Robo-Bees Could Aid Insects with Pollination Duties

illustration shows a tiny drone equipped with horsehair and coated with a gel that could be used to pollinate flowers.

Credit: Eijiro Miyako

Mini drones sporting horsehair coated in a sticky gel could one day take the pressure off beleaguered bee populations by transporting pollen from plant to plant, researchers said.

Roughly three-quarters of the world’s flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world's food crops depend on animals to pollinate them, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Some of nature's most prolific pollinators are bees, but bee populations are declining around the world, and last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed a native species as endangered for the first time. [No Creepy Crawlies Here: Gallery of the Cutest Bugs]

Now, researchers from Japan said they've taken the first steps toward creating robots that could help pick up the slack from insect pollinators. The scientists created a sticky gel that lets a $100 matchbox-size drone pick up pollen from one flower and deposit it onto another to help the plants reproduce.

"This is a proof of concept — there's nothing compared to this. It's a totally first-time demonstration," said study leader Eijiro Miyako, a chemist at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science in Tsukuba, Japan. "Some robots are expected to be used for experiments in pollination, but no one has tried yet."

A happy accident

The key innovation of the new study, published today (Feb. 9) in the journal Chem, is the so-called ionic liquid gel, but according to Miyako it was more down to luck than design. The gel was actually the result of a failed attempt to create electrically conducting liquids and had sat forgotten in a desk drawer for nearly a decade.

But after eight years, it still hadn't dried out, which most other gels would have done, and was still very sticky, Miyako said. Fortunately, this discovery coincided with Miyako watching a documentary that detailed concerns about insect pollinators.

 "I actually dropped the gel on the floor and I noticed it absorbed a lot of dust, and everything linked together in my mind," he told Live Science.

The gel has just the right stickiness, meaning it can pick up pollen but is not so adhesive that it won't let the grains go.

The scientists next tested how effectively the gel could be used to transport pollen among flowers. To do so, the researchers put droplets of the material on the back of ants and left the insects overnight in a box full of tulips. The next day, the scientists found that the ants with the gel had picked up far more pollen grains than those insects that lacked the sticky substance.

In a side experiment, the researchers found that it was possible to integrate photochromic compounds, which change color when exposed to UV or white light, into the gel. Scientists stuck this material onto living flies, giving the bugs color-changing capabilities. This, Miyako said, could ultimately act as some kind of adaptive camouflage to protect pollinators from predators.

Real solutions?

But while improving the ability of other insects to pollinate flowers is a potential solution to falling bee numbers, Miyako said he was not convinced, and so began to look elsewhere. "It's very difficult using living organisms for real practical realizations, so I decided to change my approach and use robots," he said.

The hairs that make insects like bees fuzzy are important for their role as pollinators, because the hairs increase the surface area of the bees' bodies, giving pollen more material to stick to. In order to give the smooth, plastic drone similar capabilities, the scientists added a patch of horsehair to the robot's underside, which was then coated with the gel.

The researchers then flew the drones to collect pollen from the flowers of Japanese lilies and transport this pollen to other flowers. In each experiment, the researchers made 100 attempts at pollinating the flower, achieving an overall success rate of 37 percent. Drones without the patch of hair, or with uncoated hair, failed to pollinate the plants.

Miyako said there are currently limitations to the technology, because it is difficult to manually pilot the drone. However, he added that he thinks GPS and artificial intelligence could one day be used to automatically guide robotic pollinators.

Before these robo-bees become a reality, though, the cost of the drone will have to come down drastically and it's 3-minute battery life will need to improve significantly, Miyako said. But he added that he is confident this will happen eventually.

Dave Goulson, a professor at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, said he sees the intellectual interest in trying to create robot bees, but he's skeptical  about how practical they are and worries about distracting from more vital pollinator conservation work.Goulson specializes in the conservation of bumblebees but was not involved with the new research.

In a blog post, he wrote that there are roughly 3.2 trillion bees on the planet. Even if the robo-bees cost 1 cent per unit and lasted a year, which he said is a highly optimistic estimate, it would cost $32 billion a year to maintain the population and would litter the countryside with tiny robots.

"Real bees avoid all of these issues; they are self-replicating, self-powering and essentially carbon-neutral," Goulson wrote in the post. "We have wonderfully efficient pollinators already. Let's look after them, not plan for their demise."  

Original article on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations

• The 6 Strangest Robots Ever Created
• Photos: Oddball Bees Build Nests Out of Sands
• On the Hunt: Honeybee Scouts Find Food

{ http://www.livescience.com/ }

A mysterious object will pass near Earth in 2017.

The object has confused astronomers ever since it was first spotted, mainly because of its strange rotation and longevity in space. Some people think that this is a section of the Apollo 12 rocket, but according to Scotti it is probably something else:

An artistic depiction of what the “alien probe” may look like.
“We looked into all the possibilities for it being man-made. There were a few possible spacecraft and rocket bodies that might be 1991 VG. But, when we looked into each, we were able to eliminate each of them

According to other people, the strange object may also be a secret Soviet rocket from the Space Race era. It is a fact that the Soviets had equally powerful rockets as the American ones and it is quite possible that they launched one to get to the moon and covered it up if things went badly.

When 1991 VG was first spotted, it was around 10 metres in diameter, passing 280,000 miles from Earth – around 50,000 miles further than the Earth and the moon. The object showed a rapid rate of rotation and its brightness fluctuated. At that time, this kind of behaviour was not observed at any asteroid of similar size. The object’s orbit was also similar to Earth’s orbit.

After gathering more information about 1991 VG, Scotti realised that this object had passed Earth one more time in March 1975. Again this is something that is not characteristic for an asteroid. They don’t tend to pass twice in the same spot

Duncan Steel, an astronomer at University of Adelaide, suggested it might be an “alien probe observed in the vicinity of our planet.” He only mentioned this theory in order to disprove it. In further interviews, he has stated that he isn’t convinced that VG 1991 is of extraterrestrial origin.

This hasn’t stopped conspiracy theorists from continuing to spread the idea of an extraterrestrial origin of the object. They still keep citing Steele’s work as their main source.

Nostradamus is quoted as saying mankind would discover a machine in space that was sent to us by the WATCHERS! in 2017!

{ http://ufomania.cz/ }

UFO – corpuscular boat: Unique video filmed in Bulgaria.

Corpuscular ship is constructed in detail in accordance with the law of God in the form of light energy. Light corpuscular ship is therefore better as a spiritual power manifested corpuscular ships. The ship can move faster than light. When the object moves faster than light, disappearing from sight. Goes into another dimension.

The human eye sees everything that is inside of the light spectrum. When I mention the light spectrum and hit the light spectrum of the sun. With increased intensity of light would blind man. His senses would not notice a higher form of vibration. It can not therefore see the world resulting on a different frequency, although located around beside him. Corpuscular ship can move at high speed. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. By increasing the energy of the corpuscular vessel there is an increase of its speed. If it goes into the vessel by its frequency, it means that moves slower than the maximum speed. This makes it the human eye sees. It manifests itself in the form of light. Reducing the speed to changing light and the human eye, the ship must appear as a solid object. If the moving ship and if it stays on the molecular level, the maximum rate will remain invisible to the human eye.

That they are explained in words that corpuscular ship may be the front door of your house and you will not see it. The ship can come to a man secretly. People of it may remain hidden from man.
The people of the corpuscular vessels reduces its frequency to a protein molecule in the cell become visible to the human eye. They therefore come secretly and suddenly appear before you in the form of light and energy. At that moment comes the light source, the energy in the form of spirit. You will be influenced by your spirit will be affected the most energy, which manifested itself around you and you will be allowed contact with corpuscular ships. In contact with them you should not worry. Believe me, it’s something natural. There is nothing mysterious. Only one who manifests the spirit of mentally able to take this energy will be able to experience the transition from one age to another.

{ http://ufomania.cz/ }

The Search for Life

UFOs Seen Over USAF Missile And Nuclear Facilities

The Disclosure Project reports that several military and intelligence witnesses who were members of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) and other nuclear specialists have come forward with testimony proving that UFOs are real and appear to be concerned about our nuclear weapons. The Project has obtained the firsthand testimony of several such insiders whose documents and corroborating testimony proves that UFOs have monitored sensitive nuclear facilities since at least the 1950s. While the UFOs were not hostile, it was made clear that they were very concerned about human weapons of mass destruction. On one occasion, UFOs over a SAC Nuclear launch area took more than a dozen intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) off line.

Lt. Colonel Dwynne Arneson: US Air Force,.ret. states,:

"I was the top-secret control officer at Malmstom AFB for the 20th Air Division. I happened to see a message that came through my communications center. It said...that 'A UFO was seen near missile silos'...and it was hovering. It said that the crew going on duty and the crew coming off duty all saw the UFO just hovering in midair. It was a metallic circular object and from what I understand, the missiles were all shut down. What I mean by 'missiles going down' is that they went dead. And something turned those missiles off, so they couldn't be put back in a mode for launching."

Captain Robert Salas: SAC Missile Launch Officer [1964-1971]:

"The UFO incident happened on the morning of March 16, 1967, at Oscar Flight one of five launch control facilities assigned to the 490th Strategic Missile Squadron. I received a call from my topside security guard...and he said that he and some of the guards had been observing some strange lights flying around the site and the launch control facility. I said, you mean UFO? He said, well, he didn't know what they were but they were lights and were flying around. They were not airplanes; they were not helicopters, they weren't making any noise... [A little later] our missiles started shutting down one by one. By shutting down, I mean they went into a "no-go" condition meaning they could not be launched. These weapons were Minuteman One missiles and were of course nuclear-tipped warhead missiles...this incident was of extreme concern to SAC headquarters because they couldn't explain it."

Colonel Ross Dedrickson: US Air Force/Atomic Energy Commission, ret.): "

After  retiring from the Air Force I joined the Boeing company and was responsible for accounting for all of the nuclear fleet of Minuteman missiles. In this incident they actually photographed the UFO following the missile as it climbed into space and, shining a beam on it, neutralized the missile. I also learned of a number of incidents such as a couple of nuclear weapons sent into space were destroyed by the extraterrestrials. Our government sent a nuclear weapon for explosion on the moon's surface...[And] the ETs destroyed the weapon as it went toward the moon. [Apparently] the idea of any explosion in space by any Earth government was not acceptable to the extraterrestrials, and that has been demonstrated over and over." 

Professor Robert Jacobs: Lt. USAF 1369th Photo Squadron:

"...we were testing ballistic missiles that were to deliver nuclear weapons on target...my duty [was] to supervise the instrumentation photography of every missile that went down in that western test range...and into the frame came something else. It flew into the frame and shot a beam of light at the warhead. Now, remember, all this stuff was flying at several thousand miles an hour, so this thing fires a beam of light at the warhead, hits it, The warhead tumbles out of space. The object, the points of light that we saw, the warhead and so forth, were traveling through subspace about sixty miles straight up, and they were going somewhere in the neighborhood of eleven to fourteen thousand miles an hour, when this thing caught up to them, flew in, flew around them, and flew back out."

