The Colossi of Memnon: Why Did the Giant Statue Sing at Dawn?

The Colossi of Memnon are a pair of giant statues made of stone that are located in the Theban Necropolis in Luxor, Upper Egypt. The statues were made during the 14th century BC, during the period in ancient Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom. The best-known legend about the Colossi of Memnon is that of the ‘ Vocal Memnon ,’ in which one of the statues was reputed to ‘sing’ every morning at dawn.

The Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Who Created the Colossi of Memnon

The Colossi of Memnon were built during the reign of Amenhotep III , a pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty who ruled Egypt during the 14th century BC. The statues, which are each about 20 meters (65.62 ft.) in height, are made of quartzite sandstone. The stone is thought to have been quarried either from El-Gabal el-Ahmar (near Cairo) or from Gebel el-Silsileh (near Aswan), and then transported by land to Luxor. The statues depict Amenhotep III in a seated position, with their hands resting on their knees, and their faces facing the Nile in the east.

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Amenhotep III's Sitting Colossi of Memnon, Theban Necropolis, Luxor, Egypt. 

(merydolla /Adobe Stock)

The Name and Purpose of the Egyptian Colossi of Memnon

The original function of the colossi was to serve as guardians at the entrance of the pharaoh’s mortuary temple. When it was completed, this temple complex was one of the largest and most luxurious in the land. Today, however, little is left of the mortuary temple, and its foundations were gradually damaged by the annual flooding of the Nile , which led to the temple being demolished, and its stone blocks re-used for other structures. The colossi were spared this fate, though they also suffered extensive damage over the millennia.

The Colossi of Memnon in front of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III's mortuary temple.

( Ancient Egypt )

The colossi were named ‘Memnon’ towards the end of the 1st century BC. Memnon was a hero who lived during the time of the Trojan War . As the King of Ethiopia, Memnon led his soldiers to Troy, where they fought against the Greeks on the side of the Trojans. He was eventually slain by Achilles.

According to legend, Memnon was the son of Eos, the goddess of dawn. On learning of her son’s death, Eos wept, which is said to form the morning dew.

‘Statues of Memnon at Thebes during the flood,’ David Roberts. (1848) ( Public Domain ) The statues in Luxor, Egypt have been impacted by the annual flooding of the Nile.

The Ancient Egyptian Statue Sings at Dawn

Eos’ weeping was associated with the sound said to have been produced by one of the colossi at dawn. According to the Greek geographer Strabo, in 27 BC, a strong earthquake caused the top half of the northern colossus to collapse, and its lower portion to crack. As a consequence of this, the statue began to ‘sing,’ i.e. emitted a light moaning or whistling sound each morning as the Sun rose.

In order to explain this phenomenon, the ancient Greek and Roman travelers to the site began to associate the colossi with the legendary Memnon. The ‘singing’ of the colossus, therefore, was said to have been made by Eos mourning for her dead son. Alternatively, it was believed that the sounds were the cries of Memnon greeting his mother.

Ahmed Osman notes that “Whether associating the Colossi with his name was just whimsy or wishful thinking on the part of the Greeks – they generally referred to the entire Theban Necropolis as the “Memnonium” – the name has remained in common use for the past 2000 years.”

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Antonio Beato, Colossi of Memnon, Egypt, 19th century. Brooklyn Museum.

( Public Domain )

A natural explanation for the signing or wailing phenomenon has been put forward. It has been suggested that due to the increase in temperature at dawn, the dew inside the porous rock evaporates, thus causing the statue to ‘sing.’

Silencing ‘Memnon’

Some believed that it was good luck to hear the statue ‘sing,’ while others were of the opinion that the statue was an oracle. With this in mind, the Colossi of Memnon was a popular tourist attraction and many ancient travelers visited it, including several Roman emperors. One of these was Septimius Severus, who reigned between the end of the 2nd century AD and the beginning of the 3rd century AD.

Drawing of the ancient Egyptian Colossi of Memnon.

(Wellcome images/ CC BY 4.0 )

According to local tradition, the emperor visited the Colossi of Memnon in 199 AD. During his visit, Septimius Severus decided to repair the broken statue by having the two halves re-connected. This caused the statue to stop ‘singing’ forever. Nevertheless, the Colossi of Memnon still remain a tourist attraction even today.

• Top Image: One of the seated statues known as the Colossi of Memnon. Source: danheller /Adobe Stock

By Wu Mingren

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

20-11-2020 om 01:13 geschreven door peter  

The Walls of Jericho: How Accurate Was The Biblical Account?

Jericho is famous both to prehistorians and Biblical scholars. It is likely the oldest continuously inhabited permanent settlement in the world, known for ancient astronomical observatories, plastered skulls, and impressive walls, and it is these walls that the city is probably most famous for. The walls of Jericho are the subject of much discussion and research due to their importance for evaluating the historicity of the Biblical narrative of the ancient Israelite invasion of Canaan.

Before the Bible

Early archaeological work was done on Jericho in the late 1950s by investigators, such as Dame Kathleen Kenyon . Among many other things, they found evidence of walls and a city that had been attacked. This has made Jericho a place of great importance for those interested in Biblical studies.

The earliest evidence of settlement comes from 12,000 years ago when hunter-gatherers settled in the area. Although they were hunter-gatherers, the area seems to have been abundant enough that they were able to live a sedentary lifestyle. They lived in oval stone structures that were partially underground. By about 10,500 years ago, or around 8,500 BC, the people of Jericho had adopted agriculture and Jericho had become a major Neolithic settlement engaging in long distance trade. It was during this time that the famous tower of Jericho was built.

The tower of Jericho was originally discovered by Dame Kathleen Kenyon who suggested that it might have formed part of the original fortification of the town. Modern archaeologists have suggested that it is an ancient astronomical observatory . Within the tower is a staircase that leads to a position where, on what was the summer solstice at the time, the sun could be seen setting behind Mount Quruntul within the Judaean mountains.

The 8000 BC Tower of Jericho at the site of Tell es-Sultan, 2009.

(Salamandra123 / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

In addition to the tower, mysterious plastered skulls have been found, where the skulls were taken out of their graves and given plastered facial features and shell eyes. They are believed to be related to ancestor worship.

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Plastered Skull from Jericho from 7,000 BC discovered by Dame Kathleen Kenyon, 1957.

(Merryjack, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 )

By about 7,000 BC, there was a cultural shift where the population in Jericho was reduced and architectural styles changed from round to rectangular houses. Jericho continued to exist as a small village but did not become a large settlement again until around 3,000 BC. After 3,000 BC, extensive fortifications, consisting of walls and towers, were constructed around Jericho. Large cemeteries were also built. Around 2300 BC, Jericho became occupied by the Amorites. During the Amorite period, Jericho appears to have declined as an urban center. By about 1900 BC, the site was occupied by the Canaanites and once again became a major city. It is this Canaanite Jericho that was encountered by the ancient Israelites in the Book of Joshua.

The Walls of Jericho

The Biblical narrative describes the city as having nearly impregnable walls, which were intimidating to anyone who tried to take the city. There is archaeological evidence that the city was once fortified and that it was subsequently attacked and burned sometime in the middle or late Bronze Age between 1550 BC and 1400 BC.

Biblical depiction of the fall of Jericho.

(Otto Semler, CC BY SA 2.0 )

The city of Jericho sat atop a mound or hill, which was surrounded by an embankment. The embankment was supported by an enormous stone retaining wall. Above the retaining wall was an 8-10 meter tall and 2 meter thick mudbrick wall. The wall was directly above the retaining wall and lined the edges of the embankment.

At the perimeter of the summit of the flat-topped hill on which the city was built was another mudbrick wall, which contained the upper city. There is evidence that houses were also built on the embankment and people lived on the lower part of the hill between the inner wall and the outer wall. Since this part of the city would have been less safe in times of war, it has been suggested that this was likely the poorer part of the city. The upper city may have been inhabited by the elites, while commoners lived in the lower city.

Although the inner and outer walls were only mudbrick, they would have been impressive for the time and would have made Jericho a mighty fortress to which people from surrounding towns and villages could flee in times of invasion.

