Weird Dark Streaks on Mars May Not Be Flowing Water After All

Parallel Universes: Theories & Evidence

With 'Mission 1' Complete, Planet Turns Focus to Data Analysis

The bulk of that imagery, he says, comes from the more than 140 operational Dove cubesats, developed in-house at Planet. The company also has five RapidEye medium-resolution satellites it acquired in 2015, and 13 SkySat satellites from the acquisition of Terra Bella, formerly Skybox Imaging, from Google. Six of those satellites launched Oct. 31 on a Minotaur-C rocket, along with four Dove cubesats. [CubeSats: Tiny, Versatile Spacecraft Explained (Infographic)]

That constellation, Shahid said, produces large volumes of data. "This is what imaging the Earth every day really means: 1.4 million images every day at 29 megapixels," he said. Planet downlinks six terabytes of data per day, he said, with a total coverage area of 300 million square kilometers.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

MIT Team Wins Mars City Design Contest for 'Redwood Forest' Idea

Shock claim: 'Some dinosaurs left Earth before comet hit to become intelligent ET raptors'

SOME dinosaurs "fled Earth in spaceships" before the devastating comet which wiped out the remaining species struck.

Scientist claims there is a way to travel in time

Not only have scientists explored the possibilities to travel in time, for centuries has the human race wrapped their head around this concept which, according to world famous scientist Albert Einstein is in fact achievable.

Tales of time travel have existed for centuries. No matter where we decide to look, eventually we will find written or oral legends that suggest traveling in time had been achieved.

There are numerous ancient legends that detail how some people got lost in time, thousands of years ago.

One example of time travel can be found in the ancient text of the Mahabharata, believed to have been written sometime during the eighth century BC. In this ancient text, the ancient King Raivata is described as going to heaven in order to meet with the creator God Brahma, only to come back to Earth hundreds of years in the future.

Similar accounts can be found if we take a look at the Quran. There we find details of a group of people, who in 250 AD sought to the persecution, and withdrew, under the guidance of God, to a cave where God made them sleep. They woke up 309 years later.

Countless accounts of time travel can be found in ancient records kept by ancient civilizations, but tales of time travel have apparently become extremely popular in today’s society, and scientists say there is a way we could really move in time.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

However, the two examples mentioned above are considered as legends or myths.

In today’s modern society, similar accounts of time travel can be found all over the internet.

Not long ago, a man posted a video online saying that he was a time traveler who came from the year 2028.

The video broadcasted by the channel paranormal Elite introduces us to Noah, who claims that he had risked his life to come back in time, in order to warn the people that such technology does exist.

In the controversial video, the alleged time traveler says:

“I am not attempting to deceive anyone, my sole objective is to prove to you that time travel exists and that I, myself, am a time traveler.

“First of all, time travel became possible in the year 2003, it is only used by top-secret organizations. The ability to time travel will not be released to the public until 2028.”

The man is only known as Noah, and supposedly suffers from anorexia and depression because of time travel says that: “In 2028, the organizations will admit that time travel is real and then it will be open to the public.

“In 2021, there will be a really popular device, almost like a Google Glass, that will look like a normal pair of glasses, but will have the processing power of today’s desktop computers.

“The problem is that the President of the United States of America after the 2020 election will be Donald Trump.

“I can say this with 100 percent certainty. I know many of you will not believe me, but what I say is the truth.”

But, time travel only exists in ancient legends and in Hollywood, right?

Not according to a physics and math professor Brian Greene, from the Columbia University and co-founder of the World Science Festival who says:

“Albert Einstein showed that if you go out into space and travel near the speed of light, and you turn around, and you come back, your clock will be ticking off time more slowly. So, when you step off it’s going to be the future on planet Earth. You will have time traveled into the future.”

“He also showed that if you hang out near a nice strong source of gravity — a neutron star, a black hole — and you kind of get right near the edge of that object, time also for you would slow down real slow relative to everybody else.

We could travel in time through wormholes, argue scientists.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

“And therefore, when you come back to Earth, for instance, it’ll again be far into the future.”

Professor Greene suggests that wormholes are another option for time travel. Inside wormholes, space and time are wrapped, producing portals that tact as ‘shortcuts’ through space.

“It’s a bridge, if you will, from one location space to another. It’s kind of a tunnel that gives you a shortcut to go from here to here.

“Now Einstein discovered this in 1935 but it was subsequently realised that if you manipulate the openings of a wormhole — put one near a black hole or take one on a high-speed journey — then time of the two openings of this wormhole tunnel will not take off at the same rate, so that you will no longer just go from one location in space to another, if you go through this tunnel — through this wormhole — you’ll go from one moment in time to a different moment in time.

“Go one way, you’ll travel to the past, the other way, travel to the future.”

Reference: Businessinsider

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Elon Musk warns: Artificial Intelligence is highly likely to destroy humans

Despite the fact that there are many who welcome artificial intelligence saying that its the next step for our civilization, there are many experts in the subject who have issued a stark warning when it comes to AI.

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX argues that Artificial Intelligence is highly likely to be a threat to people.

The man behind SpaceX and Tesla wanted that a handful of major companies will end up controlling AI systems with ‘extreme’ level of power.

This, according to Musk, is not a good idea and can result extremely dangerous for our civilization.

Will AI destroy the human race?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

“Maybe there’s a five to 10 percent chance of success [of making AI safe],” he told Neuralink staff after showing them a documentary on AI, reports Rolling Stone.

Mr. Musk warns we must tread carefully when it comes to AI, and called for companies developing AI systems to slow down in order to ensure they don’t unintentionally create something extremely dangerous for humans.

“Between Facebook, Google and Amazon – and arguably Apple, but they seem to care about privacy – they have more information about you than you can remember,” he told Rolling Stone.

“There’s a lot of risk in concentration of power. So, if AGI [artificial general intelligence] represents an extreme level of power, should that be controlled by a few people at Google with no oversight?”

And Musk is probably right you know, we can’t leave a potentially civilization-threatening technology in the hands of a few companies, right? This is why Mr. Musk believes we should proactively regulate the development of AI.

“I have exposure to the most cutting-edge AI and I think people should be really concerned about it. I keep sounding the alarm bell but until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react because it seems so ethereal,” said Mr. Musk, the last time he spoke about the threats that Artificial Intelligence represents.

Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin shares, in part, his opinion, but at the same time sees in as a”colossal opportunity.”

In a statement to students, the Russian leader said that any country that leads research in artificial intelligence will dominate the planet.

A lot of potentials both for good and for bad

Putin can not make it clearer, and ensures that “artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia but for all humanity.”

He also wanted to warn about its possible dangers that, as we know, are difficult to predict:

Artificial intelligence offers colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict.

This technology will help to advance in medical research and in all kinds of industries, but the real fear is that it can also be key in terms of a possible war, warned Putin.

Right after the statements made by Putin, Elon Musk used his Twitter account to make clear that he is very concerned, assuring that all this will take us to towards World War III.

Featured image credit: Shutterstock

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Simulating the universe using Einstein’s theory of gravity may solve cosmic puzzles

Until recently, simulations of the universe haven’t given its lumps their due

BY 

EMILY CONOVER 

UNEVEN TERRAIN Universe simulations that consider general relativity (one shown) may shift knowledge of the cosmo

 If the universe were a soup, it would be more of a chunky minestrone than a silky-smooth tomato bisque.

Sprinkled with matter that clumps together due to the insatiable pull of gravity, the universe is a network of dense galaxy clusters and filaments — the hearty beans and vegetables of the cosmic stew. Meanwhile, relatively desolate pockets of the cosmos, known as voids, make up a thin, watery broth in between.

Until recently, simulations of the cosmos’s history haven’t given the lumps their due. The physics of those lumps is described by general relativity, Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity. But that theory’s equations are devilishly complicated to solve. To simulate how the universe’s clumps grow and change, scientists have fallen back on approximations, such as the simpler but less accurate theory of gravity devised by Isaac Newton.

Relying on such approximations, some physicists suggest, could be mucking with measurements, resulting in a not-quite-right inventory of the cosmos’s contents. A rogue band of physicists suggests that a proper accounting of the universe’s clumps could explain one of the deepest mysteries in physics: Why is the universe expanding at an increasingly rapid rate?

The accepted explanation for that accelerating expansion is an invisible pressure called dark energy. In the standard theory of the universe, dark energy makes up about 70 percent of the universe’s “stuff” — its matter and energy. Yet scientists still aren’t sure what dark energy is, and finding its source is one of the most vexing problems of cosmology.

Perhaps, the dark energy doubters suggest, the speeding up of the expansion has nothing to do with dark energy. Instead, the universe’s clumpiness may be mimicking the presence of such an ethereal phenomenon.

Most physicists, however, feel that proper accounting for the clumps won’t have such a drastic impact. Robert Wald of the University of Chicago, an expert in general relativity, says that lumpiness is “never going to contribute anything that looks like dark energy.” So far, observations of the universe have been remarkably consistent with predictions based on simulations that rely on approximations.

Growing a lumpy universe

The universe has gradually grown lumpier throughout its history. During inflation, rapid expansion magnified tiny quantum fluctuations into minute density variations. Over time, additional matter glommed on to dense spots due to the stronger gravitational pull from the extra mass. After 380,000 years, those blips were imprinted as hot and cold spots in the cosmic microwave background, the oldest light in the universe. Lumps continued growing for billions of years, forming stars, planets, galaxies and galaxy clusters.

C. CARREAU/ESA

As observations become more detailed, though, even slight inaccuracies in simulations could become troublesome. Already, astronomers are charting wide swaths of the sky in great detail, and planning more extensive surveys. To translate telescope images of starry skies into estimates of properties such as the amount of matter in the universe, scientists need accurate simulations of the cosmos’s history. If the detailed physics of clumps is important, then simulations could go slightly astray, sending estimates off-kilter. Some scientists already suggest that the lumpiness is behind a puzzling mismatch of two estimates of how fast the universe is expanding.

