: "This is quite sensational, given the fact that it coincides with the dating of structures located on the Danube, considered the oldest. It seems equally important that the four ditches surrounding the central area of the structure probably did not function simultaneously, but every few dozen years, a new ditch with an ever larger diameter was dug.
"The primary focus of the project are questions about the social aspects of the functioning operation of roundels, including what prompted the inhabitants of a given region to make a huge effort in building and maintaining the roundel, where the idea and knowledge necessary to build this object came from, and how often and for how long the object was used."
As well as dating the roundel, archaeologists also excavated the area and found hundreds of bones, ceramics, stone and flint artifacts and shells and dye. The bones are now being analyzed by experts and the team hopes to find out more about the communities that used the structure for worship. It is thought that like the other circular enclosures, the Roundel was used as a “ritual calendar.”
“It is worth realizing that many so-called pre-literate communities celebrated the most important holidays once in a few, or even a dozen or so years, but very intensely,” Czerniak said.
Stock image of Stonehenge. The newly discovered roundel in Poland is thought to have served a similar function to this famous neolithic ritual site.ISTOCK
A huge ancient ritual site dating back over 6,800 years has been discovered in Poland. It is believed to have been used by neolithic people for between 200 and 250 years, with new features added every few dozen years, archaeologists have said.
The circular structure is 360 feet in diameter, which is over three times the size of the inner Sarsen Circle at Stonehenge and roughly the same size as the monument's outer ditch.
The structure, which has been called a "roundel" because of its circular shape, was first spotted in 2017. Since then archaeologists have been working at the site to understand its significance. In an article on PAP, a website run by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education Website, researchers have announced radiocarbon dating indicates the site was built before 4,800 B.C.
The roundel is located in the village of Nowe Objezierze, about 50 miles east of Berlin, Germany.It consists of a central area surrounded by three gates that lead to the interior. It then has four ditches circling it. Each ditch is larger and deeper than the last, and it appears they were dug at relatively regular intervals, with a new one being added every few dozen years. The ditches were about 4 to 6.5 feet deep.
Other similar circular enclosures dating to between 4,850 B.C. and 4,600 B.C. are found in a fairly limited area of Europe, including around the River Danube.These are generally thought to have had a ritual purpose and served as some sort of astronomical calendar.
Discussing the new roundel in Poland, project leader Lech Czerniak, from the University of Gdańsk, told PAP: "This is quite sensational, given the fact thatit coincides with the dating of structures located on the Danube, considered the oldest. It seems equally important that the four ditches surrounding the central area of the structure probably did not function simultaneously, but every few dozen years, a new ditch with an ever larger diameter was dug.
"The primary focus of the project are questions about the social aspects of the functioning operation of roundels, including what prompted the inhabitants of a given region to make a huge effort in building and maintaining the roundel, where the idea and knowledge necessary to build this object came from, and how often and for how long the object was used."
As well as dating the roundel, archaeologists also excavated the area andfound hundreds of bones, ceramics, stone and flint artifacts and shells and dye. The bones are now being analyzed by experts and the team hopes to find out more about the communities that used the structure for worship. It is thought that like the other circular enclosures, the Roundel was used as a "ritual calendar."
"It is worth realizing that many so-called pre-literate communities celebrated the most important holidays once in a few, or even a dozen or so years, but very intensely," Czerniak said.
While the great unwashed Facebook hordes were storming Area 51 in Nevada, something equally strange transpired over Minnesota in an area known locally as “Spot 51”. Friday, September 20th, Todd Mitchell, owner of Country Campground in Detroit Lakes, MN, ran his 24-hour security video camera just like any other evening. But this night he wondered if it might document something more exciting than camper arrivals, perhaps some dramatic lightning strikes from an incoming thunderstorm. What he didn’t know was he had recorded something even more extraordinary.
Later when Mitchell reviewed his footage, he forgot all about the lightning when he noticed what appeared to be a fuzzy, black object flitting erratically among the storm clouds, trailing what could be easily mistaken for dark fumes behind it. To the viewer’s eye, it sure looks like a skybound smoke monster, repeatedly performing feats of aerial acrobatics before it vanishes into thin air. Or perhaps it’s an alien spaceship suffering the effects of a faulty exhaust system. Or maybe someone just let the air out of one prime specimen of Charles Fort’s normally invisible sky jellyfish. Any of those options qualify the strange object as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).
Mitchell provided the footage to his TV news station, noting that on a local map, the Detroit Lakes Chamber of Commerce identifies Country Campground as “Spot 51”. The video combined with that revelation resulted in yucks and ample banter at the end of WDAY’s Sept. 25th evening news broadcast. But at least they didn’t play the X-Files theme music.
Looks like I spoke too soon! They saved the X-Files theme music for the second report. To their credit, the TV crew visited the scene, interviewed Mitchell, and even delved into the county’s UFO-related history.
Some may propose that the object Mitchell captured is merely a bug on the lens or some other equally pedestrian explanation. I contacted witness Todd Mitchell and he provided a link to three video clips, which he has uploaded to YouTube for your examination.
Mitchell acknowledges that some of the office to the back of the camera is reflected by the double pane window he shoots the video through. He identifies the small lights to the left and the center of the screen as the reflection of his “Dish Network rack system”. To the far right side, there is additional room reflection.
In Part 1, the video seemed perfectly normal until Mitchell drew my attention, about 10 seconds in, to a tiny, barely perceivable black dot off to the right of the screen, in the part of the sky just above a small tree. The dot moves slowly upward in a more-or-less straight line. Of all three of the objects appearing in these video clips, this one most clearly seems to demonstrate the crawling movement of a bug. It traverses the screen smoothly, seemingly unaffected by wind shear or changes in sky composition, as if creeping across a perfectly flat surface.
In Part 2, we see much more erratic moment, that is also consistent with bugs flying close to the lens. However, the smokey trailing effect following the movement is interesting, but may just indicate video blurring caused by extreme speed.
Part 3, is the most curious because at the last moment some commenters point out that the object seems to weave through a cloud.
When I asked Mitchell if he had ever experienced anything strange or paranormal before his response was, “Oh, heck, no!” “There’s a lot of things that you can generally explain or guess at. But for this I have no guesses,” he says.
When Mitchell’s footage went public, a Native American man stopped by the campground for a visit. He came to share with Mitchell the possibility that perhaps the mysterious sky dweller Mitchell captured on video was a sacred Thunder Being — a bringer of life, a protector of humanity, and an important part of the man’s native heritage. Mitchell intends to review past footage to see if there is any correlation between thunderstorms and the appearance of the strange objects. If there is some relationship to thunderstorms, perhaps that will help explain the similarities between Mitchell’s footage and another strange object spotted in Nebraska during a thunderstorm in 2015.
So what’s your take, is this simply the work of displaced insects attracted to the lights of the campground or could it be something far stranger?
