'A whole new world': NASA's James Webb discovers its first PLANET just 41 light-years away - and it is similar to Earth

• NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has discovered its first planet 
• The planet sits just 41 light-years from Earth and is rocky like our planet 
• The team is unsure what the atmosphere is made of or if it has one
• They are scheduled to obtain additional spectra with upcoming observations this summer 

By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered its first planet - and the rocky world is similar to our own.

Formally classified as LHS 475 b., the exoplanet is 99 percent of Earth's diameter and while it is terrestrial, scientists do not yet know if it has an atmosphere.

Although the team cannot conclude what is present, they have ruled out a thick methane-dominated atmosphere similar to that of Saturn's moon Titan.

JWST revealed that the planet, which sits 41 light-years away, is a few hundred degrees warmer than Earth and completes an orbit in two days.

There is still much to learn about LHS 475 b., such exoplanets have remained 'invisible' to space telescopes, but JWST proves again just how powerful its technology is.

NASA announced its James Webb Telescope discovered its first planet. Formally classified as LHS 475 b., the exoplanet is 99 percent of Earth's diameter

Mark Clampin, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement: 'These first observational results from an Earth-size, rocky planet open the door to many future possibilities for studying rocky planet atmospheres with Webb.

'Webb is bringing us closer and closer to a new understanding of Earth-like worlds outside our solar system, and the mission is only just getting started.'

While the discovery is astounding, now scientists are working to determine what the planet's atmosphere consists of.

The team notes that while the planet may have no atmosphere, some atmospheric compositions, such as a pure carbon dioxide atmosphere, have not been ruled out.

NASA's James Webb detects sonic boom larger than our Milky Way 

A sonic boom several times larger than our Milky Way has been detected by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - and it was created during a galactic invasion.

Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, both of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, said in a statement: 'Counterintuitively, a 100 percent carbon dioxide atmosphere is so much more compact that it becomes very challenging to detect,' 

Even more precise measurements are required for the team to distinguish a pure carbon dioxide atmosphere from no atmosphere at all. 

The researchers are scheduled to obtain additional spectra with upcoming observations this summer. 

 'We're at the forefront of studying small, rocky exoplanets,' Lustig-Yaeger said. 

'We have barely begun scratching the surface of what their atmospheres might be like.'

The researchers' findings have opened the possibility of pinpointing Earth-sized planets orbiting smaller red dwarf stars. 

'This rocky planet confirmation highlights the precision of the mission's instruments,' Stevenson said. 

'And it is only the first of many discoveries that it will make.' Lustig-Yaeger agreed. 'With this telescope, rocky exoplanets are the new frontier.' 

 Even though scientists do not know what the atmosphere consists of, JWST has the ability to find out.

NASA announced in November that the telescope successfully revealed the makeup of an exoplanet's atmosphere in never before seen detail, and the milestone suggests it could also search for alien life.

scientists do not yet know if it has an atmosphere. Although the team cannot conclude what is present, they have ruled out a thick methane-dominated atmosphere similar to that of Saturn's moon Titan.

JWST's powerful instruments captured atoms and molecules, along with signs of active chemistry and clouds - features Hubble and Spitzer were unable to detect when they observed the planet and those that hold evidence of signs of life.

Astronomers used WASP-39b, a hot Saturn 700 light-years from Earth, to test the telescope's capabilities. The telescope used its infrared capabilities to pick up colors and chemical fingerprints that cannot be detected in visible light.

The new insights, deemed a 'game changer,' could reveal how this exoplanet formed out of the disk of gas and dust surrounding the parent star in its younger years. 

WASP-39b is orbiting a host star that is eight times closer than Mercury is to our sun, which astronomers believe should bring a deeper understanding of how these processes affect the diversity of planets observed in the galaxy.

A light curve from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) shows the change in brightness from the LHS 475 star system over time as the planet transited the star on August 31, 2022 - and this is how the telescope spotted it

To uncover the exoplanet's secrets, JWST tracked the planet as it passed in front of its star, allowing some of its light to filter through its atmosphere.

'Different types of chemicals in the atmosphere absorb different colors of the starlight spectrum, so the missing colors tell astronomers which molecules are present,' NASA shared in Tuesday's announcement.

'By viewing the universe in infrared light, Webb can pick up chemical fingerprints that can't be detected in visible light.'

The telescope also detected a range of elements, including sodium (Na), potassium (K) and water vapor (H20) in the exoplanet's atmosphere.

These confirm what was previously captured by space and ground-based telescope observations, but JWST found additional fingerprints of water at these longer wavelengths that have not been seen before.

Carbon dioxide was also found in the new data, which was detected at higher resolutions, providing twice as much as previously observed.

And while carbon monoxide was detected, astronomers did not identify methane (CH4) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in the data.

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James Webb-telescoop ontdekt rotsachtige exoplaneet die bijna even groot is als aarde

Onderzoekers hebben met de James Webb Space Telescope van NASA, ESA en CSA voor het eerst de aanwezigheid bevestigd van een exoplaneet, een planeet die rond een andere ster draait. De planeet, die officieel LHS 475 b wordt genoemd, is bijna even groot als de onze en heeft een diameter van 99 procent van de aarde.

 Bron:ESA/NASA

“Het staat buiten kijf dat de planeet bestaat. De nieuwe gegevens van Webb bevestigen dit”, zegt Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, die aan de leiding van het onderzoeksteam van het Applied Physics Laboratory van de Johns Hopkins-universiteit staat. “Het feit dat het ook een kleine, rotsachtige planeet is, is indrukwekkend voor het observatorium”, voegt Kevin Stevenson, medeleider van het team, eraan toe.

“Deze eerste waarnemingsresultaten van een rotsachtige planeet ter grootte van de aarde openen de deur voor vele toekomstige mogelijkheden om de atmosfeer van rotsachtige planeten met Webb te bestuderen”, zegt Mark Clampin, directeur van de afdeling Astrofysica op het NASA-hoofdkwartier in Washington. “Webb brengt ons steeds dichter bij een nieuw begrip van aardachtige werelden buiten het zonnestelsel, en de missie is nog maar net begonnen.”

Exoplaneet LHS 475 b.  © NASA, ESA, CSA, L. Hustak (STScI)

Atmosfeer?

Van alle telescopen die momenteel in gebruik zijn, is enkel Webb in staat om de atmosferen van exoplaneten ter grootte van de aarde te herkennen. Voorlopig is het echter nog onduidelijk of planeet LHS 475 b een atmosfeer heeft. “Er zijn enkele atmosferen van het aardse type die we kunnen uitsluiten”, licht Lustig-Yaeger toe. “Ze kan geen dikke, door methaan gedomineerde atmosfeer hebben, zoals die van Saturnus’ maan Titan.”

Een zuivere CO2-atmosfeer is veel compacter, dus het wordt zeer moeilijk om dat te detecteren, aldus Lustig-Yeager. Het team moet nog preciezere metingen verrichten om een zuivere kooldioxide-atmosfeer te kunnen onderscheiden van helemaal geen atmosfeer. Deze zomer krijgen de onderzoekers aanvullende gegevens van verdere waarnemingen.

Webb onthulde ook dat de planeet een paar honderd graden warmer is dan de aarde. Als er wolken worden gedetecteerd, zou dat betekenen dat de planeet meer lijkt op Venus, die een CO2-atmosfeer heeft en voortdurend in een dikke wolk is gehuld.

De exoplaneet is slechts 41 lichtjaar van ons verwijderd en ligt in het sterrenbeeld Octant. LHS 475 b legt in slechts twee dagen een baan rond haar ster af. De exoplaneet staat dichter bij haar ster dan eender welke andere planeet in het zonnestelsel, maar de temperatuur van de rode dwergster is minder dan de helft dan die van de zon.

Lees ook:

• James Webb-telescoop werd een jaar geleden gelanceerd: een overzicht van de waanzinnige beelden

• Groene komeet zal voor het eerst in 50.000 jaar aan de nachtelijke hemel verschijnen

• Nieuwe studie suggereert dat aliens nog geen contact met onze aarde hebben gezocht omdat die “niet interessant genoeg is”

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 11/01/2023

SpaceX & NASA to rescue Astronauts! Russia's Soyuz FAILURE "cosmonauts can't return"

SpaceX & NASA to rescue Astronauts! Russia's Soyuz FAILURE "cosmonauts can't return"
NASA and Roscosmos have officially declared Soyuz MS-22 not safe to fly for crew and a rescue strategy has been developed with an Official Statement from NASA and Roscosmos on January 11th.
So, what's the plan to rescue the astronauts? How will SpaceX rescue Astronauts?
Why ISS is facing huge turmoil after this?
Find out in today's episode of Alpha Tech:

Let’s analyzing about the Situation first:

Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA Astronaut Francisco Rubio launched on Soyuz MS-22 on September 21, 2022, at 13:54 UTC from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

On December 15th, 2022 at 12:45 UTC a "visible stream of flakes" was observed emanating from the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft at the same time as a loss of pressure was alerted in the external radiator cooling loop. After multiple days of inspection using the station's robotic arms, preliminary information is something left a 0.8mm (0.031in) diameter hole in the external cooler radiator located on the service module of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. Roscosmos believes the leak in the radiator occurred due to external mechanical damage.

With the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft deemed not safe to fly for the crew, Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA Astronaut Francisco Rubio are stranded on the ISS. This a critical situation as no person is to be on the ISS without a spacecraft they can board to evacuate in case of emergency with the ability to return home should they not be able to return to the ISS.

So, what is the solution?
For Soyuz MS-22
The damaged Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft will undock from the ISS in an unmanned mode and attempt to return home. Because the thermoregulation system is damaged, re-entry and landing may not be successful.

Next, Soyuz MS-23
Russia's next mission Soyuz MS-23 was scheduled to launch with 3 Russian Cosmonauts in March but teams on the ground have been working around the clock to move the launch up to the middle of February. Once ready for launch, a solo Russian Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko will fly the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft to the ISS. This will be the first solo spacecraft mission since 2004 when Brian Binney flew SpaceShipOne on its test flight.
SpaceX & NASA to rescue Astronauts! Russia's Soyuz FAILURE "cosmonauts can't return"

Listen! 'Superheavy' neutron star merger's audio jumps 'thousands of hertz' in simulation

See a pair of superheavy neutron stars collide in this simulation with gravitational wave audio. "An audible tone and a visual frequency scale (at left) track the steady rise in the frequency of gravitational waves as the neutron stars close," according to NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and STAG Research Centre/Peter Hammond

Sun blasts X1-class solar flare! See spacecraft footage in 4K

Sunspot AR3186 erupted with an X1-class solar flare on Jan. 10, 2022. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the fireworks in multiple wavelengths.

Credit: NASA/SDO/helioviewer.org | edited by Space.com's Steve Spaleta

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Secret Pentagon Program Clip | UFOs: Investigating the Unknown | NEW SERIES | National Geographic

For more than five decades the US government has refused to discuss UFOs, but now, Navy pilots tell of seeing mysterious objects tracking their fighter jets – vehicles unlike anything they’ve ever seen before; top-secret Naval videos are leaked that captivate the world. Government officials, led by former U.S. Senator Harry Reid, demand an investigation. At long last, it looks like the truth about UFOs may finally be revealed. Coming in February.

The History Of Space Exploration!

In this video, we are going to take a journey back in time and learn about the history of space exploration.We are going to start from the very beginning and look at how humans have been trying to explore space for centuries. We will also learn about some of the most notable space missions and their incredible successes. So sit back, relax, and let's explore the universe!

• #space #exploration #science 

References and citations:

• space exploration - History of space exploration 
• Britannica The History of Space Exploration 
• National Geographic Society A Brief History of Space Exploration 
• The Aerospace Corporation

James Webb Space Telescope snaps 'dynamic star-forming region' - 4K zoom-in

The James Webb Space Telescope captured imagery of dynamic star-forming region NCG 346 within the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). What makes it special?:

• https://esawebb.org/news/weic2301/?lang 

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, ESO, ESA/Hubble, Digitized Sky Survey 2, A. Nota, N. Bartmann, M. Zamani | edited by Space.com's [Steve Spaleta]

• (https://twitter.com/stevespaleta)

Nikola Tesla Was Stopped Just In Time Before he Revealed the Secrets of the Great Pyramid

Nikola Tesla Was Stopped Just In Time Before he Revealed the Secrets of the Great Pyramid. The Egyptian pyramid is one of the most mysterious structures on this planet. No one knows when they were built, how they were built, who built them, and most importantly: why were they built?

In today’s video, we will take you on a journey across time to find out what secrets do the pyramids hold that baffled even the mind of the great Nikola Tesla, and how he was so close to replicating it to create free energy for the whole world.

• #alien #pyramids #mystery

Why is Sea Level Rising? We Asked a NASA Scientist

Global sea levels are rising as a result of human-caused global warming, with recent rates being unprecedented over the past 2,500-plus years. NASA JPL’s sea level rise expert Ben Hamlington explains how our warming planet is causing sea levels to rise.

Learn more about how NASA monitors sea level rise:

• http://sealevel.nasa.gov/understandin... 

Producers: Jessica Wilde, Scott Bednar

Editor: James Lucas Credit: NASA

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The JWST is the Shiny New Space Telescope, but the Dependable Hubble is Still Going Strong

Globular Clusters are still mysterious objects. But the Hubble has studied them and removed at least some of the mystery. One burning question is whether or not GCs host black holes, much like galaxies do.

There are different sizes of black holes. The gravitational collapse of a star forms stellar-mass black holes. They range from about five to tens of solar masses. Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) are gargantuan and reside at the center of galaxies. They can contain billions of times more mass than the Sun. Then there are intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs.)

But IMBHs are elusive.

When the Hubble came along, its ability to discern individual stars in GC helped astronomers detect IMBHs. The stars in a GCs center are more tightly packed than the stars toward the edges. That central region is where astronomers thought IMBHs might be hiding.

NGC 6397 is a globular cluster in the constellation Ara. It’s about 7,800 light-years from Earth and is one of the two closes GCs. It holds about 400,000 stars. In a 2021 study, astronomers looked at Hubble images and data from other facilities to examine NGC 6397 for evidence of an intermediate-mass black hole.

Black holes can’t be seen, so to infer their existence, astronomers study the motion of the stars in the GCs core. The black hole’s massive gravitational force affects those stars’ trajectories and velocities, and by measuring them, astronomers can estimate the black hole’s mass. The 2021 paper found something extraordinary: there wasn’t one black hole at the center of NGC 6397; there was a group of them.

“We found very strong evidence for an invisible mass in the dense core of the globular cluster, but we were surprised to find that this extra mass is not ‘point-like’ (that would be expected for a solitary massive black hole) but extended to a few percent of the size of the cluster,” said Eduardo Vitral, one of the paper’s authors.

Finding a clump of stellar-mass black holes was surprising and went against expectations. Astronomers thought that the cores of GCs were a likely place to find the elusive IMBHs.

The researchers haven’t wholly concluded that the mass in the center of the GC is all black holes. They call it a CUO: a cluster of unresolved objects. The CUO has from 1000 to 2000 solar masses; whatever they are, they’re dense.

The paper’s authors say that stellar evolution explains what’s likely there. They think the CUO includes the remnants of massive stars: neutron stars, white dwarfs, and black holes. Through a process called dynamical friction, more massive objects gradually sink to the GCs center while less massive stars migrate to the periphery.

“We used the theory of stellar evolution to conclude that most of the extra mass we found was in the form of black holes,” said Mamon. Two other recent studies also proposed that stellar remnants, particularly stellar-mass black holes, could populate the inner regions of globular clusters. “Ours is the first study to provide both the mass and the extent of what appears to be a collection of mostly black holes in the center of a core-collapsed globular cluster,” said Vitral.

None of this would’ve been discovered if it weren’t for the Hubble. It had some help, especially from the ESA’s Gaia spacecraft. But the Hubble’s ability to resolve individual stars was critical.

In their paper, the authors explain how critical Hubble observations were to their results. “On the other hand, Gaia data by itself has much too few stars with sufficiently accurate PMs <proper motions> at low projected radii to probe the IMBH or CUO mass, and even less the CUO size. This highlights the requirement of combining HST and Gaia for proper mass-orbit modelling of the PM of stars in GCs.”

