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 11 MONTHS.
ON 06/05/2024 MORE THAN 1.972.210
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...
13-07-2020
The Bizarre Case of an Elk Abducted by Aliens in Washington
The Bizarre Case of an Elk Abducted by Aliens in Washington
There has been much written of on alien abductions and the people who have had to endure them. It is a phenomenon that has really taken off and become its own strange corner of the world of the weird, and such cases continue to generate debate and discussion. Yet, it is not always just people who seem to be the target of such otherworldly entities. Here we will look at the strange case of the time an elk was plucked off the ground to be whisked off by a UFO right in full view of a group of witnesses.
According to the original report logged by the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) and followed up by UFO researchers Peter B. Davenport, Director of NUFORC and Robert Fairfax, Director of Investigations for the Washington State Chapter of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), on February 25, 1999, it all began with a group of forestry workers out at the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, about 20 miles west of Mt. St. Helens. On this day their mission was to plant trees. It was a cold winter morning, their breath frosting the air, and as they took a lunch break at one point just before noon, some of the workers had their attention diverted to a herd of elk in the valley below them. For this area it was not a particularly unusual sight, but things would quickly get very odd indeed.
As the workers watched the animals go about their business, the men noticed something odd come drifting up over the distant ridge, which was described as “a heel-shaped object with two stripes on its back.” They at first thought it was just perhaps a parachute of a skydiver, but whatever it was soon proved to be keeping at a steady height and travelling along horizontally over the terrain, seemingly headed straight towards those elk. This was curious enough that the three workers called over the others to see what they thought, and all of them watched this strange object drift along the terrain completely silently towards the elk herd, which did not seem to be aware of its presence. They could now see that whatever the object was, it was disc-shaped, and perhaps 8 to 10 feet in diameter, and with red and a white patch on the surface. None of them could figure out what they were looking at, and watched it with a combination of surprise and curiosity.
When the herd of elk did become aware of the mystery object approaching them, they scattered and bolted to run into the trees, and in the pandemonium one lone animal ran off down a logging road. The object allegedly pursued this single animal, moving in a sort of odd wobbly way, and as the shocked workers looked on it then seemed to somehow levitate the elk off of the ground with some sort of tractor beam as it appeared to somehow increase in size. After this, the UFO shot off towards a distant ridge with the animal apparently still dangling within that unseen invisible force beneath it, oddly not kicking or struggling, and seeming to be as if an insect caught in amber. The UFO then disappeared behind the ridge, only to go shooting up into the sky moments later without the elk. The investigators of the case would describe this series of events thusly:
The captured elk, its head apparently against the ventral surface of the craft, and body standing stiffly upright, was lifted off the ground-just enough to clear the underbrush. The craft continued its slow, wobbling oscillation. The suspended elk moved likewise as if she were a solid metal sculpture welded to the craft. After the craft acquired (without pause) the animal, it moved away at the same slow pace, to the north, following the contour of the land. The elk’s feet were observed sweeping circles, in conjunction with the craft’s movement, just above the brush and tree tops. Within a short time, the craft approached the forest edge that defined the end of the clear-cut area. Apparently, the craft did not stop or maneuver in time to avoid hitting some of the lower branches. Because of the considerable distance of the craft, the witnesses could not discern exactly what had hit the trees-whether the craft, the elk, or something else is unknown.
After hitting the branches, the witnesses saw it dip sharply and reverse direction before ascending vertically in front of the tree line. All three had the impression that the object had almost dropped the animal. Once above the tree top level, it moved over the forest margin and continued northward, dipped out of sight momentarily (perhaps still following the contour line of tree tops), then ascended at roughly a 45-degree angle into the distance until it was obscured by clouds.
When the report was logged and Davenport and Fairfax went to investigate, they interviewed several of the witnesses and deemed them to be reliable people who seemed to really believe what they had seen. During the investigation there was even an elk carcass found along a logging road to the north of the site, and although the cause of death could not be ascertained, it was unknown if this was the same animal that had been mysteriously “abducted.” Unfortunately, most of the interviewing was done with workers who were not fluent in English, and so was done through their boss, a man named Emanuel, who happened to be skeptical and reticent about the whole thing, and the investigators would lament:
Emanuel’s efforts at translating were laudable, but he was neither a trained investigator nor interpreter. He had not been present during the abduction, and the event floated somewhere outside his compass of understanding. This presented a challenge, since we were unable to understand for ourselves what the witnesses were saying. Compounding these difficulties, Emanuel seemed reserved in his translations. We knew he believed something strange had happened to his workers; however, we also suspected he was not ready to believe anything as exotic as an alien craft snatching up an elk. The testimony waxed expansive and waned timid by turns-torn between the need to tell their story and the anxiety of raised eyebrows at the outrageousness of the tale they told. We struggled with the narrative for 35 minutes. There were innumerable questions yet to ask, but the hour grew late and signals via body language suggested we close the interview and bid farewell. Though crippled by the language barrier, our initial interview provided a tentative and skeletal picture of the event.
It is worth noting that many of the witnesses were very reluctant to talk about it any further, and it leaves us wondering just what to think of all of this. What was going on here? Why would this UFO want to go after that animal? Was there some purpose to all of this, and can we ever hope to understand it? Or was it just a tall tale told by these workers to liven up a slow day? No one really knows, and it is a very odd abduction report to throw on the pile with all of the others.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
En ondertussen gebeuren er ook andere dingen
En ondertussen gebeuren er ook andere dingen
Onlangs publiceerden wij een aantal artikelen met daarin vreemde paars/roodachte luchten en vreemde regenbogen.
Op zich zijn regenbogen en ook dubbele regenbogen een natuurlijk verschijnsel, maar met de vreemd gekleurde luchten ligt het iets anders.
Misschien is alles wat er nu gebeurt rondom de coronahoax die de wereld in haar grip houdt wel een afleiding om ons bezig te houden, omdat wij nu nauwelijks tijd hebben om op andere zaken te letten.
Want, er gebeuren ook andere dingen, afgezien van corona, en onlangs hebben wij aandacht besteed aan vreemde luchten die zich overal voordeden. Hier een klein stukje uit één van die eerdere artikelen:
Donderdagavond werd er volgens een lezer op diverse plaatsten in Amerika hele vreemde luchten waargenomen. Oranje luchten, of misschien beter gezegd, perzikkleurige luchten met daarin een soort cirkel.
That same orange light was seen all over the US as well. Over here it was like the entire sky was a strange peach color. I heard some people talking about an eclipse. But the thing is, I can't find any information about it at all.
De volgende foto is genomen in South Carolina.
Een zelfde vreemde cirkel vinden we ook terug in Birmingham, waar wel héél spectaculaire beelden werden gemaakt. Wij kregen deze opgestuurd van een lezer (dank!).
Het begint als een naderend onweer en langzaam maar zeker vormt zich een vreemde cirkelvormige wolk waar op een gegeven moment een ufo uit tevoorschijn komt. (rechts boven in beeld).
Deze en meerdere hebben we gezien op zondag in oost vlaanderen, België. We voelden direct dat het een dimensiepoort is
Volgens een nieuwsbrief van Planet X onderzoeker Nancy Lieder is er een reden dat deze luchten overal ter wereld een vreemde kleur vertonen. Zij zegt dat de vreemde regenboogverschijnselen zoals die in Birmingham te zien waren niets nieuws zijn, maar wel de kleur van de luchten zoals die nu overal wordt waargenomen.
Waar we hier mee te maken hebben volgens de nieuwsbrief is rode stof zoals die wordt veroorzaakt door de staart zoals die als het ware achter de planeet Nibiru aansleept. In een eerder artikel schreven wij hier het volgende over:
Zo schreef zij met de informatie van de Zeta's in 1997 al over de manen van Nibiru en vergeleek zij deze met een parelsnoer en de reden daarvoor is omdat deze manen niet in een baan om de planeet draaien, maar achter elkaar als een soort slinger achter Nibiru aan zwieren.
Naast de manen bevindt zich achter de planeet een lang gestrekte roodachtige wolk bestaande uit ruimtepuin die er ook uitziet als de rode draak zoals die in de Chinese cultuur een prominente rol speelt en binnen allerlei profetieën ook wordt genoemd in relatie tot deze onbekende planeet.
At thetime of the great destruction of Earth, God caused a dragon from out of Heaven to come and encompass her about. The dragon was frightful to behold, it lashed its tail, it breathed out fire and hot coals, and a great catastrophe was inflicted upon mankind. Indertijd gaf Nancy aan dat het er ongeveer als volgt uit zou zien:
Nancy Lieder stelt dan ook dat mensen die zeggen dat dit één van de tekenen van de eindtijd is, zoals die wordt voorspeld in de bijbel helemaal gelijk hebben.
Vreemde luchten die of rood kleuren of paars of een perzikachtige kleur, maar wat allemaal te herleiden is naar hetzelfde fenomeen wat ook onze verre voorouders voor ons hebben gezien. In een eerder artikel schreven we het volgende over dit fenomeen:
Door de gloed van de Verwoester was de aarde gehuld in een roodachtig licht. Het land was platgeslagen en verwoest door enorme hagelstenen die neer beukten op alles wat stond.
Het bovenstaande is een klein stukje uit de Kolbrin bijbel. In een eerder artikel schreven wij al over de herkomst van dit werk:
Als we dan uiteindelijk terechtkomen bij iets wat op geschreven documenten lijkt, dan zien we naast de kleitabletten van de Sumeriërs iets wat de Kolbrin Bijbel wordt genoemd. Het is een verzameling van oeroude teksten die vertaald zijn. De herkomst is het oude Egypte en daarna komen we ze weer tegen in de Middeleeuwen.
De manuscripten zouden gered zijn tijdens een brand in het klooster van Glastonbury Abbey in 1184. Er gaat zelfs het gerucht dat de beroemde Nicola Tesla enkele van zijn wijsheden haalde uit de Kolbrin Bijbel. Deze bestaat uit in totaal elf boeken, waarvan men zegt dat de eerste zes geschreven zijn door Egyptenaren ten tijde van de Exodus. Het boek is nooit toegankelijk geweest voor het grote publiek, maar werd altijd geheimgehouden bestemd voor een select groepje mensen. Tegenwoordig is er een gedrukte versie beschikbaar via het Culdian Trust.
Deze Kolbrin bijbel beschrijft in detail de komst van de Verwoester, oftewel de planeet Nibiru of Planet X. In die bijbel staat onder andere het volgende:
De plaag waarde door het land, de rivier was bloedrood en overal was bloed. Zij die dronken van de rivier moesten onmiddellijk overgeven. Het stof beet zich vast in de huid van zowel mens als dier.
Door de gloed van de Verwoester was de aarde gehuld in een roodachtig licht. Het land was platgeslagen en verwoest door enorme hagelstenen die neer beukten op alles wat stond. Ze kwamen naar beneden in hete buien en achter hen aan kwam een soort vreemd gloeiend vuur dat over de aarde liep.
Naarmate Nibiru verder door de ruimte reist, sleurt het als het ware een enorme wolk van ruimtepuin achter zich aan bestaande uit gassen, stenen, rotsen en manen, evenals een enorme wolk van geladen rode roestig stof. Wanneer je daar vanaf de aarde naar kijkt, dan lijkt dit bloedrood. Tijdens de passage van de planeet komt deze wolk dichter in de buurt van de aarde en raakt de enorme staart onze planeet als het ware, waardoor dit roestige stof op aarde terecht komt en de luchten en het water een bloedrode kleur geeft.
Het is ook deze wolk die wij nu regelmatig waarnemen in de vorm van bloedrode zonsondergangen en rode luchten (zelfs 's nachts). Deze rode stofwolk wordt ook door de wind verspreid en zorgt onder ander ook voor bloedrode zandstormen en doet het water op bepaalde plekken eveneens bloedrood kleuren.
Het is niet alleen de Kolbrin bijbel waar deze rode stofwolk wordt beschreven, het komt onder andere ook voor bij de onderzoeker, auteur en goede vriend van Einstein, Immanuel Velikovsky. In zijn boek uit 1950, Werelden in botsing, staat onder andere het volgende:
"Eén van de eerst zichtbare tekenen van deze ontmoeting was het roodkleuren van het aardoppervlak, veroorzaakt door dun stof van roestig pigment. In de zeeën, in de meren en de rivieren zorgde dit pigment voor een bloedrode kleur van het water (pagina 64).
Onze planeet ging dieper in de staart van de komeet. Het stof was de voorbode van het grind (pagina 67).
Net zoals de bekende astronoom Carlos Muñoz Ferrada ging ook Velikovsky ervan uit te maken te hebben met een niet normale planeet, maar een soort komeet/planeet (cometa planeta).
De volgende video geeft in 22 minuten een samenvatting van de heftige weerextremen en andere bijzonder gebeurtenissen op onze planeet in de afgelopen maand juni. Oordeel zelf of we hier te maken hebben met een stabiele rustige planeet, of eentje die onder invloed staat van ongewone krachten en die misschien wel veroorzaakt worden de planeet Niburu, ook wel Planet X genoemd.
Scientists Propose Plan to Determine If Planet Nine Is a Primordial Black Hole
Scientists Propose Plan to Determine If Planet Nine Is a Primordial Black Hole
Scientists at Harvard University and the Black Hole Initiative (BHI) have developed a new method to find black holes in the outer solar system, and along with it, determine once-and-for-all the true nature of the hypothesized Planet Nine. The paper, accepted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters, highlights the ability of the future Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) mission to observe accretion flares, the presence of which could prove or rule out Planet Nine as a black hole.
Artist’s conception of accretion flares resulting from the encounter of an Oort-cloud comet and a hypothesized black hole in the outer solar system..
Credit: M. Weiss
Dr. Avi Loeb, Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard, and Amir Siraj, a Harvard undergraduate student, have developed the new method to search for black holes in the outer solar system, based on flares that result from the disruption of intercepted comets. The study suggests that the LSST has the capability to find black holes by observing for accretion flares resulting from the impact of small Oort cloud objects.
“In the vicinity of a black hole, small bodies that approach it will melt as a result of heating from the background accretion of gas from the interstellar medium onto the black hole,” said Siraj. “Once they melt, the small bodies are subject to tidal disruption by the black hole, followed by accretion from the tidally disrupted body onto the black hole.” Loeb added, “Because black holes are intrinsically dark, the radiation that matter emits on its way to the mouth of the black hole is our only way to illuminate this dark environment.”
Future searches for primordial black holes could be informed by the new calculation. “This method can detect or rule out trapped planet-mass black holes out to the edge of the Oort cloud, or about a hundred thousand astronomical units,” said Siraj. “It could be capable of placing new limits on the fraction of dark matter contained in primordial black holes.”
The upcoming LSST is expected to have the sensitivity required to detect accretion flares, while current technology isn’t able to do so without guidance. “LSST has a wide field of view, covering the entire sky again and again, and searching for transient flares,” said Loeb. “Other telescopes are good at pointing at a known target but we do not know exactly where to look for Planet Nine. We only know the broad region in which it may reside.” Siraj added, “LSST’s ability to survey the sky twice per week is extremely valuable. In addition, its unprecedented depth will allow for the detection of flares resulting from relatively small impactors, which are more frequent than large ones.”
The new paper focuses on the famed Planet Nine as a prime first candidate for detection. The subject of much speculation, most theories suggest that Planet Nine is a previously undetected planet, but it may also flag the existence of a planet-mass black hole.
“Planet Nine is a compelling explanation for the observed clustering of some objects beyond the orbit of Neptune. If the existence of Planet Nine is confirmed through a direct electromagnetic search, it will be the first detection of a new planet in the solar system in two centuries, not counting Pluto, said Siraj, adding that a failure to detect light from Planet Nine—or other recent models, such as the suggestion to send probes to measure gravitational influence—would make the black hole model intriguing. “There has been a great deal of speculation concerning alternative explanations for the anomalous orbits observed in the outer solar system. One of the ideas put forth was the possibility that Planet Nine could be a grapefruit-sized black hole with a mass of five to ten times that of the Earth.”
The focus on Planet Nine is based both in the unprecedented scientific significance that a hypothetical discovery of a planet-mass black hole in the solar system would hold as well as the continued interest in understanding what’s out there. “The outskirts of the solar system is our backyard. Finding Planet Nine is like discovering a cousin living in the shed behind your home which you never knew about,” said Loeb. “It immediately raises questions: why is it there? How did it obtain its properties? Did it shape the solar system history? Are there more like it?”
The research was funded in part by a grant from the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, and by Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative (BHI), which is funded by grants from the John Templeton Foundation (JTF) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF).
Contacts and sources:
Amy Oliver
Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA)
UFO Seen Near Comet Neowise Over Taiwan At 4AM, July 12, 2020, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Seen Near Comet Neowise Over Taiwan At 4AM, July 12, 2020, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: July 12, 2020, 4AM Taiwan time. Location of sighting: Hehuan Mountain, Taiwan Source: Facebook friend in Taiwan The person woke up early to catch the famous comet Neowise as it was crossing the sky. Later when looking at the photos, a strange red glowing object was seen. The object looks like four balls flying two by two next to each other. The UFO looks huge. You can clearly see it in all three photos of the comet. And this was taken at Hehuan Mountain area, no city lights to bother the camera at all. Only one photo shows the UFO is high detail, the other two show a fuzzy red blur. So fortunately for us, the eyewitness got three decent photos, each with the UFO. The morning light seemed to cause the last photo to blur the UFO more. The UFO probably left the comet and was gone in 15-30 seconds. Awesome photos. Incredible evidence that Neowise is much more than we believed. Absolutely extraordinary and I believe this UFO came from Neowise itself. Leaving over the ocean near Taiwan in hopes of not being noticed at 4AM. But as luck would have it...aliens underestimated Taiwanese photographers. Neowise is not a comet but an alien ship making its rounds to transport and to patrol the aliens territories. Scott C. Waring - Taiwan
The reality is right in front of us. The legs, arms, hand, foot and head with crown of an alien species. The body is not naked, but still wearing the armor it was fighting in. They all lay next to one another. Thats a sign that the person was in battle and attacked, being cut into sections by a very fine and powerful weapon...similar to a laser sword...or light saber. Take a look at the screenshots I took and the parts that I have identified. Clearly its from one person who was very tall. They stood between 3.5-4 meters tall. This is similar to the other dead body of the "King of Mars" I found several years ago...click here to see those photos. There is not a doubt in my mind that this being has multiple strands of DNA, because for every added strand comes added compactness and strength of body. This body has degraded very little since his death.
This is undeniable proof that 4 meter tall aliens did exist on Mars.
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan
The shoulder below has an eye and design on it, still wearing armor over the arm.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
VIDEO Unknown lights above Reno, Nevada 7-Jul-2020
VIDEO Unknown lights above Reno, Nevada 7-Jul-2020
These four very bright lights were caught on tape in the night sky above Reno, a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, approximately 22 miles from Lake Tahoe. This happened on 7th July 2020.
Witness report:
Large round or possibly triangular object with 5 white lights. Was on a walk in neighborhood- Observed a very bright object in the sky, could not make out what it was but took picture of it (at 9:27). Continues walking and at 9:38 turned a corner and same object was hovering between a church and flag pole. I could make out the object was large and solid and had five circular bright white lights that would go on and off at various times. I began videoing it with my phone and described it as did so.
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An artist's concept of active volcanos on Venus, depicting a subduction zone where the foreground crust plunges into the planet's interior at the topographic trench.
Under consideration to become the next Discovery Program mission, VERITAS would reveal the inner workings of Earth's mysterious "twin."