Henry Lee was someone whose diligent research in the 19th century uncovered numerous tales of sea serpents and over-sized creatures of the oceans. He spent some of his time addressing one of the most controversial of all aspects of this phenomenon. Namely, the disturbing issue of people being attacked – maybe even killed – by creatures of the sea. Of this particular issue, Lee said: “I have often been asked whether an octopus of the ordinary size can really be dangerous to bathers. Decidedly, ‘Yes,’ in certain situations. The holding power of its numerous suckers is enormous. It is almost impossible forcibly to detach it from its adhesion to a rock or the flat bottom of a tank; and if a large one happened to fix one or more of its strong, tough arms on the leg of a swimmer whilst the others held firmly to a rock, I doubt if the man could disengage himself under water by mere strength, before being exhausted. Fortunately the octopus can be made to relax its hold by grasping it tightly round the ‘throat’ (if I may so call it), and it may be well that this should be known.”
Lee continued with his position on all of this: “That men are occasionally drowned by these creatures is, unhappily, a fact too well attested. I have elsewhere related several instances of this having occurred. Omitting those, I will give two or three others which have since come under my notice. Sir Grenville Temple, in his ‘Excursions in the Mediterranean Sea,’ tells how a Sardinian captain, whilst bathing at Jerbeh, was seized and drowned by an octopus. When his body was found, his limbs were bound together by the arms of the animal; and this took place in water only four feet deep.”
Lee was not done; indeed, his files were voluminous: “Mr. J. K. Lord’s account of the formidable strength of these creatures in Oregon is confirmed by an incident recorded in the Weekly Oregonian (the principal paper of Oregon) of October 6th, 1877. A few days before that date an Indian woman, whilst bathing, was held beneath the surface by an octopus, and drowned. The body was discovered on the following day in the horrid embrace of the creature. Indians dived down and with their knives severed the arms of the octopus and recovered the corpse.
Lee cited the work of Clemens Laming, the author of a book titled The French in Algiers. In its pages, as Lee learned, was a case that could have resulted in overwhelming tragedy. Thankfully, it didn’t quite get to that point: “The soldiers were in the habit of bathing in the sea every evening, and from time to time several of them disappeared–no one knew how. Bathing was, in consequence, strictly forbidden; in spite of which several men went into the water one evening. Suddenly one of them screamed for help, and when several others rushed to his assistance they found that an octopus had seized him by the leg by four of its arms whilst it clung to the rock with the rest. The soldiers brought the ‘monster’ home with them, and out of revenge they boiled it alive and ate it. This adventure accounted for the disappearance of the other soldiers [italics mine].”
Lee was hardly done: “The Rev. W. Wyatt Gill, who for more than a quarter of a century has resided as a missionary amongst the inhabitants of the Hervey Islands, and with whom I had the pleasure of conversing on this subject when he was in England in 1875, described in the Leisure Hour of April 20th, 1872, another mode of attack by which an octopus might deprive a man of life. A servant of his went diving for ‘poulpes’ (octopods), leaving his son in charge of the canoe. After a short time he rose to the surface, his arms free, but his nostrils and mouth completely covered by a large octopus. If his son had not promptly torn the living plaister from off his face he must have been suffocated – a fate which actually befell some years previously a man who foolishly went diving alone [italics mine].”
“In Appleton’s American Journal of Science and Art, January 31st, 1874,” said Lee, “a correspondent describes an attack by an octopus on a diver who was at work on the wreck of a sunken steamer off the coast of Florida. The man, a powerful Irishman, was helpless in its grasp, and would have been drowned if he had not been quickly brought to the surface; for when dragged on to the raft from which he had descended, he fainted, and his companions were unable to pull the creature from its hold upon him until they had dealt it a sharp blow across its baggy body. A similar incident occurred to the government diver of the colony of Victoria, Australia. Whilst pursuing his avocation in the estuary of the river Moyne he was seized by an octopus. He killed it by striking it with an iron bar, and brought to shore with him a portion of it with the arms more than three feet long.”
There is a lesson to be learned here. Be very careful when you go swimming in our oceans and seas: you may not be aware of what lurks below you, just ready to strike. Perhaps, fatally so.
Near-Death Experience - Being at the edge of the Afterlife
Near-Death Experience - Being at the edge of the Afterlife
Today, we know much more about what happens to people when they die - and what we are learning does not support materialism. Even medical scientists take near-death-experiences seriously now.
The doorway or barrier is a common event in a typical NDE. The experiencer instinctively knows that to pass through the door or barrier means they would not come back to their life.
In the next video a brief NDE experience told by Paul Swain on what it was like to be at the edge of the afterlife.
Then, in a continuing interesting discussion, Robert J. Marks and Walter Bradley, after whom the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence is named, looked at near-death experiences (NDEs) which I recommend you to read the in-depth article (including excerpts, podcast, video and additional information on NDEs) at Mindmatters.ai
Driver Stuck in Traffic Captures a Video of Strange Rotating Disc in NC
Driver Stuck in Traffic Captures a Video of Strange Rotating Disc in NC
Experts logged eleven UFO sightings last month in North Carolina. However, if you include a lesser-known report made close to Shelby, approximately 50 miles west of Charlotte, it is an even dozen.
The potential sighting has surfaced publicly after a video showing a disc-like object appeared on YouTube. The UFO on the video remained stationary for several minutes before disappearing over Cleveland County.
According to the witness, the video was recorded in the morning rush hour on 25th of October. The footage requested viewers to offer ideas on what the mysterious thing might have been.
Aaron Bostic, 33, said that he was stuck in traffic on U.S. 74 in Shelby when a diamond-shaped object came into his view glowing brightly against a cloudy sky. He observed the object was somewhat rotating. He added that it stuck out like a sore thumb.
Initially, he thought it was a plane landing at Charlotte Douglas Airport or a big stunt drone but later wondered as it stayed in the same spot for around two minutes.
He showed the video to his co-workers, but nobody knew what it could have been. He added that the UFO did not have the flashing lights of a helicopter and no right contours to be a blimp.
Several Residents Have Witnessed a UFO in the Dubai Sky
Several Residents Have Witnessed a UFO in the Dubai Sky
UAE residents who happened to be outdoors shared clips online, showing a glowing object that flew over Al Khalil Road on Wednesday night.
According to the report, a single UFO appeared for a short time at around 7:45 pm over the skies of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Astronomer Ebrahim Al Jarwan said that this was the second reported sighting within the month.
Al Jarwan, who works at Sharjah Planetarium as a general supervisor, stated that they have also been investigating the strange incident.
Indian expatriate Shiny Shajudheen and daughter Ashley spotted the UFO in the sky from Al Khail Gate in Al Quoz at around 7:50 pm.
According to Mr Shajudheen, he was driving within their community, and his daughter first saw the strange fireball. He then pulled over and took a video.
Before hitting the record button, he saw two trails of flares crisscrossing each other. The video only shows both of them swirling while slowing going down.
He said that it was an impressive sight, but they felt scared as they could not understand what they had witnessed.
Unearthly greens and yellows color the scorching-hot landscape surrounding the Dallol volcano in northern Ethiopia. This alien-like world is filled with hydrothermal pools that are some of the most extreme environments on the planet — and some of them seem to be completely devoid of life, according to a new study.