Mr. Harland Bentley:

"I have been in a graduate program for nuclear engineeringand have been working contracts since 1963: NASA, Department of Energy, and several other electronics firms in the DC area. I was at a facility in California.doing classified workwhich I can't say too much about..Our astronauts were doing a loop around the moon in 1967 or 1968I heard them say they had a bogey [term used to denote UFOs]it was another type of ship. There were portals that they could see into. They could see beings of some sort. They did not describe these beings, they just took photographs. They just said it was a saucer shaped craft. Then they said, 'There they go,' and they [the bogey] went out of sight almost immediately."

The Disclosure Project, a nonprofit research and public interest group, has identified hundreds of military, intelligence, government and corporate witnesses. See: http://www.DisclosureProject.org.

Thanks to Bruce-Knapp ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net.

Editors Notes: I have met or talked to many of the witnesses who have impressive UFO knowledge that they obtained while working for the government. Very few UFO investigators have the first hand knowledge these witnesses possess.

{ http://www.rense.com }

UFO sightings in Derbyshire: do aliens exist?

NASA Discovers an Organism That Can Survive 16 Months in Outer Space

 

Seabamirum/Flickr

IN BRIEF

• Algae has proven to be quite the formidable organism by being able to survive 16 months in space outside of the International Space Station.
• The samples will now be sent back to Earth to test if there were any genetic changes in the specimens.

ALGAE IN SPACE

Scientists aboard the International Space Station (ISS) recently ran an experiment where they let algae loose into the vacuum of space for a full 16 months. And, surprisingly enough, the simple plants survived the harrowing journey. Despite extreme temperature variations, UV radiation, cosmic radiation, and incredible length of time, the algae were brought back aboard still alive.

The researchers aboard the ISS are currently running experiments as part of the Biology and Mars Experiment (BIOMEX) project. Within this experimental algae portion of the project, they tested the durability of algae species that are known to love freezing temperatures. Since the mixture of extreme conditions found in space is impossible to replicate in a laboratory environment exactly, the crew on the ISS used their location to put these cold-loving species to the test. However, despite knowing what these plants will endure on Earth, the scientists were astonished at how much they can really take.

Thomas Leya / Fraunhofer IZI-BB

COLD LOVING ALIENS

Post-experiment, the researchers aboard the ISS will send these algae samples back to Earth. There, they will be rigorously tested to see the actual extent that the temperatures and combined radiation impacted them. This information could be crucial to future human missions to Mars. It could help to ensure the safety of humans and any plant-based food to be consumed.

However, beyond the positive benefits that this research could have on future missions of humans in space, it could also potentially tell us a little bit more about alien life. According to many, including famed astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson, thinking that we are somehow the only living creatures in the universe would be “inexcusably egocentric.” And, while previously, few would have thought that any plants could survive such an extended stay in space, we now know better. And so, while certain environments in space may seem inhospitable, we now know that life could exist in places we never before would have suspected.

References: 

• SlashGear, 
• Fraunhofer Institute

{ https://futurism.com/ }

Lileks: Take his word for it – UFO over Minneapolis was real (maybe)

MARK WILSON, ROSWELL DAILY RECORD

Anyone see a UFO?

JAMES LILEKS@LILEKS

I saw a UFO on Sunday, and I wasn’t alone. Trouble is, I’m sure there’s a good explanation. Ask any expert.

“Well, what you’re seeing is actually the planet Venus.” But it landed on my lawn. “That’s called atmospheric lensing; it just looks nearer than it is. “It set down on the jungle gym and crushed it.” That’s called the overweight kid from a few houses down playing without permission.” (Indulgent chuckle.)

It made a high screaming noise and 50 geese dropped dead out of the sky with their feathers melted. “We’ve been seeing a lot of fast-acting avian parasites in migratory species lately.”

It took my wife. “Well, you know what they say, men are from Mars, women are from Venus! Call us if you have any other questions.”

Everything can be explained. A few years ago I saw an incredibly fast light streak low across the sky, east to west, parallel to the ground; if it was the International Space Station, they were picking tree leaves out of their antennas for days.

Which brings me back to the alien spacecraft we saw last Sunday. My wife and I were outside. “What’s that?” she said, pointing up. It was a spherical, silver object, like those hard things they use to decorate cakes and make you chip a tooth.

“A child’s balloon,” I said, because as we all know the streets are full of kids carrying helium balloons who are startled by a backfiring car and let go of the string. But — holy crow! — it was surrounded by a swarm of other small objects, some of which were segmented and moving around it.

Wait, no, those are floaters in my eyeball.

A drone? Too high, and we’re right in the flight path for the airport. If you’re some idiot flying a drone around an airport and you see your toy go into a passenger jet’s engine, you drive home really fast wondering if you can wipe that off your Amazon purchase history.

A few days later a story pops up in reddit.com: Anyone see that big UFO over Midway? Sunday afternoon? Cars were pulled over, people were looking up and pointing. City Pages picked up the story, and now here I am moving it up the Ladder of Credible Media Outlets.

But here’s the one nagging question: Where are the pictures?

Everyone has movie cameras in their pockets now. No video of this thing? Well, I can only speak for myself. My iPhone couldn’t zoom enough. I ran upstairs to get my good video camera, pointed it up at the sky — and I got a dead battery alert.

That’s why there’s no pictures. Scientists will tell you: Venus will drain your battery as fast as anything.

UFOs Over Rio de Janeiro Drops Probes To Ocean, Feb 10, 2017, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Feb 10, 2017
Location of sighting: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Watch as a glowing UFO over Rio de Janeiro begins to produce little glowing orbs dropping down to the waters surface. These probes are probably going to explore the area under the ocean trying to find an old alien base that was likely abandoned long ago, but they came back to claim it. 
Scott C. Waring

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

Red Sprite Alien Seen At Space Station On Live Cam, Feb 2017, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: February 10, 2017
Location of sighting: Space station

This UFO was caught by Streetcap1 of Youtube this week. Please click his link to give him a thumbs up for his hard work. He calls it a sprite, and I have to agree. These little buggers come in all colors and often the shapes are not round, but squares, rectangles and cigar shapes. They are small and only visible a split second as they shoot across the screen of the live cam. Often turning and doing 90 degree turns on screen, which should be impossible for non living things like micrometeorites, however, for a living organism that was born in space, this is normal life. 
Scott C. Waring

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

UFO Over Winter Park, Colorado Mountains Again, On Security Camera, Feb 2017, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: February 2017

Location of sighting: Winter Park, Denver, Colorado, USA

Source: 

http://www.9news.com/news/local/was-a-ufo-spotted-over-winter-park/406713355

A UFO was recorded on security cam at Winter Park, however the news seems to be trying to make a parody out of real news turning it into fake news. This seems to be a trend lately and I just don't get it. A UFO sighting in the area should be taken seriously and they should ask the residents living closest to that location about them possibly seeing the UFO, however no such questioning or research into it has taken place. 

Scott C. Waring

 

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

OVNIs lumineux à Nassau aux Bahamas

PAR MAXIME BOUCHER · JUILLET 10, 2014

NASA Maps Out Possible Lander Mission to Jupiter Moon Europa

Artist's illustration of NASA's possible Europa lander on the surface of the icy Jovian moon.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A potential NASA life-hunting mission to the surface of Jupiter's ocean-harboring moon Europa is really starting to take shape.

The stationary Europa lander would use three different instrument suites to search for signs of alien life in samples collected from just beneath the moon's icy surface, according to a new report by the 21-member "Science Definition Team" (SDT) for the possible mission.

These primary instruments would include an "organic compositional analyzer," a microscope system and a "vibrational spectrometer," stated the report, which was submitted to NASA on Tuesday (Feb. 7). [Europa May Harbor Simple Life-Forms (Video)] 

"The science return possible from the model payload is such that, if life is present in Europa's ice at a level comparable to one of the most extreme and desolate of environments on Earth (Lake Vostok ice), then this mission could detect life in Europa's icy surface," the report's authors wrote. (Lake Vostok lies beneath the surface of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.)

Hunting for alien life would be the mission's primary goal. But it would also seek to assess the habitability of the huge ocean of liquid water that sloshes beneath Europa's icy shell, and to characterize the moon's surface and near-surface environments to help enable future robotic missions.

Astrobiologists regard the 1,900-mile-wide (3,100 kilometers) Europa as one of the solar system's best bets to host alien life. Not only does the satellite host an ocean, but that ocean is thought to be in contact with Europa's rocky mantle, making possible all sorts of interesting chemical reactions. (Saturn's moon Enceladus appears to be the only other "ocean world" beyond Earth where this is the case, astronomers have said.)

Scientists are eager to learn if Europa's huge subsurface ocean harbors alien life. See how Jupiter's icy moon Europa works in this SPACE.com infographic.

Credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics Artist

NASA is already developing a flyby mission to Europa, which is scheduled to launch in the 2020s. This solar-powered spacecraft will orbit Jupiter and assess the moon's habitability during the course of 45 close encounters with Europa.

In late 2015, Congress ordered NASA to add a surface component to the Europa mission. The agency is currently studying the best ways to make this happen; the new SDT report is part of that process.

The current vision for the lander calls for it to be launched separately from the Europa flyby probe, according to the SDT report. The lander and a "carrier relay orbiter" (CRO) would lift off atop NASA's in-development Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket as early as 2024.

The mission would reach Jupiter about five years later, then perform a series of Jovian moon flybys over the next 1.5 years to prepare for arrival at Europa, the SDT report's authors wrote.

Once the mission got there, the CRO would stay in Europa orbit. The lander would touch down on the Jovian moon using retrorockets and a "sky crane" like the one that lowered NASA's Curiosity rover onto the Martian surface in August 2012. (Parachutes are not part of the plan, since Europa has no appreciable atmosphere.)

The lander would operate for at least 20 days, until its batteries died. The craft would collect samples from at least 4 inches (10 centimeters) beneath the Europan surface, to get material that hadn't been destroyed or transformed by the harsh radiation bombarding the moon. It would then relay the data back to Earth via the CRO.

The Europan radiation environment would likely limit the CRO's lifetime to about 30 days, according to the SDT team's report, "thus making a longer-lived lander mission difficult to justify."

The lander would be quite busy during its brief operational life, as its proposed instrument payload indicates.

"Along with the analytical suite for detailed analyses of samples, the Europa Lander model payload also includes a pair of color stereo imagers for examining the landing site in 3D (including capabilities for characterizing surface composition), and a seismic package for determining Europa's ice shell and ocean thickness through acoustic monitoring of cracking events in the ice shell," the SDT report states.

The SDT report is far from the last word on the Europa lander mission, which remains just a concept at the moment. For example, NASA will host town hall meetings at two upcoming scientific conferences — one in March and one in April — to get feedback from researchers about the SDT team's findings and recommendations.