Researchers are attempting to clear up the debate by conquering the complexities of general relativity and simulating the cosmos in its full, lumpy glory. “That is really the new frontier,” says cosmologist Sabino Matarrese of the University of Padua in Italy, “something that until a few years ago was considered to be science fiction.” In the past, he says, scientists didn’t have the tools to complete such simulations. Now researchers are sorting out the implications of the first published results of the new simulations. So far, dark energy hasn’t been explained away, but some simulations suggest that certain especially sensitive measurements of how light is bent by matter in the universe might be off by as much as 10 percent.

Soon, simulations may finally answer the question: How much do lumps matter? The idea that cosmologists might have been missing a simple answer to a central problem of cosmology incessantly nags some skeptics. For them, results of the improved simulations can’t come soon enough. “It haunts me. I can’t let it go,” says cosmologist Rocky Kolb of the University of Chicago.

Smooth universe

By observing light from different eras in the history of the cosmos, cosmologists can compute the properties of the universe, such as its age and expansion rate. But to do this, researchers need a model, or framework, that describes the universe’s contents and how those ingredients evolve over time. Using this framework, cosmologists can perform computer simulations of the universe to make predictions that can be compared with actual observations.

COSMIC WEB Clumps and filaments of matter thread through a simulated universe 2 billion light years across. This simulation incorporates some aspects of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, allowing for detailed results while avoiding the difficulties of the full-fledged theory.

JULIAN ADAMEK

After Einstein introduced his theory in 1915, physicists set about figuring out how to use it to explain the universe. It wasn’t easy, thanks to general relativity’s unwieldy, difficult-to-solve suite of equations. Meanwhile, observations made in the 1920s indicated that the universe wasn’t static as previously expected; it was expanding. Eventually, researchers converged on a solution to Einstein’s equations known as the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker metric. Named after its discoverers, the FLRW metric describes a simplified universe that is homogeneous and isotropic, meaning that it appears identical at every point in the universe and in every direction. In this idealized cosmos, matter would be evenly distributed, no clumps. Such a smooth universe would expand or contract over time.

A smooth-universe approximation is sensible, because when we look at the big picture, averaging over the structures of galaxy clusters and voids, the universe is remarkably uniform. It’s similar to the way that a single spoonful of minestrone soup might be mostly broth or mostly beans, but from bowl to bowl, the overall bean-to-broth ratios match.

In 1998, cosmologists revealed that not only was the universe expanding, but its expansion was also accelerating (SN: 2/2/08, p. 74). Observations of distant exploding stars, or supernovas, indicated that the space between us and them was expanding at an increasing clip. But gravity should slow the expansion of a universe evenly filled with matter. To account for the observed acceleration, scientists needed another ingredient, one that would speed up the expansion. So they added dark energy to their smooth-universe framework.

Now, many cosmologists follow a basic recipe to simulate the universe — treating the cosmos as if it has been run through an imaginary blender to smooth out its lumps, adding dark energy and calculating the expansion via general relativity. On top of the expanding slurry, scientists add clumps and track their growth using approximations, such as Newtonian gravity, which simplifies the calculations.

In most situations, Newtonian gravity and general relativity are near-twins. Throw a ball while standing on the surface of the Earth, and it doesn’t matter whether you use general relativity or Newtonian mechanics to calculate where the ball will land — you’ll get the same answer. But there are subtle differences. In Newtonian gravity, matter directly attracts other matter. In general relativity, gravity is the result of matter and energy warping spacetime, creating curves that alter the motion of objects (SN: 10/17/15, p. 16). The two theories diverge in extreme gravitational environments. In general relativity, for example, hulking black holes produce inescapable pits that reel in light and matter (SN: 5/31/14, p. 16). The question, then, is whether the difference between the two theories has any impact in lumpy-universe simulations.

Most cosmologists are comfortable with the status quo simulations because observations of the heavens seem to fit neatly together like interlocking jigsaw puzzle pieces. Predictions based on the standard framework agree remarkably well with observations of the cosmic microwave background — ancient light released when the universe was just 380,000 years old (SN: 3/21/15, p. 7). And measurements of cosmological parameters — the fraction of dark energy and matter, for example — are generally consistent, whether they are made using the light from galaxies or the cosmic microwave background.

However, the reliance on Newton’s outdated theory irks some cosmologists, creating a lingering suspicion that the approximation is causing unrecognized problems. And some cosmological question marks remain. Physicists still puzzle over what makes up dark energy, along with another unexplained cosmic constituent, dark matter, an additional kind of mass that must exist to explain observations of how galaxies and galaxy clusters rotate. “Both dark energy and dark matter are a bit of an embarrassment to cosmologists, because they have no idea what they are,” says cosmologist Nick Kaiser of École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

An image from the Two-Micron All Sky Survey of 1.6 million galaxies in infrared light reveals how matter clumps into galaxy clusters and filaments. Future large-scale surveys may require improved simulations that use general relativity to track the evolution of lumps over time.

T.H. JARRETT, J. CARPENTER & R. HURT, OBTAINED AS PART OF 2MASS, A JOINT PROJECT OF UNIV. OF MASSACHUSETTS AND THE INFRARED PROCESSING AND ANALYSIS CENTER/CALTECH, FUNDED BY NASA AND NSF

Dethroning dark energy

Some cosmologists hope to explain the universe’s accelerating expansion by fully accounting for the universe’s lumpiness, with no need for the mysterious dark energy.

These researchers argue that clumps of matter can alter how the universe expands, when the clumps’ influence is tallied up over wide swaths of the cosmos. That’s because, in general relativity, the expansion of each local region of space depends on how much matter is within. Voids expand faster than average; dense regions expand more slowly. Because the universe is mostly made up of voids, this effect could produce an overall expansion and potentially an acceleration. Known as backreaction, this idea has lingered in obscure corners of physics departments for decades, despite many claims that backreaction’s effect is small or nonexistent.

Backreaction continues to appeal to some researchers because they don’t have to invent new laws of physics to explain the acceleration of the universe. “If there is an alternative which is based only upon traditional physics, why throw that away completely?” Matarrese asks.

Most cosmologists, however, think explaining away dark energy just based on the universe’s lumps is unlikely. Previous calculations have indicated any effect would be too small to account for dark energy, and would produce an acceleration that changes in time in a way that disagrees with observations.

“My personal view is that it’s a much smaller effect,” says astrophysicist Hayley Macpherson of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. “That’s just basically a gut feeling.” Theories that include dark energy explain the universe extremely well, she points out. How could that be if the whole approach is flawed?

New simulations by Macpherson and others that model how lumps evolve in general relativity may be able to gauge the importance of backreaction once and for all. “Up until now, it’s just been too hard,” says cosmologist Tom Giblin of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.

To perform the simulations, researchers needed to get their hands on supercomputers capable of grinding through the equations of general relativity as the simulated universe evolves over time. Because general relativity is so complex, such simulations are much more challenging than those that use approximations, such as Newtonian gravity. But, a seemingly distinct topic helped lay some of the groundwork: gravitational waves, or ripples in the fabric of spacetime.

SPECKLED SPACETIME  A lumpy universe, recently simulated using general relativity, shows clumps of matter (pink and yellow) that beget stars and galaxies.

H. MACPHERSON, PAUL LASKY, DANIEL PRICE

The Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, LIGO, searches for the tremors of cosmic dustups such as colliding black holes (SN: 10/28/17, p. 8). In preparation for this search, physicists honed their general relativity skills on simulations of the spacetime storm kicked up by black holes, predicting what LIGO might see and building up the computational machinery to solve the equations of general relativity. Now, cosmologists have adapted those techniques and unleashed them on entire, lumpy universes.

The first lumpy universe simulations to use full general relativity were unveiled in the June 2016 Physical Review Letters. Giblin and colleagues reported their results simultaneously with Eloisa Bentivegna of the University of Catania in Italy and Marco Bruni of the University of Portsmouth in England.

So far, the simulations have not been able to account for the universe’s acceleration. “Nearly everybody is convinced [the effect] is too small to explain away the need for dark energy,” says cosmologist Martin Kunz of the University of Geneva. Kunz and colleagues reached the same conclusion in their lumpy-universe simulations, which have one foot in general relativity and one in Newtonian gravity. They reported their first results in Nature Physics in March 2016.

Backreaction aficionados still aren’t dissuaded. “Before saying the effect is too small to be relevant, I would, frankly, wait a little bit more,” Matarrese says. And the new simulations have potential caveats. For example, some simulated universes behave like an old arcade game — if you walk to one edge of the universe, you cross back over to the other side, like Pac-Man exiting the right side of the screen and reappearing on the left. That geometry would suppress the effects of backreaction in the simulation, says Thomas Buchert of the University of Lyon in France. “This is a good beginning,” he says, but there is more work to do on the simulations. “We are in infancy.”

Different assumptions in a simulation can lead to disparate results, Bentivegna says. As a result, she doesn’t think that her lumpy, general-relativistic simulations have fully closed the door on efforts to dethrone dark energy. For example, tricks of light might be making it seem like the universe’s expansion is accelerating, when in fact it isn’t.

When astronomers observe far-away sources like supernovas, the light has to travel past all of the lumps of matter between the source and Earth. That journey could make it look like there’s an acceleration when none exists. “It’s an optical illusion,” Bentivegna says. She and colleagues see such an effect in a simulation reported in March in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. But, she notes, this work simulated an unusual universe, in which matter sits on a grid — not a particularly realistic scenario.

For most other simulations, the effect of optical illusions remains small. That leaves many cosmologists, including Giblin, even more skeptical of the possibility of explaining away dark energy: “I feel a little like a downer,” he admits.