Different life-forms on our planet have adapted to survive under some pretty harsh conditions, places that are superhot, superacidic or supersalty, to name a few, said study senior author Purificación López-García, the research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
But can life survive in a single environment that combines all three conditions, such as in the colorful waters of the Dallol hydrothermal region?
To figure out if this extreme environment oversteps the limits for life on our planet, the researchers sampled a number of brines— or pools of water with high concentrations of salt — in the area. Some were extremely hot, salty and acidic, while others were still very hot and salty but weren't too acidic or basic. The scientists analyzed all the genetic material found in the samples to identify any organisms living there.
Some of the milder pools were chock-full of sodium chloride, a condition that some tiny organisms can withstand; the more extreme environments had high concentrations of magnesium-based salt, which is "deleterious for life," because magnesium breaks down the cell membrane, López-García said.
In these most extreme environments, that were really acidic, hot and contained magnesium salts, the researchers found no DNA and thus no trace of a living organism, the study said. The scientists did detect a small hint of DNA from single-celled organisms called archaea if they "forced the conditions" in those samples, López-García said. That means they took the sample and kept amplifying the DNA — imagine zooming into a picture — to see if there was a very small quantity that they'd missed. But the researchers hypothesized that this small amount of DNA is likely the result of contamination from a neighboring salt plain, brought from people who visit the area or wind.
On the other hand, in the less extreme ponds, the researchers found a large diversity of microbes, again mostly archaea. "The diversity of archaea is really very, very large and very surprising," López-García said. Researchers found some archaea that are well known to live in areas of high salt concentration and some that the scientists had no idea could survive in even the relatively less-salty ponds.
Their findings suggest that there is a gradient of extreme environments, some of which harbor life and others that don't and might serve as a bit of a caution in the search for life elsewhere in the cosmos, she added. "There is this idea … that says any planet with liquid water on the surface is habitable," she said. But as the lifeless pools of Ethiopia may suggest, water "might be a necessary condition, but it is far from sufficient."
What's more, using electron microscopes, the researchers also detected the presence of biomorphs or "mineral precipitates that can mimic tiny cells" in samples taken from both the lifeless pools and those found to harbor life, López-García said. "If you go to Mars or to fossil environments and you see little, rounded things, you might be tempted to say that these are microfossils, but they might not be."
Proving that life doesn't exist
There were some weaknesses in this study, John Hallsworth, a lecturer at The Institute for Global Food Security at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland wrote in an accompanying commentary published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. For example, the researchers' DNA analysis couldn't determine if the detected organisms were alive or active, and it's unclear if their measurements of the water factors such as pH were done accurately, he wrote.
Even so, the team "managed to characterize the geochemistry and microbial diversity of a large number of brines that span a wide range of physicochemical conditions, revealing the extensive diversity of the archaeal communities present," Hallsworth wrote.
What's more, a couple of months ago, another group of researchers came up with the opposite conclusion after they, too, sampled the waters in the Dallol area. In the most extreme ponds of the area, those researchers found that archaea were "thriving," and various types of analysis suggested that these microorganisms didn't originate from any type of contamination, said Felipe Gómez, a biochemist at Spain's Center of Astrobiology and the lead author of that study, which was published in May in the journal Scientific Reports.
"Given the risk of detecting any type of contamination, microbiologists that work in extreme environments take many precautions to avoid it," he said. "In our work, we sampled in completely aseptic conditions," or those free from contamination. It's unclear why there is a discrepancy between the studies, and though "they claim that they do not see what we report," that doesn't mean the older findings are incorrect, he said. "More work needs to be done."
But this older paper is "weak" because the researchers only found traces of one type of archaea that's similar to archaea living in the neighboring salt plain, and didn't do enough to prevent contamination, López-García said.
"Dispersal is active in the area," so this trace of archaea could have been carried in by the wind or tourists, similar to how her team also discovered traces of archaea but hypothesized that they were contaminants from the neighboring salt plain, she said.
A bright fireball meteor streaked across the night sky above Missouri Monday (Nov. 11), passing over St. Louis' iconic Gateway Arch.
The giant flash of light came from a meteor traveling east to west across the state. It was seen over Missouri around 8:52 p.m. local time (0252 GMT), according to the American Meteor Society (AMS). The meteor was clearly visible in this stunning video from EarthCam's St. Louis location. You can see here on YouTube.
More than 120 sightings were reported to AMS. Reports came from multiple cities in Missouri, including St. Louis and Columbia, which are approximately 125 miles (200 kilometers) apart. The meteor is believed to have ended its flight somewhere near Wellsville, Missouri, according to AMS.
While the meteor was mostly seen in Missouri, observations were also reported from Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Nevada, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. In addition to seeing a bright flash of light, many people also reported hearing a loud boom as the meteor streaked across the sky.
This video from AMS includes several views of the meteor that were captured by smart home security cameras in the area. The video also contains footage from EarthCam's St. Louis camera, which spotted the meteor passing behind the Gateway Arch monument, according to the statement from AMS.
NWS St. Louis✔@NWSStLouis
Great video of a meteor this evening! Video courtesy of Tom Stolze! Awesome catch Tom!
The National Weather Service in St. Louis also shared a video of the meteor on Twitter and stated that it was unknown whether or not it touched down on Earth.
The sighting coincides with the peak of the Taurid meteor shower, which is known for its spectacular fireballs. The Taurid meteor shower is one of the year's longest, running from Oct. 20 to Nov. 30. The Taurids are most active during a one-week time frame extending from Nov. 5 through Nov. 12.
The centers of massive galaxy clusters are super hot (red), while bright structures show diffuse gas from the intergalactic medium shock heating at the boundary between cosmic voids and filaments.
The formation of galaxies is a complex dance between matter and energy, occurring on a stage of cosmic proportions and spanning billions of years. How the diversity of structured and dynamic galaxies we observe today arose from the fiery chaos of the Big Bang remains one of the most difficult unsolved puzzles of cosmology.
In search of answers, an international team of scientists has created the most detailed large-scale model of the universe to date, a simulation they call TNG50. Their virtual universe, some 230 million light-years wide, contains tens of thousands of evolving galaxies with levels of detail previously seen only in single-galaxy models. The simulation tracked more than 20 billion particles representing dark matter, gases, stars and supermassive black holes, over a 13.8-billion-year period.
The unprecedented resolution and scale allowed the researchers to gather key insights into our own universe's past, revealing how various oddly shaped galaxies morphed themselves into being and how stellar explosions and black holes triggered this galactic evolution. Their results are published in two articles to be featured in the December 2019 issue of the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
TNG50 is the latest simulation created by the IllustrisTNG Project, which aims to build a complete picture of how our universe evolved since the Big Bang by producing a large-scale universe without sacrificing the fine details of individual galaxies.
"These simulations are huge datasets where we can learn a ton by dissecting and understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies within them," said Paul Torrey, associate professor of physics at the University of Florida and co-author of the study. "What's fundamentally new about TNG50, is that you're getting to a sufficiently high mass and spatial resolution within the galaxies that give you a clear picture of what the internal structure of the systems looks like as they form and evolve."