You can read the full 264-page SDT report here: 

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/docs/Europa_Lander_SDT_Report_2016.pdf

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

EDITOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS

• Photos: Europa, Mysterious Icy Moon of Jupiter
• NASA To Probe Europa For Signs Of Life | Video
• Fish Under Ice-Cap Suggest Europa Life May Be Possible | Video

{ http://www.space.com/ }

Mercury's Water Ice Deposits Have a Mysterious Origin

A view of Mercury's north pole with regions in shadow (MESSENGER data, in red) and polar deposits imaged by Earth-based radar (yellow).

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo Observatory. Updated from N. L. Chabot et al., Journal of Geophysical Research, 117, doi: 10.1029/2012JE004172 (2

Although Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, some of its craters hide water ice in their shaded depths — but how much ice is there, and where exactly did it come from?

A new study has part of the answer, suggesting that the ice is around 50 meters thick on average, but there is considerable uncertainty with that measurement. What kind of comets deposited the water there in the first place, however, is a mystery.

The researchers based their information on the Mercury Laser Altimeter instrument on the now-complete NASA MESSENGER mission, which crashed into Mercury as planned in 2015. Previously, a combination of Earth-based radar and neutron data suggested water ice deposits that were at least one to two meters thick. The new data suggests an ice thickness of 50 meters, possibly up to 85 meters.

But what's possibly most intriguing is figuring out the source of this ice. The researchers aren't quite sure if the ice came from long-period Halley-type comets (which originate from the Oort Cloud, a collection of icy objects far out in the solar system) or short-period Jupiter-family comets (which originate from the Kuiper Belt, an icy group of objects beyond Neptune's orbit).

"If we had found a lower limit for the ice depth that was significantly greater than zero, which we didn't quite, then we would have been able to rule out the possibility of Halley-type comets or asteroids being responsible for delivering Mercury's water," said Vincent Eke, a reader in the department of physics at Durham University, U.K., in an email to Seeker. Eke is the lead author of a paper published in the journal Icarus.

RELATED: Weird Landscape Shows That Mercury's No 'Dead' Planet

"The models for the micrometeorite flux reaching Mercury are quite uncertain," Eke Some of the more modern models could manage to bring 50 meters of ice to the polar craters, as could Jupiter-family comets. Also, if the ice depth is as thick as 50 meters in all the polar craters, then it would rule out the possibility that the ice was all brought by a single recent impact. One other study did consider that the impactor that created Hokusai crater might have been responsible for the polar water ice deposits."

Artist's impression of the BepiColombo mission at Mercury.

Credit: Astrium

When asked what was the significance of the results, Eke added they were "still a little bit too tantalizing" because the ice depth was not defined as precisely as he would like. Eke said he plans to use the final MESSENGER MLA data to provide better sampling of the polar regions, allowing him to see more craters — perhaps including smaller ones — to give a tighter constraint on the ice depth.

Failing that, there's another Mercury mission called BepiColombo that is headed to Mercury in the 2020s. The European mission should be carrying a laser altimeter, and Eke said he is hopeful the methods in his team's paper could improve the constraint on the ice thickness.

"If BepiColombo flies low over the south pole, rather than the north pole like MESSENGER, then this would also be helpful to increase the number of well-measured polar craters. I'm not sure that the orbit has yet been decided," he said.

RELATED: Mercury Transit: How We Scaled the Cosmos

"The limiting factor is not how accurately an individual altitude is measured, because both the MLA and [BepiColombo laser altimeter] do this to better than 1 meter. However, craters have departures from axisymmetry of up to 100 meters due to subcratering impacts. We need to average over enough craters to ensure that the height difference we're measuring is caused by ice, rather than just being intrinsically rough craters."

Originally published on Seeker.

EDITOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS

• 10 Strange Facts About Mercury (A Photo Tour)
• Most Enduring Mysteries of Mercury
• Water Ice on Mercury: How It Stays Frozen (Infographic)

{ http://www.space.com/ }

Space Weather: Sunspots, Solar Flares & Coronal Mass Ejections

On Feb. 13th at 1738 UT, sunspot 1158 unleashed the strongest solar flare of the year so far, an M6.6-category X-ray irradiance magnitude blast. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded an intense flash of extreme ultraviolet radiation. The source of this activity, sunspot 1158 is growing rapidly.

Credit: NASA/SDO

Though the sun lies 93 million miles (149 million km) from Earth, its unceasing activity assures an impact on our planet far beyond the obvious light and heat. From a constant stream of particles in the form of solar wind to the unpredictable bombardment from solar flares and coronal mass ejections, Earth often feels the effects of its stellar companions. Less noticeable are the sunspots crossing the solar surface, though they are related to the more violent interactions. All of these fall under the definition of "space weather."

Sunspots

Studying the surface of the sun can reveal small, dark areas that vary in number and location. These sunspots, which tend to cluster in bands above and below the equator, result from the interaction of the sun's surface plasma with its magnetic field. According to NASA, sunspots are "the most visible advertisement of the solar magnetic field."

Sunspots are cooler regions that cap some of the intense energy below them. Here’s how they form:

The material at the solar equator travels significantly faster than the material at the poles. The magnetic field lines become warped. When the magnetic field is strong enough — and twisted enough — jet streams of flowing currents create ropes of magnetism. Most of the rope, or filament, lies inside the sun, but part of it may break through the visible layer, where it is viewed in the form of two sunspots. The pair are polar opposites, literally; think of them as magnetic north and south, with the rope acting as the magnet in between. [Photos: Sunspots on Earth's Closest Star]

See how solar flares, sun storms and huge eruptions from the sun work in this SPACE.com infographic. View the full solar storm infographic here.

Credit: Karl Tate/SPACE.com

At temperatures of 3,800 kelvins (6,380 degrees Fahrenheit or 3,527 degrees Celsius), sunspot temperatures are nearly 2,000 K (3,140 F / 1,727 C) less than the rest of the sun. But don't let the numbers fool you. If a single sunspot stood alone in the night sky, it would be 10 times brighter than the full moon.

Similarly, sunspots might seem small when compared to the 865,000-mile (1.392 million kilometers) diameter of the sun, because they typically cover less than 4 percent of its visible disk. However, ranging from 1,500 miles to 30,000 miles (2,500-50,000 km) in size, they can reach the width of the planet Neptune, the smallest of the gas planets. But with a lifetime of anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, sunspots are far less permanent.

Sunspots do not appear in random locations. They tend to be concentrated in two mid-latitude bands on either side of the equator. They begin appearing around 25 to 30 degrees north and south of the center. As the solar cycle progresses, new sunspots appear closer to the equator, with the last of them appearing at an average latitude of 5 to 10 degrees. Sunspots are almost never found at latitudes greater than 70 degrees.

According to NASA, it takes approximately 11 years for the sun to move through the solar cycle that is defined by an increasing and then decreasing number of sunspots. As it reaches the close of a cycle, new sunspots appear near the equator, while a new cycle produces sunspots in higher latitudes. The cycles overlap; sunspots from the previous cycle can still develop even after sunspots from the new cycle appear. So solar scientists have a very difficult time saying exactly when one cycle ends and the next begins.

As of early 2015, solar cycle 24 was under way. The 11-year cycle began in January 2008 and peaked in 2013, the weakest solar maximum in 100 years, according to NASA. Despite the low level of activity, one of the largest sunspot regions ever was observed in November 2014, reaching approximately the size of Jupiter.

Scientists measure the activity of the sun by keeping track of the number of sunspots appearing on its surface. Since the invention of the telescope, sunspot counts have been relatively constant. In 1849, astronomers at the Zurich Observatory began observing and counting sunspots on a daily basis. The Solar Influence Data Analysis Center in Belgium and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration are responsible for monitoring sunspot activity today.

 

This snapshot from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows a stunning prominence associated with a Sept. 8, 2010 solar flare.

Credit: NASA/SDO

Solar flares

The high magnetic fields in the sunspot-producing active regions also give rise to explosions known as solar flares. When the twisted field lines cross and reconnect, energy explodes outward with a force exceeding that of millions of hydrogen bombs. [The Sun's Wrath: Worst Solar Storms in History]

Temperatures in the outer layer of the sun, known as the corona, typically fall around a few million kelvins. As solar flares push through the corona, they heat its gas to anywhere from 10 to 20 million K, occasionally reaching as high as a hundred million. According to NASA, the energy released in a solar flare "is the equivalent of millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs exploding at the same time."

Because solar flares form in the same active regions as sunspots, they are connected to these smaller, less violent events. Flares tend to follow the same 11-year cycle. At the peak of the cycle, several flares may occur each day, with an average lifetime of only 10 minutes. The enormous sunspot of 2014 fired off several powerful solar flares.

The largest, X-class flares, have the most significant effect on Earth. They can cause long-lasting radiation storms in the upper atmosphere, and trigger radio blackouts. Medium-size M-class flares can cause brief radio blackouts in the polar regions and the occasional minor radiation storms. C-class flares have few noticeable consequences. [Solar Flares: A User's Guide (Infographic)]

When the energized particles exploding from solar flares race toward us, they arrive in only eight minutes. Astronauts in space risk being hit by these hazardous particles, and manned missions to the moon or Mars must take this danger into account. Everyone else is shielded by the Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field. Sensitive electronic equipment in space can also be damaged by these energetic particles.

Absorbing X-rays affects the atmosphere. The increase in heat and energy result in an expansion of the Earth's ionosphere. Man-made radio waves travel through this portion of the upper atmosphere, so radio communications can be disturbed by its sudden unpredictable growth. Similarly, satellites previously circling through vacuum-free space can find themselves caught in the expanded sphere. The resulting friction slows down their orbit, and can bring them back to Earth sooner than intended.

Despite their size and high energy, solar flares are almost never visible optically. The bright emission of the surrounding photosphere, where the sun's light originates, tends to overshadow even these explosive phenomena. Radio and optical emissions can be observed on Earth. However, since X-rays and gamma rays fail to penetrate the atmosphere, only space-based telescopes can detect their signatures.

This still from SDO caught the action in freeze-frame splendor when the Sun popped off two events at once (Jan. 28, 2011). A filament on the left side became unstable and erupted, while an M-1 flare (mid-sized) and a coronal mass ejection on the right blasted into space.

Credit: NASA/SDO/GSFC

Coronal mass ejections

The magnetic field lines that twist up to form solar flares occasionally become so warped that, like rubber bands under tension, they snap and break, then reconnect at other points. The gaps that form no longer hold the sun's plasma on its surface. Freed, the plasma explodes into space as a coronal mass ejection (CME). [Stunning Photos of Solar Flares & Sun Storms]

It takes several hours for the CME to detach itself from the sun, but once it does, it races away at speeds of up to 1,000 km (more than 7 million miles per hour). One of the fastest recorded CMEs, registered in 2012, traveled about 6.48 million to 7.92 million mph (10.43 million and 12.75 million kph). 

"Seeing a CME this fast, really is so unusual," Rebekah Evans, a space scientist at Goddard's Space Weather Lab, said in a statement. "And now we have this great chance to study this powerful space weather, to better understand what causes these great explosions, and to improve our models to incorporate what happens during events as rare as these."

The cloud of hot plasma and charged particles may be up to 100 billion kilograms (220 billion pounds) in size.