Jericho and Bronze Age Fortifications

The city of Jericho appears to follow a Bronze Age tradition in which cities were built on top of artificial embankments or mounds surrounded by walls. This style of defense is found outside of Jericho at locations such Hazor, Megiddo, and Shechem. Typically, the site would consist of a mound with an artificial embankment surrounding it. Around the embankment would be a stone retaining wall. Settlements with this type of defense structure also had a mudbrick wall built atop the retaining wall as well as another wall surrounding the crest of the mound. This type of fortification is referred to as a glacis and is found all over Palestine and in large portions of the Middle East.

Citadel of Allepo, Syria, showing an example of a glacis fortification, 2007.

(Brian Harrington Spier / CC BY-SA 2.0 )

Scholars have speculated about the origin of the glacis. When research into these structures began in the early to mid-20 ^th century, these fortifications were originally associated with the Hyksos. Originally, the Hyksos were thought to be Indo-European chariot warriors . The fortification was postulated to represent the original fortifications that they used in their homeland.

Since the mid-20 ^th century, this theory has been abandoned and the glacis fortifications are no longer considered to be associated with chariot warfare. Today, the Hyksos are known to have spoken a Semitic language and were likely more closely related to the ancient Hebrews than they were to Indo-European steppe warriors.

Although archaeologists had abandoned the idea that the fortification design came from the steppes of the Indo-European homeland, they were still convinced that the fortification must have come from the north, such as from Anatolia or Syria. By 1968, archaeologists had begun to suggest that the glacis was a native design invented by the Palestinians themselves. This appears to be the predominant view currently.

Another point of contention has been the use of the fortifications. Archaeologists in the mid-20 ^th century, originally believed that the glacis-fortifications were primarily military forts. It is now known that they were simply fortified towns and that at their summits and on the embankments were houses, temples, and other civilian structures.

The glacis first came in to use in the late 18th century BC and was widespread through the middle Bronze Age. By the Iron Age, the glacis appears to have fallen out of use. The legacy of the glacis, however, is reflected in the mound or hill-shaped structure of many archaeological sites across the Levant.

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 The Walls of Jericho and Biblical Archaeology

For a while, Jericho presented a problem in Biblical studies. On a broader level, there appears to be a discrepancy between the account of the Israelite settlement of Canaan in the Book of Joshua and what is known from archaeology. An initial reading of the Book of Joshua gives the impression that Canaan was taken in a sudden conquest. This is not what is reflected in the current archaeological record that suggests a more gradual settlement, which is more consistent with the account given in the Book of Judges.

However, a closer reading of the Book of Joshua shows that not all of Canaan was conquered by Joshua. Only three cities were specifically described as being burned and destroyed by the ancient Israelites, Ai, Hazor, and Jericho.

As can be seen, evidence of a swift invasion is not necessary to reconcile the Book of Joshua’s account with the archaeological record. Nonetheless, the story of the destruction of Jericho, Ai, and Hazor, around 1400 BC, is consistent with what is known from archaeological excavations.

When the Bible speaks of the walls of Jericho falling down, the original Hebrew wording carries the idea of the walls falling “below themselves.” This is consistent with the design of the glacis since the outer wall would probably be a mudbrick wall sitting atop the stone retaining wall. Thus, if the outer wall was toppled, it would fall below to the base of the retaining wall.

During early archaeological excavations by the British archaeologist Dame Kathleen Kenyon, a stone retaining wall was found at the base of the tell associated with Jericho, but a mudbrick wall wasn’t found. However, a deposit of collapsed mudbrick was found at the base of the retaining wall at certain locations around the tell. This is surprisingly consistent with the account in the Book of Joshua. This collapsed wall would have also created a ramp for the Israelite warriors to march up the embankment to take the city. In this way, the archaeological record makes the Biblical account surprisingly believable. It supports the idea that the walls tumbled “below themselves” as well as the statement that the Israelites went “up” to take the city.

Birdseye view of the unearthed foundations at Tell es-Sultan in Jericho and the surrounding area, 2008.

( Public Domain )

Another specific part of the narrative that is also made plausible by the archaeological record is the account of Rahab’s house being spared. In the Biblical narrative, two spies were sent into the city and they were harbored by a prostitute named Rahab. For helping the spies, Rahab was promised that she and her family would be spared when the city was destroyed. It is implied in the Biblical text, when the walls collapsed that her house was not destroyed even though it was connected to the wall.

During an early excavation in 1907-1909, German archaeologists found that, although most of the wall had collapsed, a portion of the wall had not entirely collapsed and appeared to have been preserved. They also found evidence that houses had been built along the wall. These houses typically had a thickness of only one brick, suggesting they were built for the poorer inhabitants of the city. Although this may not have been the location of Rahab’s house, it is consistent with the Biblical narrative.

Another detail that is also of interest in the archaeological site of Jericho is the presence of pots of charred grain that were burned from when the city was attacked and destroyed. What is unusual about these grain pots is that grain would probably have been eaten during a siege if it had been prolonged over a long period of time. The siege of Jericho by the ancient Israelites is said to have lasted only seven days. The fact that the grain pots were still full is consistent with a short siege. This also supports another part of the Biblical narrative, which mentions that the battle of Jericho happened in the spring, shortly after harvest time.

Biblical depiction of the battle of Jericho.

( Public Domain

Implications for the Biblical Narrative

These details do not prove that the Bible is true necessarily, but they do demonstrate that the Biblical narrative is plausible and makes sense. This is consistent with other archaeological finds that increase confidence in the Biblical narrative as being at least archaeologically and historically realistic.

Although there are still unanswered questions and discrepancies between the Biblical account and the archaeological record, the Bible can be thought of as a basically reliable document that does provide some useful details for archaeologists and historians interested in understanding the lifeways and societies of the ancient Levant, even if it turns out to not be true or accurate in its entirety.

An analogy is Homer’s Iliad. The archaeological site now considered to be the site of ancient Troy was first excavated by Heinrich Schliemann in the 1870s. Schliemann was in search of the Troy of Greek legend. During this excavation, Schliemann discovered artifacts, which he believed to be the treasures of King Priam, although this idea was later discredited. Nonetheless, in the century and a half since the initial excavations by Heinrich Schliemann, scholars have noted that the topographic descriptions of the land and city in the Iliad do seem to match what is known of the ancient city from archaeology. This is interesting in light of the fact that Hisarlik, the current Turkish name for the archaeological site, has been associated with the legendary city for thousands of years. Although it is far from clear how much of the Trojan war is history and how much is legend, it does appear plausible that there is truth to the narrative.

The Ramayana is another possible example. Although Rama, the main character, is not mentioned on any monuments or coinage, as would be expected of a historical monarch, most of the cities and places mentioned in the Ramayana are known to exist or have been discovered through archaeological investigation. This does not necessarily mean that the events in the Ramayana happened as described, but they do make the story of the Ramayana more plausible.

In the same way, these archaeological findings at Jericho do not necessarily prove that the Biblical narrative happened exactly as described, but they do lend credence to the story described on the pages of the Bible. Although sometimes archaeology casts doubt on traditional stories about the past, other times it confirms them in surprising ways.

• Top Image: Bible Old Testament: Joshua and the walls of Jericho.           
• Source: Archivist / Adobe Stock

By Caleb Strom

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

19-11-2020 om 23:49 geschreven door peter  

Stratolaunch starts building Talon hypersonic plane for Mach 6 flights

19-11-2020 om 23:34 geschreven door peter  

Earth is fighting a laser duel with the exploding Carina Nebula

by Brandon Specktor 

Eta Carinae has been exploding for nearly 200 years, and now we're firing lasers at it.

Lasers fly through space toward the glowing Carina Nebula

(Image: © ESO/G. Hüdepohl)

Four orange laser beams blaze through the Milky Way while an angry purple nebula transfixes us with its death-stare. Happily (or sadly, depending on how much news you've consumed this week), Earth is not doomed; in fact, it's an Earthly telescope that's launching the lasers in this epic image from the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

Dubbed ESO's picture of the week, this shot looks like a cosmic battle to the death, but it actually captures a clever astronomical trick that scientists use to peer across time and space. The purple star system pictured here is the Carina Nebula, sometimes called the Eta Carinae nebula in honor of its most famous star system. Eta Carinae — actually a pair of two giant stars — has been steadily exploding in a spectacular eruption of gas and dust for nearly 200 years. Though the system is located about 7,500 light-years from Earth, this ever-brightening explosion has rendered it one of the most luminous star systems in the Milky Way.