The model's attention to detail comes at some cost. The simulation required 16,000 processor cores of the Hazel Hen supercomputer in Stuttgart, Germany, running continuously for more than a year. The same calculation would take a single processor system 15,000 years to compute. Despite being one of the most computationally heavy astrophysical simulations in history, the researchers believe their investment has paid off.
"Numerical experiments of this kind are particularly successful when you get out more than you put in," Dylan Nelson, a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Munich, Germany, and co-author of the study, said in a statement. "In our simulation, we see phenomena that had not been programmed explicitly into the simulation code. These phenomena emerge in a natural fashion, from the complex interplay of the basic physical ingredients of our model universe."
The violent simulated birth of a galaxy cluster where dark matter structures (in white) merge together while supermassive blackholes and supernovae expel cosmic gas away (gas motion is shown in red). (Image credit: TNG Collaboration)
That emergent phenomenon might be essential to understanding why our universe appears as it is today 13.8 billion years after the Big Bang. TNG50 allowed researchers to see firsthand how galaxies may have emerged from the turbulent clouds of gas present shortly after the universe was born. They discovered that the disk-shaped galaxies common to our cosmic neighborhood naturally emerged within their simulation and produced internal structures, including spiral arms, bulges and bars extending from their central supermassive black holes. When they compared their computer-generated universe to real-life observations, they found their population of galaxies were qualitatively consistent with reality.
As their galaxies continued to flatten into well-ordered rotating disks, another phenomenon began to emerge. Supernova explosions and supermassive black holes at the heart of each galaxy created high-speed outflows of gas. These outflows morphed into fountains of gas rising thousands of light-years above a galaxy. The tug of gravity eventually brought much of this gas back unto the galaxy's disk, redistributing it to its outer edge and creating a feedback loop of gas outflow and inflow. Apart from recycling the ingredients for forming new stars, the outflows were also shown to change their galaxy's structure. The recycled gases accelerated the transformation of galaxies into thin rotating disks.
Despite these initial findings, the team is far from finished dissecting their model. They also plan to release all of the simulation's data publicly for astronomers across the world to study their virtual cosmos.
"There's a huge road ahead of us now that we have these simulations completed," Torrey said. "A whole team of researchers are working to better understand the detailed properties of the galaxies that form and what emergent trends show up in that data."
Is our fundamental reality continuous or is it chopped up into tiny, discrete bits?
Asked another way, is space-time smooth or chunky? The question cuts to the heart of the most fundamental theories of physics, linking together the way space and time intersect with the material of our everyday existence.
However, experimentally testing the nature of space and time has been impossible, because of the extreme energies needed to probe such tiny scales in the universe. That is — until now. A team of astronomers has proposed an ambitious new plan to use a fleet of tiny spacecraft to detect subtle changes in the speed of light, a hallmark of some of the most mind-bending theories of the cosmos. If space and time are indeed broken up into little bits, the research could pave the way for a completely new understanding of reality.
In general relativity, space and time are woven together into the unified fabric of space-time, the four-dimensional stage that underpins our universe. This space-time is continuous, which means that there are no gaps anywhere; it's all a smooth texture. Space-time isn't just a platform for us to act our parts, however; it's also a player too: The bending and warping of space-time gives us our experience of gravity.
In the opposite corner, a set of rules called quantum mechanics governs the interactions of the very tiny things in the universe. Quantum mechanics rests on the idea that not much of our everyday experience is smooth and continuous, but chunky. In other words, it's quantized. Energy, momentum, spin and so many other properties of matter come in only discrete little packets.
What's more, quantum mechanics itself also splits itself into two camps. On one hand, we have the familiar particles of our everyday existence, such as electrons and protons, that interact and do other interesting things. These are obviously very chunky, as they're discrete "things." On the other hand, we have the quantum fields. In the subatomic world, each kind of particle has its own field that spreads throughout space-time; when we think of particles, we think of little vibrations in their fields, which in turn interact with other particles, and do some other interesting things. The fields are understandably very smooth.
Bits of time and space
So, we have some smooth pictures of our universe and some chunky ones. When it comes to space-time itself, we can easily imagine extending the concepts of quantum mechanics all the way to their logical conclusion, and ruling that space and time are discrete: The very fabric of reality is divided up like pixels on a computer screen, and what we experience as smooth, continuous movement is nothing but a grid of discrete pixels at the tiniest of scales.
Many theories of merging together quantum mechanics and general relativity, like string theory and loop quantum gravity, predict some form of discrete space-time (although the precise predictions, interpretations and implications of that chunkiness are still poorly understood). If we could find evidence for discrete space-time, it would not only completely rewrite our understanding of reality, but also open the door to a revolution in physics.
This discreteness can reveal itself only in the most subtle ways; otherwise we would've spotted it by now. Various theories have predicted that if space-time were indeed chunky, then the speed of light may not be entirely constant — it may shift ever so slightly depending on the energy of that light. Higher energy light has a shorter wavelength, and when the wavelength becomes small enough, it can "see" the chunkiness of spacetime. Imagine walking down sidewalk: with big feet you don't notice any small cracks or bumps, but if you had microscopic feet you would trip over every little imperfection, slowing you down. But this shift is incredibly tiny; if space-time is discrete, it's on a scale more than a billion times smaller than what we can currently probe in our most powerful experiments.
A quest for the grail
Enter GrailQuest: the Gamma-ray Astronomy International Laboratory for Quantum Exploration of Space-Time. A team of astronomers submitted a proposal for this mission in response to a call for new space-time-hunting ideas from the European Space Agency (ESA). Their proposal is detailed in the arXiv database, meaning that it hasn't yet been reviewed by peers in the field.
Here's the scoop: In order to see if the speed of light changes with different energies, we need to collect a huge amount of the highest-energy light in the universe, and GrailQuest hopes to do just that.
GrailQuest consists of a fleet of small, simple spacecraft (the exact number varies, from just a few dozen if the satellites are larger to well over a few thousand if they're smaller) to constantly monitor the sky for gamma-ray bursts. These are some of the most powerful explosions in the universe. Like their name suggests, these bursts release copious amounts of high-energy photons, a.k.a. gamma rays. These gamma rays travel across billions of years before reaching the fleet of spacecraft, which record the energy of the gamma rays and the differences in timings as the burst washes over the fleet.
With enough accuracy, GrailQuest might be able to reveal if space-time is discrete. At least, it has the right setup: It's examining the highest-energy light (which is affected the most in theories that predict that space-time is chunky); the gamma rays have been traveling for billions of light-years (allowing the effect to build up over time); and the spacecraft are simple enough to produce en masse (so the entire fleet can see as many events as possible, all across the sky).
How would our conceptions of reality change if GrailQuest were to find evidence for the discreteness of space-time? It's impossible to say — our current theories are all over the map when it comes to implications. But no matter what, we're going to have to wait. This round of ESA proposals is for launches sometime between 2035 and 2050. While we're waiting, we can debate if the time elapsed between now and then is fundamentally smooth or chunky.