As with solar flares, if the CME is aimed in our direction, it takes the particles eight minutes to reach Earth. However, the particles take anywhere from one to five days to travel the distance to our planet. The solar wind, a constant stream of charged particles ejected by the sun, acts on the cloud like a current on a boat. Faster CMEs feel the drag of the wind and slow down, while those with low initial velocities speed up.

The northern lights are more formally known as auroras, and are caused by interactions between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field.

Credit: Karl Tate, SPACE.com Contributor

Auroras (Northern Lights): 

When the energy from a solar storm reaches the vicinity of Earth, charged particles in our planet’s upper atmosphere interact with air molecules to create auroras. These Northern Lights, as they are also called, can be fantastic displays of color. The solar wind also generates a near-constant but less spectacular display.

Many solar storms aren't aimed toward us. At the high point of the solar cycle, the sun may produce as many as five CMEs in a given day; even at the low point, it averages one a day. The spherical shape of the sun means that most of them miss the Earth completely. In fact, we can't even observe all of the ejections; those emerging directly opposite our planet are undetectable.

However, when the sun does eject a cloud of plasma and gas directly toward us, the incoming matter seems to surround the sun. Much like a baseball falling from the direction of the sun can seem to grow larger and dwarf the star, the so-called "halo coronal mass ejection" can appear to overshadow its source. Such ejections cause the most problems for the people on Earth.

Like solar flares, CMEs bring an increase in radiation to astronauts and electronics in space. But unlike flares, they also bring charged particles of matter that interact with the field surrounding our planet. The results vary depending on the size, speed and magnetic strength of the particles.

When the particles reach the Earth's magnetic sphere, they stretch and distort. Much like a tree in a strong wind, the day side — the first side affected — is compressed, while the night side is stretched out like a tail. When it reconnects on the night side, it releases the energy found in a bolt of lightning. While lightning lasts on the order of microseconds, however, the magnetic storm created lasts far longer. It races back toward Earth's upper atmosphere.

The sudden increase in power can damage sensitive electronic equipment. Power transformers can overload, causing long-lasting blackouts. Long metal structures like oil and gas pipelines can carry currents, which can enhance their corrosion over time and lead to devastating effects if proper safety measures are not in place. The resulting variations in the ionosophere can disrupt GPS signals, giving inaccurate readings.

On Feb. 13th at 1738 UT, sunspot 1158 unleashed the strongest solar flare of the year so far, an M6.6-category X-ray irradiance magnitude blast. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded an intense flash of extreme ultraviolet radiation. The source of this activity, sunspot 1158 is growing rapidly.

Credit: NASA/SDO

On Sept. 1, 1859, Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson, both amateur English astronomers, independently made the first observations of a solar flare, one that resulted in the largest geomagnetic storm ever recorded. Auroras, which normally occupy the polar regions, were visible in tropical latitudes. Telegraph operators reported being shocked — literally — by their instruments. Even after unhooking them from the power supply, messages could still be transmitted, powered by the currents in the atmosphere.

The so-called Carrington Event would be far more devastating if it happened today, given the greater reliance on electronics and the expanded power supply. However, thus far, it is the strongest storm yet recorded, though scientists think that a powerful CME from 2012 that missed Earth would have wrecked havoc for several years had it collided with the planet.

"I have come away from our recent studies more convinced than ever that Earth and its inhabitants were incredibly fortunate that the 2012 eruption happened when it did," Daniel Baker at the University of Colorado, who led a study of the storm in Space Weather, said in a statement.

A ULA Atlas 5 rocket carrying NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite rolls out to its Space Launch Complex-41 launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Fla., for a planned Feb. 10, 2010 launch.

Credit: Pat Corkery, United Launch Alliance.

Observing the sun

NASA is currently implementing Project Solar Shield to provide warnings to vital systems after an Earth-affecting CME occurs. This allows satellites and power transformers to be shut down if necessary for a short period of time. The result is a short- term, controlled blackout rather than a longer one caused by the destruction of vital equipment. [Amazing New Sun Photos from Space]

Similarly, several satellites keep the entire sun under constant observation. NASA’s Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft studies the sun, while the Solar Dynamic Observatory(SDO) focuses on solar atmosphere. And the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) samples particles from the sun as they stream toward our planet. These programs will help bring a greater understanding of the subject of space weather on Earth.

Additional resources

• NASA: Space Weather
  • NASA: Solar Cycle 24 Begins
    • NASA: Project Solar Shield

{ 

INSIDE UFOS

TRUE ACCOUNTS OF CONTACT WITH EXTRATERRESTRIALS

Hello, fellow UFO researchers!

I’m super-excited to announce that I have a new book out, and I thought you might be interested.

Blue Giant Books, 2017        

ISBN: 9781539700029 

175 Pages

6 x 9 Inches

$14.95

INSIDE UFOS

TRUE ACCOUNTS OF CONTACT WITH EXTRATERRESTRIALS

By Preston Dennett

While most UFO books are re-hashes of old cases, “Inside UFOs” presents the cutting edge of UFO research with ten all new original cases of extensive contact. A wide variety of ETs are presented, including various types of grays, Praying Mantis-type ETs, humanoids and Nordics. The witnesses are normal everyday people who suddenly find themselves in very unusual situations. The unique and unusual nature of the cases in this book will surprise even those well-versed in the UFO literature.

• A Navy Corpsman is invited aboard a UFO by his shipmate, only to meet fifteen-foot-tall, friendly Praying Mantis-type ETs.
• A young child experiences an encounter with Nordic ETs that marks a lifelong series of contacts.
• A paperboy encounters a UFO and has missing time, leaving him with an undiagnosed illness and a mystery that remained unsolved for years.
• An office-worker is confronted by a nine-foot-tall Praying Mantis, only to discover that she’s also having contact with gray-type ETs too.
• a teacher stops on the road when a huge metallic sphere drops from the sky, and out steps a handsome-looking spaceman.
• A new mother is shocked to see an alien right outside her window, staring intently at her newborn son.
• a desperately ill housewife is transported from her home into an unknown base and cured by an eight-foot-tall, orange-haired humanoid.
• A young farm-boy encounters UFOs on his family’s farm, beginning a very close and lifelong relationship with ETs.
• A Navy Electronics Specialist has a complex UFO encounter aboard a Navy Ship, and is taught by the ETs about alternative energy sources.
• A nursing assistant experiences a life-long series of missing time incidents culminating in a fully conscious encounter with gray-type ETs who attempt to answer all his questions.

Why are the aliens here? What is their agenda on our planet? Are they hostile or benevolent? This book answers these questions and more, directly from the witnesses’ themselves. This is not just another book about abductions by grays. This collection of true UFO stories shows how fascinating and bizarre extraterrestrial contact can be.

 If you want to read more, the book is now live on Amazon.com at the below link.

• INSIDE UFOS: TRUE ACCOUNTS OF CONTACT

If you’d like to read an excerpt, here’s a link to my website:

• Preston Dennett

Also, check out my video about the book I just posted on facebook.

Thanks for reading my email. I hope you get a chance to check out my book. It recently hit #1 in UFO books on Amazon!

My very best to you,

Preston Dennett

{ prestone@pacbell.net }

Mystery messages carved into Scotland's rocks up to 5,000 years ago may soon be revealed using 3D scans

• New project will use 3D scanners to record and analyse 5,000-year-old art
• There are more than 2,000 pieces of carved rock art across Scotland 
• One amateur archaeologist George Currie has discovered 670 of them
• The scans could help to reveal new connections between the carvings

By Richard Gray for MailOnline

Their meaning has been lost in ancient history but the distinctive marks on rocks by our ancestors thousands of years ago provide a unique link to our prehistoric past.

Now a new project has been launched in an attempt to finally unravel some of the mysteries of the prehistoric rock art carved into stones in Scotland.

Experts are to create a new digital database using 3D scanning to record and study more than 2,000 carvings across the country.

Archaeologists are now hoping to unravel some of their secrets with a new project that will use 3D scanners to record the carvings (an extensive cup and ring carting at  Achnabreck in Kilmartin Glen pictured)

Helping them will be amateur archaeologist George Currie, 66, who has tracked down an incredible 670 examples of the ancient carvings, which can be up to 5,000 years old.

Over the past 13 years he has painstakingly searched, photographed and logged the location using GPS of a wide collection of different pieces of rock art.

Most are cup and ring carvings – a deep depression surrounded by concentric rings – and horseshoe shapes.

But the ancient artworks also include shapes that resemble human footprints etched into the solid rock.

Speaking to MailOnline, Mr Currie, a musician from Dundee, said: 'The idea is to cover the whole of Scotland to record all of the rock art in 3D where ever possible.

'It is going to be challenging getting the equipment into some quite awkward places, but once we have done it the next stage will be to analyse it.

'We will be able to locate these motifs in the landscape and compare how they vary from one area to another.

'It will also be possible to look at how motifs were used through time – many have symbolism that date backs thousands of years and we know little about why they were created.

'But in some places they have been reused thousands of years later in Pictish carvings or incorporated into hill forts.'

There are an estimated 6,000 cup and ring carvings known across Britain with at least a third of these located in Scotland.

There are more than 2,000 pieces of rock art carved into stones around Scotland (cup and ring carving at Gallow Hill near Dundee pictured)

George Currie, a musician from Dundee, says he has found and recorded the locations of 670 rock carvings (pictured) dating back to almost 4000BC 

Researchers have few ideas about what the significance of the carvings are. Many have been used in burial mounds but others are hidden alone on patches of hillside or moor (cup and ring marks at Beinn Ghlas, Kinlochleven pictured) 

The distinctive shapes, however, are found all across Europe, but their significance is still poorly understood.

Historic Environment Scotland has now been awarded £807,000 by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to run the project, called 'Scotland's Rock Art in context'.

The five year project is due to be launched in January 2017.

Mr Currie said while some of the carvings can be found on stones embedded in the ground, others are buried within burrows alongside ancient burials.

Most of the rock art found around Scotland take the form of cup and rings (extensive cup and rings at Achnabreck in Kilmartin Glen pictured), but there are often other shapes such as horseshoes and even carved footprints etched into the rock

One of the oldest carved rocks to be found in association with a burial dating to 3,400BC was already well worn. 

'It suggests the carving was already much older than the burial,' he said.

'It may be that these carvings held some significance long after they were created in much the same way we value old and historic items today.' 

Dr Tertia Barnett, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh who will lead the project, said it could help to unravel some of the mysteries of the cup and ring symbols.

She said it could help to explain some of the connections between prehistoric communities across Europe.

Rebecca Bailey, from Historic Environment Scotland, said: 'We look forward to the teams getting out into the field, making new discoveries, generating new knowledge, and sharing that on an international stage.'

{ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

Mystery messages engraved into Scotland’s rocks up to 5,000 years ago might soon be unveiled using 3D scans

Although their meaning has been lost to history, distinctive marks on Scottish rocks from ancient peoples provide a link to our past.

Recently, a new project has launched an attempt to finally solve the mysteries of prehistoric stone carvings. Using 3D scanning to record and examine more than 2,000 carvings around the country, specialists are creating a new digital database of the mysterious etchings.