Understanding the black holes at the heart of GCs depends heavily on how accurately astronomers can measure the proper motion of stars. The Hubble has made an enormous contribution, but as Gaia releases more data, its PMs will grow in accuracy. According to the paper’s authors, the James Webb Space Telescope will start to contribute, too.

“Continued pointings of GCs with HST and soon James Webb Space Telescope will lead to longer baselines and more accurate PMs,” the authors write. “The third data release of the Gaia mission will double the PM precision, thus enabling more accurate mass-orbit modelling, not only of nearby GCs such as NGC 6397 but also of more distant ones, in conjunction with HST data.”

We all love the James Webb Space Telescope. It’s amazing!

But for those of us who came of age alongside the Hubble, it’s sort of a weird feeling watching the JWST supplant the Hubble and maybe eventually relegate it to a lesser role.

But as these images and research shows, the Hubble is still in the game.

More:

• Press Release: Hubble Gazes at Colourful Cluster of Scattered Stars
• Published Research: Does NGC 6397 contain an intermediate-mass black hole or a more diffuse inner subcluster?
• Universe Today: Hubble Sees a Glittering Jewel in the Small Magellanic Cloud. But the Jewel is Disappearing

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

Top Ten Mars Discoveries This Week From Google Map, UFO Sighting News.

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

VIDEO – Mysterious Objects Spotted in Clear Skies Over Punta Gorda: Is it a UFO?

On January 7th, 2023, a UFO sighting was reported in Punta Gorda, Florida. According to the account, the sighting took place on a clear evening with eight miles of visibility. The observer observed two distinct objects: a smaller object with flashing lights, which was followed by a larger, rectangular object with very fast flashing white lights.

The observer initially began filming the objects, and at one point, the larger object stopped and disappeared, only to reappear about 10 degrees to the right of its original location. The object then continued on its path before stopping again and disappearing. The account states that the objects seemed to be no more than half a mile away at the closest point and proceeded to be less than a mile away. The observer noted that from their viewpoint, the objects appeared to be quite large.

After observing the objects, the observer contacted the Punta Gorda airport to inquire about any possible aircraft in the area at the time of the sighting. However, the airport reportedly informed the observer that their radar range is limited, and they were unable to provide any information about the objects. The observer stated that they have three separate films of the object.

• Mysterious UFO spotted over Tamaulipas highway, Mexico

This account of UFO sighting is interesting. However, it’s important to remember that just because something is unidentified doesn’t mean it’s alien or extraterrestrial in nature. There are many possible explanations for this sighting, such as aircraft, weather balloons, drones, or even misidentifications of celestial bodies. Without more information or analysis of the films taken, it is impossible to say for certain what the observer observed.

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

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 10/01/2023

SpaceX launches OneWeb satellites for 2nd time, nails landing in Florida

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 40 OneWeb Satellite from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Jan. 9, 2023. A few minutes after stage separation, the first stage of the rocket landed on Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Credit: SpaceX

DEEP OCEAN LIGHTS Point to Alien Activity | The Proof is Out There: Bermuda Triangle

Strange lights illuminating from the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle may point to strange alien activity. See more in this clip from Season 1, "USOs & Underwater Forces."

Love watching The Proof Is Out There: Bermuda Triangle Edition? Stay up to date on all of your favorite The HISTORY Channel shows at history.com/schedule.

Earth-size planet found in TOI 700 system's habitable zone

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has been used to discover Earth-size planet TOI 700 e. It is "orbiting within the habitable zone of its star – the range of distances where liquid water could occur on a planet’s surface," according to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The TOI 700 system is about 100 light-years away.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Robert Hurt/NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

X1.9 solar flare! Hyperactive sunspot eruption seen by spacecraft

Sunspot AR3184 erupted with an X1.9-class solar flare on Jan. 9, 2022. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured the fireworks. The sunspot has been very active since it rotated into SDO's view.

Full Story: https://www.space.com/huge-solar-flar...

Credit: NASA/SDO/helioviewer.org | edited by Space.com's Steve Spaleta

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SpaceX did a Brilliant Upgrade On Starship Booster For 33 Engines Static Fire this week

Finally, SpaceX Booster 7 - our hero is back and better than ever with some robustness Upgrade to gear up for 33 Engines Static Fire this week!
So, what has the SpaceX team upgraded on the B7 over the past month?

Discuss everything about this in today's episode of Alpha Tech:

Until now, Booster 7 and Ship 24 continue to be cited as the pairing that will conduct the orbital test flight, with Musk citing that the latest schedule is hopeful the first orbital flight of Starship could happen as soon as next month.
"We have a real shot at late February. March launch attempt appears highly likely," Musk wrote.

Schedule clarity will be gained via the return of Booster 7 on last Sunday from its time back in the Mega Bay (High Bay 2) after it was transported away from its perch on the Orbital Launch Mount (OLM) in December.
With road closures posted for this week, we hope a big test comes soon.
Booster 7 alone completed more than 24 distinct tests (including six static fires) between early April and late November.

Now back to the main topic, let's see what's new on B7 after the latest reborn.
Firstly, have you noticed that its appearance has become more attractive?
Well, Booster 7 is surprisingly shiny. Doesn't look like there are any missing tiles now.
Yeah, SpaceX’s futuristic Starship interplanetary craft may embody the golden age of sci-fi in more ways than one: in addition to (theoretically) taking passengers from planet to planet, it may sport a shiny stainless-steel skin that makes it look like the pulp covers of old.
This is a special full-hardness steel alloy mentioned as being among the 300 series of high-strength, heat-resistant alloys — not the plentiful, pliable stuff we all have in our kitchens and buildings. Musk also ever mentioned another “superalloy” called SX500 that SpaceX’s metallurgists have developed for use in the Raptor engines that will power the vehicle.

Secondly, full engine shields.
One month ago, B7 has 20 missing panels for each of its outer Raptor engines. That engine shielding looks great now!
Any replacements would need to be modified to ensure that the ad-hoc system installed to prevent the conditions that led to Booster 7’s first explosion from recurring can still be used for future static fire tests.
But honestly, it’s unclear why SpaceX would need to reinstall those panels now for Booster 7’s upcoming 33-engine static fire(s) and a full-stack wet dress rehearsal(s) when they weren’t needed for 11 and 14-engine static fires and a dozen other fire-free tests.
SpaceX did a Brilliant Upgrade On Starship Booster For 33 Engines Static Fire this week

NASA Just Detected Several Massive Objects Entering Our Solar System!

While we have made several trips to space in hopes of trying to find life beyond Earth, things usually don’t happen the other way around. Well, that has just changed. Scientists have actually detected a new interstellar visitor, and it brought with it hundreds of questions. Join us as we dig deeper into what’s going on with this mysterious visitor, and what this could mean for the future of humanity!

But before we get to the visitor, we’re going to take a look back at 2017 to make sense of what’s going on right now! There are trillions of space rocks in our solar system alone, even more outside of it. But the space crafts, telescopes, and lasers we have on Earth still spend night and day studying them anyway.

That’s because any information we might find about the rocks flying around in space could change everything in an instant. So there’s no stone we can leave unstudied. While scientists spend all day and night studying space, we’ve never really had anything major enter our solar system. Even if we did, it’s usually right at the edge of our solar system. That, too, if it’s fast enough to make it through the sheer pressure objects have to deal with. So to have an interstellar object make it even remotely close to being detected by the machines on Earth was never really a goal.

Virgin Orbit rocket suffers anomaly during air launch on first UK mission

Virgin Orbit's Cosmic Girl carrier plane deployed the "Start Me Up" mission's LauncherOne rocket for an air launch on Jan. 9, 2022. The rocket was deployed about an hour after the plane lifted off from Spaceport Cornwall in the UK.

Full Story: https://www.space.com/virgin-orbit-fi...

• The rocket suffered an anomaly during the flight and failed to deliver its payload to orbit, according to Chris Relf, Virgin Orbit director of systems engineering and verification.

Credit: Virgin Orbit

Mars Ingenuity Helicopter found here after its most recent fascinating flight I 4K

Watch the latest spectacular flight that took place on the Red planet. Enjoy

Scientists Just Found This 3,500 Year Old Box Next To The Pyramids That Contained This Secret

Welcome to Futureunity, where we explore the fascinating world of science, technology, and the universe! From the inner workings of the human body to the outer reaches of space, we delve into the latest and most interesting discoveries that are shaping our world. Whether you're a science buff or just looking for some mind-blowing facts, we've got you covered. Join us as we uncover the mysteries of the world around us and discover new frontiers in the fields of science and technology. Get ready for a journey that's both educational and entertaining!

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How Could We Detect Life Inside Enceladus?

For astrobiologists, the scientists dedicated to the search for life beyond Earth, the moons of Saturn are a virtual treasure trove of possibilities. Enceladus is especially compelling because of the active plumes of water emanating from its southern polar region. Not only are these vents thought to be connected directly to an ocean beneath the moon’s icy surface, but the Cassini mission detected traces of organic molecules and other chemicals associated with biological processes. Like Europa, Ganymede, and other “Ocean Worlds,” astrobiologists think this could indicate hydrothermal activity at the core-mantle boundary.

Both NASA and the ESA are hoping to send missions to Enceladus that could study its plumes in more detail. These include the Enceladus Orbitlander recommended in the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032 and the ESA’s Enceladus Moonraker, which could depart Earth in the next decade, taking advantage of a favorable alignment between the planets. In anticipation of what these missions could find, an international team of researchers used data from the Cassini mission to establish how samples of plume material could constrain how much biomass Enceladus has within it.

The team was led by Antonin Affholder, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Arizona and the Institute of Biology at the Ecole Normale Superieure, University of Paris. He was joined by researchers from the Paris Observatory’s Institute of Celestial Mechanics and Ephemeral Calculations (IMCCE), the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, and the International Research Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Global Environmental Studies (iGLOBES). The paper that describes their findings was recently published in the Planetary Science Journal.

While the Cassini orbiter revealed a great deal about Enceladus and its surface features, scientists have been speculating about the existence of plume activity. The first hints came from the Voyager 1 and 2 probes, which flew through the Saturn system in November 1980 and August 1981 (respectively). Based on the reflective surface and its location near the core of Saturn’s E ring (largely composed of water ice and silica), scientists speculated that the moon was geologically active and the source of material in the ring (possibly through the venting of water vapor).

The Cassini probe first encountered indications of plume activity during its passage in 2005, which were interpreted as signs of possible cryovolcanism. During its many subsequent encounters, Cassini flew directly through Enceladus’ plumes and obtained data from its spectrometer and magnetometer. Combined with imaging and ionic data, the readings obtained suggested that the southern polar plumes emanated from pressurized subsurface chambers. Since then, multiple studies have been conducted that have attempted to constrain the type of subsurface environment.

This includes numerical simulations showing how water could circulate in the core at high temperatures and detecting hydrogen in the plume. According to Affholder, who spoke to Universe Today via email, these findings point toward possible hydrothermal activity and methanogenesis similar to what has existed here on Earth for billions of years:

“On Earth, hydrogen is generated by hydrothermal processes in the ocean. Additionally, this hydrogen generation in Earth’s ocean supports methanogenesis, a metabolism known to be used by life on Earth very early on. This metabolism is also ubiquity found in ‘anoxic’ (oxygen-poor) environments. The antiquity and ubiquity of methanogenesis, and the elements supporting the existence of hydrothermalism on Enceladus together make the case that methanogenesis could occur in Enceladus’s ocean. This hypothesis might even predate findings of the Cassini mission, as it was suggested in 1999 by Thomas McCollom that methanogenesis could support primary production on Jupiter’s moon Europa which is in many ways similar to Enceladus.”

Artist rendering showing an interior cross-section of the crust of Enceladus, which shows how hydrothermal activity may be causing the plumes of water at the moon’s surface.

µCredits: NASA-GSFC/SVS/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI

In the coming years, a dedicated mission may be sent to Enceladus to investigate its plume activity more closely – like the Enceladus Orbitlander or Moonraker. Upon arrival, this mission will either fly directly through the plumes and/or dispatch a lander to the surface to obtain samples of the plumes’ gas and grains, then analyze them for evidence of potential biosignatures. To get a better idea of what this might look like, Affholder and his colleagues calculated the likely abundance of certain biosignatures in the plume material based on the assumption that a methanogenic ecosystem exists.

“Using these calculations, we deduce the sample size required to capture at least one cell with a 95% chance or more,” said Affholder. “Other than cells, we have also looked at the production of small organic molecules such as amino acids. We used our ecosystem model and the assumption of Earth-like life to predict the concentration of amino acids in the plume under the hypothesis that an ecosystem exists and under the competing hypothesis that these amino acids are produced ‘naturally’ in hydrothermal settings.”

They found that (accounting for uncertainties) capturing at least one cell would require up to 1 milliliter (0.034 fluid ounces) of plume material to be sampled. This may sound like a tiny amount but based on the mission architecture for NASA’s Orbitlander, it would take hundreds of passes through the plume material to obtain this amount. Affholder and his colleagues acknowledge that these results are subject to large uncertainties concerning the chemical and physical processes that might affect the concentration of amino acids in the sample. For starters, Affholder conveyed that their calculations are a bit optimistic:

“Indeed, the calculations assume that most cells retain their structure upon traveling across the ocean in rising warm water and being outgassed into space. A variety of things can happen during this journey to the plume: cells could be destroyed during outgassing, but they could also be consumed by ‘heterotrophs’ (organic matter-eating organisms). Heterotrophs are almost always present in ecosystems on Earth. Hence, it would seem that assuming the presence of methanogens without that of heterotrophs does not make complete sense from an ecosystem perspective.”

“Concerning the detection of amino acids, we place the threshold concentration below which biotic production is unlikely at an achievable limit of detection for onboard instruments eg those envisioned for the Orbilander concept. It is important that we define the required limits of detection to allow the interpretation of ‘negative results.’ Maybe one could interpret our result as an argument not to prioritize cell detection instruments over broader spectrum biosignature detection instruments such as gas chromatography or mass spectroscopy, which are able to identify molecules such as amino acids.”

The “Ocean Worlds” of the Solar System.

Credit: NASA/JPL

Therefore, further research is needed to address the role of heterotrophs and establish tighter constraints on the amount of organic matter that could be detected. This will ensure that future missions don’t run the risk of mistaking negative results for the absence of biotic production (instead of being merely too small to detect). Nevertheless, this research constitutes an important first step in establishing what a future mission to Enceladus should look for and how the results could be interpreted. This will likely have significant implications for future mission architectures – and not just for Enceladus.

Throughout the outer Solar System, there are “Ocean Worlds” that have icy surfaces and subsurface oceans. Most of these bodies are moons that orbit gas giants, like Jupiter’s Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, Saturn’s Titan and Dione, and Neptune’s Triton. However, astronomers and astrobiologists have begun eying other bodies like Ceres, Pluto, Charon, and other “dwarf planets” more closely in recent years. Several missions are planned to explore some of these bodies, all of which will benefit from research that helps establish what they could find. Said Affholder:

“What we do for Enceladus may translate at least in part for similar bodies – icy moons. Titan also has a global ocean overlain by ice and is the target of the upcoming NASA Dragonfly mission. Europa in the Jovian system is an icy moon that should be reached by the NASA Europa Clipper and by the ESA’s JUpiter ICy Explorer (JUICE) in the 2030s. I believe we are at the beginning of a very exciting era of exploration of icy moons, for which I am excited.”

Further Reading: Planetary Science Journal

The post How Could We Detect Life Inside Enceladus? appeared first on Universe Today.

Source: 

• https://www.universetoday.com/159453/how-could-we-detect-life-inside-enceladus/

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

1.5 Mile High Structure Found On Mars In Crater, Google Map, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 9, 2023
Location of discovery: Mars

Coordinates: Coming soon.