Imagine Earth. Now fill the skies with thick, Sun-obscuring clouds of sulfuric acid; boil off the oceans by cranking up the temperature to 900 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly 500 degrees Celsius), and boost the air pressure high enough to flatten you like a pancake. What you now have is Venus, a rocky planet similar in size to Earth but different in almost every other way.
How these "sister planets" evolved so differently has been a burning scientific question for decades, and a proposed mission called VERITAS seeks to provide answers by transforming our understanding of the internal geodynamics that shaped the planet. The mission could lend insights into our own planet's evolution and even help us better understand rocky planets orbiting other stars.
Short for Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography & Spectroscopy, VERITAS is being considered for selection under NASA's Discovery Program and would be managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The project's partners include Lockheed Martin, the Italian Space Agency, the German Space Agency, and the French Space Agency.
"Venus is like this cosmic gift of an accident," said Suzanne Smrekar, principal investigator of VERITAS at JPL. "You have these two planetary bodies - Earth and Venus - that started out nearly the same but have gone down two completely different evolutionary paths, but we don't know why."
This interactive model compares the sizes of Venus (left) and Earth. To discover more about the similarities and differences of the two planets, zoom in and give them a spin, or use the search function at bottom for more.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. View the full interactive experience at Eyes on the Solar System. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The last mission to study the planet's surface, NASA's Magellan spacecraft, ended in 1994. While it provided tantalizing clues about Venus' geology, the instrumentation couldn't provide certitude as to the origin of many of the planet's surface features.
Proposed for a 2026 launch, VERITAS would orbit the planet and peer through the obscuring clouds with a powerful state-of-the art radar system to create 3D global maps and a near-infrared spectrometer to figure out what the surface is made of. It would also measure the planet's gravitational field to determine the structure of Venus' interior. Together, the instruments would offer clues about the planet's past and present geologic processes, from its core to its surface.
A Window Into Early Earth
Here on Earth, the rigid crust that envelops the planet is broken into a jigsaw puzzle of tectonic plates atop the mantle. Convection in the mantle helps drive motion of the surface plates. As some plates descend into the interior - a process known as subduction - they melt, and volcanic outgassing releases volatiles (such as water, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane) into the atmosphere.
Learning more about the geologic processes on Venus - where the warm crust is a good analogy for early Earth's, when the plates were just beginning to form - could offer a valuable glimpse into how these processes began on Earth.
"The biggest mystery to me is the extent of deformation structures on Venus" - areas of rock on the surface that have buckled under immense geologic pressure - "that could be studied to understand the nature of tectonic activity on the planet," said science team member Joann Stock, a professor of geology and geophysics at Caltech's Seismological Laboratory in Pasadena.
Producing high-resolution 3D topographic maps VERITAS would bring into focus structures that have previously been too small to resolve, added Stock. These structures could include raised topography on both sides of strike-slip faults, like the San Andreas Fault, which is an indicator of major tectonic activity. VERITAS would also look for active surface faulting using something called interferometric deformation maps for the first time beyond Earth.
In addition, VERITAS would study vast deformation structures called tessera. These plateau-like features may be analogous to Earth's continents. A leading theory is that Earth's continents formed when iron-rich oceanic crust subducted and melted in the presence of water, producing huge volumes of new, less iron-rich continental crust that rose above the ocean.
To determine if Venus' tessera plateaus formed in a similar way to Earth's continents, VERITAS would construct the first global multispectral maps of Venus' surface composition. If their composition resembles that of continental crust, we'd also gain information about Venus' wetter past.
A Volcanic World
On Earth, plate tectonics and volcanism go hand in hand. But what about on Venus?
"Determining whether Venus is actively undergoing volcanic activity and understanding what process is driving it is one of the really exciting questions I'd love to see answered," said planetary scientist Jennifer Whitten, a VERITAS science team member at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Using its spectrometer, VERITAS would determine which rocks recently formed from erupting magma, before interactions with the atmosphere have had time to change their chemical composition. In addition, the spectrometer would search for hotspots from active eruptions, while the radar instrument would search for active faulting, an indication of tectonic activity.
In getting to know Venus' volcanoes and the geophysical processes causing them, scientists could also gauge their impact on the planet's climate and, perhaps, answer another key question: Does the planet's interior still contain large quantities of water like Earth's does?
Making Planets Habitable
Plate tectonics and volcanism don't just affect how a planet takes shape; they are intimately tied to a planet's habitability. Plate tectonics strongly affects Earth's long-term climate by influencing the processes that keep the atmosphere in balance: volcanism, which release volatiles into the atmosphere, and subduction, which recycles volatiles back into the interior. Also, the formation and erosion of Earth's continents have a major influence on the composition of the oceans and atmosphere. Together, these processes provide the nutrients and a habitable climate for life to thrive.
But what is the delicate geodynamic balance that ultimately makes a planet habitable? Considering the discovery of thousands of exoplanets orbiting stars other than our Sun, the answer could inform our understanding of their nature.
"To unwrap the mysteries of Venus we have to look under the hood at Venus' interior; it is the engine for global geologic and atmospheric evolution," said Smrekar. "Are Venus and Earth fundamentally unique worlds? Or are the differences between these 'twins' only cosmetic? Answering this question is key to understanding what makes other rocky planets habitable and, ultimately, emerge with life."
Read more about Discovery Mission proposals selected to develop concept studies here.
News Media Contact
Ian J. O'Neill Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-354-2649 ian.j.oneill@jpl.nasa.gov
Grey Hautaluoma / Alana Johnson Headquarters, Washington 202-358-0668 / 202-358-1501 grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov
Ingenious Abandoned Jungle City of Guayabo de Turrialba in Costa Rica
Ingenious Abandoned Jungle City of Guayabo de Turrialba in Costa Rica
South and Central America have many amazing archaeological sites, some of which were left behind by pre-Columbian peoples and cultures who left no written records. One of the most significant sites in Costa Rica is Guayabo de Turrialba. This mysterious city in the jungle was declared a National Monument in 1973, protected for future generations and further archeological exploration. In 2009 it was recognized by the American Engineering Society as an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.
The Known History of Guayabo De Turrialba
Since the people who built the amazing city of Guayabo de Turrialba left no documentary evidence, we do not know what they were called, but thanks to archeologists who have studied this site, there have been numerous fascinating finds. These have helped researchers to establish some facts about the mysterious builders of Guayabo de Turrialba.
Guayabo de Turrialba monument covers 540 acres, but only a small portion has been uncovered.
It is believed that the location was first inhabited in around 1000 BC, about the same time as Jerusalem was founded. Based on a survey of the city, it was at its peak in the 9 th century AD and it is believed that some 10,000 people resided here. It appears to have been a major regional administrative, political, cultural, and religious center . Based on the many finds of agricultural tools, the society was based on farming.
There is no evidence that it was a war-like society that practiced human sacrifice like its neighbors to the north, such as the Maya and the Aztecs.
The many great monuments that have been found at Guayabo de Turrialba indicate that it was a hierarchical society, ruled by chieftains or caciques. They would have been authority figures who could command a large number of people to build the monuments found at the site.
For reasons unknown, it was abandoned by 1400 AD, before colonization. Certainly, the Spanish Conquistadors left no records of the city, and it was forgotten, left to be concealed by the tropical jungle. It was only in the 19 th century that it was re-discovered and has since then been extensively investigated by archaeologists, although only a small area has been excavated.
Representation of the circular homes on stone foundation.
There are many impressive stone platforms at the site. The largest measures 76 feet (28m) in diameter and stands 9 feet (2.76m) high. The smaller mounds were once topped by conical wooden constructions, that would have been used either as temples or homes for the elite.
A cobbled road connecting the settlement led to the biggest stone platform , known as the ‘Central Mound’ which has been restored in recent years. The heart of the city is dominated by this large rectangular platform which was accessed by a stone staircase and may have been used in ceremonies and expressions of power. Along the road, leading into the plaza, are two structures, built in a ‘figure of eight’ which are unique to Costa Rica. Their purpose was either to protect the central plaza or to store goods.
Unlike Mesoamerican cultures, the many tombs found at the archaeological site did not contain golden burial goods . While many relics and artifacts found in the city, such as ornate grinding stones and pottery, are now on display in the National Museum in San Jose, pictographs carved on rocks remain at Guayabo de Turrialba. These images of amphibians and other animals may have had some religious or cultural significance.
Evidence remains of a sophisticated hydrological system which directed fresh water into several stone tanks with drainage to prevent flooding. Numerous stone circles may have been the foundations of family homes.
Fresh water capture tank built at Guayabo de Turrialba
Guayabo is situated near the attractive town of Turrialba on the slope of the extinct Turrialba volcano, a two-hour journey from the capital of San Jose. An admission fee is payable on entry and guided tours are available, although the monuments are all sign-posted.
Hotels near Guayabo, as well as a camping park, are available and visitors to the area can enjoy a day out to the butterfly farm near the city.
Mount Shasta: Spirits and Danger on a Sacred California Mountain
Mount Shasta: Spirits and Danger on a Sacred California Mountain
Mount Shasta, located near the Oregon border in northern California, holds the distinction of being one of the world’s preeminent sacred mountains. It is recognized as an eligible Native American cultural and cosmological property on the National Register of Historic Places. Artifacts found in the surrounding area conservatively suggest at least 11,000 years of human habitation, designating this region as one of the longest-occupied areas of North America.
On a clear day, Mount Shasta can be seen from over 100 miles away (160 km). The mountain, part of the thousand-mile-long Cascade Range stretching from northern California to British Columbia, is one of the largest stratovolcanoes in the world, rising to an altitude of 14,179 feet (4321 meters); it is also part of a chain of volcanoes that encompasses the Pacific Basin’s notorious “Ring of Fire,” along which the majority of the planet’s earthquakes and eruptions occur.
The Constant Threat of a Volcanic Eruption
Geologists consider Mount Shasta to be a very dangerous, high threat volcano; someday it will wake up and erupt again, possibly during this century.
