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.
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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!!!
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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...
04-02-2020
VREEMDE PIRAMIDES IN DE LUCHT ( VIDEO )
VREEMDE PIRAMIDES IN DE LUCHT ( VIDEO )
Ondanks dat er heel veel nepbeelden rondzwerven op internet komt er af en toe ook wat betrouwbaar materiaal bovendrijven.
En in enkele daarvan verschijnen vreemde piramidevormige objecten in de lucht.
We beginnen met een lezer die het volgende bericht stuurt (dank!):
Van de week was ik aan t rondkijken op Google Earth, ik zoomde zomaar ergens op in en kwam bij deze foto terecht. Jullie kunnen dit zelf vinden als je bv “half way across australia of kimba intikt” Ik merk wel meer foto’s op door de jaren heen met een ‘extra’ zon/ster Links boven de zon (ook op deze foto dus) en volg dan ook t verhaal rond niburu wel. Maar boven dat extra lichtpuntje zag ik tot mijn verbazing deze piramide in de lucht.
Het blauwe bolletje op de afbeelding is een lensflare, maar daarboven is heel duidelijk een piramidevormig object waar te nemen. Aangezien de opname afkomstig is van Google Earth nemen we aan dat er niet mee is geknoeid en dat zich daar wel degelijk iets bevindt.
Een object dat een beetje half "gecloaked" is, onzichtbaar voor het oog, maar dat er wel degelijk is. Dat cloaken/onzichtbaar maken vindt ook vaak plaats door de vorm van een wolk aan te nemen, maar daar is in dit geval geen sprake van omdat het een helder blauwe lucht is.
Om dat soort objecten toch zichtbaar te maken, maken ufo-spotters vaak gebruik van infrarood camera's zoals we eerder schreven.
Het toeval wil dat de bekende Youtuber Mr. MB333 ook een opname heeft van een gecloakte piramide in de lucht. Dit keer is het wel een wolk die een rol speelt en de foto is enkele dagen geleden gemaakt door één van zijn volgens in Tulsa in de Amerikaanse staat Oklahoma.
Op volgende foto zie je de piramide rechtsboven en het zwarte pijltje ernaast rechts is de cursor van Mr. MB333, dus geen ufo. Rechts onderin beeld, net boven het gebouw, is wel ook nog een schotelvormige gecloakte ufo te zien denken wij.
De volgende foto geeft een wat duidelijker beeld van de piramide vormige ufo.
Zoals een vrouw genaamd Venetia enkele dagen geleden overkwam in de buurt van de Amerikaanse stad Philadelphia. Ze zag een piramide in de lucht en terwijl normaal gesproken piramides ferm op de grond staan, was dat hier niet het geval.
Ook scheen er een soort verlichting van achter de piramide te zijn, waardoor het object goed zichtbaar was aan de avondhemel. Wat het is, weet tot op dit moment helemaal niemand.
In december 2018 schreven wij het volgende over piramidevormige ufo's:
Ondanks dat de waarneming boven Moskou negen jaar geleden plaatsvond, is niemand er nog is geslaagd om hier een verklaring voor te vinden.
Om te zien hoe het er in Moskou destijds uitzag, hierna nog eens de opname:
Nu zijn we negen jaar verder en wordt er boven het Pentagon in Amerika een vergelijkbaar object waargenomen.
Een lezer schrijft daarover het volgende:
Het is op 19 december al gebeurd, en ik dacht: jullie rapporteren er ook wel over, maar dat hebben jullie nog niet gedaan. Het gaat om een piramidevormige UFU boven het Pentagon. Eerder, in 2009 en opnieuw in 2013, is eenzelfde object ook al uitgebreid gefilmd boven het Kremlin in Moskou.
Omdat er meerdere opnames zijn, ook van de UFO boven het Kremlin, lijken filmbewerkingen in deze gevallen uitgesloten. Ook een Russische politicus ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksey_Pushkov ) heeft de UFO boven het Kremlin dus besproken in zijn politieke praatprogramma op de Russische televisie, en hij heeft het zeer serieus genomen.
De opname vanuit een auto, op 19 december, is naar mijn mening echt spectaculair. Ze rijden vlak langs het Pentagon en ze zeggen op een gegeven moment dat de UFO verdwenen is, terwijl op hetzelfde moment op hun opname, boven in beeld, je de gigantische UFO nog gewoon kan zien, maar ze kijken er onder door of ze herkennen de vorm even niet.
Volgens mij zijn deze beelden net zo spectaculair als indertijd de UFO boven de Rotskoepel op de Tempelberg in Jerusalem, alleen gaat het nu om een veel groter object dat ook veel langer is blijven hangen, met name indertijd in Moskou boven het Kremlin, en dit object is kennelijk geïnteresseerd in de beleidsmakers/machtscentra van de twee grootste kernmachten.
Tot zover de lezer.
Hier volgt een derde opname gemaakt van de vreemde ufo boven het Pentagon:
For those hoping to one day escape climate change on Earth before the polar ice caps melt and cover major cities with water, you can cross Mars off of your list of potential sanctuary planets. New videos from the Red Planet show white ice caps melting and that’s making some folks blue … although not at NASA.
“This animation shows where a section of the slope at right has collapsed since three Mars-years ago and deposited a field of ice blocks.”
Planetary geologist Alfred McEwen is referring to a HiRise image from Mars released on January 31, 2020. HiRise is the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which is taking extremely high resolution photographs — 0.3 m/pixel (about 1 foot). This is the camera which has picked up both the Mars Opportunity and Curiosity rovers. The “animation” (watch it here) switches between two photographs of the same spot – one taken on December 25, 2019, and the other three Martian years (2,61 days or 5.6 Earth years) ago.
Fallen ice blocks from polar cap collapsing
The images are from the Martian north pole and show a solid ice cap 5.6 years ago and a pile of ice block rubble today. Ice falling off of the ice cap can’t be good news … it’s terrible news in Antarctica, where the melting of the so-called Doomsday Glacier is quickly heading it to its own collapse, the global rising of the oceans and all of the negative consequences that will bring. Is Mars headed for the same fate … before humans can got here and cause it themselves?
“In contrast to shrinking ice caps on Earth, climate change is not to blame on Mars. This mesa in this cutout is shrinking over time as the frozen carbon dioxide turns to vapor. Pits in this sheet of dry ice (that give the deposit an appearance resembling Swiss cheese) are enlarging over time, exposing an older surface below that is likely made up of water ice.”
The HiRise camera before launch
Well, that’s a relief … in a good news/bad kind of way. More carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere is not necessarily good news, but water ice closer to or on the surface is good news for human explorers looking for water. On the other hand, melting ice also causes avalanches – something the HiRise also picked up at the Marian north pole last year. Again, NASA downplayed it as something expected to happen every Martian year when the sun hits the Martian cliffs, melting the ice and sending blocks crashing down steep slopes, eventually kicking up dust, not snow.
Nothing to worry about, says NASA. Go back to thinking about the problems that will be created AFTER humans settle to Mars.
How the Tiniest Particles in Our Universe Saved Us from Complete Annihilation
How the Tiniest Particles in Our Universe Saved Us from Complete Annihilation
Recently discovered ripples of spacetime called gravitational waves could contain evidence to prove the theory that life survived the Big Bang because of a phase transition that allowed neutrino particles to reshuffle matter and anti-matter, explains a new study by an international team of researchers.
How we were saved from a complete annihilation is not a question in science fiction or a Hollywood movie. According to the Big Bang theory of modern cosmology, matter was created with an equal amount of anti-matter. If it had stayed that way, matter and anti-matter should have eventually met and annihilated one to one, leading up to a complete annihilation.
Fig 1: Inflation stretched the initial microscopic Universe to a macroscopic size and turned the cosmic energy into matter. However, it likely created an equal amount of matter and anti-matter predicting complete annihilation of our universe. The authors discuss the possibility that a phase transition after inflation led to a tiny imbalance between the amount of matter and anti-matter, so that some matter could survive a near-complete annihilation. Such a phase transition is likely to lead to a network of “rubber-band”-like objects called cosmic strings, that would produce ripples of space-time known as gravitational waves. These propagating waves can get through the hot and dense Universe and reach us today, 13.8 billion years after the phase transition. Such gravitational waves can most likely be discovered by current and future experiments.