Ring and cup marks are a form of ancient art that found widely around the world. The symbols date back to the early Neolithic, through the Bronze Age, and into the Iron Age.

Many of these carvings have been discovered on outcrops and boulders that overlook ancient travel and trade routes. Their association with water holes and hunting grounds suggests the possibility that they were used to mark these places. They may also have been marks of territorial ownership.

Later examples have been discovered in association with ceremonial or burial locations, implying that the markings might have held sacred significance.

Amateur archaeologist George Currie assists with the database project. He has tracked 670 examples of the ancient engravings which they think could be up to 5,000 years old.For the past 13 years, archaeologists have photographed, searched, and logged the locations of cup-and-ring markings. Ancient artworks as well include forms that resemble human footprints that are etched into the solid rock.

There are an estimated 6,000 rings and cup engravings known across Britain, a third of which are located in Scotland. However, their significance is still not well understood.

The Art and Humanities Research Council has awarded £807,000 to the Historic Environment Scotland to run the project that is called Scotland’s Rock Art.

Cup and ring marks survive in large numbers from Scotland and have been suggested to have a variety of meanings  Photo Credit

This five-year project is set to be launched in January of 2017. Archaeologists say that some carvings have been discovered on stones embedded in the ground, while others were found buried in ancient grave sites.

One of the oldest of the carved rocks was found in association with a burial ground that dates back to 3,400 BC. It was already well worn, which proposes that the carvings were much older than the actual burial.

It might have been that these carvings held some importance long after they were created, Mail Online reported.

This project that is set to be launched will help unveil some of the mysteries of the ring and cup symbols.

Here is another story from us: Mystery surrounding a massive woolly mammoth graveyard

Perhaps it can also help to explain some of the links between ancient communities across the countries of Europe.

The team is looking forward to getting out into the field, creating new findings, getting new knowledge, and sharing this on an international stage.

{ https://www.thevintagenews.com/ }

The Strange Medallion Found in a Tombs of the Ancient Egypt.

{ http://ufomania.cz/ }

Atlantis in Japan, The Dragon's Triangle Mystery | Ancient Aliens

{  https://www.youtube.com/ }

Extraterrestrial Sighting: Woman Claims To Have Seen UFOs Twice In The Last Week

Las Vegas is a UFO hotspot and known for a lot of strange activities. Some conspiracy theorists suggest that the Nellis Air Force Base, located just on the outskirts of Las Vegas, is where the Tall Whites are basing, particularly near the old firing range area. Nellis is said to be taking up to 1,350 square miles, and its size is believed to be enough for aliens to build underground bases.

Tall White aliens allegedly go for the outside walk sometimes, so the USAF apparently provides them space for them not to accidentally encounter a person. Tall Whites are known to be killing hungry and even aggressive to U.S. soldiers. Some UFO researchers believe that the woman saw Tall White UFOs near the Nellis AFB.

A woman claimed that she had seen similar mysterious light two times over her home near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Carey Avenue, North Las Vegas. Gwendolyn Mathews believed it was a UFO.  She stated her sighting started on Sunday at around 7:30 pm when she noticed a light not moving while recording a video on Facebook Live for over an hour.

The woman further claimed that she observed it having legs coming out of it when she zoomed in with her binoculars. She said that similar light appeared again on Tuesday night. Mathews is convinced that she witnessed a UFO activity.

Mathews reportedly contacted the North Las Vegas Airport and McCarran Airport to ask about the UFO. However, they referred her to the FAA, who told her that they had no any strange aircraft activity in the area.

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

Daytime video: UFO fleet over South Gate, California

Location: South Gate, CA
Date: 1/30/17
Submitted by Jay

Witness report:

Daniel captures the spectacular fleet of UFOs in South Gate, California, on January 30, 2017. This batch of UFOs compliments an actual flying saucer he filmed last week. The fleet was captured in his backyard at 9:59am with his Nikon P900. Daniel just looked up in the sky and saw a 2 inch cluster array of white orbs. He immediately ran into his house, grabbed his camera and tripod and began to fill this incredible sight. This one is for the history books. Notice how the orbs maintained an equidistance from each other except for one, possibly the commander that moved among them. This one is a sight to behold. Don’t deny or dismiss what is obvious to see.

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

The Future Belongs to Flying Robots

 

Adam Vilimek/Shutterstock

IN BRIEF

The University of California system’s Center of Excellence on Unmanned Aircraft System Safety is hard at work looking into the future of unmanned aircraft. The director sees a lot of potential in the technology for agriculture, environmental, and even social opportunities.

The once-small community of drone hobbyists has transformed into a worldwide phenomenon. In 2016 especially, significant technology improvements and regulatory clarity have paved the way for even more dramatic changes in the coming years.

Among the biggest adopters of drones, and experimenters with them, have been universities. As the director of the University of California system’s Center of Excellence on Unmanned Aircraft System Safety – effectively the drone headquarters of our whole 10-campus system – I have an excellent view of the drone industry’s past, present and future.

The truly surprising details are about how wide and diverse a range of purposes drones are serving on our campuses – and what’s coming next. As we begin exploring what drones can do, and identifying what social and commercial uses they might serve, the work provides a glimpse into the future of drone flight across the country, and throughout our economy.

ENGINEERING RESEARCH

Drones have only recently reached the commercial mainstream. However, university engineering departments have been designing and building them for decades. For years, engineering students, for instance, have studied the advanced control algorithms that keep drones flying level and straight. Their work has helped bring us to the point where drones are even available for sale in toy stores.

It is no surprise that our engineers are still working on drones and related technology such as sensors, automation and innovative platforms. Some introductory engineering classes involve students building and flying drones; more advanced students learn about flight dynamics and algorithms that help drones stay aloft.

In recent years, though, our engineering departments are focusing less on building the aircraft and more on improving safety, navigation and ability to carry equipment that allows drones to help with different tasks.

For example, researchers are developing navigation systems that don’t rely on GPS satellites. This could help allow drones to navigate autonomously inside buildings, in deep canyons, underground or other places where GPS signals are unavailable or unreliable. Whether delivering packages to remote locations or handling emergency tasks in hazardous conditions, this type of capability could significantly expand drones’ usefulness.

Another research group is working on ways for drones to help detect gas leaks from oil pipelines. With millions of miles of pipelines across the country, that is a monumental task. Attaching methane-sniffing sensors to drones could make it much easier: Autonomous drones could fly the routes of every pipeline nearly constantly, registering the location and volume of leaks, and alerting repair and cleanup crews.

Image credit: jon11/iStock

GROWTH IN AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL WORK

Our largest use of drones has been out in the fields. Two-thirds of the UC system’s drone flights, which encompass thousands of flights and hundreds of flight hours, have been for agricultural and environmental research. This suggests that those areas could provide breakout opportunities for drone uses.

Some scholars have found many ways drones can replace existing manned aircraft, like with a pesticide-spraying helicopter that could reduce time and costs and provide safer operations. But the biggest factor has been how easy drones make it to collect data that were extremely difficult, or even impossible, to collect before.

For example, drones with special thermal cameras are allowing researchers to investigate water consumption rates of several varieties of crops in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The drones’ data collection is so detailed that the scholars can count individual melons, allowing much better estimates of crop yield. When farmers know much more precisely how big the harvest will be, they can better estimate how much money they’ll make – and can make better budget decisions with the information.

Drones are also proving themselves useful in high-resolution aerial coastal survey mapping. In the past, researchers walked along the coast and took pictures to survey areas. This was difficult to do without disturbing wildlife. In addition, surveyors would take pictures from small planes to model and predict coastal erosion and flooding. With drones, they’re able to collect data more frequently with greater detail, and do a better job mapping and analyzing environmental data. That helps improve our understanding of coastal ecology, and prepares local residents and communities for possible disasters because the drones are able to get closer to certain environments which scientists will be able extract more information from.

For instance, when monitoring giant sequoias, a team of five to seven people would have to map the area, which would take about a week. A drone flight has been able to replace that work with a two-minute flight. That makes it easier to track how the trees are growing and responding to changes in their environment.

BEYOND THE ACADEMIC REALM

To meet the demand from people with no experience in drone technology, we have developed special workshops for students, staff, faculty and UC research partners to learn about drone technology, regulations and flight instruction.

Campus film and media departments regularly use drones to make sweeping images of our scenic campus locations for promotional videos and reports. Beyond that, though, university facilities workers have been using drones to monitor construction sites, inspect building areas that are hard to get to (like roofs) and keep an eye on the university’s sizable landholdings. All of these uses can significantly improve worker safety, productivity and cost savings.

Students are also using drones recreationally, which has raised safety and privacy concerns on our campuses, just as it has off-campus. With plenty of green spaces, many students want to fly their drones and other model aircraft on campus, even near dorms or other housing. We’ve addressed this need with respectful solutions like helping students form clubs and organizing flying events, either on campus fields reserved for the day, or at off-campus parks. We are also seeing what may be the beginnings of a collegiate Drone Racing League.

This sort of just-for-fun experimentation can make it challenging to regulate drone flights based on what the drone is doing. But universities are often test locations for new technologies. Our work – both formal and recreational – encourages creativity and can foster an entrepreneurial spirit. We can expect that at least some of these early uses for drones will eventually spill into the commercial and consumer markets.

 Read more articles from The Conversation

References: The Conversation

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How to Watch Tonight's Penumbral Lunar Eclipse and Comet 45P

Cassie Kelly

If you haven’t heard of a penumbral lunar eclipse, now’s the time to learn. Because on Friday night, February 10, North Americans will have a front-row seat for the penumbral lunar eclipse is different than a total lunar eclipse. Instead of the sun, Earth, and moon aligning perfectly, a penumbral eclipse involves the moon passing through the outer part of Earth’s shadow, so only a small sliver of sunlight bounces off.

The eclipse lasts for about four and a half hours and will occur in the early evening hours if you’re on the East Coast. The best time to watch will be between 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Eastern. The peak of the effect will be around 7:45 p.m., when the moon is almost fully immersed in the penumbra shadow.

The moon will be blocked by Earth's outer shadow, the penumbra. 

Earth’s shadow has two dimensions: the umbra and the penumbra. The umbra is the stronger, denser shadow, which blocks the moon entirely during a total eclipse, offering up a few moments of complete darkness. But, the penumbra shadow is very faint, so the moon will simply just look dimmer.

No special equipment is needed to see the show, just look toward the eastern sky and watch as the moon becomes duskier. It should be easy to see as Friday night is also a full moon, known as the “Snow Moon.”

Penumbrals occur two to four times a year, making them fairly common for our celestial calendar. Total lunar eclipses are much more rare and the next one won’t be until January 2018.

Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova will make a close pass traveling at 22.91 km/second, to the Earth-Moon system, at 3:23 a.m. Eastern time.

If you stay up late enough on Friday, you can look to the Western sky for Comet 45P/Honda–Mrkos–Pajdušáková — but you won’t see it, which streaks by by around 3 a.m. Eastern, but if you’re up, know that it will be a pale green color (from its fluorescent carbon gas).