 

Hey all, I was using Google Mars map, and found this very tall ancient structure on Mars. The structure is so tall it shows a shadow for over 5 miles. Its about 1.5 miles tall, but since its on the floor of a crater, which is about 2-3 miles deep, its goes unnoticed. Yet I found it odd and exciting. The map I used is the infrared map, which shows things...detail that the human eye cannot normally see. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

 

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

The Pentagon’s Top-Secret UFO Investigation: What We Know

In May 2021, Congress held its first hearing on UFOs, or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), in over 50 years. The hearing was led by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Senator Marco Rubio, and Representative Ruben Gallego, who included an amendment in the latest defense bill requiring the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish a permanent office to investigate UAPs. The DoD has collected around 400 credible reports of UAPs, but has not provided any definitive answers, offering possible explanations such as airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, classified US technology, classified foreign technology, or other unidentified sources.

The government’s interest in UAPs dates back to the 1950s, when the Pentagon launched Project Blue Book to investigate over 12,000 UFO sightings, of which over 700 remain unidentified. In the 2000s, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada established the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (ATIP) to further investigate UAPs. The ATIP program was unclassified but not widely known to the public, and was officially ended in 2012.

Lou Elizondo, who was in charge of ATIP, became convinced that the UAPs they were investigating may not be of this world. When he tried to present this information to his superiors within the Pentagon, he faced skepticism and eventually resigned, bringing the program to public attention in 2017. Tom DeLonge, of the band Blink 182, has also been involved in bringing attention to the issue of UAPs.

• Congressional UFO Hearing Slated for May 17, 2022

Overall, the government is taking UAPs seriously as a national security issue, recognizing the need to investigate and identify any potential threats. However, the exact nature and origin of UAPs remains unknown.

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

VIDEO: Mysterious UFO Sighting Reported in Naples, Italy

On December 2022, a strange UFO was spotted outside a residence in Naples, Italy. According to the witness, the object appeared to be spinning like a flying saucer and then suddenly disappeared. There were no discos or clubs in the area with lights that could have caused the strange sight.

In the video of the incident, the UFO can be seen turning on itself and moving before disappearing from view. The witness is at a loss to explain what the object could be and submitted the video to our website through our Facebook page.

Here’s a video. Watch it in FULL screen!

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

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 09/01/2023

SpaceX Starship new timeline revealed, S24/B7 Full Stack & Massive Testing incoming

Mysterieuze Bol die uit Zichzelf Beweegt - de Betz-Bol

Jarenlang zijn er talloze vreemde artefacten gevonden - boeken met vreemde codes, onverklaarbare kaarten, stenen met ongebruikelijke vormen, oude figuren die vreemde dingen uitbeelden, en... het geval van de Betz-bol, een mysterieuze metalen bol die per ongeluk werd gevonden door een Amerikaans gezin in de jaren zeventig dat het vermogen had om zelfstandig te verhuizen ... Destijds veroorzaakte de bol een grote media-razernij en werd door velen beschreven als 'buitenaardse technologie'. Het begon allemaal in april 1974, toen een familie uit de stad Jacksonville, Florida, een vreemd bolvormig metalen voorwerp vond met een gewicht van ongeveer 20 pond en afmetingen die iets kleiner waren dan die van een bowlingbal.

See Mars Helicopter Ingenuity's first flight of 2023 in time-lapse + stats!

NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity took its first flight on 2023 on Jan. 4. See a time-lapse of the flight, color images and statistics.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | edited by [Steve Spaleta]

• (https://twitter.com/stevespaleta)

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How Virgin Orbit transported a rocket to the UK

The team at Virgin Orbit in California explains how they transported a rocket to the United Kingdom for launch. -- Launch is scheduled for Jan. 9, 2022: https://www.space.com/virgin-orbit-fi...

Credit: Virgin Orbit

Nasa's Mars Perseverance Rover Sends Superb Pictures -Curiosity Mission Update [2022 - 2023]

Hello Everyone: Watch in this fantastic video Nasa's Mars Perseverance Rover Released Super Stunning Pictures of Mars and Curiosity Mission Update [2022-2023]

And watch Curiosity's Panoram images and latest photos of Mars sent by NASA'S Perseverance Rover acquired on latest sol 667

China launches 5 micro-satellites atop Galactic Energy's CERES-1 Y5 rocket

A Galactic Energy-developed CERES-1 Y5 carrier rocket launched 5 small satellites from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Jan. 9. 2023. Galactic Energy is a rocket maker based in Beijing.

Credit: Space.com | footage courtesy: China Central Television (CCTV) | edited by Steve Spaleta (https://twitter.com/stevespaleta)

Booster 7's Final Roll to the Launch Site? | SpaceX Boca Chica

Super Heavy Booster 7 was rolled out to the launch site in Boca Chica, potentially for the final time, ahead of an expected WDR and 33 engine static fire.

Dream Chaser - The Dream Of Lifting Body Space Planes

Dream Chaser isn't the first space plane, it is however on course to be the first operational Lifting Body space plane, intended to perform its first demo launch on a Vulcan rocket and rendezvous with the International Space Station during 2022.
But its been a long time coming, the concept of lifting body space planes goes back to the 1950's, and NASA was test flying demonstrators 60 years ago, starting with the 'Flying Bathtub', build from a steel frame overlaid with plywood, and towed behind a car.
But it would take some cues from the Soviet BOR-4 test vehicle to arrive at a more optimal design, stable across much larger ranges of speed.

The Physics of UFOs: Eric Weinstein + Hal Puthoff

Eric Weinstein is a Managing Director at Thiel Capital, creator of geometric unity, a unified theory in physics, and the intellectual dark web, a loose coalition of intellectuals dedicated to free thought. Hal Puthoff is former CIA, NSA and AATIP (the government’s official UFO investigation program). In the 70’s, he oversaw Stargate: the government’s psychic spy program at Stanford Research Institute. In this conversation, we discuss the physics of UFO’s, private aerospace as the keepers of fundamental science and Hal’s experience with parapsychology. Please enjoy

{ https://www.youtube.com/ )

BY SCOTT ALAN JOHNSTON

New JWST Image Shows That Grand Spiral Galaxies had Already Formed 11 Billion Years ago

The new JWST images, presented by The University of Texas at Austin on January 5th, show six barred spiral galaxies over 8.4 million years old, two of which are older than 11 billion years (the oldest galaxy ever seen is around 13.4 billion years old).

Most of these galaxies were previously imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, like EGS-23205, pictured below. (EGS stands for Extended Groth Strip, a region of the sky that has been extensively images and studied by international surveys). However, in the Hubble images, the bars are largely obscured.

JWST has an advantage over Hubble in observing extremely old and distant galaxies, partly because its larger mirror can collect more light from distant, dim objects. But it also has an advantage due to its use of infrared rather than optical wavelengths. Light from older and more distant objects is ‘red-shifted’ along the electromagnetic spectrum, meaning that JWST’s detectors can pick them up better than Hubble can.

Infrared is also very effective at seeing through gas and dust, enabling JWST to pick out the stellar nurseries in the bars which would otherwise be obscured.

Shardha Jogee, professor of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin, explained the implications of these early forming bars for models of galactic evolution:

“Bars solve the supply chain problem in galaxies,” Jogee says. “Just like we need to bring raw material from the harbor to inland factories that make new products, a bar powerfully transports gas into the central region where the gas is rapidly converted into new stars at a rate typically 10 to 100 times faster than in the rest of the galaxy…This discovery of early bars means galaxy evolution models now have a new pathway via bars to accelerate the production of new stars at early epochs.”

The new images are part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS), and their initial findings have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

JWST is ushering in an exciting time for astronomers, and this was a promising start to 2023.

“I took one look at these data, and I said, ‘We are dropping everything else!’” says Jogee.

Learn more:

• “James Webb Telescope Reveals Milky Way-like Galaxies in Young Universe,” UT Austin.
• Yuchen Guo et al., “First Look at z > 1 Bars in the Rest-Frame Near-Infrared with JWST Early CEERS Imaging,” ArXiv Preprint.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

Mysterious UFO Sighting in Austin, Texas Causes Stir on Social Media

The video of the UFO sighting in Austin, Texas (3rd January 2023) has caused quite a stir on social media, with many people wondering what could have caused the bright light and strange object captured on film. Some have suggested that it could be a drone, possibly even one belonging to the local police department, due to the presence of a searchlight and the fact that the video appears to have been filmed through double-paned glass.

Others, however, are skeptical of this explanation and believe that the object could be something more mysterious. Some commenters on the original Reddit post claim to have seen similar objects at a United States Air Force base, leading some to speculate that the object could be some sort of military technology. Others have pointed out the triangle shape of the object as seen in the video, suggesting that it could be an unidentified flying object of extraterrestrial origin.

Regardless of what the object may be, it has certainly sparked a lot of debate and speculation among those who have seen the video. Some believe it could be a hoax or a staged event, while others think it could be a genuine mystery that deserves further investigation. Until more information becomes available, the true nature of the object in the video remains a mystery.

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

Proving the Existence of Aliens: 40+ UFO Cases Examined in New Book

Evidence of Extraterrestrials: Over 40 Cases Prove Aliens Have Visited Earth (Amazon link) is a book by Warren Agius that delves into the topic of extraterrestrial life and aims to provide a case-by-case analysis to prove the existence of aliens. The book begins with the Aurora Crash in 1897 and the battle of Los Angeles in 1942, and goes on to explore other UFO incidents such as the Roswell crash, the Phoenix lights, and the Tic Tac encounter. In these chapters, Agius presents detailed accounts of these incidents and provides impeccable documentation to support his claims.

Agius also discusses the influence of six government UFO programs on the pursuit of disclosure. He examines the various ways in which these programs have attempted to uncover the truth about UFO sightings and encounters, and how they have influenced the search for extraterrestrial life. In addition to these government programs, Agius also looks at the role that private organizations and individuals have played in the investigation of UFO incidents.

According to Joseph J. Truncale, a reviewer on Amazon, the book is a good review of some of the most compelling UFO cases reported over the years. Truncale notes that while he remains a skeptic, he is open-minded to the possibility of extraterrestrial life due to the recent military photographs and research that has been done. Emilia V Cooley, another reviewer, describes the book as a must-read for anyone interested in UFOs, crash sites, and cover-ups.

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

George Knapp – UAP Cover Up by the U.S Government, Mainstream Journalists, and Hollywood Continuous

UFO researchers Bryce Zabel and Ross Coulhart recently appeared on George Knapp’s show to discuss their belief that the US government, mainstream media, and Hollywood are covering up knowledge of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). At a recent press conference, Department of Defense officials discussed their efforts to address UAP, but Zabel and Coulthart see this as an attempt to control the narrative and downplay public interest in the government’s involvement with UAP. Predict

They also point out the multiple delays in the release of a major report on the government’s findings on UFOs and extraterrestrial life. The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets have engaged in “prebunking” of the report, which Zabel sees as evidence of bias against the paranormal by mainstream journalists.

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

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 08/01/2023

How SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch SHOCKED NASA Scientists 2023!

This is Falcon Heavy. It costs $90m. For a mere $1b a year, or about 4% of NASA’s budget, we could launch it to every planet in every launch window. And that’s before the bulk discount.
One may criticize the Falcon Heavy rocket for having a short launch manifest, as it has only four launches in five years. There just aren't that many commercial customers right now for the heavier-lift rocket when a cheaper Falcon 9 or another medium-lift class of booster will suffice. But when one considers the more extreme cases—such as big Department of Defense missions to geostationary orbit or potential human exploration plans—the Falcon Heavy shines.
And indeed, even after SLS launched, this monster still proves itself to be an engineering masterpiece, shocking NASA scientists.

Find out the real reason behind this in today's episode of Alpha Tech:

When it was envisioned in 2010, NASA’s SLS was tipped to be the world’s largest and most powerful rocket in addition to being extraordinarily cheap and quick to build due to ample use of existing components, such as engines and boosters from the Space Shuttle program.
Back then the Starship was simply a concept, as was the Falcon Heavy, the first attempt at heavy orbital vehicle undertaken by SpaceX, and roughly comparable in its payload capacity to the SLS.
Then, in 2014, NASA administrator Charlie Bolden uttered a quote that would go on to be ridiculed and memified ever since. “Let’s be very honest. We don’t have a commercially available heavy-lift vehicle. The Falcon 9 Heavy may some day come about. It’s on the drawing board right now. SLS is real.”
Two years later, in 2016, Bolden said he still did not believe commercial companies were up to the task. "If you talk about launch vehicles, we believe our responsibility to the nation is to take care of things that normal people cannot do, or don’t want to do, like large launch vehicles," Bolden said. "I’m not a big fan of commercial investment in large launch vehicles just yet."
How SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch SHOCKED NASA Scientists 2023!

Starship Ready For Wet Dress Rehearsal After Completing Critical Load Test, Virgin Orbit, SpaceX

SpaceX completed a 5000-ton starship orbital launch mount structural test. Starship-24 & super heavy booster-7 full stack wet dress rehearsal and 22 engine static fire test soon. Pad 39A launch tower work continues.

SpaceX begins 2023 with the Transporter-6 launch. Virgin Orbit preparing for first U.K. launch. NASA's Perseverance rover places fifth sample tube on Mars.

Scripted on 6th January 2023

00:00 Starship Updates

05:54 200th SpaceX Mission, 100 More This year

08:37 Virgin Orbit Ready For First International Launch

09:48 Perseverance Sample Drop 50% Complete

China's Plan To Take Over Space In 2023!

SpaceX News and Updates: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

The Space Race is dedicated to the exploration of outer space and humans' mission to explore the universe. We’ll provide news and updates from everything in space, including the SpaceX and NASA mission to colonize Mars and the Moon. We’ll focus on news and updates from SpaceX, NASA, Starlink, Blue Origin, The James Webb Space Telescope and more. If you’re interested in space exploration, Mars colonization, and everything to do with space travel and the space race... you’ve come to the right channel! We love space and hope to inspire others to learn more!

2 Pyramids Share Unusual Similarities | Ancient Aliens (Season 1)

Two pyramids located on two different continents share uncanny features. See more in this clip from "Aliens and Unexplained Engineering."

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

BY ANDY TOMASWICK

Space Weather is an Ever-Increasing Threat to Humanity. But it’s not the Sun’s Fault, it’s Ours

All that destruction happened when telegraphs and electricity were just getting off the ground as technologies. Now, with cell phone towers and massive high-voltage transformers, the risk of a catastrophe is orders of magnitude greater.

However, ground-based systems aren’t the only ones vulnerable to the effects of space weather. Satellites play an increasingly important role in our lives, from providing internet connections to war-ravaged Ukrainians to allowing visitors to navigate downtown Chicago. Their location above the protection of the Earth’s atmosphere makes them particularly vulnerable to adverse space weather effects. 

So what would happen today if we got hit with another solar storm the size of the Carrington event? It’s unclear how far the damage might go, but it would clearly be a calamity on the Earth’s power and communications grids. Since those each have far-reaching implications on society at large, there is a very high likelihood that daily routines, at least of people that commonly use those systems, would be massively disrupted for days, weeks, or months. 

Unfortunately, as the paper points out, we are not adequately prepared for it. The eventual appearance of a solar flare is not an if; it is a when. And it’s also an awful time to start planning for such a catastrophe, given that it will take less than a day from the time we detect it for a storm to start causing damage. 

Buzulukova and Tsurutani’s suggestion is a logical one – scientists should map out the worst-case scenarios, what their probabilities are, and what impact they would have. Then we should collectively, as a society, decide what risk we should take on in the event of such a storm happening. Because someday it will happen. And we can’t say we haven’t been warned.

Learn More:

• Buzulukov & Tsurutani – Space Weather: From Solar Origins to Risks and Hazards Evolving in Time
• UT – The Sun Could Hurl Powerful Storms at Earth From its Goofy Smile
• UT – During a Solar Flare, Dark Voids Move Down Towards the Sun. Now We Know Why

• UT – What Was the Carrington Event?

Lead Image:

• Artist illustration of a space weather event.
  Credit – NASA

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

 BY ANTON POZDNYAKOV

Eruption on Io, Moon Navigation, Space-Based Power Test

Io Is Having a Major Vulcanic Outburst

Astronomers have been watching Jupiter’s moon Io and detected enormous volcanic outbursts starting last summer. According to one scientist who has been watching the moon since 2017, this is the largest volcanic outburst he’s ever seen. Because of its low gravity, volcanic eruptions can hurl lava with escape velocity, putting it into orbit around Jupiter. It’s believed this orbital lava contributes to surface features on other Jovian moons and forms part of Jupiter’s rings.