A volcanic eruption from Mount Shasta could match or exceed the scale of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The effects of an eruption on the surrounding towns close to the base of the mountain are predicted to be catastrophic, and because volcanoes stay active for years after an eruption, the region may have to be closed off to the public for a very long time.
Mount Shasta’s fuse is already burning, and experts all agree, it’s not a matter of if Mount Shasta will erupt again—but when…
Throughout history mankind has always been drawn to mountains as a sacred feature of the landscape. It’s likely that mountains are among the oldest places of worship on the planet; the first temples. They figure prominently in the earliest religious myths of mankind, and our connection to them is so powerful that many of the world’s oldest monuments, such as the Egyptian and Mayan pyramids, were obviously built in their semblance.
Northwestern California Native American tribes traditionally view Mount Shasta as being structurally and energetically connected to a wide range of important volcanic landscapes and mountains, which extend northwards and southwards of their tribal territories.
A primordial spiritual connection is believed to link all these energetically powerful sites together, including Mount Shasta, Lassen Peak, Lava Beds, Medicine Lake Highlands, Crater Lake , as well as many other lesser landmarks found throughout the region.
Pulses of human occupation surrounding Mount Shasta have been traced back to around the end of the last Ice Age , some 11,000 years ago, marking this area of northern California as one of the oldest continually occupied regions in North America. More recent discoveries suggest there may have been substantial human occupation along the northern California-Nevada border going as far back as 14,000 years ago.
Mythical Significance of the Monument
Mount Shasta’s vast antiquity and mythic relevance places its significance on par, historically and categorically, with other sacred sites found among the world’s oldest known civilizations, including the temples and pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge, the Mayan pyramids , and Machu Picchu .
From a philosophical and spiritual standpoint, Mount Shasta is far more powerful and impressive than anything ever built by man. It is a Creator-made temple and monument, half a billion years old. In an abstract geological sense, Mount Shasta is still alive and under construction–and it will continuously erupt, regenerate, and change forms far into the future.
Native Americans have observed Mount Shasta as a sacred mountain from time immemorial; they viewed the mountain and its surroundings as holy ground; it is thought to be one of the first earthly places created by the Great Spirit . In the past, no one but medicine men or women climbed up the mountain beyond the tree line. It was thought to be too powerful for ordinary people to visit, and inhabited by hosts of potentially dangerous spirits and guardians who could harm a person who traveled up the mountain unprepared.
Mount Shasta’s significance as a “power spot” for non-indigenous people did not begin until the 19th century. The naturalist John Muir described the mountain’s peak as a religious icon, and helped to spread its legendary fame. Since its discovery, it quickly became one of California’s must-see tourist destinations.
There are many tangible and intangible qualities which make a mountain sacred, and some of these qualities go beyond its mere appearance. Mount Shasta isn’t the tallest mountain in the west, but it is the most legendary. A sacred mountain tends to possess unusual characteristics which are more than just the accumulation of natural processes.
There is, we feel, something different about a sacred mountain which cannot be easily explained, something that makes it exceptional. It possesses a kind of energy that’s unique to itself, which can be sensed and felt as much as seen. It draws people to it…inexplicably, mysteriously: “The power of such a mountain,” writes Lama Anagarki Govinda,
“is so great and yet so subtle that without compulsion pilgrims are drawn to the mountain from near and far, as if by the force of some invisible magnet, and they will undergo untold hardships and privations in their inexplicable urge to approach and to worship the sacred spot. Nobody has conferred the title of sacredness upon such a mountain; by virtue of its own magnetic and psychic emanations the mountain is intuitively recognized to be sacred. It needs no organizer of its worship; innately, each of its devotees feels the urge to pay it reverence.”
Anomalous Energies at Mount Shasta
All over the world there are places anciently known for their anomalous energies and mysterious phenomenon.
Today experts recognize that these “sacred sites” around the world influence human consciousness and other living organisms in a number of unusual and remarkable ways. They have become colloquially known as ancient “power spots,” places where people commonly experience unusual phenomenon such as UFO-related activit y, portals into other dimensions, consciousness-altering experiences, and other paranormal-phenomenon.
When one enters into a sacred site of so-called “powerful energy,” the mind, body, and spirit are instantly affected. The energy at these places can be felt, sensed, dowsed, photographed, and measured with scientific instrumentation.
The spiritual use of these major “power spots” around the world is now beginning to be thought of as the unifying influence behind the rise of human civilization. Previously it was believed that spirituality arose only after mankind had already developed farming and villages, and religion was subsequently invented as a coercive means to promote social cooperation and control.
It turns out, however, that this theory is completely backwards. Now it’s beginning to be understood that mankind’s spiritual awakening actually precipitated the rise of human civilization.
The Modoc are a Native American people who originally lived in the Mount Shasta area (northeastern California and central Southern Oregon, USA). Chief Yellow Hammer painted in traditional clothing by E.A Burbank, 1901.
Humanity’s earliest spiritual experiences drew diverse groups of people to come together, who invariably clustered around the locations where most of the world’s major sacred sites and great spiritual centers exist to this day.
People came together at these sites for ritualistic and ceremonial purposes, and this, it turns out, created the need for people to form communities to grow food to accommodate the large populations gathering at these sites all over the world; and subsequently develop farming, villages, culture, and social cooperation.
Mount Shasta is one of these places ; an ancient, sacred mountain pilgrimage destination – whose mysteries still call out to us from the past and continue to challenge our comprehension in the modern era.
Top Image: Mount Shasta in the clouds at sunset. Source: Jordan /Adobe Stock
Strange New Species Discovered in Abyss at The Bottom of The Pacific Ocean
Strange New Species Discovered in Abyss at The Bottom of The Pacific Ocean
PETER DOCKRILL
Scientists have discovered four new species and two new genera inhabiting the deep, abyssal landscape that lines the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
TheClarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a vast, recessed fracture zone covering some 4.5 million square kilometres (1.7 million square miles) of the central Pacific, is considered something of a prize in the mining sector due to its abundance of valuable metals and rare earth minerals deposited in polymetallic nodules along the sea bed.
Yet ancient minerals aren't the only things of wonder down here. In a new study, researchers report the identification of a number of deep-sea creatures unknown to science before now, living at depths greater than 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) below the ocean's surface.
The specimens in question are known as xenophyophores, a clade of giant, single-celled protozoans that belong to the class foraminifera.
Xenophyophores are one of the most common types of large life-forms found along the CCZ abyssal plains, and while they've been described since the late 19th century, there's not an awful lot we know about them, largely due to the extreme depths at which they reside.
Moanammina semicircularis on the seafloor.
(Jennifer Durden/Craig Smith/DeepCCZ Project)
"These four new species and two new genera have increased the number of described xenophyophores in the CCZ abyss to 17 (22 percent of the global total for this group), with many more known but still undescribed," says marine ecologist Andrew Gooday from the National Oceanography Centre in the UK.
"This part of the Pacific Ocean is clearly a hotspot of xenophyophore diversity."
Among the new discoveries is the new genus Abyssalia, named after the abyss in which it lurks. In a 2018 expedition aboard the RV Kilo Moana in 2018 in the western CCZ, the researchers found two Abyssalia species: A. foliformis and A. sphaerica.
These xenophyophores have shells called tests, made up of tiny particles glued together. In the case of Abyssalia, the shells are made from a homogeneous mesh of sponge spicules, with no distinct surface layer.
A. sphaerica takes on a spherical shape – resembling a somewhat matted dandelion – while A. foliformis embodies a flatter, leaf-like shape.
The other new genus identified, Moanammina, took its name from Moana, meaning 'ocean' in Hawaiian, Maori, and other Polynesian languages.
Unidentified 'mudball' xenophyophore.
(Gooday et al., EJP, 2020)
Moanammina semicircularis has a stalked, fan-shaped test, while another new species, Psammina tenuis, belonging to the genus Psammina, has a delicate, thin, plate-like test.
The researchers also discovered what they suggest could be a novel xenophyophore in a spherical 'mudball' shape, but unfortunately its mudball-like composition disintegrated before a detailed examination could confirm its identity.
And comet viewing soon won't be just for early risers.
Comet NEOWISE is starting to put on a show for skywatchers, and not just those of us restricted to Earth's surface.
NEOWISE rounded the sun on July 3, coming within 27.3 million miles (44 million kilometers) of our star. The comet survived this high-temperature close encounter, and NEOWISE has now put enough distance between itself and the sun to be spotted by naked-eye observers in clear and dark predawn skies — and by astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS).
"If we got to a situation at dawn, right before the sun came up, that comet became visible during that short period of time when it was still close to the sun, but the sun was still hidden by the Earth," NASA astronaut Bob Behnken said during a video interview with The New York Times yesterday (July 7). "It was just an awesome sight to be able to see."
Comet NEOWISE as seen from the International Space Station in a photograph shared by Russian cosmonaut Ivan Vagner on July 4, 2020. (Image credit: Ivan Vagner/Roscosmos/NASA)
For observers on the ground, NEOWISE will climb higher in the predawn sky over the next few days, reaching about 10 degrees above the northeast horizon around July 11, according to Space.com skywatching columnist Joe Rao. (Your clenched fist held at arm's length covers about 10 degrees of sky.) The comet will then slide lower and lower over the next 10 days, eventually disappearing beneath the predawn horizon, Rao wrote recently.
But evening viewing opportunities will be ramping up as the early-morning ones slip away; NEOWISE will start appearing low in the northwest evening sky around July 12.
"In the evenings to follow, the comet will rapidly climb higher in the sky," Rao wrote. "On July 22, NEOWISE will make its closest approach to the Earth, a distance of 64 million miles (103 million km). By July 25, the comet will appear 30 degrees ('three fists') up from the west-northwest horizon as darkness falls. And on July 30-31st, the comet will be passing just to the north of the fine star cluster of Coma Berenices, or Berenice's Hair."
Comet NEOWISE was discovered on March 27 of this year by researchers analyzing imagery captured by NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer spacecraft (hence the name). The current viewing opportunity represents your only shot to get a look at the long-period comet, which won't be back in our neck of the cosmic woods for thousands of years.