“You will need an extremely dark sky and optical aid (at least binoculars, probably a telescope) to see this comet,” advises Deborah Byrd of EarthSky, about Comet 45P.

So, if you’re looking for a change of pace this Friday night, ditch the TV and watch the night sky. If you can’t make it outside, watch the “Full Snow Moon Eclipse” broadcast.

Photos via timeanddate.com, Flickr / blobrana2, Flickr / MarkGregory007

{https://www.inverse.com/ }

This Star Is So Bright, Scientists Can't Even See It

Cassie Kelly

Alittle thing in outer space known as AG Carinae is one of the brightest objects ever observed. That’s saying a lot for a universe that has about one billion trillion stars and counting. But this particular star is so bright, scientists can’t even visualize it. The extreme glare coming from this Hubble Space Telescope image completely shrouds the star itself — a small pinpoint compared to the monstrous light it gives off. The criss-cross pattern is also just a glare-like effect caused by the telescope.

AG Carinae is one of the brightest objects in the universe.

The star is classified as a luminous blue variable star — the equivalent of being on the varsity team for star brightness competitions. There are about twenty known LBVs in the universe, one of which is also located in the constellation Carina along with AG. Though scientists are still unraveling the mysteries of variable stars, they do know that the powerful light signifies the beginning of the end for this blue supergiant.

In a process of decay, AG Carinae has already shed 15 times the mass of the sun in a massive outburst of stellar material about 10,000 years ago, which has formed a beautiful celestial ring around the star. The cavity between the gaseous ring and the star itself is void. Scientists think this is because strong pressurized winds moving at almost five million miles an hour are keeping the dust at bay.

For AG Carinae, the end is nigh. In a few million years it will reach supernova stage and burst into one of the brightest explosions the Milky Way has ever seen.

Photos via ESA/Hubble & NASA

WHAT'S NEXT

• 

  NASA Releases "Jet-Shoes" Patent to Public, Calls on Real-Life Tony Stark to Build Them

• 

  NASA Releases Rocket and Aircraft Patents for SpaceX and Blue Origin to Sink Teeth Into

• 

  Juno's Jupiter Arrival Makes July 4 NASA's Most Suspenseful Day Off

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

WHY HAVEN'T WE FOUND ALIENS?

{ https://futurism.com/ }

EVIDENCE: Extraterrestrial civilizations visited the Earth in the distant past. Ancient civilization – UFO and Extraterrestrial civilization.

Extraterrestrial civilization visited the Earth in the distant past and there is evidence all around us. It isn’t a question anymore, whether or no ancient man was visited by intelligent extraterrestrial beings in the distant past.

A great amount of evidence has been gathered that proves that in the distant past, human beings were visited by beings from another planet. These visitors were misinterpreted by our ancestor as “Gods,” because our ancestor did not understand technology as we do today.

Almost all ancient civilizations that have been studied by researchers and archaeologists point to “myths” and texts of “divine” beings that came from the stars and got involved, in one way or another, with ancient humans on Earth. Ancient Aztecs, Mayas, Incas, and many other ancient civilization make reference to “otherworldly” beings that descended from the sky, considered as divine, since ancient man, did not have the knowledge to explain in another way, these mysterious visitations.

Ancient texts from the Bible are perhaps the best evidence that point to the existence of “otherworldly” beings in the remote past of human history. The myths of creation, the mysterious light that guided the Israelites on the long journey through the desert, the description of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the union of children of the Gods with daughters of men, the power of the Ark of the Covenant and the trip to “heaven” of Elijah and Enoch are just some of the many biblical stories that involve divine beings who come from the skies, incredible technology of the past that was considered by ancient man as being “heavenly” or “divine”.

{ http://ufomania.cz/ }

DONALD KEYHOE, THE US MAJOR THAT WARNED US OF INTERPLANETARY WAR - UFO'S ARE REAL!

This video shows us the moment Major Donald Keyhoe exposes the truth on the UFO subject and states that UFO's are real. He is a true patriot and was one of the pioneers in exposing the cover-up by government agencies.

In 1956, Major Donald Keyhoe co-founded NICAP whose goal it was to stop the secrecy surrounding the UFO phenomenon. It became the largest and most prominent UFO research group in the US. Former CIA director Hillen Koetter and other military officers and prominent scientists like James McDonald were in ts board of directors.

Major Keyhoe sought congressional hearings, and in 1958 he made efforts to use Senator John McCiellan's committee to start public congressional hearings regarding the UFO mystery. All his attempts were blocked by high-ranking Air Force officials.

In 1958 Keyhoe was invited to join a live broadcast on CBS-TV. The Air Force officials tried to use this broadcast to manipulate the minds and hearts of the American public, which there was no truth in the UFO phenomenon. But they never anticipated to the fact that Keyhoe would use this opportunity to speak out on the UFO subject and publicly state that UFO's are real. Keyhoe tried his best to take the truth to the American public.

Keyhoe releases some interesting details on the United States military and how they handle reports of UFO sightings. He sums up the different theories explaining UFOs, how the government is covering up certain sightings and how this could lead to interplanetary war.

Major Keyhoe put his job on the line to speak out on the subject. This was the reason he was ousted out of NICAP in 1969.

This article (Donald Keyhoe, The US Major That Warned Us Of Interplanetary War - UFO's Are Real!) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with full attribution and a link to the original source on Disclose.tv 

RELATED ARTICLES

• Airplanes and interplanetary SPACE TRAVEL described 7.000 YEARS AGO in India
• Ancient Gnostic texts: Earth is ruled by an interplanetary race known as Archons 

{ http://www.disclose.tv/ }

Stunned motorist captures mysterious 'flying disc' being transported by police convoy near secretive US air base

UFO was spotted on the back of a lorry near near the top-secret US Airforce base Wright Patterson USAF where conspiracy theorists claim alien bodies have been hidden away

BY RACHEL BISHOP

A shocked witness stared in disbelief as they watched a UFO apparently being transported by a police convoy on the back of truck.

The anonymous witness said the lorry was driving near top-secret US Airforce Wright Patterson USAF (WPUSAF) base, which is believed to be one of several military bases where the authorities store alien UFOs.

The alleged sighting came to light after the man reported it to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC).

Footage shows several police cars driving past before a lorry comes into shot - carrying what looks like a "flying saucer" - in the Fort Leonard Wood area of Missouri on February 1 at 10.15pm local time.

The location is around 240 miles from WPUSAF which is where conspiracy theorists claim crashed UFOs and even alien bodies, have been hidden away by the military.

Writing to NUFORC, the man said: "I was driving north 15 miles north of Fort Leonard Wood on I-44 north last night at exactly 10.15pm and saw a line of police cars spaced out about a mile with no traffic coming southbound.

READ MORE

• UFO 'chases passenger jet' through the sky as baffled witness releases video in a bid to find explanation

"I noticed more police cars with lights keeping traffic held back in the distance about another mile and a semi with flatbed was in the centre.

"As the semi (articulated truck) approached, I couldn't believe that the semi was carrying what appeared to be a saucer shaped object.

"I passed within a hundred or so feet of the semi going in the opposite direction.

"The semi was moving at a moderate speed and the area was somewhat illuminated and my 16-foot Penske truck was elevated so I had a clear view.

"It was dull metallic grey, with thick short legs coming from the center bottom like fence posts, and a thick central body tapering to very thin edges.

”It encompassed the whole trailer and was hanging over the edges with no cockpit or windows or markings."

Peter Davenport, NUFORC director, responded to the post, highlighting about other sightings of UFOs on the back of trucks.

READ MORE

• RAF Typhoon jets rush to escort Pakistan International Airlines flight to Stansted over 'security alert'

He said: "We have heard about that object before, and we believe that it is some kind of space vehicle, used by the US Air Force."

The previous sighting allegedly happened on January 15, 2015, in the Lordsburg area of New Mexico when a "triangle-shaped UFO" was seen being driven in convoy.

{ http://www.mirror.co.uk/ }

Le plan de la Nasa pour explorer Europe, la lune de Jupiter, à la recherche de vie extraterrestre

L'agence spatiale américaine a demandé à une équipe de scientifiques d'imaginer un atterrisseur dont le but serait d'étudier la surface gelée de la lune de Jupiter.

Gregory Rozieres Journaliste sciences et technologies, responsable de la rubrique C'est Demain

ESPACE - Et si la prochaine mission de la Nasa visait à explorer Europe? Non pas le continent terrestre, mais la lune de Jupiter. L'agence spatiale américaine a dévoilé ce mercredi 8 février un rapport rédigé par une équipe de 21 scientifiques qui ont planché sur un possible envoi d'une sonde et d'un atterrisseur sur Europe.

Pourquoi cet astre en particulier? Car la lune jupitérienne intéresse grandement les chercheurs. On la suspecte de cacher, sous une épaisse couche de glace, un gigantesque océan d'eau liquide, en contact avec de la roche. Celui-ci pourrait potentiellement abriter une vie extraterrestre.

En effet, pour que celle-ci se développe, il faut trois éléments: de l'eau liquide, une source d'énergie et de la matière organique, carbonée. Ces trois éléments sont potentiellement présents dans le sous-sol d'Europe.

Le rapport, qui n'engage en rien la Nasa pour le moment, évoque trois objectifs principaux: trouver des preuves de vie (microscopique, évidemment) sur Europe, analyser la surface pour savoir si celle-ci est habitable et enfin mieux comprendre la lune (dont on ne sait pas grand chose) pour de futures missions robotiques.

Rechercher la vie avec un robot, une première pour la Nasa depuis 40 ans

La Nasa précise que l'atterrisseur pourrait embarquer un système permettant de tester des échantillons afin de vérifier si une vie extraterrestre existe sur Europe. Ce serait une première pour l'agence depuis le déploiement sur Mars de la sonde Viking, dans les années 70. Celle-ci n'avait pas trouvé de preuve de vie (à moins que nous ne soyons passés à côté?).

Surtout que pour accéder à ces échantillons, la sonde n'aurait même pas besoin de creuser la glace pour atteindre l'océan. Comme le rappelle le rapport, la Nasa a découvert en septembre des gerbes d'eau sur Europe, propulsées par des sortes de geyser. Il suffirait donc d'analyser cette vapeur pour espérer y détecter de la vie.

Pour se poser à la surface, l'atterrisseur devra être innovant, car Europe ne dispose pas d'une atmosphère permettant de freiner la descente, par exemple avec un parachute. Les chercheurs ont donc imaginé un procédé technique complexe, où l'atterrisseur sera notamment déposé via des filins par une sonde volante, qui ira ensuite s'écraser en lieu sûr.

Pour l'instant, tout cela reste un simple projet. La Nasa prévoit d'ailleurs en parallèle d'envoyer une sonde uniquement en orbite autour d'Europe d'ici le début des années 2020.

Plusieurs réunions vont avoir lieu pour interroger la communauté scientifique sur la pertinence du rapport. Dans celui-ci, les auteurs précisent qu'en imaginant un lancement en 2024, l'atterrisseur pourrait toucher le sol européen en 2031.