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Seeing that far into space can be tricky, even when gazing at one of our galaxy's brightest objects through one of Earth's mightiest telescopes (in this case, the ESO's Very Large Telescope, located in Chile). One niggling problem: Earth's gassy atmosphere always gets in the way, blurring and distorting the view of celestial objects.

That's where the lasers come in. According to the ESO, scientists fire these lasers from one of the Very Large Telescope's component pieces to simulate distant stars. (Sodium particles in the atmosphere cause the beams to glow orange.) Astronomers then focus on these artificial stars to measure how much the beams are being blurred by Earth's atmosphere. By practicing with fake stars, astronomers can more effectively calibrate the telescope to correct for atmospheric blurring when looking at real stars, galaxies and explosive objects like Eta Carinae, according to the ESO.

So, to summarize: Earth scientists are actively shooting lasers into the heart of an exploding star system — but only so they can get to know it better. In our strange and beautiful Milky Way, it's just the neighborly thing to do.

• Originally published on Live Science.

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19-11-2020 om 21:42 geschreven door peter  

‘Blue ring nebula’ turns out to be two colliding stars caught in the act

It lies 6,300 light-years away in the constellation Hercules. Now, we finally know its story.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

19-11-2020 om 21:25 geschreven door peter  

Scientists solve 16-year-old mystery of the Blue Nebula, finding it formed after a sun-like star consumed a smaller stellar companion

• The Blue Nebula was discovered in 2004 and has baffled scientists since

• A new study reveals it is youngest known example of two stars merging into one

• It formed when a dying sun-like star moved towards a smaller star

• The larger star engulfed its companion and released a cloud of hot debris

• The collision shot hot debris into space that was cut in half by the gas disc

• The result formed two cones, but one is facing Earth that appears like a circle 

By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

The Blue Nebula has puzzled scientists for more than a decade, but new findings suggest it may be the youngest known example of two stars merging into one.

Astronomers first discovered the mysterious object in 2004, leading them on a mission to uncover what caused a circle of blue light to form around the star, named TYC 2597-735-1.

In a new study, the team suggests that the ring is actually a cone and the glowing debris formed after a sun-like star engulfed a smaller stellar companion.

A massive cloud of hot debris shot into space when they merged that was sliced in two by the gas disc, and because only one of the cones is facing Earth, it appears as a central blue ring.

Astronomers first discovered the mysterious object in 2004, leading them on a mission to uncover what caused a circle of blue light to form around the star, named TYC 2597-735-1

The Blue Nebula was discovered by scientists with NASA's space-based Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) 16 years ago who said it was 'unlike anything the'd seen before in our Milky Way galaxy.'

The images showed a large, faint blob of gas with a star shining brightly in the center.

And although it looks blue in images, it does not actually give off light visible to the human eye.

For more than a decade, the team worked tirelessly to unravel its mystery. 

A massive cloud of hot debris shot into space when they merged that was sliced in two by the gas disc, and because only one of the cones is facing Earth, it appears as a central blue ring

Mark Seibert, an astrophysicist with the Carnegie Institution for Science and a member of the GALEX team, said: 'Every time we thought we had this thing figured out, something would tell us 'No, that's not right.'

'That's a scary thing as a scientist. But I also love how unique this object is, and the effort that so many people put in to figure it out.'

In a new study published online on November 18 in the journal Nature, the team suggests they have finally solved the puzzle.

The nebula was determined to be a relatively fresh stellar merger, just some thousand years old, of a star the size of our Sun and another that had about 100 times the mass as Jupiter.

When the sun-like star was dying, it began to swell, pushed its towards the smaller stellar object and eventually engulfed it.

Although the result of this violent event ended in two cones, there is an area where they overlap that appears as a circle when observed from Earth.

The light was produced after the collision, which excited the hydrogen molecules, causing them to radiate with ultraviolet light and overtime the glow became bright enough for GALEX to see (pictured is the star Mira, which went through the same process)

The light was produced after the collision, which excited the hydrogen molecules, causing them to radiate with ultraviolet light and overtime the glow became bright enough for GALEX to see.

Lead study author Keri Hoadley, from David and Ellen Lee Postdoctoral Scholar in Physics at Caltech, said 'The merging of two stars is fairly common, but they quickly become obscured by lots of dust as the ejecta from them expands and cools in space, which means we can't see what has actually happened.'

'We think this object represents a late stage of these transient events, when the dust finally clears and we have a good view.

'But we also caught the process before it was too far along; after time, the nebula will dissolve into the interstellar medium, and we would not be able to tell anything happened at all.' 

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

19-11-2020 om 21:17 geschreven door peter  

Scientists say the human brain resembles the cosmos

Both neural and galactic networks have the same structure, pointing to a fractal universe.

 by Tibi Puiu

 

Side by side pictures of brain cells and a cosmic web of galaxies make it difficult to tell the two apart. So it can seem that the universe is like one giant brain or vice-versa, there’s a tiny universe in each of our brains. That’s not merely some entertaining thought. In a new study, an astrophysicist and a neurosurgeon have documented the striking similarities between cosmic networks of galaxies and neural networks of brain cells.

The mini-cosmos inside the brain

Alberto Feletti, a neurosurgeon at the University of Verona, and Franco Vazza, astrophysicist at the University of Bologna, performed a quantitative analysis of neural and cosmic networks, showing that the natural physical processes lead to similar structures even when differences in scale can be greater than 27 orders of magnitude.

The human brain contains approximately 69 billion neurons, whereas the observable universe consists of a web of at least 100 billion galaxies. In both galactic and neural networks, just 30% of their masses are composed of ‘working’ masses, such as galaxies and neurons. The rest of the 70% of matter plays an apparently passive role: water in the brain and dark energy in the observable cosmos, the authors wrote in Frontiers in Physics.

The pair of Italian researchers also performed side by side comparisons between simulations of galactic and neural networks in order to see how matter fluctuations scatter over the two scales.

“We calculated the spectral density of both systems. This is a technique often employed in cosmology for studying the spatial distribution of galaxies,” Vazza said in a statement. “Our analysis showed that the distribution of the fluctuation within the cerebellum neuronal network on a scale from 1 micrometer to 0.1 millimeters follows the same progression of the distribution of matter in the cosmic web but, of course, on a larger scale that goes from 5 million to 500 million light-years.”

Next, the researchers computed the average number of connections in each node for both neural and cosmic networks, and analyzed their tendency to cluster together in relevant central nodes with the network.

“Once again, structural parameters have identified unexpected agreement levels. Probably, the connectivity within the two networks evolves following similar physical principles, despite the striking and obvious difference between the physical powers regulating galaxies and neurons,” adds Alberto Feletti. “These two complex networks show more similarities than those shared between the cosmic web and a galaxy or a neuronal network and the inside of a neuronal body”.

Left: section of cerebellum, with magnification factor 40x, obtained with electron microscopy. Right: section of a cosmological simulation, with an extension of 300 million light-years on each side.

Credit: Dr. E. Zunarelli, University Hospital of Modena / Vazza et al. 2019 A&A.

Fractals are everywhere

These similarities are truly striking, but what can explain them? The cosmos has been shaped by the laws of physics and the forces that govern it, such as gravity and dark matter. The brain is shaped by biological processes, most important of which is evolution. Over the course of many generations, the human brain has adapted to a certain structure that is most adapted to our environment. But the brain is ultimately made of atoms and molecules, just like the rest of the universe.

What ties the brain and the cosmos at large together are fractals, which are mathematical structures that look the same regardless of how close or far away you observe them. Besides the brain and galaxies, other naturally occurring fractal structures include the path taken by rivers down to the ocean or the delicate shape of a snowflake. Even our cities look a lot like fractals, showing that we inadvertently follow the laws of nature simply because that’s the efficient way to go about things.