Original credit: R. Hurt/Caltech-JPL, NASA, and ESA
Credit: Kavli IPMU – Kavli IPMU modified this figure based on the image credited by R.Hurt/Caltech-JPL, NASA, and ESA
But our existence contradicts this theory. To overcome a complete annihilation, the Universe must have turned a small amount of anti-matter into matter creating an imbalance between them. The imbalance needed is only a part in a billion. But it has remained a complete mystery when and how the imbalance was created.
“The Universe becomes opaque to light once we look back to around a million years after its birth. This makes the fundamental question of ‘why are we here?’ difficult to answer,” says paper co-author Jeff Dror, postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and physics researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Since matter and anti-matter have the opposite electrical charges, they cannot turn into each other, unless they are electrical neutral. Neutrinos are the only electrical neutral matter particles we know, and they are the strongest contender to do this job. A theory many researchers support is that the Universe went through a phase transition so that neutrinos could reshuffle matter and anti-matter.
“A phase transition is like boiling water to vapor, or cooling water to ice. The behavior of matter changes at specific temperatures called critical temperature. When a certain metal is cooled to a low temperature, it loses electrical resistance completely by a phase transition, becoming a superconductor. It is the basis of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for cancer diagnosis or maglev technology that floats a train so that it can run at 300 miles an hour without causing dizziness. Just like a superconductor, the phase transition in the early Universe may have created a very thin tube of magnetic fields called cosmic strings,” explains paper co-author Hitoshi Murayama, MacAdams Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Principal Investigator at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, University of Tokyo, and senior faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Dror and Murayama are part of a team of researchers from Japan, US and Canada who believe the cosmic strings then try to simplify themselves, leading up to tiny wobbling of spacetime called gravitational waves. These could be detected by future space-borne observatories such as LISA, BBO (European Space Agency) or DECIGO (Japanese Astronautical Exploration Agency) for nearly all possible critical temperatures.
“The recent discovery of gravitational waves opens up a new opportunity to look back further to a time, as the Universe is transparent to gravity all the way back to the beginning. When the Universe might have been a trillion to a quadrillion times hotter than the hottest place in the Universe today, neutrinos are likely to have behaved in just the way we require to ensure our survival. We demonstrated that they probably also left behind a background of detectable gravitational ripples to let us know,” says paper co-author Graham White, a postdoctoral fellow at TRIUMF.
“Cosmic strings used to be popular as a way of creating small variations in mass densities that eventually became stars and galaxies, but it died because recent data excluded this idea. Now with our work, the idea comes back for a different reason. This is exciting!” says Takashi Hiramatsu, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo, which runs Japan’s gravitational wave detector KAGRA and Hyper-Kamiokande experiments.
“Gravitational wave from cosmic strings has a spectrum very different from astrophysical sources such as merger of black holes. It is quite plausible that we will be completely convinced the source is indeed cosmic strings,” says Kazunori Kohri, Associate Professor at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization Theory Center in Japan.
“It would be really exciting to learn why we exist at all,” says Murayama. “This is the ultimate question in science.”
The paper was published as an Editor’s Suggestion in Physical Review Letters online on 28 January, 2020.
Contacts and sources:
Motoko Kakubayashi
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU)
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK)
Institute for Cosmic Ray Research (ICRR)
University of California Berkeley
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
TRIUMF
Publication:
Testing Seesaw and Leptogenesis with Gravitational Waves Authors: Jeff A. Dror(1, 2), Takashi Hiramatsu (3), Kazunori Kohri (4, 5, 6), Hitoshi Murayama (1, 6, 2, 7), and Graham White (8)
Antarctica & Human Cloning: What's Under the Ice? - Great Video
Antarctica & Human Cloning: What's Under the Ice? - Great Video
This is the stuff they were doing in the days of Noah. The bible says it will happen again in the end times. God will put a stop to it. They just want to corrupt Gods creation because they can not create anything. Only God can create life!
Trump signed a bill just before this year, NO CLONES ARE LEGAL NOW.
Mine was school system, beware speech class. Miller elementary school, Escondido CA . Tunnels under. Also hospitals. Died while getting my tonsils out at 6 years old, with my 2 older sisters. I wasn’t released until 3 weeks later. Bleeding internally, scars on face. I was beat to a pulp. I remember Heaven, I did not fracture. I was protected by the blood of the Lamb. God took me from my body and showed me amazing things. I’m not the only one with this story. We were taught how to fight supernaturally. Spiritual warfare.
On the cartoon Futurama, they have an episode where Hermes comes back from a trip with a plasma-like parasitic brain slug on his head. His personality is completely changed. He spends the rest of the show trying to recruit more victims for the brain slug. The writers are freemasons. Most of their shows reveal clues we are now learning with the great awakening. It’s worth a look-see.
What evil and demonic people we have within our government, our music industry, and in Hollywood (Pedowood). Sick and lunatic people everywhere.
They may have a body and soul ( thought, emotions) but they will never have a spirit. The Spirit is only from Almighty God. Unless it an evil spirit that possesses the body. Very evil! I would say guard your spirit. Make sure you don’t go too deep into this unless you know who you are in Christ. To be honest I have wondered about how much Q + knows about time travel. It has come to my mind. I have never taken it seriously.
Demon souls perhaps in these are genetically grown clones? they shortened the telomeres these guys are freaking evil! messing with the DNA man you are so give yourself a death sentence because God is not gonna be happy with this think about fallen angels hello?
This is a level of evil that is hard to believe and understand. BTW: The Rock just started introducing the Chief players. He said “It’s time to unleash hell” Cannot make this S**t up!!
think spiritual read the bible, all of it not just cannon and integrate it. it all makes sense, I study the bible all the time, I am about to become more than human the RIGHT WAY, through GOD’S grace. HE has given ME THE POWER to become a son of God…and I am BECOMING, and not like the Baphomet imitator, but like JESUS…
“So it’s like the consciousness of the person is there, but the personality is not.” HRC immediately comes to mind, when she was before some committee hearing on Benghazi, and when asked what she was doing on the night the Embassy was attacked, she couldn’t stop laughing! I don’t think I was watching an early model, as described, but it was like watching a demon coming through. Well, that may not have been her clone at that hearing. That’s probably just her. She had that same hideous laughter when she was a very young lawyer, bragging about getting an accused rapist of a young girl off the hook. Demons Inside. Naturally.
Conspiracy theorists believe they have found evidence of ruins on Mars which they believe is evidence of ancient aliens. In an image taken by NASA’s Curiosity Rover, what looks like a large structure can be seen on top of a hill. Some alien hunters believe this is proof that not only did aliens once live on the Red Planet, but perhaps even worshipped a higher power.
Prominent conspiracy theorist Scott C Waring, however, believes that NASA will refuse to investigate the ‘ancient structure’ as it wants to keep evidence of aliens under wraps.
Mr Waring wrote on his blog UFO Sightings Daily: “I was looking through this weeks uploads made by the Curiosity Rover and found that in the distance was a ancient temple structure built on a hilltop. The structure has five or more levels, each one getting smaller than the one before it.
“The top level being the highest. The main structure at the top of the levels looks like a pyramid with the top built flat.
Mars ancient temple found in NASA images is PROOF of alien civilisation - shock claim
(Image: UFO SIGHTINGS DAILY)
The supposed temple on Mars
(Image: UFO SIGHTINGS DAILY)
“Each level has a flat perfectly horizontal top so that someone or something can walk on it. I believe the rover will not investigate this because NASA’s true mission is to drop feed the public boring information about space so it satisfies them, but keeps the public in the dark about the true nature of the surface of Mars.”
However, sceptics and NASA would say the ‘temple’ and other similar findings are just the effects of pareidolia – a psychological phenomenon when the brain tricks the eyes into seeing familiar objects or shapes in patterns or textures such as a rock surface.
This would mean that the Martian ‘temple' could just be a misshapen rock or even a hilly area.
I found a temple on a hillside on Mars in a gigipan photo today. The temple is half buried, but still the doorway is visible and its facing us. The corners of the walls are still well preserved and easy to make out. Putting monuments on mountains and hilltops has always been a significant position for monuments of religious, cultural and historical significants. This appears to be a temple. I guess religion gives all species a certain comfort and purpose.