A voir également sur Le HuffPost:

{ http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/ }

UFO in Antarctica: The Final Proof that Aliens Have Landed on Earth? | Conspiracy Theories.VIDEO.

Mysterious object discovered in Antarctica, immediately provoked a stir among experts on UFOs.

Russian “expert” Valetin Degterev published on social media what he found in Antarctica while using Google Earth. This is a shot of the black spot, which it claims that it was a UFO, who are stuck in ice after an accident three years ago.

“In the endless ice desert is the most original UFO in the most classic form,” said the Russian.

Seemingly ignoring many other rock formations and shadows in this area, Degterev said that “UFO” measuring 20 to 70 meters and is adamant that the object can not be explained by anything other naturally on Earth

“I think this is a very large disc-shaped flying machine frozen in ice,” he said. According to him, there can be no image of any polar station or aircraft or ships lost in the area. “It seems that this is a man-made object from the distant universe,” he insisted.

Nigel Watson, author of a manual on investigating UFO, told MailOnline that it is difficult to say exactly what the image shows, but this place has a “long tradition” when landing alien spacecraft. Experts in Antarctica, however, argue that the black dot is a common tear.

https://www.facebook.com/UFOkruhyvobilyainezahady/

{http://ufomania.cz/ }

Reports of an alien abduction and UFO sightings made to police

alien ufo.

Grot ontdekt met duizenden jaren oude manuscripten - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

© epa.

De Hebreeuwse Universiteit van Jeruzalem heeft de ontdekking bekendgemaakt van een nieuwe grot waarin Dode Zeerollen werden gevonden, een "van de belangrijkste vondsten" met betrekking tot deze bekende geschriften sinds hun ontdekking een zestigtal jaar geleden.

De teksten, die dateren van de 3de eeuw voor Christus tot de 1ste eeuw na Christus, zijn een geheel van bijna duizend perkamenten, voornamelijk in het Hebreeuws, maar ook in het Aramees en Grieks, waaronder talrijke boeken van het Oude Testament. Het zijn de oudste bekende manuscripten van de Hebreeuwse Bijbel.

Tot dusver wisten de archeologen dat de geschriften die tussen 1947 en 1956 door een bedoeïenenherder ten noordoosten van de Dode Zee ontdekt werden, bij de archeologische site van Qumran, in elf grotten lagen.

"Deze ontdekking van een twaalfde grot zou de informatie die we over de Dode Zeerollen hebben, kunnen omgooien", zei Oren Gutfeld van het archeologisch instituut van de universiteit, dat verantwoordelijk is voor het archeologisch onderzoek.

De grot ten westen van Qumran, op de bezette Westelijke Jordaanoever, bevatte geen geschriften maar talrijke bewijzen van hun aanwezigheid, waaronder fragmenten van aardewerk waarin ze bewaard werden en leren banden die rondom de geschriften gebonden waren, preciseerde de archeoloog.

{ http://www.hln.be/ }

Las Vegas Woman Sees Tall White UFOs Leaving Nellis Air Force Base Often, Feb 2017, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: February 8, 2017
Location of sighting: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
News Source: 

http://www.ktnv.com/news/woman-claims-ufo-sighting-in-north-las-vegas

Las Vegas is near a lot of Extra Terrestrial action. Just on the outskirts of Las Vegas is Nellis Air Force Base, which has a Tall Whites Base near the old firing range area (all off limits fenced/guarded land). Its a huge base taking up 1,350 square miles! Enough for a small country.  So why would the Air Force need such  a large area of land? Because they gave some of it to aliens to build underground bases, but sometimes the are outside going for a walk, so the USAF gives them their own space so they don't accidentally encounter a person and kill them. Tall Whites like killing, its in their DNA, they are aggressive even with US solders. What this woman saw was Tall White ships coming and going from Nellis AFB.
Scott C. Waring

News states:
NORTH LAS VEGAS (KTNV) - A woman says she's seen the same strange light two times above her home near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Carey Avenue in North Las Vegas. She believes it's a UFO. Gwendolyn Mathews says it started Sunday around 7:30 p.m. She saw the same light not moving as she filmed it on Facebook Live for more than an hour. She says when she zoomed in with her binoculars, it appears to have legs coming out of it, similar to an octopus. She says the same light appeared again Tuesday night. "Whatever it is, it's beautiful, it's not a plane or a drone," Mathews says. We asked North Las Vegas airport and McCarran Airport about the UFO. They referred us to the FAA, who told us "we haven't had any unusual aircraft activity in the area. I'm not going to speculate about what that might be." Mathews still believes it could have been extraterrestrial visitors. "I know what I saw through those binoculars, I know what I felt," she says. After our initial story aired, a viewer who works at the weather station at the airport says it's the planet Venus. He says it appeared to "disappear" because it went behind a cloud, and says we had a broken layer of Cirrus cloud at 25,000 feet all night.

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

UFO Seen Two Times Over Colima Volcano, Mexico On Live Camera, Feb 9, 2017, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: February 9, 2017
Location of sighting: Colima Volcano, Mexico
Source 1: http://webcamsdemexico.net/colima1/2017-02-09/0938.jpg
Source 2: http://webcamsdemexico.net/colima1/2017-02-09/0912.jpg

When looking at the live Colima volcano cam in Mexico, I noticed a UFO seen in two of its still shots archives. Both appear to be the same UFO, but were 26 minutes apart. One shows the UFO near the mouth of the volcano, the other shows it closer to the camera so it is larger. I and many others have been watching this volcano for over 5 years and we have come to the conclusion that UFOs would not come to visit for no reason. Instead they are coming and going because there is a alien base 4-5km below this very volcano. If you go to Youtube and search Colima UFO, You will find hundreds of old videos taken over the years. 
Scott C. Waring

Seen again below. 

Focused photo close up above, untouched original below. 

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

Two new UFO videos from Las Vegas, Nevada – February 2017

Here are two new videos of a UFOs in the sky above Las Vegas, Nevada. Both were filmed by Youtube user Steven Barone.

Video #1

Witness report: 

I shot this video from my backyard in the Summerlin area of Las Vegas, Nevada on the night of February 4, 2017.
I am a bit late getting this out, but here it is. This appears to be a single UFO searching for something. I know that because if it was on the hills and mountains south of the Blue Diamond Hills there is no way it could travel in a perfectly straight line while moving into the southern end of the Las Vegas Valley. I did my best to synchronize both the camcorder and night vision versions of the event.

Video #2

Witness report: 

February 8, 2017. It was an amazing night because something new happened. Red flashing UFOs were moving all over the place at the base of the Las Vegas Mountains. This was a difficult sighting to be operating two cameras. I made one big mistake by not checking that the night vision camera was running thinking it was filming when it wasn’t, so I missed some footage. The distance between my location and where this happened is approximately 15 miles. This is yet another amazing event.

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

Skeptic Seeks Out Help From UFO Investigators After Filming A Flying Saucer

A man walking his dog had called paranormal investigators after taking a video of a UFO. He has sent the video recording to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), a large organization that investigates such sightings.

According to the report, the anonymous dog walker first noticed the object as it flew over the field across his house.

The witness had no idea what he spotted, and his instinct told him to grab his phone and start recording because, for him, it was not something he had ever seen before. He saw the object flying quickly in a straight pattern over and away from his house.

The unnamed witness described the UFO as like a dark dome with a slight point on top, a typical flying saucer. He also noticed an apparent string on top and at the bottom of the mysterious aerial object.

The witness stated that he was skeptical about paranormal happenings, but after seeing the UFO, he was just so intrigued.

Some UFO enthusiasts believe the reporting witness had caught something amazing. They think the video shows a rotating UFO as it moves forward. They also explain that the string in the top and bottom were antennas and usually, a UFO has also two antennas sticking out its front area.

However, others think there was probably simple explanations for the said UFO sighting. They pointed out that the video is low in quality, making it difficult to determine whether the flying saucer is just a glider or a kite.

Betz Sphere Remains A Scientific Mystery Decades After It Was Discovered

The so-called evidence of extraterrestrial has been here for many decades. One of them happened to be the Betz sphere that was found in 1974. Experts conducted several tests of the sphere, and they concluded it as a magnetic object sensitive to magnetic fields, mechanical stimulation, and many sound emissions. They found out that it could stand a pressure of 120,000 pounds per square inch, making them conclude that the thing was composed of stainless steel, particularly magnetic ferrous alloy #431.

While many theories have been proposed, experts have never been fully explained the Betz Sphere or Betz Orb. Some suggested that it may be an extraterrestrial object because of the peculiar characteristic behind the artifact.

Medical student Terry Mathew Betz discovered the sphere after a massive fire had destroyed a large portion of a forest near his Jacksonville home in Florida.

The mysterious object, which measured around 20 centimeters in diameter, was in excellent condition with a triangle depicted on its surface.

The Betz family initially thought it was the remains of military equipment or satellite. However, no impact was found in the surrounding or any signs of damage, just a massive fire.

The family reportedly noticed the metallic sphere appeared to react to some musical notes. Not only that, they apparently also observed their family dog acting strangely. Many attributed the dog’s behavior to the high-frequency wave from the sphere, which was beyond human hearing range. As if those two strange happenings weren’t enough, the family reported that the orb changed direction on its own if placed on the floor and pushed. The weird thing was that it returned to the starting point after pushing it on the floor.

Photographer Lou Egner of the Jacksonville Journal went to the place of Betz family to check the strange thing. According to Lou, when he put the sphere on the floor it rolled away and stopped. Moments later, it turned and went to the right by itself around four feet. It then stopped, turned again, rolled to the left approximately eight feet, formed a big arc and came right to Lou’s feet. Moreover, a strange sound reportedly heard from inside the sphere. A reporter from the Tampa Bay Times confirmed all of these statements.

Interestingly, it appeared that the media was not the only group interested in the mysterious sphere. The NASA and the U.S. Navy had allegedly shown interest in the sphere. The family initially refused to give the sphere to the Navy but changed their mind after experiencing various weird phenomena surrounding the sphere.

A spokesman for the U.S. Navy Chris Berninger said their first x-ray attempts failed to determine metal components and they were planning to use a more powerful machine and run spectrograph on it. Further test revealed that the shell of the sphere was about half an inch thick and it was able to withstand a pressure of 120,000 pounds per square inch. Experts concluded that it was composed of magnetic ferrous alloy #431, a kind of stainless steel. They also found out that the alloy’s corrosion resistance was ideal for marine and aircraft applications.

Civil and Hydraulic Engineering professor Dr. James Albert Harder also showed interest in the strange sphere. He discovered that the two internal spheres were composed of elements far heavier than anything known to science. He asserted that drilling into the sphere would create an explosion like an atomic bomb.

Dr. Carl Williston of Omega Minus One Institution in Louisiana also conducted several tests to the so-called ball from space. He found out that it had three magnetic poles and a possible fourth. Dr. Williston stated that the flux density of the magnetic field seemed to vary in strength base in an unknown pattern.

An x-ray revealed that there were three similar spheroid shapes within the ball. Oddly, these shapes had some kind of a halo surrounding them. The metal was the same to stainless steel but with some unknown content.