• More about eruptions on Io.

Solar Wind Might Create Water on the Moon

We know there’s water on the Moon. Not just in the permanently shadowed craters at the poles but mixed in with the regolith across the Moon. Not much, though, about a water bottle’s worth of H2O in a cubic meter of regolith. How did it get there? By studying samples returned by the Chang’e 5 mission, scientists have matched the chemical constituents in lunar water to the hydrogen particles streaming from the solar wind. These particles impact the regolith and combine with oxygen to produce water.

• More about water on the Moon.

Structures on the Moon Could Be Build With Microwaves

Although it’s been 50 years since humanity walked on the Moon, we’re on our way to building a permanent habitat there. And that means building permanent structures that protect people from the brutal lunar environment. Building your structures, roads, and landing pads out of the plentiful lunar regolith makes sense, but what’s the best way to do it? A team of engineers suggests that just beaming microwaves at the slightly magnetic regolith could sinter it into structures without the need for binding agents like cement.

• More about building things on the Moon.

How to Navigate on the Moon

We use GPS technology to find our way around the Earth, but what about exploring the Moon? There’s no GPS there. Instead, a NASA engineer believes they’ll be able to use landmarks to navigate on the Moon. They fed data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter into a machine-learning algorithm. Then they built up a 3D simulation of what it would look like from any spot on the Moon – a navigational fingerprint. Just by looking at their surrounding mountains and craters, astronauts will be able to know precisely where they are.

• More about Moon navigation.

China’s Considering Where to Build Lunar Station

China recently announced its plans for upcoming missions to the Moon, including its subsequent three landers/rovers in the Chang’e series. Chang’e 6 will return to the Moon’s south pole and retrieve a sample for study back on Earth. Chang’e 7 will comprehensively survey the south polar region, and Chang’e 8 will test technology for a future lunar research station. This will pave the way for future humans to fly to the Moon and build a permanently inhabited lunar base.

• More about China’s station on the Moon.

Space-Based Power Test

Generating power in space and beaming it down to Earth isn’t a new idea. It also isn’t the most realistic way to do things, as there are obvious major downsides. However, the technologies required to achieve space-based power generation and transmition can be promissing and can be used in other usecases. So, a team at Caltech just launched a satellite called Space Solar Power Demonstrator that will test some of the tech involved. It consists of three main experiments: DOLCE, which demonstrates the architecture and deployment mechanisms of the modular spacecraft; ALBA, which assesses the effectiveness of different types of photovoltaic cells in space; and MAPLE, which demonstrates wireless power transmission at a distance in space.

• More about generating power in space.

Don’t Miss Out On Space News

If you want to get a curated selection of the most important space and astronomy news every week, subscribe to our Weekly Email Newsletter and get magazine-size ad-free news directly from Fraser Cain.

If you prefer the news to be videoed at you, check out our Space Bites playlist on our YouTube channel.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

 BY ANDY TOMASWIC

Arecibo Studied 191 Asteroids That Flew Past the Earth. All the Data are Available in a new Paper

The polarization of an object is indicative of what is on the surface and potentially what is then under the surface of these bodies. That is of particular interest to asteroid mining companies, and the Arecibo release contains that data for 110 of the asteroids, and a few of them were particularly interesting.

There is a shortage of NEAs that are “metal rich,” which is one of the main characteristics that asteroid miners are looking for in a potential mining prospect. Two of the 110 asteroids studied seemed to have high albedos, indicating that they could be metal-rich – a rare find in the area around Earth.

Potentially more interesting, though, is one particular asteroid – or, more accurately, a binary pair of asteroids called 2017 YE5. This binary page has high albedo but relatively low density, leading scientists to believe that it might be full of ice rather than metal. Water is also of particular interest to asteroid miners, as it can be a key component in one of the most in-demand substances in space – rocket fuel.

Another potentially exciting finding in the data set is the discovery of five E-type asteroids. These asteroids, which contain significant concentrations of a mineral called enstatite, could be a source of silicon, magnesium, and oxygen. Arecibo saw these asteroids for what they were; however, previous data sets didn’t identify the specific characteristics that mark them as E-type.

As with all of these data set releases, there’s still more work to be done, as there might be other misclassified asteroids lurking. But it shows that, even years after it collapsed into a pile of rubble, Arecibo still provides the scientific community with more and more insights.

Learn More:

• UCF – Arecibo Observatory Scientists Publish Major Study on Near-Earth Asteroids
• Virkki et al – Arecibo Planetary Radar Observations of Near-Earth Asteroids: 2017 December–2019
  December
• UT – NASA’s KaBOOM Experimental Asteroid Radar Aims to Thwart Earth’s Kaboom
• UT – Awesome Radar Images Reveal Asteroid 2014 HQ124’s Split Personality

Lead Image:

• Artist’s depiction of a series of NEAs.
• Credit – Adobe Stock

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

LED Tech Makes UFOs Over Taiwan Building, Jan 6, 2022, UFO Sighting News. Video.

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

US Air Force unveils B-21 Raider - dubbed the 'most advanced military aircraft ever built' - with cutting-edge stealth bombers costing $750 million apiece

• US Air Force publicly unveiled its next-generation stealth bomber in Palmdale, California on Friday night
• B-21 Raider is the most advanced long-range, stealth intercontinental strategic bomber in the world
• Cutting-edge stealth technology makes it virtually 'invisible' to enemy radar and detection
• Bomber, named for WWI's 'Doolittle Raiders,' is capable of conventional and thermonuclear strikes 

By KEITH GRIFFITH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and WIRES

The US Air Force has publicly unveiled its next-generation stealth bomber, which has been called the 'most advanced military aircraft ever built.' 

Pentagon officials and representatives of contractor Northrop Grumman revealed the B-21 Raider at a dramatic ceremony in Palmdale, California on Friday night.

As a crew of airmen drew back the tarp covering the sophisticated bomber, a cheer went up from the crowd of invited guests, excited to get their first glimpse of the plane after years of anticipation. 

The ceremony started with a flyover of the three US bombers still in service: the B-52 Stratofortress, the B-1 Lancer and the B-2 Spirit. Then the hangar doors slowly opened and the B-21 was towed partially out of the building.

'This isn't just another airplane,' Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. 'It's the embodiment of America's determination to defend the republic that we all love.'

Similar in shape to the B-2, a 'flying wing' design already in the Air Force's inventory, the B-21 be able to deliver both conventional and nuclear weapons around the world due to its long-range and mid-air refueling capabilities.

Each B-21, billed as a 'sixth generation bomber', was projected to cost approximately $550 million each in 2010 dollars, or about $750 million in today's inflation-adjusted dollars. 

Pentagon officials and representatives of contractor Northrop Grumman revealed the B-21 Raider (seen under a large tarp) at a dramatic ceremony in Palmdale, California on Friday night

Each B-21, which can deliver both conventional and nuclear bombs, was projected to cost approximately $550 million each in 2010 dollars, or about $750 million in today's inflation-adjusted dollars 

Similar in shape to the B-2, a 'flying wing' design already in the Air Force's inventory, the B-21 will also be able to deliver nuclear weapons around the world because of long-range and mid-air refueling capabilities

'This isn't just another airplane,' Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. 'It's the embodiment of America's determination to defend the republic that we all love.'

The Air Force planned to buy at least 100 of the planes and begin to replace B-1 and B-2 bombers. 

The service has estimated that the program will likely cost at least $203 billion over 30 years to develop, purchase and maintain the B-21 fleet.

The B-21 is part of the Pentagon's efforts to modernize all three legs of its nuclear triad, which also includes silo-launched nuclear ballistic missiles and submarine-launched warheads, as it shifts from the counterterrorism campaigns of recent decades to meet China's rapid military modernization.

China is on track to have 1,500 nuclear weapons by 2035, and its gains in hypersonics, cyber warfare and space capabilities present 'the most consequential and systemic challenge to U.S. national security and the free and open international system,' the Pentagon said this week in its annual China report.

Northrop is calling the plane a sixth generation aircraft given its ability to connect to other aircraft and easily integrate future weapons into its systems architecture. 

Other changes include advanced materials used in coatings to make the bomber harder to detect, Austin said.

'Fifty years of advances in low-observable technology have gone into this aircraft,' Austin said. 'Even the most sophisticated air defense systems will struggle to detect a B-21 in the sky.'

Other advances likely include new ways to control electronic emissions, so the bomber could spoof adversary radars and disguise itself as another object, and use of new propulsion technologies, several defense analysts said.

It also features more durable stealth-enabling low observable surface material that will require less maintenance and keep operations costs and downtime to a minimum, Doug Young, sector vice president and general manager at Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems, told Reuters in an interview.

'This aircraft was possible because of American innovation,' said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the ceremony

As a crew of airmen drew back the tarp covering the sophisticated bomber, a cheer went up from the crowd of invited guests, excited to get their first glimpse of the plane after years of anticipation

Pentagon officials and representatives of contractor Northrop Grumman revealed the B-21 Raider at a dramatic ceremony in Palmdale, California on Friday night

The crowd of guests is seen at the unveiling ceremony where they caught the first glimpse of the plane

The US Air Force finally unveiled its secret B-21 stealth bomber aircraft on Friday in Palmdale, California, which is touted to be virtually 'invisible' to all enemy stealth radars and will included the latest features in military tech

While the Raider may resemble the B-2, once you get inside, the similarities stop, said Kathy Warden, chief executive of Northrop, which is building the bomber.

'The way it operates internally is extremely advanced compared to the B-2, because the technology has evolved so much in terms of the computing capability that we can now embed in the software of the B-21,' Warden said.

Northrop beat out a team comprised of Boeing and Lockheed Martin when it won the 2015 contract to make the bomber, alongside suppliers including engine maker Pratt & Whitney, Collins Aerospace, GKN Aerospace, BAE Systems and Spirit Aerosystems.

The rollout at Northrop's Plant 42 in Palmdale provided the first photographs of the new bomber. So far, only artist renderings have been published.

Six of the planes, which is to have its first flight in mid-2023, are in various stages of assembly. More than 8,000 people from Northrop Grumman, industry partners and the Air Force work on the program today which consists of more than 400 suppliers in 40 states.

THE B-21'S NEWEST FEATURES FOR MODERN WARFARE 

The B-21's features groundbreaking stealth technology built on top of more than three decades and six generations of US bomber innovation. 

Northrop boasts that the new aircraft will included advance materials that will greatly reduced infrared, acoustic, electromagnetic, visual and radar signatures, making it virtually undetectable.  

The bomber's stealth tech is expected to counteract even the latest Russian and Chinese surface-to-air missiles, something '90 percent of the nation's current bomber fleet is incapable of doing,' the company said. 

The B-21 will also include a 'digital bomb bay', which will allow the aircraft to integrate new weapons faster than ever before. It ensures that the bomber can be readily and affordably upgraded.  

Northrop Grumman unveils the B-21 Raider, a new high-tech stealth bomber developed for the U.S. Air Force

The B-21 Raider is set to replace the $2bn per plane B-2 Spirit - and features a smaller wingspan and price tag of $639m. Unlike its predecessor, the B-21 will be able to go on unmanned bomber and surveillance missions anywhere in the world

An early artist rendering of the plane is seen. Developers Northrop Grumman said the aircraft will also use AI-controlled sensors to share data with all branches of the military in record time for coordinated strikes

The new system grants the aircraft the ability to be nuclear-capable and carry an estimated payload of 30,000 pounds of firepower. 

Additionally, the B-21 will come with AI-controlled sensors, which Northrop said would be able to identify enemy targets and share intelligence with allies for coordinated strikes in record time. 

The system will be able to share data with the Army, Navy, Air Force and Space Force. 

'The B-21 provides utility to accomplish our nation's security objective in every scenario imaginable,' retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula told the Wall Street Journal. 'No other weapons system can do that.' 

'The B-21 is America's China-deterrence bomber,' said Mark Gunzinger, a retired bomber pilot who flew the B-52.

A FULLY REMOTE STEALTH BOMBER 

Unlike its predecessor, the B-2 Spirit, the B-21 Raider is expected to allow for unmanned missions. 

While the current plans for the Raider include a crew of two, the Air Force has said that future aircraft must be able to be completely remote.

Representatives for Northrop called the B-21 'pioneering' and 'technological excellence.'

'The B-21 is the most advanced military aircraft ever built and is a product of pioneering innovation and technological excellence,' said Northrop sector vice president and general manager Dough Young.

A teaser for the unveiling of the B-21 Raider released by aerospace and technology contractor Northrop Grumman

HOW DOES IT COMPETE WITH RUSSIA AND CHINA? 

The stealth aspect of the B-21 Raider is touted as its main asset against Russian and Chinese forces. 

Like its predecessor, the B-21 is expected to be a subsonic aircraft, meaning it will fly slower than 768 mph. 

That puts it at a notable disadvantage against China's J-20 stealth fighter, which flies at more than 1,300 mph and is capable of carrying 24,000 pounds of payload. 

The B-21 will also be slower than Russia's SU-57, which can hit a top speed of 1,330 mph and reportedly saw its first operational use in November when officials claimed it downed a Ukrainian jet. 

Despite the slow speed, Northup claims the B-21 will be among the most undetectable aircrafts in the sky, capable of hiding from foreign nation's radar system. 

The Air Force is planning to buy at least 100 of the B-21 Raider. Pictured: A rendering of jet released by the US Air Force

Russia currently touts the most capable surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, which can shoot down stealth aircrafts from 250 miles away. 

China currently employs is HQ-17 SAM system, which can track 24 different targets and shot two down at the same time from nine miles away. 

Although there have been rumors that China has developed a new radar capable of detecting any and all stealth aircrafts, they have been rejected by military experts. 

The Department of Defense has said that a new generation of stealth bombers are needed for America's national security imperative, which includes deterring conflicts in the South China Sea.  

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS- 07/01/2023

Earth has an 'evil twin' - Venus explained by NASA scientist

NASA Director of Planetary Science, Dr. Lori Glaze explains why Venus is known as Earth's evil twin. Venus: The scorching second planet from the sun: https://www.space.com/44-venus-second...

Credit: NASA

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See 133 days of the Sun in 2 minute time-lapse

Watch the Sun over the course of 133 days in 2022, as viewed by NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory. The time-lapse runs from August to December.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Orion is Back in Florida After Artemis I on This Week at NASA – January 6, 2023

The Orion spacecraft is back in Florida after Artemis I, a direct deposit on Mars, and an insightful mission comes to an end. These are a few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!

Credit: NASA

SpaceX Starship Updates, Transporter 6, Stoke Space & A Crazy Future Awaits Compilation

Welcome to 2023, and a really interesting set of topics today to kick the year off. A bunch of neat new things to discuss at Starbase Texas. SpaceX Starship Updates of course, but the new device to ensure the Orbital Launch Mount can support the full 5,000 tonnes of a Fully Stacked and Loaded Starship. A very exciting launch and return to landing site for Falcon 9, but also some super interesting payloads to talk about within that Transporter 6 mission. A brand new fully reusable vehicle by Stoke Space with only a metal heat shield? How is that going to work? And then we worked hard on a new compilation to re-inspire and remind myself and all of us, why a Crazy Future Awaits if SpaceX can nail Starship and its future plans. This year is already looking very exciting as we count down to the biggest tests of the Starship yet.

What's Going On In This SpaceX Rocket Video?

NSF's John Galloway talks through interesting things you can see on the Falcon 9 rocket cam video released by SpaceX. The original video was found on SpaceX's Twitter feed, showing a single take of the booster launch and landing for the Transporter-6 mission from Cape Canaveral SLC-40. Twitter video source quality was 720p. Edited by Thomas Hayden.

If The Universe Was Created from Nothing, It Could Mean Physics Is Fake!?

There are a number of different theories about how the universe may have formed Some scientists believe that the universe may have come into being through a process known as cosmic inflation. In contrast, others think it may have arisen from the collapse of a previous universe. Still, others believe the universe has always existed and has no beginning or end. Ultimately, the question of how the universe came into being is one that remains the subject of much debate and study.