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{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

19-11-2020 om 20:41 geschreven door peter  

Lying practically in the center of Australia, sitting out among the dry and dusty forbidding landscape around 11 miles from the remote desert outpost town of Alice Springs, is the somewhat jarring sight of an installation of squat buildings and satellite dishes ensconced within odd-looking white balls dotting the area, called radomes. Sitting out in this remote, inhospitable land of sun scorched earth as it is, it is easy to conjure up the image that this is a mysterious base on some alien world, but it is in fact a top secret joint American-Australian run military installation officially called the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG), or more commonly just Pine Gap, also known by its unclassified cover name RAINFALL. Although its official function is to track and monitor satellites, the isolated location out in the middle of nowhere and the complete secrecy surrounding it have made sure that this place has attracted plenty of conspiracies and tales of secret experiments, UFOs, and all manner of strangeness.

The base itself began operations in 1970, established by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in conjunction with the Australian government. Originally described as a facility for “space research,” its main purpose, or at least what they tell us, is satellite surveillance, its location and remote moonscape of an area perfect for watching vast expanses of the skies, as well as hiding from any spy ships passing in international waters that might try intercept the signals from its array of spherical tracking systems. Since the Cold War it has also been utilized as a missile detection and tracking station, as well as for intercepting and recording weapons and communications signals from hostile nations such as North Korea. The base employs around 1,000 people, sprawls out over at least 20,000 square meters of floor space, and houses a massive expanse of supercomputers and a spider web of tunnels beneath it all, however, its exact layout and the extent of its subterranean facilities are hidden behind a wall of classified top secrecy. Since it is a secret, reclusive desert base completely off limits to outsiders, patrolled by armed security and surrounded by fences generously festooned with “Keep Out” signs, it is perhaps no surprise that over the years strange tales have gravitated towards Pine Gap, ranging from the weird to the totally outlandish.

Pine Gap

Perhaps the most well-known, publicized, and plausible stories surrounding the facility are that it has been instrumental in coordinating and carrying out lethal drone strikes in warzones such as Afghanistan, rumors which angered many Australians who did not want to be complicit in illegal targeted strikes and objected to having that blood on their hands. The accusations of Pine Gap being used to coordinate these killer drone strikes have been categorically denied by military officials for years, even though declassified NSA documents have shown that similar facilities, such as Menwith Hill Station in the UK, have indeed been used for launching targeted drone strike missions, so these documents heavily suggest that Pine Gap, with its cutting edge technology, is also used for these purposes. There has been some confirmation in that the NSA has admitted to using Pine Gap for intelligence sharing and for missions concerning the war on terror, whatever that may entail.

Similarly nefarious and unethical are claims made by famed whistleblower Edward Snowden, who has said that Pine Gap is heavily used for intercepting communications not only from enemies of the state, but also from private communications over phone, emails and faxes, essentially allowing the military to eavesdrop and spy on anyone in the world at any time, monitoring everyone at all times. Making this more ominous still is that there have been claimed to be at least two areas of the base that are completely off-limits to Australian personnel. Of course both the governments of Australia and the United States dismiss all of these allegations, but still they persist. After all, that the government would be involved with this will probably be not that big a stretch of the imagination for many, yet this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Pine Gap, and other claims start to veer off into the bizarre. Yes, I’m talking about UFOs and aliens.

Pine Gap has for years been ground zero for all sorts of claims of UFO activity in and around the base. It has gained a reputation as a hotspot of UFO sightings, and has even gained the reputation as “Australia’s Area 51,” furthering its cred as a decidedly oddball place. One strange type of report that has popped up frequently is that of all the hidden camouflaged doors in the surrounding area of the base that strange flying craft come and go through. In as early as 1980 there was a report from two police officers that were in the vicinity helping with a search for a missing child, combing through the desert scrub when right in front of them a door opened in the ground to disgorge several bizarre craft described as “flying bathtubs.” These mysterious objects then flew across the base to enter some sort of portal that appeared in the hills not far away, after which it and the craft vanished. A similar report occurred in 1989, when three hunters saw a hidden door open in the hillside they were on, from which emerged a large metallic gray disc. The door then closed to blend perfectly into the environment as if it never existed. This flying object then reportedly silently flew out across the base to hover right above it before shooting straight up in the sky at breathtaking speed.

Other strange UFO activity has been reported from the base as well. Back in 1975 the pilot and passengers of a private plane flying not far from Pine Gap witnessed a huge white light take off from the base and shoot off into the distance at speeds far exceeding a normal aircraft. Interestingly, when they tried to file a report of the sighting they were told in no uncertain terms to forget what they had seen. Perhaps even stranger than this was an incident that supposedly happened in 1984, when a group of five UFO watchers were staking out the area after apparently receiving an anonymous tip that something big was going to go down at the base, and it seems they would not be disappointed. They claim that there was a sudden flurry of activity by personnel at the base, after which a beam of light shot into the sky and formed some sort of cloud-like portal, from which flew five UFOs that flew around the base shooting down green pillars of light at the domed radomes for several minutes before entering the cloud again and vanishing into thin air. There have indeed been numerous other reports of UFOs hovering over the radomes, and these domed radar installations seem to be of particular interest to these mystery craft.

The mention of the portal in this case fits in very well with some of the other off-the-wall conspiracies about the Pine Gap base. It has long been rumored that among the many secret experiments allegedly carried out at the base are those concerned with opening up doorways to other planets and even other dimensions. Other experiments said to happen at the base are those involving time travel, teleportation, reverse engineering alien technology, controlling the weather, and creating super soldiers. You name it, there has probably been a conspiracy claiming that it is an experiment being carried out at Pine Gap. It is hard to know just how many of these rumors are true and how much of it is just conspiracy theory nonsense, but considering that it is such a top secret place that no one can get near, out in the middle of a forsaken wasteland, it is not hard to see why it has managed to attract so much weirdness. What is with this place? We will perhaps never know what really goes on there, but as long as something is going on there the stories will likely continue to swirl, and if you want tales of UFOs, weird experiments, and high strangeness, you can do worse than Pine Gap.

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19-11-2020 om 18:37 geschreven door peter  

Over the years (decades, in fact) a number of people have come forward claiming that alien technology, alien bodies, and even live ETs, are secretly held out at Area 51 – and maybe even deep underground the facility itself. The most well-known such figure is Bob Lazar. He scarcely needs an introduction. Also, there is Charles Hall. He claims knowledge of one particular type of alien at Area 51 that have become known as the “Tall Whites.” As their title makes clear, in appearance they are far removed from the dwarfish Greys. According to Hall, back in 1964 he was working at Nellis Air Force Base, a facility inextricably tied to Area 51 and its secret programs of numerous kinds. There is absolutely no doubt at all that Area 51 would not have attained the high degree of mystique and mystery that it has without the input of the aforementioned Bob Lazar. He, more than anyone else, thrust both the base and the name solidly into the public domain. It should be noted, though, there were others who knew something of the tales of aliens at Area 51, and that have added to the claims of Lazar.

One of those people, said George Knapp – a highly-respected, long-time journalist in Las Vegas, Nevada – was a man named Roy Byrum; he provided tax-based services to some of the employees at Area 51 from 1976 to 1979. Several of Byrum’s clients quietly told him what they knew of the alien craft held at Area 51, and of how massive funding for the UFO programs was being siphoned from other government programs, as a means to hide the paper-trail and the money. After sharing this information with journalist George Knapp, Byrum was leaned on by government agents who paid him a less than friendly visit.

Also in the 1970s, several employees of a company called Holmes & Narver Corporation revealed certain data on Area 51’s alien angle, said George Knapp. It’s a company that provides engineering and construction services. One of the sources – and a former employee of Holmes & Narver – was a woman who worked in the Clark County court system and who was ready to speak with journalist George Knapp. That was quickly nixed, though, when the woman’s life was threatened. As was that of her family. Also pre-Lazar, there is the story of Doug Schroeder, an electrical engineer who confided in Las Vegas TV producer Bob Patrick about what he was told was going on at Area 51. Namely, the reverse-engineering of alien craft and extraterrestrial technologies. Although, Schroeder stressed that, in terms of actually flying the craft, not a great deal at all had been achieved. George Knapp noted that in 1991 Schroeder “died in somewhat mysterious circumstances.”