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UFO Seen During Day Over Leeds, England, Video, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Seen During Day Over Leeds, England, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Feb 2, 2020
Location of sighting: Leeds, UK
Source: MUFON
This moves very fast and smoothly, too much so to be a balloon or bag. However RC toys and drones could be in this shape, but they usually make a very loud hum noise. I hear nothing in the video. This object is silent. The object is a black oval shape, like a disk. It moves and shows us the bottom for a few seconds. This looks like its a UFO over the UK. Very cool video showing us its movement.
Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
Sat at home, from the corner of my eye I saw the usual birds flying outside and a black disc like shape started hovering and then floating on a straight path. It was high, above the trees. It was all black, disc shaped and moved with a tilting motion. Travelling in a straight line tilting until I lost sight of it past the window frame I was looking out of. I was shocked, and couldn’t think of what it could be… hoping it wasn’t just a drone or something but it had such a weird shape and movement. It definitely wasn’t a bird, or a weather balloon or a plastic bag.
UFO Seen During Day Over Leeds, England, Video, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Seen During Day Over Leeds, England, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Feb 2, 2020
Location of sighting: Leeds, UK
Source: MUFON
This moves very fast and smoothly, too much so to be a balloon or bag. However RC toys and drones could be in this shape, but they usually make a very loud hum noise. I hear nothing in the video. This object is silent. The object is a black oval shape, like a disk. It moves and shows us the bottom for a few seconds. This looks like its a UFO over the UK. Very cool video showing us its movement.
Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
Sat at home, from the corner of my eye I saw the usual birds flying outside and a black disc like shape started hovering and then floating on a straight path. It was high, above the trees. It was all black, disc shaped and moved with a tilting motion. Travelling in a straight line tilting until I lost sight of it past the window frame I was looking out of. I was shocked, and couldn’t think of what it could be… hoping it wasn’t just a drone or something but it had such a weird shape and movement. It definitely wasn’t a bird, or a weather balloon or a plastic bag.
Huge greenish anomalies and formation of bright lights moving in space
Huge greenish anomalies and formation of bright lights moving in space
On January 19 strange greenish anomalies have been recorded via the ISS live feed app. which you can see Here.
Now, for the second and a third time, another witnesses using the same ISS live feed app recorded a new group of these strange anomalies and something like a huge formation of bright objects moving next to the greenish anomalies on February 1 and on February 2, 2020.
What could it be? Moon fragments from a possible meteorite impact on the Moon, as some people suggested? It seems unlikely. So what is going on in space?
Viva Air Pilot Captured Cube-like UFO at High Altitude
Viva Air Pilot Captured Cube-like UFO at High Altitude
An airline pilot has shared incredible footage showing a cube-shaped UFO moving across the sky. The cockpit view shows what appears to be a metallic object flying at a hypersonic speed above Columbia, without any visible means of propulsion.
Reportedly shot by a commercial pilot with Viva Air, the incredible footage shows the cubic object shoot pass the aircraft at a distance.
When zooms in, the high altitude object resembles a cube and seems to glide down through the clouds like someone is controlling it.
TikTok user CesarinMP first posted the video before being published on January 31 to YouTube.
Some viewers of the footage observed the cube UFO resembled a Borg spaceship from the Sci-fi series Star Trek.
This is not the first time a cube UFO has been spotted as other cubes have been observed before by several witnesses, including NASA.
In January, UFO enthusiasts were sent into a frenzy after seeing a clip of block-shaped object hovering over Georgia, US. In the short video, the object seems to hang aimlessly in the clear sky and looks to move slowly and steadily.
In late 2018, NASA’s solar and heliospheric observatory (SOHO) captured an apparent massive cube-shaped object. The UFO appears to have a square shape with trails of gas or smoke following behind as it descends into the star. The mysterious object hung steadily above the clouds for a few minutes and at one point, ejected a red orb. The clip was uploaded to the YouTube account ‘The Tales From Out There.’
The warm water found flowing under Thwaites Glacier in western Antarctica helps explain its rapid melting. Thwaites is part of what’s described the “weak underbelly” of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Its melting has implications for sea-level rise around the world.
For the first time, scientists have measured the presence of warm water at a vital point underneath rapidly melting Thwaites Glacier – which the BBC once labeled as Doomsday Glacier – in western Antarctica. With Pine Island and Smith Glaciers, Thwaites is sometimes called the weak underbelly of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. At its surface, it moves at 1.2 miles per year (2 km per year) near its grounding line. The water below it was measured earlier this year, through a small but extremely deep hole drilled in Thwaites Glacier at the point where the bedrock underlying the glacier meets the sea.
A January 29, 2020, statement from New York University (NYU), which conducted the research, said this finding is:
… an alarming discovery that points to the cause behind the gradual melting of this ice shelf while also raising concerns about sea-level rise around the globe.
The recorded warm waters were more than two degrees above freezing.
On the way to the Thwaites Glacier research site – at an intermediate camp in West Antarctica (WAIS Divide Camp) – the researchers caught this solar halo, created by ice crystals in the air. The expedition took place in January, during the height of Antarctic summer, a period of 24-hour daylight.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet – whose bed lies well below sea level and whose edges flow into ice shelves that jut out and float on the Amundsen Sea – has been watched carefully for some years. Scientists believe it has the potential to collapse suddenly, raising sea levels around the world. The new measurement of warm water under Thwaites Glacier is just a small piece of the puzzle of this region, one of many studies that have been conducted in recent years, as scientists try to determine the stability of the ice sheet. According to the scientists who conducted this study:
Thwaites’ demise alone could have significant impact globally.
It would drain a mass of water that is roughly the size of Great Britain or the state of Florida and currently accounts for approximately 4 percent of global sea-level rise. Some scientists see Thwaites as the most vulnerable and most significant glacier in the world in terms of future global sea-level rise. Its collapse would raise global sea levels by nearly one meter, perhaps overwhelming existing populated areas.
David Holland and Keith Nicholls led the expedtion to Antarctica in January 2020. Here they are operating a borehole winch to lower a turbulence device into the ocean cavity on Thwaites Glacier.
The new measurement was made at the glacier’s grounding zone; that’s the place at which the ice transitions between resting fully on bedrock and floating on the ocean as an ice shelf. The scientists’ measurements were made in early January 2020, after the research team used hot water drilling to create an access hole in the glacier. The hole was not very wide (35 cm or about a foot wide). But it was extremely deep – 600 meters (2,000 feet) deep – or about the depth of 6 1/2 American football fields laid end to end. The researchers then deployed an ocean-sensing device to measure the waters moving below the glacier’s surface. They said:
This device gauges the turbulence of the water as well as other properties such as temperature. The result of turbulence is the mixing of fresh meltwater from the glacier and salty water from the ocean.
[The new work] marks the first time that ocean activity beneath the Thwaites Glacier has been accessed through a bore hole and that a scientific instrument measuring underlying ocean turbulence and mixing has been deployed. The hole was opened on January 8 and 9 and the waters beneath the glacier measured January 10 and 11.
The scientists said they expected the data gathered in the field will enhance scientific understanding of how ocean conditions are affecting the melt rate of Thwaites Glacier. They said:
When this is combined with ice sheet models it will allow the glacier’s potential sea-level contribution to be more accurately predicted.
Warm waters in this part of the world, as remote as they may seem, should serve as a warning to all of us about the potential dire changes to the planet brought about by climate change. If these waters are causing glacier melt in Antarctica, resulting changes in sea level would be felt in more inhabited parts of the world.
Researchers dug out the drill site after a 3-day storm with winds reaching 50 knots (nearly 60 mph). Drifts of snow accumulated up to five feet (1.5 meters).
Bottom line: For the first time, scientists have measured the temperature and turbulence of warm water flowing underneath Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. The glacier is one of several in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that is known to be melting rapidly, with the potential to cause dramatic sea level rise.
A newly found young star cluster on the outskirts of our Milky Way seems to be made of material from the Magellanic Clouds. It appears the collision between the Clouds and our Milky Way may already be starting.
View larger. | A newly found cluster of young stars (blue stars) sits on the periphery of our Milky Way. The stars in this cluster probably formed from material originating in neighboring dwarf galaxies, called the Magellanic Clouds. Note also the Magellanic Stream, extending almost halfway around the Milky Way.