0:00 Intro

0:43 Neil Degrasse Tyson Thoughts

1:33 Big Bang Theory

4:20 Singularities

6:00 Quantum Fluctuation Theory

8:10 Cosmic Inflation Theory

10:21 Nothingness

11:56 Universe From Nothing

A Journey around the Milky Way

The Milky Way is a tremendous structure in space containing billions of stars and trillions of planets. In their turn, these objects are surrounded by gigantic clouds of interstellar dust and scorching hot gas streams. By mutually interacting, all these components make up the bizarre and fascinating picture called galaxy. And today we invite you on an exciting journey across it.

0:00 Intro

01:35 Аlpha Centauri

12:25 Closest stars

38:16 Gliese 1214 b

47:25 CW Leonis

57:25 Horrifying planets

01:10:11 Black holes

01:20:47 The Milky Way

01:35:34 Ending

American FIRST B-21 Raider The Whole World Is Afraid Of

This is America's first extremely long-range intercontinental strategic bomber in three decades. A sixth-generation stealth aircraft that can carry both nuclear and conventional weapons, operate in both manned and unmanned modes, control a swarm of drones, and conduct electronic attacks. All eyes are on the spotlight of today’s video, the $200 billion B-21 Raider, the first prototypes of which will be presented as early as December, 2022.

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{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

Beam me up! Rare 'pillars of light' appear across the US as ice crystals in the air reflect light to create what look like UFO abduction rays

• Stunning pillars of light have been seen across the US in the past week
• The pillars appear as white beams of light hanging in the night sky
• They form during frigid winter nights, as ground light reflects off millions of ice crystals suspended in the air

By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Reports of 'UFO abduction rays' are sweeping across the US.

Residents in several states have been left in awe after witnessing the atmospheric phenomenon known as pillars of light that some liken to beams from alien spacecraft.

While rare, the pillars form during frigid winter nights, as ground light reflects off millions of ice crystals suspended in the air.

AccuWeather Meteorologist David Samuhel said in a statement: 'Typically, ice crystals are small enough to remain suspended in the air and only form when temperatures are below zero [F].

'In most instances, temperatures are minus 10 to 20 degrees or colder.'

Residents in several states, including Washington state (pictured), have been left in awe after witnessing the atmospheric phenomenon known as pillars of light that some liken to beams from alien spacecraft

Most of the pillars of light were observed in the past week as a deep freeze swept across much of the nation. 

Some states, like Minnesota, saw temperatures drop to minus six degrees.

Photographer captures rare natural phenomenon above Canada 

A photographer captured stunning images of a rare natural phenomenon as freezing temperatures and tiny flakes of ice create an illusion of light pillars reaching into the night sky above Canada. 

Witnesses have noted that the pillars seem brighter and taller than in years past, which might be a result of the extreme cold.

Light pillars are formed when light rays are reflected off of horizontally aligned ice crystals suspended in or falling slowly through the air.

The crystals act like a series of tiny mirrors in the sky, reflecting light as they slowly fall to the ground.

While the light is actually coming from ground level or higher in the sky, it appears to observers to come from various points above or below the natural source, forming the beam of light.

Although your brain may think the pillars are there, they are an optical illusion and form in the same way that virtual images and objects reflected in mirrors appear to exist behind the plane of the mirror.

Specific conditions are required for forming light pillars — it must be below freezing, and the air must be virtually wind-free.

Without this, the tiny hexagonal ice crystals would be disturbed, but in very calm conditions, they naturally orient themselves horizontally as they fall through the air.

The presence of horizontal crystals across various altitudes causes the light source's reflection to elongate into a column.

Most of the pillars of light were observed in the past week as a deep freeze swept across much of the nation. Pictured are the pillars in Oregon

Specific conditions are required for forming light pillars (like these in Iowa) — it must be below freezing, and the air must be virtually wind-free

Without this, the tiny hexagonal ice crystals would be disturbed, but in very calm conditions, they naturally orient themselves horizontally as they fall through the air. This image was taken in Iowa

Light pillars are often seen in colder climates in the autumn and winter when temperatures are low enough for ice to form in the atmosphere — typically when ground-level temperatures fall beneath 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

Samuhel said the pillars occur under high pressure without any storm present.

'There is no tie between storms and the pillars,' he continued. 

'A storm system would disrupt the pillar formation with wind and precipitation.

Light pillars are often seen in colder climates in the autumn and winter when temperatures are low enough for ice to form in the atmosphere — typically when ground-level temperatures fall beneath 10 degrees Fahrenheit

And while the pillars of light may mimic auroras, they differ because the beams are much smaller than the northern lights that can cover miles of the sky. 

'Auroras are observed across a much wider area since they occur many miles up in the atmosphere,' Samuhel said.

'Light pillars occur close to the ground in the lowest levels of the atmosphere.' 

 If you enjoyed this article...

Stunning 'light pillars' phenomena sparkle in the Pennsylvania sky 

Extraordinary images show 'light pillars' dancing above houses after sunshine and snow combine to create rare effect 

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

Locals Freaked Out By Glowing Red And White UFOs In The Night Sky Over Las Vegas

BY DOUGLAS CHARLES

ISTOCKPHOTO

Recently, the Pentagon’s new investigative UFO office said it had received “several hundred” reports of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, or UAPs, as they prefer to call them.

With recent UFO sightings in rural Wisconsin, in the skies above India, over central Florida, and now this latest report out of Las Vegas, the number of reports that the Pentagon is receiving won’t be slowing down anytime soon.

The aforementioned UFO sighting in Las Vegas took place around Christmas with numerous people taking to social media to share what they had witnessed and ask questions.

When people in Las Vegas are concerned about weird lights in the sky, then you know something is definitely off.

The witnesses stated that they saw random red and white glowing lights through the clouds in the night sky.

In a TikTok video that captured a good look at the lights, it almost appears as to be like the Upside Down from Stranger Things, only in real life.

The strange red and white glowing UFOs were also captured on video by others in the area.

Related: 

• Ex-CIA Agent Who Worked At Area 51 Makes Startling Alien, UFO Deathbed Confessions

“Def wild cause it’s reflecting the light when it hits it! That def something up there,” one Twitter commented.

The Hill reports…

Workers at the Sapphire Gentleman’s Club on Sammy Davis Jr. Drive posted the first videos of the phenomenon early on the morning of Friday, Dec. 23. From the parking lot, they filmed what appeared to be groups of red and white lights shining in the clouds.

“Honestly, this is really strange,” a voice can be heard remarking of the lights. “I mean, we’re here every night. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The people recording the event speculated that it was a UFO hovering above the club, and they weren’t alone. Nexstar’s KLAS heard from a worker at a nearby marijuana-growing business who also saw the lights, claiming they stayed in place for more than an hour.

Of course, some buzzkill from the National Weather Service had to go and spoil the UFO party with his explanation for the red and white UFO lights.

Long pillars of multicolored light streaking the sky seem like the perfect backdrop for impending alien invasion, but in reality, light pillars are a common effect that can be found all over the world.

They do come from above — not extraterrestrials, but tiny crystals of ice hanging in the atmosphere. Ice is very thin, shaped like plates with hexagonal faces. When ice drifts down through the air, it falls close to horizontally. At the top and bottom are the faces with more area. Ice is very reflective, so when light hits those wider faces, it bounces around and reflects off more ice crystals.

That means we get these vertically stacked mirrors floating in the atmosphere. The light hitting it gets reflected up and up (or down and down, depending on the source), and becomes a radiant column in the sky.

Soooo… it was the Upside Down, but they’re blaming it on the atmosphere? Pffft….

"UFO" spotted over Las Vegas 

Twitter user Brett Feinstein tweeted a video of the occurrence along with the caption, "There is a #ufo above Sapphire Las Vegas right now!"

In the video, Feinstein captured what looked to be clusters of white and red lights glowing in the skies from the parking lot of a club in Las Vegas. People in the video can be heard talking about the unlikely phenomenon.  

Experts are now saying that it was not a UFO 

Twitter Screengrab

The Hill reported that scientists said the strange lights were likely just a weather phenomenon. According to a meteorologist from the National Weather Service (NWS) in Las Vegas, there is a good chance that what visitors saw was a phenomenon known as "light pillars" because the lights in the clouds did not appear to move and the cloud temperature was low enough. 

The NWS stated on its website that although long streaks of multicoloured light in the sky appear to be the ideal setting for an oncoming extraterrestrial invasion, light pillars are actually a typical phenomenon that may be seen all over the world.

The report further went on to explain that they do originate from above—but not from aliens, but rather from small ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. 

"Ice is made of a very thin material that has plates-like hexagonal faces. Ice falls almost horizontally as it floats in the air. The faces with the most area are at the top and bottom. Because ice is highly reflective, light reflects off more ice crystals when it strikes those larger faces. This results in these mirrors that are vertically piled and floating in the sky," it added. 

Unsplash

What do you think about this? Tell us in the comments.

{ https://brobible.com/ }

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

BY LAURENCE TOGNETTI

What Does it Take to Make Black Holes Collide?

Field binary evolution involves when a pair of binary stars explode resulting in two black holes in their place, which continue orbiting each other the same as before. Since they initially orbited each other as binary stars, it is believed their spins and tilts should be aligned, as well. Scientists also hypothesize that their aligned spins indicate they originated from a galactic disk, given its relatively peaceful environment.

 Dynamical assembly involves when two individual black holes, each with their own unique tilt and spin, are eventually brought together by extreme astrophysical processes, to form their own binary black hole system. It is currently hypothesized that this pairing would likely happen in a dense environment such as a globular cluster, where thousands of stars in close proximity could force two black holes together.

The real question is what fraction of binary black holes originate from each respective method? Astronomers believe this answer lies in the data, specifically black hole spin measurements. Using the 69 confirmed binary black holes, astronomers have determined these massive objects could originate from both globular clusters and galactic disks. The LIGO Laboratory in the United States has worked with its Italian counterpart, Virgo, to ascertain the spins (rotational periods) of the 69 confirmed binary black holes.

“But we wanted to know, do we have enough data to make this distinction?” said Biscoveanu. “And it turns out, things are messy and uncertain, and it’s harder than it looks.”

For the study, the researchers continuously tweaked a series of computer models to ascertain whether their results agreed with each model’s predictions. One such model was configured to assume only a fraction of binary black holes were produced with aligned spins, where the remainder have random spins. Another model was configured to predict a moderately contrasting spin orientation. In the end, their findings indicated the results consistently changed in accordance with the tweaked models. Essentially, results were consistently altered based on the model’s tweaks, meaning more data than the 69 confirmed binary black holes is likely needed to have more consistent results.

“Our paper shows that your result depends entirely on how you model your astrophysics, rather than the data itself,” said Biscoveanu.

“We need more data than we thought, if we want to make a claim that is independent of the astrophysical assumptions we make,” said Dr. Salvatore Vitale, who is an associate professor of physics, a member of the Kavli Institute of Astrophysics and Space Research at MIT, and lead author of the study.

But how much more data will the astronomers require? Dr. Vitale estimates the LIGO network will be able to detect one new binary black hole every few days, once the network returns to service in early 2023.

“The measurements of the spins we have now are very uncertain,” said Dr. Vitale. “But as we build up a lot of them, we can gain better information. Then we can say, no matter the detail of my model, the data always tells me the same story — a story that we could then believe.”

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{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

Mystery object described as ‘UFO’ eliminated in southern Russia

On January 3, a mysterious object described as a “UFO” was shot down in the southern Russian region of Rostov. The governor of the region, Vasily Golubev, reported that the object was a “small-size object in the shape of a ball” flying at an altitude of around one and a half miles above the village of Sultan Sala. In response, the decision was made to “liquidate” the object, and all forces and means were deployed to ensure security, including anti-aircraft defenses.

Local news outlet Pivyet Rostov referred to the incident as a “UFO in the form of a ball” being shot down, and Telegram channels reported on the activation of air defense systems in Rostov. A video shared on the channel Ostorozhna, Novosti showed a shining object flying and then exploding in the sky, with someone heard saying “look, another one has gone.” Witnesses described a “very strong explosion” and their houses shaking due to the activity of the air defenses.

Rostov, located on the border of the Sea of Azov, has been the site of regular shelling and drone attacks during the ongoing war in Ukraine. In October, the region was designated as a “medium-response level” area, with restrictions on movement and increased public order measures put in place. The annexation of four regions in Ukraine, including Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk, has resulted in a “maximum response,” or martial law, being imposed.

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

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 06/01/2023

**Update** Russia Claims It Shot Down a UFO Over The Rostov Oblast On January 3, 2023. (FOOTAGE)

Earlier today the story broke that Russia claimed to have shot down a UFO, after doing some digging i found 3 clips of this event. I believe that even if it is something offworld there will be a cover up but this is the story so far...

Russia Says It Shot Down a UFO: https://www.newsweek.com/russia-rosto...

Thanks to the News website "Privet-rostov.ru" for the source of the footage UFO, OVNIs, UFO 2022, OVNI, UFOs, НЛО, UAP, UAPS, OVNI 2022, UAP 2022, GHOST, GHOST 2022

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Several UFO Filmed Deploying Brightly Lit Objects Over São Paulo, Brazil & The Magic Basketball

Clip One: This was sighted during the New Years Eve celebrations 2022/2023 over the city of Ribeirão Preto in São Paulo, Brazil. The witness stated the following. "During the fireworks of new year 2022~2023 we saw these UFOs. Every year we can see them. This year we managed to shoot. They are under the forest of the city and we have already had several sightings in this region, including during the day. Black UFOs during the day come out of the middle of the forest." Thanks to Nilton Rais for allowing me the use of his footage and to view the full, unedited footage:

• https://youtu.be/9rEzWcPj5TI

Clip Two: This was spotted by a viewer of this basketball game, while The Warriors vs Hawks played it seem that the ball was in the hands of a player (Donte) only to magicly appear in another players hands (Draymond). Is this some sort of witchcraft? I say no, Cool footage yes but i believe it's the angle of the camera and the skills of the players but i so hope it is Magic.... Thanks to Overtime & laylaz52952/TT for posting this cool video and to view the source footage:

• https://twitter.com/overtime/status/1...

An image shared on Russian social media shows an object above the southern Russian region of Rostov on January 3, 2023. The regional governor said that an object was shot down in the area which has been the scene of drone attacks.

VIA TELEGRAM

UFO, OVNIs, UFO 2022, OVNI, UFOs, НЛО, UAP, UAPS, OVNI 2022, UAP 2022, GHOST, GHOST 2022

Fly to space and back in amazing SpaceX booster cam video - Launch to Florida landing

Watch SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch the Transporter 6 mission and land back in Florida in this booster cam video. The rideshare mission lifted off from Cape Canveral Space Force Station in Florida on Jan. 3, 2022.

Full Story: https://www.space.com/spacex-transpor...

Credit: SpaceX | edited by Space.com's Steve Spaleta (https://twitter.com/stevespaleta)

What Hidden Beneath The Sahara's Sands? Incredible Facts About This Desert

Endless sandy landscapes lie in the Sahara Desert in the absence of people under the scorching sun. It is one of the most famous deserts worldwide, and when you look at this desert, it has various mysteries hidden deep under the sand dunes. So, let’s find out what is hidden under the sands of the Sahara and some incredible facts about this desert in this video.

Watch until the end to avoid missing out on all the discoveries.

See Mars helicopter Ingenuity's last flight of 2022 in time-lapse + stats

NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity last flew on Mars on Dec. 17, 2022. See a time-lapse, color images and stats from the flight here.

Full Story: https://www.space.com/ingenuity-mars-...

Credit: Space.com | footage and graphics: NASA/JPL-Caltech | edited by Steve Spaleta (https://twitter.com/stevespaleta)

Sun blasts powerful X1.2 solar flare - Spacecraft view

Sunspot AR3182 erupted with an X1.2 solar flare on Jan. 6, 2022. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured the fireworks in multiple wavelengths.

Credit: NASA/SDO/Helioviewer.org | edited by Space.com's [Steve Spaleta](https://twitter.com/stevespaleta)

This Huge Miles Long Structure Has Just Been Detected Moving Above Our Planet Close To Our Moon

The Drowned Ancient Civilisation Beneath The Black Sea | Dark Secrets of the Black Sea | Odyssey

Does the Black Sea hide the dark secrets of a long-lost ancient civilization? An international group of experts examine the evidence for this possible bronze age civilisation and more in the depths of this mysterious sea.