You may buy into the stories of aliens (dead or alive) out at Area 51. Or, you just might suspect the stories could have been concocted by U.S. Intelligence to try and freak the Soviets – during the Cold War – into thinking that we really do have extraterrestrial technology, when we actually don’t. It’s interesting to note that the tales concerning Byrum and Schroeder both dated from the 1970s. That was the very same time-frame when the CIA – and other U.S. agencies, too – were concerned that certain American ufologists were being groomed for secret work by none other than the KGB. Let’s take a closer look at all of this. In the 1990s, Gerald K. Haines – in his position as the historian of the National Reconnaissance Office – wrote a paper titled “CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90.” It’s now in the public domain, thanks to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. It can be read at the CIA’s website. Haines’ paper detailed the history of how, and why, the CIA became interested and involved in the phenomenon of UFOs. Although Haines’ study covered a period of more than forty years, I will bring your attention to one particular section of his paper. It’s focused on the 1970s.

Haines wrote that CIA officials “…looked at the UFO problem to determine what UFO sightings might tell them about Soviet progress in rockets and missiles and reviewed its counterintelligence aspects.”  The Soviets, then, in the 1970s, were camouflaging their secret rocket tests by spreading false and fantastic tales of UFOs. Haines also noted something that is absolutely key to this article: “Agency analysts from the Life Science Division of OSI [Office of Scientific Intelligence] and OSWR [Office of Scientific and Weapons Research] officially devoted a small amount of their time to issues relating to UFOs. These included counterintelligence concerns that the Soviets and the KGB were using U.S. citizens and UFO groups to obtain information on sensitive U.S. weapons development programs (such as the Stealth aircraft), the vulnerability of the U.S. air-defense network to penetration by foreign missiles mimicking UFOs, and evidence of Soviet advanced technology associated with UFO sightings [italics mine].”

What all of this tells us is that U.S. counterintelligence programs, Russian plots, and certain American Ufologists tied to KGB operations in the 1970s, were swirling around everywhere. Could it be that some (or all) of the 1970s-era stories concerning aliens at Area 51 – that I described above – were carefully seeded by U.S. Intelligence to (a) spread the “aliens at Area 51” scenario; (b) scare the Russians into thinking we have extraterrestrial technology; and (c) maybe, as a result, snare a couple of men from overseas named Ivan and Dimitri? ? Very possibly, yes.

Finally, if you want to learn more about the pre-Lazar accounts and cases that George Knapp secured, get a copy of George’s excellent paper, “Area 51, Bob Lazar, and Disinformation.” You can find it in the MUFON Symposium Proceedings of 1993.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

19-11-2020 om 18:18 geschreven door peter  

If you’re going to get abducted by space aliens, it’s nice to have a fellow human there to keep you company. It’s even better if the fellow human is a celebrity – maybe you’ll get star treatment too. And if it’s a huge celebrity – at least in your country – well, that’s the tale that a UFO researcher in England has decided to come forward with in a new book. The celebrity? Robbie Williams, the British pop star who himself has talked about his interest in UFOs and has had at least one encounter that he swears happened when he was clean and sober. Does he remember being abducted with Russ Kellett?

“I went through a tunnel and ended up in a room with tall, bald aliens. They had the looks of a human but were 10ft tall – that’s not the norm, is it? There were some smaller ones and they all looked the same.”

Kellett recently told Yorkshire Live about an abduction experience he had in 1999 – an experience he finally feels comfortable about revealing in interviews prior to the release of his book, “Through the Eye of an Alien.” Kellett claims he was riding his motorcycle near Druid’s Altar in Bingley, West Yorkshire, at about 10 pm when he entered a tunnel … and came out on a spaceship. He claims he remembered being in a chair, having a tube down his throat and getting some sort of injection in his neck. Then it gets worse.

“A helmet went over my head. That’s what I remember. Later on, I started remembering stuff.”

What he remembered happening next is being given weapons and sent out on some sort of military mission. Just as he started to panic, he claims he saw Robbie Williams behind him, also in uniform.

“I am in a military unit – on a mission. He (Williams) is behind me. We had helmets on. I was ready to go on a mission. I looked at him. He must have been ‘leader one’. I said ‘don’t I know you from somewhere?’ Robbie Will….?’. An alien then shouted ‘get back in line’. You do not mess with these dudes. This is serious stuff, it is not a joke. It is called abduction.”

Robbie Williams looking alien in wax

It’s also called ‘unbelievable’, as Kellett says he found out when attempting to retell his encounter at UFO conferences. That seems surprising since Kellett is known as “The UFO Guru and ET Motorcycle Rider” in the UK and has appeared on a number of paranormal shows. It’s also surprising that a publicity hound like Robbie Williams, especially one with a professed interest in UFOs, hasn’t told the story himself – unless he doesn’t remember it, is an alien himself or it didn’t happen. Williams claims he had a UFO hover over him while lounging outside at the swanky Beverly Hills Hotel in 2008. That one was 300 feet above him, but in 2018 he claimed to have seen another UFO that “if I got a tennis ball out I could have hit it with a tennis ball.”

Yorkshire Live doesn’t give any more information on Kellett’s abduction and alien/Robbie Williams encounter, so it looks like we’ll have to wait for his book to be finished and released. Or for Robbie to decide he wants some of that attention himself and comes forward with his own account. Either way, it’s a strange tale of abduction with a celebrity twist.

If abducted yourself, who would you want to see on the alien spaceship?

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19-11-2020 om 18:10 geschreven door peter  

The Mass Alien Agenda: ET Human Hybridization Program Operational Since 1990s… They Came at Night!

Certified hypnotherapist, regression therapist and crop circle researcher Barbara Lamb discusses the alien presence here on Earth and how many people are experiencing visitations and medical examinations. Barbara specialises in hypnotic regression therapy with people who experience encounters with extra-terrestrial beings.

Barbara looks at the intent of these beings and examines a number of theories in regard to their agenda. They are here to stay and are bent on conducting their work uninterrupted.

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Bridget Nielsen explains the Alien Hybridization program that is responsible for her bearing 10 Alien Hybrid babies through dream-state on an Alien craft. It’s not uncommon for children and their fathers to live apart, in the next town sometimes even in another country, but a group of women are claiming that their baby daddies live far, far further away than that—in space and the dads are actually aliens who have used their DNA to create human alien hybrids. The women, some of whom claim to have more than ten alien-hybrid children, are adamant that their stories are true, and that their children now live with their fathers on alien spaceships. Two of the women, former marketing executive Bridget Nielson and video game designer, Aluna Verse, agreed to talk with us and share their experiences. Bridget, 27 and Aluna, 23 are part of a group that call themselves the ‘Hybrid Baby Community’. They believe that for years aliens have been harvesting their DNA to create children that combine the best of both human and alien. “It sounds crazy, says Aluna “And people have asked if I’m of my meds. But this is really happening” Bridget says she has been in contact with aliens since a child and says she now has more than 10 alien children—4 boys and 6 girls. “They are creating a hybrid race to better humanity. They are doing it this way because if they came and told us by landing in the front garden we would freak out” Aluna, who says she has three children by alien fathers, continues, “I was in a classroom setting with other humans. All of sudden I’m sat next to this green reptilian creature and immediately I’m so sexually turned on looking at this being. I was very surprised. We’re making love in this classroom in front of everyone.” Bridget’s sexual encounters aboard the alien ship echo Aluna’s. “It was a great” She says, “It was an incredible super primal, super raw, super primal sexual experience. There was a really freedom and we were really going for it. It was the best sex I ever had” Visits between mothers and children all have taken place aboard the alien ships. And neither Bridget nor Aluna have met their kids on Earth. “The biggest thing with me and the other moms” Says Bridget, “Is the longing to be with your children, there is a sadness because you can’t be with them” Hybrid mothers range across all ages, the youngest being 19 and the oldest in her sixties. “We believe there may be hundreds of thousands of women across the world who have hybrid babies, they just don’t know about them” The children themselves, according to pictures drawn by Bridget, Aluna and the other mothers display both human and alien characteristics. “They may have reptilian features, or big black eyes” Explains Aluna, “Though some of them look so human that you could not tell them apart. ” Bridget realises that if her story is to be believed, it would be frightening for the majority of people. She says we are not to worry, that the aliens are only here to help us. “They are not just taking our children. They are doing this for the good of humanity. They are very benevolent beings who are helping us” Believing that she has children living aboard an alien spaceship, has proved problematic in relationships for Bridget. “I don’t really have normal relationships any more. This has become my normal. I know people who are married or have boyfriends and when they tell them it goes down badly” Aluna, who is in a relationship with a human boyfriend, faces the same difficulties, “People have asked me if I’m off my meds. I’ve gotten a thick skin and don’t really care. I don’t mind if someone calls me crazy” But there have been moments of self doubt, moments when she has thought, “Of course I’ve thought that I am crazy and questioned myself” Bridget believes that the aliens are most interested in creating hybrid offspring with this generation. “My generation is a lot more positive and some of us are super-excited to be taken” There has also been a change, says Bridget, in the way the aliens treat their human donors. “The aliens back then didn’t have the emotional capacity as we humans do. They didn’t know how to treat us and a lot of people had terrifying or painful experience because the aliens didn’t know what they were doing wrong” Bridget and Aluna have future plans to open a home where all the Hybrid Mothers can live together, which will act as a safe place for their kid’s visits. Bridget explains, “It will be somewhere away from the cities, somewhere where the children can visit, run free and express themselves. People say we are crazy, but we are not, this is really happening to us”