NASA cameras capture ‘soundwaves from mystery spacecraft’ hurtling across Earth
NASA cameras capture ‘soundwaves from mystery spacecraft’ hurtling across Earth
The images taken from the International Space Station have sparked a fierce debate online, with some believing it was proof of the US government controlling the weather. Others claimed the “craft” was actually a top-secret sonic weapon
NASA cameras on the International Space Station have captured soundwaves travelling across Earth from a new form of “space technology”, conspiracy theorists have claimed.
The collection of baffling photos appear to show something cutting through the clouds to send miles upon miles of “ripples” trailing off behind it.
NASA/thirdphaseofmoon/YouTube
Cameras on the International Space Station have reportedly captured images of soundwaves travelling across Earth at high speeds, believed by some people to be a new form of ‘space technology’.
YouTube conspiracists Blake and Brett Cousins – of thirdphaseofmoon – noticed the images on NASA’s website and posted footage giving their thoughts earlier today.
“These are some of the best images I’ve seen from NASA, this is blowing me away,” Brett says.
“What we’re seeing is something ripping through the clouds that is creating a pattern that we haven’t seen before.
The 'soundwaves' caught by NASA cameras on the ISS(Image: NASA/THIRDPHASEOFMOON)
“What kind of craft is zipping through the clouds to cut clouds and make this ripple effect?
“Whatever it is, it’s massive.”
Blake then likens the patterns to those created by soundwaves and claims the fact the ISS was over the Earth at the exact spot to capture the images was no coincidence.
“What’s amazing to me is that NASA and the ISS were in the exact spot at the right time to capture this, I think this was an experiment,” he continues.
“The ISS wanted to get some good images of this – they are super hi-res.
“Is this some sort of secret sonic weapon that we’re not aware of?”
NASA/thirdphaseofmoon/YouTube
His brother agrees, suggesting that the agency was showcasing “new space technology”.
The footage has sparked fierce debate since surfacing on YouTube.
Some viewers suggested the “craft” could be alien in origin, while others believed it looked like a “cloaked military mother ship”.
Another bizarrely claimed: “Sonic blast, just like they use to control weather.”
But others were less convinced, saying it could have been a meteor entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
Daily Star Online has previously revealed claims that the US government has forced NASA to cut its live feed in the past when UFOs appear, for the sake of "national security".
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera images taken before and after the impact of China's Longjiang-2 satellite show the crater likely formed by the event.
A NASA spacecraft circling the moon has spotted the scar left by a Chinese satellite's impact.
China's Longjiang-2 spacecraft — also known as the Discovering the Sky at Longest Wavelengths Pathfinder, or DSLWP-B — crashed onto the lunar far side on July 31 after completing its orbital mission. On Nov. 14, a scientist on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission announced that the spacecraft had spotted Longjiang-2's apparent impact site.
The China National Space Administration launched the Longjiang-2 satellite to the moon along with the Queqiao relay communications satellite on May 20, 2018. The small spacecraft, which weighed nearly 100 lbs. (45 kilograms), was designed to work with its twin, Longjiang-1, to validate technologies for low-frequency radio astronomy observations.
Longjiang-2 was designed to orbit the moon for a year. The satellite exceeded that estimate, but its mission still needed to come to an end, and China wanted to crash the spacecraft to ensure it wouldn't clutter up lunar orbit.
Now, a new lunar crater has been identified, and it's most likely the result of that impact, according to a statement from Mark Robinson, leader of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) team at Arizona State University.
In his remarks about the images released from the instrument, Robinson saluted the team — led by amateur radio operator Daniel Estévez of Tres Cantos, Spain — that estimated that the small spacecraft impacted the lunar surface somewhere within Van Gent crater (16.69 degrees North, 159.52 degrees East).
The LROC team used these coordinates to image the area on Oct. 5. Through a careful comparison of pre-existing LROC Narrow Angle Camera images, the LROC team located a new impact crater (16.6956 degrees N, 159.5170 degrees E, plus or minus 10 meters) just 1,076 feet (328 m) from the estimated site.
The crater is 13 feet by 16 feet (4 by 5 m), with the long axis oriented southwest to northeast.
Based on the crater's size and proximity to the estimated crash coordinates, "we are fairly confident that this new crater formed as a result of the Longjiang-2 impact," Robinson wrote.
Listen to would-be space explorers for long enough, and eventually they will likely argue that humans must develop outposts on other worlds in case of disaster here on Earth, as a so-called Planet B.
But that's a dangerous narrative, said Kathryn Denning, an anthropologist at York University in Canada who focuses on the intersection of space exploration, humanity and ethics. It's not particularly feasible, either, by her calculation.
"The reality is, what would be needed to create a sustainable human civilization in the solar system that could effectively be a backup for humanity?" Denning said to Space.com. "That, for every kind of foreseeable future for, say, the next hundred years, requires a functioning and sustainable civilization here."
That reliance on Earth is not surprising considering how many characteristics of other worlds make them inhospitable or even threatening to humans. But the tie to Earth does throw a wrench in dreams of shuffling off our terrestrial coil — dreams that can be an attractive alternative to the difficulty of tackling the challenges of life at home.
"For me, the question is balance," Denning said. "How can we be enthusiastic about the human capacity to explore while maintaining our focus on what needs to happen here on this planet?"
Some approaches developed to address challenges of spaceflight can also shape life on Earth; NASA regularly highlights "spinoff" technologies you don't need to go to orbit to appreciate. Other challenges and solutions of space lack those spinoff applications.
Sometimes, the idea of a fallback world is stretched even further beyond the bounds of possibility, to places we can't pragmatically visit. "Amazing scientific discoveries, for example, exoplanets, get co-opted into problematic stories about our own life here on Earth. Exoplanets do get framed as a Planet B," Denning said. "That's become the story, that that is why exoplanets are important, because maybe we can go there when we've destroyed Earth." That reasoning ignores the scientific importance of studying these distant alien planets.
Transferring humanity elsewhere also has consequences for destination worlds. Some of those concerns are addressed by planetary-protection guidelines, which are designed in part to reduce the odds that terrestrial contamination will prevent scientists from being able to determine whether life exists on other worlds.
Still, Denning said she's not convinced that those guidelines are enough to protect either other worlds and any life there or even astronauts themselves. "I'm not saying Mars off limits forever or anything like that," she said. "In my ideal universe, we would just be slowing down and taking more time and making sure that we get it right for everybody's sake, for the sake of any humans you're sending out there as well."
Those concerns apply to exploration on the scale of just a handful of astronauts as well as to the more sizable and permanent migration implied by the term Planet B. But in both cases, humans have a lot of potential to change the worlds they visit, purposefully or accidentally. And Denning said she wishes we would spend more time now discussing what those worlds' futures may someday look like.
"We've got worlds out there that we haven't really messed up yet," Denning said, wistfully pointing out that if we're careful, we can keep them that way. "Wouldn't it be nice?"
Were the Pyramids of Giza designed to be a mirror of the stars?
Conventional archeology tells us the great pyramids at Giza were built as tombs for the pharaohs of ancient Egypt.