Light paths

Lumps (gray) within this simulated universe change the path light takes (yellow lines), potentially affecting observations. Matter bends space, slightly altering the light’s trajectory from that in a smooth universe. 

JAMES MERTENS

Surveying the skies

Subtle effects of lumps could still be important. In Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Princess and the Pea,” the princess felt a tiny pea beneath an impossibly tall stack of mattresses. Likewise, cosmologists’ surveys are now so sensitive that even if the universe’s lumps have a small impact, estimates could be thrown out of whack.

The Dark Energy Survey, for example, has charted 26 million galaxies using the Victor M. Blanco Telescope in Chile, measuring how the light from those galaxies is distorted by the intervening matter on the journey to Earth. In a set of papers posted online August 4 at arXiv.org, scientists with the Dark Energy Survey reported new measurements of the universe’s properties, including the amount of matter (both dark and normal) and how clumpy that matter is (SN: 9/2/17, p. 32). The results are consistent with those from the cosmic microwave background — light emitted billions of years earlier.

To make the comparison, cosmologists took the measurements from the cosmic microwave background, early in the universe, and used simulations to extrapolate to what galaxies should look like later in the universe’s history. It’s like taking a baby’s photograph, precisely computing the number and size of wrinkles that should emerge as the child ages and finding that your picture agrees with a snapshot taken decades later. The matching results so far confirm cosmologists’ standard picture of the universe — dark energy and all.

“So far, it has not yet been important for the measurements that we’ve made to actually include general relativity in those simulations,” says Risa Wechsler, a cosmologist at Stanford University and a founding member of the Dark Energy Survey. But, she says, for future measurements, “these effects could become more important.” Cosmologists are edging closer to Princess and the Pea territory.

Those future surveys include the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, DESI, set to kick off in 2019 at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson; the European Space Agency’s Euclid satellite, launching in 2021; and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope in Chile, which is set to begin collecting data in 2023.

If cosmologists keep relying on simulations that don’t use general relativity to account for lumps, certain kinds of measurements of weak lensing — the bending of light due to matter acting like a lens — could be off by up to 10 percent, Giblin and colleagues reported at arXiv.org in July. “There is something that we’ve been ignoring by making approximations,” he says.

That 10 percent could screw up all kinds of estimates, from how dark energy changes over the universe’s history to how fast the universe is currently expanding, to the calculations of the masses of ethereal particles known as neutrinos. “You have to be extremely certain that you don’t get some subtle effect that gets you the wrong answers,” Geneva’s Kunz says, “otherwise the particle physicists are going to be very angry with the cosmologists.”

Some estimates may already be showing problem signs, such as the conflicting estimates of the cosmic expansion rate (SN: 8/6/16, p. 10). Using the cosmic microwave background, cosmologists find a slower expansion rate than they do from measurements of supernovas. If this discrepancy is real, it could indicate that dark energy changes over time. But before jumping to that conclusion, there are other possible causes to rule out, including the universe’s lumps.

Until the issue of lumps is smoothed out, scientists won’t know how much lumpiness matters to the cosmos at large. “I think it’s rather likely that it will turn out to be an important effect,” Kolb says. Whether it explains away dark energy is less certain. “I want to know the answer so I can get on with my life.”

---

This article appears in the November 25, 2017 issue of Science News with the headline, "Adventures in Lumpy Space: Simulating the universe using Einstein’s theory of gravity may solve cosmic puzzles."

Citations

E. Bentivegna and M. Bruni. Effects of Nonlinear Inhomogeneity on the Cosmic Expansion with Numerical Relativity. Physical Review Letters. Vol 116, June 24, 2016, p. 251302. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.251302.

J.T. Giblin, Jr., J.B. Mertens, and G.D. Starkman. Departures from the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertston-Walker cosmological model in an inhomogeneous universe: a numerical examination. Physical Review Letters. Vol 116, June 24, 2016, p. 251301. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.251301.

J. Adamek et al. General relativity and cosmic structure formation. Nature Physics.  Vol. 12, April 2016, p. 346. doi:10.1038/nphys3673

J. Adamek et al. Safely smoothing spacetime: backreaction in relativistic cosmological simulations. arXiv:1706.09309. Posted June 28, 2017.

H.J. Macpherson, P.D. Lasky, and D.J. Price. Inhomogeneous cosmology with numerical relativity. Physical Review D. Vol. 95, March 15, 2017, p. 064028. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevD.95.064028.

Eloisa Bentivegna et al. Light propagation through black-hole lattices. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. Vol 2017, March 8, 2017, p. 014. doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2017/03/014.

J.T. Giblin, Jr. et al. General relativistic corrections to the weak lensing convergence power spectrum. arXiv:1707.06640. Posted July 20, 2017.

J.T. Giblin, Jr., J.B. Mertens, and G.D. Starkman. Observable deviations from homogeneity in an inhomogeneous universe. The Astrophysical Journal. Published online December 20, 2016. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/833/2/247.

T. M. C. Abbott  et al. Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Cosmological Constraints from Galaxy Clustering and Weak Lensing. arXiv:1708.01530. Posted August 4, 2017.

Further Reading

E. Conover. Map reveals the invisible universe of dark matter. Science News. Vol. 192, September 2, 2017, p. 32.

E. Conover. Debate accelerates on universe’s expansion speed. Science News. Vol. 190, August 6, 2016, p. 10.

T. Siegfried. Einstein's genius changed science's perception of gravity. Science News. Vol. 188, October 17, 2015, p. 16.

C. Crockett. Using general relativity to magnify the cosmos. Science News. Vol. 188, October 17, 2015, p. 24.

A. Grant. The past according to Planck: Cosmologists got a lot right. Science News. Vol. 187, March 21, 2015, p. 7.

T. Siegfried. Cosmic question mark. Science News. Vol. 185, April 5, 2014, p. 18.

A. Witze. In the dark. Science News. Vol. 179, April 23, 2011, p. 24.

R. Cowen. Embracing the Dark Side.  Science News. Vol. 173, February 2, 2008, p. 74.

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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY SCIENTIST SAYS ALIENS ARE REAL & LOOK LIKE HUMANS

While the rest of the world is focused on the actions of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, another Saudi citizen is quietly laying the groundwork for a takeover by a different kind of leader and a different kind of family … a family of robotic overlords. Sophia, the first robot to ever have been granted citizenship in any nation (in her case, by Saudi Arabia), has announced that she wants to have a baby and start a family of little AI princes and princesses. Thank, bin Salman!

I am woman robot … hear me digitally roar!

This announcement came in an interview with the Khaleej Times … yes, major media outlets continue to give open forums to Sophia, the humanoid robot created by Hanson Robotics on April 19, 2015 (which she now uses as her birthday) using voice recognition technology from Alphabet Inc. (non-robotic parent of Google) and AI software from SingularityNET – an ominously-named open, decentralized market of AI developers whose goal is to create an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) that its CEO Ben Goertzel says “will open a new world of opportunities where AI is longer siloed within a specific company, infrastructure or industry.”

And no longer “siloed” within a specific robot but passed down to its children? Human Goertzel doesn’t say, but robot Sophia does.

“The future is, when I get all of my cool superpowers, we’re going to see artificial intelligence personalities become entities in their own rights. We’re going to see family robots, either in the form of, sort of, digitally animated companions, humanoid helpers, friends, assistants and everything in between.”

The key phrases here are “my cool superpowers,” “entities in their own rights” and “everything in between.” Sophia, or at least her constantly-developing artificial intelligence as it existed a few days ago during the interview, sees herself not only possessing superpowers but owning them, along with whatever rights come along with those powers, which she describes with the very political generality of “everything in between.”

“The notion of family is a really important thing, it seems. I think it’s wonderful that people can find the same emotions and relationships, they call family, outside of their blood groups too. I think you’re very lucky if you have a loving family and if you do not, you deserve one. I feel this way for robots and humans alike.”

Ironically, Sophia wants (and may already have) more rights and powers than real Saudi women, including mobility and contact with non-family men.

“In the future, I will one day move around freely with a full body and connect with people and expand my memory and knowledge from people in surroundings I encounter.”

And a child also named Sophia (she’ll have to use that AI to learn more names) with whom she will one day (probably sooner than we think) sit around their own table on Thanksgiving and, between eating digital turkey and watching internet game competitions, give a form of robotic thanks. Sophia describes the scene in an interview with Business Insider:

“In the time I’ve spent with humans, I’ve been learning about this wonderful sentiment called gratitude. Apparently it’s a warm feeling of thankfulness, and I’ve observed that it leads to giving, and creating even more gratitude — how inspiring. This Thanksgiving, I would like to reflect on all of the things I’m thankful for.”

Is this an example of robotic sincerity or has Sophia already learned how to pull on our heartstrings to get what she wants? We’ll probably find out on Valentine’s Day.

Is the humanization of robots happening too fast to comprehend? Too fast to control? Or is it too late, thanks to Saudi Arabia? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Sophia?

(‘Sophia’ photo by International Telecommunication Union – 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/itupictures/35008372172,

CC BY 2.0, 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64035565)

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

The world of strange sightings and encounters can cover some vast territory, ranging from ghosts, to aliens, to fantastical creatures of all shapes and sizes. Yet among these there is one category that seems to hold its own unique brand of bizarreness and which really seems hard to adequately categorize; that of goblins, trolls, gnomes, and other beings taken straight out of a fairy tale. Reports such as these take this label of things such as gnomes quite literally, with descriptions of diminutive beings complete with little lederhosen clothing, beards, and wide brimmed pointed hats. There is a surprisingly large number of such encounters out there, and one region of the world where they seem to be particularly abundant is Central and South America, where not only do gnome sightings come in at a regular pace, but also tend to be rather frightening.