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

19-11-2020 om 17:40 geschreven door peter  

3km Tall Alien Enters 20km Ship Over Mexico City! Sept 2, 2020, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Sept 2, 2020
Location of sighting: Mexico City, Mexico
Source:

•  https://community.windy.com/topic/13427/strange-radar-anomaly-over-mexico/2

Hey check this out. A weather app I have been using on my phone had a user who saw a 20km disk over Mexico City in Sept 2020. However something they didn't notice was that there was a giant 2km tall figure also caught on radar...waiting, waving...and entering the ship. This all makes sense now. The ship is very similar to the design of the ancient Aztec round calendar, with the pilot in the center. Notice the center god in the calendar is huge...as is the alien seen on radar. This is no god...its an extremely advanced alien species with god-like abilities. Maybe even one of the Aztec gods themselves coming back to take a look at what he helped create 2,000 years ago. This is the only video in the world showing a moving alien being 3km tall entering a space ship. This is 100% proof of the existence of ancient Aztec god-like beings still walking around us. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

 

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

19-11-2020 om 17:05 geschreven door peter  

Dark Hole In Sun Appears...Is 300X Size Of Earth, Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Nov 18, 2020 13:13

Location of sighting: Earths Sun

Source: SOHO EIT 195

 

Now NASA wont be talking about this today or any time soon. A giant  hole has appeared at the northern pole of our sun today. The hole is 300X the size of earth. Now this recent photo actually confirms my earlier theory called Hollow Sun Theory, where a mini solar system actually exists in a hollowed out center of our sun. Ships need a way to come and go on large scales and opening huge doorways like this allows them to not only allow ships in and out, but to also bring in mini moons and planets, which are actually space stations. Yes, the theory sounds odd, but stop thinking in human terms where our lifetime ends in 90-100 years...and start thinking like an aliens...who will never die of natural causes. Then time to make things means little to you, time itself means nothing to you. No pain, no loss, no hard labor since you delegate that to ai controlled robots. All things are easy to create no matter what those things are. Now...you are on the right path of thinking like an alien. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

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

19-11-2020 om 16:58 geschreven door peter  

Athermal/IR camera picked up a huge glowing orb while it hovered for short periods and then moved around as if inspected something.

The homeowner has three security cameras on the front entrance, two regular HD IR and one that has a thermal/IR motion detector and only the thermal/IR camera picked up the image on April 20, 2020.  

The orb, which seems to change in size several times, was not visible in the other cameras or to the human eye. Even his wife went outside to see what it was but she was not able to see it. However when she went back to the monitors and played the video back of her going outside, the object was visible. 

The Orb phenomenon is still a mystery. Some people think that such an orb is a spirit or lingering energy from deceased entities and other people say it’s just a speck of dust reflecting light or a camera artifact. 

Orbs seem to be doorways but has yet to be proved that this is a spirit or an interdimensional being or intelligence, but it does seem that there is a conscious mind behind the orbs and it seems that these kind of energy balls travel via energy lines. 

About the mysterious appearance at the front entrance of the owner's house in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, it remained there until just before dawn and then disappeared. 

Source: Mufon.

• https://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=view_long_desc&id=112331

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Invisible triangle "UFO" recorded with a night vision camera in South Texas.

(Image: © Laredo Paranormal Research Society)

 

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19-11-2020 om 16:14 geschreven door peter  

Was that an alien UFO over Philadelphia? 17-Nov-2020

These lights in some kind of formation were flying across the sky above Philadelphia in Pennsylvania on 17th November 2020.

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

19-11-2020 om 15:09 geschreven door peter  

Who made this crop circle found in Ipuaçu, Brazil?

This crop circle was found on 28th October in Ipuaçu, Santa Catarina, Brazil.

What’s your comment on this formation?

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

19-11-2020 om 15:04 geschreven door peter  

This artist’s concept of Jupiter’s moon Europa shows how the icy surface may glow on its nightside, the side facing away from the sun. Variations in the glow and the color of the glow itself could reveal information about the composition of ice on Europa’s surface.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.

New lab experiments that re-created the environment of Jupiter’s large moon Europa suggest that the icy world shines, even on its nightside.

As icy, ocean-filled Europa – one of Jupiter’s 79 known moons – orbits the planet, Jupiter bombards Europa’s surface night and day with electrons and other particles, bathing it in high-energy radiation. As the electrons penetrate the moon’s surface, they energize the molecules underneath. According to the new study, published November 9, 2020, in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Astronomy, when those molecules relax, they release energy as visible light, making Europa glow in the dark.

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Variations in the glow and the color of the glow itself could reveal information about the composition of ice on Europa’s surface, say the scientists. That’s because different salty compounds react differently to the radiation and emit their own unique glimmer, so color will vary based on the real composition of Europa’s surface.

The new analysis, from scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, details what the glow would look like, and what it could reveal about the composition of ice on Europa’s surface. According to a NASA statement:

Different salty compounds react differently to the radiation and emit their own unique glimmer. To the unaided eye, this glow would look sometimes slightly green, sometimes slightly blue or white and with varying degrees of brightness, depending on what material it is.

Scientists use a spectrometer to separate the light into wavelengths and connect the distinct “signatures,” or spectra, to different compositions of ice. Most observations using a spectrometer on a moon like Europa are taken using reflected sunlight on the moon’s dayside, but these new results illuminate what Europa would look like in the dark. JPL’s Murthy Gudipati, lead author of the study, said in a statement:

We were able to predict that this nightside ice glow could provide additional information on Europa’s surface composition. How that composition varies could give us clues about whether Europa harbors conditions suitable for life.

That’s because Europa holds a massive, global interior ocean that could percolate to the surface through the moon’s thick crust of ice. Scientists have inferred from prior observations that Europa’s surface could be made of a mix of ice and commonly known salts on Earth, such as magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt) and sodium chloride (table salt). The new research shows that incorporating those salts into water ice under Europa-like conditions and blasting it with radiation produces a glow.

That much was not a surprise, said the researchers, because it’s easy to imagine an irradiated surface glowing. Scientists know the shine is caused by energetic electrons penetrating the surface, energizing the molecules underneath. When those molecules relax, they release energy as visible light. But the study researchers didn’t expect to see variations in the glow itself tied to different ice compositions. JPL’s Bryana Henderson, a study co-author, said:

But we never imagined that we would see what we ended up seeing. When we tried new ice compositions, the glow looked different. And we all just stared at it for a while and then said, ‘This is new, right? This is definitely a different glow?’ So we pointed a spectrometer at it, and each type of ice had a different spectrum.