Since the 1960s and ’70s, radio astronomers have been watching a long trail of gas extending from the Magellanic Clouds, the two famous dwarf galaxies visible in Southern Hemisphere skies. This gas trail is called the Magellanic Stream, and it extends across more than 180 degrees of our sky, almost halfway around the Milky Way. The gas in the Stream, and the Magellanic Clouds themselves, will someday collide with our Milky Way, astronomers say. Now – according to a January 8, 2020, presentation by astronomers at the AAS meeting in Honolulu – it appears that signs of this collision are already in evidence. Collisions and mergers between galaxies create new stars. And astronomers have now found a young star cluster on the outskirts of our Milky Way galaxy, near the Magellanic Stream, in a part of space inhabited by our galaxy’s oldest stars. The astronomers said the stars in this young cluster appear to be made of material from the Magellanic Clouds.
The discovery suggests that [the Magellanic Stream] is about half as far from crashing into the Milky Way as previously thought.
In other words, it suggests our Milky Way’s impending collision with the Magellanic Clouds is already beginning: it’s already birthing new stars.
Adrian Price-Whelan at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York City led this research. He said the cluster now bears his name: Price-Whelan 1. Price-Whelan and his colleagues presented their findings on January 8 at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu. The work is published in two parts in the peer-reviewedAstronomical Journal: here and here.
A visualization of the position of the newly discovered Price-Whelan 1 star cluster (blue points) relative to our Milky Way galaxy (white points). The star cluster probably formed from material from the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (purple points).
Identifying clusters of stars is tricky because our galaxy is chock-full of the radiant orbs. Some stars may appear to be close together in the sky but actually sit at drastically different distances from Earth. Other stars may temporarily neighbor one another but move on in opposite directions.
Determining which stars are actually clustered together requires many precise measurements over time.
In this case, those measurements originated with the amazing Gaia spacecraft, which has already cataloged distances and motions for 1.7 billion Milky Way stars. Price-Whelan searched the Gaia dataset for:
… very blue stars, which are rare in the universe, and identified clumps of stars moving alongside them. After cross-matching with and removing known clusters, one remained.
The newfound cluster is relatively young at 117 million years old [very young in astronomical terms] and is on the far outskirts of the Milky Way.
It’s really, really far away. It’s further than any known young stars in the Milky Way, which are typically in the disk. So right away, I was like, ‘Holy smokes, what is this?’
EarthSky community member Lynton Brown captured this beautiful image of the Milky Way over Taylor’s Lake near Horsham, Australia, on April 22, 2019. The 2 objects on the right are the Magellanic Clouds. Thank you, Lynton!
The Price-Whelan 1 star cluster’s location near the Magellanic Stream is a clue to these stars’ origin. These astronomers said:
Gas in the Stream doesn’t contain much metal, unlike gases in the outer reaches of the Milky Way. David Nidever, assistant professor of physics at Montana State University in Bozeman, led an analysis of the metal content of the 27 brightest stars in the cluster.
Just like the Magellanic Stream, the stars contain meager levels of metal.
The researchers propose that the cluster formed as gas from the Magellanic Stream passed through the gases surrounding the Milky Way. This pass-through created a drag force that compressed the Magellanic Stream gas. This drag, along with tidal forces from the Milky Way’s gravitational tug, condensed the gas enough to trigger star formation. Over time, the stars zoomed ahead of the surrounding gas and joined the Milky Way.
The stars’ presence presents a unique opportunity, these astronomers said. They explained:
Gauging the distance of gas from Earth is tricky and imprecise, so astronomers weren’t sure how far the Magellanic Stream was from reaching the Milky Way. The distance of stars, on the other hand, is comparatively trivial. Using the current positions and movements of stars in the cluster, the researchers predict that the edge of the Magellanic Stream is 90,000 light-yearsaway from the Milky Way. That’s roughly half the distance previously predicted.
If the Magellanic Stream is closer, especially the leading arm closest to our galaxy, then it’s likely to be incorporated into the Milky Way sooner than the current model predicts. Eventually, that gas will turn into new stars in the Milky Way’s disk. Right now, our galaxy is using up gas faster than its being replenished. This extra gas coming in will help us replenish that reservoir and make sure that our galaxy continues to thrive and form new stars.
The updated distance to the Magellanic Stream will improve models of where the Magellanic Clouds have been and where they’re going, Price-Whelan said.
He said the improved numbers could even settle a debate over whether the Magellanic Clouds have crossed through the Milky Way before, adding:
Finding an answer to that question will help astronomers better understand the history and properties of our galaxy.
Astronomers have spotted a group of young stars (blue) on the outskirts of the Milky Way. The scientists propose that these stars formed from material from two dwarf galaxies known as the Magellanic Clouds.
Bottom line: Astronomers have discovered a young star cluster on the outskirts of our Milky Way. Its member stars appear to be made of material from the Magellanic Clouds. The work suggests that the impending collision between our Milky Way galaxy and the Clouds and the Magellanic Stream is already beginning.
OTHER PLANETS COULD HAVE EVEN MORE LIFE THAN EARTH DOES, SCIENTISTS SAY
OTHER PLANETS COULD HAVE EVEN MORE LIFE THAN EARTH DOES, SCIENTISTS SAY
'This is a surprising conclusion'
Other worlds could be filled with even more flourishing life than we have on Earth, scientists have said.
The new study could have significant implications for the way we search for alien life. It also suggests that search could be more likely to find life on exoplanets than we had thought.
"This is a surprising conclusion", said lead researcher Dr Stephanie Olson. "It shows us that conditions on some exoplanets with favourable ocean circulation patterns could be better suited to support life that is more abundant or more active than life on Earth."
In recent years, scientists have found huge numbers of exoplanets, or worlds orbiting around stars that are not our own. But they are all very far away – impossible to reach even with the fastest space probes, and difficult even to see in any detail.
Researchers are working on a variety of ways to learn about those worlds, including telescopes that will be able to "sniff" their atmospheres and learn more about what the planets could be made of. But to understand the information that comes back, scientists need to build detailed and complicated models of how planets form and their climates work.
By combining those observations with those models, scientists aim to understand which of those distant planets could be home to alien life.
Now Dr Olson and her team have combined that work to understand the conditions on those exoplanets, which will help inform that search. The work was presented at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Congress in Barcelona.
"NASA's search for life in the Universe is focused on so-called Habitable Zone planets, which are worlds that have the potential for liquid water oceans," she said. "But not all oceans are equally hospitable – and some oceans will be better places to live than others due to their global circulation patterns".
To conduct the study, the team made models of those planets using Nasa software, which allows them to simulate the conditions on those exoplanets. Using that Nasa technology, they were able to create models of the possible climates and oceans that could be on those exoplanets.
They found that many of them seemed like more hospitable and flourishing places for life than even Earth is. They looked at the process in Earth's oceans that allows life to take root down here – and considered whether that same process could be happening elsewhere in the universe
"Our work has been aimed at identifying the exoplanet oceans which have the greatest capacity to host globally abundant and active life," said Dr Olson in a statement.
"Life in Earth's oceans depends on upwelling (upward flow) which returns nutrients from the dark depths of the ocean to the sunlit portions of the ocean where photosynthetic life lives. More upwelling means more nutrient resupply, which means more biological activity.
"These are the conditions we need to look for on exoplanets".
By modelling a variety of different exoplanets, the researchers were able to think about which types would be most likely to develop and then sustain life. And they were surprised to find that Earth is not the best kind – and that there may be other worlds out there that are a far better place for life to begin.
"We have used an ocean circulation model to identify which planets will have the most efficient upwelling and thus offer particularly hospitable oceans," she said. "We found that higher atmospheric density, slower rotation rates, and the presence of continents all yield higher upwelling rates.
"A further implication is that Earth might not be optimally habitable – and life elsewhere may enjoy a planet that is even more hospitable than our own."
The work is important because our technology means that we are unable to see everything: there is almost certainly more life than we will ever be able to see, even with the most advanced telescopes and other equipment. That means scientists will need to optimise their search by looking at the planets where life will find it easiest to find a home.
"We expect oceans to be important in regulating some of the most compelling remotely detectable signs of life on habitable worlds, but our understanding of oceans beyond our solar system is currently very rudimentary," said Chris Reinhard, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, who wasn't involved in the study. "Dr Olson's work represents a significant and exciting step forward in our understanding of exoplanet oceanography."
The new research could now help inform how new telescopes are built, since we now know what kinds of planets will be best to search for. "Now we know what to look for, so we need to start looking," said Dr Olson.