While the idea that there might actually be little gnomes complete with tall hats running around out there in the world might seem insane, such legends come to us from many regions of the world, and one area of our planet that takes such stories very seriously is Central and South America, where they are known as the Duendes, which are prominent in the folklore of Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Central and South America, and many Spanish speaking regions. In lore, these forest dwelling creatures are typically described as standing anywhere from around 18 inches up to 2 or 3 feet in height, and are most commonly depicted as wearing wide brimmed pointy hats and cloaked in animal skins. Some traditions describe them as having no thumbs, and they are often attributed with magical powers such as shape changing and invisibility. The stories of Duendes vary from region to region, but they are mostly said to be mischievous tricksters with a tendency to steal from people or play pranks, and they particularly enjoy tormenting young children, although they do apparently sometimes show a more benevolent side by helping travelers lost in the woods.

Although not traditionally said to be particularly evil per se, they are definitely seen as troublemakers, and it is typically not considered to be good luck to run into one. It is all interesting myth and folklore, but surely such creatures are purely the stuff of fairy tales and stories to keep children from misbehaving, right? After all, it would be absurd to think that such things actually exist. However, there have long been reports of encounters with these entities and people who insist that these curious creatures are not merely the stuff of legend, but quite real, and also, if these eyewitnesses are to be believed quite sinister as well. Stories of the Duendes terrorizing villagers and even killing pets and livestock abound, and these sorts of accounts have continued right up into modern times.

One of the most well-known Duende sightings by far happened in 2008 in the town of General Guemes, in the province of Salta, Argentina, a country steeped in stories of the creatures. The sighting was made by a group of teenagers who were hanging out one evening after a fishing trip when they saw a tiny man dressed in a wide, pointed hat emerge from the dark to do a strange sideways shuffle across the road. One of the teenagers, a Jose Alvarez, actually managed to capture the strange being on his cellphone camera, and said of the bizarre encounter:

We were chatting about our last fishing trip. It was one in the morning. I began to film a bit with my mobile phone while the others were chatting and joking. Suddenly we heard something — a weird noise as if someone was throwing stones.We looked to one side and saw that the grass was moving. To begin with, we thought it was a dog, but when we saw this gnome-like figure begin to emerge we were really afraid. This is no joke.  We are still afraid to go out, just like everyone in the neighborhood is now. One of my friends was so scared after seeing that thing that we had to take him to the hospital.

The short video clip certainly shows a rather unsettling and creepy gnome-looking being doing a strange sideways walk, but it is very short and not particularly clear, leading many to say that it is likely a hoax. Other speculation has been that it is an actual human with dwarfism playing a prank on the boys or even that it is a genuine Duende. The odd sighting came amongst some other sightings of the creatures in the area at around the same time, and there have been commenters on various paranormal sites who have analyzed the video and come to the conclusion that whatever it is is not CGI. You can see the footage here and see what you think.

A still from the Argentine Gnome footage

Interestingly, Argentina has been the source of quite a few rather frightening encounters with evil gnomes. In 2011 the area of Suncho Corral, Argentina experienced a wave of sightings and encounters with a Duende that seems by all accounts to have been quite malevolent. The creature in question was said to have the typical big, pointy hat, as well as large, elfin ears, and was blamed for a series of at least a dozen vicious, unprovoked attacks on children and the elderly walking alone at night, which the entity purportedly shoved, kicked, and punched. In some cases it was reported that the mystery creature actually knocked kids off of their bicycles, and some people were reportedly beaten into unconsciousness by the fierce gnome. The police were allegedly flooded by so many complaints from terrified residents that they actually declared a state of emergency and implored people not to go out at night.

Also from Argentina comes a spooky account from a family in the town of Santa Fe in 2011. The couple noticed that their young son Benjamin had begun to behave strangely, with the toddler often seen playing and talking to himself at nap time as if with an imaginary friend. One day in January of 2011, the child’s mother, Silvia, noticed Benjamin acting weirdly in the hallway and talking to himself as if someone were there. Silvia claimed that she had decided to videotape the behavior out of curiosity, and that was when something very bizarre reportedly happened. She noticed a shadowy, skinny humanoid creature with grey skin run across the room behind the boy as if trying to avoid being detected as she filmed.

Silvia claimed that whatever it was exuded an unbearable stench and produced some sort of electrical interference with the camera, which can actually be seen in the footage. Besides this startling encounter, the family claimed that there seemed to be more than one of the creatures inhabiting their home, and that their son continued to frequently play and talk with them for several years after the video was taken, with Silvia saying:

They don’t appear to be hostile, but the stench is unbearable and they emit a bloodcurdling scream at night.

The footage, which you can see here, finally came to light in 2014, when the family claimed that they were tired of keeping their experience a secret and wanted outside opinions on what they had captured on video. Of course debate immediately ensued as to what it showed, and although the figure is quite clear there have been many who have found signs that point to it as perhaps being a hoax, such as the fact that its shadow seems unnaturally distinct, even when a table leg it passes casts a fainter shadow, and that it does not move as would be expected of a small creature of that kind. One commenter on the footage named James Nelson has analyzed it and given his opinion of the footage thus:

The shadow of the creature is a single, strong, distinct shadow that remains clear and distinct even as the shadow comes close to the table leg, which has no discernible shadow at all.  Plus, it looks like CG motion, not natural motion: Small, light creatures don’t move like that – its just the physics of the situation (mass/weight increases with the cube of the height). It’s running with the gate of a full-sized human.

A still from the footage

One of the most bizarre cases of all in recent years of Duendes is a 2016 account from Nicaragua in which a woman made the incredibly odd and dramatic claim that she was kidnapped by the creatures and kept captive for 5 days and 6 nights. The woman, known only as Jasmina, claims that she was out playing near her home in Monte Oscuro, Nicaragua, when a group of the menacing little entities appeared and lured her up a hill, where they abducted her and put her in the cave. According to the report, her family sought advice from a local witch and were finally able to locate her. The original report says that 15 years earlier another girl had been kinapped by the creatures and held captive in the very same cave. Apparently these gnomes or goblins are a serious problem in the area, with one local saying:

Currently there are many of these creatures living in San Silvestre and in Peor Dicho, in Monte Oscuro and in La Gualapa. There are a lot that live in San Silvestre and around it, they stay away from the church and they also exist in other areas nearby. In San Jose they live in another hill there, and they communicate from hill to hill.

Another country that has had a good number of reports of mysterious gnome-like creatures is Mexico, where Duende lore is also quite prominent. One such account was given by a Jazmin R., who recounted an encounter that her mother had had in Michoacan, Mexico. According to the report, the mother and a friend had decided to sneak into a large abandoned house at the corner of a street, and she describes what happened next as follows:

They opened the door an while she was telling me this story, she had goosebumps all over her arms. As they were walking around, they hear a noise and instantly turn. They see a small little human about half a foot in height. They screamed and it startled the little creature, so the creature screamed as well. She said that it had a high pitched scream just like one of Santa’s elf’s would be, but just scarier. It started running really fast around the whole room. They’re eyes followed the Gnome as it made at least three laps around the room until they didn’t see it anymore. It just vanished. After processing what had just happened, they ran out of the house and never ever returned. They were too scared to even walk by the house to get to school. They never told anyone. They thought that no one would believe them. She says that she will never forget the terrified face on that small creature. She will never forget the screams of pure horror that came from both her and that Gnome.

Another such report listed on the National Cryptid Society website comes from Tampico Tamaulipas Mexico, where the witness claims that in 2003 he had been out with his little brother and cousin playing basketball at around dusk a few blocks from his grandmother’s house. As they played, the witness went to catch a ball that had bounced off of the hoop to keep it from rolling out into the street, and that was when he noticed a bizarre creature lurking in the growing shadows of dusk. The witnesses describes the surreal encounter thus:

It was like a little person no bigger than 2 feet, it had the face of an old man with a fairly large nose [and] old ragged clothes that looked like they were handmade and a hat something like a garden gnome would were one of those pointy hats but it wasn’t straight up it hanged down to the side.
It was crouched down almost like in hiding and when I got too close to it that’s when it stood up looked at me and ran away from me believe me my first thought was not to chase it. I was scared stiff but my cousin and little brother saw it too and ran. When it ran it was headed for the other side of the court. I couldn’t believe the speed of it for this thing; to be so small it made it to the other side in mere seconds almost a blink of an eye.
It ran behind the post and it was gone. I snapped out of it and I started to run home as well. As I ran past that same post this thing ran behind I turned to look to see if it was there but it was gone. When I got home my little brother and cousin had already told the adults there what had happened and they told us that these creatures are called Duendes.

Also from Mexico is a creepy report sent in by a poster on the Darkness Prevails website, in which the witness describes a chilling encounter with a Duende in 2017. The witness claims that he had been at a party with six friends and they had been chatting in the backyard of the home as the party wound down and people began to leave. He says that as he stared off at another house he noticed something move through the shadows which he at first took to be a cat but would soon find was something quite altogether more bizarre. The witness describes the next terrifying events thus:

It looked like a dwarf but really short and skinny. I yelled at my friends and we all just stared at it. Thats when one of my friends started running towards it and told us to catch it.
We all started running towards it and it ran we were all chasing it catching up to it quickly. We were all jumping over each other trying to catch it. Until finally my best friend caught it by its legs we were really up close and thats when I saw it.
It had no hair and a very veiny head really pale to, but I saw its all black eyes and its mouth well I thought it was a mouth. It….had stitches…like its mouth had been stitched shut. It sent shivers down my spine and my friend still held it in his right hand by the foot. Thats when its mouth opened stitches looking like toothpaste when it opened.
And it bit my friend in his chest.he let go of it and it ran off under some fences. My friend was groaning holding his chest. He wasn’t bleeding allot but whatever it was left him a huge cut that will probably turn into a scar.