A moon that’s visible in a dark sky may not seem unusual; we see our own moon because it reflects sunlight. But Europa’s glow is caused by an entirely different mechanism, the scientists said. Imagine a moon that glows continuously, even on its nightside, the side facing away from the sun. Gudipati said:

If Europa weren’t under this radiation, it would look the way our moon looks to us, dark on the shadowed side. But because it’s bombarded by the radiation from Jupiter, it glows in the dark.

• Bottom line: A new study suggests Jupiter’s large moon Europa shines, even on its nightside, thanks to a relentless pummeling of radiation from the planet.
• Source: Laboratory predictions for the night-side surface ice glow of Europa
• Via NASA

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19-11-2020 om 14:54 geschreven door peter  

If watery plumes do burst from Europa’s surface, they might originate not in the moon’s underground ocean, but instead in pockets of brine trapped in the moon’s crust. If that’s so, it could be a source of frustration for those who want to probe Europa’s ocean for possible life.

Artist’s concept of a water vapor plume on Europa, the smallest of Jupiter’s 4 large Galilean moons.

Image via ASA/ ESA/ K. Retherford/ SwRI/ Science.

Jupiter’s moon Europa is known as a water world in the outer solar system. Like Saturn’s moon Enceladus, icy Europa is thought to have an ocean beneath its surface. At the surface of Enceladus, water-vapor geysers are seen erupting into space. Likewise, there’s growing evidence for plumes of water vapor that erupt from Europa’s surface. They are one reason scientists are excited about a spacecraft mission to Europa – the Europa Clipper mission – due to launch in 2024. So here’s a question. If water plumes do burst from Europa’s surface, what is their source? Do they originate in this world’s subsurface ocean (as is the case with Enceladus), or from pockets of salty water trapped in Europa’s crust?

New research announced in November 2020 by scientists at Stanford University, the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory indicates that the latter may be the case: unlike Enceladus’ plumes, the plumes on Europa appear to spring from pockets of water, or salty subsurface lakes, trapped within the icy moon’s crust.

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The peer-reviewed results were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on November 5, 2020.

The results come from modeling of Europa’s crust, showing that salty water – brines – could move around within the icy crust and form pockets of water that would then erupt onto the surface.

Knowing where the plumes originate from is crucial to possibly being able to detect evidence of life in Europa’s ocean, if it exists. If Europa’s plumes come from the ocean, as the plumes on Enceladus do, scientists would be able to analyze the water from the ocean itself. As Gregor Steinbrügge at Stanford University commented:

Understanding where these water plumes are coming from is very important for knowing whether future Europa explorers could have a chance to actually detect life from space without probing Europa’s ocean.

Another artist’s illustration of a cryrovolcanic eruption – or ice volcano eruption – this one showing salty water from inside the little moon’s crust, released into space at the site of an impact crater.

Image via Justice Wainwright/ NASA.

Evidence continues to build that Europa’s ocean is potentially habitable, perhaps even with hydrothermal vents around which life could cluster on Europa’s ocean floor, much as deep-sea hydrothermal vents on Earth’s ocean floor support unique ecosystems. On the other hand, it’s thought that pockets of water in the moon’s crust would be less habitable; they’d lack the rich energy sources of hydrothermal vents, for example. So – if Europa’s plumes do come from pockets of brine trapped in the moon’s crust – they might not be as rich a source for analysis by those searching for life on Europa.

Why did the researchers begin to believe Europa’s plumes might come from trapped brine in the crust, rather than from this moon’s subterranean ocean?

They examined images of Europa’s surface sent back by the Galileo probe in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They used that analysis to develop a model suggesting that a combination of freezing and pressurization – from meteorite or asteroid impacts – could cause cryovolcanic eruptions, that is, eruptions of water-ice.

Europa has relatively few impact craters on its icy surface, but the researchers took a close look at Manannán Crater, an 18-mile-wide (29-km-wide) impact crater created tens of millions of years ago. The modeling indicated that the melted ice resulting from the impact, and the refreezing of the water pocket below the surface, could have resulted in an eruption. These scientists’ paper explained:

Jupiter’s satellite Europa has a subsurface ocean covered by an icy shell. We show how small pockets of brine can migrate within the ice from colder areas to warmer areas. This can happen even at very low temperatures, below the point where pure water would freeze, because the water becomes saltier and saltier as it migrates. By looking at an impact crater on Europa, which was initially warm in the center and cooled inward from its colder surroundings, we can study how the water migrated toward the center and formed a central water reservoir. As the final water pocket at the center of the crater started to freeze, the increasing pressure lead to a cryovolcanic eruption that emplaced brine onto the surface to form a prominent ‘spider’ feature before the ice collapsed into the cavity below. Using a digital terrain model of the crater and collapse feature, we estimate how much water erupted and how salty Europa’s ice shell is.

Composite photos from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Galileo spacecraft, showing a suspected plume erupting in the same place on Europa in 2014 and 2016.

Image via NASA/ ESA/ W. Sparks (STScI)/ USGS Astrogeology Science Center/ JPL-Caltech.

Manannán Crater on Europa, the focus of the new study and where scientists think that plumes of water have erupted.

Image via E. P. Turtle/ E. Pierazzo et al./ Science.

Don Blankenship, senior research scientist at University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, added:

The comet or asteroid hitting the ice shell was basically a big experiment which we’re using to construct hypotheses to test. Our model makes specific predictions we can test using data from the radar and other instruments on Europa Clipper.

After the impact, the water partly froze into ice, but other pockets of water could have also been created in the moon’s crust. Those salty water pockets can theoretically move sideways through the crust. As they do so, they melt the adjacent ice and become even saltier in the process. Steinbrügge said:

We developed a way that a water pocket can move laterally, and that’s very important. It can move along thermal gradients, from cold to warm, and not only in the down direction as pulled by gravity.

In the case of Europa’s Manannán Crater, the scientists think that one of these briny water pockets reached the middle of the crater. After it became stuck there, it started to freeze, which created pressure resulting in a plume-like eruption. The eruption even left a spider-shaped marking on Europa’s surface, which was seen by Galileo.

So while plumes from brine pockets trapped in Europa’s crust wouldn’t provide much information about this little moon’s subsurface ocean, they would show how the outer ice crust is geologically active. Joana Voigt, a graduate research assistant at the University of Arizona, added:

Even though plumes generated by brine pocket migration would not provide direct insight into Europa’s ocean, our findings suggest that Europa’s ice shell itself is very dynamic.

Gregor Steinbrügge at Stanford University, lead author of the new study.

Image via Stanford University.

As co-author Dustin Schroeder at Stanford also said:

This makes the shallow subsurface – the ice shell itself – a much more exciting place to think about. It opens up a whole new way of thinking about what’s happening with water near the surface.

The hypothesized plume at Manannán Crater would have been relatively small, smaller than other larger plumes for which there is growing evidence from Galileo data and the Hubble Space Telescope. This means, the researchers say, that larger plumes are probably not caused by impact events. As to how they occur, scientists don’t know yet, but if there is an ocean-related mechanism similar to that on Enceladus, that would be exciting. As Robert Pappalardo at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory noted:

The work is exciting, because it supports the growing body of research showing there could be multiple kinds of plumes on Europa. Understanding plumes and their possible sources strongly contributes to Europa Clipper’s goal to investigate Europa’s habitability.

While Europa’s water plumes haven’t quite been fully confirmed yet, the ones on Saturn’s moon Enceladus certainly have. They originate from the moon’s subsurface salty ocean.

Image via NASA Science.

The results also suggest that similar plumes could be created on other icy bodies as well. According to Voigt:

Brine pocket migration is not uniquely applicable to Europan craters. Instead the mechanism might provide explanations on other icy bodies where thermal gradients exist.

Determining with certainty the source or sources of Europa’s plumes will probably require in situ observations, and thankfully, NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission, scheduled to launch in 2024, should be able to do that. Even now, there is still some debate as to whether the plumes even exist at all, but the accumulating evidence from Hubble has almost confirmed them now. Even if some of these plumes don’t originate from the ocean itself, it’s still possible that other ones do. Europa Clipper will study Europa in unprecedented detail, and hopefully answer this question as well as many others that scientists have about this fascinating little world.