Constructed during the Old Kingdom’s 4th dynasty 4500 years ago, the monuments many mysteries have cast a spell on mankind for millennia.
Built with incredible accuracy and containing many puzzling features, the true purpose of the pyramids has inspired endless speculation.
Why, if they were built as tombs for the pharaohs, are the Giza pyramids completely bare? Unlike other Egyptian tombs, they contain no inscriptions, hieroglyphics or indeed pharaoh’s bodies.
Mainstream Egyptology tells us the tombs were stripped bare by grave robbers — but did they also strip them of all inscriptions?
Sceptics of the tombs theory have long wondered why pharaohs would build such incredible monuments to themselves and then fail to put their name on them.
The Great Pyramid has inspired curiosity for millennia
Even more puzzling — just why were the pyramids built with such astonishing accuracy?
The Great Pyramid’s 4 faces are aligned almost perfectly with the compass, with its south face aligned so precisely with true south that its average error is just 2 minutes of arc — astonishing accuracy even today.
It’s construction also shows the builders knowledge of Pi, the golden ratio and even the dimensions of the Earth and Sun.
In the 1980s, an extraordinary new theory emerged that attempted to explain some of these mysteries.
Robert Bauval, a Belgian engineer, noted how the smallest of the 3 pyramids at Giza — The Pyramid of Menkaure, was offset slightly from the other two.
Noting the similarity between this and the offset in the 3rd star of Orion’s Belt, Bauval overlaid the stars of Orion over an aerial view of the pyramids and was astonished to discover they matched almost exactly.
The 3 Pyramids of Giza match almost exactly the 3 stars of Orions Belt.
Publishing his findings in a best-selling book in 1994, Bauval’s theory captured the public’s imagination and became a global sensation, spawning newspaper articles, documentaries and numerous other books.
Not only did the 3 pyramids match Orion’s Belt, Bauval argued that the Great Sphinx mirrored the constellation of Leo, and the monument’s alignments to the Nile matched the stars positions relative to the Milky Way.
Were the Ancient Egyptians really trying to create a map of the stars on the Earth?
Evidence for
The alignments
Whilst Bauval’s basic thesis was even accepted by some Egyptologists, he massively expanded on it for his 1994 book.
Looking out beyond the pyramids to the wider Giza plateau, Bauval and fellow researcher Graham Hancock began to look for other alignments.
Perhaps the Great Sphinx, a vast stone statue of a lion with a human face, located next to the pyramids, was intended to represent the constellation of Leo?
The Great Sphinx of Giza (credit: Ana Paula Hirama/flickr)
Using astronomical computer programs, the pair dialed back the skies over Giza to the supposed date of the construction of the Pyramids — 2500BC. Disappointingly they could find no match.
But 2500BC was during the astronomical Age of Taurus — represented by a bull. Perhaps they could find a match in the Age of Leo?
Dialing the starfields back thousands of years, Bauval and Hancock were able to find an amazing match — in 10500BC, whilst the pyramids matched Orions belt, the Sphinx was looking directly at the constellation of Leo.
10500BC marked the dawning of the Age of Leo, and even more astonishingly at that date the pyramids and Sphinx’s position relative to the nearby River Nile matched Orion and Leo’s position relative to the Milky Way.
Robert Bauval — right, with his friend geologist Robert Schoch (credit: Filipov Ivo/wiki)
This clinched it for the 2 authors — whilst the original Orion correlation theory was dismissed by many Egyptologists as a coincidence, this was surely beyond any possible coincidence.
The layout of the monuments at Giza really did appear to be a ground map of the heavens.
The Duat
The stars that appeared to be mapped in stone on the Giza plateau were of great significance to the ancient Egyptians.
Their most sacred religious writings — the Pyramid Texts, describe a region of the sky called the Duat that represented the afterlife, the underworld and rebirth.
This is where the Egyptians believed their Gods resided and it’s guardian was Osiris, the God of the dead and rebirth.
Osiris was usually depicted with green skin (credit: dalbera/wiki)
Pharoahs regarded themselves as the embodiment of Osiris on Earth and when they died they believed they would travel up to the Duat and be reborn in the afterlife.
Tellingly, Osiris was represented in the night sky by the very constellation mapped out by the 3 Pyramids of Giza — the constellation of Orion.
Whilst mainstream archeology declares the pyramids were tombs for the pharaohs, they also acknowledge them as vehicles to facilitate the pharaoh’s travel to the afterlife through the Duat.
The pharaohs were Osiris, the pyramids were vehicles to the Duat, and Osiris was represented in the Duat by Orion.
With so many other connections the prospect, suggested by many Egyptologists, that the correlation between the layout of the pyramids and Orion’s belt occurred by chance would seem to be unlikely.
The shafts
Khufu’s Pyramid is the largest and most magnificent of the 3 pyramids at Giza. The only survivor of the 7 Wonders of the World, it contains some unusual features that have long resisted explanation.
Both the King and Queen’s Chamber in the pyramid have 2 mysterious 8-inch wide shafts, unique in all Egypt, that travel out diagonally through hundreds of feet of the pyramid’s vast body.
Diagram showing the shafts from the King and Queen’s chambers (credit: RF Morgan/wiki)
These shafts would have been unfathomably complex to construct — each of hundreds of thousands of blocks had to be separately carved into shape to form the shaft. Clearly they were of fundamental importance.
Whilst traditionally described as ventilation shafts by egyptologists, this is unlikely to be their true purpose since 2 of the shafts do not connect with the exterior of the monument.
They do, however, exhibit several significant astronomical alignments that reinforce the Orion correlation theory.
The astronomer Virginia Trimble noticed in 1964 that the southern shaft in the King’s Chamber pointed towards Orion — the very constellation mapped out on the ground by the 3 pyramids. Could this really be another coincidence?
Robert Bauval then traced the path of the southern shaft of the Queen’s chamber and discovered it pointed at Sirius. Sirius, the brightest star in the sky was considered by the Egyptians to represent Isis — Osiris’s sister and lover.
The shaft in the Queen’s chamber points to Sirius
Like the 3 pyramids and the Sphinx, these correlations all fitted best at 10500BC. The real question is — why that date?
If the Great Pyramid was built in 2500BC, why were the Egyptians pointing to this much earlier date?
Could the pyramids actually be much older that conventional archeology tells us? Or was 10500BC a date of great significance that the Egyptians wished to mark in stone for eternity?
Whatever the reason its hard to dismiss the idea that the ancient Egyptians were trying to mirror the heavens above on Earth at the Giza plateau.
Evidence against
Replanning
Several Egyptologists have responded to the Orion correlation theory by pointing out the extensive replanning that occurred during the construction of the 2nd and 3rd pyramids.
The location of the main chamber in Khafre’s pyramid suggest the original plan was for its footprint to be some 50% further north. It could be that topological problems with the underlying rock necessitated a change in location.
Plans for Menkaure’s pyramid appear to have changed mid-build (credit: Ankur P/wiki)
The smaller 3rd pyramid, whose offset so distinctly mirrors Orion’s belt, also seems to have been replanned during its construction. Dead ends in some of the main passages suggest that the pyramid was considerably enlarged during its construction.