Odyssey is your journey into the world of Ancient History; from the dawn of Mesopotamia to the fall of Rome. We'll be bringing you only the best documentaries that journey into the mysteries and ruins of worlds long lost.

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{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

South Korean spacecraft enters lunar orbit with deceleration maneuver

by Park Si-soo

Artist’s concept of South Korea’s first robotic lunar orbiter, called Danuri, in space.

Credit: Korea Aerospace Research Institute

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s first robotic lunar orbiter, Danuri, entered the lunar orbit after conducting its first lunar orbit insertion maneuver Dec. 16.

The orbiter is circling the moon in an elliptic orbit every 12.3 hours, with a perigee of 109 kilometers and an apogee of 8,920 kilometers, said the science ministry in a Dec. 19 statement.

The first maneuver, done with the firing of thrusters for thirteen minutes from 12:45 p.m. Eastern, “reduced the speed of Danuri from about 8,000 kilometers per hour to 7,500 kilometers per hour,” the ministry said in the statement. “It was confirmed that Danuri had been trapped in lunar gravity in a stable manner, which means it has become a genuine lunar orbiter.”

The ministry said the spacecraft would conduct four more propulsive maneuvers with its thrusters by Dec. 28 to steer it into a circular, low-altitude orbit about 100 kilometers from the lunar surface by Dec. 29. If successful, the 678-kilogram orbiter will go through a brief period of commissioning and tests to begin its yearlong mission from January, with six scientific instruments aboard, including NASA-funded hypersensitive optical camera ShadowCam. The camera is set to collect images of permanently shadowed regions near the moon’s poles to search for evidence of ice deposits, observe seasonal changes, and measure the terrain inside the craters. Collected data will be shared with NASA, which aims to send humans to the moon in the coming years under its Artemis program.

The Korean orbiter, also known as Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), launched into space Aug. 4 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 40. It flew to the moon on a ballistic lunar transfer trajectory, which initially took the spacecraft toward the sun and looped it back to the moon. The route, while much longer than traveling directly toward the moon, allows more fuel efficiency as it leverages the sun’s gravity for travel.

While going to the moon, the orbiter demonstrated “space internet” by sending video and photo files, including a popular Korean band’s music video, at a distance of more than 1.2 million kilometers to Earth. The demonstration was conducted twice — Aug. 25 and Oct. 28 — using a space internet demonstrator developed by the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) here, validating an interplanetary internet connection using delay-disruption tolerant networking.

The spacecraft also sent photos of the Earth and the moon’s orbit it took between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15 using a built-in high-resolution camera at a distance of between 1.46 million kilometers and 1.548 million kilometers to Earth.

The Danuri mission marks the beginning of South Korea’s deep space exploration initiative. The country’s leader recently pledged to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon in 2032 and on Mars in 2045. To that end, the government is planning to invest 2.13 billion won ($1.63 billion) in developing a next-generation rocket, KSLV-3, a two-stage vehicle capable of putting up to seven tons of payload into sun-synchronous orbit, 3.7 tons into geostationary transfer orbit, and 1,8 tons into Earth-Moon transfer orbit. As part of this, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) is working to develop kerosene-fueled 100-ton thrust engines in five years.

The leader also promised to double the government’s space development budget in the next five years and funnel at least 100 trillion won ($76.7 billion) into the space sector by 2045. South Korea’s space budget for 2022 is 734 billion won ($563 million).

{ https://spacenews.com/ }

Time Travel For Real This Time with Brian Greene & Neil deGrasse Tyson

What type of time travel is used in A Christmas Carol? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice answer fan questions on time travel, paradoxes, and wormholes with theoretical physicist, Brian Greene. Did Ebenezer Scrooge get pulled through a wormhole?

How did people think about time travel before Einstein? How did the special theory of relativity change how we think about time? Discover time dilation and how speed and gravity affects an object’s passage of time. What type of time travel was Charles Dickens using?

Learn about the possible paradoxes of traveling and meddling with the past. Is there one immutable timeline or many timelines in a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is time to a photon traveling at the speed of light? How would we police time travel if it were possible? Will we even have time travel in the future? If time travel gets invented, why are we not overrun by tourists from the future?

Which films depict time travel best? How are cells affected by time travel? We explore the movement of information in and out of black holes, string theory, and tachyons. Could we theoretically time travel to before the big bang? Finally, is there even a realm to travel to before the Big Bang?

NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free.

{  https://www.youtube.com/ }

HERE ARE THE 5 BIGGEST INNOVATIONS TO EXPECT IN 2023

EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon ordered to re-investigate 1945 crash of mysterious 'avocado-shaped UFO' dubbed the 'Roswell before Roswell' - as expert reveals eyewitness accounts of the encounter

• Last week President Biden signed a new military spending bill, amended to incorporate a UFO case from 1945
• The sighting involved a crash in New Mexico, about 100 miles from Roswell
• Jaques Vallée, a former contractor for the government's UFO office, wrote a book about the case and described it to DailyMail.com
• Vallée was the inspiration for François Truffaut's character in Close Encounters

By JOSH BOSWELL FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and CHRIS SHARP FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

The government's UFO office has been ordered to re-investigate an alleged 1945 crash of a strange object in New Mexico – dubbed the 'Roswell before Roswell'.

A new military spending bill signed into law by President Biden last week was specifically amended to incorporate the intriguing case into a historic review of UFO incidents to be conducted by the Department of Defense.

Jaques Vallée, a former contractor for the government's UFO office and the co-author of a book on the 1945 case, gave an exclusive interview to DailyMail.com about it.

Vallée, a renowned scientist and UFO investigator, was the inspiration for the French scientist character in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, played by François Truffaut.

In his interview, he described the alleged August 1945 crash of an avocado-shaped 'craft' on the edge of the atomic bomb testing site near San Antonio, New Mexico – about 100 miles from the infamous Roswell crash two years later. 

Jaques Vallée, a former contractor for the government's UFO office, gave an exclusive interview to DailyMail.com about the 1945 UFO crash 

The National Defense Authorization Act, which passed Congress this month, includes a section requiring the Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to review and prepare a report on all previous government investigations of UFOs dating back to 1945.

The bill's text previously only went back to 1947, but a late amendment changed it to '45.

'I was not involved in the drafting of the legislation, but several of my DC friends were, and they got the date of the investigation pushed back to 1945,' Vallée told DailyMail.com.

'Several of the Congressmen involved have the book that Paola Harris and I wrote about our research at [the alleged crash site called] Trinity.'

Vallée and Italian UFO journalist Harris's 2021 book, Trinity: the Best-Kept Secret, was re-released this year with new information, and is mainly based around testimony of three witnesses: a B-52 bomber pilot, and two young sons of a rancher on whose land the UFO supposedly crashed.

An artist's impression of the crash site and UFO is pictured.  'There was a gouge in the earth as long as a football field, and a circular object at the end of it… It was the color of the old pot my mother was always trying to shine up, a dull metallic color,' one witness said

In August 1945 there was a crash of an avocado-shaped 'craft' on the edge of the atomic bomb testing site near San Antonio, New Mexico. Material recovered from the crash is pictured 

The two researchers interviewed the family of Lt. Col William Brothy, who said he revealed in the years after the incident that he was sent out to survey the crash site on August 16, 1945.

Vallée and Italian UFO journalist Paola Harris' 2021 book, Trinity: the Best-Kept Secret, was re-released this year with new information

'The first witness was a bomber pilot who was coming in for landing at Alamogordo [the neighboring airbase],' Vallée told DailyMail.com. 'He was asked by the controllers to look at a communication tower that had lost signal.

'He told the story to his family. His son gave us the recollection of what his father had described.

'Flying over, he saw the tower was bent, as if it had been hit by something very hard. And then he saw in the vegetation some distance away a large egg-shaped object. And there were two little kids that he called little Indians, on their horses next to the object.'

Vallée says those two kids were Jose Padilla, 9, and Reme Baca, 7. 

Padilla, now 86, became a Highway Patrol officer for 32 years, and Baca, who died in 2013, became a US Marine and later a senior staffer for Washington Governor Dixy Lee Ray.

They kept their story secret for more than 50 years, at last deciding to come forward in 2003 in an interview with a journalist from their hometown.

Joe Padilla pictured as a kid. He kept his story about the crash a secret for over 50 years

Padilla, now 86, became a Highway Patrol officer for 32 years

Interviews with Vallée and Harris decades after the crash saw them describe stumbling across the wreckage of a craft while looking for a lost cow on Padilla's father's ranch by the Rio Grande on August 16, 1945.

'We heard this sound and the ground shook,' Baca said in one interview. 'We saw smoke coming from maybe a couple of canyons down... We worked our way down the ridge.

'There was a gouge in the earth as long as a football field, and a circular object at the end of it… It was the color of the old pot my mother was always trying to shine up, a dull metallic color.'

He said he could feel the heat from the crash 'through the soles of your shoes'. Baca said he picked up a piece of foil-like metal that sprung back to its original shape when folded.

Reme Baca was seven at the time. He died in 2013. He was a Marine and later a senior staffer for Washington Governor Dixy Lee Ray

'Strange-looking creatures were moving around inside,' he added. 'They looked under stress. They moved fast, as if they were able to will themselves from one position to another in an instant. They were shadowy and expressionless, but definitely living beings.

'They had big bulgy eyes. Four foot tall, and they were real thin, needle-thin arms… Their heads looked like a campamocha [praying mantis].

'They seemed like us – children, not dangerous. But we were scared and exhausted.

The boys fled home on their horses and told Padilla's father what they had seen. Faustino Padillo told them it probably belonged to the Army and to ignore it. But they persuaded him to check out the site two days later with state policeman Eddie Apodaca.

Baca and Padillo said the 'craft' was still there, but the debris was gone, the object covered with dirt, and the ground appeared to have been raked.

The next day an Army sergeant named Avila, showed up at the ranch, asking Faustino if they could cut out his fence, put in a gate and grade a road to the crash site for a tractor-trailer, Baca said.

'We have one of our experimental weather balloons that inadvertently fell on your property,' Baca remembered the sergeant saying.

The crash was on the edge of the atomic bomb testing site near San Antonio, New Mexico – about 100 miles from the infamous Roswell crash two years later

In 2015 Vallée had a spectroscopy analysis performed on the metal panel they said they recovered from the wreckage. It points to a mundane, man-made origin. The samples are pictured 

Over the following week, the two boys snuck out to the site and used binoculars to spy on a unit of Army officers who stood guard, loaded the 25 by 14 foot, roughly five ton 'avocado-shaped' object onto a flatbed truck, and covered it with blue tarpaulins, they told Harris.

Vallée was the inspiration for the scientist character in Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind

There was no sign of the creatures they claimed they saw earlier.

On the last day, the boys plucked up the courage to sneak up and peek under the tarp while the young, bored soldiers were at lunch.

'Jose said, "I think they're going to take it tonight." I said, "Yeah, how about a souvenir?"' Baca told Harris.

'Jose pulls part of the tarp off, exposing the gash on the side of the craft, while I hold the tarp open. Jose climbs into the gash.'

They described 'ridges' inside every few feet, 'silvery colored strands' like angel hair decorations, and a 2.5ft metal panel attached to the rear wall with pins.

'No seats or anything,' Baca said. 'It must have been cleaned out, or maybe there weren't any. Couldn't see any instruments, like gauges, clocks, steering wheel, brake pedals, nothing like that.'

The plucky kids grabbed a crowbar from the tractor, used it to rip the large panel off the wall, and scurried off.

They said they hid the metal under the floorboards of a nearby building, and kept quiet about the case, fearing retribution by the Army against their families – especially after officers came to search Faustino's house.

In interviews with Vallée and Harris decades after the crash, Padilla described stumbling across the wreckage of a craft while looking for a lost cow on Padilla's father's ranch by the Rio Grande on August 16, 1945. Padilla and Vallee are pictured together at the crash site

Harris and Padilla are pictured together at the crash site 

Baca and Padilla eventually moved away and lost contact until 2002, when Baca reconnected with his old friend via a genealogy search. It was then they decided to tell their story.

In 2015, Vallée had a spectroscopy analysis performed on the metal panel they said they recovered from the wreckage. It points to a mundane, man-made origin.

The metal is 'aluminum primarily alloyed to copper and silicon' the report by Frontier Analysis said, a mix often used for 'engine crankcases, gas and oil tanks, engine oil pans, typewriter frames, and engine parts.' The isotopic ratios for the metals in the panel are within the range found on Earth.

The foil-like metal that Baca claimed he picked up has been lost – after he allegedly used it to fix a leaking pipe on the ranch as a boy.

While other researchers have abandoned the case due to the lack of results and paper trail, Vallée says it did not diminish the mystery for him.

'We have yet to ask what an ordinary, human fragment of some low-tech aluminum gadget was doing aboard a fantastic craft dropping from the sky in the middle of a storm, shattering the Marconi Tower of the White Sands Missile Range as its crew of diminutive insectoids skidded weirdly through the cabin,' he wrote in his book.

'You can't nail an aluminum bracket to the interior wall of a weather balloon, no matter how sophisticated. Every nine-year-old kid in New Mexico knows that.'

Vallée, who worked as a contractor for a previous reincarnation of the government's UFO office, the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, told DailyMail.com he is hopeful that a review of the Trinity alleged crash by the new UFO office will turn up further evidence.

'It will re-open the research on a more historically accurate and significant time scale,' he said.

And the data scientist believes he knows where AARO investigators should go looking: the Department of Energy.

'Reme Baca assisted Dixy Lee Ray in winning the election as governor of Washington in 1976. She had been chair of the Atomic Energy Commission [1973 to 1975],' he said.

'She showed Reme when he was helping her in the campaign, a record of the recovery of the craft. It was secret, she did not leave it with him. But she indicated that there was a record in the files of the Atomic Energy Commission.'

Intriguingly, the new defense budget legislation signed into law last week also includes a whistleblower program for reporting 'deep black' UFO programs to Congress.

In May, the House Intelligence Committee held its first public hearing on UFOs in 54 years where panel members grilled Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray (left) and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie (right)

Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray plays a video of an 'unidentified aerial phenomena', commonly referred to as UFOs, at the May hearing

An amendment to the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) gives protections to any whistleblowers coming forward to congress in classified briefings to disclose any previously hidden programs on 'unidentified anomalous phenomena' involving 'material retrieval, material analysis' and even 'reverse engineering' and 'developmental or operational testing'.

Former UFO office director Lue Elizondo told DailyMail.com: 'This language is truly revolutionary in terms of ensuring the American people can finally get to the bottom of a decades-old mystery.'

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Christopher Mellon, added that the new laws mean AARO is no longer a 'toothless organization, and now has 'personnel, authority, resources and strong support from Congress.'

Another NDAA amendment requires the UFO office to compile 'a written report detailing the historical record of the United States Government relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena' going back to January 1 1945.

The review will include 'successful or unsuccessful efforts to identify and track unidentified anomalous phenomena', and 'any efforts to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide, or otherwise provide incorrect unclassified or classified information.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

South Koreans report UFO sighting as defence ministry secretly launches rocket

Edited By Saurav Mukherjee

Though the South Korean defence ministry had kept the launch a secret, they explained that they'd been test-firing a solid-fuelled rocket, The Mirror reported.

Stating that the the rocket was part of the military's efforts to build a space-based surveillance capability, the South Korean defence ministry said that it was aimed to bolster its defences.

The ministry added that it did not notify the public of the launch in advance as it involved sensitive military security issues, the report said.

ALSO READ: 

• Kolkata: Moving light in evening sky leaves residents in utter confusion. See pics

In parts of South Korea's sky, a white and red trail could be seen snaking behind a bright white light as users shared photos of the same on social media.

Across the country, the police and emergency offices received hundreds of reports of witnessing of a suspicious flying object and mysterious lights.

The new rocket test comes four days after South Korea accused North Korea of flying five drones across the border for the first time in five years.

Amid the escalation by South Korea and the West, the North Korea conducted a record number of missile tests this year.

Meanwhile, North Korea test-fired three short-range ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan on Saturday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. The missiles were launched from Chunghwa County in North Korea's North Hwanghae Province, Yonhap said, citing the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), reported Hindustan Times.

{ https://www.livemint.com/ }

Curiosity rover discovers water-rich fracture halos in Gale Crater

by Arizona State University

A research team using new methods to analyze data from NASA's Curiosity rover and its neutron spectrometer Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons, or DAN, on Mars was able to independently verify that fracture halos contained water-rich opal, potentially serving as an important resource for human exploration.

The study finds that the vast subsurface fracture networks would have provided water-rich and radiation-shielded conditions that were potentially more habitable than those on the surface.

In 2012, NASA sent the Curiosity rover to Mars to explore Gale Crater, a large impact basin with a massive, layered mountain in the middle. As Curiosity has traversed along the Mars surface, researchers have discovered light-toned rocks surrounding fractures that criss-cross certain parts of the Martian landscape, sometimes extending out far into the horizon of rover imagery. Recent work finds that these widespread halo networks served as one of the last, if not the last, water-rich environments in a modern era of Gale Crater. This water-rich environment in the subsurface would have also provided more habitable conditions when conditions on the surface were likely much more harsh.

As part of a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, led by former Arizona State University NewSpace Postdoctoral Fellow Travis Gabriel, now a research physicist for the U.S. government, archival data from several instruments were examined and showed considerable anomalies near light-toned rocks earlier in the traverse. By happenstance, Curiosity rover drove right over one of these fracture halos many years ago, long before Gabriel and ASU graduate student and co-author Sean Czarnecki joined the rover team.

Looking at the old images, they saw a huge expanse of fracture halos extending far into the distance. By applying new methods for analyzing instrument data, the research team found something curious. These halos not only looked like halos found much later in the mission, in completely different rock units, but were similar in their composition: a whole lot of silica and water.

"Our new analysis of archival data showed striking similarity between all of the fracture halos we've observed much later in the mission," Gabriel said. "Seeing that these fracture networks were so widespread and likely chock-full of opal was incredible."

Gabriel and his team of researchers studied the composition of light-colored rocks surrounding the fractures on the ground, or fracture halos, in Gale Crater. Previous studies Gabriel was involved in used the rover's laser-induced breakdown spectrometer, Chemistry and Camera, or ChemCam, to show that these halos may be composed of opal, a material that has important implications for the history of Gale Crater. Opal itself contains a large amount of water, which produced a strong signal in another instrument on the rover: the DAN spectrometer.

Observing drill cores taken at the Buckskin and Greenhorn drill sites many years into the mission, scientists confirmed that these light-toned rocks were very unique compared to anything the team had seen before.

"These light-toned rocks were lighting up in our neutron detector, producing anomalously high thermal neutron count rates," Gabriel said.

In addition to looking back through archival data, Gabriel and his team went searching for opportunities to study these light-toned rocks again. Once they arrived at the Lubango drill site, a bright-toned fracture halo, Gabriel led a dedicated measurement campaign using the neutron spectrometer, confirming the opal-rich composition of fracture halos.

The discovery of opal is noteworthy as it can form in scenarios where silica is in solution with water, a similar process to dissolving sugar or salt in water. If there is too much salt, or conditions change, it begins to settle at the bottom. On Earth, silica falls out of solution in places like lake and ocean bottoms and can form in hot springs and geysers, somewhat similar to the environments at Yellowstone National Park.

Water-rich environments in the subsurface of Mars could have provided a safe haven from the harsh conditions on Mars' surface, which is rather inhospitable compared to Earth. In Gale Crater, temperatures can go below minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter night time, reaching only up to roughly 30 degrees Fahrenheit in the warmest of afternoons. Gale crater also experiences far more radiation than the surface of Earth due to our much thicker atmosphere. Every day spent in Gale crater would expose you to a cosmic-source radiation dose that roughly equates to a daily pelvis X-ray.

Since scientists expect that this opal in Gale Crater was formed in a modern Mars era, these subsurface networks of fractures could have been far more habitable than the harsh modern-day conditions at the surface.

"Given the widespread fracture networks discovered in Gale Crater, it's reasonable to expect that these potentially habitable subsurface conditions extended to many other regions of Gale Crater as well, and perhaps in other regions of Mars," Gabriel said. "These environments would have formed long after the ancient lakes in Gale Crater dried up."

The significance of finding opal on Mars will have advantages for future astronauts, and exploration efforts could take advantage of these widespread water resources. Opal itself is made up of predominantly two components: silica and water, with minor amounts of impurities such as iron. Since opal is not a mineral, the water is not bound as tightly within a crystal structure. This means that if you grind it down and apply heat, the opal releases its water. In a previous study, Gabriel and other Curiosity rover scientists demonstrated this exact process.

Although Gabriel and his team aren't able to perform an exhaustive assessment of the water content in all halos, the dedicated neutron experiments they performed over two of these halos demonstrate that a single-meter halo could house roughly one to 1.5 gallons of water in the top foot of the surface.

New Martian water resource: Opal?

What does this research finding mean for future Mars exploration? The poles of Mars house a large amount of water ice among other volatiles like carbon dioxide. In the present day, the equator of Mars by comparison is water poor, showing no sign of widespread water ice resources in the near surface. The study suggests that water-rich opal may be lining many landscapes across regions of Mars where scientists otherwise don't expect water.

Surprisingly, the opal in Gale Crater retains water despite the dry conditions of the modern-day atmosphere. Combined with growing evidence from satellite data that shows the presence of opal elsewhere on Mars, these resilient materials may be a great resource for future exploration activities elsewhere on Mars—that is, if opal elsewhere on Mars also retains water to the same degree as the opal in Gale Crater.

Opal forms in water-rich environments; however, it was found in fractures that formed much later in geologic time compared to the majority of rocks in Gale Crater. Much of Gale Crater's rocks were formed in an ancient lake environment. This demonstrates that the water that formed the halos was around in the subsurface much later and that it was much more widespread than researchers thought.

Once opal forms, it tends to mature into a more crystalline form when exposed to water and fluctuating conditions. The fact that this opal was so well preserved suggests that once it was formed, there wasn't much interaction with water thereafter. In these ways, discoveries from the Curiosity rover help us understand the where, when and what about water on Mars.

"It's amazing to see Curiosity's neutron detector, the rover's only subsurface probe, which was originally only expected to survive for a few years into the mission, still providing fantastic results like these that reveal the nature of water and hydrated materials buried just below the Martian surface," said Craig Hardgrove, co-author of the work, associate professor at ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration and scientist on Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover's DAN team.

What's next?

Gabriel and the team continue to investigate the role of water in the formation and alteration of Martian rocks as the Curiosity rover heads up the central mound of Gale Crater, but no such luck has been made in discovering new halos at recent elevations. As a member of NASA's latest rover team, Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, Gabriel is eager to explore silica-rich features in a new location on Mars to understand the nature of water-rich environments elsewhere on the red planet.

For some people going to this planet would allow to study closely these celestial objects made of rocks and metals. For others, Mars could be the fallback planet, if we could no longer live on Earth. Myth for some, challenges for others, making a colony on Mars to make it habitable, the questions have not stopped talking. But our close cousin was not always an arid world, at the mercy of the solar wind. There was a time when water covered much of the Martian surface and potential life could have developed there...

{ https://phys.org/ }

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Keep your eyes to the skies this month! Stargazers will have a once-in-a-generation chance to see a new comet at the end of January, NASA reveals

• New comet discovered in March 2022 can be spotted from Earth later this month
• Skywatchers will be able to see Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) in January and February
• On February 2 it'll be at nearest position to Earth — some 26.4 million miles away
• It could be the first comet that is visible to the naked eye since NEOWISE in 2020

By SAM TONKIN FOR MAILONLINE

It's not often that stargazers get the opportunity to spot a comet with the naked eye.

But at the end of this month – or possibly the start of February – a newly-discovered space rock will whizz by our planet and light up the night sky.

C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered in March last year while inside Jupiter's orbit, and will make its closest approach to the sun on January 12 and Earth on February 2.

Comets are notoriously unpredictable, but if this one continues its current trend in brightness it should be easy to spot with binoculars or a telescope.

Look up this month! C/2022 E3 (ZTF), which was discovered in March last year while inside Jupiter's orbit, will make its closest approach to the sun on January 12 and Earth on February 2 

KEY FACTS: COMET C/2022 E3

Better still, it may even be visible to the naked eye if skies are dark towards the end of the month.

If that is the case it will be the first comet that can be seen with the unaided eye since NEOWISE raced past Earth in 2020, although it won't be anywhere near as spectacular.

NEOWISE left a long, misty tail, while E3 is likely to appear as a grey streak or smudge in the night sky.

However, neither match the brightness of Hale-Bopp, which was widely seen in 1997.

Astronomers don't expect Comet C/2022 E3 to visit Earth again for at least another 50,000 years, having last been visible during the Ice Age.

In terms of passing our planet, it won't be in any way close. In fact, the nearest it will come to Earth is 26.4 million miles (42.5 million kilometres) on February 2.

Observers in the Northern Hemisphere will find the comet in the morning sky, as it moves swiftly from the northeast to northwest and passes between the Little and Big Dippers during January.

'This comet isn't expected to be quite the spectacle that Comet NEOWISE was back in 2020,' Preston Dyches from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a video shared by the US space agency.

'But it's still an awesome opportunity to make a personal connection with an icy visitor from the distant outer solar system.' 

Stargazers in the Southern Hemisphere will have to wait a little longer to catch a glimpse, however, as Comet C/2022 E3 won't be visible for them until early February.

In March 2022, astronomers discovered the new space rock using the wide-field survey camera at the Zwicky Transient Facility in California.

Since then, the new long-period comet has brightened substantially and is now sweeping across the northern constellation Corona Borealis in predawn skies. 

At the end of last year, scientists snapped the first detailed photo revealing the new Comet C/2022 E3's brighter greenish coma and a yellowy dust tail. 

Comets are made of ice, gas and rock – often described as giant space icebergs – that tend to originate in the outer solar system and move in on a long orbit.

Comets are notoriously unpredictable, but if this one continues its current trend in brightness it should be easy to spot with binoculars or a telescope

Observers in the Northern Hemisphere will find the comet in the morning sky, as it moves swiftly from the northeast to northwest and passes between the Little and Big Dippers during January

In March 2022, astronomers discovered the new space rock using the wide-field survey camera at the Zwicky Transient Facility in California. It is pictured here in the centre of this image

The other major type of space rock, called asteroids, tend to be made of metal or rock and can come from anywhere in the solar system — including a large grouping of asteroids situated between Mars and Jupiter.

Comet Neowise was first spotted by — and named after — NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) space telescope in March 2020.

The icy body then became visible from the Earth's surface from the northern hemisphere for a short while in the summer of that year as its proximity to the sun caused it to melt, unleashing tails of dust and gas behind it.

During its closest approach on July 23, 2020, it was still 64 million miles from the planet. 

It then headed back out to space at around 144,000 miles per hour and will not to return for some 7,000 years.

The comet reaches the sun this month, before looping around and making its closest approach to Earth

The comet NEOWISE is pictured over Lebanon in an image shared by NASA back in 2020

If you enjoyed this article...

Water worlds and a gas giant 'in the womb' are among the weird and wonderful new exoplanets discovered in 2022 

Comet ATLAS may be a remnant of a mysterious fireball that swept within 23 million miles of the sun 5,000 years ago, study finds 

NASA is asking for help to save Hubble by pushing it into a higher orbit with a private spacecraft

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 05/01/2023

Newly discovered comet could be visible to the naked eye in Jan. 2023

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) could be visible in dark skies with the naked eye if it continues to brighten in January 2023. NASA explains how to see it.

Full Story:

• https://www.space.com/comet-2022-e3-z...

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Living on China's space station - Take a peek inside on New Year's Day

See views inside and outside of the Tiangong space station captured on New Year's Day 2023. Chinese astronauts open New Year's presents, exercise and more.

Credit: Space.com | footage courtesy: China Central Television (CCTV) | edited by [Steve Spaleta](https://twitter.com/stevespaleta)

Has Russia’s War Doomed The International Space Station?

Russia Cosmonauts finally realized why SpaceX Dragon is better than Soyuz after DAMAGED

The 2022 Space race ended with huge successes for the US and China. The most impressive name is definitely Elon Musk's SpaceX. With 61 flights, SpaceX tied a record set by the Soviet R-7 rocket, which in 1980 flew a combined 61 missions across its Soyuz, Molniya, and Vostok variants.

And for every winner, there must be a loser!
Russia clearly had a terrible year in space. The country only launched 22 times.
More seriously, its best spacecraft- Soyuz has been stuck on ISS for weeks.
In an attempt to potentially secure an alternate lifeboat for two Russian cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut, NASA and Russian space agency Roscosmos are conducting a review of available options, which included inquiring with SpaceX about using one of its Dragon capsules as a replacement for Soyuz MS-22.
This is definitely the time Russia's cosmonauts realized SpaceX Dragon is better than Soyuz after damage.
Find out everything about this in today's episode of Alpha Tech:

On Dec. 15, 2022, the Soyuz spacecraft MS-22 suffered a significant coolant leak while docked at the ISS just prior to a planned Russian spacewalk. While the leaky Soyuz poses no immediate danger to the space station or its crew, it remains unknown if the Soyuz craft is flightworthy; as such, the MS-22 crew no longer has a viable lifeboat in the event of an emergency.

As the result, NASA inquired about using a SpaceX Dragon capsule to bring astronauts home from the ISS following a recent leak aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule, a NASA blog post has stated.

A previous report published by Reuters stated the same, but NASA's blog post confirms that the agency is, in fact, mulling using a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft as an ISS lifeboat.

Another option is for Roscosmos to send a replacement Soyuz craft. But the earliest such a mission could launch would be February, according to statements made by Sergei Krikalev, head of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow.

Roscosmos is still investigating the cause of the leak and plans to issue its findings this month.
Russia Cosmonauts finally realized why SpaceX Dragon is better than Soyuz after DAMAGED

SpaceX Simulates 5,000 Ton Starship Ahead of Full-Stack Testing!

Today we will be taking a close look at the specialized rigging system being used at Starbase to verify structural integrity of the Orbital Launch Mount Hold Down Arms. This is an important step that SpaceX must complete before receiving the long awaited Launch License from the FAA.

The Year of Starship? Top 10 Space Milestones in 2023

2023 is set to be one of the busiest and most exciting years in the history of spaceflight. However, what major space event scheduled for this year takes the title as the most anticipated? Could it be Starship, ULA’s new rocket, historic mission milestones, or maybe something else? Our members helped pick the Top 10 events they’re looking forward to this year.

How Robots Will Take Over Mars!

How Robots Will Take Over Mars!

Last Video: The Real Reason NASA Is Going To Jupiter!

• https://youtu.be/7mVSrtgbhnw

Low flying orbs and light entities swimming in the air

Spotted a glowing orb flying much lower than usual, as I approached and filmed it traversed the air and there is other activity going on, when I panned back to the initial position another one of the orbs ascended and blinked intermittently. Lastly towards the end I noticed some type of luminous entity flew in front of my cellphone camera, quite close to me, in a swimming fashion.

Aliens or Ancient Humans? Top 10 Alien Encounters (2022)

Aliens or Ancient Humans? Top 10 Alien Encounters (2022). UFOs became a modern sensation after the media reported US businessman Kenneth Arnold as having witnessed “flying saucers” on June 24, 1947. Since then, a flood of similar stories followed from around the world. It is the same with all the other UFO stories from around the world, they were mysteries without any substantial evidence. But with the advancement of technology, multiple UFO sightings around the world have been captured on camera.

#alien #space #caughtoncamera

0:00 15810 Arawn

5:02 Strange Creature Spotted in Varginha

8:37 Ancient Crystal City in Antarctica

12:12 Cigar-Shaped UFO Flying Over Japan

14:01 Chile's UAP

15:57 Travis Walton UFO Incident

18:55 Splitting UFO in Puerto Rico

20:45 Ancient Alien Artifacts Found

23:10 Baltic Sea Anomaly

27:16 Humanoid Creatures in Lake Baikal

Scientists Just Saw The Farthest Galaxy To Date But There's A Problem

"This Was Hidden for Centuries" (secret knowledge!!!)

This video reveals the most secret knowledge about earth, pyramids and our entire history.

Special Thanks to Aubrey Marcus for this amazing interview!!!

Check out his channel: https://www.youtube.com/AubreyMarcusPod

►FULL INTERVIEW: https://youtu.be/pOUJ5MakU88

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

Seen From Space: Sand Dunes on Mars Covered by Frost

It’s winter here on Earth, for those living in the northern hemisphere. This means snow, rain, colder temperatures, and all the other things we associate with “the festive season.” Much the same is true for Mars (aka. “Earth’s Twin”), which is also experiencing winter in its northern hemisphere right now. This means colder temperatures, especially around the polar regions where it can get as low as -123 °C (-190 °F), as well as ice, snow, frost, and the expansion of the polar ice caps – which are composed of both water ice and frozen carbon dioxide (“dry ice”).

While Mars does not experience snowfall the same way Earth does, seasonal change results in some very interesting phenomena. Thanks to the many robotic explorers NASA and other space agencies have sent to Mars in the past fifty years, scientists have been able to get a close-up look at these phenomena. These include the Viking orbiters and landers that studied the planet in the 1970s (with groundbreaking results) to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity), and the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers exploring the surface today.

Thanks to these dedicated orbiters, landers, and rovers, scientists have learned a few salient facts about snow on Mars: it comes in two varieties (water ice and dry ice), and it only ever snows in the coldest regions and times – at the poles, under cloud cover, and at night. Because Mars’ atmosphere is so thin and its temperatures so extreme, water and carbon dioxide do not freeze but sublimate, transforming from a gas directly to ice (and back again). On top of that, dry ice snowflakes are cubic, meaning they have four sides instead of the familiar six-sided configuration we are familiar with.

As with water molecules, this is because a crystal’s shape depends on how atoms arrange themselves. In the case of CO2, molecules always bond in groups of four. Moreover, snow never reaches the ground on Mars but sublimates as it falls from the clouds to the surface. Since most orbiters cannot see through these clouds, and rovers cannot withstand the extreme cold, no images of falling snow have ever been taken. But scientists know that Mars experiences snowfall, thanks to a handful of dedicated instruments.

These include the Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) aboard the MRO, which observes the Martian atmosphere in visible and infrared light to measure the temperature, humidity, and dust content of the Martian atmosphere. This allows science teams to peer through cloud cover and detect CO₂ snow falling to the ground. Sylvain Piqueux, a planetary research Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explained the intricacies of Martian snow in a recent interview with NASA’s Mars News Report (a series dedicated to educating the public on the exploration and study of the Red Planet). As he explained:

“Enough falls that you could snowshoe across it. If you were looking for skiing, though, you’d have to go into a crater or cliffside, where snow could build up on a sloped surface. Because carbon dioxide ice has a symmetry of four, we know dry-ice snowflakes would be cube-shaped. Thanks to the Mars Climate Sounder, we can tell these snowflakes would be smaller than the width of a human hair.”

In addition, NASA’s Phoenix mission landed within 1,000 miles (about 1,600 kilometers) of Mars’ north pole in 2008. As part of its science operations, the lander used a laser-based atmospheric sensor – part of a special meteorological station provided by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) – to detect water ice snow falling to the surface. The Viking landers also detected water frost at their landing sites, and NASA’s Odyssey orbiter observed frost forming and sublimating at sunrise many times during its mission.

On Mars, Carbon dioxide frost and ice form over dunes during the winter. As this sublimates during spring, darker-colored “megadunes” (barchans) are revealed. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UofA

When the CO₂ ice sublimates near the end of winter, the most iconic surface features on Mars result. This includes the strange and beautiful shapes that scientists have nicknamed “spiders,” “Dalmatian spots,” “fried eggs,” and “Swiss cheese.” The “spring thaw” also causes geysers to erupt as sunlight passes through layers of translucent ice, heating the gas pockets beneath it. This triggers eruptions that send dust onto the surface, creating a feature known as “Spring Fans” that scientists are studying to learn more about which direction the Martian winds are blowing.

As Piqueux explained, all of this data will be vital when it comes time to send crewed missions to Mars, which NASA hopes to do by the 2030s:

“[T]he Pheonix lander, the NASA mission that arrived on Mars in 2008, observed beautiful frost landscapes that formed around it. The Pheonix lander was also able to scratch the surface and, for the first time, see this water ice just below the ground. This is the kind of water ice that astronauts could potentially use in the future when we go there.”

Many fascinating things accompany seasonal changes on Mars, and we are fortunate to bear witness to these things thanks to many generations of robotic missions. Soon enough, astronauts will witness Mars and its dynamic climate firsthand, and their research will fuel scientific breakthroughs and discoveries for generations to come!

Further Reading:

• NASA

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

Mars Has Bizarre Dunes Thanks to its Low Atmospheric Pressure and Strange Winds

“This is particularly important because it is thought that Mars used to have a thicker atmosphere in the past, perhaps sustaining Earth-like surface conditions,” Dr. Mathieu Lapôtre, who is an assistant professor of geological sciences in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and a co-author on the study, said in a statement. “However, it lost most of it, and we don’t really know when, how fast, and why.”

This study came about after scientists were puzzled over images from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover in 2015 that observed similar windblown patterns on Mars’ surface. These include giant sand dunes along with smaller formations like the impact ripples seen on Earth but also formations about 10 times as big as these ripples, but smaller in size compared to sand dunes. Essentially, Curiosity observed a type of middle-sized sand formation never seen.  

One proposed hypothesis for these middle-sized sand formations could be from the ongoing growth of impact ripples due to the low Martian atmospheric pressure. Dr. Lapôtre and other scientists have previously suggested that these formations could result from what’s known as hydrodynamic (fluid motion) instability, which can be used for both liquid and air movements.

For the study, the researchers used AI and more than 130,000 high-resolution images of Mars to perform a quantitative analysis on one million barchan dunes, also known as crescentic dunes, on Mars to examine how their sizes and shapes vary across the Martian surface. Barchan dunes are common on both Earth and Mars and have been imaged extensively on the Red Planet by the HiRISE camera onboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Their findings indicate that these middle-sized sand formations are not impact ripples, but instead are like miniature sand dunes whose growth ceases at a certain point due to the predicted change in the fluid-like airflow in the low atmospheric pressure close to the Martian surface.

The Dark Dunes of Mars

“Impact ripples form on Mars exactly like they do on Earth, and have more or less the same size,” Dr. Lior Rubanenko, who is the lead author of the study while conducting the research as a postdoctoral scholar in geological sciences at Stanford, said in a statement. “This makes sense, since the mechanism that forms impact ripples has less to do with the properties of the atmosphere and more with the mechanics of sand transport.”

“Now that we know how the size of these ripples varies with atmospheric density and why, we can use the size of fossilized ripples in very old rocks to reconstruct the history of Mars’ atmosphere,” Dr. Lapôtre said.

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

Mysterious UFO spotted over Tamaulipas highway, Mexico

An unidentified flying object (UFO) was spotted on a highway in Tamaulipas, Mexico, according to a photograph shared on a forum dedicated to UFO sightings. The image, which shows two spherical objects flying over a stretch of land, was taken on December 29 by a user named Juanito Juan. “For the envious who do not believe … 12:05 pm … on the side of the road, Valle Hermoso to Matamoros, Tamaulipas … I thought it was one and not … there are 2,” Juanito Juan wrote in the Facebook forum “Ufo-Ovnis-Paranormal”.

Juanito Juan also claimed to have captured an image of a single round object in the skies over Tamaulipas on December 28 and another fast-moving, unknown phenomenon on December 18. “There is no doubt that something is happening in the sky of our city,” Juanito Juan said.

Juanito Juan is met Juanito Juanito en 

6 anderen

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RAZA .......

HAY COSAS EN EL CIELO QUE SON DIFICILES DE CREER ......

MUCHAS PERSONAS VEN ESTO PERO CALLAN POR TEMOR A LAS BURLAS .....

...Meer weergeven

The UFO sightings have generated interest among social media users, with some speculating about the nature of the objects and others suggesting that the images may have been altered. “I had to see a similar large bright one that was static for 5 minutes, I was on the road when I wanted to take the phone out to take a photo, it disappeared, it was the same but brighter,” said user Ezequiel HC.

User Jorge Alejandro added: “I saw one of those in Reynosa, Tamaulipas one night that was on the roof of the house, when I saw it it went at an impressive speed and after about 10 minutes it came back and accelerated again.”

It remains unclear whether the UFO spotted on the Tamaulipas highway was of extraterrestrial origin or had a more mundane explanation. However, the sightings have certainly generated excitement and speculation among those who have seen the images.

• Want to see more UFO sightings from Mexico? Just click here

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

Nieuwe studie suggereert dat aliens nog geen contact met onze aarde hebben gezocht omdat die “niet interessant genoeg is”

Aliens: bestaan ze nu echt en zullen ze ooit naar onze aarde afzakken? Volgens een nieuwe studie is het antwoord op die laatste vraag alvast teleurstellend. Het onderzoek belicht de ‘Fermi-paradox’. Die stelt dat buitenaardse wezens gezien de leeftijd van het heelal hoogstwaarschijnlijk al langeafstandsruimtevaart hebben ontwikkeld en onze aarde dus al lang bezocht zouden moeten hebben. Maar waarom kiezen ze er dan toch voor om weg te blijven? “We zijn op aarde gewoon niet interessant genoeg”, luidt het onderzoek.

Bron: Live Science, Space.com

In de studie, die gepubliceerd werd op het wetenschappelijke platform ‘arXiv’, beweren onderzoekers dat buitenaardse wezens enkel geïnteresseerd zijn in de meest technologisch geavanceerde planeten. Onze aarde hoort daar jammer genoeg niet bij. De mensheid mag dan wel biologisch ver geëvolueerd zijn, onze technologie staat daarentegen nog niet op punt, benadrukt Amri Wandel, hoofdonderzoeker en astrofysicus aan de Hebreeuwse Universiteit van Jeruzalem.

“Aliens hebben onze signalen nog niet ontvangen”

Wij sturen op aarde nog maar sinds de jaren 30 signalen in de vorm van radiogolven uit die vanuit de ruimte kunnen worden opgevangen. Buitenaardse wezens hebben dus nog niet de kans gehad om de boodschappen te ontvangen, laat staan om erop te reageren. De signalen hebben tot nu toe naar schatting 15.000 sterren en hun omringende planeten bereikt, maar dat is slechts een fractie van de 400 miljard sterren in de Melkweg. Alleen sterren binnen een straal van 50 lichtjaar (één lichtjaar is ongeveer 9,5 biljoen kilometer, red.) hebben met andere woorden al de tijd gehad om een signaal terug te sturen, legt Wandel uit.

De studie suggereert dus dat er zich binnen 50 lichtjaar van onze planeet geen intelligente beschavingen bevinden. Maar verder in de ruimte kan dat uiteraard wel het geval zijn, klinkt het.

Bovendien werden de allereerste radiosignalen niet doelbewust de kosmos ingestuurd, waardoor ze allemaal door elkaar zouden zijn gelopen zodra ze de ruimte bereikten. Daarom konden aliens ze niet van elkaar onderscheiden. Pas in 1974 werd vanuit Puerto Rico bewust geprobeerd om in contact te komen met buitenaards leven. Met de Arecibo-telescoop werd toen de allereerste doelbewuste menselijke boodschap naar – hypothetische – aliens uitgezonden.

Nieuwe boodschap

Een groep internationale wetenschappers vindt dat het stilaan tijd is voor een nieuwe boodschap en heeft om die reden het ‘Beacon in the Galaxy’ (BITG)-project opgestart. De experten hebben reeds een boodschap voorgesteld die als doel heeft om een universeel middel voor de communicatie met buitenaardse wezens tot stand te brengen. De radioboodschap zal onder meer een diagram van het mannelijke en vrouwelijke lichaam bevatten.

Hoe meer signalen onze aarde uitstuurt, hoe groter de kans uiteraard is dat aliens er uiteindelijk naar zullen luisteren, besluit Wandel.

De BITG-boodschap zal onder meer een diagram van het mannelijke en vrouwelijke lichaam bevatten  © rv

KIJK OOK.

Snel uitgelegd: is er intelligent buitenaards leven?

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

LATEST UFO VIDEOS - Belgisch UFO-meldpunt - DEEL I

Belgian UFO videos 2022

Videocompilatie van de UFO-beelden die in 2022 bij het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt (www.ufomeldpunt.be) binnenkwamen.

UFO De Panne (Belgium) 11-02-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te De Panne (België) op 11 februari 2022.

UFO Sint-Andries (Belgium) 13-12-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Sint-Andries (België) op 13 december 2022.

UFO Zaffelare (Belgium) 30-10-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Zaffelare (België) op 30 oktober 2022.

UFO Kinrooi (Belgium) 29-10-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Kinrooi (België) op 29 oktober 2022.

UFO Burst (Belgium) 26-10-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Burst (België) op 26 oktober 2022.

UFO Dilsen-Stokkem (Belgium) 22-10-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Dilsen-Stokkem (België) op 22 oktober 2022.

UFO Bunsbeek (Belgium) 19-10-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Bunsbeek (België) op 19 oktober 2022.

UFO Ninove (Belgium) 22-09-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Ninove (België) op 22 september 2022.

UFO Balen (Belgium) 28-08-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Balen (België) op 28 augustus 2022.

UFO Winksele (Belgium) 23 en 30-08-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Winksele (België) op 23 en 30 augustus 2022.

UFO Zaventem (Belgium) 15-08-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Zaventem (België) op 15 augustus 2022.

UFO Vosselare (Belgium) 14-08-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Vosselare (België) op 14 augustus 2022.

UFO Hasselt (Belgium) 04-08-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Hasselt (België) op 4 augustus 2022.

UFO Heusden-Zolder (Belgium) 03-08-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Heusden-Zolder (België) op 3 augustus 2022

UFO Kortemark (Belgium) 27-07-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Kortemark (België) op 27 juli 2022.

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

LATEST UFO VIDEOS - Belgisch UFO-meldpunt - DEEL II

UFO Kinrooi (Belgium) 15-07-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Kinrooi (België) op 15 juli 2022.

UFO Brugge (Belgium) 15-07-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Brugge (België) op 15 juli 2022.

UFO Moerbeke (Belgium) 12-06-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Moerbeke (België) op 12-06-2022.

UFO Velzeke (Belgium) juni 2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Velzeke (België) in juni van 2022.

UFO Haaltert (Belgium) 24-05-2022

Beelden UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Haaltert (België) op 24 mei 2022.

UFO Oostende (Belgium) 14-05-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Oostende (België) op 14 mei 2022.

UFO Schaarbeek (Belgium) 14-05-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Schaarbeek (België) op 14 mei 2022.

UFO België en Frankrijk 21-04-2022

Beelden van verschillende UFO-waarnemingen gemaakt te België en Frankrijk op 21 april 2022.

UFO Wilrijk (Belgium) 20-04-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Wilrijk (België) op 20 april 2022.

UFO Berchem (Belgium) 12-04-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Berchem (België) op 12 april 2022.

UFO Gent (Belgium) 30-03-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Gent op 30 maart 2022.

UFO Tervuren (Belgium) 22-03-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Tervuren (België) op 22 maart 2022.

UFO Wijnegem (Belgium) 19-03-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Wijnegem (België) op 19 maart 2022.

UFO Herselt (Belgium) 05-03-2022

UFO Westerlo (Belgium) 03-03-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Westerlo (België) op 3 maart 2022.

UFO Blankenberge (Belgium) 26-02-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Blankenberge (België) op 26 februari 2022.

UFO Bevel (Belgium) 07-02-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Bevel (België) op 7 februari 2022.

UFO Dilsen-Stokkem (Belgium) 24-01-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Dilsen-Stokkem (België) op 24 januari 2022.

UFO Niel (Belgium) 20-01-2022

Beelden van UFO-waarneming gemaakt te Niel (België) op 20 januari 2022.

{  https://www.youtube.com/ }