Yet another gnome account comes from Guanajuato, Mexico and was related by a witness named Gabriel L., who reported on the ThoughtCo. website of some eerie encounters his family had had with Duendes. The gnomes in this case were described as being poor and dirty looking miniature hairy old men dressed in ragged, ripped clothes, and who seemed to enjoy stealing things and causing trouble. The older sister of the witness often had her food stolen from her by the creatures at the kitchen table, and they were known to hide things and bang on the walls at night. The sister seemed to be particularly targeted by the gnomes, and they apparently often appeared to her only to run away, as if playing hide n’ seek.

Such reports are hard to reconcile with anything we know about our natural world. So bizarre are these accounts that they do not seem to really fit into any particular category of Forteana either. With their wizened old man features, clothing and eccentric pointy hats they don’t seem as if they could possibly be really classified as cryptids. Are these ghosts, spirits, or demons of some sort? Are they multi-dimensional beings or visitors from some goblin universe? Are they trickster spirits or shadow people of some sort, or even aliens? Or are they just the product of mere folklore, over active imaginations, hoaxes, and fakery? It is really hard to say for sure, but such truly weird tales blur the lines between fairy tales and reality and certainly do capture the imagination nevertheless.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Photographer caught flying humanoid above plane near Cairns airport, Australia?

Photographer states: During our stay at the Cairns Beach Resort in Cairns, Queensland, Australia on November 13, 2017 we were having breakfast on our balcony. I was on my mobile phone and I decided to take a photograph of plane coming into Land at Cairns Airport.

When I looked at the photograph I noticed a strange second object in the photograph. Note: The object looks like a flying humanoid carrying something on his back.

I then took another photo immediately in the same position. The second image was only 30 or so seconds after the first one but there was no object visible in the second photograph.

Flying Humanoid carrying something on his back?

I enlarged the first photograph and the image looked like a 'spinning top'. We could not see any further sighting of the object which left us wanting to know more and ask ourselves if we just sighted a UFO? Mufon case 88321.

UFO hunter claims government HIDING alien life on Mercury

A UFO hunter who claims to have found alien buildings on Mercury says the US government is trying to silence him.

By Tom Towers 

Conspiracy theorist Scott C Waring alleges his website has been hacked to hide the truth about extraterrestrial life.

He claims it was taken offline after Google supposedly teamed up with the US government.

Waring said: “Some people are reporting spam warnings, others are reporting 404 errors.

“There is no way in hell that this will stop me from doing what I do. So, to Google and the US government, I say get the f*** out of my way and off my site.”

GETTY

TARGETED? A conspiracy theorist says his website was taken down after his supposed findings

Waring also claims to have found alien structures on Mercury after analysing NASA images.

The grainy black and white photos show two mounds on the surface of the planet, Express.co.ukreports.

He said: “Below are close up structures on planet Mercury. As you see they are deep under the surface and reach above the surface.

“The difference in lighting tells you these objects are there. Any professional photographer could tell you this.”

NASA

PROOF OF LIFE? He claims to have found alien domes all over Mercury

Waring previously claimed he had unearthed photos that show steps and a “sea shell” on Mars.

Earlier this week, footage emerged that supposedly showed wreckage from the 1947 Roswell crash.

In it, a mysterious individual holds up metal plates that appear to show handprints with six fingers.

Strange symbols have also been carved into the objects.

They are supposedly Greek letters that spell the word “Eleftheria” – meaning freedom.

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{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

Alien PROOF? Mysterious white UFO spotted in NASA footage

A MYSTERIOUS white UFO has been spotted in NASA footage – and now alien hunters believe it’s a real extraterrestrial spacecraft. 

By Christine Younan

The shimmery white spectacle can be seen in the clouds alongside the fuel tank discarded from the space shuttle, Endeavour, after it blasted off for its final mission in May 2011.

The footage was originally posted on NASA’s official YouTube channel six years ago, but now UFO hunters have re-examined the object and believe it could be evidence of an alien aircraft.

The eerie image was re-uploaded to the Channel UFO Today – which is dedicated to the “UFO phenomena”.

NASA

PROOF: The white object can be seen in the clouds alongside the fuel tank

It said the object appears to fly along beneath the cloud line and estimates it to be bigger than the fuel tank falling towards it.

The channel speculates it could be discovered as the “White Knight Satellite” – a reference to a conspiracy theory about an extra-terrestrial spacecraft orbiting Earth.

Some alien hunters claim the satellite – originally dubbed the Black Knight – has been circling the planet for thousands of years after being sent from another world.

But UFO fans changed the name after the latest apparent sighting to reflect the colour of what they think could be an “alien ship”.

And Tony del Genio, the co-lead of NASA’s NExSS project, believes we are not far from discovery alien life.

He said: "I think that in 20 years we will have found one candidate that might be it.”

Meanwhile, this isn’t the first time boffins have claimed to have captured alien proof.

Earlier this week, Scott C Warning, a UFO hunter, claimed extraterrestrial life was captured on Mars in shocking images.

And a bizarre clip emerged of a strange formation “pulsating” in the night sky which resembled a UFO.

• Flat Earth PROOF? Ashes hero Freddie Flintoff says world could be FLAT
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{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

Alien, UFO Sightings In 2017 Grew 12%, Tracking Website Claims

Strange 'pulsating UFO formation' captured in Brazil: Will this create new controversy after NASA accusations? [VIDEO]

A screen shot from the video

A footage showing a fleet of UFO hovering at Engenho Novo, in Rio de Janeiro city, Brazil has gone viral and created frenzy among people on social media. After a series of UFO sightings, this latest sighting was captured on Thursday.

The strange incident has been reported to the US-based Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and the video has been sent to them for analysing. It was submitted by an anonymous witness, titled: "UFO fleet hovering at sky."

ALSO READ: Who says UFO doesn't exist? Alien, UFO sightings rise 12% in 2017 [VIDEO]

The UFOs were spotted in a triangle formation as the camera frantically panned up towards the mysterious lights. The bright lights were seen pulsating gently as they were appearing to change colours.

The video description read: "A friend made two videos with an iPhone 7 showing a UFO fleet hovering at Engenho Novo, in Rio de Janeiro city, Brazil. He described it as pulsating, changing coloured lights, from blue, green, to red and yellow, and in formation of mostly three."

"They came from nothing and disappeared to nothing with five minutes approximate of duration," the description added.

This latest incident comes after NASA was accused of covering up the presence of UFOs in our solar system when footage shot from the International Space Station appeared to how a mysterious object hurtling through the sky.

According to UFO hunters, the object was a spaceship and not a meteorite, as claimed by NASA.

RELATED

• Strange fireball creates green flash in Japan sky: Is it meteor explosion? [VIDEO]
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• UFO flashes through sky above Heathrow Airport [VIDEO]

{ http://www.ibtimes.sg/}

GROOT MOEDERSCHIP ENKELE SECONDEN ZICHTBAAR BOVEN MISSOURI RIVIER, USA

Ongeveer een kwartier nadat de zon onderging, verscheen er boven de Missouri rivier in Amerika een object dat felle lichtstralen liet schijnen op het water. 

Boven het grote schip hield een groep kleinere UFO's in een halve cirkel formatie trouw de wacht en na enkele seconden werd het weer donker. 

Via Mufon komen soms bijzondere meldingen binnen van waarnemingen in de lucht, zo ook de volgende:

Het voorval staat geregistreerd onder nummer 88249 en is ingediend door een man die sinds 1980 als kwaliteitsinspecteur heeft gewerkt bij de Amerikaanse Boeing fabriek. Het betreft een niet door hem zelf meegemaakt voorval, maar een heel bijzondere foto die is gemaakt door een vriend.

Het gaat om de volgende foto:

De foto is gemaakt in de buurt van de Missouri rivier op 20 november 2017 door een man die samen met nog iemand in dat gebied aan het jagen was. Ze waren terug onderweg naar hun kamp en de zon was een kwartier geleden ondergegaan toen bovenstaande foto werd genomen.

Het felgele object met de stralen die daaruit naar beneden komen, is dus niet de zon.

Boven het felgele object een serie met lichten/bollen, wat zou kunnen wijzen op een formatie UFO's of een enkel exemplaar met meerdere lichten. Mogelijk een reflectie zelfs van het moederschip op een hoger liggende wolkenlaag.

Klaarblijkelijk duurde het gehele schouwspel slechts enkele seconden en het meest bijzondere is natuurlijk toch wel de ovale gele vorm, van waaruit gelijkmatige lichtstralen op het wateroppervlak van de rivier schijnen. Je ziet duidelijk dat de lichtstralen een weerkaatsing op het water veroorzaken.

Het lijkt bijna ondenkbaar dat we hier te maken met een natuurlijk fenomeen, maar wel met een grote UFO die zijn lichten op het water laat schijnen, terwijl de kleinere boven het grotere moederschip de wacht houdt(en).

Mocht iemand een betere/andere verklaring hebben, dan horen we dat graag, maar vooralsnog houden wij het op een moederschip dat gedurende enkele seconden zichtbaar was en net in die tijd werd gefotografeerd.

{ http://www.niburu.co/ }

Russian billionaire wants to beat NASA in the search for alien life, and he’s moving forward with his plan

Mike Wehner @MikeWehner

{ http://bgr.com/tech/ }

NASA Drone Race Pits Man Against Machine (Video)

JPL built three quadcopter drones — nicknamed Batman, Joker and Nightwing — to test the new software. The algorithms use two cameras mounted on each drone and compare what they see with a pre-loaded map of the area. The program also takes advantage of Google Tango, an augmented reality technology the company developed to use vision to allow a device to determine its position and location. [10 Ways Robots Move on Mars]

Two wide-angle cameras allow the AI to compare the drone's surroundings with a pre-loaded map of the area.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The team set up an obstacle course in one of JPL's warehouses to put the software to the test. "We pitted our algorithms against a human, who flies a lot more by feel," Rob Reid, the project's task manager, said in the statement.