NASA astronaut Bob Behnken captured this view of of Comet NEOWISE (circled) from the International Space Station on July 4, 2020. (Image credit: Bob Behnken/NASA)
Behnken conducted yesterday's video interview with fellow NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Chris Cassidy. The trio talked to Fox News and USA Today in addition to The New York Times.
Cassidy commands the ISS' current Expedition 63, which also includes Behnken, Hurley and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. Behnken and Hurley reached the orbiting lab on May 31 onboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which became the first-ever private spacecraft to carry astronauts to Earth orbit.
The Crew Dragon mission, a test flight known as Demo-2, will wrap up sometime in the next month or so; NASA officials have not yet revealed a targeted splashdown date. If all continues to go well with Demo-2, SpaceX will be clear to start launching contracted crewed missions to and from the ISS for NASA. The first of those flights, known as Crew-1, is scheduled to launch on Aug. 30.
Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life.
"This all-sky image completely changes the way we look at the energetic universe."
A map of the universe made using over a million X-ray sources observed by eROSITA. (Image credit: Jeremy Sanders, Hermann Brunner, eSASS team (MPE); Eugene Churazov, Marat Gilfanov (IKI))
Wish you had X-ray vision? An extraordinary new map showcases the universe in striking, X-ray radiation.
Scientists created this stunning X-ray map of the universe using eROSITA (Extended Roentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array), an instrument on the German-Russian satellite mission Spectrum-Röntgen-Gamma, orSpektr-RG.
The scientists completed a full sweep of the sky over the course of about six months, looking for sources of X-ray radiation — a type of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. These X-ray sources include black holes, galaxy clusters and leftover remnants from supernova explosions.
In scouring the skies, eROSITA spotted over a million sources of X-ray radiation from all across the cosmos, with most of the sources being active galactic nuclei, or the luminous, compact region at the center of galaxies. This number of sources roughly doubles the number of known X-ray sources that have been discovered over the 60-year history of X-ray astronomy, according to a statement from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching, Germany. By studying clusters of galaxies with this new, detailed map, researchers hope to track how these cosmic structures grow.
"This all-sky image completely changes the way we look at the energetic universe," Peter Predehl, the Principal Investigator of eROSITA at MPE, said in the same statement. "We see such a wealth of detail — the beauty of the images is really stunning."
Because it is not only stunning but incredibly detailed, this new X-ray map could "revolutionize" the way that we look at the cosmos, Kirpal Nandra, head of the high-energy astrophysics group at MPE, said in the same statement.
"With a million sources in just six months, eROSITA has already revolutionized X-ray astronomy, but this is just a taste of what's to come," Nandra said. "This combination of sky area and depth is transformational. We are already sampling a cosmological volume of the hot Universe much larger than has been possible before. Over the next few years, we'll be able to probe even further, out to where the first giant cosmic structures and supermassive black holes were forming."
Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd.
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In een ver verleden had Mars een milder klimaat, en zeeën en oceanen aan het oppervlak. In die omstandigheden zouden eencelligen kunnen leven.
Met onbemande ruimtesondes hopen zowel de VS als China en de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten daar bewijs voor te vinden.
Deze zomer gaan drie nieuwe ruimtesondes op pad naar Mars. Brengen zij eindelijk antwoord op de vraag of er ooit leven was op de rode planeet?
Donderdag 18 februari 2021. Na een spectaculaire landing in een opgedroogde rivierdelta komt de Amerikaanse Marswagen Perseverance (‘Volharding’) zoemend en piepend tot leven. Hij fotografeert zijn omgeving, rijdt rond door het buitenaardse landschap en onderzoekt mineralen en gesteenten, net als zijn voorgangers dat deden. Maar één taak is compleet nieuw: Perseverance gaat bodemmonsters verzamelen. In de toekomst zullen ze worden opgehaald voor onderzoek in een aards laboratorium. Sterrenkundigen en biologen kijken er reikhalzend naar uit. Wie weet vinden we straks onomstotelijk bewijs voor leven buiten de aarde.
Ruimteonderzoek is een zaak van lange adem. Het zal nog wel ruim tien jaar duren voordat wetenschappers ‘verse’ bodemmonsters van Mars in handen hebben. En het duurt trouwens ook nog ruim een half jaar voordat NASA’s Perseverance eindelijk aankomt op de rode planeet, na een reis van ongeveer zeven maanden. Ergens tussen 17 juli en 5 augustus wordt hij gelanceerd vanaf Cape Canaveral in Florida, met een zware Atlas V-raket.
‘Ik ben optimistisch over de mogelijkheid dat er ooit leven op Mars was’
Het is niet de enige Marsvlucht die deze zomer van start gaat: ook China en de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten lanceren onbemande ruimtesondes naar onze buurplaneet. ‘Het is allemaal super opwindend’, zegt planeetonderzoeker Jim Bell van de Arizona State University.
Mars is met een diameter van 6.779 kilometer kleiner dan de aarde. Door de geringe zwaartekracht heeft de planeet geen substantiële dampkring kunnen vasthouden; de luchtdruk is er ruim honderdmaal zo laag als bij ons. Door de grotere afstand tot de zon is het op Mars bovendien een stuk kouder: gemiddeld zo’n 50 graden onder nul. Toch spreekt de planeet al minstens anderhalve eeuw tot de verbeelding als mogelijke ‘woonplaats’ van buitenaards leven. Geen intelligente Marsbewoners, zoals eind 19de eeuw nog serieus werd gesuggereerd, maar eencellige micro-organismen. Die weten per slot van rekening ook op aarde onder de meest extreme omstandigheden te overleven.
Geen wonder dus dat een van de eerste onbemande ruimtemissies, Mariner 4, richting Mars werd gestuurd. Dat was in november 1964; in de daaropvolgende zomer vloog hij met hoge snelheid langs de planeet en maakte hij in het voorbijgaan 21 foto’s van het oppervlak. Die eerste Marskiekjes waren enigszins teleurstellend, maar begin jaren 1970 liet de Marssonde Mariner 9 vanuit een baan rond de planeet een veel interessanter beeld zien, met gigantische vulkanen en canyons, en met mogelijke sporen van stromend water in een ver verleden. Wie weet zouden er ook nu nog steeds Marsbacteriën kunnen leven op deze fascinerende wereld.
Op zoek naar leven
De twee Amerikaanse Viking-landers, die daar in 1976 gericht onderzoek naar deden, vonden helaas geen overtuigend bewijs voor het bestaan van leven op Mars (hoewel sommige onderzoekers daar nog steeds anders over denken). Latere ruimtemissies naar de rode planeet hebben wel onomstotelijk aangetoond dat Mars een paar miljard jaar geleden een veel milder klimaat had, met een dikkere dampkring en een hogere temperatuur, en met zeeën en oceanen aan het oppervlak.
Die kennis hebben we met name te danken aan het geochemisch onderzoek van de Marsrovers Spirit, Opportunity en Curiosity – die laatste is nog steeds actief. ‘Elke rover en lander op Mars heeft aanwijzingen gevonden voor levensvatbare omstandigheden in het verre verleden,’ zegt Katie Stack van NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), de deputy project scientist voor Perseverance, ‘dus ik ben optimistisch over de mogelijkheid dat er ooit leven op Mars was.’
‘Het is alsof je geologisch veldwerk doet terwijl overal om je heen sluipschutters staan die je af en toe onder vuur nemen’
Met zijn geavanceerde instrumentarium (zie ‘Een rijdend laboratorium’) gaat Perseverance onder andere onderzoek doen aan de geochemie en de mineralogie van Marsgesteenten, en aan de aanwezigheid van organische (koolstofhoudende) molecules. ‘Dat zijn dezelfde onderzoeksstrategieën die we in oude aardse gesteentelagen gebruiken om op zoek te gaan naar fossiele sporen van leven’, zegt Stack. Net als zijn voorganger Curiosity is Perseverance op het JPL ontwikkeld en gebouwd, voor een groot deel zelfs door gebruik te maken van reserveonderdelen van Curiosity. De nieuwe Marsrover is met zijn lanceergewicht van 1.050 kilogram wel 17 procent zwaarder, en beschikt ook over geavanceerdere meetinstrumenten.
Een rijdend laboratorium
De Amerikaanse Marswagen Perseverance heeft – naast een groot aantal navigatiecamera’s, een kleine helikopter, twee microfoons, een thermo-elektrische generator voor de stroomvoorziening en een 2 meter lange robotarm – een keur aan wetenschappelijke instrumenten aan boord.
Mastcam-Z is een dubbele hogeresolutiekleurencamera met een zoombereik van 27 tot 111 millimeter, waarmee stereofoto’s van de omgeving gemaakt gaan worden.
SuperCam gebruikt twee lasers en vier spectrometers voor onderzoek op afstand aan de scheikundige samenstelling van Marsmateriaal. Met de lasers wordt een klein beetje materiaal verdampt; de spectrometers bestuderen vervolgens de samenstelling van het resulterende gas.
SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) doet precisie-onderzoek aan Marsstenen en kan organische molecule detecteren.
PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry) gebruikt röntgenfluorescentie om te achterhalen welke scheikundige elementen er aanwezig zijn in het onderzochte material.
RIMFAX (Radar Imager for Mars’ subsurFAce eXperiment) is een radarinstrument waarmee de ondergrond in kaart gebracht kan worden; zo hopen wetenschappers onder andere ondergronds ijs op te sporen.
MEDA (Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer) is een weerstation dat metingen doet aan onder andere luchtdruk, windsterkte en -richting, temperatuur en vochtigheidsgraad.
MOXIE (Mars OXygen ISRU Experiment) is een technologie-experiment om zuurstof te winnen uit de ijle, koolzuurrijke Marsatmosfeer.