• Bottom line: Scientists now think that at least some of Europa’s watery plumes originate from pockets of salty water in the crust.
• Source: Brine Migration and Impact-Induced Cryovolcanism on Europa
• Via NASA
• Via Stanford University

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

This composite image shows suspected plumes of water vapor erupting at the 7 o’clock position off the limb of Jupiter’s moon Europa. The plumes, photographed by NASA’s Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, were seen in silhouette as the moon passed in front of Jupiter. Hubble’s ultraviolet sensitivity allowed for the features -- rising over 100 miles (160 kilometers) above Europa’s icy surface -- to be discerned. The water is believed to come from a subsurface ocean on Europa. The Hubble data were taken on January 26, 2014. The image of Europa, superimposed on the Hubble data, is assembled from data from the Galileo and Voyager missions.

Credits: NASA/ESA/W. Sparks (STScI)/USGS Astrogeology Science Center

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

19-11-2020 om 14:38 geschreven door peter  

Upcoming Show: Philip Mantle

Simulcast on YouTube, Facebook & Twitch – Tuesday, November 18th, 1:00PM EDT (-5GMT)

Guest Philip Mantle discusses his latest book, INTRODUCING UFOS: A Young Person’s Guide that has been fully illustrated by UK author and illustrator Ronald Kinsella. The book is aimed at a young teenage audience. The next generation of UFO researchers and investigators you might say.

BIO: British author / co-author, publicist, lecturer, broadcaster and researcher of Unidentified Flying Objects. UFO research: Philip Mantle’s interest in UFO research began in l979 when he joined the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA), and Yorkshire UFO Society (YUFOS). 1985: Nominated ‘Investigator of the year’ by YUFOS. 1987: Appointed to Council of management of BUFORA. Subsequently acted as Press Officer, Conference Organiser, and Secretary to the National Investigations Committee l988: Appointed England’s representative for the Mutual UFO Network’s (MUFON) l992: Awarded honorary member of the Research Institute on Anomalous Phenomena (RIAP), a science based UFO-study group based in the Ukraine. l993: Appointed Director of Investigations for BUFORA. Although extremely active in the field of UFO research, Philip Mantle has relinquished his various appointed positions, due to professional commitments, with the exception of honorary membership of RIAP. Organisational publication credits include: YUFOS Journal, UFO TIMES, Enigma, California UFO, MUFON UFO JOURNAL, CENAP REPORT, OVNI PRESENCE, Awareness, The Wild Places, UFO Universe, UFO Brigantia and numerous others international publications Newspaper / Magazine publication credits include: Daily Star, The Independent, Today, Plus Magazine, The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, The People, Daily Mirror, and numerous other local and regional newspapers and periodicals throughout the UK as well as international publications. Lectures and radio / TV broadcasts include: United Kingdom – BBC radio network and TV programmes such as Kilroy, Pebble Mill at One, TV-AM, GMTV, Central Weekend, Fantastic Facts, Wire TV, Schofield’s Quest, Motormouth, The Disney Club, Cool Cube, Good Morning with Anne and Nick, This Morning. International Radio / TV broadcasts – Norway, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, San Marino, Romania, Switzerland, Israel, Japan, and the USA. #introducingufos #youngpersonsguide

{ https://podcastufo.com/ }

19-11-2020 om 01:48 geschreven door peter  

View at EarthSky Community Photos. 

Ioana Babau in Oradea, Romania, captured this photo of the moon’s terminator link – the line between light and dark on the moon – on November 8, 2020.

The moon’s terminator is the dividing line marking the edge between day and night on the moon. It’s sometimes called the twilight zone, because it marks where the sun is either rising or setting on the moon and so – along the terminator line – the moon’s landscape is in a twilight state. Want to see lunar features more clearly through binoculars or a small telescope? Look along the terminator line. That’s where the contrast between light and shadow reveals the moon’s topography in stark relief. Mountains tower over the lunar regolith – the loose dust, broken rocks, and other materials covering most of the moon’s surface – while craters sink away from their rocky ledges.

• EarthSky’s lunar calendar shows the moon phase for every day in 2021. Order yours before they’re gone! Makes a great gift.

The terminator isn’t fixed on the moon, of course. It creeps across the moon’s surface, with the change in its location noticeable in just hours to those peering at the moon through telescopes. A day on the moon lasts 29.5 Earth-days. The moon’s terminator moves a bit slower than 10 miles per hour (16 kph) across the moon’s surface, a pace that seems almost glacial when you consider that, for those at the equator on Earth, our world’s terminator flashes across its surface at about 1,000 mph (1,600 kph). If you set your treadmill at a 10-mile-per-hour (16 kph) pace to reflect the speed of the moon’s terminator, you could jog (or, more likely, run) and see if you’d be able to keep up with the sweep of nightfall across the moon. You’d have to run at a pace that equals about a 6-minute and 15-second mile (for reference, the fastest runner’s record for 1 mile is 3 minutes, 43 seconds).

As we see it from Earth, the moon’s terminator marks the line of lunar sunsets or sunrises. As the moon orbits eastward around Earth, the sunrise terminator crosses our satellite, creating the familiar phases we recognize as crescent, first quarter, gibbous, and finally full. On a full moon, we see no terminator at all, because the side of the moon facing us is completely lit. After the full stage, the sunset terminator takes the moon through the phases in reverse: gibbous, last quarter, crescent, and finally new moon, when no light illuminates the surface.

Seasoned astronomers know that observing the moon during its full stage is a washout. The moon is super bright, its surface brilliant but bland, and your night vision is ruined by peering through a telescope at such a blazing light. On the other hand, the waning and waxing moon phases provide a detailed study of the moon’s surface one night at a time over the course of two weeks.

One popular feature that is seen in its “best light” by the terminator is the lunar Straight Wall. The Straight Wall, also known as Rupes Recta, is a fault line that lies inside Mare Nubium, a basin in the southern portion of the moon. The Straight Wall is one of those details on the moon that can all but disappear except for when the terminator highlights its striking shadow on the eighth day past new moon. If you hunted down Rupes Recta and it was a cinch to find, try for the smaller Rima Birt running parallel nearby.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. 

Tom Wildoner in Weatherly, Pennsylvania, captured this photo of Rupes Recta on the moon on January 14, 2019. He wrote: “Rupes Recta, a linear fault line, or rille, appears as a straight shadow during the 1st quarter phase of the moon giving it the nickname the Straight Wall. This fault has a length of about 68 miles (110 km). The small (11 miles or 18 km wide) crater Birt lies just to the west.”

Even the more obvious lunar features, from the craters Copernicus and Eratosthenes to Montes Apenninus, still benefit from timing your viewing to when the terminator will best put these changes in elevation in contrasting light.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. 

Vishal Sharma in Uttar Pradesh, India, captured this photo of Montes Apenninus on October 24, 2020.

But wait! The moon isn’t the only solar system object to display a terminator.

Any planet and satellite with an external source of light, such as sun, can display a terminator.

Inferior planets, those that are inside Earth’s orbit, more markedly show the terminator and phases. So, for example, on Earth we can see Venus and Mercury’s phases, while any Martians on Mars can see Earth’s phases and its terminator line.

Amateur astronomers are familiar with the phases of Venus, because they are readily visible through binoculars or a telescope. Venus’s disk looks larger and like a crescent when it is closer to Earth and smaller and like a gibbous phase when it is farther away.

Mercury’s nearness to the sun means that its atmosphere has been blown away by the solar wind, and therefore the terminator line’s separation between day and night causes a severe swing in temperature. When the sun beats down on the daytime side of Mercury, temperatures at the surface soar to over 400 degrees Celsius (800 degrees Fahrenheit). But just across the terminator’s border on the night side, temperatures plummet to -183 degrees Celsius (about -300 F).

• Bottom line: The terminator line – on Earth’s moon and other planets and moons in space – is caused by sunlight falling on the surfaces of these worlds. It’s the line dividing night and day on the moon and other solar system objects.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

19-11-2020 om 01:37 geschreven door peter