Wetenschappers: Op andere planeten is mogelijk veel meer leven dan op aarde
Wetenschappers: Op andere planeten is mogelijk veel meer leven dan op aarde
Op andere planeten zou weleens veel meer leven kunnen zijn dan op aarde, denken wetenschappers na een aantal computersimulaties. Hun bevindingen kunnen grote invloed hebben op onze zoektocht naar buitenaards leven.
De kans dat er leven wordt gevonden op exoplaneten, planeten buiten ons zonnestelsel, neemt toe door de nieuwe studie. “Het is een verrassende conclusie,” zegt hoofdonderzoeker dr. Stephanie Olson tegen The Independent. “Op sommige exoplaneten zijn er oceaancirculatiepatronen, die beter toegerust zijn op leven dan de oceanen op aarde. Daardoor zou er zelfs een rijker en actiever leven kunnen zijn dan hier.”
De wetenschappelijke consensus is dat oceanen een cruciale rol spelen bij leven op onze en op andere planeten. De afgelopen jaren is er een groot aantal exoplaneten ontdekt, maar ze zijn allemaal te ver weg om te kunnen bereiken of in detail te kunnen bestuderen.
Voor de studie heeft het onderzoeksteam daarom een aantal modellen ontwikkeld met behulp van software van NASA. Daarmee konden de condities op die exoplaneten worden nagebootst. Zo waren de wetenschappers in staat om mogelijke klimaatmodellen en oceanen te creëren, zoals die op die verre planeten zouden kunnen bestaan.
Ze ontdekten dat veel planeten beter geschikt waren voor leven dan de aarde. Daartoe onderzochten ze hoe leven zich ontwikkelt diep in de oceanen en of dat proces ook ergens anders in het universum plaats zou kunnen vinden. “Ons werk was erop gericht om planeten te identificeren met oceanen die de grootste capaciteit hebben om actief leven te herbergen,” aldus dr. Olson.
Ze kwam erachter dat de aarde niet eens het meest geschikt is en dat er andere werelden zijn in het universum die een veel betere plek vormen om leven te beginnen. “De aarde is niet optimaal. Er kan heel goed een planeet zijn waar leven veel makkelijker kan ontstaan dan hier,” klinkt het.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
2020 Daytime VIDEO! Flying saucer over Leeds, UK
2020 Daytime VIDEO! Flying saucer over Leeds, UK
This solid disc-shaped object was seen and filmed in the sky above Leeds, UK on 2nd February 2020.
Witness report:
Sat at home, from the corner of my eye I saw the usual birds flying outside and a black disc like shape started hovering and then floating on a straight path. It was high, above the trees.
It was all black, disc shaped and moved with a tilting motion. Travelling in a straight line tilting until I lost sight of it past the window frame I was looking out of. I was shocked, and couldn’t think of what it could be… hoping it wasn’t just a drone or something but it had such a weird shape and movement. It definitely wasn’t a bird, or a weather balloon or a plastic bag.
Scientists basically knew what happened here – but the full story that’s emerging beggars belief. The Chicxulub crater marks the point of contact made by an asteroid so enormous that it wiped out an entire planet’s worth of dinosaurs. Yet now experts have dug deep into the massive cavity, and they’ve finally realized precisely what occurred when the space rock actually struck the Earth. What’s more, the team’s findings paint a truly terrifying picture.
Of course, much was already known about the Chicxulub crater. It stretches 93 miles in diameter, for instance, and plunges a stunning 12 miles into the ground. And of all the known impact points on Earth, the crater is the second-largest in the world. Yet even though it appeared about 66 million years ago, its peak ring remains in one piece.
This particular detail highlights just how stunning the Chicxulub crater – and its long-term preservation – has already proven to be. It’s the only crater on the planet that has its peak ring still intact, in fact. The next available one for scientists to study sits, rather inconveniently, on the moon.
Still, all of this information has to do with the crater’s dimensions and exterior features. Now, though, scientists have gone beyond the topical details of the Chicxulub crater. Digging into the expanse, which sits more than half a mile beneath Mexico’s Yucután Peninsula, experts in fact uncovered the impact that an up to 50-mile-wide asteroid had on the planet.
To put the findings in context, though, it’s worth understanding a little about the crater’s background. So the Chicxulub crater derives its name from the nearby Mexican town of the same name. And experts estimate that an asteroid or comet, ranging in size from 6.8 to 50.3 miles in diameter, smashed into the Earth at this very spot.
It’s hard to imagine such a massive piece of space debris hurtling in the direction of our planet. But perhaps even more stunning is the abyss it left behind; the Chicxulub crater has an estimated diameter of 93 miles. For reference, that’s just 1.6 miles shorter than the drive between New York City and Philadelphia.
Experts have been able to calculate the strength with which the space rock smashed into the Earth, too. In fact, they estimate that the asteroid or comet had 21 to 921 billion times as much energy as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II. Even the Soviet Union’s Tsar Bomba – the strongest human-made explosive to ever detonate – couldn’t compare. The Solar System body also released 100 million times the energy of Tsar Bomba upon impact.
So with that much power hitting the Earth, the size of the Chicxulub crater makes sense. It’s not just its width that’s extra-large, either; the crater reaches depths of up to 18.6 miles into the planet. These dimensions make the Chicxulub crater the second-largest impact crater on Earth, just behind the one near Vredefort in South Africa.
But the Chicxulub crater has one feature that no other known crater on Earth has: it’s a peak ring crater. This means that the impact site has no single central peak. Instead, the crater has a circle-shaped plateau encompassing its center. The rim of the crater encircles this ring, but it sits at a distance from the center.
Marine geophysicist Sean P. S. Gulick explained to The New York Times in 2016 just how rare the peak ring feature is. He said, “Chicxulub is the only crater on Earth with an intact peak ring that we can go sample… It’s ground zero of the Cretaceous extinction event.”
And yet scientists haven’t necessarily rushed to dig into the Chicxulub crater. That was partly due to the fact that the massive hole appeared approximately 66 million years ago. So over time, rock and water filled in the void and eventually more than half a mile of sedimentary rock covered the crater.
Also, scientists didn’t discover the Chicxulub crater until relatively recently – especially considering that it has been around for millions of years. It wasn’t until 1978, in fact, that geophysicists Glen Penfield and Antonio Camargo stumbled upon the crater. And they weren’t even looking for the asteroid impact site when they discovered it; the pair were searching for petroleum.
So Penfield and Camargo took to the skies to complete a magnetic survey that mapped any potential drilling locations beneath the Gulf of Mexico. As he pored over the resulting data, though, Penfield noted something particularly extraordinary: a 40-mile-wide “underwater arc” with impeccable symmetry.
Such a strange discovery inspired Penfield to dig deeper. He then sought out a gravity map commissioned by his employer, oil company Petróleos Mexicanos, in the 1960s. On it, Penfield noticed another arc – but this one curved over the Yucatán Peninsula itself. And when the geophysicist put that map and his magnetic survey together, he realized that the two arcs made a circle.
Penfield knew almost immediately that he had found something spectacular; the geophysicist hypothesized that he had pinpointed a cataclysmic event in the planet’s geological history. Petróleos Mexicanos then allowed him and Camargo to present their findings at the 1981 Society of Exploration Geophysicists conference. Unlike the asteroid they theorized had hit the Earth, though, their presentation made little impact at the time.
So eventually Penfield gave up on his research into the crater. Much of the evidence that he had sought was even destroyed or lost. Nevertheless, Penfield published all of the data he had and returned to work. Yet meanwhile other scientists had begun to theorize something similar – without having seen Penfield’s research.
Specifically, in 1981 a graduate student at the University of Arizona named Alan R. Hildebrand and his adviser William V. Boynton published their own Earth-impact theory. They just needed to find a crater that could corroborate their hypothesis. The pair had plenty of geological evidence, though, and their work got a bit more traction than Penfield’s.
Namely, a professor in Haiti named Florentine Morás uncovered evidence that an ancient volcano had once stood in his country. Hildebrand consequently realized that such a feature could have emerged when a major force of impact crashed nearby. And in 1990 he learned the precise spot of such a collision.
