The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
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 Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
14-02-2024
Saturn’s “Death Star Moon” Mimas Probably has an Ocean Too
Saturn's moon, Mimas, captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in 2010. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
Saturn’s “Death Star Moon” Mimas Probably has an Ocean Too
A recent study published in Nature presents a groundbreaking discovery that Saturn’s moon, Mimas, commonly known as the “Death Star” moon due to its similarities with the iconic Star Wars space station,possesses an internal ocean underneath its rocky crust. This study was conducted by an international team of researchers and holds the potential to help planetary geologists better understand the conditions for a planetary body to possess an internal ocean, which could also possess the conditions for life as we know it. While Mimas was photographed on several occasions by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, including a close flyby in February 2010, what was the motivation behind this recent study regarding finding an internal ocean on Mimas?
Dr. Gabriel Tobie, who is a planetary scientist at Nantes Université in France and a co-author on the study, tells Universe Today, “One of the initial motivations to study Mimas was to understand why it is so different from the neighboring moon, Enceladus, which is characterized by a very active surface with direct communication with a global surface ocean. On Enceladus, we know that all the observed activity is controlled by tidal forces generated by Saturn. Mimas is closer to Saturn and should normally experience even more intense tidal forces. So why Mimas’ lack sign of activity?”
Discovered by William Herschel on September 17, 1789, Mimas is best known for its Death Star appearance due to Herschel Crater, which spans 139 kilometers (86 miles) in diameter, or just over one-third the diameter of Mimas at 396 kilometers (246 miles). Unlike other ocean worlds like Europa and Enceladus, whose surfaces are largely devoid of craters due to the frequent resurfacing from their respective internal oceans, the surface of Mimas possesses countless craters with no indications of resurfacing. Therefore, the debate for Mimas possessing an internal ocean has raged for years, including a 2014 study published in Science and a 2017 study published in JGR: Planets.
2022 video discussing the possibility of an ocean on Mimas based on research at the time.
Dr. Tobie continues by telling Universe Today, “It was initially thought that Mimas remained frozen since its formation and that the conditions to initiate ice melting in its interior were never met. This new finding we report in this study shows that Mimas in fact is not that different than Enceladus. It also has a global ocean, but in contrast to Enceladus, such an ocean was formed very recently, explaining the lack of surface activity.”
After analyzing data from NASA’s Cassini, the researchers concluded that an internal ocean exists on the heavily cratered Mimas approximately 20-30 kilometers (12-18 miles) beneath its surface, forming less than 25 million years ago, which is young in geologic terms. Additionally, the team concluded the juncture where the internal ocean and ice interact reached less than 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the surface only 2-3 million years ago, indicating the ocean is potentially still developing and growing. Therefore, what implications does finding an ocean on Mimas have for other potential ocean worlds in our solar system?
Saturn’s moon, Mimas, captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in 2010. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
Dr. Alyssa Rhoden, who is a Principal Scientist at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado and co-authored an article in Nature discussing the groundbreaking discovery, tells Universe Today, “As far as stealth ocean moons go, Mimas pretty much takes the cake. Its surface betrays nothing of the ocean underneath. Icy moons around Uranus, for example, do show some geologic activity on their surfaces that have (in absence of other options) have been attributed to oceans enabling tidal stresses and/or enhanced heating to drive processes like convection. More importantly, Mimas is showing us that it’s not too late for moons to undergo massive changes. Maybe triggering ocean formation later in a moon’s lifetime is more common in this size range of moons than we initially considered.”
As noted, an internal ocean on Mimas indicates it could possess habitable conditions for life as we know it like Europa and Enceladus. This is because scientists have hypothesized that internal oceans are created from internal heat generated from the moons being tugged and pulled as they orbit their respective planets, also known as tidal heating. While such internal oceans are completely absent from receiving sunlight due to their outer surfaces, scientists hypothesize that the internal heat that creates the ocean could also harbor hydrothermal vents where life has been observed to exist here on Earth. Therefore, what implications does finding an ocean on Mimas have for finding life beyond Earth?
“Finding an ocean on Mimas demonstrates that habitable environments may be found even in small objects far from the Sun, which is already a great discovery,” Dr. Tobie tells Universe Today. “However, the chance to detect any sign of life on such objects is extremely low, as there is no direct communication between the subsurface ocean and the surface. Enceladus, with its very active jets, is a much better target to address the question of life beyond Earth. Mimas, however, provides an opportunity to study the first stage of ocean formation and potentially chemical complexification before life emerged, a fundamental stage which is still unknown on Earth.”
In terms of follow-up studies, Dr. Tobie tells Universe Today that the methods used for this recent study could also be applied for other moons in the solar system, specifically moons orbiting Uranus, along with providing an opportunity to use Cassini data to re-evaluate not only Mimas, but other mid-sized moons orbiting Saturn, including Enceladus.
With this groundbreaking discovery, Mimas joins several other planetary bodies within the solar system that can be called ocean worlds, which include the aforementioned Europa and Enceladus, but also the dwarf planets, Ceres and Pluto; Jupiter’s moons, Ganymede and Callisto; Saturn’s largest moon, Titan; and Neptune’s moon, Triton. It is through these fantastic and mysterious worlds that scientists from around the world are studying to better understand the conditions for life to exist, both here on Earth and beyond.2
“The main take-away from Mimas is that we ought to test ideas, even if they seem unlikely,” Dr. Rhoden tells Universe Today. “Mimas’ surface doesn’t show evidence of an ocean, so it was easy to dismiss the ocean hypothesis when it was first proposed. But to come to a scientific conclusion, we have to back up inferences with tests. Sometimes, we find that the tests confirm our expectations, and sometimes, we get to be surprised.”
What new discoveries will scientists make about Mimas and other ocean worlds in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
Astronomers Employ Novel Technique for Searching for Alien Technosignatures
Astronomers Employ Novel Technique for Searching for Alien Technosignatures
Technosignatures are any measurable property that may provide evidence of extraterrestrial technology. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a branch of astrobiology that focuses on finding technosignatures, as their detection would provide evidence for intelligent life beyond Earth. Traditionally, targeted radio surveys have been the mainstay of SETI research, and many SETI projects currently underway still take place in the radio band. The newly-proposed technique, the SETI Ellipsoid, is a strategy for technosignature candidate selection that assumes that extraterrestrial civilizations who have observed a galactic-scale event — such as supernova SN 1987A — may use it as a point to broadcast synchronized signals indicating their presence.
Using improved 3D locations for stars from Gaia Early Data Release 3, Cabrales et al. identified 32 SN 1987A SETI Ellipsoid targets in the TESS continuous viewing zone with uncertainties better than 0.5 light-years.
Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Alexandra Angelich, NRAO / AUI / NSF.
Dr. Bárbara Cabrales from the SETI Institute and the Berkeley SETI Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and her colleagues show the SETI Ellipsoid method can leverage continuous, wide-field sky surveys, significantly enhancing our ability to detect potential technosignatures.
By compensating for the uncertainties in the estimated time-of-arrival of such signals using observations that span up to a year, they implement the SETI Ellipsoid strategy in an innovative way using state-of-the-arc technology.
“New surveys of the sky provide groundbreaking opportunities to search for technosignatures coordinated with supernovae,” Dr. Cabrales said.
“The typical timing uncertainties involved are of a couple months, so we want to cover our bases by finding targets that are well-documented over the course of about a year.”
“In addition to that, it’s important to have as many observations as possible for each target of interest, so that we can determine what looks like normal behavior and what might look like a potential technosignature.”
In examining data from the continuous viewing zone of NASA’s TESS mission, covering 5% of all TESS data from the first three years of the mission, the authors utilized the advanced 3D location data from Gaia Early Data Release 3.
This analysis identified 32 prime targets within the SETI Ellipsoid in the southern TESS continuous viewing zone, all with uncertainties refined to better than 0.5 light-years.
While the initial examination of TESS light curves during the Ellipsoid crossing event revealed no anomalies, the groundwork laid by this initiative paves the way for expanding the search to other surveys, a broader array of targets, and exploring diverse potential signal types.
Applying the SETI Ellipsoid technique to scrutinize large archival databases signifies a monumental step forward in the search for technosignatures.
Utilizing Gaia’s highly precise distance estimates, the study demonstrates the feasibility of cross-matching these distances with other time-domain surveys like TESS to enhance monitoring and anomaly detection capabilities in SETI research.
The SETI Ellipsoid method, combined with Gaia’s distance measurements, offers a robust and adaptable framework for future SETI searches.
Astronomers can retrospectively apply it to sift through archival data for potential signals, proactively select targets, and schedule future monitoring campaigns.
“The SETI Ellipsoid method, jointly with Gaia distances, provides a straightforward and flexible method for SETI searches that can be adapted to fit different modern surveys and source events,” the researchers said.
“It can be applied retroactively to look for signals in archival data, as well as propagated forward in time to select targets and schedule monitoring campaigns.”
China’s Chang’e-4 mission rover has helped scientists visualise “hidden” structures deep below the surface of the moon’s far side – an advance that reveals billions of years of lunar history.
The Yutu-2 rover helped make the discovery through its Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR) that imaged deep into the moon’s surface by listening to echoes of sound that bounced back off structures under the lunar surface and hidden from view.
The same rover and the mission’s lander had made history in 2019 as the first human objects to land on the far side of the moon – the side that faces away from the Earth.
Scientists had previously used the rover’s ground penetrating radar (GPR), but those earlier efforts could help map only the top 40m, or about 130ft, of the moon’s surface. This new discovery has found the “hidden” structures at depths of about 300m (984ft).
The new data suggests the first 130ft under the lunar surface is made up of layers of dust, soil, and rocks.
Radar analysis also revealed the presence of a buried crater that formed when a large object slammed into the lunar surface as well as helped map ancient lava flows under the moon.