Bij de landing, gepland voor 18 februari volgend jaar, wordt net als bij Curiosity gebruik gemaakt van een hitteschild, parachutes en een zogeheten ‘luchtkraan’ (sky crane), die met behulp van retroraketjes op enige hoogte boven het Marsoppervlak blijft hoveren en de Marswagen aan kabels naar beneden laat zakken. ‘Er zijn tijdens de hele missie talloze momenten waarop het fout kan gaan’, zegt Bell. ‘Het is een beetje alsof je geologisch veldwerk doet terwijl er overal om je heen sluipschutters staan die je af en toe onder vuur nemen.’ Ooit zal Perseverance de geest geven (net als de meeste van zijn voorgangers); volgens Bell is het de uitdaging om zo veel mogelijk wetenschap te bedrijven voordat het zo ver is.
De Chinese Marsmissie Tianwen-1 wordt klaargemaakt voor de lancering.
Jim Bell is hoofdonderzoeker van Mastcam-Z, de dubbele stereoscopische kleuren-zoomcamera op de verticale ‘mast’ van de rover. Die is veel krachtiger en veelzijdiger dan de soortgelijke stereocamera van Curiosity. ‘We zouden er een vlieg mee kunnen onderscheiden op een afstand van 100 meter’, zegt hij. ‘De stereobeelden hopen we onder andere te gebruiken voor het samenstellen van een gedetailleerd driedimensionaal model van de omgeving.’ Die omgeving, in de 50 kilometer grote Marskrater Jezero, is wetenschappelijk bijzonder interessant: in de krater bevindt zich een grote opgedroogde rivierdelta. Het is een uitgelezen locatie om op zoek te gaan naar fossiele sporen van micro-organismen.
Een van de belangrijkste opdrachten voor Perseverance is het verzamelen van circa veertig zorgvuldig geselecteerde bodemmonsters. Die worden hermetisch afgesloten in titanium capsules, en op verschillende plaatsen op Mars achtergelaten. Een toekomstige ruimtemissie moet de waardevolle capsules ophalen en terugbrengen naar de aarde.
Het is een van de onderdelen van de missie waar Katie Stack het meest naar uitkijkt. ‘Het is enorm spannend te denken dat die bodemmonsters in de toekomst kunnen leiden tot revolutionaire ontdekkingen over Mars, het zonnestelsel, en buitenaards leven’, zegt ze. De sample return-missie moet over een jaar of tien in samenwerking met de Europese ESA worden uitgevoerd.
Een helikopter op Mars
De Amerikaanse Marswagen Perseverance heeft een klein helikoptertje aan boord, dat onlangs de naam Ingenuity heeft gekregen. Het is een kubusvormig toestelletje van nog geen 2 kilogram en met de afmetingen van een auto-accu, uitgerust met een dubbele rotor, vier pootjes, een zonnepaneeltje en een camera. De bedoeling is dat Ingenuity in een periode van dertig dagen een paar testvluchtjes van anderhalve minuut maakt, tot een hoogte van een meter of vijf. Later kunnen misschien iets langere vluchten worden uitgevoerd, tot een grotere hoogte. Bij gebleken succes hoopt NASA in de toekomst vaker gebruik te kunnen maken van drones en helikopters in de ijle dampkring van de rode planeet.
Internationale invasie
De Amerikaanse NASA is niet de enige ruimtevaartorganisatie die deze zomer de pijlen op Mars richt. Half juli moet ook de ruimtesonde Hope (Al-Amal) van de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten (VAE) gelanceerd worden, met een Japanse H-IIA-raket. Hope gaat niet op Mars landen, maar moet vanuit een omloopbaan onderzoek doen aan de atmosfeer en het klimaat van de rode planeet.
Het is voor het eerst dat er een Arabische ruimtesonde bij een andere planeet arriveert. Het project staat onder leiding van het Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai. Er werken overigens drie Amerikaanse universiteiten aan mee.
‘De bodemmonsters kunnen leiden tot revolutionaire ontdekkingen over Mars, het zonnestelsel, en buitenaards leven’
Over de Chinese Marsmissie, die eveneens deze zomer van start gaat, is relatief weinig informatie naar buiten gebracht. De 5 ton zware ruimtesonde, Tianwen-1 geheten (‘Hemelse raadsels’), wordt gelanceerd met een zware Lange Mars 5-raket vanaf het Chinese eiland Hainan, en moet in februari 2021 in een baan om Mars aankomen. Enkele maanden later zal een lander naar het oppervlak afdalen, met aan boord een klein Marskarretje. Zowel de lander als het wagentje maken gebruik van Chinese technologie die eerder met succes is toegepast bij onbemande landingen op de maan. Als alles goed gaat, is China straks het tweede land ter wereld dat een succesvolle landing op Mars uitvoert.
Dat de verschillende ruimtemissies alle drie in juli 2020 op pad gaan, is geen toeval. Eens in de 26 maanden staan de aarde en Mars in de juiste onderlinge positie om zo’n ruimtereis mogelijk te maken. Oorspronkelijk zou ook de Europese Marswagen Rosalind Franklin deze zomer richting Mars vertrekken, maar dat project heeft het afgelopen jaar veel vertraging opgelopen, waardoor de lancering uitgesteld moest worden tot september 2022.
Twee jaar uitstel voor Europese Marsrover
In juli 2020 zou ook de Marsrover Rosalind Franklin van de Europese ruimtevaartorganisatie ESA op pad gaan naar Mars. De lancering is afgelopen voorjaar echter met ruim twee jaar uitgesteld. Het project had al veel vertraging opgelopen door problemen met de parachutes – die scheurden bij verschillende tests op aarde kapot. Mede als gevolg van de coronacrisis bleek het vervolgens onmogelijk om het volledige testprogramma nog op tijd uit te voeren.
Volgens wetenschappelijk projectleider Jorge Vago van ESA’s technologiecentrum ESTEC in Noordwijk is het parachuteprobleem inmiddels getraceerd en opgelost; nieuwe tests staan voor komend najaar op het programma. Daarnaast zal ESA de komende maanden de zonnepanelen van Rosalind Franklin van nieuwe scharnieren voorzien (die bleken ook kuren te vertonen), en zullen er verschillende onderdelen worden vervangen.
Rosalind Franklin, genoemd naar de Britse mede-ontdekker van DNA, maakt deel uit van het Europees-Russische ExoMars-project. Behalve met camera’s en meetinstrumenten is de 300 kilogram zware Marswagen uitgerust met een boor die bodemmonsters kan nemen op een diepte van 2 meter, voor onderzoek ter plaatse.
Perseverance, Hope en Tianwen-1 hebben de laatste maanden natuurlijk ook alle drie te kampen gehad met potentiële vertragingen, als gevolg van de uitbraak van het coronavirus. Toch zullen de drie onbemande Marsmissies wel volgens plan van start gaan.
Wanneer en door wie er voor het eerst bemande vluchten naar de rode planeet uitgevoerd zullen worden, is vooralsnog een open vraag. Dát dat ooit zal gebeuren, is volgens Jim Bell boven alle twijfel verheven. ‘We doen dit onderzoek om de vele raadsels rond de rode planeet op te lossen,’ zegt hij, ‘en om ondersteuning te bieden aan toekomstige landers, rovers en – uiteindelijk – mensen die in de toekomst op pad zullen gaan naar Mars.’
Next week, the United Arab Emirates will launch its first-ever interplanetary mission, a Marsorbiter that the nation hopes will inspire the region and advance Red Planet science.
The mission, called Hope or the Emirates Mars Mission, is designed to spend one Martian year, or about two Earth years, studying the thin Martian atmosphere. Mission personnel hope that the spacecraft's results will teach scientists something new about the Red Planet's past and present atmosphere — and perhaps even help humans keep our own planet's atmosphere from becoming its twin. But the mission is also an ambitious step for a country not yet 50 years old that reached space for the first time only in 2009.
"I think one of the messages of this mission is hope, which is the name of the probe itself," Hessa Al Matroushi, science data and analysis lead for the mission at the UAE's Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center, told Space.com. "If a small nation like us is able to achieve this kind of mission and get ourselves to Mars, then everything is possible."
Now, that satellite is tucked into the nosecone of a Japanese H-2A rocket at the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan, awaiting its moment to leap from Earth. Launch is currently scheduled for 5:51 a.m. local time on July 15 (4:51 p.m. EDT or 2051 GMT July 14).
The $200 million Hope mission was always designed to make that sort of larger statement both at home and abroad. The decision to go to Mars was meant to jolt the nation's technology industry and create a planetary science community where essentially none existed. The mission would pose a host of challenges, known and unknown, and be the first time an Arab country reached for another planet.
And everything would need to happen fast, much more quickly than a traditional Mars mission might. UAE leadership began floating the idea of sending an orbiter to Mars in 2014. And they had a deadline: arrival at Mars before December 2021, the nation's 50th anniversary. Because of the finicky orbital mechanics of reaching our neighbor, that meant blasting off this summer — and if the spacecraft misses its window, it will need to wait 26 months to try again.
The team was asked to tap international expertise and domestically build a spacecraft that could conduct new science at Mars on that timeframe. That meant mission personnel needed not only to manage the engineering challenges of spaceflight, but also to become part of the international community of Mars scientists. They needed to be familiar enough with the history of Mars exploration to identify what projects might be scientifically promising.
An artist's depiction of the UAE's Hope mission orbiting Mars. (Image credit: MBRSC)
"We don't want to have these massive amounts of data and nobody's interested in it," Fatma Lootah, manager for Hope instrument science, told Space.com. "We want this data to be novel, this data to be breakthrough."
The team decided to focus on the atmosphere of Mars, which probes have studied before but not comprehensively. By putting Hope into an orbit no spacecraft has used at Mars, the mission will be able to study the upper and lower atmosphere simultaneously, allowing scientists to better understand how they interact. The unique orbit will also give scientists the first detailed understanding of Mars weather at large: across the globe, throughout the day and over the full seasonal cycle.