In that year, you see, a reporter for the Houston Chronicle named Carlos Byars clued Hildebrand into Penfield’s findings. The journalist also mentioned that the geophysicist had thought he had found an impact crater in the vicinity. So Hildebrand subsequently picked up the phone, and the two experts later started analyzing drill samples from the oil company’s storage unit.
What Penfield and Hildebrand found amid the drilling debris were shock-metamorphic materials. Such substances appear after an impact-related event causes deformation and heating. In normal cases, shock-metamorphism occurs along with a volcanic eruption – but, of course, Penfield and Hildebrand had uncovered something much bigger than that.
Since then, more research into the Chicxulub crater has transpired, and more theories about its origins have arisen. In September 2007, for instance, authors William F. Bottke, David Vokrouhlicky and David Nesvorny offered a theory to Nature magazine. The trio said that the rock responsible for creating the crater came from a specific cosmic family called the Baptistina asteroids.
Yet in spite of facts that seemed to corroborate Vokrouhlicky, Bottke and Nesvorny’s theory, new evidence released in 2011 negated their claim. What came to light? Well, researchers had pinpointed the Baptistina asteroid family’s formation to around 80 million years ago. This would make it nearly impossible for the space rock to reach Earth when the Chicxulub crater formed 66 million years ago. That’s because it takes multiple tens of millions of years for asteroids to collide and resonate.
But the discovery of the Chicxulub crater also lent credibility to a theory first formed by physicist Luis Alvarez and his geologist son, Walter Alvarez. Both men believed that between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods, a massive impact on Earth had triggered a series of animal and plant extinctions. And among them were all of the non-avian species of dinosaurs.
Some of the Chicxulub crater’s statistics do apparently fall in line with the Alvarez theory too. For one thing, initial dating of the crater estimated its formation happening about 66 million years ago. So this timing would have the asteroid or comet slamming into Earth just between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods – just as the father-and-son duo suspected.
Many people also subscribe to the Alvarez theory about the Chicxulub crater. Namely, that the impact that caused it also triggered a mass extinction of, among other species, land- and sea-dwelling dinosaurs. Yet still so much mystery surrounded the enormous undersea divot. So scientists would have to drill into it to learn more.
And in 2016 it finally came time for such an excursion. Marine geophysicist Gulick and geophysicist Joanna Morgan helmed a crew of over 30, who represented a dozen different countries. The researchers boarded a boat and sailed into the Gulf of Mexico. And there, they transformed their vessel into a drilling station.
The drilling station stood tall on three legs, rising about 40 feet above the Gulf of Mexico’s turquoise waters. The team then drilled incredibly far into the Earth. And after the tool delved 60 feet underwater, it met the rock below and continued to dig a stunning 2,000 feet into the crust.
Of course, over a 66-million-year period, the Chicxulub crater had filled with a sizeable amount of limestone and sediment. But the scientists’ machine worked its way past the new collection of rock to find what they were looking for: the material that made up the planet’s only peak ring crater.
Gulick, Morgan and their team actually discovered that a peculiar type of rock made up the peak ring: granite. Normally, you see, this variety of rock is found far deeper in the Earth’s crust than it appears in the crater. This means that the asteroid had such an incredible impact that it had pushed sediment from miles beneath the surface all the way to the top.
Geophysicist Morgan, who works for Imperial College London, told The New York Times, “These rocks behaved like a fluid for a short period of time, and rocks don’t tend to do that. It’s a very dramatic process when you form a large crater.” Apparently, such a chain reaction gave credence to something called the dynamic collapse model theory.
The dynamic collapse model theory hypothesizes that the asteroid’s impact pushed rocks deep into the Earth’s crust before forcing them back up and out of it. Then these rocks collapsed down again and settled to form the crater’s peak rings. And the fact that granite forms the crater’s central plateau apparently goes hand-in-hand with such a theory.
But drilling into the Chicxulub crater revealed more than one truth about this devastating geological event. The rocks also told the story of what had happened once the asteroid had smashed into the Earth. Scientists revealed this evidence in 2019. And the picture they painted of the world post-impact was a terrifying one, to say the least.
Gulick said he and the rest of the scientists could be so specific with their findings because they had an unprecedented amount of rock to work with. He explained to The New York Times, “We normally get to read rock records that give us centimeters per thousand years. We have 130 meters for a day.”
The rocks told a story that goes like this. First, an enormous chunk of cosmic rock slammed into the ground, instantly creating a crater 60 miles wide and 20 miles into the Earth. The initial impact created waves in the nearby gulf – quite literally. A tsunami formed, in fact, charging in the opposite direction of the new crater.
The asteroid’s impact also sent huge pieces of rock hurtling into the air, as far as the planet’s upper atmosphere – and likely beyond even that. Gulick theorized that “almost certainly some of the material would have reached the Moon.” Yet the largest bits flew up before crashing back down on the ground, still hot from the initial impact.
Some smaller pieces of hot rock took longer to fall – and had more time to cool. These geological wonders, called tektites, scattered across what is now the North American continent. Then water started rushing back into the crater after it waved outward. But refilling the geological depression would be tame compared to the next stage.
When the asteroid collided with the Earth, you see, it sent a tsunami speeding off in the opposite direction. And of course, water ebbs and flows. So, soon enough, those powerful waves returned back toward the crater. Multiple massive tsunamis with waves towering hundreds of feet in the air then came back over the gaping geological hole.
The rush of back-and-forth tsunamis quickly filled the peak ring with a four-inch coating of sand and gravel. And as the gulf raged, the land close by was also ravaged. The asteroid’s impact had, for instance, sparked wildfires across the area. Scientists know this because they pinpointed pieces of charcoal in the peak ring just above the tsunami sediments.
These wildfires could have started from the asteroid’s scorching thermal energy upon impact. The aforementioned shower of molten rock could have had something to do with it too. In any case, Gulick told The New York Times, “Probably not everything burned, but certainly there were global wildfires.” So altogether, the tsunamis, falling rock and fires wiped out a stunning number of Cretaceous-era species.
It’s hard to believe that scientists could conjure such haunting images from layers of rock hidden deep beneath the Yucatán Peninsula. Yet for planetary geologist Paul Byrne, the Chicxulub crater’s layers make palpable some long-standing scientific theories. He told The New York Times that it was one thing to develop and simulate such hypotheses, but it was “quite another to see it.” And, considering the size and scope of the crater, this could be just the beginning of the startling secrets uncovered there.
But the Chicxulub crater is far from the only crater to have yielded fascinating secrets. Deep in the heart of Siberia, for instance, there’s a giant chasm that’s constantly growing in size. And inside, archaeologists have made some jaw-dropping discoveries. The real cause of this huge hole, however, is rather unsettling.
Deep within a Siberian forest, just outside of a small town called Batagai, lies an ominous sight to behold. And for the past 25 years, it’s been growing – along with the superstitions of the local community. In fact, the land here is so disconcerting that the locals are literally terrified.
Need proof? Well, the people of the area have taken to calling the geological feature a “gateway to the underworld.” It’s easy to see why: there is a huge gouge in the landscape, after all. Plus, local religions believe in a three-tiered universe: an upper, a middle and a lower world.
Moreover, some people are so apprehensive of the startling abyss that they’re afraid to go near it. And that is before you even consider the loud and fearsome booms that can sometimes be heard emanating from within. But there’s a bigger question here.
The crater that has caused such fear stretches more than a mile through the landscape. At its deepest, it plummets almost 400 feet below the Earth. And there’s more: the crater is constantly growing, spreading around 60 feet a year by current estimates.
But beyond the superstitions and local legends, something even more terrifying is going on at the so-called Batagaika Crater. That’s because this huge hole in the ground could be a warning sign of future geographical change in the region and, indeed, the world in general.
Image: Research Institute of Applied Ecology of the North via Siberian Times
To understand what’s happening in Siberia we need to go back in time around 55 years to when the crater first began to develop. And how this massive scar in an ancient landscape first sprang into life could well come as a shock.
The major area of study at the crater has been the effects of climate change on permafrost. Fascinatingly, during excavations the mummified bodies of multiple ancient animals have been found in the layers of mud and rock that make up the crater walls.
Image: Research Institute of Applied Ecology of the North via Siberian Times
The group had unknowingly set in motion what scientists call a “megaslump.” Essentially, the fast-thawing permafrost turned into a mush of mud, compromising the stability of the ground above, which quickly slipped into the slurry below.