“The GPR sends electromagnetic pulses into the lunar interior and receives echoes from subsurface layers. We use the high-frequency channel data to detect the structure of the upper 40 m along the rover’s path, primarily consisting of rock debris and soil,” researchers explained in the study.
Scientists speculate that the broken rocks surrounding this formation was likely debris produced by the impact.
“Through this investigation, we have discovered multiple layers in the upper 300 m, which likely indicate a series of basalt eruptions that occurred billions of years ago,” they wrote.
The new study, published recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, revealed lunar lava likely flowed across the landscape in this part of the moon billions of years ago.
Researchers found volcanic rock layers are thinner the closer they are to the lunar surface.
“The thickness variation of these lava flows suggests a decrease in eruption scale over time,” they noted.
Based on this evidence, they said the lunar volcanic activity cooled gradually since the moon’s formation over 4.5 billion years ago, when a Mars-sized object slammed onto Earth and broke off a chunk that eventually coalesced into the moon.
“The thickness of the strata decreases with the decreasing depth, suggesting a progressively smaller lava effusion rate over time,” scientists concluded.
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With data from China's Chang'e-4 rover, scientists were able to visualize the upper 1,000 feet of the moon's surface for the first time. Their results reveal billions of years of previously hidden lunar history.
The farside of the moon, as photographed by Apollo 13, hangs upside-down over the blackness of space.
(Image credit: NASA)
Since it first landed in 2019, China's Chang'e-4 — the first spacecraft to ever land on the far side of the moon — has been taking stunning panoramas of impact craters and sampling minerals from the moon's mantle. Now, the spacecraft has enabled scientists to visualize the layer cake of structures that comprise the upper 1,000 feet (300 meters) of the moon's surface in finer detail than ever before.
A rover that traveled aboard Chang'e-4, named Yutu-2, is equipped with a technology called Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR). This device enables the rover to send radio signals deep into the moon's surface, said lead study author Jianqing Feng, an astrogeological researcher at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. "Then, it listens to the echoes dancing back," Feng told Live Science. Scientists can use those "echoes," or radio waves that bounce off of underground structures, to create a map of the lunar subsurface. In 2020, scientists used Yutu-2’s LPR to map the upper 130 feet (40 m) of the moon's surface — but hadn't gone deeper until now.
These new data suggest the top 130 feet of the lunar surface are made up of multiple layers of dust, soil, and broken rocks, Feng said. Hidden within these materials was a crater, formed when a large object slammed into the moon. Feng and his colleagues hypothesized that the rubble surrounding this formation was ejecta — debris from the impact. Farther down, the scientists discovered five distinct layers of lunar lava that seeped across the landscape billions of years ago.
The Crater Daedalus on the lunar farside as seen from the Apollo 11 spacecraft in lunar orbit (Image credit: NASA)
Scientists think our moon formed 4.51 billion years ago, not long after the solar system itself, when a Mars-size object slammed into Earth and broke off a chunk of our planet The moon then continued to be bombarded by objects from space for roughly 200 million years. Some impacts cracked the moon's surface. Like Earth, the moon’s mantle at that time contained pockets of molten material called magma, which seeped out through the newly formed cracks in a series of volcanic eruptions, Feng said.
The new data from Chang'e-4 shows that process slowing down over time: Feng and his colleagues found that the layers of volcanic rock grew thinner the closer they were to the moon's surface. This suggests that less lava flowed in later eruptions compared with earlier ones. "[The moon] was slowly cooling down and running out of steam in its later volcanic stage," Feng said. "Its energy became weak over time."
Volcanic activity on the moon is thought to have petered out about 1 billion years ago (though scientists have discovered some evidence of younger volcanic activity as recently as 100 million years ago). For this reason, the moon is often considered "geologically dead." However, there could still be magma deep underneath the lunar surface, Feng said.
Chang'e-4 isn't done with its work on the moon yet. Feng hopes that in the future, the craft will give us insight into different, unexpected geological formations.
Editor's note:
This story was updated on Aug. 22 to correct the date of Chang'e-4's lunar touchdown to 2019, rather than 2018. Chang'e-4 launched on Dec. 7, 2018 and landed on the moon on Jan. 3, 2019.
Rogue Space Systems has announced the failure of its Barry 1 satellite, which occurred before the company could test a controversial quantum drive propellantless propulsion system.
In a posted statement, the company said Barry 1 was able to complete a portion of its primary mission, including tests of their Scalable Compute Platform (SCP). Unfortunately, they lost contact with the satellite before they could perform any tests of IVO Ltd.’s Quantum Drive.
“Rogue’s Barry-1 satellite didn’t make it all the way through LEOP (Launch and Early Orbit Phase),” said IVO founder and President Richard Mansell in an email to The Debrief. “Sadly, we never even got to turn on the Drives!”
POWER SYSTEM ISSUES HAUNTED QUANTUM DRIVE HOST SATELLITE SINCE LAUNCH
According to the Rogue Space Systems statement, Barry 1 experienced ongoing power-system issues on the satellite’s bus immediately after its November 11th, 2023 launch and all throughout LEOP. Then, after two months of operations, the company said on February 9th, 2024 that they lost all communication with the satellite.
“Rogue Space Systems operations team is announcing the suspension of the active phase of our first on-orbit mission,” the company explained. In that same statement, Rogue says they are currently investigating the cause of the failure and are also trying to reestablish communications with Barry 1.
There has been no statement from Rogue on whether or not the bus failure was related to the original third-party equipment failure that delayed the mission’s original launch last October. However, the company did note their frustration at not being able to complete the Quantum Drive test, as well as their intent to pursue future launch opportunities with IVO.
“I’d like to take the opportunity to praise IVO for being a great customer,” said company CEO Jon Beam, “and we are in discussions on a second attempt during one of our upcoming new missions.” This includes a slate of Rogue hosting missions scheduled for some time in 2025.
In an email to The Debrief, IVO’s Mansell confirmed they are exploring future launch opportunities with Rogue. However, they are also exploring other potential options that may get their Quantum Drive to space as soon as possible.
“We have appreciated all that Rogue has done for us and look forward to hitching another ride with them,” Mansell said. “At the same time, they know that the sooner we can obtain a ride to space, the better. Therefore, we are also exploring additional opportunities to get to orbit.”
“The more Quantum Drives we can get into space, the better,” he added.
DRIVE PART OF CONTROVERSIAL CLASS OF PROPULSION SYSTEMS
Unlike a conventional satellite propulsion system that uses some form of propellant, the Quantum Drive is part of an emerging yet controversial class of experimental propulsion systems that claim to generate measurable thrust without any propellant. Such claims go against the conventional understanding of momentum and inertia by directly violating Sir Isaac Newton’s second laws of motion.
More than one of these experimental propellant-less propulsion systems has appeared to create thrust in a lab environment, including the controversial EMDrive, whose thrust was confirmed both by Chinese scientists and NASA Eagle Works lab boss Harold G. Sonny White.
Still, before the Quantum Drive, none of these concepts had the opportunity to be tested in the vacuum of space, and all of their claims of thrust produced in the lab are still hotly debated by conventional physicists. As such, the failure of Barry 1 to perform the Quantum Drive test has been met with a combination of frustration and hope in the Alternative Propulsion Community.
“The new era of space exploration is characterized by pushing technology to the limits, failing fast, and learning from mistakes,” Tim Ventura, host of the bi-weekly Alternative Propulsion Engineering Conference (APEC), told The Debrief. “I would compare IVO’s setback to the countless Starship prototypes that exploded on the pad during testing – a small loss today in pursuit of larger gains for all humanity tomorrow.”
Fortunately for supporters of the controversial propulsion concept behind these types of drives, the Quantum Drive itself did not fail, but was simply unable to be tested.
For future test flights, Mansell said that IVO will be using the same basic design of the Quantum Drive that showed thrust in the lab. However, they do expect to include some recent improvements as well as any customizations needed to conform the drives to their host satellites.
“The overall configuration of the Drives will not change,” Mansell told The Debrief. “While waiting for the Barry-1 tests, we have been continuously working to improve the Drives. Those improvements will be part of the next set that goes to space.”
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.
Individuals hoping to find aliens and UFOs in the US will likely have the best luck in spotting them out west.
According to data submitted by the National UFO Reporting Center and the US Census Bureau, more than 100,000alien sightings have been submitted to the Reporting Center between 2000 and 2023.
Unveiling America’s UFO Hotspots: A Journey from Coast to Coast
Today, the national average of alien sightings between those years nationwide is 34.3 per 100,000 residents.
But, one county that is known for being home to maybe the most famous alien landmark ranks on top of the list. Lincoln County, Nevada, home to Area 51, is the county with the most of the list.
The county is home to a whopping 820.9 sightings per 100,000 residents.
Other areas that have all had nearly 500-600 alien sightings between 2003 and 2023 are Alpine County, California, Petroleum County, Montana, and La Paz County, Arizona.
According to data submitted by the National UFO Reporting Center and US Census Bureau, more than 100,000 alien sightings have been submitted to the Reporting Center between 2000 and 2023. Lincoln County, Nevada , home to Area 51, is the county with the most of the list.
Area 51 is one of the most famous classified air force bases that has been full of urban legends regarding aliens and UFOs
Area 51 is one of the most famous classified air force bases that has been full of urban legends regarding aliens and UFOs.
Eric Taber has been a defense aerospace contractor for 13 years and has held a security clearance to work on military aircraft.
In a recent interview with DailyMail.com, he revealed the story his late great uncle Sam Urquhart, an Area 51 contractor, told him about a UFO at the mysterious desert base.
Taber testified in May to the Pentagon's UFO investigation unit, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), who are collecting accounts of alleged government possession of non-human craft.