The team also needed to be pragmatic enough to choose something feasible on the assigned timeline, and to bring in colleagues who could make that schedule more manageable. One such partnership was with the University of Colorado at Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, which houses the science team of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, which has been orbiting Mars since 2014 studying a different set of atmospheric questions.
That mission's principal investigator, Bruce Jakosky, said that working as project scientist on Hope has been a very different experience from his time on NASA missions. "One is very aware [while] working on this of the international collaboration. That's new," he told Space.com. "We're working hand in hand with the Emiratis on this, and that really brings a different perspective to how one approaches a mission."
Jakosky said that for Hope, mission work wasn't just about the mission itself, it was about the international stage. "The UAE today doesn't have a strong science background. I will point out it did 1,000 years ago, they were the leaders in the world and I see this as an opportunity for them to regain some of that stature," he said. "It is a big step to take to do a Mars mission. Historically more have failed than have succeeded."
A view of the second stage of the rocket that will launch the UAE's Hope mission to Mars. (Image credit: MBRSC)
Since the UAE began its space program, it has considered spaceflight to be about more than just getting a piece of metal and electronics into space. The country has built itself on oil revenue but knows that income is unstable and wants to diversify. Some of the motivation for a Mars mission was that such a project would force developments in technology and other non-oil sectors.
"If you deliver something that works in space and is capable of performing tasks in space, it sends also a strong message about the quality of work you do within your country," Omran Sharaf, mission lead for the Hope spacecraft, told Space.com earlier this spring of the UAE's decision to build its first fully domestic satellite, KhalifaSat, which launched in 2018.
But while the UAE wants to make a statement, the scientists on the Hope mission are here to do science.
"When this [mission] was announced, a lot of people were like, 'Oh, they're just doing it for show,'" Lootah said. "It's not for that at all; it's for the greater good. This novel science that's going to come out, the data, this is going to further humanity's knowledge of another planet, the most similar planet to Earth we know of right now. So I think I want to focus on the science."
A daring sun-grazing NASA spacecraft turns its focus toVenustoday (July 10) with a critical flyby that will pass through the planet's weird "tail."
TheParker Solar Probe, which NASA launched in August 2018, is designed to swoop through the sun's super-hot outer atmosphere and help scientists understand the way our star shapes the solar system. But in order to complete its seven-year mission, the spacecraft needs to adjust its speed by swinging past Venus a total of seven times. It'll do so for the third time tonight at 11:22 p.m. EDT (0322 GMT on July 11).
When Venus scientists first heard about the Parker Solar Probe's Venus flybys, they started scheming. Eventually, they confirmed that Parker Solar Probe's instruments could capture scientifically interesting observations of our neighboring world, and they convinced the spacecraft's team to turn those instruments on for the flybys.
Now the moment has come for the third of those encounters. This time around, Parker Solar Probe's closest approach to Venus will bring it about 517 miles (832 kilometers) above the planet's surface. For comparison, that's about twice the altitude of the International Space Station above Earth.
Venus scientists are particularly excited about this flyby because it will carry Parker Solar Probe through what they call the "tail" of Venus. The structure is formed by gas particles in the planet's atmosphere becoming charged ions, at which point they can escape Venus' gravity and sneak away into space
Planetary atmospheres are a key characteristic making worlds look so different. Earth's nitrogen-rich atmosphere keeps the planet's surface temperate and wet. Venus' thick carbon dioxide blanket traps heat on the hellish world, the picture of a greenhouse world gone amok. And Mars used to have a plush atmosphere and a wet surface, then lost each in turn.
Scientists hope that Parker Solar Probe's measurements will help them better understand atmospheric loss in general, not just today at Venus. Conveniently enough, Venus, unlike Mars, loses its atmosphere in a way that's easily observed by the same plasma instruments that solar scientists needed to understand what's happening at our star.
Two other spacecraft have carried such instruments to Venus: NASA's Pioneer Venus Orbiter from 1978 to 1992, and the European Space Agency's Venus Express from 2006 to 2015.
But the technology of spacebound plasma science instruments has improved dramatically since those missions were built, Shannon Curry, a planetary physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, told Space.com before Parker Solar Probe's previous Venus flyby, in December 2019. Some of those instruments gathered data only once every eight minutes, she said; Parker's do so every eight seconds.
Not only does Parker Solar Probe carry newer instruments, its data hauls have been phenomenally large. Mission personnel have repeatedly increased download rates and lengthened science observations because of the success, with the spacecraft most recently gathering nearly two months' worth of data during its last solar flyby.
The spacecraft will make its next close approach to the sun in September, when it will break its own records for close solar approaches and for speed. The vehicle will next swing past Venus in February 2021.
The $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe is named after famed solar scientist Eugene Parker, who hypothesized that something like the solar wind must exist. That phenomenon, a stream of plasma flowing off the sun and across the solar system, is a key science target of the spacecraft, which Parker himself watched launch in 2018.
Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels.
Look at its cute fuzzy galaxy arms! Image credits: NASA.
The Hubble Space Telescope produced another gem: a striking image of a galaxy located in the Cancer constellation. Known as NGC 2775, the galaxy is 67 million light-years away from Earth and has fuzzy arms spiraling from if its center.
The ‘fuzzy’ spirals of the galaxy are obscured by clouds of patchy gas, which create the fur-like effect. We tend to think of galaxies as having clearly defined arms (like the Milky Way, for instance), but these ‘flocculent’ galaxies may be much more common.
In fact, spiral galaxies only make up 10% of all galaxies. It’s believed that some 70% of them are either flocculent (like NGC 2775) or a flocculent-hybrid.
NGC 2775 imaged with a smaller telescope. Image credits: University of Arizona.
Many of these galaxies are known thanks to Hubble. Launched 30 years ago, Hubble has taken our understanding of outer space to the next level, traveling 4 billion miles in a continuous orbit around the Earth and spurring over 15,000 scientific papers.
NASA is currently preparing to launch Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, in March 2021. James Webb will be able to look further into the void than Hubble, with over 100 times greater magnification.
In addition to many other tasks, astronomers will use the James Webb telescope to look at some of the first galaxies formed after the Big Bang.
The proposed VERITAS mission to Venus is one of the finalists for NASA’s Discovery Program. If selected, it will revolutionize our knowledge about the planet’s geology and how this formerly habitable world became a fiery wasteland.
Artist’s concept of VERITAS spacecraft orbiting Venus, using its radar to peer through the planet’s dense clouds and produce high-resolution maps of its surface.
Venus is often called Earth’s sister planet, and it’s also our closest planetary neighbor. It’s about the same size and density as Earth. But, beyond that, Venus is a very different – and hostile – world. While Earth is a garden, Venus is hot enough on its surface to melt lead. Scientists think that Venus used to be more Earthlike a few billion years ago, when the solar system was younger. Something happened that altered its evolutionary course forever, but exactly what that was is still not well understood. Somehow, Venus changed from being a clement world, possibly with oceans, to the cloud-enshrouded, searing hellhole we know today. A proposed new NASA mission, called VERITAS, would study Venus’ geology, both below and on the surface. It would try to answer fundamental questions about how this world ended up being so very different from our own.
The latest overview of the VERITAS mission was posted by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on July 8, 2020.
VERITAS – Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography & Spectroscopy – is one of the four proposed missions being considered for NASA’s Discovery Program.Suzanne Smrekar, principal investigator of VERITAS at JPL, stated:
Venus is like this cosmic gift of an accident. You have these two planetary bodies – Earth and Venus – that started out nearly the same but have gone down two completely different evolutionary paths, but we don’t know why.
Artist’s concept of active volcano on Venus, and a subduction zone, where a tectonic plate on the surface sinks into the interior of the planet.
Venus is a rocky world like Earth, but its surface is completely obscured by a thick, dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Temperatures at the surface never fall below about 900 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Celsius), and the pressure, similar to that deep in the oceans on Earth, would quickly crush humans. The clouds contain sulfuric acid. Not exactly the most hospitable place in the solar system, although higher up in the atmosphere, temperatures and pressures are much more clement.
VERITAS would peer through the dense clouds with radar and a near-infrared spectrometer to create 3-D global maps of the planet and analyze what the surface is composed of (we do know already that most of the surface is volcanic basalt). By measuring Venus’ gravitational field, VERITAS could also determine the structure of the planet’s interior. VERITAS would provide the most detailed analysis of Venus ever obtained by an orbiting spacecraft.
If selected, VERITAS would launch sometime in 2026.
An example of tessera deformation terrain (white terrain on right side of image) on the western edge of Maxwell Montes on Venus.
Scientists are very interested in learning more about Venus, to understand why it changed so dramatically. This could also offer new insights into Earth’s own evolution as a planet, as well as other rocky planets orbiting other stars.
VERITAS will study Venus’ geology and the similarities it may have to that of the early Earth. The planet’s warm crust is thought to be a good analog to that of Earth a few billion years ago, when tectonic plates were just starting to form. Did the same thing happen on Venus? According to Joann Stock, a geologist and geophysicist at Caltech’s Seismological Laboratory in Pasadena:
The biggest mystery to me is the extent of deformation structures on Venus that could be studied to understand the nature of tectonic activity on the planet.
The deformation structures are areas of rock on the surface that have buckled under immense geologic pressure. On Earth, the outer crust is broken into tectonic plates that sit on top of the mantle. Some plates descend downward in a process called subduction, caused by convection in the mantle. Since the temperature increases the farther down you go, those plates start melting. This releases volcanic gases and other materials called volatiles, including water, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.
Map of extensive tessera terrain on Venus (white outlines).
Image via USGS Astrogeology Science Center/ Sjoh197/ Wikipedia.
Could the deformation structures be a form of tectonic plates similar to those on the early Earth? VERITAS would help scientists answer that question. The 3-D topographic maps would be able to see features much smaller than previously possible with earlier missions. It could identify strike-slip faults, similar to San Andreas Fault in California, by seeing the raised topography on each side of the fault. If VERITAS found such formations, that would be evidence for substantial tectonic activity on the planet in the past, and perhaps even today. VERITAS would also use interferometric deformation maps – using interferometry – to look for active faulting on the planet’s surface, something never done before anywhere but on Earth.