Surprisingly, these slumps aren’t that rare in Arctic climates. And since the Yakutia Republic – where the crater occurred – is one of the coldest places on Earth, some scientists believe this was just another of those bizarre but predictable happenings. Now it looks like they could have been wrong.
Flooding in 2008 increased the spread of the crater, which has now become a focal point for scientific researchers. And some of their findings have started to change the way we think about permafrost around the globe0
The major area of study at the crater has been the effects of climate change on permafrost. Fascinatingly, during excavations the mummified bodies of multiple ancient animals have been found in the layers of mud and rock that make up the crater walls.
But other findings are not so positive: research suggests that the Batagaika Crater is just the tip of a very worrying, and quickly melting, iceberg. Indeed, if you think the crater is a one-off event, then you’re sorely mistaken, because more sinkholes are springing up around the area.
Dr. Julian Murton is a professor of geology at the University of Sussex, and speaking to Vice, he revealed some alarming statistics. For instance, the last time a megaslump such as this occurred was 10,000 years ago, and the conditions the world finds itself in now are far more conducive to such events than they were then.
Image: Research Institute of Applied Ecology of the North via Siberian Times
In fact, at the end of the last ice age, when the slumps were more common, carbon dioxide levels were at 280 parts per million. Right now, on the other hand, they sit at the shockingly high rate of 400 parts per million. And that’s resulted in more than one megaslump.
Another researcher, Vasily Bogoyavlensky from the Oil and Gas Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, revealed to the AFP news agency last year that another crater, this one 0.6 miles in diameter, had emerged in Yakutia. He also said that there are another six confirmed megaslumps, with yet more likely to exist.
It’s not just enormous craters, either; a range of smaller sinkholes and collapses have been monitored across the Russian frontier. And many scientists reckon they’re all linked to the region’s increasing temperature, which is a result of climate change.
Studying the various layers in the now unlocked permafrost is key to understanding the potential changes that are likely to happen in the future. Murton told Vice, “If we can understand how the landscape was altered then, it helps us to anticipate what may happen to Siberian permafrost terrain in the next centuries.”
So while the crater may not be an entrance to the underworld as many of the locals seem to think, it could still be hugely important for the future of the planet. Plus, it performs another function.
The huge gash ripped in the landscape stands as a stark physical representation of the effects that we as human beings are having on our planet. It is, after all, a literal scar in the landscape that’s down to us.
Whether or not the superstitions of the local people are true, the Batagaika Crater still remains a stark warning. It may not be waiting to drag us all to hell, but there’s a real chance that it represents something much, much scarier. Why? Because this threat could be so very much on the horizon.
Visionary view of a Nuclear Thermal Propulsion enabled spacecraft mission outward bound to Mars.
Image: NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center
For Bill Emrich, working at NASA has been a life-long dream come true. “This has been my dream job, and something I thought about since I was a kid,” said Emrich, lead project engineer at the Nuclear Thermal Rocket Element Environment Simulator (NTREES). Not only is Emrich the lead project engineer at NTREES, he also conceived and designed the megawatt-class thermal simulator. And Emrich’s current project is to determine the best material and method of designing nuclear rockets for space travel to Mars and beyond.
The Nuclear Rockets of the 20th Century
Nuclear rockets are not a new idea. Since the beginning of the space program, nuclear rockets were considered as a possible way to send astronauts to the Moon. The nuclear research that’s been done post-World War II in the 1950s officially became the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA) project in 1961, under NASA’s supervision. The program ran for almost two decades, designing the certified XE engine that even then satisfied all the requirements for a mission to Mars.
The 1960s NERVA engine designs are still used as the basis for modern nuclear rockets.
Photo: NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center
“When President Kennedy first proposed the space program, no one knew exactly what was the best way to accomplish space travel. People were aware of the advantages of nuclear power even back then, and I thought to myself, nuclear rockets is what we need,” Emrich said. “But as the space program went on, multi-stages rocket becomes the more accepted method of space travel, and NASA realized they didn’t need nuclear rockets to reach the moon.”
The NERVA program eventually shut down in 1973 due to political influences and growing costs. The program cost almost $2 billion in total—that would be equal to nearly $173 billion in today’s money.
However, the program is widely considered a success: To this day, any nuclear rocket engine’s design still uses the same concept as the NERVA NRX or Pewee rockets.
The Nuclear Rockets of the 21st Century
Fast forward to now, and there is a new sense of urgency for space travel. The current administration issued a mandate to return to the Moon by 2024 and NASA has partnered with commercial aerospace companies, such as Boeing and Space X, to reach that goal.
But besides going to the Moon, the current administration has asked NASA to explore nuclear power as an alternative means for space travel. A memo issued in August 2019 has tasked NASA to develop safety protocols for operating nuclear reactors in space. The first flight of a nuclear engine could happen as soon as 2024.
Emrich has worked at NASA since 1987 and wrote the book on nuclear rocket propulsion. He and his team at NTREES have been working on designing, optimizing, and testing nuclear rocket configurations for the last ten years at the Marshall Space Flight Center.7
There are two types of engines that can be used for nuclear rockets. The first is having a nuclear reactor generate electricity, which then powers the ion thrusters for electric propulsion.
NTREES engineers test different types of uranium-based fuels in hopes of finding the perfect source for deep space travel.
Photo: NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center
The second option is to have a nuclear reactor achieve high temperatures, then flowing cold hydrogen through the top of the rocket. Hot hydrogen exits the bottom of the rocket through a nozzle, acting as thrust just as a chemical engine would.
The advantage of using the second engine type is achieving higher thrust levels than with electric propulsion. Electric propulsion typically operates at thrust levels of a pound of thrust or lower. Nuclear thermal engines, where hydrogen is used, can produce tens of thousands of pounds of thrust and are much more efficient than chemical engines.
“Would you rather go from New York to Dallas in a car, which can get 100 miles per gallon, but your maximum speed is only two miles an hour? Or would you rather get a car that has a fuel efficiency of 40 miles per gallon, but your maximum speed is 65 miles per hour, and you arrive within the same day?” Emrich said. “It comes down to: The higher thrust that can be produced, the faster you will get there.”
Testing Different Nuclear Fuel Types
At the NTREES facility, engineers test nuclear engines with different uranium-based fuel types under the same conditions that would exist during space travel. The main stresses would be extreme high temperatures and pressures. A NERVA rocket’s highest temperature ever experienced was 2,250 degrees Kelvin or 3,590 degrees Fahrenheit.
The hotter you can make the rocket, the hotter you can make the hydrogen exit the nozzle to achieve higher thrust. The danger is that nuclear fuel has a maximum temperature limit before it melts or comes apart.
While the nuclear rocket design hasn’t changed much since the 1960s, the fuel materials have improved significantly and are stronger now—even for handling nuclear energy. The nuclear engines are still powered by uranium 235, just as they were back in the NERVA projects day, but are now embedded into different materials.
The uranium-based fuels are exposed to the same high temperatures and pressures in the test facility as they would experience during space flight.
Photo: NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center
Carbon-based fuels are graphite-based with embedded uranium. The fuel is shaped into hexagonal prisms with a hole stroke where the hydrogen flows through them. Graphite can withstand the high temperatures but still requires coating on the flow channels. Otherwise, the hydrogen will attack the graphite, causing cracking. Cermat fuels are a combination of ceramic and metallic materials. They are usually comprised of uranium, dioxide, and tungsten. Cermat fuels can better withstand the attacks from the hydrogen but have a lower tolerance against the high temperatures.
The third fuel types are dicarbide or tricarbide fuels. These fuels are alloy-based and made of uranium, zirconium, and niobium. These fuels can handle the high temperatures extremely well and do not get attacked by the hydrogen flowing through the engine. However, they are brittle and tend to crack. At NTREES, these different fuel types are shaped into different geometries to see which ones will perform the best. Even the smallest changes in the shape, or changing the way the graphite is coated, can lead to better rocket performance.
Nuclear Rockets and Travel to Mars
Determining the fuel for nuclear rockets is only the first step toward nuclear space travel. As Emrich points out, the work done at NTREES is only the beginning in a long process toward viable nuclear-powered rockets.
“Once the testing is complete, you have to take the fuel and put it into a nuclear reactor. Then that nuclear reactor has to work together with pumps, valves, hydrogen feed systems, nozzles, and so forth,” Emrich said. “You also have to test the fuel in a nuclear test reactor in the presence of a high radiation field, and ultimately perform an actual engine test powered by the nuclear fuel. So there's a lot that has to go on after the first step of testing the fuel.”
In order to travel to Mars, it will be necessary to perfect the design of nuclear-powered rockets. Those rockets not only have to reach Mars but also, more importantly, come back to Earth. “Elon Musk and others want to take people to Mars and start a colony there. If you want to go to Mars and leave people on Mars, you can do that with chemical rockets,” Emrich said. “It will be a difficult journey but possible. But if you want to bring people back to Earth, you are almost forced to use nuclear-powered rockets. And at NASA, we are more interested in bringing people back home.”
“It seems inevitable other life is out there, especially considering that life appeared on Earth so soon after the planet was formed."
The expert said if it is proved once and for all that humans are not alone it would change everything.
“A discovery, if it came, could turn the world of biology upside down,” said O'Connell.
“Bacteria, fungus, cacti and cockroaches are all our cousins and we all share the same basic molecular machinery.
“A second sample of life, though, might represent a ‘second genesis’ - totally unrelated to us.”
If signs of life are eventually found on Jupiter's moon Europa - it could mean the Universe is actually teeming with aliens.
“It would greatly increase the chances that, somewhere among those billions of habitable planets in our galaxy, there could be something we could talk to," said O'Connell.
In some ways, however, discovering similarities with human life would be even more radical, reports news.com.
It's hoped Jupiter's moon Europa may contain sign of extraterrestrial life
Credit: Wikipedia
The Europa Clipper is one of two probes being sent to the icy moon
Credit: NASA
It would mean panspermia – the theory the the formula for life was seeded via comets and meteorites – has genuine merit.
“As Mars was probably habitable before Earth, it is possible life originated there before hitchhiking on a space rock to here. Perhaps we’re all Martians, ” said O'Connell.
Either way, frozen Europa could well have all the answers.
And when the Voyager 1 space probe flashed past in 1979, scientists were stunned by what they saw.
It had shapely canyons, troughs and ridges and there were hardly any craters.
That sparked the theory that water regularly welled up from beneath, remoulding and refreshing the surface.
However, it wasn’t until the 1990s that some of Europa’s secrets were unlocked.
The Galileo probe found strong evidence there were oceans twice as big as Earth’s beneath the ice and they seemed salty.
Geologists were quick to point out that meant the water must be interacting with rocks and benefiting from nutrients and minerals from the moon’s solid core.
“This has important implications for the potential existence of life in Europa’s hidden depths.”
Both new space probes - Clipper and Juice - will carry a variety of sensors to peer beneath the ice and measure the minute fluctuations in the moon’s gravity.
These are caused by changes in the density of whatever is beneath – such as a mountain range, or a mineral deposit.
Planetary scientists expect the ice to be somewhere between 10 and 15 miles thick, however it is hoped it is much thinner in some places.
Mysterious object from interstellar space ‘approaching our solar system’
Artists conception of a future Martian base. Image: NASA/SEArch+/Apis Cor
A newly proposed House authorization bill would push back NASA’s deadline to land humans on the Moon to 2028 instead of 2024, while also calling for a crewed landing on Mars in 2033. Reactions to this proposal have been mixed, with NASA’s chief Jim Bridenstine unhappy about the way the agency is supposed to roll out this recommended plan.
The proposed authorization bill, called the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2020, was introduced by the House Committee on Science, Space, andTechnology on January 24, reports Spaceflight Now. The 102-page document recommends that the first crewed Artemis lunar landing take place in 2028 instead of 2024, which is the current, controversial deadline. At the same time, the House Committee is proposing a rather aggressive timeline for Mars exploration, in which American astronauts would arrive to Martian orbit in 2033, followed shortly thereafter by a mission to the surface.
The bipartisan legislation was introduced by Representative Kendra Horn (D-Oklahoma), who chairs the committee’s space and aeronautics subcommittee. A markup session is planned for tomorrow, at which point the document could undergo substantial changes. It’ll likely be months before a vote takes place to enact the proposed legislation, also known as H.R. 5666.
The overarching goal of the recommended changes is to position the Artemis lunar program as a stepping stone for the larger goal of sending people to Mars. America’s “human space exploration goal should be to send humans to the surface of Mars,” according to the proposed bill. At the same time, missions to the Moon will be required to reduce risk and to demonstrate the “capabilities and operations needed to support a human mission to Mars.”
Last year, NASA said a mission to Mars by 2033 was a distinct possibility, but this proposed authorization bill would turn speculation and wishful thinking into a concrete plan.
The specified goal of the pending “Moon to Mars program,” as it’s termed in the proposed bill, will be to “land humans on Mars in a sustainable manner as soon as practicable,” with the “interim goal of sending a crewed mission to the lunar surface by 2028 and a goal of sending a crewed mission to orbit Mars by 2033.”
Among other recommendations, the bill specifies that the Artemis lunar lander be launched as a single component, rather than a modular multi-piece vessel that would be constructed in space. NASA would retain full ownership of the Artemis lunar landing system, which would be a dramatic change in plans, given that the space agency is currently soliciting bids from the private sector.
Bill H.R. 5666 would renew NASA’s commitment to the Lunar Gateway project but proposes that the outpost be placed not in lunar orbit but in the Earth-Moon Lagrange point—a gravitational sweet spot between Earth and Moon. At this location, the habitable terminal could support missions to the Moon and Mars, according to the bill, which didn’t rule out a lunar orbit as a possibility.
The proposed bill calls for the establishment of a Moon to Mars program office, complete with its own director, and a Mars Enabling Technology Initiative for the “purpose of developing and testing the technologies and capabilities needed for a human mission to Mars.” Items on the prospective to-do list include the development of propulsion engines, Mars landing systems, protection against radiation, a Mars transport vehicle, life support systems, Martian habitats, and spacesuits for explorers, among other technological needs.
Given the aggressive timeline, NASA would need to set up its Moon to Mars office within 60 days of the bill being enacted, develop an overall mission architecture and plan within 120 days, and submit estimated budgets within 240 days, according to the proposed bill.
NASA would also have to provision for two crewed lunar missions each year following the inaugural landing in 2028, as well as create a plan to decommission the International Space Station (ISS) and consider potential replacements, including contributions from the private sector.
The bill also states that NASA must assure crew access to the ISS and upgrade and replace ISS spacesuits, including spares, to “accommodate the diversity of ISS crew,” in an obvious response to a debacle last year in which an all-women spacewalk was canceled because not enough suits were available to the female crew. Other items in the proposed bill included the development of tech for defense, the monitoring of climate change, new telescopes, and even the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
In a NASA statement issued Monday, January 27, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine expressed some reservations about the proposal.
“I am concerned that the bill imposes some significant constraints on our approach to lunar exploration,” said Bridenstine. “As you know, NASA has successfully fostered the development of a rapidly expanding commercial economy for access to space. We would like to continue building on this success as we develop the most efficient mission architectures and partnership approaches to accomplish our shared goals.”
In particular, Bridenstine is concerned about the proposed approach to building the lunar lander. A fully government-owned-and-operated lander system would be “ineffective,” he said. In its current form, the proposed bill would hinder NASA’s “ability to develop a flexible architecture that takes advantage of the full array of national capabilities—government and private sector—to accomplish national goals,” he said. Accordingly, the NASA chief is hoping for “some modifications” to the pending legislation.
As SpaceNews reports, some members of the private sector are also miffed by the proposed bill:
In a Jan. 27 letter to the bill’s four co-sponsors, Eric Stallmer, president of the [Commercial Spaceflight Federation], offered even stronger criticism, saying it “explicitly and unfairly excludes the participation of the American commercial spaceflight industry, irrationally barring fair competition from NASA’s deep space exploration initiatives.” Stallmer called on the committee to withdraw the bill and “engage in a fully transparent process” with all stakeholders.
That said, the bill does appear to have its supporters, including The Coalition for Deep Space Exploration (an organization that advocates on behalf of the private space industry) and Aerospace Industries Association (a U.S. trade association), according to SpaceNews.
We’ll be following the House markup session that’s scheduled for tomorrow to see how this bill might be modified and to learn next steps, such as when a vote might happen. Regardless, the U.S. government has big plans for NASA in the coming decades, as the next era of human space exploration appears to be imminent.
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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..
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