The claim – though an unverified story from a now-deceased witness – is part of a long history of rumors about potential extraterrestrial craft or futuristic spaceships stored at the Nevada desert airbase near Groom Lake, north of Las Vegas.
Urquhart began his job at Area 51 working for defense contractor EG&G, which later partnered with Raytheon to become JT3 LLC and subsequently JT4 LLC.
'He was head of security for his engineering group, and a data configuration specialist. His group did radar cross-section testing.
'I kept asking him about UFOs. He said 'I know nothing'. Then one day we were on his back porch and he said 'Ok, I'll tell you about one craft that I knew of.'
'He said, 'When I first got there in 1997, I had a personal conversation with a senior EG&G engineer whose group was tasked with trying to reverse-engineer an object that was brought there by some CIA people in the 1980s.'
'It was supposedly just found in a remote desert location fully intact.
'The senior EG&G engineer described to my great uncle that it was egg-shaped, about the size of an SUV, smooth and seamless, metallic-looking, silverish gray in color, with no control surfaces, no flaps, no inlet, and no exhaust, and no writing or symbols on the outside.
'These are the best and brightest engineers you can think of. They tried to no avail to figure out what the power source was, how to activate it, and how it works. They tried to induce electricity to it.
'X-rays couldn't penetrate it; it showed up on X-ray as a solid object. They tried to open it and penetrate its hull; they couldn't.
'They said that they were able to take some very small samples of the material. And I'm not an expert in chemistry, but I guess from the isotope ratio or the mixture of elements, they concluded it was not made on Earth.'
But, Area 51 and Nevada aren't the only places where UFO sightings are common. Arthur County, Nebraska, placed second on the list with 618.6 sightings. The tiny county is home to just 434 people.
Third on the list was Alpine County, California, which is home to 1,204 people and the population votes entirely by mail.
Petroleum County, Montana, was fourth on the list and was the last of the state's 56 countries to be organized. It is home to just 524 people and two rivers.
Fifth on the list was La Paz County, Arizona, which is home to about 16,557 people. The county is located in rural western Arizona and home to several ghost towns.
La Paz County in Arizona (pictured) also ranked high on UFO sightings. The county is home to about 16,557 people.
According to veteran scientist and intelligence officer Sean Kirkpatrick, individuals who believe in aliens may hold a position in the US government.
'True believers are not just outside of government; many of them are inside government,' said Kirkpatrick.
Nevada's late US Senator Harry Reid was one such believe of extra terrestrial life.
'Senator Harry Reid was a true believer and thought that 'Hey, the government is hiding this from congressional oversight,'' the scientist stated.
More discussions have occurred over the years from individuals looking to get answers on the existence of aliens and UFOs.
US representative Robert Garcia even voiced an opinion about unidentified aerial phenomena last year.
'UAPs, whatever they may be, may pose a serious threat to our military and our civilian aircraft, and that must be understood,' he stated.
'We should encourage more reporting, not less on UAPs. The more we understand, the safer we will be.'
Mysterious footage shows a group of UFOs flying above Philadelphia - with two of the crafts even strangely merging together
Late last year, President Joe Biden's December visit to Los Angeles for a campaign fundraiser caused such a hullaballoo even aliens may have wanted to see what all the fuss was about
At about 4:14 PM on November 7, 2006, a ramp employee at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago spotted a metallic, saucer-shaped craft hovering in the sky. Pictured: An image of the UFO believed to be taken on an airport employee's phone
There have been countless UFO sightings across America in recent years. Earlier this year, mysterious footage shows a group of UFOs flying above Philadelphia - with two of the crafts even strangely merging together.
A witness uploaded the bizarre video of the sighting on Reddit and described the large cluster of lights as 'spinning and darting back and forth.'
The user said the multicolored lights were flying 'very high' above Philadelphia.
The sighting, which lasted for five minutes and was witnessed by at least 12 United Airlines staffers, made international headlines thanks to a tape of Federal Aviation Administration radio communications released via the Freedom of Information Act.
Although the FAA attributed the incident to a 'hole-punch cloud' and astronomer Mark Hammergren, then with Chicago's Adler Planetarium, agreed, the case has remained unresolved — and tantalizing to UFO researchers ever since.
After Three Years on Mars, NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter Mission Ends
After Three Years on Mars, NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter Mission Ends
Perseverance Checks Out Ingenuity: NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is seen Aug. 2, 2023, in an enhanced-color image captured by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard the agency’s Perseverance Mars rover.
NASA has proven powered, controlled flight is possible on other worlds, just as the Wright brothers proved it was possible on Earth.
Ingenuity’s View of Sand Ripples During Flight 70: NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter captured this view of sand ripples during its 70th flight, on Dec. 22, 2023. The smooth, relatively featureless terrain proved difficult for the helicopter’s navigation system to track during Flight 72, on Jan. 18, 2024, resulting in a rough landing. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download image ›
NASA’s history-making Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has ended its mission at the Red Planet after surpassing expectations and making dozens more flights than planned. While the helicopter remains upright and in communication with ground controllers, imagery of its Jan. 18 flight sent to Earth this week indicates one or more of its rotor blades sustained damage during landing and it is no longer capable of flight.
Originally designed as a technology demonstration to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days, the first aircraft on another world operated from the Martian surface for almost three years, performed 72 flights, and flew more than 14 times farther than planned while logging more than two hours of total flight time.
Ingenuity Spots the Shadow of Its Damaged Rotor Blade: After its 72nd flight on Jan. 18, 2024, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter captured this color image showing the shadow of one of its rotor blades, which was damaged during touchdown. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download image ›
“The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to end,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped NASA do what we do best – make the impossible, possible. Through missions like Ingenuity, NASA is paving the way for future flight in our solar system and smarter, safer human exploration to Mars and beyond.”
NASA to Discuss Ingenuity Mission in Media Call Today
In addition to video comments shared from Nelson about the mission’s conclusion, NASA will host a media teleconference at 5 p.m. EST today, Thursday, Jan. 25, to provide an update on Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.
Audio of the call will stream live on the agency’s website.
Participants in the call are expected to include:
Lori Glaze, director, Planetary Science Division, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington
Laurie Leshin, director, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California
Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity project manager, NASA JPL
The Legacy of Ingenuity: From the challenges of building NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter to its first Red Planet flight and well beyond, see some of the project’s milestones and highlights. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download video ›
Ingenuity landed on Mars Feb. 18, 2021, attached to the belly of NASA’s Perseverance rover and first lifted off the Martian surface on April 19, proving that powered, controlled flight on Mars was possible. After notching another four flights, it embarked on a new mission as an operations demonstration, serving as an aerial scout for Perseverance scientists and rover drivers. In 2023, the helicopter executed two successful flight tests that further expanded the team’s knowledge of its aerodynamic limits.
“At NASA JPL, innovation is at the heart of what we do,” said Leshin. “Ingenuity is an exemplar of the way we push the boundaries of what’s possible every day. I’m incredibly proud of our team behind this historic technological achievement and eager to see what they’ll invent next.”
Ingenuity’s team planned for the helicopter to make a short vertical flight on Jan. 18 to determine its location after executing an emergency landing on its previous flight. Data shows that, as planned, the helicopter achieved a maximum altitude of 40 feet (12 meters) and hovered for 4.5 seconds before starting its descent at a velocity of 3.3 feet per second (1 meter per second).
However, about 3 feet (1 meter) above the surface, Ingenuity lost contact with the rover, which serves as a communications relay for the rotorcraft. The following day, communications were reestablished and more information about the flight was relayed to ground controllers at NASA JPL. Imagery revealing damage to the rotor blade arrived several days later. The cause of the communications dropout and the helicopter’s orientation at time of touchdown are still being investigated.
Triumphs, Challenges
Over an extended mission that lasted for almost 1,000 Martian days, more than 33 times longer than originally planned, Ingenuity was upgraded with the ability to autonomously choose landing sites in treacherous terrain, dealt with a dead sensor, cleaned itself after dust storms, operated from 48 different airfields, performed three emergency landings, and survived a frigid Martian winter.
Designed to operate in spring, Ingenuity was unable to power its heaters throughout the night during the coldest parts of winter, resulting in the flight computer periodically freezing and resetting. These power “brownouts” required the team to redesign Ingenuity’s winter operations in order to keep flying.
With flight operations now concluded, the Ingenuity team will perform final tests on helicopter systems and download the remaining imagery and data in Ingenuity’s onboard memory. The Perseverance rover is currently too far away to attempt to image the helicopter at its final airfield.
“It’s humbling Ingenuity not only carries onboard a swatch from the original Wright Flyer, but also this helicopter followed in its footsteps and proved flight is possible on another world,” said Ingenuity’s project manager, Teddy Tzanetos of NASA JPL. “The Mars helicopter would have never flown once, much less 72 times, if it were not for the passion and dedication of the Ingenuity and Perseverance teams. History’s first Mars helicopter will leave behind an indelible mark on the future of space exploration and will inspire fleets of aircraft on Mars – and other worlds – for decades to come.”
Ingenuity Thank You Video: NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flew for the last time on Jan. 18, 2024. NASA announced the end of mission for Ingenuity on Jan. 25, 2024. Watch as the helicopter team reflects on some of their favorite moments and memories from Ingenuity’s time on Mars. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
More About Ingenuity
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by NASA JPL, which also manages the project for NASA Headquarters. It is supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuity’s development. AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, and SolAero also provided design assistance and major vehicle components. Lockheed Space designed and manufactured the Mars Helicopter Delivery System. At NASA Headquarters, Dave Lavery is the program executive for the Ingenuity Mars helicopter.
DC Agle Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-393-9011 agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Perseverance Spots Ingenuity at Its Final Airfield
February 06, 2024
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this mosaic showing the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at its final airfield on Feb. 4, 2024. The helicopter damaged its rotor blades during landing on its 72nd flight on Jan. 18, 2024. The Ingenuity team has nicknamed the spot where the helicopter completed its final flight “Valinor Hills” after the fictional location in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novels, which include “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
The six images that were stitched together to make up this mosaic were captured from about 1,475 feet (450 meters) away by the rover’s Mastcam-Z imager. Shown here is an enhanced-color view that exaggerates subtle color differences in the scene to show more detail.
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the project for NASA Headquarters. It is supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuity’s development. AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, and SolAero also provided design assistance and major vehicle components. Lockheed Martin Space designed and manufactured the Mars Helicopter Delivery System.
Arizona State University leads the operations of the Mastcam-Z instrument, working in collaboration with Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, on the design, fabrication, testing, and operation of the cameras, and in collaboration with the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen on the design, fabrication, and testing of the calibration targets.
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
Mars Report: The Most Extreme Flights of NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter
February 01, 2024
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter pushed aerodynamic limits during the final months of its mission, setting new records for speed, distance, and altitude. Hear from Ingenuity chief engineer Travis Brown on how the data the team collected could eventually be used in future rotorcraft designs.
Ingenuity was originally designed to make up to five flights – but completed 72 before sustaining rotor-blade damage that rendered it unable to fly. NASA announced the end of the helicopter’s mission on Jan. 25, 2024. The maximum altitude achieved by the helicopter during its mission was 79 feet (24 meters), on Flight 61. The maximum groundspeed was 22.4 mph (10 meters per second), reached during Flights 62, 68, and 69. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built and manages operations for Ingenuity and the Perseverance Mars rover.
Travis Brown: The Ingenuity Mars helicopter was designed to push the limits. And I'm going to show you how we've taken it to the extreme.
Today, we're here in the aerial vehicles lab at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where we develop prototype helicopters.
Ingenuity started off as a tech demo to push the aeronautical boundaries over the course of five flights.
Then we transitioned into an operational demo phase where we partnered with the Perseverance rover to do science and scouting.
But about a year ago, when the Perseverance rover started racing up the Jezero Crater delta, we actually found that we had to work pretty hard to stay ahead of the rover.
We decided it was time to shift gears again, once again pushing the boundaries of Martian flight.
This campaign really began in earnest with Flight 49, where we simultaneously set new speed and altitude records.
By Flight 62, we had nearly doubled our max speed and doubled our max altitude.
We also tested different landing speeds - faster to save energy and slower to reduce landing loads. Both of these strategies may be used on future helicopters.
We performed a type of flight testing called system identification.
This is a crucial but risky procedure that helps us understand the vehicle's performance by how it responds.
Our team also devised new ways to target the high-resolution camera, which allows us to provide advanced reconnaissance imaging for the rover.
And we were able to take stunning shots like this one of Belva Crater from Flight 51.
In addition, Ingenuity conducted several first-of-their-kind experiments on Martian wind and dust movement, which gave us new insight into the Martian atmosphere.
What we've learned will help us design the next generation of Martian rotorcraft.
We're testing more efficient blades.
We’re also working on a Mars Science Helicopter concept that could potentially transport heavier payloads and take us to more exciting locations on Mars.
When people look back at ingenuity, I really hope that they see how much this one small helicopter has done to elevate the limits of human achievement.
Credits
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
The Legacy of Ingenuity: The Frontier of Extraterrestrial Flight
January 25, 2024
On April 19, 2021, NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter made history when it completed the first powered, controlled flight on the Red Planet. It flew for the last time on January 18, 2024.
Designed to be a technology demonstration that would make no more than five test flights in 30 days, the helicopter eventually completed 72 flights in just under 3 years, soaring higher and faster than previously imagined. Ingenuity embarked on a new mission as an operations demonstration, serving as an aerial scout for scientists and rover planners, and for engineers ready to learn more about Perseverance’s landing gear debris.
In its final phase, the helicopter entered a new engineering demonstration phase where it executed experimental flight tests that further expanded the team’s knowledge of the vehicle’s aerodynamic limits.
Researchers pose with a fragment of asteroid 2024 BX1 they found in Germany. The rock is a very rare type of meteorite called an aubrite.
Cevin Dettlaff
The meteorites are fragments of 2024 BX1, a small asteroid first spotted by an astronomer in Hungary.Credit...Peter Jenniskens/The SETI Institute
Just after midnight on January 21, a roughly three-foot-long asteroid fell through Earth’s atmosphere—burning up in a blazing fireball seen across much of Europe and crashing to the ground as fragments of meteorite near Berlin, Germany.
Numerous cameras caught the asteroid’s entry over Germany. Video by Michael Aye, via Storyful.CreditCredit...Michael Aye, via Storyful
When scientists arrived on the scene to recover and classify the pieces, they discovered something remarkably rare: The rocks belonged to an extremely uncommon group of meteorites known as aubrites, which remain mysterious to researchers. Just 80 of the roughly 70,000 recovered meteorite fragments had been classified as aubrites prior to this new impact.
“Currently, there isn't an agreed-upon origin of aubrites, and several candidates have been put forward: the Nysa asteroid family, asteroid 3103 Eger and even the planet Mercury,” Denis Vida, a meteor physics researcher at Western University in Canada, tells Robert Lea of Space.com. “They make up only 1 percent of all known meteorites, making it very rare indeed.”
Hungarian astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky first spotted the asteroid, named 2024 BX1, about three hours before impact, and NASA tracked its trajectory to predict where it would fall—in itself a rare feat. The object did not harm any people.
As news of the impact spread to the public, meteorite hunters began scouring Ribbeck, a village near Berlin, for fragments of the rock. But the search proved particularly challenging. Unlike most meteorites, which have a thin crust of black glass, aubrites do not appear glossy or dark in color.
“Aubrites look more like a gray granite,” Christopher Hamann from Berlin’s Natural History Museum says in the statement. “It looks completely different than most other meteorites. Aubrites are therefore difficult to detect in the field.”
Peter Jenniskens, an astronomer at the SETI Institute, flew to Germany from California hours after he heard about the 2024 BX1 impact, reports Jonathan O’Callaghan of the New York Times. Though he had participated in three other meteorite searches in the past, it took several days for Jenniskens and a team of students and volunteers to come across these fragments about the size of a walnut.
“They were devilishly difficult to find, because from a distance, they look like other rocks on Earth. Close up, not so much,” Jenniskens says in the statement. “We only spotted the meteorites after a Polish team of meteorite hunters had identified the first find and could show us what to look for.”
The advice proved valuable—two hours after receiving the pointers, Jenniskens’ team found their first fragment. By the time they stopped looking, their search had revealed more than 20 meteorite pieces.
A meteorite fragment from the asteroid 2024 BX1, recovered near Ribbeck, Germany. Laura Kranich / SETI Institute
The official classification as an aubrite, following a mineralogy assessment conducted with an electron beam microprobe, came from Berlin’s Natural History Museum. Then, the International Nomenclature Commission of the Meteoritical Society confirmed it, reports Kelly Kizer Whitt for EarthSky. The museum collection contains a fragment from the first known aubrite meteorite that fell in 1836 near the village of Aubrés in France, which became the type’s namesake.
“Based on this evidence, we were able to make a rough classification relatively quickly,” Ansgar Greshake, scientific head of the museum's meteorite collection, says in the statement. “This underlines the immense importance of collections for research. So far, there is only material from 11 other observed falls of this type in meteorite collections worldwide.”
A meteorite that fell near Berlin on Jan. 21 was found be an aubrite, a rare class with unknown origins that some scientists argue may be pieces of the planet Mercury.
Credit...Peter Jenniskens/The SETI Institute
While Mercury remains a potential origin of aubrite meteorites, some astronomers find it unlikely in this case. The initial calculated orbit of 2024 BX1 appears wider, suggesting it came from outside of Earth’s orbit, per the Times.
“Therefore, this object could not have come to us directly from Mercury,” Marc Fries, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, tells the publication.
In a way, though, it might have come indirectly from Mercury, since the inner planet may have projected aubrites to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter long ago. One of these might have just made its way to Earth, and that could account for the wide orbit. But Fries remains doubtful, per the Times.
Despite the uncertainty regarding the meteorite’s origin, its fragments hold information that can help scientists better understand the universe.
“With this being a fresh fall, enabling quick lab analysis and such an accurate orbit, I am confident that this rock will get us one step closer to understanding the origin of aubrites and help piece together the story of the formation of the solar system,” Vida says toSpace.com.
A handful of meteorites crash-landed outside Berlin in late January and, after further inspection, turned out to be one of the rarest types of space rock ever recovered on Earth.
Last month, a three-foot-wide asteroid plummeted to its fiery doom in Earth’s atmosphere. Astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky of Konkoly Observatory in Hungary spotted the small asteroid, formally called 2024 BX1, only a matter of hours before it collided with Earth’s upper atmosphere. The next few hours were a frenzy of activity, with astronomers from NASA, the ESA, and several universities working together to track the meteor’s trajectory through the sky.
High above the ground, 2024 BX1 broke apart in a bright fireball, and astronomers at the Czech Academy of Sciences calculated where the pieces would fall (south of the German village of Ribbeck, outside Berlin) based on the weather, particularly strong winds. SETI Insitute meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens and a team of staff and students from several universities combed the fields around Ribbeck for meteorites: fragments of the asteroid that had survived the heat and friction of falling through Earth’s atmosphere.
Aubrites formed from cooling magma, although it’s not clear if they originally formed as part of a large asteroid or a newborn planet.
SETI INSTITUTE
Recent testing at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin showed that the meteorites are an extremely rare type of space rock called aubrites.
Aubrites make up only about 1 in 10,000 recovered meteorites. They look like gray granite with a thin crust of translucent glass, and they’re made of magnesium silicate minerals with almost no iron mixed in, which is highly unusual for a meteorite. Their big, chunky crystals are evidence that aubrites formed from cooling magma.
Aubrites probably formed as part of an asteroid, only to end up broken off by impacts with other drifting space rocks; 3103 Eger is the leading candidate. Some astronomers, however, have suggested that aubrites may actually be long-lost chunks of the planet Mercury.
Early Mars was Tectonically and Volcanically Active, Study Suggests
Early Mars was Tectonically and Volcanically Active, Study Suggests
The relatively well-preserved ancient crust of Mars provides a natural window into early planetary evolution not available on Earth. Mars has generally been considered a one-plate basaltic planet, though recent evidence suggests magmatic evolution resulting in felsic crust might have occurred sporadically. New research shows multiple lines of evidence for diverse volcanism and complex volcanotectonics in the southern highlands of Mars within and around the 3.5 to 4-billion-year-old Eridania basin.
A topographic map of the Eridania region of Mars; volcanic structures described by Michalski et al. are classified by morphology and morphometrics.
Image credit: Michalski et al., doi: 10.1038/s41550-023-02191-7.
Contrary to Earth, present-day Mars has little to no volcanic or tectonic activity.
Further, almost half of the planet’s surface is more than 3.5 billion years old, indicating that there has been no extensive crustal recycling — a phenomenon usually powered by tectonics such as those on Earth in which surface material is recycled into the mantle — since then.
Recent discoveries suggest that this was not always the case, but Mars’ geological activity in the first billion years after its formation is still unclear.
“Geological exploration of other rocky planets provides clues to early crustal evolution and volcanotectonic processes because other bodies exemplify comparable geosystems with variable mass, gravity and composition,” said Dr. Joseph Michalski from the University of Hong Kong and his colleagues.
“Observed through the lenses of different gravity fields, bulk planet compositions and heat flow, it is possible to test models for crustal resurfacing and so discover the steps that led to plate tectonics and other forms of crustal recycling.”
“The planet Mars represents a particularly valuable puzzle piece in this regard.”
The authors studied the morphology and mineralogy of the Eridania region in the southern hemisphere of Mars.
They analyzed remote sensing data from various orbiters, including NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The Eridania region offers the strongest crustal remnants of Mars’ ancient magnetic field and various signatures of volcanism.
The researchers identified 63 instances of four different types of volcanoes (volcanic domes, stratovolcanoes, pyroclastic shields, and caldera complexes) with possibly hundreds more in the Eridania region alone, likely leftover from a vigorous period of geologic activity approximately 3.5 billion years ago.
This suite of observations is consistent with the presence of crustal recycling on early Mars driven by vertical tectonics, a kind of tectonic process precursor of full plate tectonics on Earth.
Such a variety of volcanic structures could be more widespread on ancient Mars than previously thought.
“The observed remnants of this activity may be the closest analogue on the planet to the hydrothermal origin of life scenarios proposed for Earth,” the scientists said.
Their paper was published today online in the journal Nature Astronomy.
J.R. Michalski et al. Diverse volcanism and crustal recycling on early Mars. Nat Astron, published online February 12, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41550-023-02191-7
Last weekend, NASA’s Juno spacecraftflew over the southern hemisphere of Jupiter’s moon Io. The close flyby brought Juno within 930 miles of the sulfur-shrouded hellscape of volcanoes and lava lakes that make up Io’s surface. In December 2023, the spacecraft flew over Io’s northern hemisphere and sent home striking photos. This time, Juno captured images of lava flows, volcanic eruptions, mountains, and roiling lakes of lava with islands in the middle.
Tons of sulfur erupted from Io’s volcanoes gives the moon its red and yellow coloring.
NASA
TWIN VOLCANIC PLUMES
One of the coolest images from the February 3 flyby shows two towering volcanic plumes rising over Io’s horizon — about 2,400 miles away from the spacecraft. The pair were “emitted either by two vents from one giant volcano, or two volcanoes near each other,” writes the Southwest Research Institute on its website.
More than 400 active volcanoes (that we know of) dot Io’s surface. The moon’s constant eruptions are the product of a fierce gravitational tug-of-war between Jupiter and two other moons, icy ocean worlds Europa and Ganymede. Their competing gravity creates powerful tides deep in Io’s interior, stretching the moon’s innards back and forth — and generating enough heat to power a world where rivers of lava flow beneath sulfurous plumes.
The question is whether all that volcanism is driven by an ocean of liquid magma, similar to Earth’s mantle but even hotter, or by a super-hot solid metal core? NASA hopes Juno can shed some light on that question by studying Io from above.
The pair of plumes here are visible over Io’s horizon from 2400 miles away. It’s not clear whether they come from one huge volcano or from two very close volcanoes, but SwRI scientists are trying to find out.
A CALL FOR HELP
The images released to the public so far come from the JunoCam, a high-resolution camera that Juno carries mostly to show Jupiter and its moons to the public in wavelengths of light that human eyes can actually see. But there’s a lot more from the JunoCam waiting to be converted from raw data into actual images.
“It will be a challenge to sort all this out, and the JunoCam scientists need your help, writes NASA in an announcement posted February 7. A community of volunteer image processors has worked with JunoCam data in the past, and other volunteers have churned out a steady stream of images made with JWST data, as well.
Other instruments, which see the universe in infrared and ultraviolet light, also gathered a trove of data as Juno flew past Io.
The spacecraft was destroyed in 2017 when it made a purposeful plunge into Saturn's atmosphere.
But new analysis of its data indicates that Mimas' position and orbit is best explained as being influenced by an internal ocean rather than having a solid core.
The researchers, from the Observatoire de Paris, calculate that the ocean lies beneath an icy shell approximately 20-30km deep, is less than 25 million years old and is still evolving.
The discovery, published in the journal Nature, is likely to trigger a 'thorough examination' of mid-sized icy moons throughout the Solar System.
In an accompanying comment piece Matija Ćuk, a research scientists at the SETI Institute in California, and Alyssa Rhoden, from the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, said: 'The detection of liquid water oceans under the icy surfaces of outer Solar System moons suggests that these moons could provide abodes for life under conditions that differ markedly from those on Earth.
One of Saturn 's moons could be hiding an ocean beneath its icy cratered surface which may provide an abode for life, researchers suggest
There are many implications of Mimas being an ocean world. The idea that relatively small, icy moons can harbour young oceans is inspiring.
'The findings will motivate a thorough examination of mid-sized icy moons throughout the Solar System.
'The Solar System will always have surprises in store, and researchers must be open enough to new ideas and unexpected possibilities to recognise them.'
Dr Nick Cooper, honorary research fellow at Queen Mary University of London, said: 'Mimas is a small moon, only about 400 kilometres in diameter, and its heavily cratered surface gave no hint of the hidden ocean beneath.
'This discovery adds Mimas to an exclusive club of moons with internal oceans, including Enceladus and Europa, but with a unique difference: its ocean is remarkably young, estimated to be only five to 15 million years old.
'The existence of a recently formed liquid water ocean makes Mimas a prime candidate for study, for researchers investigating the origin of life.'
It’s been a while since NASA has had a spaceplane on the launchpad but this now feels closer than ever again. Their new prototype cargo spaceplane known as Dream Chaser is now undergoing vibration and vacuum testing at the Neil Armstrong test facility. The tests sound a little strange perhaps but on launch and during re-entry it will most definitely experience shaking during these phases of the flights.
The Dream Chaser spaceplane has been designed to attach to the top of a conventional Vulcan Centaur rocket and land like a plane. Its propulsion is to be a cluster of propane and nitrous oxide Vortex engines which differs from the originally planned hybrid rocket engines. The plane has an expendable cargo module called Shooting Star which can carry an additional 4,500 kg of cargo. It’s been designed so that it can dispose of unwanted cargo by burning up on re-entry.
The spaceplane and its new cargo unit have been going through rigorous testing at the NASA facility since the 1st February. It’s without doubt one of the worlds largest and best equipped test facilities that can simulate the harsh conditions experienced during space flight.
First up for Dream Chaser is the shock test which is the jolt experienced when the plane is separated from the cargo module. It stays on the spacecraft shaker system (a giant table supported on pneumatics and springs that can shake a payload/spacecraft at up to 100 vibrations per second to simulate the violent shaking experienced during launch) to undergo vibration tests before another shock test is completed. On completion of the tests, the spacecraft will undergo a rigorous examination to identify any issues that may have surfaced.
Once Dream Chaser has completed this first suite of tests, it will move into the huge vacuum chamber to experience the lower ambient pressures experienced in space. Low temperatures and simulated dynamic solar heating will all go further to test the space planes readiness for space.
The Dream Chaser space plane atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Image Credit: SNC
If the tests are successful then Dream Chaser is well on its way to its first uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station later in 2024 as part of NASAs Commercial Resupply program. It won’t be completely empty though, it will deliver just over 3,500kg of cargo to the ISS.
If the first flight is successful then there are variants of the plane under development including an additional crewed variant that can carry up to seven passengers to low Earth orbit and a National Security Variant, the details of which are being kept under strict security protocols.
Perseverance Gives Us One Last Look at the Damaged Ingenuity Helicopter
Well I consider that a success; the first aircraft on another world surpassed all expectations. Ingenuity, the helicopter that has been buzzing around on Mars has finally reached the end of its life after a total of 72 flights on the red planet. In a wonderful piece of computer imagery, Simeon Schmauß took a number of images of Ingeniuty from Perseverance and stiched them together into a mosaic and upscaled to provide a human eye view.
The groundbreaking voyage of the Ingenuity helicopter commenced on February 18, 2021, upon its arrival on Mars. This journey was facilitated as part of the Mars 2020 mission, alongside the Perseverance rover. Ingenuity was developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with collaborative efforts from AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, SolAero, and Lockheed Space. Its primary objective was straightforward: to showcase the technological capabilities required for flight operations on an extraterrestrial terrain.
Once configured for flight, it stood at a height of 0.49 meters with a rotor span of 1.2 meters. While this may appear substantial in comparison to drones on Earth, such dimensions were imperative for achieving flight on Mars. The thinner atmosphere necessitated larger rotors to generate the required lift. These rotors were designed to rotate at a speed of 2,400 revolutions per minute, with two separate drives enabling the clockwise and counterclockwise rotation of blade sets. Positioned atop the rotors was a solar panel for battery charging, alongside a wireless communication system and essential navigation sensors and cameras.
The first flight took place on 19th April and sadly the 72nd flight on the 18th January was to be its last. An emergency landing led to damage to one of the rotor blades rendering Ingeniuty grounded, permanently.
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Left Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover’s mast. This image was acquired on Feb. 4, 2024 (Sol 1052) at the local mean solar time of 13:05:37. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
One of the core principles of NASA is that the images and data they capture are all public domain and released for anyone to look at and work with. Taking six images from the right MastCam-Z of Perseverance, GeoVisual Design student Simeon Schmauß recreated the vista that a human visitor to Mars would have been greeted with. The image was even colour corrected to match our eyes and revealed Ingenuity’s final resting place among the rippling sands of Neretvav Vallis on Mars.
The full resolution image really is incredible, testimony not only to the quality of the imaging platform on Perseverance but also to the processing skills of Schmauß. I found myself exploring the view for some time and even found myself transported to Mars (virtually of course) walking among the dunes on the Martian surface and coming across the plucky helicopter as it sat silently. Farewall Ingenuity, thank you for all the science and stunning images, you were an incredible helicoper and our first on another world.
Fragments From That Asteroid That Exploded Above Berlin Have Been Recovered and They're Really Special
On January 21st, 2024, a meter-sized asteroid (2024 BX1) entered Earth’s atmosphere and exploded over Berlin at 12:33 am UTC (07:45 pm EST; 04:33 pm PST). Before it reached Earth, 2024 BX1 was a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) with an orbit that suggests it was part of the Apollo group. The fragments have since been located by a team of scientists from the Freie Universität Berlin, the Museum für Naturkunde (MfN), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Technische Universität Berlin, and the SETI Institute and identified as a rare type of asteroid known as “aubrites.”
The name aubrites comes from the village of Aubrés in France, where a similar meteorite fell on September 14th, 1836. The team responsible for recovering samples of this latest meteorite was led by SETI Institute meteor astronomer Dr. Peter Jenniskens and MfN researcher Dr. Lutz Hecht. They were joined by a team of staff and students from the MfN, the Freie Universität Berlin, the DLR, and the Technische Universität Berlin days after the meteor exploded in the sky. Together, they found the meteor fragments in the fields just south of the village of Ribbeck, about 50 km (31 mi) west of Berlin.
Aubrite meteorite from asteroid 2024 BX1, photographed at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin by Laura Kranich, a Freie Universität MSc student and member of the Arbeitskreis Meteore, who participated in the search and found this meteorite near the village of Ribbeck, Germany. Credit: SETI Institute
Finding the fragments was a major challenge because of the peculiar appearance of aubrites, which resemble rocks like any other from a distance but are quite different to look at up close. Whereas other types of meteors have a thin crust of black glass caused by the extreme heat generated by passing through the atmosphere, aubrites have a mostly translucent glass crust. Christopher Hamann, a researcher from the Museum für Naturkunde, was involved in the initial classification and participated in the search. As he related in a SETI Institute press release:
“Aubrites do not look like what people generally imagine meteorites to look like. Aubrites look more like a gray granite and consist mainly of the magnesium silicates enstatite and forsterite. It contains hardly any iron and the glassy crust, which is usually a good way to recognize meteorites, looks completely different than that of most other meteorites. Aubrites are therefore difficult to detect in the field.”
The asteroid (2024 BX1) was first spotted by Hungarian astronomer Dr. Krisztián Sárneczky using one of the telescopes at the Konkoly Observatory in Budapest. The task of tracking it and predicting where it would impact Earth’s atmosphere was performed by NASA’s Scout mission and the ESA’s Meerkat Asteroid Guard impact hazard assessment systems, with Davide Farnocchia of JPL/Caltech providing frequent trajectory updates. Like the Chelyabinsk meteorite that exploded over southern Russia in 2013, the explosion was witnessed by many and filmed (though the explosion caused no damage).
This was Jenniskens’ fourth guided recovery of a small asteroid that fell to Earth, the previous events being a 2023 impact in France, a 2018 impact in Botswana, and a 2008 impact in Sudan. As he explained, this latest asteroid was particularly challenging to track down:
“Even with superb directions by meteor astronomers Drs. Pavel Spurný, Jirí Borovicka, and Lukáš Shrbený of the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, who calculated how the strong winds blew the meteorites and predicted that these could be rare enstatite-rich meteorites based on the light emitted by the fireball, our search team initially could not easily spot them on the ground. We only spotted the meteorites after a Polish team of meteorite hunters had identified the first find and could show us what to look for. After that, our first finds were made quickly by Freie Universität students Dominik Dieter and Cara Weihe.”
Chelyabinsk fireball recorded by a dashcam from Kamensk-Uralsky north of Chelyabinsk where it was still dawn. A study of the area near this meteor air burst revealed similar signatures to the Tall el_Hammam site.
This past week, Jenniskens’ colleagues at the MfN officially announced that they had conducted their first analyses of one of the meteor fragments. The process was led by Dr. Ansgar Greshake, the scientific head of the MfN’s meteorite collection, which consisted of an electron beam microprobe studying the mineralogy and chemical composition of the fragments. Their results revealed they the fragments are consistent with an achondrite meteor of the aubrite type, which were submitted to the International Nomenclature Commission of the Meteoritical Society on February 2nd, 2024, for verification.
“Based on this evidence, we were able to make a rough classification relatively quickly,” said Greshake. “This underlines the immense importance of collections for research. So far, there is only material from eleven other observed falls of this type in meteorite collections worldwide.”
On February 3, 2024, NASA’s Juno spacecraft made a second close flyby of Io, the fifth of Jupiter’s moons and the third largest. Like the previous flyby on December 30, 2023, this second pass was at a distance of about 1,500 km (930 miles). During the twin flybys, the spacecraft’s JunoCam instrument returned spectacular, high-resolution images and raw data. The flybys were designed to provide new insight into how Io’s volcanic engine works and whether a global magma ocean exists under the rocky, mountainous surface terrain of the volcanic moon.
The JunoCam instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft imaged Io, the most geologically active body in our Solar System, on February 3, 2024, from a distance of about 7,904 km (4,911 miles).
Image credit: NASA / SwRI / MSSS.
Io is the innermost of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter and the fourth-largest moon in our Solar System.
It is approximately 3,630 km (2,556 miles) across — only slightly bigger than our own Moon.
Aside from Earth, it is the only known place in the Solar System with volcanoes erupting hot lava like that on our planet.
Io has more than 400 active volcanoes, which are caused by tidal heating, the result of a gravitational tug-of-war between Jupiter’s gravity and the smaller but precisely timed pulls from Europa and Ganymede.
The moon’s yellow-white-orange-red coloration is produced by sulfur dioxide-frost on its surface, elemental sulfur and a variety of sulfur allotropes.
Volcanoes were first discovered on Io in 1979, and subsequent studies by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft and ground-based telescopes show that eruptions and lava fountains occur constantly, creating rivers and lakes of lava.
Only 13 giant eruptions were observed between 1978 and 2006, in part because only a handful of astronomers regularly scan the moon.
The JunoCam instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft imaged Io on December 30, 2023, from a distance of about 5,857 km (3,639 miles).
Image credit: NASA / SwRI / MSSS.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been monitoring Io’s volcanic activity from distances ranging from about 11,000 km (6,830 miles) to over 100,000 km (62,100 miles), and has provided the first views of the moon’s north and south poles.
On December 30, 2023, Juno came within about 1,500 km of the surface of Io; the orbiter made a second ultra-close flyby of the moon on February 3, 2024.
The second pass went predominantly over the southern hemisphere of Io, while prior flybys have been over the north.
“By combining data from these close flybys with our previous observations, the Juno science team is studying how Io’s volcanoes vary,” said Juno’s principal investigator Dr. Scott Bolton, a researcher at the Southwest Research Institute.
“We are looking for how often they erupt, how bright and hot they are, how the shape of the lava flow changes, and how Io’s activity is connected to the flow of charged particles in Jupiter’s magnetosphere.”
Juno captured two volcanic plumes rising above the horizon of Io on February 3, 2024, emitted either by two vents from one giant volcano, or two volcanoes near each other. The JunoCam instrument imaged the plumes from a distance of about 3,800 km (2,400 miles).
Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Andrea Luck.
“We are investigating the source of Io’s massive volcanic activity, whether a magma ocean exists underneath its crust, and the importance of tidal forces from Jupiter, which are relentlessly squeezing this tortured moon.”
“There’s evidence of an active plume, tall mountain peaks with well-defined shadows, and lava lakes — some with apparent islands.”
Starting in April 2024, Juno will carry out a series of occultation experiments that use Juno’s Gravity Science experiment to probe Jupiter’s upper atmospheric makeup, which provides key information on the planet’s shape and interior structure.
A little moonlet, too small to be seen from Earth, could be playing cosmic sheepdog by shaping the thin rings around the distant minor planet Chariklo, according to new computer simulations.
Chariklo is a Centaur — a breed of small body that orbits the sun on a path sandwiched somewhere between Jupiter and Neptune. Centaurs are thought to come in from the Oort Cloud, which is a vast halo of trillions of frozen cometary bodies that extends possibly a light-year from the sun. Over the course of millions of years, they drift inward, either to be ejected from the solar system by the gravity of the giant planets, or to transition into Jupiter-family comets — comets with orbital periods of less than 20 years that are governed by the gravity of mighty Jupiter.
At about 155 miles (250 kilometers) in diameter, Chariklo is the largest known Centaur. In 2013, Chariklo was seen to pass in front of a distant star from our point of view, causing the star's light to wink out briefly. Observations showed that not only did the solid body of Chariklo block the light, but so too did a pair of thin rings around the Centaur. Stellar occultations have shown that another Centaur, Chiron, also has rings, although they do not seem entirely stable.
Rings around minor planets have only been recently discovered, and only a small number of such systems are currently known," Amanda Sickafoose, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, said in a press statement.
Chariklo's two rings are located about 243 miles and 252 miles (391 and 405 km), respectively, from the center of Chariklo, although measurements can vary slightly. The rings themselves are narrow, just 4.3 miles and 1.9 miles (7 and 3 km) wide.
These rings are not like the rings of the giant planets, which are retained by the gravity of such huge worlds. Computer models show that Chariklo's rings should be short-lived, and that they should widen and then disperse. So what's keeping them in place?
Sickafoose and Mark Lewis, a computer scientist at Trinity University in San Antonio, performed N-body computer simulations of the rings made up from millions of particles, and showed that the influence of a small moonlet could keep the rings narrow and prevent them from dispersing.
"We've shown that one of the possibilities for thin rings to exist around small bodies is that they are being sculpted by a small satellite," Sickafoose said.
Shepherd moons are nothing new; all the gas giant planets have them, most notably Saturn, where the tiny moons Daphnis, Epimetheus, Janus, Pan and Prometheus carve gaps in Saturn's rings and then herd the ring material to keep it tidy.
An artist's impression of the two narrow rings around Chariklo as seen from its surface. (Image credit: ESO/L. Calçada/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org))
Chariklo's shepherd moon, if it existsl, would be about 1.9 miles (3 km) across and contain a mass on the order of 10 trillion kilograms (about 22 trillion pounds here on Earth). Although it is too small to be directly observed from Earth at Chariklo's distance — the Centaur's elongated orbit gets as close to the sun as 1.2 billion miles (1.9 billion km) and as far away as 1.7 billion miles (2.8 billion km) — its presence could be detected during stellar occultations.
There is one other possible explanation for the rings' staying power. If we suppose that a gravitational anomaly exists within Chariklo — a denser part of rock, for example — then gravitational resonances between the rings and the anomaly could help tie the rings down. The rings do orbit in a nearly 1:3 resonance with the Centaur, meaning that Chariklo rotates three times (once every seven hours) for every one rotation of the rings. However, the rings are also placed suspiciously close to the Roche limit. This is the distance from a central body within which gravity prevents particles from accreting into a moon. Being right on the edge of this limit means that the ring particles should be able to start sticking together to build a new moon. A shepherd moon's gravity would be able to intervene to prevent this.
"A satellite in this situation can perturb the ring material and prevent it from accreting," said Sickafoose.
Millions of icy particles make up Chariklo's rings, as seen in this artist's impression. (Image credit: ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org))
"We think that the ring particles are primarily made of water ice, like those at the gas giants," said Sickafoose. Indeed, the James Webb Space Telescopedetected water-ice there in 2023. However, things that we don't know include how "hard" or "soft" the particles are when they collide, or the distribution of particle sizes in the rings.
It is also unknown how the rings formed in the first place. Have they been outgassed by cryovolcanism on the surface of Chariklo, or are they the remains of a small body that got too close to Chariklo, inside the Roche limit, and was torn apart?
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SATURN’S ‘DEATH STAR’ MOON MIMAS IS HIDING A SECRET BENEATH ITS ICY SHELL. ASTRONOMERS NOW SAY IT’S ‘A PRIME CANDIDATE FOR STUDY’
In this view captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on its closest-ever flyby of Saturn's moon Mimas, large Herschel Crater dominates Mimas, making the moon look like the Death Star in the movie "Star Wars."
IMage Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
SATURN’S ‘DEATH STAR’ MOON MIMAS IS HIDING A SECRET BENEATH ITS ICY SHELL. ASTRONOMERS NOW SAY IT’S ‘A PRIME CANDIDATE FOR STUDY’
An international team of researchers has announced the discovery of a secret, planet-wide ocean hidden beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s smallest moon, Mimas.
Notorious for its resemblance to the “Death Star” in the Star Wars movie franchise, these findings not only mark Mimas as a space body worthy of further study but also place it on a rather exclusive list of ocean worlds.
“This discovery adds Mimas to an exclusive club of moons with internal oceans, including Enceladus and Europa,” explained Dr. Nick Cooper, a co-author of the study and Honorary Research Fellow in the Astronomy Unit of the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences at Queen Mary University of London.
Mimas, left, Enceladus, right. NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.
“The existence of a recently formed liquid water ocean [also] makes Mimas a prime candidate for study, for researchers investigating the origin of life,” the researchers adds.
CASSINI MISSION STILL REVEALING SATURN’S SECRETS
To make this tantalizing discovery, Cooper and his colleague Dr. Valéry Lainey of the Observatoire de Paris-PSL formed an international research team to pour through data collected by NASA’s Cassini mission. Launched in 1997, Cassini ultimately spent over 13 years orbiting and studying Saturn and its moons until it crashed into the gas giant in 2015.
According to the researchers, subtle changes in Mimas’ orbit allowed them to infer the presence of the subsurface ocean. In fact, the Cassini observations were detailed enough that the researchers say they were also able to estimate the size and depth of the moon’s hidden ocean. Perhaps even more surprising, the researchers say this discovery came as a surprise.
“Mimas is a small moon, only about 400 kilometers in diameter, and its heavily cratered surface gave no hint of the hidden ocean beneath,” said Cooper.
The published study, which appears in the journal Nature, also involved analysis of the complex tidal interactions between Saturn and Mimas. That analysis, the researchers explain, led to the discovery of an unexpected “irregularity” in Mimas orbit, which revealed its subsurface ocean was created relatively recently.
“[Mimas’] ocean is remarkably young,” Cooper explained, “estimated to be only 5 to 15 million years old.”
Cooper also notes that this discovery was a collaborative effort, which not only includes himself and Dr. Lainey, but a group of international colleagues who were co-authors on the study. Cooper also tips his hat to the folks at NASA who are also responsible for the growing list of successes connected to the research done by Cassini.
“This has been a great team effort,” said Cooper, “with colleagues from five different institutions and three different countries coming together under the leadership of Dr. Valéry Lainey to unlock another fascinating and unexpected feature of the Saturn system, using data from the Cassini mission.”
MOON BENEATH MIMAS A PRIME TARGET TO STUDY THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
Within this announcement, the researchers note that the discovery of a moon beneath the surface of Minas unlocks the possibility of further understanding the formation of oceans in the cosmos. Perhaps even more tantalizing, Cooper, Lainey, and their colleagues believe that such a young body of water this close to home could be a boon to astrobiologists trying to unravel the mysteries of life.
“The discovery of Mimas’s young ocean has significant implications for our understanding of the potential for life beyond Earth,” the researchers explain. “It suggests that even small, seemingly inactive moons can harbor hidden oceans capable of supporting life-essential conditions. This opens up exciting new avenues for future exploration, potentially leading us closer to answering the age-old question: are we alone in the universe?”
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org
Saturn’s Moon Mimas Harbors Global Ocean beneath Its Icy Shell, Study Suggests
Saturn’s Moon Mimas Harbors Global Ocean beneath Its Icy Shell, Study Suggests
From detailed analysis of Mimas’ orbital motion based on data from NASA’s Cassini mission, planetary researchers from Sorbonne Université, Nantes Université, Queen Mary University of London, Université de Franche-Comté and Jinan University show that its heavily cratered icy shell hides a recently formed (less than 2-3 million years ago) global ocean, at a depth of 20-30 km.
Mimas’ surface, like the surfaces of most of the other major Saturnian moons without atmospheres, is not pure ice but contains some dark impurities; the relatively dark markings appear along the lower portion of the walls of the 130-km-wide Herschel Crater (the peak in the middle of the crater is about as tall as Mount Everest; the impact that made it likely almost destroyed the moon) and some of the smaller craters; scientists interpret this darkening as evidence for the gradual concentration of impurities from evaporating icy materials in areas where the dark impurities slide slowly down the crater wall.
Image credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute.
Evidence that some moons may have oceans beneath their surface is growing, but the detection of such watery worlds is challenging.
Mimas — the innermost, and smallest (radius = 198.2 km, or 123 miles), regular moon of Saturn — is an unlikely candidate, owing to differences in its surface properties compared with other icy moons, such as Enceladus.
This theory is challenged by Sorbonne Université researcher Valery Lainey and colleagues, who assess observations of the small moon made by Cassini.
Previous research suggested two possibilities for Mimas’ interior: either an elongated rocky core or a global ocean.
The new study reveals changes to the rotational motion and orbit of the small moon that are affected by its interior.
Applying the solid-body model would require the rocky core to be elongated, almost pancake-shaped, which does not match the observations.
Instead, the measurements of Mimas’ position suggest that the evolution of its orbit is better explained as being influenced by an internal ocean.
The researchers calculate that the ocean lies beneath an icy shell approximately 20-30 km deep.
Their simulations suggest that it appeared between 25 and 2 million years ago.
As such, signs of such a subsurface ocean would not have had time to make a mark on the surface.
The results imply that the recent processes on Mimas may have been common in the early stages of formation for other icy worlds.
“Mimas is a small moon, and its heavily cratered surface gave no hint of the hidden ocean beneath,” said co-author Dr. Nick Cooper, a researcher at Queen Mary University of London.