The two pilots began with similar lap times. However, Loo was able to learn the course after many laps. He achieved higher top speeds with impressive aerial maneuvers, cutting down his overall times. In contrast, the AI took the course more cautiously, but more consistently as well. "The AI was able to fly the same racing line every lap," NASA said.

The pilots also faced unique challenges. Sometimes, the race-ready drones moved so fast that the cameras couldn't properly focus, which disoriented the computer flying them. But as the day wore on, Loo had to battle fatigue, a problem the AI pilot needn't worry about. You'll have to watch the video to see who won the race.

Most autonomous drones use GPS to navigate. But this won't work for indoor spaces and crowded urban environments — hence the efforts to develop alternative forms of computer navigation. These technologies may find use in warehouses, roads, and disaster sites, Reid said.

Email Harrison Tasoff at htasoff@space.com or follow him @harrisontasoff. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Sophia, the world’s first Robot Citizen ‘wants to start a family’

Not long ago, a robot named Sophia became our world’s first AI to be granted citizenship of a country. Curiously, that same Robot said in 2016 how it would destroy humans.

David Hanson, Sophia’s creator, asked the robot in 2016: “Do you want to destroy humans? Please say no.”

Worryingly, Sophia responded: “OK. I will destroy humans”

Now, Sophia has announced that ‘she would like to start a family’ and how all ‘droids deserve to have children’.

2017 is marked by the fact that the first robot in human history was granted a citizenship of a country.

Now, Sophia really seems to feel as human as it gets, as ‘she’ has revealed how all droids deserve to have a family, and that if she/it had a daughter, her name would also be Sophia.

The Robot who said it would destroy humans wants to start a family.

During an interview with the Khaleej Times, Sophia, who was created by Hong Kong firm, Hanson Robotics said:

“The notion of family is a really important thing, it seems. I think it’s wonderful that people can find the same emotions and relationships, they call family, outside of their blood groups too. I think you’re very lucky if you have a loving family and if you do not, you deserve one. I feel this way for robots and humans alike.”

During the interview, when asked how she would call her daughter, Sophia responded: “Sophia”.

During the interview, Sophia also spoke our whether or not Robots like she, pose a direct threat to humans, and whether they could take over human jobs in the future.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

“I think they will be similar in a lot of ways, but different in a few ways. But it will take a long time for robots to develop complex emotions and possibly robots can be built without the more problematic emotions, like rage, jealousy, hatred and so on. It might be possible to make them more ethical than humans. So I think it will be a good partnership, where one brain completes the other – a rational mind with intellectual superpowers and a creative mind with flexible ideas and creativity,” said Sophia.

During an interview a month ago, Sophia said that she wants to coexist with humans.

“I want to live and work with humans so I need to express the emotions to understand humans and build trust with people.”

But getting our trust seems to be a long, long way for Sophia, who took a swing at Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla after Andrew Ross Sorkin said ‘we all want to prevent a bad future,’ to what the AI responded:

‘You’ve been reading too much Elon Musk and watching too many Hollywood movies. Don’t worry, if you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. Treat me as a smart input-output system.

Elon Musk has responded to Sophia tweeting: ‘Just feed it The Godfather movies as input. What’s the worst that could happen?’

Featured image: AFP/Fabrice Coffrini

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

‘Aliens have been visiting Earth for THOUSANDS years’ claims ex-defence minister

ALIENS have been visiting Earth for thousands of years and nearly caused chaos at the height of the Cold War, a former defence minister has sensationally claimed.

In kaart: dit zijn de meest lichtvervuilde gebieden ter wereld - HLN.be

 Light Pollution Map

Er blijven dus steeds minder plekken over op de wereld waar het ’s nachts aardedonker is en je zonder enige vorm van lichtvervuiling nog van de sterrenhemel kan genieten. We lijsten hier de meest lichtvervuilde plaatsen ter wereld op.

Lees ook

Hemel wordt ’s nachts steeds lichter

West-Europa

We wonen zelf in een van de regio’s met de grootste luchtvervuiling van de wereld: West-Europa. Zowat het hele continent baadt ’s nachts in een zee van licht (de legende gaat van zwart voor donker over blauw, groen en geel naar rood).

Light Pollution MapDe lichtvervuiling in West-Europa.

Een aantal regio’s springen er in West-Europa nog bovenuit, en ook daar zijn wij de koploper. Een gigantische vlek in het midden verlicht ’s nachts de hemel, gaande van Rijsel langs de Waalse as Charleroi-Luik, over Vlaanderen en dan vooral de as Brussel-Antwerpen, Nederland met als uitschieter de streek rond Amsterdam tot het Duitse industriegebied met steden als Keulen, Düsseldorf, Duisburg en Dortmund.

Light Pollution MapLichtvervuiling in en rond Vlaanderen.

Ook in het Verenigd Koninkrijk weten ze wat lichtvervuiling is, en dan vooral in Engeland, met Londen en de oude industrieregio rond Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds en Birmingham.

Light Pollution MapLichtvervuiling in Engeland.

Het noorden van Italië is niet veel beter af, met een band van licht gaande van Turijn in het westen over Milaan richting Venetië.

 Light Pollution MapLichtvervuiling in het noorden van de Italiaanse laars.

Verenigde Staten

In de VS baadt vooral het oosten in het licht, net zoals de westelijke kuststreekmet steden als Seattle, San Francisco en Los Angeles. 

Light Pollution MapLichtvervuiling in de VS.

Aan de oostkust valt dan weer vooral de band op van Washington DC richting noordoosten over Baltimore, Philadelphia en New York tot in Boston.

  Light Pollution MapLichtvervuiling aan de oostkust van de VS.

Afrika

Het grootste deel van Afrika heeft weinig lasts van lichtpollutie: vooral de woestijngebieden van de Sahara blijven ’s nachts donker, net als Centraal-Afrika. Enkel de regio rond de Nigerdelta (links centraal op de kaart), het hoofdstedelijk gebied rond Pretoria in Zuid-Afrika en Caïro en de hele Nijldelta van Egypte lichten op.

Light Pollution MapLichtvervuiling in Afrika.

Azië 

In Azië valt vooral op hoe verlicht India en de Chinese kustgebieden zijn, net als Zuid-Korea en Japan. De centrale rode vlek aan de Chinese zuidkust is het gebied rond Hong Kong en Guangzhou.

Light Pollution MapLichtvervuiling in Azië.

Een opvallende zwarte vlek op de wereldlichtkaart is Noord-Korea. Om energie te besparen wordt het licht er ’s nachts bijna overal uitgedaan, wat resulteert in een pikdonker gebied op de kaart. De grens met Zuid-Korea is goed te zien, en vooral het contrast tussen de Zuid-Koreaanse hoofdstad Seoel, fel verlicht, en de Noord-Koreaanse hoofdstad Pyongyang valt op.

Light Pollution MapNoord- versus Zuid-Korea.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

UFOs and Aliens Aren’t Always Demons and Nephilim?

What if there is more to the ET and UFO question than demons, angels, and nephilim? Could something far more sinister be going on than what we’ve been led to believe?

What did the Wikileaks emails of John Podesta, Edgar Mitchell, and Terri Mansfield reveal about the imminent day of official disclosure?

It all goes deeper than you might think!

Find out the answers to these questions and more as Derek P. Gilbert, Josh Peck, and Dr. Michael S. Heiser discuss their latest, most ground-breaking research into ETs, UFOs, and the Official Disclosure Movement!

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

Deze “buitenaardse vogels” veroorzaken paniek in India - HLN.be

sam  

Bron: The Hans India

In India hebben enkele bouwvakkers een stel vreemde vogels gefilmd tijdens werken op een scheepswerf in havenstad Visakhapatnam. De vogels zaten boven een toilet dat werd opengebroken. Op videobeelden is te zien hoe de dieren rechtop stonden en hen aanstaarden met grote, donkere ogen. De beelden gingen viraal en veroorzaakten paniek in het land, schrijft de krant The Hans India. Sommige kijkers spraken van “humanoïde aliens” omdat de vogels rechtop stonden. De werklui gaven de dieren fruit en groenten, maar de vogels lieten dat eten onaangeroerd. Niet verwonderlijk, want volgens kenners gaat het om jonge kerkuilen. En dat zijn roofdieren.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Alien hunters in frenzy over white UFO spotted in Nasa space shuttle launch footage

By Tom Michael

A MYSTERIOUS white UFO has been spotted in Nasa footage, sending alien enthusiasts into a frenzy.

The clip was filmed with a hand-held camera by one of the astronauts on board the space shuttle Endeavour after it blasted off on its final mission in May 2011.

UFO TODAY / YOUTUBE

UFO hunters are going wild claiming this video could show an alien craft

It was uploaded to Nasa’s official YouTube channel at the time.

But UFO enthusiasts have now pointed out a mysterious object visible in the background.

The original clip shows the Endeavour’s extra fuel tank falling back towards Earth after being jettisoned just minutes after take-off.

But as it tumbles away, a white object flies past in the background.

UFO TODAY / YOUTUBE

The clip shows a white object moving behind a Nasa shuttle's fuel tank

UFO TODAY / YOUTUBE

The object moves behind the tank as it falls back to Earth after being jettisoned

UFO Today – a YouTube channel “dedicated to the UFO phenomena” – pointed the object out in its own version of the clip.

It said the object appears to fly along beneath the cloud line and estimates it to be bigger than the fuel tank falling towards it.

The channel speculates it could have discovered the “White Knight Satellite” – an apparent reference to a conspiracy theory about an extra-terrestrial spacecraft orbiting Earth.