If either of these pyramids really were re-built in this ad-hoc fashion, then it undermines the idea they were laid out toatch a grand plan to mirror the constellation of Orion.
Magnitude of the stars
Another objection to the Orion correlation centres on the relative magnitude of the 3 stars in Orions belt.
Critics point out that the smallest of the 3 monuments — Menkaure’s Pyramid, is considerably smaller than the others, it’a total volume only 1/10th of the Great Pyramid.
However, the supposed corresponding star in Orions Belt — Mintaka, is only slightly less bright than it’s neighbours. Neither through the naked eye or telescopes is Mintaka anywhere near 1/10th as bright as its neighbours.
Whilst a small discrepancy may be written off to artistic license, the difference here would seem too large if the intention was to accurately mirror the constellation on the ground.
Astronomers Find Three Supermassive Black Holes in NGC 6240
Astronomers Find Three Supermassive Black Holes in NGC 6240
NGC 6240, a well-studied nearby galaxy system in the process of merging, contains three supermassive black holes at its core, two of which are active and each with a mass of about 90 million solar masses, according to a study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
NGC 6240 harbors three supermassive black holes at its core: the northern black hole (N) is active and was known before; the zoomed-in new high-spatial resolution image shows that the southern component consists of two supermassive black holes (S1 and S2); the green color indicates the distribution of gas ionized by radiation surrounding the black holes; the red lines show the contours of the starlight from the galaxy and the length of the white bar corresponds to 1,000 light years.
Image credit: P. Weilbacher, Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam / NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage / STScI / AURA / Hubble Collaboration / A. Evans, University of Virginia, Charlottesville / NRAO / Stony Brook University.
NGC 6240 is a system of merging galaxies approximately 400 million light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus.
It spans 300,000 light-years and has an elongated shape with branching wisps, loops and tails.
Until now, astronomers have assumed that it was formed by the collision of two galaxies and therefore containstwo black holes in its core.
“Through our observations with extremely high spatial resolution we were able to show that NGC 6240 hosts not two but three supermassive black holes in its center,” said Professor Wolfram Kollatschny, an astronomer at the University of Göttingen.
“Each of the three heavyweights has a mass of more than 90 million Suns.”
“They are located in a region of space less than 3,000 light-years across, i.e. in less than one hundredth of the total size of the galaxy.”
Professor Kollatschny and colleagues observed NGC 6240 using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT).
“Up until now, such a concentration of three supermassive black holes had never been discovered in the Universe,” said Dr. Peter Weilbacher, a researcher in the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam.
“The present case provides evidence of a simultaneous merging process of three galaxies along with their central black holes.”
According to the team, the discovery of the triple supermassive black hole system is of fundamental importance for understanding the evolution of galaxies over time.
“Until now it has not been possible to explain how the largest and most massive galaxies, which we know from our cosmic environment in the ‘present time,’ were formed just by normal galaxy interaction and merging processes over the course of the previous 14 billion years,” the scientists said.
“If, however, simultaneous merging processes of several galaxies took place, then the largest galaxies with their central supermassive black holes were able to evolve much faster. Our observations provide the first indication of this scenario,” Dr. Weilbacher said.
W. Kollatschny et al. 2019. NGC 6240: A triple nucleus system in the advanced or final state of merging. A&A, in press; doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/201936540
Usually it’s possible to find both the good and bad in things. When it comes to the Phallaceae family of fungi, a.k.a. the stinkhorn mushrooms, however, there is only side to the story, and it is maximally disgusting. Everything from their name to their taste to the way they look is 100% grade-A barf-o-rama. Keep reading for proof of that statement, if you can stomach it.
We first learned of the stinky, bloomin’ mushroom from YouTuberzefrank1’slatest “true facts” video on the Phallacea fungi, which is featured above. The hilarious video, which is also quite disgusting, of course, outlines most of what that stanky stinkhorn life is about, but let’s rehash it real quick because just how repulsive the stinkhorn is as a life form needs to be appreciated on every level.
Phallus impudicus covered in gleba, which is, in turn, covered in flies.
First of all, there’s that name. Not the colloquial name, stinkhorn, which sounds like a deranged Pokémon or something Elon Musk would put on a Tesla, but that scientific name. The name of the family, Phallacea, sounds kind of off in its own right, but that’s nothing compared to the moniker of the common stinkhorn (pictured above), Phallus impudicus, which translates literally to “immodest phallus.” By the by, botanist John Gerard referred to Phallus impudicus as the “pricke mushroom” or “fungus virilis penis effigie,” when he discovered it in the late 16th century.
The physiology of the stinkhorn mushrooms is where things get really interesting. And when we say interesting, we mean gut-wrenchingly gross. The fruiting body of Phallus impudicus (that’s the part of the fungus that’s ejected from out of the ground) is produced from a squishy, bizarre egg, which looks from a cross-sectional view like a slimy piece of sushi. After it bursts its way through the ground, the fruiting body also oozes out a gelatinous goop known as gleba, which contains the stinkhorn’s spores. According to the stinkhorn wiki, the gleba smells like the dead, rotting flesh of animals or dung, which is unsurprising considering the fact that the stinkhorn uses flies to spread its spores. Also, there’s that name.
The fruiting body of Aseroë rubra, a member of the stinkhorn family, in action.
zefrank1
Perhaps the only non-disgusting quality of the stinkhorn is the fact that it stands as an emblem of the lengths life will go to keep on keepin’ on. That, and the fact that it is indeed edible and has a taste that lies somewhere between radish and nothing at all. Although make sure not to eat it at the wrong time in its life cycle, ’cause it’s definitely possible to get some gleba on your hands and mouth if you’re not careful.
What do you think of these stinkhorn mushrooms? Are you immensely happy that you’ll probably never get a whiff of one, or have they somehow carved out a little stinky, oozing home in your heart? Discuss all this disgustingness in the comments!
New observations appear to confirm the existence of water vapor geysers on Europa. The findings are tantalizing, but some scientists are not convinced yet.
Artist’s concept of a water vapor plume on Jupiter’s large moon Europa. It’s thought that this moon has a liquid ocean of water beneath its icy crust.
Jupiter’s large moon Europa is one of the most intriguing places in the solar system, an ocean world that might support life of some kind. As well as a subsurface ocean, it might also share another characteristic of Saturn’s moon Enceladus: geyser-like water vapor plumes bursting through its icy surface. The evidence for geysers on Europa has been tentative up to now, but this month (November 18, 2019) scientists said they’ve found what might be new confirmation: they reported the direct detection of water vapor above the moon’s surface.
Like Enceladus, Europa has a deep ocean below the outer ice crust. On Enceladus, water percolates up to the surface from the ocean below, erupting into space through cracks in the ice as water vapor. It has long been thought that the same thing could be happening on Europa, but the evidence hasn’t been as solid yet, with hints of activity seen by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
Essential chemical elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur) and sources of energy, two of three requirements for life, are found all over the solar system. But the third — liquid water — is somewhat hard to find beyond Earth. While scientists have not yet detected liquid water directly, we’ve found the next best thing: water in vapor form.