“This discovery adds Mimas to an exclusive club of moons with internal oceans, including Enceladus and Europa, but with a unique difference: its ocean is remarkably young.”
The study was published today in the journal Nature.
V. Lainey et al. 2024. A recently formed ocean inside Saturn’s moon Mimas. Nature 626, 280-282; doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06975-9
Piepklein, maar niet klein te krijgen. Dat is het beerdiertje in een notendop. Maar er valt nog zoveel meer over te vertellen.
En dat doen we aan de hand van tien interessante feitjes waarmee je op een verjaardag of bij de koffiemachine op het werk moeiteloos de blits kan maken. Want beerdiertjes zijn hartstikke cool!
1. Klein en overal te vinden (ook in Nederland!) Beerdiertjes – ook wel waterberen genoemd – zijn heel kleine, meercellige organismen. Ze kunnen tot een halve millimeter lang worden en hebben acht pootjes, waarmee ze kunnen lopen én rennen. Hét beerdiertje bestaat niet; er zijn meer dan 1000 soorten beerdiertjes bekend! En die leven in uiteenlopende omgevingen; van bergtoppen tot diepe zeeën en van tropische regenwouden tot op Antarctica. Ook in Nederland komen beerdiertjes voor. Zo zijn ze bijvoorbeeld aangetroffen op de stranden langs de Oosterschelde.
2. Beerdiertjes zijn stokoud Zo’n 66 miljoen jaar geleden sloeg op aarde een planetoïde in. Het bleek de laatste nagel aan de doodskist van de dinosaurussen en tal van andere soorten te zijn. Het is misschien wel de bekendste massa-extinctie die de aarde trof. En hoe catastrofaal de gevolgen ook waren; het beerdiertje heeft deze massa-extinctie overleefd. Net als de vier(!) grote massa-extincties daarvoor, want wetenschappers denken dat het beerdiertje al zo’n 540 miljoen jaar op aarde voorkomt.
3. Het beerdiertje gaat waarschijnlijk nog wel even mee Hoewel de beerdiertjes al heel wat jaren meegaan en menig catastrofe het hoofd hebben weten te bieden, denken veel onderzoekers dat er voor de minuscule beestjes nog veel meer in het verschiet zit. Zo suggereerde een studie in 2017 dat eigenlijk alleen het sterven van de zon tot het uitsterven van de taaie beerdiertjes zou kunnen leiden. Het zou betekenen dat beerdiertjes nog zo’n 10 miljard jaar voor de boeg hebben.
4. Kou is geen probleem… Waar wij bij een paar graden vorst al flink beginnen te klagen, geven beerdiertjes geen krimp. Sterker nog: je kunt ze jaren invriezen en er vervolgens als je ze ontdooit, getuige van zijn hoe ze hun leven moeiteloos weer oppakken! Dat ontdekten onderzoekers een jaar of vijf geleden, toen ze beerdiertjes aantroffen in Antarctisch mos dat 30 jaar eerder voor onderzoeksdoeleinden was ingevroren. Ze ontdooiden twee beerdiertjes en zagen vervolgens hoe één ervan zijn in 1983 stilgelegde leven weer succesvol oppakte en een week of zes na zijn ontdooiing zelfs eitjes legde die ook nog eens bijna allemaal uitkwamen. Ook een eitje dat in het mos werd aangetroffen, kwam na ontdooiing – en dus met zo’n 30 jaar vertraging – uit en het beerdiertje dat daar uit kwam zetten, plantte zich ook weer succesvol voort.
Een beerdiertje. Afbeelding: Schokraie E, Warnken U, Hotz-Wagenblatt A, Grohme MA, Hengherr S, et al. (2012) (via Wikimedia Commons).
5. …en gevaarlijke UV-straling ook niet Beerdiertjes hebben in naam der wetenschap al heel wat te verduren gekregen. Zo werden ze vorig jaar bijvoorbeeld nog onder een kiemdodende ultraviolette lamp gelegd. Doel was om te achterhalen hoeveel UV-straling verschillende soorten beerdiertjes konden hebben. De meeste beerdiertjes bleken behoorlijk taai te zijn. Een dosis die voor bacteriën en rondwormen al na vijf minuutjes fataal is – bleek de meeste beerdiertjes pas na 24 uur fataal te worden. En één van de onderzochte soorten gaf helemaal geen krimp, waarop de onderzoekers besloten de dosis ultraviolet licht vier keer te verhogen. En ook deze keer gaven de mysterieuze beerdiertjes zich niet zomaar gewonnen. Ongeveer zestig procent van deze kranige beerdiertjes leefde na toetakeling nog zeker een maand door!
6. Je kunt ze ook afschieten Alsof dat experiment nog niet heftig genoeg was, gingen wetenschappers – op jacht naar de grenzen van het beerdiertje – eerder dit jaar nog een stap verder. Ze stopten bevroren beerdiertjes in een geladen geweer en schoten ze vervolgens met hoge snelheid af. Het onderzoek wees uit dat beerdiertjes inslagen tot ongeveer 900 meter per seconde kunnen overleven. “Het zijn taaie beestjes,” zo concludeerde onderzoeker Mark Butchell, die middels het experiment wilde vaststellen of beerdiertjes die tijdens een inslag op aarde samen met gesteente naar de maan worden geslingerd, dat kunnen navertellen. De experimenten suggereren dat het onder bepaalde omstandigheden denkbaar is. Of ze vervolgens ook van de maan hun thuis zouden kunnen maken, is trouwens dan weer heel twijfelachtig.
7. Of uit laten drogen Wanneer wij enkele dagen op rij niet drinken, raken we uitgedroogd. En dat is niet best. Het beerdiertje is een stuk minder afhankelijk van vocht; experimenten wijzen uit dat het diertje tot wel tien jaar zonder water kan! Zodra ze minder dan vijf procent van hun normale hoeveelheid water herbergen, gaan ze in standby-modus en maken en passant eiwitten aan die delen van hun lichaam in een soort glasachtige substantie veranderen en er zo voor zorgen dat hun cellen tegen uitdroging beschermd zijn. En als ze dan toch weer nattigheid voelen? Dan kunnen ze – zelfs als ze jaren op water gewacht hebben – in twintig minuten tijd weer tot leven komen.
Het beerdiertje van dichtbij (Eye of Science).
8. Ze zijn al in de ruimte geweest Ruimtevaarder worden: wie droomt daar nu niet van? Voor sommige beerdiertjes is die droom al werkelijkheid geworden. In 2007 schoot ESA een bonte verzameling beerdiertjes de ruimte in. “Onze belangrijkste ontdekking is dat het vacuüm in de ruimte – en daarmee gepaard gaande uitdroging – en kosmische straling geen probleem waren voor beerdiertjes,” zo concludeerde onderzoeker Ingemar Jönsson in 2008. Hetzelfde gold voor de extreme kou waaraan de beerdiertjes in de ruimte werden blootgesteld. In de jaren erna volgden nog meer experimenten in de ruimte en stuk voor stuk bevestigden ze dat het beerdiertje over het algemeen niet erg onder de indruk is van de daar geldende omstandigheden. Wetenschappers kunnen dat nog altijd lastig verklaren en daarom zijn eerder dit jaar beerdiertjes naar het internationale ruimtestation gestuurd. Tijdens experimenten wordt gekeken wat er met de genen van beerdiertjes gebeurt wanneer ze in de ruimte vertoeven. Welke genen worden uitgezet of juist geactiveerd? En wat gebeurt er dan? Onderzoekers hopen zo meer inzicht te krijgen in de overlevingsstrategieën van het beerdiertje en daar kunnen toekomstige astronauten dan misschien weer hun voordeel mee doen. Zo kan het leiden tot nieuwe manieren om biologische materialen – zoals voedsel, maar ook medicijnen – beter te wapenen tegen extreme temperaturen, uitdroging en kosmische straling.
Naar de maan Dat de piepkleine beestjes naar het ISS zijn afgereisd en daar weleens een grote bijdrage kunnen leveren aan toekomstige ruimtemissies is al heel indrukwekkend. Maar er zijn beerdiertjes die het nog verder geschopt hebben enhelemaal naar de maan zijn gevlogen. Deze beerdiertjes liftten in 2019 mee met maanlander Beresheet. De lander crashte helaas op het maanoppervlak, maar de beerdiertjes hebben de crash misschien wel overleefd. Het is echter uitgesloten dat ze de maan as we speak aan het koloniseren zijn; in de lander bevonden zich uitgedroogde beerdiertjes die alleen weer actief kunnen worden als ze aan behoorlijke hoeveelheden water worden blootgesteld en die zijn op de maan niet voorhanden.
9. Ze leggen enorme drollen (relatief gezien dan) Beerdiertjes mogen dan veel weghebben van superhelden; in bepaalde opzichten zijn ze ook weer net als wij. Zo moeten ze soms ook gewoon poepen. Maar de beerdiertjes zouden geen beerdiertjes zijn als ze ook op dat gebied niet de show zouden stelen. Zo heeft onderzoek uitgewezen dat de piepkleine beestjes enorme drollen fabriceren die soms bijna net zo groot zijn als zijzelf! En jawel, daar zijn beelden van. Klik!
10. Liften is wel gevaarlijk Het beerdiertje lijkt onverwoestbaar, maar toch vonden wetenschappers vorig jaar iets wat in sommige gevallen zelfs voor het beerdiertje een slecht idee is: liften. Beerdiertjes leggen namelijk enorme afstanden af door mee te liften met slakken. Dit gebeurt trouwens ongevraagd. Als een slak over een beerdiertje glijdt, dan wordt een beerdiertje meegenomen en deze blijft dan aan de slak plakken. En dat is niet zonder gevolgen. Slechts 34 procent van de beerdiertjes wist het contact met het slakkenslijm te overleven.
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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 75 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
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