Experts concluded that this unknown ball was a magnetic sphere sensitive to mechanical stimulation, various sound emissions, and magnetic fields. It might be in a damaged state if it was an extraterrestrial probe.

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

Dwarf star 200 light years away contains life's building blocks

UCLA-led team discovers object in the constellation Boötes with carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES

IMAGE: RENDERING OF PART OF A PLANETARY SYSTEM IN ORBIT AROUND A WHITE DWARF STAR (THE WHITE SPOT AT THE CENTER OF THE RED RING). THE FOREGROUND SHOWS ROCKY ASTEROIDS; THE... view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

Many scientists believe the Earth was dry when it first formed, and that the building blocks for life on our planet -- carbon, nitrogen and water -- appeared only later as a result of collisions with other objects in our solar system that had those elements.

Today, a UCLA-led team of scientists reports that it has discovered the existence of a white dwarf star whose atmosphere is rich in carbon and nitrogen, as well as in oxygen and hydrogen, the components of water. The white dwarf is approximately 200 light years from Earth and is located in the constellation Boötes.

Benjamin Zuckerman, a co-author of the research and a UCLA professor of astronomy, said the study presents evidence that the planetary system associated with the white dwarf contains materials that are the basic building blocks for life. And although the study focused on this particular star -- known as WD 1425+540 -- the fact that its planetary system shares characteristics with our solar system strongly suggests that other planetary systems would also.

"The findings indicate that some of life's important preconditions are common in the universe," Zuckerman said.

The scientists report that a minor planet in the planetary system was orbiting around the white dwarf, and its trajectory was somehow altered, perhaps by the gravitational pull of a planet in the same system. That change caused the minor planet to travel very close to the white dwarf, where the star's strong gravitational field ripped the minor planet apart into gas and dust. Those remnants went into orbit around the white dwarf -- much like the rings around Saturn, Zuckerman said -- before eventually spiraling onto the star itself, bringing with them the building blocks for life.

The researchers think these events occurred relatively recently, perhaps in the past 100,000 years or so, said Edward Young, another co-author of the study and a UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry. They estimate that approximately 30 percent of the minor planet's mass was water and other ices, and approximately 70 percent was rocky material.

The research suggests that the minor planet is the first of what are likely many such analogs to objects in our solar system's Kuiper belt. The Kuiper belt is an enormous cluster of small bodies like comets and minor planets located in the outer reaches of our solar system, beyond Neptune. Astronomers have long wondered whether other planetary systems have bodies with properties similar to those in the Kuiper belt, and the new study appears to confirm for the first time that one such body exists.

White dwarf stars are dense, burned-out remnants of normal stars. Their strong gravitational pull causes elements like carbon, oxygen and nitrogen to sink out of their atmospheres and into their interiors, where they cannot be detected by telescopes.

The research, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, describes how WD 1425+540 came to obtain carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen. This is the first time a white dwarf with nitrogen has been discovered, and one of only a few known examples of white dwarfs that have been impacted by a rocky body that was rich in water ice.

"If there is water in Kuiper belt-like objects around other stars, as there now appears to be, then when rocky planets form they need not contain life's ingredients," said Siyi Xu, the study's lead author, a postdoctoral scholar at the European Southern Observatory in Germany who earned her doctorate at UCLA.

"Now we're seeing in a planetary system outside our solar system that there are minor planets where water, nitrogen and carbon are present in abundance, as in our solar system's Kuiper belt," Xu said. "If Earth obtained its water, nitrogen and carbon from the impact of such objects, then rocky planets in other planetary systems could also obtain their water, nitrogen and carbon this way."

A rocky planet that forms relatively close to its star would likely be dry, Young said.

"We would like to know whether in other planetary systems Kuiper belts exist with large quantities of water that could be added to otherwise dry planets," he said. "Our research suggests this is likely."

According to Zuckerman, the study doesn't settle the question of whether life in the universe is common.

"First you need an Earth-like world in its size, mass and at the proper distance from a star like our sun," he said, adding that astronomers still haven't found a planet that matches those criteria.

The researchers observed WD 1425+540 with the Keck Telescope in 2008 and 2014, and with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014. They analyzed the chemical composition of its atmosphere using an instrument called a spectrometer, which breaks light into wavelengths. Spectrometers can be tuned to the wavelengths at which scientists know a given element emits and absorbs light; scientists can then determine the element's presence by whether it emits or absorbs light of certain characteristic wavelengths. In the new study, the researchers saw the elements in the white dwarf's atmosphere because they absorbed some of the background light from the white dwarf.

###

In addition to Xu, Young and Zuckerman, co-authors of the research are Michael Jura, a UCLA professor of astronomy who died in 2016; Beth Klein, a former graduate student of Jura's; and Patrick Dufour, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Montreal.

{ https://www.eurekalert.org/ }

Alien abductee' reveals what it was like to be kidnapped and see a real UFO

A MAN who claims he was abducted by aliens has unveiled his experience in a groundbreaking video presentation.

By Andrew McDonald 

{ http://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

Palm Springs witness beleives helicopter was observing UFO

Speculations about UFO existence has once again been revived after an alleged eyewitness at Lincoln has reported watching and videotaping what appeared to be an unknown object following a jet. The aircraft is then said to have maneuvered back, which gives the impression it was moved to avoid colliding with the strange object. In the video, the witness has explained that a black unidentified object - which experts say could also be a drone or even a bird - can be seen at the same time as the pilot appears to make a sharp movement.

UFO Drives Passenger Jet Away

In one of his statements reported by UFO News and Investigations, the eyewitness has claimed that he has been told that military pilots were currently training in the mountains around where he lives and that he has always enjoyed seeing them fly through. Additionally, the witness stated that seeing jets was a usual thing for him so the moment that he saw what he believes to be a UFO, he even did a double take, because there was something following it.

Another UFO Sighting

Furthermore, according to reports revealed by Daily Disruption, the witness was found to have immediately taken out his mobile phone just in time to take a video of the entire incident. People who have seen the video said that the clip reportedly lasted for ten seconds, which shows the mysterious flying object while approaching the jet. It was found that the witness had actually felt excited and at the same time anxious about the sighting.

As of the press time, the witness added that he has already reported the incident to the Mutual UFO Network. Ultimately, New Hampshire MUFON Field Investigator Breann Smith was said to be the one responsible for the investigation. Open Minds TV, who was also able to examine the video, said that the object definitely looked eerie.

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STRONG EVIDENCE OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL ARTIFICIAL SURFACE INTERVENTIONS FOUND ON MARS, ACCORDING TO NEW STUDY

  

A new study published in the Journal of Space Exploration titled “The Mounds of Cydonia: Elegant Geology, or Tetrahedral Geometry and Reactions of Pythagoras and Dirac?” has added to the already robust evidence pointing to “artificial surface interventions” on Mars. The main premise of the article is that these structures, if indeed artificial, “provide an elegant and concise way for an intelligent species to transmit to another intelligence evidence that it understands the basics of tetrahedral geometry, prime numbers, and the quantum mechanics of the electrons spin, thereby giving additional evidence for the possibility of intelligent intervention.”

In 1976, the United States sent a pair of space probes, known as Viking 1 and Viking 2, to Mars. Viking 1 was launched on August 20th, 1975, and Viking 2 was launched in September of the same year. Both probes photographed the surface of Mars from orbit, and one studied the planet from the surface. Since then, more pictures have been taken, and this particular study is based on high resolution images from the ESA Mars express and NASA orbiter HiRise cameras, and deals with the structures that have been found in the Cyndonia region of Mars.

A Mathematical Mystery 

An initial analysis, published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 1999, was conducted by Dr. Horace Crater, a physics professor at the University of Tennessee Space Institute (UTSI), alongside Professor Stanley V. McDaniel. During this time, only the 1976 Viking photos were available, taken from many kilometres above the surface of the planet, with a resolution of 47 metres per pixel. In 2006, the European Space Agency (ESA) rephotographed the same area at a much better resolution, confirming the existence of the “mounds” as well as the tight, precise mound layout.

The recent paper, published in Space Exploration, and also authored by Horace Crater alongside Professor Stanley V. McDaniel, the Founder of The Society for Planetary SETI Research.

McDaniel and Ananda Sirisena, reinforces the strange configuration by comparing three datasets. The resolution of the ESA 2006 photos is 13.7 metres per pixel and that of NASA’s MRO HiRise 2014 images is 5 metres per pixel. This is compared to the original 47m per pixel Viking shots. Presented below are the mounds from all three spacecraft, showing clearly the parallel lines and right-angled triangles formed by their layout. Is there a message implicit in this ground plan?

Below is a set of slides sent to me by one of the authors that he commonly uses in his presentations to elaborate on the uniqueness of the layout and it implications.

STRONG EVIDENCE OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL ARTIFICIAL SURFACE INTERVENTIONS FOUND ON MARS, ACCORDING TO NEW STUDY

  

A new study published in the Journal of Space Exploration titled “The Mounds of Cydonia: Elegant Geology, or Tetrahedral Geometry and Reactions of Pythagoras and Dirac?” has added to the already robust evidence pointing to “artificial surface interventions” on Mars. The main premise of the article is that these structures, if indeed artificial, “provide an elegant and concise way for an intelligent species to transmit to another intelligence evidence that it understands the basics of tetrahedral geometry, prime numbers, and the quantum mechanics of the electrons spin, thereby giving additional evidence for the possibility of intelligent intervention.”

In 1976, the United States sent a pair of space probes, known as Viking 1 and Viking 2, to Mars. Viking 1 was launched on August 20th, 1975, and Viking 2 was launched in September of the same year. Both probes photographed the surface of Mars from orbit, and one studied the planet from the surface. Since then, more pictures have been taken, and this particular study is based on high resolution images from the ESA Mars express and NASA orbiter HiRise cameras, and deals with the structures that have been found in the Cyndonia region of Mars.

A Mathematical Mystery 

An initial analysis, published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 1999, was conducted by Dr. Horace Crater, a physics professor at the University of Tennessee Space Institute (UTSI), alongside Professor Stanley V. McDaniel. During this time, only the 1976 Viking photos were available, taken from many kilometres above the surface of the planet, with a resolution of 47 metres per pixel. In 2006, the European Space Agency (ESA) rephotographed the same area at a much better resolution, confirming the existence of the “mounds” as well as the tight, precise mound layout.

The recent paper, published in Space Exploration, and also authored by Horace Crater alongside Professor Stanley V. McDaniel, the Founder of The Society for Planetary SETI Research.

McDaniel and Ananda Sirisena, reinforces the strange configuration by comparing three datasets. The resolution of the ESA 2006 photos is 13.7 metres per pixel and that of NASA’s MRO HiRise 2014 images is 5 metres per pixel. This is compared to the original 47m per pixel Viking shots. Presented below are the mounds from all three spacecraft, showing clearly the parallel lines and right-angled triangles formed by their layout. Is there a message implicit in this ground plan?

Below is a set of slides sent to me by one of the authors that he commonly uses in his presentations to elaborate on the uniqueness of the layout and it implications.

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