Composite photos from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Galileo spacecraft, showing a suspected plume erupting on Europa in 2014 and 2016.
Image via NASA/ESA/W. Sparks (STScI)/USGS Astrogeology Science Center/JPL.
Another composite image from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Galileo spacecraft, showing a “finger-like” plume in the lower left in 2016.
Image via NASA/ESA/W. Sparks (STScI)/USGS Astrogeology Science Center.
Europa’s cracked icy surface as seen by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. Yellowish regions on the moon’s surface have now been confirmed to be irradiated sodium chloride, aka table salt.
According to Paganini, about 5,202 pounds (2,360 kilograms) per second, enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool within minutes.
But like earlier observations have suggested, the outbursts of water vapor appear to be infrequent, unlike those on Enceladus, which erupt on a regular basis. Paganini said:
For me, the interesting thing about this work is not only the first direct detection of water above Europa, but also the lack thereof within the limits of our detection method.
The signal of water vapor is distinct but faint, and was only seen once in 17 nights of observations in 2016 and 2017. That suggests that Europa’s plumes are much more sporadic than those on Enceladus. The science team detected the water molecules on Europa’s leading hemisphere, the side of the moon that’s always facing in the direction of the moon’s orbit around Jupiter. Like Earth’s moon, Europa is gravitationally locked to its planet, so the leading hemisphere always faces the direction of the orbit, while the trailing hemisphere always faces in the opposite direction. The detection was made using a spectrograph at the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The spectrograph measures the chemical composition of planetary atmospheres through the infrared light they emit or absorb. From the paper:
Previous investigations proved the existence of local density enhancements in Europa’s atmosphere, advancing the idea of a possible origination from water plumes. These measurement strategies, however, were sensitive either to total absorption or atomic emissions, which limited the ability to assess the water content. Here we present direct searches for water vapor on Europa spanning dates from February 2016 to May 2017 with the Keck Observatory. Our global survey at infrared wavelengths resulted in non-detections on 16 out of 17 dates, with upper limits below the water abundances inferred from previous estimates. On one date (26 April 2016) we measured 2,095 ± 658 tonnes of water vapor at Europa’s leading hemisphere. We suggest that the outgassing of water vapor on Europa occurs at lower levels than previously estimated, with only rare localized events of stronger activity.
Some of the tentative evidence for Europa’s plumes came from studying data sent back by the Galileo spacecraft. The disturbances in Jupiter’s magnetic field that provided clues about the subsurface ocean also hinted at possible plumes, according to researchers in 2018. In 2013, the HST had detected the chemical elements hydrogen and oxygen in plume-like configurations in Europa’s extremely tenuous atmosphere. Then, in 2016, Hubble imaged “finger-like projections” in silhouette while Europa passed in front of Jupiter. All of these findings were tantalizing, but still tentative. But now the first detection of water vapor itself is additional evidence for the plumes. As Lorenz Roth, an astronomer and physicist at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, said:
This first direct identification of water vapor on Europa is a critical confirmation of our original detections of atomic species, and it highlights the apparent sparsity of large plumes on this icy world.
One problem that Paganini and his team needed to address, however, was that water in Earth’s atmosphere can distort the readings of water vapor on distant worlds taken by ground-based telescopes like Keck. To compensate, complex mathematical and computer modeling was used to simulate the conditions of Earth’s atmosphere so they could differentiate Earth’s atmospheric water from Europa’s in the data. According to Avi Mandell, a Goddard planetary scientist:
We performed diligent safety checks to remove possible contaminants in ground-based observations. But, eventually, we’ll have to get closer to Europa to see what’s really going on.
Saturn’s moon Enceladus was confirmed to have water vapor plumes by the Cassini spacecraft. This stunning photo shows then erupting through cracks in the ice crust at the moon’s south pole.
Not all researchers, however, are convinced that the new findings prove the existence of the plumes, and emphasize how they show that the geyser activity is probably lower than had been anticipated. Astronomer Phil Plait wrote about this in an addendum to his Nov. 19, 2019, article on SYFY about the news:
Correction, and it’s a big one: When I wrote this, I thought the conclusions based on the observations were much more solid than they were reported in a NASA press release. But after being alerted by a couple of astronomers, and looking things over again, I see that the idea that a plume of water from a geyser is not “confirmed” as I originally wrote, but more like “maybe.” The detection by itself was marginally statistically significant, but was part of 16 other observations that showed nothing. I was thinking about the single observation taken alone, but when placed in context of the other observations the statistical significance drops. That means the likelihood of this observation being real – that is, that the light from a plume of water was definitely seen – is lower than I originally stated.
So at this point, it may be safer to say that the new observations add to the evidence for water vapor geysers on Europa, but are still not 100% conclusive. This does not take away from the abundant evidence for the subsurface ocean, it only addresses how much of that water may actually make it to the surface and erupt as vapor into space. Hopefully NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission – due to launch in the mid-2020s – will be able to finally settle the question of whether the geysers are real or not, and how frequent they are, if other observations don’t beforehand. It could even sample them directly, just like Cassini did at Enceladus.
Bottom line: Scientists have found new evidence for water vapor geysers on Europa, although whether they have actually been proven now is a matter of debate.
Hongaarse wetenschappers ontdekken ‘mysterieuze vijfde natuurkracht’. Dit kan een gamechanger zijn
Hongaarse wetenschappers ontdekken ‘mysterieuze vijfde natuurkracht’. Dit kan een gamechanger zijn
Wetenschappers hebben naar eigen zeggen een vijfde natuurkracht ontdekt die onze kijk op het universum weleens drastisch zou kunnen veranderen.
Onderzoekers van de Hongaarse Academie van Wetenschappen zagen een heliumatoom op een vreemde manier vervallen naar een ander deeltje die niet kon worden verklaard door de huidige natuurkunde.
Hoofdonderzoeker Attila Krasznahorkay en zijn team hebben dit nieuwe deeltje X17 genoemd.
Gamechanger
“X17 is mogelijk een deeltje dat onze zichtbare wereld verbindt met de donkere materie,” zei hij tegen CNN.
Professor Jonathan Feng van de Universiteit van Californië – Irvine, die het werk van Krasznahorkay nauwgezet heeft gevolgd, zei dat dit weleens een ‘gamechanger’ zou kunnen zijn.
Als het onderzoek kan worden herhaald, moet hij de Nobelprijs krijgen, aldus Feng.
Vijfde
De ontdekking kan onze kijk op de werking het universum drastisch veranderen.
Volgens het huidige model zijn er vier fundamentele natuurkachten: zwaartekracht, elektromagnetisme, en de zwakke en sterke kracht tussen atomen.
Krasznahorkay en zijn team suggereren nu dat er nog een vijfde kracht is.
Donkere materie
Wetenschappers theoretiseren al decennia over een vijfde natuurkracht. Ze claimen dat deze kracht kan helpen bij het verklaren van donkere materie.
Geschat wordt dat ongeveer 80 procent van de massa van het heelal bestaat uit donkere materie.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