If plate tectonics were to be confirmed on Venus, that would be an exciting discovery, since Earth is the only planet in our solar system known to have that kind of geological activity. (Jupiter’s moon Europa is now thought to have a more primitive form of plate tectonics, but Europa’s crust is composed of water ice, not rock).
The largest and most widespread deformation structures on Venus are called tessera, plateau-like regions that may be analogous to Earth’s continents. VERITAS would study their composition, to see if they formed in a similar manner to continents on Earth. That could provide valuable clues about the former ocean(s) that many scientists think once existed on Venus, Earth’s continents are thought to have formed when iron-rich oceanic crust subducted and melted in the presence of water.
Perspective view of the Maat Mons volcano on Venus, based on radar images from Magellan. The volcano is 5 miles (8 km) tall.
What about volcanism? Volcanism is very much intertwined with plate tectonics on Earth. We already know that Venus has many volcanoes, but are any of them still active? There is currently tentative evidence of still-active volcanoes on Venus, but it is not completely confirmed yet. VERITAS could help do that.Jennifer Whitten, a VERITAS science team member at Tulane University in New Orleans, said:
Determining whether Venus is actively undergoing volcanic activity and understanding what process is driving it is one of the really exciting questions I’d love to see answered.
VERITAS would be able to look for hotspots from active eruptions using its spectrometer, and the radar could detect active faulting, which would be evidence for current tectonic activity. The spectrometer could also detect rocks that had been formed from hot magma, before the chemical composition of the rocks had been altered by the corrosive atmosphere. Knowing how geologically active Venus still is, or isn’t, would also help scientists figure out how much water is in the interior of the planet.
Venus’ geology, plate tectonics in particular, is also important to understand in terms of habitability. The planet’s surface may be extremely inhospitable now, but it wasn’t always like that. Plate tectonics and volcanism have played a major role in Earth’s habitability, where plate tectonics help keep the long-term climate stable (apart from human-caused climate change). Volcanism releases volatiles into the atmosphere, while subduction recycles them back into the planet’s interior. This continuous cycle keeps the atmosphere in balance. The composition of both the atmosphere and oceans is affected by the formation and erosion of the continents, which provide the necessary nutrients for life.
Suzanne Smrekar, principal investigator of VERITAS at JPL.
To unwrap the mysteries of Venus we have to look under the hood at Venus’ interior; it is the engine for global geologic and atmospheric evolution. Are Venus and Earth fundamentally unique worlds? Or are the differences between these ‘twins’ only cosmetic? Answering this question is key to understanding what makes other rocky planets habitable and, ultimately, emerge with life.
The last spacecraft to study Venus’ surface from orbit was Magellan, whose mission ended in 1994. If it does get selected as a mission, VERITAS will revolutionize our understanding of how Venus formed and evolved, and why our sister planet changed so dramatically from a habitable world to one that could just as well have been forged in hell itself.
Bottom line:The proposed VERITAS mission would study the complex geology of Venus.
Panic after giant mushroom-shaped cloud fills sky in Ukraine close to Chernobyl
Panic after giant mushroom-shaped cloud fills sky in Ukraine close to Chernobyl
The huge cloud was spotted in Kiev, Ukraine, just 60 miles away from Chernobyl, which was the site of the worlds worst nuclear disaster in 1986, but officials told residents not to panic
By Gheorghi Caraseni and Jamie Hawkins
Kiev was covered by an unusual cloud in the form of a nuclear mushroom, just 60 miles from Chernobyl
(Image: CEN/@MNS.GOV.UA)
Officials have told people not to panic after a city less than 60 miles from Chernobyl was covered in a giant mushroom-shaped cloud.
Chernobyl, in Ukraine, was the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986 when a reactor meltdown caused a major radiation leak.
But concerns were raised after the huge cloud was spotted in the capital Kiev.
Some locals speculated that Russian president Vladimir Putin may have been testing nuclear weapons while others feared it could be a " UFO ".
'Maxim Volokh' wrote: "Is it Putin is testing a new nuclear weapon?" And 'Mariya Pulyak' said: "Is that a UFO?"
These images show how Kiev has been covered in a mushroom-shaped cloud with a startling similarity to those left by a nuclear explosion(Image: CEN/@galya.stukach)
However, the mushroom shaped cloud is said to be a naturally-occurring weather phenomenon.
Dramatic images show the startling cloud in the blue skies over Kiev. And the Ukrainian State Emergency Service later shared photos with the caption: "Admit it, who got scared?"
According to the officials, there was no reason to panic as the unusual cloud is a rare phenomenon "known as an anvil cloud so there was no reason for any worries".
Officials say the cloud is a naturally-occurring weather phenomenon(Image: CEN/@tala.didenko)
They added: "We have had these types of clouds before above Kiev Oblast, Ternopil Oblast and Vinnitsa."
An anvil cloud, also called cumulonimbus incus, is a cumulonimbus cloud which has reached stratospheric stability and has formed the characteristic flat, anvil-top shape.
The clouds typically do not move, no matter how strong the wind is, and later slowly disappear.
If often signifies on oncoming thunderstorm.
The official death toll for those killed after the Chernobyl disaster stands at just 31 - among them were 28 firefighters who died of Acute Radiation Syndrome, an agonising and gruesome way to die.
The rare phenomenon is known as an anvil cloud(Image: CEN/The Max Poly)
However, many believe the horrifying true figure of those who lost their lives as a direct result is in the thousands.
Many of those who died as a direct result of the incident on April 26, 1986, were not killed as a result of the explosion and instead the devastating effects of radiation.
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates between 4,000 and 27,000 people died as a result of the disaster, whereas Greenpeace places the figure much higher at between 93,000 and 200,000.
The cloud was seen just 60 miles from Chernobyl, the site of the worlds worst nuclear disaster in 1986(Image: CEN/@natali.minakova)
Many people living hundreds of miles from the explosion site fell ill with illnesses in the aftermath of the disaster.
People experienced everything from strange cancers, to birth deformities and other serious illnesses.
In the massive clean-up that followed, a total of 600,000 liquidators were recruited from across Russia to help and it is estimated as many as 6,000 of these may have died because of their efforts.
The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency estimate that the number of premature deaths associated with the disaster is approximately 4,000.
However, it seems the devastating impact of those living within the shadow of Chernobyl is still not over 34 years after the disaster.
Elizondo: The Government Has “A Lot More” UFO Videos
Elizondo: The Government Has “A Lot More” UFO Videos
We recently learned that the Senate’s Intelligence Authorization Act for 2021 includes a provision for our intelligence agencies to prepare a report on UFO/UAP activities in our airspace and publish it for the public within six months. We don’t know yet if that language will survive the legislative process and make it to the President’s desk intact, but it’s proving to be one of the more exciting developments in the ufology community in the past couple of years. But even if we assume that it’s going to happen, what might the public expect to get out of it?
For one thing, we might see some additional photos or videos of these enigmatic craft. Earlier this year, Pentagon Spokeswoman Susan Gough confirmed that three previously released videos were real and that the military can’t explain the craft being shown in them. But surely there’s got to be a lot more evidence than just those three, right? I mean, they’ve been studying this situation for decades and Navy pilots have reported periods where they were being buzzed on a daily basis. There must be a lot more to it than the few snippets we’ve seen. And at least according to former AATIP director Luis Elizondo, there’s more. There’s a lot more. (Newsweek)
The Pentagon has “a lot more” highly classified videos of so-called unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), the ex-head of a secretive government program has said…
“Am I surprised that the government acknowledged the validity and the veracity of those videos? Not at all,” Elizondo, currently director of government programs at TTSA, told Newsweek. “It was a matter of time, they didn’t have a choice because ultimately, the paper trail goes back to the authenticity of these videos. And anybody who does a little bit of research will recognize that they are real.”
“I knew they were genuine and there’s also a lot more the Pentagon currently has, unfortunately remain highly classified,” he said. “It is truly a historical moment when you have the United States government and multiple agencies in the organization coming forward and saying that the videos are not only real, but they are truly unidentified aerial phenomena.”
While everyone (including yours truly) seems to be locking in on that one quote from Elizondo’s interview with Newsweek, they haven’t provided a video of the discussion so I’m not 100% sure he’s saying what we think he’s saying. Note in the transcript that he says “I knew [the videos] were genuine and there’s also a lot more the Pentagon currently has…”
Granted, perhaps he did mean that the Pentagon has a lot more videos. But he doesn’t explicitly say that. He just says “there’s a lot more the Pentagon has.” That could also mean documents, reports, photographs, pilot testimony or anything else.
Also worth noting was that the last time Susan Gough addressed this specific question she told us in no uncertain terms that there were no other videos. But we later learned from the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) that there is one more video, but it’s classified as SECRET and could not be released at that time. They claim that a request to see if the video could be declassified was sent to Naval Air Systems Command “to make a determination on releasability.” That was over six months ago and we still haven’t had an update.
Does that mean Gough was lying? As I’ve said before, I’m no longer so sure about that. The military-intelligence apparatus is so incredibly complex and segmented into “chimneys” of information that many of the actors involved in such things never know what anyone else is doing It remains a possibility that Susan Gough tried to find answers to our questions but never found anything out and potentially didn’t even know who to ask.
As to the idea that there are only four videos in total, I still call horse-hockey on that claim. The Navy was running into these bizarre craft on a regular basis at least through 2014, particularly around the Roosevelt carrier battle group. To think that they never captured any additional film seems unlikely in the extreme. Now, it may all be more highly classified as Elizondo suggests, but at some point they should be able to share “cleaned up” versions with the public if they are really angling for transparency and, ultimately, Disclosure.
For those who are interested, Luis Elizondo returns for season two of History’s “Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation” tonight. I’ll certainly be watching.
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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.