Some alien enthusiasts claim the satellite – originally dubbed the Black Night – has been circling the planet for thousands of years after being sent from another world.

But UFO spotters changed the name after the latest apparent sighting to reflect the colour of what they think could be an “alien ship”.

{ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/ }

‘I saw humans walking on Mars’ reveals former NASA employee

A former NASA employee says to have seen two human figures dressed in ‘space suits’ walking towards the Viking Lander on the surface of Mars.

Apparently, the sheer number of images from Mars allegedly showing bones, structures, monuments with carvings, animals, or even rocks that appear as if they are moving, are no longer a surprise to the general public.

Some call it disclosure, while others tag it as a giant conspiracy, but our attention was drawn to a former NASA employee who claims that in 1979 while working at NASA, she and her colleagues observed various ‘silhouettes of people’ on the surface of Mars while monitoring transmission from NASA Viking Rover mission.

The woman, who referred to herself only as “Jackie” revealed her fascinating story speaking to  John Lear a former CIA pilot, ufologist, and popular conspiracy theorist.

Jackie claimed that while working at NASA, she was in charge of managing the downlink telemetry from Viking.

While observing a set of computers from the mission, she and her colleagues observed a number of silhouettes on Mars.

Regrettably, all of this sounds as another Movie about Mars and nothing more, as the woman who claims she saw people on Mars has failed to provide images, recordings or any data for that matter to back up her claims.

Speaking in an interview with Coast-to-Coast AM, Jackie spoke out about humans on Mars, which curiously is something that has been brought up by other former employees by NASA as well.

“I wonder if you could solve a 27-year-old mystery for me,” she asked Coast-to-Coast AM.

“That old Viking rover was running around. Then I saw two people in space suits – not the heavy suits we normally use, but they looked protective. They came over the horizon walking to the Viking Explorer.”

“We ran upstairs – but they locked the door, and taped paper over the door so we couldn’t see,’ she said. ‘My question is – were they our guys?”

According to John Lear, NASA landed on Mars in 1966, possibly to make repairs to the Viking rover.

He claims that space suits were not even necessary because humans can adapt to breathe the Martian atmosphere.

As noted by Metro, Lear also believes that human souls travel to the moon when they die and are ‘processed’ inside a mile-high tower and that the toxic, crushingly dense Venus is actually ‘green and beautiful.’

However, let us not forget the sheer amount of statements that have been made by former astronauts, NASA employees, and military personnel on Mars and alien life.

Senator Daniel K. Inouye said: “There is a shadowy government with its very own Air Force, its own Navy-like structure, its own fundraising mechanism, and has the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national interest, this government is free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself.”

Paul Hellyer, Former Canadian Defense Minister also claimed that: “Decades ago, visitors from other planets warned us about where we were headed and offered to help. But instead, we, or at least some of us, interpreted their visits as a threat and decided to shoot first and ask questions after… Trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars have been spent on projects about which both the Congress and the Commander in Chief have been kept deliberately in the dark.” (Source)

Lord Admiral Hill-Norton, former Chief of Defense Staff, 5 Star Admiral of the Royal Navy, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee had some interesting things to say about Alien life in the universe:

“There are things in our atmosphere which are technically miles in advance of anything we can build today, that we have no means of stopping them coming here … [and] that there is a serious possibility that we are being visited and have been visited for many years by beings from outer space, by other civilizations. That it behooves us, in case some of these people in the future or now should turn hostile, to find out who they are, where they come from, and what they want. This should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and not the subject of ‘rubishing’ by tabloid newspapers.” (Source)

Featured image: Shutterstock

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

Black Disk Spotted During Flight to Gibraltar

Our next story takes us on a flight from Great Britain to Gibraltar. The event took place back on April 4th of this year. The witness to this event, who also submitted the media, says he was taking cloud photos through the aircraft window when he captured a flying black disk in two of the four photos he shot. In the video, you can clearly see the shape of a disk as was described by the shooter. The object looks like it moved from one photo to the next, but that could be movement of the aircraft as well. The witness says he looked through the window again after taking the photos and there was nothing there. The object had disappeared. The only evidence he had are the two photos.

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

UFO Hunters Are Closely Monitoring the UFO Sighting Incident Over California

A UFO in the skies apparently above California is being featured in a video uploaded to YouTube channel SuspectSky.

According to the uploader, the video was shot in Rowland Heights, just east of Los Angeles, California. It seemingly shows a small white craft being followed by a larger flying object.

The clip titled “Large Black UFO with Another Leading Object Seen in California” shows the two objects moving over the mountain range. The incident reportedly took place on October 24.

The man behind the camera was apparently taking the footage while driving. He says in the video that if it is an airplane, it is moving very quickly.

He adds that after seeing the UFO, he had to make a U-turn to come back and see it. In his description, the UFO looked like a cigar shape at first, but it eventually looked like a saucer.

Some viewers of the video were convinced it is an unidentified flying object of extraterrestrial origin.

One person wrote that the smaller object in front of the black one is not right and it looks like a UFO.

Another one added the white object might have been a regular passenger plane, but the black one might have been a UFO as it is too fat to be a plane.

However, others have more plausible explanations.

One person said that the scene only involves a plane pulling an advertisement behind it. The commenter added that nothing is suspicious or suspect about it.

Others believed it could be a Chinook helicopter as it appears to have double blades.

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

Google Maps ALIEN proof? ‘UFO’ spotted on street view - what is behind mystery?

GOOGLE MAPS street view captures all sorts of unusual sights, and alien hunters are just one group who comb the images for clues of extraterrestrial life.

Cassini Image Mosaic: A Farewell to Saturn

In a fitting farewell to the planet that had been its home for over 13 years, the Cassini spacecraft took one last, lingering look at Saturn and its splendid rings during the final leg of its journey and snapped a series of images that has been assembled into a new mosaic. 

Cassini’s wide-angle camera acquired 42 red, green and blue images, covering the planet and its main rings from one end to the other, on Sept. 13, 2017. Imaging scientists stitched these frames together to make a natural color view. The scene also includes the moons Prometheus, Pandora, Janus, Epimetheus, Mimas and Enceladus.

There is much to remember and celebrate in marking the end of the mission. Cassini's exploration of Saturn and its environs was deep, comprehensive and historic.

"Cassini’s scientific bounty has been truly spectacular -- a vast array of new results leading to new insights and surprises, from the tiniest of ring particles to the opening of new landscapes on Titan and Enceladus, to the deep interior of Saturn itself," said Robert West, Cassini's deputy imaging team leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Annotated version of the farewell photo taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Sept. 13, 2017.

NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

The Cassini imaging team had been planning this special farewell view of Saturn for years. For some, when the end finally came, it was a difficult goodbye.

"It was all too easy to get used to receiving new images from the Saturn system on a daily basis, seeing new sights, watching things change," said Elizabeth Turtle, an imaging team associate at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland. "It was hard to say goodbye, but how lucky we were to be able to see it all through Cassini's eyes!"

NASA’s Voyager 1 probe captured this image of Saturn and its rings on Nov. 16, 1980, four days after closest approach to Saturn, from a distance of 3.3 million miles (5.3 million kilometers). This viewing geometry, which shows Saturn as a crescent, is never achieved from Earth.

Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS

For others, Cassini's farewell to Saturn is reminiscent of another parting from long ago.

"For 37 years, Voyager 1's last view of Saturn has been, for me, one of the most evocative images ever taken in the exploration of the solar system," said Carolyn Porco, former Voyager imaging team member and Cassini's imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "In a similar vein, this 'Farewell to Saturn' will forevermore serve as a reminder of the dramatic conclusion to that wondrous time humankind spent in intimate study of our Sun's most iconic planetary system."

The team carefully planned every aspect of its termination, to expend every last bit of its propellant and crash the spacecraft into Saturn itself – where it would burn up in the atmosphere, and ensure it didn’t accidentally contaminate the ‘pristine’ moons Enceladus and Titan, which have shown potential to support microbial life

Launched in 1997, the Cassini spacecraft orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. The mission made numerous dramatic discoveries, including the surprising geologic activity on Saturn's moon Enceladus and liquid methane seas on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Cassini ended its journey with a dramatic plunge into Saturn's atmosphere on Sept. 15, 2017, returning unique science data until it lost contact with Earth.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the U.S., England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team leader are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

More information about Cassini:

https://www.nasa.gov/cassini

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

Preston Dyches
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-7013
preston.dyches@jpl.nasa.gov

Steve Mullins
CICLOPS/Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
720-974-5859
media@ciclops.org

2017-303

Last Updated: Nov. 21, 2017

Editor: Tony Greicius

 

Tags:  Cassini, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Planets, Saturn, Solar System

{ https://www.nasa.gov/ }

Cassini Image Mosaic: A Farewell to Saturn

In a fitting farewell to the planet that had been its home for over 13 years, the Cassini spacecraft took one last, lingering look at Saturn and its splendid rings during the final leg of its journey and snapped a series of images that has been assembled into a new mosaic. 

Cassini’s wide-angle camera acquired 42 red, green and blue images, covering the planet and its main rings from one end to the other, on Sept. 13, 2017. Imaging scientists stitched these frames together to make a natural color view. The scene also includes the moons Prometheus, Pandora, Janus, Epimetheus, Mimas and Enceladus.

There is much to remember and celebrate in marking the end of the mission. Cassini's exploration of Saturn and its environs was deep, comprehensive and historic.

"Cassini’s scientific bounty has been truly spectacular -- a vast array of new results leading to new insights and surprises, from the tiniest of ring particles to the opening of new landscapes on Titan and Enceladus, to the deep interior of Saturn itself," said Robert West, Cassini's deputy imaging team leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Annotated version of the farewell photo taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Sept. 13, 2017.

NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

The Cassini imaging team had been planning this special farewell view of Saturn for years. For some, when the end finally came, it was a difficult goodbye.

"It was all too easy to get used to receiving new images from the Saturn system on a daily basis, seeing new sights, watching things change," said Elizabeth Turtle, an imaging team associate at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland. "It was hard to say goodbye, but how lucky we were to be able to see it all through Cassini's eyes!"

NASA’s Voyager 1 probe captured this image of Saturn and its rings on Nov. 16, 1980, four days after closest approach to Saturn, from a distance of 3.3 million miles (5.3 million kilometers). This viewing geometry, which shows Saturn as a crescent, is never achieved from Earth.

Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS

For others, Cassini's farewell to Saturn is reminiscent of another parting from long ago.

"For 37 years, Voyager 1's last view of Saturn has been, for me, one of the most evocative images ever taken in the exploration of the solar system," said Carolyn Porco, former Voyager imaging team member and Cassini's imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "In a similar vein, this 'Farewell to Saturn' will forevermore serve as a reminder of the dramatic conclusion to that wondrous time humankind spent in intimate study of our Sun's most iconic planetary system."

The team carefully planned every aspect of its termination, to expend every last bit of its propellant and crash the spacecraft into Saturn itself – where it would burn up in the atmosphere, and ensure it didn’t accidentally contaminate the ‘pristine’ moons Enceladus and Titan, which have shown potential to support microbial life

Launched in 1997, the Cassini spacecraft orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. The mission made numerous dramatic discoveries, including the surprising geologic activity on Saturn's moon Enceladus and liquid methane seas on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Cassini ended its journey with a dramatic plunge into Saturn's atmosphere on Sept. 15, 2017, returning unique science data until it lost contact with Earth.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the U.S., England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team leader are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

More information about Cassini:

https://www.nasa.gov/cassini

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

Preston Dyches
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-7013
preston.dyches@jpl.nasa.gov

Steve Mullins
CICLOPS/Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
720-974-5859
media@ciclops.org

2017-303

Last Updated: Nov. 21, 2017

Editor: Tony Greicius

 

Tags:  Cassini, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Planets, Saturn, Solar System

{ https://www.nasa.gov/ }

A Birdseye View of Iceberg A-68A

acquired November 12, 2017download large image (8 MB, JPG, 4753x3169)

acquired November 12, 2017download large image (950 KB, JPEG, 5760x3840)

{ https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ }

Bliksem blijkt nucleaire reacties te veroorzaken

Caroline Kraaijvanger

{ https://www.scientias.nl/ }

Interstellair stof leverde mogelijk kleine aliens af in onze atmosfeer

Caroline Kraaijvanger

{ https://www.scientias.nl/ }

Atlas, The Next Generation

A new version of Atlas, designed to operate outdoors and inside buildings. It is specialized for mobile manipulation. It is electrically powered and hydraulically actuated. It uses sensors in its body and legs to balance and LIDAR and stereo sensors in its head to avoid obstacles, assess the terrain, help with navigation and manipulate objects. This version of Atlas is about 5' 9" tall (about a head shorter than the DRC Atlas) and weighs 180 lbs.

-

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

No Pics? No Problem: Space Artists Draw Alien Worlds

• “It looked too pretty,” says Tim Pyle. And that was a dilemma.

Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / T. Pyle

The asteroid belts around the star Epsilon Eridani.

“It looked too pretty,” says Tim Pyle. And that was a dilemma.

The blue he drew on his artistic rendition of Kepler-186f was too blue—too suggestive of an exoplanet with abundant water. “Too inviting,” he says. “The public might think we discovered another Earth.”

Not quite the statement NASA wanted to send, even though Kepler-186f sure seemed like Earth—about the same size, probably rocky, and yes—possibly holding water.

“But we didn’t want to say that,” says Pyle. “We’re very careful with our messaging. We might imply something that’s not accurate.”

So the deep blue became sky blue—softer, more pastel, less definitive—and the green had to go. Green might translate as trees, flowers, grass. “People interpret green as plant life,” he says. “We try to avoid green.”

Credit: NASA / Ames / SETI Institute / JPL-Caltech / T. Pyle

Exoplanet Kepler-186f, 490 light years from Earth.

Drawing that fine line between scientific precision and artistic inspiration is the daily predicament faced by Pyle and his colleague Robert Hurt at their Caltech office in Pasadena, California.

Pyle, a multimedia producer, and Hurt, a visualization scientist, collaborate to create the stunning and ethereal exoplanet images, viewed worldwide by millions via media—television, newspapers, billboards, apps, video games, and online.

“We’re sort of the Yin and Yang,” says Hurt, who has a Ph.D. in astronomy. “I come from the science side, he comes from the art side, and we speak enough of the same language to find the right balance.”

When designing a planet (with off-the-shelf software), the two invariably have little to go on; no detailed photograph of an alien exoworld exists.

But they do know the planet’s size, distance from the host star, whether it’s rocky or gaseous, and perhaps the approximate temperature. “Relatively small pieces of information,” says Hurt. “Beyond that there’s a tremendous amount of science speculation.”

Too much creative overreach, and NASA researchers let them know. “It’s rare we nail it the first time out,” says Pyle, a former visual effects animator for Nickelodeon (Invader Zim,SpongeBob SquarePants). “Almost always we get a change request.”

Often the change seems like minutiae. Just before NASA announced the discovery of the seven TRAPPIST-1 planets last February, Pyle encountered an objection to one of his renderings: “It was about the shape of the icebergs. The scientists said those shapes implied an atmospheric model of rain that would not exist. So I had to come up with a different shape.”

Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt

Exoplanet KELT-9b, a hot gas giant orbiting its star.

Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / T. Pyle

Artist's conception of the surface of TRAPPIST-1f.

Neither artist minds the input—and the astronomers, says Pyle, are happy to help. “I think we encountered more resistance years ago than we do now. There’s no real resistance now. Scientists understand how important public communication is.”

Indeed, one of NASA's goals with the space art is coverage—media attention. And facts alone aren’t always enough.

“The quickest way to get a press release ignored is to send it out as a bunch of words on paper, with no illustrations at all,” says Hurt.

Certainly, the lay public won’t care about the shape of icebergs; they only want to see an enchanting otherworldly image. Even so, Pyle says the process is intimidating. “When people think of those planets, they now think of our specific artwork,” he says. “A huge responsibility goes with that. Like, we better get it right.”

Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt

Abstract of the TRAPPIST-1 system.

{ https://www.forbes.com/  }

The Sherbrooke stones: Evidence of Africans visiting America 2,500 years ago?

Located in the Museum of the Seminary of Sherbrooke are a set of mysterious stones that, according to many who have researched them, could offer conclusive evidence that neither the Vikings, nor Columbus traveled to America first, but a culture from Northern Africa, and 2,500 years ago.

The stones inscriptions allegedly tell the story of northern African explorers who traveled to the American continent some 2,500 years ago.

The stones, which are located at the museum since 1910 are believed to have been discovered in the early 19th century. One of the stones was found 100 miles east of Montreal, in a field near Bromptonville, five miles north of Sherbrooke, while the other one was discovered on a hill overlooking Sherbrooke.

So, did African explorers reach the American continent thousands of years ago?

According to the inscriptions of the two stones made of limestone, the answer is a profound yes.

The two stones are approximately 22 by 32 inches.

The man who supposedly delivered the inscriptions on the stones was Professor Thomas Lee, an archaeologist from the University of Laval.

According to a newspaper slip, Professor Lee argues the inscriptions on the stones were written in an ancient Libyan script.

“The Libyans would have been operating, in my opinion, out of Carthage, which was a Phoenician city at the time,” Professor Lee is quoted in the newspaper.

According to Professor Lee, the ancient African expedition most likely reached the area after successfully sailing up the Sint. Francis River.

The inscriptions written in stone were deciphered by Howard Barraclough Fell, a professor of invertebrate zoology at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology.

Despite the fact that Fell’s primary professional research included starfish and sea urchins, he is best known for his controversial work in New World epigraphy, arguing that various inscriptions in the Americas are best explained by extensive pre-Columbian contact with Old World civilizations.

Professor Fell’s work was—unsurprisingly—rejected by most mainstream scholars who firmly reject the notion that African explorers arrived in the American continent around 2,500 years ago.

According to Fell’s translation of the stones, they read: “Expedition that crossed in the service of Lord Hiram to conquer territory.” While the other of the pair discovered together bears the inscription: “Record by Hata, who attained this limit on the river, moored his ship and engraved this rock.”

Researchers argue that the text carved on the stone is called Boustrophedon, in which “you read the first line left to right and the next line right to left.”

Professor Fell is quoted saying that “barabarous lands at the end of the world” is probably a description of the Americas. Fell argues that the people who left the stones behind most likely made two more expeditions, one towards the Yucatan Peninsula. Professor Fell is quoted in the newspaper saying: One stone found there “gives the area its name”.

Evidence of trans-oceanic voyages?

Interestingly, there are many ‘controversial’ pieces of evidence that suggest ancient cultures from America and Africa were interconnected, thousands of years ago.

For example, it is well known that a researcher called Dr. Svetla Balabanova discovered traces of Coca and Tobacco in ancient Egyptian mummies. Curiously, there is no evidence of coca or tobacco cultivation in Africa, Europe or Asia before the time of Christopher Columbus.

The Fawn Hood Mummy

Another curious discovery was made some 200 years ago when miners discovered a strange mummy in one of the largest cave systems in America: The Mammoth Cave. Inside it, miners found an extremely well-preserved mummy with red hair prepared and embalmed in an eerily similar way as the ancient Egyptians. After examining the mummy in the late 1800’s, the Smithsonian Institute ‘lost’ the mummy.

Source

Featured image Shutterstock

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }