BepiColombo Detects Oxygen and Carbon Ions in Magnetosphere of Venus

byNatali Anderson

In August 2021, the ESA/JAXA Mercury-bound BepiColombo spacecraft performed its second flyby of Venus and provided a short-lived observation of its induced magnetosphere. The spacecraft detected cold oxygen and carbon ions at a distance of about six planetary radii in a region of the magnetosphere that has never been explored before.

Schematic view of planetary material escaping through Venus magnetosheath flank; the red line and arrow show the region and direction of observations by BepiColombo when the escaping ions (C⁺, O⁺, H⁺) were observed.

Image credit: Thibaut Roger / Europlanet 2024 RI / Hadid et al.

During its formation, Venus was similar to Earth in many ways, including the existence of substantial amounts of liquid water.

However, Venus eventually evolved in a divergent way, leading to substantial differences between the two planets.

Unlike Earth, Venus is now an extremely dry planet that lacks an intrinsic magnetic field.

The continuous impact of the solar wind on the atmospheres of both planets results in important atmospheric losses.

The atmosphere of Venus, predominantly composed of carbon dioxide with smaller amounts of nitrogen and other minor species, is affected by interactions with the solar wind, leading to important ion outflows.

“This is the first time that positively charged carbon ions have been observed escaping from Venus’ atmosphere,” said Dr. Lina Hadid, a researcher at the Plasma Physics Laboratory and CNRS.

“These are heavy ions that are usually slow moving, so we are still trying to understand the mechanisms that are at play.”

“It may be that an electrostatic ‘wind’ is lifting them away from the planet, or they could be accelerated through centrifugal processes.”

“Unlike Earth, Venus does not generate an intrinsic magnetic field in its core.”

“Nonetheless, a weak, comet-shaped ‘induced magnetosphere’ is created around the planet by the interaction of charged particles emitted by Sun (solar wind) with electrically charged particles in Venus’ upper atmosphere.”

“Draped around the magnetosphere is a region called the ‘magnetosheath’ where the solar wind is slowed and heated.”

On August 10, 2021, BepiColombo passed by Venus to slow down and adjust course towards its final destination of Mercury.

The spacecraft swooped up the long tail of the planet’s magnetosheath and emerged through the nose of the magnetic regions closest to the Sun.

Over a 90-minute period of observations, BepiColombo’s Mass Spectrum Analyzer (MSA) and the Mercury Ion Analyzer (MIA) measured the number and mass of charged particles it encountered, capturing information about the chemical and physical processes driving atmospheric escape in the flank of the magnetosheath.

“Characterizing the loss of heavy ions and understanding the escape mechanisms at Venus is crucial to understand how the planet’s atmosphere has evolved and how it has lost all its water,” said MSA’s principal investigator Dr. Dominique Delcourt, a researcher at the Plasma Physics Laboratory.

“This result shows the unique results that can come out of measurements made during planetary flybys, where the spacecraft may move through regions generally unreachable by orbiting spacecraft,” said Dr. Nicolas André, a researcher at the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie.

• The study was published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
• L.Z. Hadid et al. BepiColombo observations of cold oxygen and carbon ions in the flank of the induced magnetosphere of Venus. Nat Astron, published online April 12, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02247-2

{ https://www.sci.news/ }

Unveiling the Secrets of Roswell: Former Air Force Staff Sgt Reveals a Two-Decade Struggle

In a revelation that might rewrite parts of UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) history, Former Staff Sergeant Mario Woods, a veteran of the US Air Force, shared groundbreaking details on the efforts to penetrate the wreckage of the alleged Roswell spacecraft. During a podcast appearance on “Really with Tom and Dave,” Woods divulged that it took researchers an astonishing 20 years to breach the craft’s hull. This detail not only adds a new layer to the infamous 1947 Roswell incident but also hints at technological advancements that were possibly spurred by the extraterrestrial encounter.

Decades of Determination

According to Woods, the journey to uncovering the secrets held by the Roswell craft was neither quick nor easy. It spanned two decades, a testament to both the resilience and the limitations of human technology faced with potentially alien materials. The former staff sergeant described how the initial inability to penetrate the craft’s exterior led to the eventual development of a new type of cutting tool, which he referred to as a plasma-type cutter. This innovation marks a significant point in the narrative, suggesting that the Roswell incident could have been a catalyst for technological breakthroughs in materials science.

Implications of the Disclosure

The implications of Woods’ statement are manifold. Firstly, it highlights the challenges and complexities involved in dealing with materials that are not of this world. The fact that it took 20 years to make significant inroads into the craft’s structure suggests that the materials used in its construction were far beyond the scope of 1947-era Earth technology. This aligns with other accounts of recovered UAP artifacts exhibiting unusual properties, such as extreme durability and lightweight composition.

Furthermore, the development of a new plasma cutter in response to these challenges speaks volumes about the indirect benefits of engaging with unexplained phenomena. Such advancements may have broader applications, potentially revolutionizing industries and opening new avenues in scientific research.

Credibility and Controversy

While Woods’ account is compelling, it also feeds into the ongoing debate about the credibility of UAP witnesses and the veracity of their accounts. Skeptics might question the authenticity of the claim, pointing to the lack of physical evidence and the highly secretive nature of such military operations. However, for enthusiasts and researchers in the field of UAP studies, testimonies like that of Woods are invaluable. They provide insights into the government’s historical and possibly ongoing interactions with unidentified aerial and possibly extraterrestrial technologies.

VIDEO:

• Former Staff Sgt in US Air Force says it took 20 YEARS to breach the hull of Roswell crashed ship

• https://youtu.be/WTgtTayLrWM

As public interest in UAPs continues to grow, fueled by government acknowledgments and the release of official reports, the story shared by Mario Woods could play a crucial role in upcoming discussions and hearings on the matter. If validated, such firsthand accounts from military personnel could push for more transparent investigations and possibly the declassification of related documents.

In conclusion, the effort to breach the hull of the Roswell craft, as described by Former Staff Sgt. Mario Woods, not only underscores the persistence of human curiosity but also hints at the potential interplay between human and alien technologies. Whether this leads to further disclosures or more in-depth scientific inquiry remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: the Roswell incident continues to intrigue and inspire, more than seventy years after it first captured the public’s imagination.

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

Exploring the Shadows: Unveiling Hidden Government UFO Cover-Ups

In the realm of the unknown, few subjects are as simultaneously captivating and controversial as unidentified flying objects. Over the decades, whispers of government cover-ups and suppressed information have fueled the intrigue surrounding these mysterious sightings. Recent revelations and witness testimonies suggest that the curtain is slowly being lifted on this enigmatic topic, revealing a tapestry of secrets that challenge our understanding of reality.

A History of Secrecy

The story of government involvement with UFOs is not new, yet it remains shrouded in secrecy. From the infamous Roswell incident of 1947 to more contemporary encounters, there is a consistent theme of minimal disclosure and public misdirection. Witnesses, often military personnel or credible civilians, report their experiences only to face ridicule or be silenced by bureaucratic red tape. This pattern suggests a deliberate effort to control the narrative surrounding UFOs, potentially to prevent widespread panic or to withhold technological insights gained from these encounters.

Witness Accounts: A Closer Look

One compelling account comes from a person named Terry, who first encountered a shape-shifting UFO nearly half a century ago. Stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base, Terry described an enormous black object, devoid of any markings or windows, hovering silently over a missile silo. The object, as reported, seemed to defy the known laws of physics, morphing in shape and disappearing into thin air.

In another case, a pilot recounted a chilling near-miss with a UFO during a routine flight from Fairchild Air Force Base. Describing the object as a “large ball of fire,” the pilot witnessed it perform maneuvers that no known aircraft could execute, including an abrupt ascent that defied gravity. This encounter, like many others, was swiftly followed by an investigation by unnamed intelligence officers, further hinting at the depth of governmental involvement.

The Role of Modern Investigators

Individuals like Ben Hansen and Steve Barone have dedicated themselves to uncovering the truth behind these secretive operations. Hansen, a former federal agent turned paranormal investigator, has brought to light various instances where the government’s explanations regarding UFOs have fallen short. By comparing notes with other UFO researchers and analyzing declassified documents, Hansen offers a more cohesive look into what might truly be happening behind the closed doors of government facilities.

Steve Barone, residing near key military bases, leverages his strategic location to capture footage of unusual aerial phenomena. His recordings of black triangular objects traversing the sky echo the descriptions shared by other witnesses across different timelines, providing visual proof that supports the testimonies of those who claim to have seen similar crafts.

Implications and Public Perception

The implications of these hidden cover-ups are profound. By controlling information, the authorities can manipulate public perception, maintaining a status quo while possibly experimenting with or harnessing advanced technologies derived from extraterrestrial sources. As more individuals come forward with their experiences, and as researchers like Hansen and Barone continue to press for transparency, the public’s interest in and understanding of UFOs deepens.

VIDEO:

• Secret Pentagon Program (Full Episode) | UFOs: Investigating the Unknown

• https://youtu.be/Wt7Riw9jGlQ

The veil over government UFO secrets is lifting, albeit slowly. With each new leaked document, whistleblower account, or unauthorized sighting, the complex relationship between UFO phenomena and government agencies becomes slightly clearer. While the full scope of what has been hidden may still be out of reach, the persistent efforts of investigators and the growing pool of evidence suggest that the truth—whatever it may be—is still out there, waiting to be fully uncovered.

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

'Most convincing' UFO case left man looking like

One of the 'most convincing' UFO cases left a man looking like a human Connect Four board  (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A bloke was left with severe burns and melted fingertips after allegedly getting too close to a disc-shaped craft in one of Canada's most notorious UFO encounters.

The incident took place in the summer of 1967 when Stefan Michalak, a Polish immigrant living in Canada, visited Falcon Lake in Manitoba. Stefan, an amateur geologist, had previously explored the area in search of gold and quartz.

However, instead of finding precious minerals, Stefan was left both mentally and physically scarred by a reported encounter with a "glowing" UFO. His extraordinary tale was recounted on the It Gets Weird podcast by host Nile.

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Sighting

Nile detailed how Stefan was investigating the area when a flock of geese started honking nearby. Upon inspecting the commotion, he was suddenly faced with two "cigar-shaped objects" hovering above the ground, which shifted colour from reddish-orange to silver.

One of the objects began to descend, morphing into the circular disc shape typically associated with UFO sightings. Stefan reportedly sat and sketched the craft, with his drawings being published online years later.

Stefan reportedly sat and sketched the craft, with his drawings being published online years later  (Image: Supplied)

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Eventually, the geologist decided to approach the spaceship. As he got closer, he began to smell sulphur and exhaust fumes, the air grew warmer, and he heard the sound of whirring motors.

According to Nile, as Stefan neared the craft, he noticed an open door with a bright light at the side, from which muffled voices could be heard. "He couldn't make out any words, or anything, but he heard at least two beings communicating inside," he explained.

"At this point he called out, saying that if they needed any mechanical help, he's willing to help them."

The voices stopped and, donning welding goggles he had brought, Stefan is said to have peered inside the craft, observing flashing buttons and panels blinking – but not witnessing any living creatures, alien or otherwise.

But things began to take a turn for the worse when Stefan attempted to touch the UFO while wearing thick gloves. "As soon as he touches the craft, the fingertips just start to melt, so it's so hot that it literally melts the gloves he's wearing," suggested Nile.

Stefan is said to have peered inside the craft, observing flashing buttons and panels blinking  (Image: Getty Images)

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At the same time Stefan observed the spaceship starting to turn, with a panel of holes facing towards him. He continued: "He's hit by this blast of air, that pushes him backwards, and sets his shirt and hat on fire.

"He's stumbling backwards, getting pushed by this wave of air and gas, and trying to take this burning shirt and hat off."

Nile claimed the craft then lifted off and flew away, leaving Stefan disoriented and hurt, saying: "It really feels like this guy was too close to the tailpipe of a UFO and as it took off it just blasted him."

Injuries

Left on his own Stefan began to feel nauseous and, while vomiting, he stumbled through the forest to find help. He made it back to his motel and with the nearest hospital a fair distance away, Stefan coordinated with his missus to meet back in their hometown of Winnipeg, hopping on a two-hour bus ride to get there.

Stefan was a bit cagey about spilling the beans on what went down, with Nile suggesting: "Not really being sure what he went through, he told his family and the people in the hospital that he was hit by airplane exhaust."

Stefan was treated for some nasty burns that had him looking like a human Connect Four board, matching the pattern of the exhaust vents he claimed to have clocked on the UFO.

It really does look like Connect Four...  (Image: Supplied)

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For weeks on end he was plagued with symptoms that smack of radiation sickness, think relentless runs and chucking up. Tests by the Canadian National Atomic Research Centre showed he wasn't glowing with radioactivity but was showing signs similar to those zapped by radiation.

"They find out that the burns on his chest do come from gamma rays, which passed through his stomach and basically broke down what was in there," Nile said.

Aftermath

Once he'd bounced back in hospital, Stefan was able to track down and revisit the spot where he'd had his close encounter. The search turned up his charred shirt, a melted glove, and some tools he'd left in haste, along with a circle of scorched earth where the alleged UFO had touched down.

The soil samples and Stefan's recovered clothing were also found to be radioactive, adding to the intrigue.

The case sparked a media frenzy due to the compelling evidence and Stefan's severe injuries. Yet, Nile pointed out that Stefan never chased the limelight over the encounter, sticking to his story consistently until his passing in 1999.

Stefan Michalak, a Polish immigrant living in Canada, visited Falcon Lake in Manitoba  (Image: Supplied)

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"He never, as far as I can tell, says that there were aliens involved," Nile remarked. "Stefan's story never really changes, over time people try to add things on and tweak it a little bit. He also has to clear up multiple times that he never saw any beings inside the aircraft.

"The fact that he stuck to his story for so long never really changed it, and seemed decently credible is one of the more interesting aspects of this case."

Official sources have yet to confirm Stefan's sighting, but Nile highlighted the Canadian government's vague response keeps the enigma alive. "The official government reports effectively said, 'yeah he came across something; it is not a matter of national security so we are not going to investigate any further'," he said.

Stefan's son Stan Michalak has since penned a book about his father's alleged encounter titled 'When They Appeared: Falcon Lake 1967: The Inside Story of a Close Encounter'.

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

SpaceX Starship will be 500 feet tall to prepare for Mars missions, Elon Musk says (video)

SpaceX's Starship, the largest rocket in the world, will get even bigger as the company continues to target Mars missions in the future.

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, told employees on April 4 that Starship will eventually be as tall as 500 feet (150 meters), roughly 20 percent higher than the massive system aboard the Super Heavy rocket right now. 

What's more, advances in reusability will have each launch cost roughly $3 million each, Musk predicted; that's less than a third of what a (much smaller) Falcon 1 rocket launch cost in 2004 when inflation is taken into account. (The figure two decades ago was $5.9 million, according to NBC, which is roughly $9.5 million in 2024 dollars.) 

"These are sort of unthinkable numbers," Musk said in the Starship update, released publicly April 6, roughly one month after the third and last test flight to date. "Nobody ever thought that this was possible, but we're not breaking any physics to achieve this. So this is within the bounds, without breaking physics. We can do this."

Related:

•  SpaceX fires up huge Super Heavy booster ahead of 4th Starship test flight (photos, video)

Musk tends to deliver Starship updates at least once ayear to highlight progress the company is making toward its long-term plans of settling Mars. Indeed, the last year has seen three Starship launches, so there has been progress made recently. Musk didn't, however, address delays in launching Starship that have contributed to pushing back the launch date for the first moon landing under the NASA-led Artemis program.

SpaceX was named the vendor for the Artemis 3 landing mission that, until recently, was set for 2025. In January, NASA elected to hold the launch date another year, to 2026, due to a range of technical issues. Aside from Starship not being ready — the agency wants many successful launches before approving it for astronaut flights — Artemis 3 was also delayed due to slow progress on spacesuits and problems with the mission's Orion spacecraft, among other factors.

However, Musk's words about Artemis, to employees, focused on Starship's future capabilities: orbiting the Earth and refilling its tanks, both of which have yet to be proven on its three test flights.

"This will ... be very important for the Artemis program for the NASA to get back to the moon," Musk said of those capabilities. He also envisions a "Moon Base Alpha" that would include ships "specialized for going to and from the moon", meaning there would be no heat shield or flaps due to the lack of atmosphere.

Related: 

• NASA celebrates SpaceX Starship's 3rd test flight, but more work needed ahead of Artemis moon missions

Musk's 45-minute speech touched on the usual themes for his Red Planet updates, focusing on how to send a lot of cargo out there for eventual settlers. He noted that would take thousands of launches to do; for perspective, Musk said the company has completed 327 successful Falcon series launches and about 80 percent of those had reused boosters (a key factor in reducing cost.)

SpaceX is by far the most active launching entity on Earth, and Musk forecasts the company will send roughly 90 percent of orbital mass aloft this year compared to China's 6 percent (the second-largest entity.) 

Starship's next and fourth spaceflight attempt, expected to take place in May, aims to have the first stage of Super Heavy land "on essentially a virtual tower" in the Gulf of Mexico, Musk said. Once the company safely gets that done, they will consider using the launching area at Starbase, in south Texas, for future landings as soon as Flight 5. (Musk pegged the chances of success on Flight 4 at 80% or 90%.)

Musk also wants to perform two splashdowns of the upper stage of Starship in a row, in a controlled fashion, before sending it to Starbase on a future flight. "We do not want to rain debris over Mexico or the U.S.," he said. "My guess is probably next year when we will be able to reuse Starship."

Overall, Musk plans for multiple Starship launches to take place this year, and suggests SpaceX will build an additional six spacecraft by the end of 2024. A new rocket factory for the company should be available in 2025, which would make production even faster. 

Future versions of Starship will include a "Starship 2" to send 100 tons of payload to low-Earth orbit and the 500-foot "Starship 3" for 200 or more tons. Bigger vehicles, Musk stressed, will mean fewer (four or five) refueling missions in low Earth orbit to get a Starship ready for the journey to Mars someday. 

Of these milestones, Musk said it would be "very much a success-oriented schedule." His speech did not mention the Federal Aviation Administration, which must approve each one of the launches, nor ongoing criticism of the environmental impact of Starship on the ecologically sensitive area near Starbase.

That impact may continue to grow, as Musk said it would take roughly 10 launches a day to send hundreds of vehicles to Mars every two years (when the planet is closest) to make a long-term settlement feasible. As for the number of Mars-bound people, that would be roughly a million folks, he said — that matches predictions he made at least as far back as 2017. Musk also says he wants to get the settlement going "in 20 years." He said the same thing in 2011.

{ https://www.space.com/space-exploration }

Bettmann//Getty Images

CIA Secret Files Show John F. Kennedy Killed 10 days After Demanding UFO Files

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

”Unlike the radio signals we’ve seen from other magnetars, this one is emitting enormous amounts of rapidly changing circular polarization,” said Dr. Marcus Lower, a postdoctoral fellow at Australia’s national science agency – CSIRO, and the leader of the research effort. “We had never seen anything like this before.”

The study’s co-author, University of Sydney’s Dr. Manisha Caleb, agrees, noting that the readings don’t match any previous radio signals coming from magnetars. In fact, they don’t even match theoretical models that try to predict the behavior of various cosmological phenomena.

”The signals emitted from this magnetar imply that interactions at the surface of the star are more complex than previous theoretical explanations,” Caleb explained.

Deepening the mystery behind the unusual radio signals is the fact that simply detecting any type of radio emission from a magnetar is extremely rare. According to the researchers who spotted the signals coming from XTE J1810-197, it is only one of a handful of magnetars astronomers have found that emit radio waves.

Further adding to the mystery is the fact that the signals were first detected back in 2003 before they suddenly went silent. Then, in 2018, astronomers using the University of Manchester’s 76-m Lovell telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory saw that the signals had returned. That data was quickly followed up by Murriyang, the CSIRO instrument that detected these most recent signals.

While there is no immediate explanation for the cause of the unusual radio signals, the researchers say that their complex behavior has led to an equally unusual theory.

​“Our results suggest there is a superheated plasma above the magnetar’s magnetic pole, which is acting like a polarising filter,” Dr. Lower said. Still, the researcher admits it is only a theory, and concedes that explaining how exactly the plasma is doing this “is still to be determined.”

Follow-up studies will likely be required to answer the mystery behind the complex and unusual radio waves coming from Earth’s closest magnetar. Fortunately, the researchers note that the 64-meter diameter telescope is equipped with “a cutting-edge ultra-wide bandwidth receiver” that is perfect for the job.

“The receiver allows for more precise measurements of celestial objects, especially magnetars,” the researchers explain, “as it is highly sensitive to changes in brightness and polarisation across a broad range of radio frequencies.

While it may be a long time before we know conclusively what is behind the unusual radio signals, the researchers behind this latest discovery, which is published in the journal Nature Astronomy, say that studying magnetars is crucial to understanding a great many mysteries of the universe.

“Studies of magnetars such as these provide insights into a range of extreme and unusual phenomena,” the release explains, “such as plasma dynamics, bursts of X-rays and gamma-rays, and potentially fast radio bursts.”

•  Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

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{ https://www.ufoinsight.com/ufos }

Second, this appears to be the first AARO report submitted to Congress that the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) did not sign off on. I don’t know why, but Avril Haines and her Office were quite right not to in this case, having spared themselves considerable embarrassment in the process.

Third, this is the most error-ridden and unsatisfactory government report I can recall reading during or after decades of government service. We all make mistakes, but this report is an outlier in terms of inaccuracies and errors. Were I reviewing this as a graduate student’s thesis it would receive a failing grade for failing to understand the assignment, sloppy and inadequate research, and flawed interpretation of the data. Hopefully, long before it was submitted, the author would have consulted his or her professor and received some guidance and course correction to prevent such an unfortunate outcome.

Another irregularity worth noting is the fact that before its release, Department of Defense (DoD) Public Affairs sponsored a closed-door pre-brief on the report’s findings for a select group of press outlets on an invitation-only basis. Outlets like The Debrief, which closely follow the UAP issue, were excluded. Following the report’s release, most of the news agencies that had participated in the pre-brief went on to publish articles that uncritically parroted the report’s findings. Moreover, they seem to have done so without consulting any of the scholars or experts who have studied and written extensively on this topic as would normally be the case in another field.

The Congressional legal mandate, meaning by statutory law, required that this AARO historical report present the detailed history of UAP as recorded in US Government records. However, AARO instead presented a summary history of the records of flawed USG investigations of UAP, rather than what was actually mandated: the history of UAP and “relating to” UAP, meaning the history of UAP sightings and investigations (and to be completed using USG records and other official information).

The law required a “written report detailing the historical record of the United States Government relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena,” and the word “investigations” nowhere appears – the phrase does not say it is to be a historical report solely “relating to” investigations of “unidentified anomalous phenomena.” (NDAA FY2023 Sec. 6802(j)(1)(A), codified statute 50 U.S. Code § 3373(j)(1)(A), as amended.)

In another breach of the explicit terms of the law, AARO failed to compile, itemize, and report on US intelligence agency abuses on UAP (per 50 U.S.C. § 3373, below). The AARO Historical Report was required to:

“(ii) include a compilation and itemization of the key historical record of the involvement of the intelligence community with unidentified anomalous phenomena [UAP], including— …

“(III) any efforts to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide, or otherwise provide incorrect unclassified or classified information about unidentified anomalous phenomena [UAP] or related activities.” [NDAA FY23 Sec. 6802(j)(1)(B); 50 U.S. Code § 3373(j)(1)(B)]

Contrary to Congressional direction, AARO completely omits entire agencies – NORAD, NSA, DIA (prior to 2009), CBP, etc. – agencies with known investigations or activities relating to UAP, and also omits any discussion of “any efforts to obfuscate, [or]… hide … unclassified or classified information about unidentified anomalous phenomena [UAP] or related activities.” AARO omits these agencies even when there are unclassified documents available on those agencies’ records and investigations of UAP (for example, see the approximate 100 pages of CBP Customs & Border Protection agency internal memos of Records on UAP, plus 10 videos, released in August, 2023, but unmentioned by AARO; Also see McMillan, Hanks, Plain, “Incursions at the Border,” The Debrief, May 27, 2022).

EXCESSIVE SECRECY

In the past, extreme and excessive secrecy has been displayed in efforts to “hide … unclassified or classified” UAP-related information, illustrated by the AARO predecessor’s UAP Security Classification Guide, first distributed internally on April 16, 2020 (see graphic below) which is itself heavily redacted, removing most indications of the type of UAP report content requiring classification. This is a binding secrecy regulation – don’t be fooled by the word “guide,” it is absolutely mandatory. The secrecy regulation specifically states that only a general statement of an increase in UAP sightings can be released to the public, and “without [releasing] any further information regarding when [or] where” a UAP “sighting [has] been reported” as that is classified. Additionally, the “times and places” of UAP detections are classified and are required to be “unspecified” and can’t be released; it is not “U” (Unclassified) (p. 6, subparagraphs. 4.1b-c).

The internal Pentagon talking points on the UAP subject are a gag order that specifically forbids DoD officials from even revealing to the media and the public the fact that “virtually everything” about UAP is unreleasable, citing the above UAP Security Classification regulation (produced by AARO’s predecessor, the UAP Task Force). Specifically, it states: “Except for its existence, and the mission/purpose, virtually everything else about the UAPTF [UAP Task Force] is classified, per the signed Security Classification Guide.”

Similar UAP security regulations no doubt are applied throughout the US Government. There is not one single item of government information about a UAP sighting that is not classified according to this secrecy regulation. Why is that? How can the US Government be transparent about UAP sighting incidents if nothing will be released? (See John Greenewald of The Black Vault, in “What’s NOT in AARO’s recent “Historical Record” UAP Report?” from his X/Twitter post on March 31, 2024).

How can this be, when DoD itself confirmed, prior to the creation of this (excessive) classification guide, that the three famous Navy UAP videos I provided the New York Times and Washington Post were unclassified, and their release would not damage national security? In fact, by bringing a major intelligence failure occurring in US airspace to the attention of policymakers, the public release of those videos clearly advanced national security. The bureaucratic fiasco of this classification guide occurred despite a broad consensus in government, including among our military and intelligence officials and members of Congress, that over-classification is a major problem that needs to be addressed. As Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) said in a letter to Congress in 2022, “Over-classification of government secrets both undermines national security by blocking the intelligence community’s ability to share critical information and erodes the basic trust that our citizens have in their government.”

Air Force intelligence agency “efforts to … manipulate public opinion” on UAP since the 1950s are what caused the harsh stigma attached to the entire UFO subject in society. But this powerful anti-UAP stigma is not investigated or historically documented by AARO – or even mentioned – contrary to its legal obligation (more on this below). In addition to the AF-instigated Robertson Panel of 1953, and all that followed after it, there are even admissions by a retired USAF OSI officer of allegedly spying on civilian UFO researchers and spreading disinformation on behalf of the Air Force.

The unclassified version of the historical AARO Report (AAROR) was released on March 8, 2024. But prior to that, AARO quietly released the report 2 days in advance to several friendly media outlets to cultivate favorable media coverage. These outlets, including the New York Times and Washington Post, faithfully carried the government’s message forward, apparently without consulting any of the scholars and researchers who could have helped them understand the report’s numerous errors, omissions, and shortcomings to provide a more balanced assessment. More objective reporting would have uncovered numerous major problems and serious errors in the AARO Report.

What follows are only a select few of the many issues and questions raised by the AARO Historical Report.

THE AARO REPORT IS FILLED WITH HUNDREDS OF ERRORS

The AARO report (AAROR) is pervaded by hundreds of unfortunate errors and absurdities involving the history, science, and facts presented in its 63 pages, with dozens–or more–errors on some pages (see graphic below of 14 errors alone just on the first page of the Table of Contents).

The report is replete with so many mistakes and misunderstandings that, page for page, it appears to be the greatest single repository of UAP errors, arguably surpassing even the Air Force’s Project Blue Book (BB). Call AARO the New Blue Book. Speaking of which, the report utterly fails to convey any of the fundamental flaws or national controversies that dogged Project Blue Book, including the admission by its own chief scientist that Blue Book was a deeply flawed Air Force public relations effort to dispel public and Congressional concerns, rather than an objective inquiry.

To begin with, AARO asserts the Kenneth Arnold sighting that launched the whole UAP era occurred on June 23, 1947 (AAROR, p. 14).

Simple Googling would have gotten the correct June 24 date and the correct shape (it wasn’t actually “circular,” and neither was the Flying Flapjack which they call the “Flying Pancake” to erroneously emphasize its circularity even more). Arnold insisted the press’s label “flying saucers” for his sighting was a misnomer. Significantly, it is the important watershed event that launched the entire modern age of UAP. It’s not a typo in a minor detail that can just be brushed off.

There are unbelievable statements and insinuations in the AARO report such as the peculiar claim that the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bomb somehow caused “sightings” and “erroneous UAP reporting” (AAROR pp. 4, 39-40) and did so even after it terminated on December 31, 1946 (a date they omit because it would not explain the sightings that began the modern UAP era in June 1947). That is a bit like saying trailer parks cause tornadoes. Since the Manhattan Project did not launch special aerial vehicles of any kind that could be “misidentified” as UAP, did the Project’s buildings fly up in the air and cause “sightings” and “erroneous UAP reporting”? This incredible claim is not explained by AARO.

Indeed, the truth is precisely the opposite of what AARO suggests. Not only is there no evidence of outside civilians mistaking the Manhattan Project and successor operations for UAP, but we know that personnel working inside the US nuclear weapons program were sighting UAP, reporting them, and thereafter collecting hundreds of their own authentic UAP reports. The senior AFOSI (Air Force Office of Special Investigations) officer responsible for Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory compiled a detailed catalog of 209 recent “Unknown Aerial Phenomena” sightings and instrument tracking incidents in the Los Alamos area and surrounding regions (see sample p. 38 below). He sent the catalog with a classified memo to his superior, the agency director in Washington DC, General Joseph P. Carroll, on May 25, 1950, stating that security officials agreed:

“… the frequency of unexplained aerial phenomenon in the New Mexico area was such that an organized plan of reporting these observations should be undertaken…”

Other documents explain this “organized plan” included instrumented UFO / UAP tracking stations and networks that were set up by scientists and security officials in the Los Alamos Lab, Sandia Lab, Kirtland AFB, and Holloman AFB–White Sands areas, and put on base-wide alert, consisting of missile-tracking telescopic cameras, radars, nuclear radiation detectors, radio communication networks, aircraft for interception, etc. Yet, no AARO discussion of this.

“The observers of these phenomena include scientists, Special Agents of the Office of Special Investigations (IG), USAF, airline pilots, military pilots, Los Alamos Security Inspectors, military personnel, and many other persons of various occupations whose reliability is not questioned.”

Many of the UAPs reported by scientists and military personnel were described as either “green fireball phenomena” or flying “disks” (or “variation”). AARO has completely misrepresented the situation: The Manhattan Project and subsequent nuclear weapons activities were not causing spurious UAP sightings by civilians awed by “new technologies” they did not understand – the government scientists and military personnel themselves were actually seeing UAP and recording hundreds of UAP in authentic and well-documented reports.

These sightings officially reported by US Government personnel were consistent with what the external “unknowing” civilians (as AARO calls them) were reporting at the time – sometimes the government personnel and civilians sighted the same UAP at the same time, confirming each other.

Seemingly AARO is confusing secrecy-bred lurid rumors of aliens with a careful sighting of a UAP, up in the air, at an exact date, time, and location, having unexplainable motions and appearance, and backed up with scientifically valuable directional data involving speed, size, altitude, sensor data, radar tracking, etc. Yet AARO suggests that many of these documented sightings are just rumors or mistaken reports based on unwitting civilian observations of “new technologies” in classified US military activities.

AARO claims the first US satellite, Explorer 1 in 1958, and even the Apollo moon landings (pp. 41-42) caused UAP sighting misidentifications and were “formerly classified and sensitive … national security programs” (AAROR, pp. 39-40) – which they were not, and Apollo was just civilian NASA. AARO insinuates that the Apollo missions were “classified and sensitive”, and yet, apart from a limited number of contingency missions later revealed to have had classified components, the vast majority of NASA’s objectives with the missions were fully known to the public, with the moon landing broadcast to the entire planet on live television.

AARO states (pp. 10-11, 36):

“AARO assesses that some portion of [UAP] sightings since the 1940s have represented misidentification of never-before-seen experimental and operational space, rocket, and air systems… From the 1940s to the 1960s especially, the United States witnessed a boom in experimental technologies… Many of these technologies fit the description of a stereotypical Unidentified Flying Object (UFO). It is understandable how observers unfamiliar with these programs could mistake sightings of these new technologies as something extraordinary, even other-worldly.”

“AARO assesses that the incidents of UAP sightings reported to USG organizations … most likely are the result of a range of cultural, political, and technological factors. AARO bases this conclusion on the aggregate findings of all USG investigations to date [and] the misinterpretation of all reported named sensitive programs…”

What “new technology” let alone “many” was ever flown that “fit the description of a stereotypical … UFO” (e.g., a flying saucer)? Yet just before “naming” the Manhattan Project and Apollo as supposed “examples,” AARO reiterates the unsubstantiated point, claiming that many:

“… UAP sightings … were the result of misidentifications … of new technologies that [civilian] observers would have understandably reported as UFOs…. [O]bservers unknowingly … witnessed … and report[ed] as UFOs … classified and sensitive programs that involved … rocket launches … which AARO assess [sic] most likely were the cause of many UAP reports. AARO assesses that this common and understandable occurrence—the misidentification of new technologies for UAP— is present today [and] are reported as UAP.” (AAROR, p. 39)

Subsequently, AARO lists the Apollo program as one of 28 alleged examples (pp. 40, 42).

But no such UAP or “stereotypical UFO” sightings of a “misidentified” Apollo are known or cited by AARO and frankly, it is baffling to suggest anyone on Earth could see the Apollo moon landings with their eyes from 240,000 miles away or Apollo anywhere along the flight trajectory. AARO makes a point of stating that there were in the Apollo program “12 astronauts walking on the moon” without explaining how that is relevant or giving a single UAP sighting they seem to insinuate was caused by that. Are there any actual, serious UAP sightings misidentifying Apollo launches to the moon as UAP?

Scientific errors by AARO thus abound in its secret-project-inflated report, including those pointed out above regarding the miraculous feats of human vision sighting Apollo moon landings and Explorer 1 from outer space – besides insinuating apparent errors of logic and physics and injecting a non-issue of misleading irrelevancies (non-secret “secret” projects that did not and could not actually cause UAP sightings).

DID AARO MISS 64,000 PAGES OF AIR FORCE BLUE BOOK UAP FILES?

AARO may have “partnered” with the National Archives in retrieving old Air Force Project Blue Book files but AARO seems to think there are only 65,778 pages of Blue Book files (within some 7,000 larger digital files), instead of the actual total of some 130,000 pages.

Is AARO aware there are 130,000 pages of Air Force UAP files on microfilm at the National Archives (and some additional files that were never microfilmed)?

All that anyone has to do is check the Fold3 Ancestry.com website, available on the Internet since 2007, to find its total Blue Book page count of 129,658 pages (round off to 130,000) that Fold3’s predecessor digitized from Blue Book microfilm at NARA (see Fold3 internet screenshot below). (Page count includes about 6,000 AFOSI pages, some duplicative of the files and released with Blue Book.) And again it is documented that many records and files are missing from Blue Book, many with exact file numbers that determined investigators such as Jan Aldrich have documented over the years.

Did AARO somehow miss half of Blue Book’s files–some 64,000 pages–in its supposedly “thorough”, “complete”, and “accurate” history (AAROR, p. 12)? Did someone lose 64,000 pages of Blue Book UFO files? Did AARO investigate where these apparently missing Blue Book files disappeared or how the accounting error arose if it is just that?

Even aside from missing half of Blue Book’s files, which therefore could not be reviewed for history, AARO’s review of Air Force Blue Book history is so cursory that AARO seems to merely rehash old Blue Book press releases (see AAROR, pp. 18-19).

AARO claims it established 6 Lines of Effort (“LOEs” they call them) to prepare a “complete” and “accurate” history of the UAP “record” of government investigations (just not of UAP sightings as Congress also wanted): (1) open source, (2) classified, (3) personal interviewing, (4) National Archives, (5) private companies, and (6) intelligence/nat sec agencies (AAROR, pp. 22-13).

But obviously, AARO’s Six Lines of Effort were unmindful of 64,000 missing pages of Blue Book UFO files that only they at AARO were missing – while the rest of the world has, and has had, access to the pages through the Fold3 website since 2007 or by going to the microfilms at the National Archives or buying copies (all available since 1976). Additionally, as will be explained further below, AARO seems completely unaware of the existence of numerous important US government UAP investigation programs, activities, sightings, and radar/sensor-tracking incidents.

AARO CLAIMS EARLY SPY PLANES CAUSED UAP REPORTS – YET CAN’T CITE A SINGLE REPORT

There is not a single known sighting of a U-2 reconnaissance plane reported as a UAP. Nothing in the Blue Book files, and no one can even cite a date for one such purported U-2 sighted and reported as a UAP, let alone the implausible notion that U-2s accounted for “more than half ” of all UAP reports: Under the U-2 Aquatone “secret project” entry, AARO claims “More than half of the UFO reports investigated in the 1950s and 1960s were assessed to be U.S. reconnaissance flights” and “that UFO reports would spike when the U-2 was in flight” (AAROR, p. 41).

Are we to believe over 5,000 of the 10,000 UFO reports then in Air Force Blue Book files were U-2s? That should be easy to find in the Blue Book files if that was the case. (Were there ever that many U-2s anyway, flying say, daily, instead of just one every few months? U-2 historical flight schedules have been released, nothing supports AARO’s claims.)

If so, they should be able to come up with at least one U-2 “UFO” misidentification out of the purported 5,000+ U-2 “UFO” reports, one sighting by date. The earliest unfounded AF-planted rumor of a U-2 “UFO” can be documented in 1964 (see below) but in all this time since they can’t at least find one U-2 “UFO”? (An undated hearsay claim that U-2s could sometimes be seen at sunset is not a “misidentification” – no one said it was an alien spaceship or UFO or the like – and it is not a UAP report that was made by anybody to any official agency, not even to Project Blue Book which has nothing on file about that.)

In fact, it is on record that Air Force Project Blue Book Chief Capt. (later Lt Col) Hector Quintanilla first planted the whole false notion of a U-2 “UFO” sighting on Blue Book’s chief scientific consultant Dr. J. Allen Hynek and his then-grad student assistant Jacques Vallee on January 16, 1964, when he visited Chicago and briefed them (see Vallee’s published diaries for 1957-1969, p. 101). Quintanilla claimed a U-2 was sighted and “It was reported as a UFO” in 1951, purportedly observed as the U-2 was “on its way to the Soviet Union” – when in fact the U-2 had not even been invented yet in 1951 let alone flown yet (invented and designed in 1953, first flown in 1955, none flown to the Soviet Union until 1956, as anyone can look up).

In tracing the origins of this phony story, it was later in 1964 when the Air Force Foreign Technology Division (FTD), which ran Project Blue Book, planted this bogus U-2 spy plane “UFO” nonsense on the CIA (where one CIA reconnaissance official, James Cunningham, admitted FTD/Blue Book was in frequent contact with them). Air Force FTD apparently tried to suggest to the CIA that the secret U-2 flights accounted for many UAP sightings and, because of the need for secrecy, the public could not be told the U-2 explanation. CIA may have run with it because it boosted the importance and prestige of their U-2 in the aftermath of the humiliating CIA Bay of Pigs disaster – and by about this time, the mind-boggling story was embellished that “more than half” of all UAP reports were due to the U-2, not even weather balloons, Venus, or swamp gas, Blue Book’s usual attempted explanations?

(Knowing how Blue Book and its chief operated back then, from civilian researchers combing through 130,000 pages of Blue Book files and studying badly botched cases, it is very possible that on one date Blue Book happened to receive, say, five supposed “UFO” reports of which, say, three they thought might be of a giant Skyhook balloon, possibly from a classified high-altitude reconnaissance project of some sort. Then someone heard this but got their wires crossed and told someone else down the line of the classic hearsay chain that they thought it was three sightings of a reconnaissance spy “project,” maybe “like” a U-2 spy plane, thus confusing balloons with aircraft, and from there the myth was born. Over “half” – or three out of the five “UFO” reports that day – would have been a balloon; maybe a spy balloon, maybe not, involving perhaps nothing more than a sighting of an ordinary large weather or research balloon. But the “half” statistic for one day would be misheard and massively embellished as half of all 10,000 UAP reports for the decade and beyond. This is sheer speculation but based on the very real, typically careless way Blue Book operated. We may never know the full story.)

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

Over the years, many strange and often unexplained objects have been found on the planet Mars. Some objects are so bizarre that one wonders if they are real or just illusions. 

One such strange object can be seen in one of the latest photos taken by the Perseverance rover and uploaded by Neville Thompson on his GigaPan page.

The intended object resembles some kind of ant with distinct features such as its body structure, head, prominent eyes, mouth, and legs clearly visible in the sepia-toned image provided below. 

Now, it may be that it is just another strange rock, but one must still wonder whether indeed that is the case or if it is indeed a large alien creature crawling across the surface of Mars.

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

In the realm of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), few cases have perplexed and intrigued both the public and experts as much as the ones involving seemingly impossible maneuvers and speeds. Scientist Robert Powell, a seasoned researcher with decades of experience in the semiconductor industry and an avid investigator of UFO phenomena, sheds light on three such encounters. These instances not only challenge our understanding of physics but also hint at the existence of technology far beyond our current capabilities.

1. The Stephenville Sighting (2008)

One of the most compelling cases occurred near Stephenville, Texas, where numerous witnesses, including local law enforcement, reported seeing an unusually large object in the sky. This object displayed extraordinary agility and speed, moving at velocities calculated to be as much as 1,900 miles per hour without any accompanying sonic booms – a feat that remains unexplained by conventional aircraft technology. Radar data corroborated these observations, showing an object executing movements that would require G-forces far beyond the tolerance of human pilots. Powell’s analysis, supported by radar and eyewitness accounts, underscores the case’s strangeness and its challenge to current aerospace technology.

2. The Aguadilla Incident (2013)

This case involved an unidentified object captured on thermal imaging cameras by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. The video footage shows the object traveling at high speed across the screen and even splitting into two separate objects without any noticeable change in velocity or trajectory. Skeptics have proposed theories such as balloons or small unmanned aerial vehicles, but the object’s ability to maintain coherence in high winds and perform maneuvers like splitting in two challenges these explanations. Powell points out the technical limitations of such theories and emphasizes the calculated speeds and behaviors that align more closely with a technologically advanced, unknown aerial vehicle.

3. The Nimitz Encounter (2004)

Arguably one of the most famous UFO encounters, involving the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, showcases multiple radar contacts with high-speed aerial objects that defied known aviation technology. Fighter pilots witnessed a “Tic Tac”-shaped object that could hover over the sea and then accelerate to supersonic speeds within seconds, far outpacing the capabilities of the pursuing jets. The encounter was thoroughly documented through both radar data and multiple pilot testimonies. The object’s ability to perform extreme accelerations, estimated to be several thousand G-forces, suggests technology that is not only unknown but far beyond current engineering paradigms.

VIDEO:

• Chris Lehto – Top 3 Impossible UFO Cases – with Scientist Robert Powell
• https://youtu.be/ZCFXGocqeE8

These cases, thoroughly investigated by experts like Robert Powell, challenge the conventional understanding of what is possible in terms of speed, acceleration, and aerodynamics. Each case offers a glimpse into the potential existence of advanced technology controlled by intelligence beyond human capabilities. While these encounters remain unexplained, they encourage a continued and open-minded investigation into the unknown, pushing the boundaries of current science and technology. Powell’s analysis emphasizes the need for a scientific approach to studying these phenomena, one that could potentially reveal new understandings of physics and technology.

• https://youtu.be/RwjzlGguwVc

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

The huge anomaly, showed up on Ventusky.com ocean monitoring system, does appear to originate from the Antarctica area deep down in the the southern hemisphere on April 9th the day after the eclipse of 2024 around 2 pm. and on April 11th it suddenly disappears off the map. 

This thing which is the size of Texas traveled down here between South America and Antarctica and then up through the the Atlantic Ocean implying that there is a very large field of waves measuring about 80 foot. 

Speculation runs rampant regarding the nature of this anomaly. Could it be the aftermath of a meteor impact in the ocean, or perhaps the result of an undocumented seismic event? 

Another theory posits the involvement of an Unidentified Submerged Object (USO), a colossal underwater craft. This hypothesis suggests that the anomaly may not be a rogue wave but rather a massive object emitting signals mimicking the characteristics of an 80-foot wave. 

Notably, the absence of any tsunami warnings along the trajectory of this peculiar object adds to the mystery. 

Once again, the presence of an inexplicable energy form hints at the existence of a large underwater object lurking within the depths of the southern hemisphere of our planet.

   

 

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

As we delve into the mysteries surrounding unidentified flying objects (UFOs), Dr. Steven Greer sheds light on the concealed truths that lie within the shadows of secrecy. Back in October 1954, a groundbreaking discovery took place, unbeknownst to the public eye. Despite skepticism from contemporary engineers, classified documents revealed humanity's mastery of gravity control, a feat achieved through a deeply classified project. 

Imagine, in 1954, humanity had already unlocked the secrets of gravity—a revelation still deemed far-fetched by modern science. Yet, this monumental achievement was shrouded in secrecy. Why did we opt for conventional highways over futuristic skyways after attaining such groundbreaking technology? What does this say about the hidden agendas of our governments and the potential evolution of our world? 

The secrecy surrounding UFO technology stems from its revolutionary nature. These objects defy conventional propulsion systems; they operate without jets, rockets, or nuclear power plants, emitting no discernible heat signature. Instead, they harness a new physics—electromagnetic propulsion, reminiscent of Nikola Tesla's discoveries in the early 20th century. 

Revealing such advanced technologies would disrupt established economic systems, rendering traditional energy sources obsolete and transforming our world into one powered by clean, free energy from the Zero Point Energy field. While this prospect promises an end to pollution and poverty within two decades, it threatens the status quo upheld by vested interests worth trillions of dollars. 

Furthermore, the narrative surrounding UFOs has been manipulated to instill fear in the public, paving the way for centralized control under the guise of protecting against a common extraterrestrial threat. However, Dr. Greer exposes these fabrications, highlighting the psychological toll of harboring monumental secrets and questioning the true motivations behind keeping transformative technologies under wraps. 

Contrary to popular belief, advanced extraterrestrial civilizations have shown concern for humanity's well-being, as evidenced by their intervention to prevent nuclear catastrophe. Rather than hostile intentions, their actions suggest a desire for peaceful coexistence within a broader cosmic community. 

Dr. Greer's efforts to disclose the truth to the highest levels of government mark a pivotal moment in human history. Yet, skepticism and controversy surround this journey towards disclosure. As we on the brink of major revelations, it becomes imperative to navigate the balance between skepticism and undeniable evidence, preparing ourselves for the potential revelation of extraterrestrial life and technology.

  

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

NASA’s Next Solar Sail is About to Go to Space

Though it’s a hindrance, solar pressure can be used to our advantage.

A few solar sail spacecraft have been launched and tested, beginning with Japan’s Ikaros spacecraft in 2010. Ikaros proved that radiation pressure from the Sun in the form of photons can be used to control a spacecraft. The most recent solar sail spacecraft is the Planetary Society’s LightSail 2, launched in 2019. LightSail 2 was a successful mission that lasted over three years.

Solar sail spacecraft have some advantages over other spacecraft. Their propulsion systems are extremely lightweight and never run out of fuel. Solar sail spacecraft can perform missions more cheaply than other spacecraft and can last longer, though they have limitations.

The solar sail concept is now proven to work, but the technology needs to advance for it to be truly effective. A critical part of a solar sail spacecraft is its booms. Booms support the sail material; the lighter and stronger they are, the more effective the spacecraft will be. Though solar sails are much lighter than other spacecraft, the weight of the booms is still a hindrance.

“Booms have tended to be either heavy and metallic or made of lightweight composite with a bulky design – neither of which work well for today’s small spacecraft.”

Keats Wilkie, ACS3 principal investigator, NASA

NASA is about to launch a new solar sail design with a better support structure. Called the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3), it’s stiffer and lighter than previous boom designs. It’s made of carbon fibre and flexible polymers.

Though solar sails have many advantages, they also have a critical drawback. They’re launched as small packages that must be unfurled before they start working. This operation can be fraught with difficulties and induces stress in the poor ground crew, who have to wait and watch to see if it’s successful.

ACS3 will launch with a twelve-unit (12U) CubeSat built by NanoAvionics. The primary goal is to demonstrate boom deployment, but the ACS3 team also hopes the mission will prove that their solar sail spacecraft works.

To change direction, the spacecraft angles its sails. If boom deployment is successful, the ACS3 team hopes to perform some maneuvers with the spacecraft, angling the sails and changing the spacecraft’s orbit. The goal is to build larger sails that can generate more thrust.

“The hope is that the new technologies verified on this spacecraft will inspire others to use them in ways we haven’t even considered.”

Alan Rhodes, ACS3 lead systems engineer, NASA’s Ames Research Center

The ACS3 boom design is made to overcome a problem with booms: they’re either heavy and slim or light and bulky.

“Booms have tended to be either heavy and metallic or made of lightweight composite with a bulky design – neither of which work well for today’s small spacecraft,” said NASA’s Keats Wilkie. Wilke is the ACS3 principal investigator at Langley Research Center. “Solar sails need very large, stable, and lightweight booms that can fold down compactly. This sail’s booms are tube-shaped and can be squashed flat and rolled like a tape measure into a small package while offering all the advantages of composite materials, like less bending and flexing during temperature changes.”

ACS3 will be launched on an Electron rocket from Rocket Lab’s launch complex in New Zealand. It’ll head for a Sun-synchronous orbit 1,000 km (600 miles) above Earth. Once it arrives, the spacecraft will unroll its booms and deploy its sail. It’ll take about 25 minutes to deploy the sail, with a photon-gathering area of 80 square meters, or about 860 square feet. That’s much larger than Light Sail 2, which had a sail area of 32 square meters or about 340 square feet.

As it deploys itself, cameras on the spacecraft will watch and monitor the shape and symmetry. The data from the maneuvers will feed into future sail designs.

“Seven meters of the deployable booms can roll up into a shape that fits in your hand,” said Alan Rhodes, the mission’s lead systems engineer at NASA’s Ames Research Center. “The hope is that the new technologies verified on this spacecraft will inspire others to use them in ways we haven’t even considered.”

ACS3 is part of NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program. The program aims to deploy small missions that demonstrate unique capabilities rapidly. With unique composite and carbon fibre booms, the ACS3 system has the potential to support sails as large as 2,000 square meters, or about 21,500 square feet. That’s about half the area of a soccer field. (Or, as our UK friends mistakenly call it, a football field.)

With large sails, the types of missions they can power change. While solar sails have been small demonstration models so far, the system can potentially power some serious scientific missions.

“The Sun will continue burning for billions of years, so we have a limitless source of propulsion. Instead of launching massive fuel tanks for future missions, we can launch larger sails that use “fuel” already available,” said Rhodes. “We will demonstrate a system that uses this abundant resource to take those next giant steps in exploration and science.”

Solar sail spacecraft don’t have the instantaneous thrust that chemical or electrical propulsion systems do. But the thrust is constant and never really wavers. They can do things other spacecraft struggle to do, such as taking up unique positions that allow them to study the Sun. They can serve as early warning systems for coronal mass ejections and solar storms, which pose hazards.

The new composite booms also have other applications. Since they’re so lightweight, strong, and compact, they could serve as the structural framework for lunar and Mars habitats. They could also be used to support other structures, like communication systems. If the system works, who knows what other applications it may serve?

“This technology sparks the imagination, reimagining the whole idea of sailing and applying it to space travel,” said Rudy Aquilina, project manager of the solar sail mission at NASA Ames. “Demonstrating the abilities of solar sails and lightweight, composite booms is the next step in using this technology to inspire future missions.”

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

Could Life Exist in Water Droplet Worlds in Venus’ Atmosphere?

Phosphine is a biomarker, and in 2020, researchers reported the detection of phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere. There should be no phosphine because phosphorous should be oxidized in the planet’s atmosphere. According to the paper, no abiotic source could explain the quantity found, about 20 ppb.

Subsequently, the detection was challenged. When others tried to find it, they couldn’t. Also, the original paper’s authors informed everyone of an error in their data processing that could’ve affected the conclusions. Those authors examined the issue again and mostly stood by their original detection.

At this point, the phosphine issue seems unsettled. But if it is present in Venus’ atmosphere and is biological in nature, where could it be coming from? Venus’s surface is out of the question.

That leaves Venus’ cloud-filled atmosphere as the only abode of life. While the idea might seem ridiculous at first glance, researchers have dug into the idea and generated some interesting results.

In a new paper, researchers examine the idea of microscopic life that lives and reproduces in water droplets in Venus’s clouds. The title is “Necessary Conditions for Earthly Life Floating in the Venusian Atmosphere.” The lead author is Jennifer Abreu from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Lehman College, City University of New York. The paper is currently in pre-print.

“It has long been known that the surface of Venus is too harsh an environment for life,” the authors write. “Contrariwise, it has long been speculated that the clouds of Venus offer a favourable habitat for life but regulated to be domiciled at an essentially fixed altitude.” So, if life existed in the clouds, it wouldn’t be spread throughout. Only certain altitudes appear to have what’s needed for life to survive.

The type of life the authors envision aligns with other thinking about Venusian atmospheric life. “The archetype living thing <being> the spherical hydrogen gasbag isopycnic organism,” they state. (Isopycnic means constant density; the other terms are self-explanatory.)

Here’s how the authors think it could work.

Venus is shrouded in clouds so thick we can only see the surface with radar. The clouds reach all the way around the globe. The cloud base is about 47 km (29 miles) from the surface, where the temperature is about 100 C (212 F.) At equatorial and mid-latitudes, they extend up to a 74 km (46 miles) altitude, and at the poles, they extend up to about 65 km (40 miles.)

The clouds can be subdivided into three layers based on the size of aerosol particles: the upper layer from
56.5 to 70 km altitude, the middle layer from 50.5 to 56.5 km, and the lower layer from 47.5 to 50.5 km. The smallest droplets can float in all three layers. But the largest droplets, which the authors call type 3 droplets with a radius of 4 µm, are only present in the middle and lower layers.

“It has long been suspected that the cloud decks of Venus offer an aqueous habitat where microorganisms can grow and flourish,” the authors write. Everything life needs is there: “Carbon dioxide, sulfuric acid compounds, and ultraviolet (UV) light could give microbes food and energy.”

Because of temperature, life in Venus’ clouds would be restricted to a specific altitude range. At 50 km, the temperature is between 60 and 90 degrees Celsius (140 and 194 degrees Fahrenheit). The pressure at that altitude is about 1 Earth atmosphere.

There’s a precedent for life existing in the clouds. It happens here on Earth, where scientists have observed bacteria, pollen, and even algae at altitudes as high as 15 km (9.3 miles.) There’s even evidence of bacteria growing in droplets in a super-cooled cloud high in the Alps. The understanding is that these organisms were carried aloft by wind, evaporation, eruptions, or even meteor impacts. But there’s an important difference between Earth’s and Venus’ clouds.

Earth’s clouds are transient. They form and dissolve constantly. But Venus’ clouds are long-lasting. They’re a stable environment compared to Earth’s clouds. In Earth’s clouds, aerosol particles are sustained for only a few days, while in Venus’ clouds, the particles can be sustained for much longer periods of time.

Add it all up, and you get stable cloud environments where aerosol particles can sustain themselves in an environment where energy and nutrients are available. The researchers say that though eventually aerosol particles and the life within them will fall to the surface, they have time to reproduce before that happens.

The idea of a microbial life cycle in Venusian clouds was developed by other researchers in their 2021 paper “The Venusian Lower Atmosphere Haze as a Depot for Desiccated Microbial Life: A Proposed Life Cycle for Persistence of the Venusian Aerial Biosphere.”

There are five steps in Venus’s proposed cloud lifecycle:

1. Dormant desiccated spores (black blobs) partially populate the lower haze layer of the atmosphere.
2. Updrafts transport them up to the habitable layer. The spores could travel up to the clouds via gravity waves.
3. Shortly after reaching the (middle and lower cloud) habitable layer, the spores act as cloud condensation nuclei, and more and more water gathers into a single droplet. Once the spores are surrounded by liquid with the necessary chemicals, they germinate and become metabolically active.
4. Metabolically active microbes (dashed blobs) grow and divide within liquid droplets (shown as solid circles in the figure). The liquid droplets continue to grow by coagulation.
5. Eventually, the droplets are large enough to settle out of the atmosphere gravitationally; higher temperatures and droplet evaporation trigger cell division and sporulation. The spores are smaller than the microbes and resist further downward sedimentation. They remain suspended in the lower haze layer (a depot of hibernating microbial life) to restart the cycle.

In this new work, the researchers focus on time.

“One of the key assumptions of the aerial life cycle put forward in Seager et al. 2021 is the timescale on which droplets would persist in the habitable layer to empower replication,” the authors write. “It is this that we now turn to study.”

The authors used E. Coli generation times under optimal conditions in their work. In aerobic and nutrient-rich conditions, E. Coli can reproduce in 20 minutes. So, the E. Coli population will double three times in one hour. Bacteria must reproduce faster than they fall to the surface to sustain itself. They need to form a colony.

The researchers calculated that to sustain itself, the time it takes for bacteria to fall from the habitable part of the atmosphere to the inhabitable has to be longer than half an Earth day. As droplet size increases, the droplets would begin to sink. “As the droplet size approaches 100 µm, the droplets would start sinking to the lower haze layers,” they explain. However, their detailed calculations show that reproduction outpaces the fallout rate.

According to the team’s work, a population of bacteria could sustain itself in Venus’ clouds.

There are, obviously, still some questions. How certain are we that nutrients are available? Is there enough energy? Are there updrafts that can loft spores into the right layer of the atmosphere?

But the real big question is how was this all set in motion?

“An optimist might even imagine that the microbial life actually arose in a good-natured surface habitat, perhaps in a primitive ocean, before the planet suffered a runaway greenhouse, and the microbes lofted into the clouds,” the authors write. If that’s the case, this unique situation arose billions of years ago. Is there any other possibility? Could life have originated in the clouds?

Much scientific investigation into Venus, phosphine, clouds, and life relies on scant evidence. Few are willing to go out on a limb and proclaim that Venus can and does support life. We need more evidence.

For that, we have to wait for missions like the Venus Life Finder Mission. It’s a private mission being developed by Rocket Lab and a team from MIT. Who knows what VLF and other missions like DAVINCI and VERITAS will find? Stronger evidence of phosphine? Better data on Venus’ atmospheric layers and the conditions in them?

Life itself?

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

Did An Ancient Icy Impactor Create the Martian Moons?

The Martian moons Phobos and Deimos are oddballs. While other Solar System moons are round, Mars’ moons are misshapen and lumpy like potatoes. They’re more like asteroids or other small bodies than moons.

Because of their odd shapes and unusual compositions, scientists are still puzzling over their origins.

Two main hypotheses attempt to explain Phobos and Deimos. One says they’re captured asteroids, and the other says they are debris from an ancient impactor that collided with Mars. Earth’s moon was likely formed by an ancient collision when a planetesimal slammed into Earth, so there’s precedent for the impact hypothesis. There’s also precedent for the captured object scenario because scientists think some other Solar System moons, like Neptune’s moon Triton, are captured objects.

Phobos and Deimos have lots in common with carbonaceous C-type asteroids. They’re the most plentiful type of asteroid in the Solar System, making up about 75% of the asteroid population. The moons’ compositions and albedos support the captured asteroid theory. But their orbits are circular and close to Mars’ equator. Captured objects should have much more eccentric orbits.

This illustration shows Phobos and Deimos’ orbits along with the orbits of spacecraft at Mars. The moons’ near-circular orbits don’t support the captured asteroid theory. Image Credit: By NASA/JPL-Caltech – http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA19396.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39982795

The moons are less dense than silicate, the most abundant material in Mars’ crust. That fact works against the impact theory. A powerful impact would’ve blasted material from Mars into space, forming a disk of material rotating around the planet. Phobos and Deimos would’ve formed from that material. If they result from an ancient planetesimal impact, they should contain more Martian silica.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell. The captured asteroid theory can explain the moons’ observed physical characteristics but not their orbits. The impact theory can explain their orbits but not their compositions.

Phobos and Deimos look like potatoes more than moons. Image Credit: Left: By NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona – http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA10368, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5191977. Right: By NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona – http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/gallery/press/20090309a.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6213773

In research presented at the 55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, three researchers proposed a different origin story for Phobos and Deimos. They suggest that an impactor is responsible for creating the moons, but the impactor was icy.

The research is titled “THE ICY ORIGINS OF THE MARTIAN MOONS.” The first author is Courteney Monchinski from the Earth-Life Science Institute at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

If a rocky impactor slammed into Mars, it would’ve created a massive debris disk around the planet. Previous researchers have examined the idea using simulations and found that an impact could’ve created the moons. But the disk created by the impact would’ve been far more massive than Phobos and Deimos combined. The simulations showed that there would’ve been a third, much more massive moon created within Phobos’ orbit that would’ve fallen back down to Mars. But there’s no strong evidence of something that massive striking Mars.

This illustration shows how a giant impact could’ve created Phobos and Deimos. The collision would’ve created a massive debris disk where a third more massive moon formed before falling back to Mars. Image Credit: Antony Trinh / Royal Observatory of Belgium

Other impact studies used basaltic impactors. But those showed that the temperature in the debris disk would’ve been so high it would’ve melted the disk material and destroyed ancient chondritic materials. Since the pair of moons appear to contain those materials, a basaltic impactor is ruled out.

According to the research presented at the conference, an icy impactor can explain Phobos and Deimos’ origins. There are three reasons for that.

The extra disk mass created by a rocky impactor would not be present. Instead, much of the mass in the impactor would’ve been vapourized on impact and escaped the system rather than persisting in the disk and being taken up by the formation of moons. There would’ve been no large third moon and no need to explain how it fell back to Mars.

The second reason concerns the composition of the moons. With abundant water ice in the collision, the temperature in the debris disk would’ve been lower. That would’ve preserved the carbonaceous materials in Phobos and Deimos today. It also can help explain their density and possible porosity. An icy impactor could’ve also delivered water to Mars, and we know Mars was wetter in its past.

The third reason concerns Deimos’ orbit. It’s not synchronous with Mars, and an icy impactor can explain that. With more water ice in the disk, there would’ve been a viscous interaction between the disk’s dust and vapour that extended the disk, allowing Deimos to occupy its orbit.

The researchers used Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic (SPH) simulations to test the icy impactor idea. They simulated giant impactors with varying quantities of water ice and watched as disks formed around Mars and moons formed in the disk.

They first found that an impactor with any amount of water ice produced a more massive debris disk. It could be because an impactor containing water ice would be larger, though less massive, than one without any ice. That allowed more material to spray from the planet into the disk. It could also be because the water ice absorbs some of the impact energy when it vapourizes. That would cool the disk temperature, lowering the velocities of particles in the disk and making them less likely to escape.

This figure from the research shows that any amount of ice in an impactor increases the size of the debris disk. Image Credit: Monchinski et al. 2024. LPSC

Varying the ice content in the impactor also affected the makeup of the disk. Different amounts of ice lead to disks with different amounts of Martian rock and impactor rock in the disk.

This graph from the study shows impactor ice content (x-axis) affects the debris disk composition. Image Credit: Monchinski et al. 2024. LPSC

The temperature in the disk is a critical part of this. Different amounts of water ice in the impactor change the disk temperature and what types of materials in the disk would melt. Impactors with more than 30% ice create disk temperatures too low to melt silicates. Perhaps more tellingly, impactors with more than 70% ice result in a disk temperature too low to alter or destroy chondritic material, which both Phobos and Deimos are expected to contain.

According to the researchers, an icy impactor can also explain other features. “The existence of water in the impact-generated disk also suggests that water may condense, accounting for the possible water-ice content of the moons,” they write.

Ultimately, the researchers say an icy impactor with 70% to 90% water ice mantles can explain the pair of moons.

“The best case for reproducing the moons’ proposed compositions are the 70% and 90% water-ice mantle impactor cases, as they allow for low disk temperatures and more chances for chondritic materials to survive,” they explain.

Unfortunately, that may not be realistic. “In our current solar system, an object with around 70% or 90% water-ice content is not exactly realistic, as the object with the highest amount of water content in our current solar system, Ganymede, is only about 50% water,” they write.

The ESA’s Mars Express orbiter captured this image of Phobos over the Martian landscape in this image taken in November 2010. Irregularly shaped and only 27 km long, Phobos is actually much darker (due to its carbon-rich surface) than is apparent in this contrast-enhanced view. Image Credit: ESA / DLR / G. neukum

But could things have been different in the past? Samples from asteroid Ryugu suggest that its parent body could’ve been up to 90% water. That number is based on the types of minerals in Ryugu. But unfortunately, scientists don’t now for sure. Ryugu’s parent body could have contained as little as 20% water.

But it’s at least plausible that early in the Solar System’s life, an impactor with 70% water ice could have existed. If so, then the icy impactor scenario could be a robust theory to explain the origins of Phobos and Deimos.

“This impactor would have come from the outer solar system around the time of giant planet instability,” the authors write. During that time, outer Solar System bodies were perturbed and sent flying into the inner Solar System. But in this case, the impact’s timing needs to be constrained by Phobos’ and Deimos’ formation ages.

Scientists need more evidence to deepen their understanding of Mars and its moons. Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission will provide that. MMX’s mission is to return a sample of Phobos to Earth. The goal is to determine if it is a captured asteroid or the result of an impact.

Unfortunately, JAXA just delayed MMX’s launch. It was scheduled to launch in September 2024 but has been delayed until 2026. That means we won’t get samples until 2031 instead of 2029.

JAXA has completed successful sample return missions, so they have the expertise to bring a piece of Phobos back to Earth. If scientists can determine how Phobos and Deimos formed, it’ll be part of a much larger, detailed picture of how the Solar System formed.

It’ll be worth it if we have to wait a couple extra years.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

Watch a Satellite Reaction Wheel Melt in a Simulated Orbital Re-Entry

In February 2024, the ESA’s European Remote Sensing 2 (ERS2) satellite fell to Earth. The ESA tracked the satellite and concluded that it posed no problem. “The odds of a piece of satellite falling on someone’s head is estimated at one in a billion,” ESA space debris system engineer Benjamin Bastida Virgili said.

That would be fine if ERS 2 was an isolated incident. But, according to the ESA, an object about as massive as ERS 2 reenters Earth’s atmosphere every one to two weeks. The statistics may show there’s no threat to people, but statistics are great until you’re one of them.

The risk of being struck by chunks of a satellite isn’t zero. In 1997, a piece of mesh from a Delta II rocket struck someone’s shoulder in Oklahoma. It was a light piece of debris, so the person was okay. But it was an instructive event.

The heaviest parts of satellites, like reaction wheels, can be hazardous because they may not be destroyed during re-entry. Reaction wheels provide three-axis control for satellites without the need for rockets. They give satellites fine pointing accuracy and are useful for rotating satellites in very small amounts.

Reaction wheels can be quite massive. The Hubble Space Telescope has four reaction wheels weighing 45 kg (100 lbs) each. Other satellites don’t have such massive wheels, but the Hubble’s hefty wheels indicate the extent of the hazard. ESA engineers are designing reaction wheels that will break up during re-entry to reduce the hazard of one striking Earth.

“… the need is becoming urgent as more and more satellites are placed in space.”

Kobyé Bodjona, Mechanisms Engineer at the ESA

As part of the design process, they’re testing their wheels in a plasma wind tunnel at the University of Stuttgart Institute of Space Systems. The heated plasma in the tunnel moves at several km/sec, mimicking the friction a satellite is exposed to when it plunges through Earth’s atmosphere. The wheel is rotated inside the tunnel as if tumbling through the atmosphere.

At a recent Space Mechanisms Workshop at ESA’s ESTEC technical center in the Netherlands, engineers showed a clip of the blow-torch effect that the atmosphere has on falling debris.

“Space mechanisms cover everything that enables movement aboard a satellite, from deployment devices to reaction wheels,” explains workshop co-organizer Geert Smet.

“But these mechanisms often use materials such as steel or titanium that are more likely to survive reentry into the atmosphere. This is a problem because our current regulations say reentering satellites should present less than one in 10,000 risks of harming people or property on the ground or even one in 100 000 for large satellite constellations. ESA’s Clean Space group is reacting by D4D—devising methods to make total disintegration of a mission more likely, including mechanisms.”

The effort to make satellites disintegrate completely goes back a few years. The ESA program Design for Demise (D4D) is helping satellite manufacturers comply with the Space Debris Mitigation (SDM) requirements. It’s aimed at eliminating debris falling to Earth, removing debris already in orbit, and designing satellites that don’t linger in orbit after their missions have ended.

At the recent workshop, the ESA revealed more of its plans for active debris removal. There’s a push to develop dedicated spacecraft that can attach themselves to derelict satellites and force them into reentry. This will help remove dead satellites from the congested Low Earth Orbit.

“The idea behind this event is to present the mechanisms community with the latest research on space debris to see how they might contribute to the work going on,” said Kobyé Bodjona, Mechanisms Engineer at the ESA. “It’s important because large system integrators—the big companies that lead satellite projects—are going to need systems that are fully compliant with debris mitigation regulations. And the need is becoming urgent as more and more satellites are placed in space.”

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

Martian Mysteries: Exploring the Phobos Incident, Monoliths, and Ancient Ruins

The Allure of Mars and Its Moon, Phobos

The intrigue surrounding Mars and its moons has captivated scientists and space enthusiasts for decades. Mars, with its stark, reddish landscape, and its moon Phobos, named after the Greek god of fear, present a fascinating study in celestial phenomena and potential extraterrestrial mysteries.

The Phobos Incident

One of the most intriguing events in the exploration of space is the Phobos incident involving the Soviet Union’s Phobos 2 mission in 1989. This mission was primarily aimed at exploring Mars and its moon but ended in mystery. Phobos 2 operated successfully until it approached Phobos, at which point it suddenly ceased transmission and lost contact with Earth. The last data sent by Phobos 2 included images that showed a strange shadow cast on Phobos’s surface. This led to widespread speculation about the cause, ranging from technical failures to extraterrestrial interference.

Mysterious Structures: The Phobos Monolith

Adding to the enigmatic nature of Phobos is the presence of the so-called Phobos Monolith—a large, irregularly shaped object that stands out against the barren, cratered surface of the moon. This monolith, and others like it, have sparked debates about their origin, with some suggesting they might be natural formations, while others speculate about ancient alien technologies.

The presence of the monolith was popularized by American astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who mentioned it in the context of human space exploration and the curiosity it generates among the public and scientific community. Its origins, whether natural or artificial, remain a subject of debate and fascination.

Ancient Ruins on Mars?

The surface of Mars itself offers further mysteries. High-resolution images from various Mars orbiters have revealed formations that resemble structures, such as the infamous “Face on Mars” in the Cydonia region. These images often show what appear to be pyramidal structures and rectilinear shapes that some interpret as remnants of ancient civilizations.

Critics argue that these formations are simply the result of pareidolia—where the human brain interprets random images as significant patterns. However, the consistent flow of new data and images from Mars continues to fuel speculation and theories about past life and civilizations on the red planet.

Theoretical Connections to Earth

Some theorists draw parallels between the formations on Mars and ancient Earth structures, such as the pyramids of Egypt. They speculate about a forgotten era of solar system-wide civilization that utilized advanced technology, potentially for energy generation through the manipulation of cosmic forces, such as the hypothetical “zero-point energy.”

These theories extend into broader propositions of an “electric universe” where celestial bodies are interconnected through vast electric currents, influencing the formation and evolution of planets and moons through electrical rather than purely gravitational forces.

VIDEO:

• The Why Files – Martian Mysteries | The Phobos Incident, Monoliths, and Ancient Ruins

• https://youtu.be/DJuxIDyHZCw

The mysteries of Phobos, Mars, and their anomalous features continue to be a significant focus for scientific inquiry. Missions continue to be planned and executed, such as Japan’s upcoming probe to Phobos, aiming to gather more data and, potentially, to bring samples back to Earth. Each mission brings with it the hope of solving some of these persistent mysteries or, at the very least, providing new data to refine our understanding of Mars and its moons.

As we continue to explore these celestial neighbors, the combination of scientific data and imaginative theorization keeps our quest for knowledge about Mars and its features as vibrant and compelling as ever. Whether future missions will confirm or debunk the lingering mysteries of Mars remains one of the most tantalizing questions in space exploration today.

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

• Maria Blair said she saw the famed UFO abduction and being that was 'not a man'
• Two men had said eerie beings abducted and examined them 'like any doctor'
• The men made international news with their bizarre 'alien' encounter tale in 1973
• READ MORE: Indian police spot glowing UFOs zig-zagging over nuclear plant

By MATTHEW PHELAN SENIOR SCIENCE REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

A new witness to a bizarre 'alien abduction' in 1973 that is at the center of a new Netflix show has spoken out for the first time.

During a video interview, She recalled seeing five-foot tall aliens emerge from an oval-shaped UFO with flashing blue lights over over the Pascagoula River, scoop up the fisherman and carry them off into the night sky.

When the craft returned, she claimed the beings each man by the arm who were slumped over and unconscious. 

Maria Blair has kept what she saw that October a secret for decades due to fears she would be ridiculed - but gave a video testimony in 2023 that has been shared with DailyMail.com. 

While the case is decades old, it has been brought back to life in Netflix's top-ranking new docu-series 'Files Of The Unexplained,' sparking new interest into what may have happened on that night in the Mississippi marsh.

Mississippi resident Maria Blair claimed she saw a UFO on the night of October 11 and witnessed the beings load and unload to the two men onto the craft, she said in an October 2023 interview shared with DailyMail.com 

Two Mississippi fishermen, Charles Hickson (left, above) and Calvin Parker (right), told local sheriffs, reporters, and even the US Air Force, that they witnessed an oval-shaped craft hovering over the Pascagoula River on the night of October 11th, 1973

As UFO's blue lights flashed and it descended closer to the marshland below, three, five-foot grey 'wrinkled-skin creatures' with 'pincer-like' claws (illustrated above) seized the two men — subjecting to them to examination, according to Parker, 'just like any doctor would'

The first episode of the Netflix series focuses on the experiences of Calvin Parker when he was aged 19, after he maintained that he fought off an 'alien' by '[getting] her round her skinny-a** neck'. 

Blair is just now coming forward to tell her part of the story.

'They left twice, when they brought Calvin and Charlie [Hickson] back,' she said, 'when they brought them back from the spaceship.'

'That's when they got back in the craft,' Blair said, 'and it took off — straight up.'

Parker and Charles Hickson made international news following their claims.

As Hickson described the the scene to police in a 1973 video, the UFO flashed its blue lights as it descended into the marsh, revealing three, five-foot gray, 'wrinkled-skin' creatures with 'pincer'-like claws who seized the two men. 

Parker then chimed in, saying a large floating eye scanned their frozen bodies for about 30 minutes: 'They gave a thorough, I mean a thorough, examination to me just like any doctor would.'

Blair, who has only spoken about her experience on October 11, explained in her interview that she and her now deceased husband, Jerry, saw the entire thing unfold over the marsh. 

Maria Blair and her husband Jerry Blair (above) were newlyweds in 1973. They had only been married for about a year when they say they witnessed the Pascagoula 'alien' abduction from a distance across the river 

Blair, who witnessed the events from about 350 to 400 feet away on the opposing side of the Pascagoula River, said that the younger man, Calvin Parker, appeared to be more afraid in the moment. Decades later, Parker and Blair got to meet in person (above)

'I'm watching from my car, and I'm seeing the lights, the blue lights flashing,' said Blair, who was then waiting with her husband for a boat set to take him to an oil rig out in the Gulf of Mexico. 

'That's when Calvin [Parker] said he'd seen the blue lights.'

Blair estimated she saw the UFO's flashing blue lights for about 35 to 40 minutes in total that night - the same testimony given to police by Parker and Hickson.

'You're surprised when you look in the sky and you see a blue light. It really calls your attention to it,' Hickson told Jackson County Sheriff's in a taped interview the night of the incident. 

'It come right down above the bayou,' He said, 'two-three feet above the ground.'

Philip Mantle, along with St. Bonaventure University assistant professor and biologist Irena Scott, spent roughly five years delving back into the 'Pascagoula Alien Abduction' case for their book, 'Beyond Reasonable Doubt' (pictured) in 2023

Blair too witnessed that key moment, she said: 'The door opened [...] bright white light come through, very bright [...] and I'm seeing the three 'UFO guys' come out, 'aliens' or whatever they are.'

UFO researchers Philip Mantle and Dr Irene Scott interviewed Blair on two separate occasions, first in 2019 and again four years later - saying she has stuck to her story.

But the Mississippi woman has not shared details with the sheriff department or US military that spoke with the two men decades ago.

Parker and Hickson's story also made international news and both men were featured on TV several times, so it is not clear if Blair may have taken some of the fishermen's details during her recent interviews.

'We were sitting at the dock waiting to go out,' Blair told Mantle. 'She [Maria] said, 'Did you see that?' I said, 'I did hear a big splash.'' I thought it was a blimp or something,' he continued, 'but she said it was something else.'

Dr. Scott, a professor at St. Bonaventure University in Ohio, learned that Blair observed the UFO 'going back and forth across the sky' in a way not possible of an airplane.'

'I told my husband, there's something wrong with that plane,' she continued, 'it's like he doesn't know where he wants to go.'

Blair claimed she had an up-close encounter with one of the beings: 'Something come up out of the water and it was like a person, and I told [Jerry], 'There's somebody out there.'' 

She was very sure it was not a fish.

Mantle, who published a new book with Dr. Scott on the case last September, 'Beyond Reasonable Doubt,' said that he first located the couple via an anonymous comment made by their youngest daughter on a YouTube video.

The Blairs had not sought out fame, money or journalistic attention, said UFO researchers Philip Mantle, who supplied the new on-camera interview to DailyMail.com,

'They didn't step forward, as some people suggest,' Mantle told DailyMail.com. 

In 2018, a local Fox affiliate had interviewed Calvin Parker about his alleged abduction by the three bizarre creatures with their 'robotic slit-mouths' and 'crab-like pincers,' and the clip reminded Tracee Blair of her parents' story. Above, Hickson on another local news segment

Files Of The Unexplained explores, in the words of the docu-series' creators, 'eight haunting encounters that may make you start second-guessing everything you have ever known'

'It was just this stray comment on YouTube from their youngest daughter, Tracee.'

The Blair's eldest daughter, Angela Maria, also shared her own memories of the shocking story to Mantle, emphasizing that the tale remained a tightly held bit of family lore for decades.

'My mother has always wondered what happened to those two guys and if they were still in the area,' she wrote to Mantle. 

'She's only told my grandparents (who have passed), myself, my sister, and my ex-father-in-law this story, because she was always scared they'd [i.e. the pincer-clawed 'alien' beings] come back for her.'

The Jackson County Sheriff's department and former US Air Force UFO investigator, astronomer J. Allen Hynek, also investigated the abduction case in the mid-1970s.

READ MORE: 

• Never-before-seen photos of injuries 'suffered by US fishermen during alien experiments' among new evidence revealed on 50th anniversary of 1973 Pascagoula UFO 'abduction' mystery

Photographs of the men's injuries, taken by an engineering professor and UFO enthusiast in 1973, amount to 'physical evidence' debunking the skeptics' claims that this bizarre encounter was all in the two fishermen's heads — at least, according to the UFO researcher who supplied the historic images to DailyMail.com

After interviewing Hickson and Park separately, the sheriffs then strategically left the two together alone in an interrogation room where they were secretly taped - hoping that the two fishermen would privately try to 'get their story straight.' 

Instead, the two men could be heard on the secret police tape too busy coping and processing their sheer terror.

'I got to get home and get to bed or get some nerve pills or see the doctor or something,' Parker can be heard saying on the tape. 'I can't stand it. I'm about to go half crazy.' 

'I know,' Hickson replied as they tried to settle down. 'You can't believe it. You can't make people believe it.'

Both men later passed polygraph exams. 

'We did everything we knew to try to break their stories,' as Jackson County Sheriff's Capt. Glenn Ryder told the Washington Post in 1975.

'If they were lying to me, they should be in Hollywood.'

Calvin Parker had only been 18 or 19 at the time of the alleged abduction at the hands of the three wrinkled, grey beings.

Hickson was then 42; he passed away on September 9th, 2011 at age 80. 

Parker passed away last year, August 24, 2023, but not before re-telling his story one last time to the filmmakers behind Netflix's 'Files Of The Unexplained.' 

'He was ill at that point,' Mantle told DailyMail.com via phone. 'They were very compassionate and knew of his illness by the time they went to interview him.' 

'It wasn't a 'mickey take' or anything like that,' he said, 'although there are a few funny parts, because that's the way it is with stories like this.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

UAP spotted over Portugal

By TPN, in News, Portugal, Galactic ·

"As soon as the investigations are finalised, we will report the situation of interest", he concluded.

{ https://www.theportugalnews.com/ }

A video recently emerged allegedly showing a strange fast moving cigar-shaped object resembling a UFO during the solar eclipse in Arlington, Texas, on April 8, just prior to 10 pm, before swiftly disappearing into the clouds. 

While some speculate it could be an extraterrestrial vessel, others argue it might be the shadow cast of a plane flying above the clouds during the eclipse. 

However, the footage casts doubt on this explanation, as the purported shadow not only emerges above the clouds but also vanishes behind them before reappearing, after which the object swiftly disappears into the clouds. 

Furthermore, if it indeed was the shadow of a plane, wouldn't we also expect to see the shadows of the wings, rather than solely the fuselage?

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

Roswell Reimagined: Inside the Story of PD’s UFO-Inspired Patches with Ross Coulthart

In an engaging conversation with NewsNation’s Ross Coulthart, Roswell Police Chief Lance Bateman unveiled a new chapter in the city’s storied connection with UFO folklore. This small New Mexico town, synonymous with the 1947 UFO incident, continues to embrace its extraterrestrial heritage, this time through an innovative redesign of the Roswell Police Department’s uniform patches. The design features a flying saucer emitting a beam that forms the letter “R,” encircled by the motto “Protect and serve those that land here,” playfully acknowledging the city’s unique place in UFO culture.

Chief Bateman, who assumed his role in June of the previous year, initiated the patch redesign as part of a broader effort to engage with the community and update the department’s image. The process was democratic and creative, with officers contributing designs and ultimately voting for their favorite. This participatory approach not only fostered a sense of camaraderie within the force but also highlighted Roswell’s embrace of its identity as a hub for UFO enthusiasts and researchers.

Roswell’s connection to UFOs isn’t just a matter of local lore but a significant tourist draw and a point of cultural identity. Chief Bateman notes that the alien theme, while a more recent addition to the city’s identity, has become a crucial part of its allure. The new patches serve not just as a symbol of the police force’s role in the community but also as a nod to the city’s unique history and its open-minded approach to the mysteries of the universe.

The conversation also touched upon the original 1947 incident, which remains shrouded in mystery and speculation. Despite various explanations from the U.S. Air Force over the years, the true nature of what happened near Roswell continues to intrigue both the public and those in law enforcement like Chief Bateman. The police chief’s personal connection to the area, through his father’s military service at Walker Air Force Base, adds another layer to his perspectives on the local lore.

Chief Bateman’s approachable demeanor and open-mindedness about UFOs and the broader questions they pose about life beyond Earth reflect a larger curiosity and sense of wonder that characterizes the Roswell community. The new patches symbolize more than a mere uniform accessory; they represent Roswell’s unique position at the intersection of law enforcement, community identity, and the enduring human fascination with the unknown.

• https://youtu.be/vTJdpJ7rHHw

Ross Coulthart’s interview with Chief Bateman not only sheds light on the thought process behind the new patches but also encapsulates the broader implications of Roswell’s association with UFOs. It’s a story of community, identity, and the playful human spirit that dares to imagine what might lie beyond our skies. As Roswell continues to navigate its legacy as the site of one of the most famous UFO incidents in history, its police force’s new patches stand as a testament to the city’s embrace of its past and its openness to the mysteries of the future.

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

Harvard professor and astrophysicist Avi Loeb says aliens could have been using the 'curled dimensions' scientists are trying to blast open so they can understand how the universe was created

The world’s largest particle collider, the LHC blasts protons travelling almost at the speed of light against other protons to create massive particle, similar to the Big Bang, in efforts to further understand matter and how the universe was created.

READ MORE:

•  'UFO' darts through sky during solar eclipse as spectators scream 'aliens'

Loeb believes aliens have been using these 'extra spatial dimensions' for billions of years 

(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

CERN scientists have used the LHC to try to detect six “extra spatial” dimensions, looking for particular particles as evidence that the dimensions exist, reports MailOnline.

In a new documentary, Loeb claimed extraterrestrials may have been developing dimension-hopping technology for billions of years and using theoretical quantum gravity engineering to travel through these hidden dimensions.

Loeb explained: “Quantum mechanics was discovered exactly a century ago. And all the most sophisticated technologies we currently employ, such as the Internet, artificial intelligence, and so forth, rely on our understanding of quantum mechanics.

“But the process of learning is incomplete - there are several major puzzles in modern physics.

“Within the mainstream of theoretical physics for the past decades, the prevailing paradigm is that it is possible to unify quantum mechanics and gravity unless you work with extra-spatial dimensions.

“We see only three of them in our daily life. But the idea is that the others are curled. And we can't really detect them unless we shoot particles that have exceptionally high energies that will probe these tiny scales.

“Of course, if there are extra dimensions, then the reality that we are familiar with extends into them. And then one can imagine life in more than three spatial dimensions. It will be far more diverse and interesting.”

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

Throughout the world, numerous individuals have vanished over time, seemingly vanishing without a trace, only to resurface, sometimes after decades, in equally mysterious and intriguing circumstances. 

The mysterious disappearance of Vasile Gorgos in 1991, a sixty-three-year-old farmer from Romania is such a case. 

Gorgos, known for his routine trips to sell his cattle, vanished without a trace, leaving his family and authorities perplexed. 

Despite extensive searches and efforts by the police, no leads emerged, and Gorgos was presumed to have met a tragic fate. His family mourned his loss, resigned to the idea that they would never see him again. 

Fast forward thirty years, and against all odds, Vasile Gorgos returned, appearing at his family's doorstep dressed in the same clothes he wore when he vanished. However, what stunned everyone even more was Gorgos's complete lack of memory regarding his disappearance and the passage of time. 

The reappearance of Gorgos, unchanged in appearance and attire after three decades, remains a baffling mystery, leaving questions unanswered and sparking speculation about the mysteries of memory and time.

  

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

Measuring the Atmospheres of Other Worlds to See if There are Enough Nutrients for Life

A new paper examines the issue. It’s titled “Habitability constraints by nutrient availability in atmospheres of rocky exoplanets.” The lead author is Oliver Herbort from the Department of Astrophysics at the University of Vienna and an ARIEL post-doctoral fellow. The paper has been accepted by the International Journal of Astrobiology.

At our current technological level, we’re just beginning to examine exoplanet atmospheres. The JWST is our main tool for the task, and it’s good at it. But the JWST is busy with other tasks. In 2029, the ESA will launch ARIEL, the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large survey. ARIEL will be solely focused on exoplanet atmospheres.

In anticipation of that telescope’s mission, Herbort and his co-researchers are preparing for the results and what they mean for habitability. “The detailed understanding of the planets itself becomes important for interpreting observations, especially for the detection of biosignatures,” they write. In particular, they’re scrutinizing the idea of aerial biospheres. “We aim to understand the presence of these nutrients within atmospheres that show the presence of water cloud condensates, potentially allowing the existence of aerial biospheres.”

Our sister planet Venus has an unsurvivable surface. The extreme heat and pressure make the planet’s surface uninhabitable by any measure we can determine. But some scientists have proposed that life could exist in Venus’ atmosphere, based largely on the detection of phosphine, a possible indicator of life. This is an example of what an aerial biosphere might look like.

“This concept of aerial biospheres enlarges the possibilities of potential habitability from the presence of liquid water on the surface to all planets with liquid water clouds,” the authors explain.

The authors examined the idea of aerial biospheres and how the detection of CHNOPS plays into them. They introduced the concept of nutrient availability levels in exoplanet atmospheres. In their framework, the presence of water is required regardless of other nutrient availability. “We considered any atmosphere without water condensates as uninhabitable,” they write, a nod to water’s primacy. The researchers assigned different levels of habitability based on the presence and amounts of the CHNOPS nutrients.

To explore their framework of nutrient availability, the researchers turned to simulations. The simulated atmospheres held different levels of nutrients, and the researchers applied their concept of nutrient availability. Their results aim to understand not habitability but the chemical potential for habitability. A planet’s atmosphere can be altered drastically by life, and this research aims to understand the atmospheric potential for life.

“Our approach does not directly aim for the understanding of biosignatures and atmospheres of planets, which are inhabited, but for the conditions in which pre-biotic chemistry can occur,” they write. In their work, the minimum atmospheric concentration for a nutrient to be available is 10^?9, or one ppb (part per billion.)

“We find that for most atmospheres at ( p gas, T gas) points, where liquid water is stable, CNS-bearing molecules are present at concentrations above 10^?9,” they write. They also found that carbon is generally present in every simulated atmosphere and that sulphur availability increases with surface temperature. With lower surface temperatures, nitrogen (N₂, NH₃) is present in increasing amounts. But with higher surface temperatures, nitrogen can become depleted.

Phosphorus is a different matter. “The limiting element of the CHNOPS elements is phosphorus, which is mostly bound in the planetary crust,” they write. The authors point out that, at past times in Earth’s atmosphere, phosphorus scarcity limited the biosphere.

An aerial biosphere is an interesting idea. But it’s not the main thrust of scientists’ efforts to detect exoplanet atmospheres. Surface life is their holy grail. It should be no surprise that it still comes down to liquid water, all things considered. “Similar to previous work, our models suggest that the limiting factor for habitability at the surface of a planet is the presence of liquid water,” the authors write. In their work, when surface water was available, CNS was available in the lower atmosphere near the surface.

But surface water plays several roles in atmospheric chemistry. It can bond with some nutrients in some circumstances, making them unavailable, and in other circumstances, it can make them available.

“If water is available at the surface, the elements not present in the gas phase are stored in the crust condensates,” the authors write. Chemical weathering can then make them available as nutrients. “This provides a pathway to overcome the lack of atmospheric phosphorus and metals, which are used in enzymes that drive many biological processes.”

This complicates matters on worlds covered by oceans. Pre-biotic molecules might not be available if there’s no opportunity for water and rock to interact with the atmosphere. “If indeed it can be shown that life can form in a water ocean without any exposed land, this constraint becomes weaker, and the potential for the surface habitability becomes mainly a question of water stability,” the authors write.

Some of the models are surprising because of atmospheric liquid water. “Many of the models show the presence of a liquid water zone in the atmospheres, which is detached from the surface. These regions could be of interest for the formation of life in forms of aerial biospheres,” Herbort and his colleagues write.

If there’s one thing that research like this shows, planetary atmospheres are extraordinarily complex and can change dramatically over time, sometimes because of life itself. This research makes some sense in trying to understand it all. Emphasizing the complexity is the fact that the researchers didn’t include stellar radiation in their work. Including that would’ve made the effort unwieldy.

The habitability issue is complicated, confounded by our lack of answers to foundational questions. Does a planet’s crust have to be in contact with water and the atmosphere for the CHNOPS nutrients to be available? Earth has a temporary aerial biosphere. Can aerial biospheres be an important part of exoplanet habitability?

But beyond all the simulations and models, as powerful as they are, what scientists need most is more data. When ARIEL launches, scientists will have much more data to work with. Research like this will help scientists understand what ARIEL finds.

{  https://www.universetoday.com/  }

POSTED BY MARK THOMPSON

Testing a Probe that Could Drill into an Ice World

I remember reading about an audacious mission to endeavour to drill through the surface ice of Europa, drop in a submersible and explore the depths below. Now that concept may be taking a step closer to reality with researchers working on technology to do just that. Worlds like Europa are high on the list for exploration due to their potential to harbour life. If technology like the SLUSH probe (Search for Life Using Submersible Head) work then we are well on the way to realising that dream. 

The search for life has always been something to captivate the mind. Think about the diversity of life on Earth and it is easy to see why we typically envisage creatures that rely upon sunlight, food and drink. But on Earth, life has found a way in the most inhospitable of environments, even at the very bottom of the ocean. The Mariana’s Trench is deeper than Mount Everest is tall and anything that lives there has to cope with cold water, crushingly high pressure and no sunlight. Seems quite alien but even here, life thrives such as the deep-sea crustacean Hirondellea Gigas – catchy name. 

Location of the Mariana Trench. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Kmusser

Europa, one of the moon’s of Jupiter has an ice crust but this covers over a global ocean of liquid water.  The conditions deep down in the ocean of Europa might not be so very different from those at the bottom of the Mariana’s Trench so it is here that a glimmer of hope exists to find other life in the Solar System. Should it exist, getting to it is the tricky bit. It’s not just on Europa but Enceladus and even Mars may have water underneath ice shelves. Layers of ice up to a kilometre thick might exist so technology like SLUSH has been developed to overcome. 

Natural color image of Europa obtained by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill)

The technology is not too new though since melt probes like SLUSH have been tested before. The idea is beautifully simple.  The thermo-mechanical probe uses a drilling mechanism to break through the ice and then the heat probe to partially melt the ice chips, forming slush to enable their transportation to behind the probe as it descends. 

The probe, which looks rather like a light sabre, is then able to transmit data from the subsurface water back to the lander. A tether system is used for the data transmission using conductive microfilaments and an optical fibre cable. Intriguingly and perhaps even cunningly, should the fibre cable break (which is a possibility due to tidal stresses from the ice) then the microfilaments will work as an antenna.  They can then be tuned into by the lander to resume data transmission. The tether is coiled up and housed inside spools which are left behind in the ice as the spool is emptied. I must confess my immediate thought here was ‘litter’! I accept we have to leave probes in order to explore but surely we can do it without leaving litter behind! However there is a reason for this too. As the spools are deployed, they act as receivers and transmitters to allow the radio frequencies to travel through the ice. 

The company working on the device is Honeybee Robotics have created prototypes. The first was stand alone, had no data transmission capability and demonstrated the drilling and slushing technology in an ice tower in Honeybee’s walk in freezer. While this was underway, the tether communication technology was being tested too with the first version called the Salmon Probe. This was taken to Devon Island in the Arctic where the unspooling method is being put through its paces. The first attempts back in 2022 saw the probe achieving depths of 1.8m! 

A further probe was developed called the Dolphin probe and this was capable of getting to depths of about 100m but sea ice limitations meant it could only get to a depth of 2m! Thus far, all probes have performed well. Honeybee are now working on the Narwhal Probe which will have more measuring equipment on board, a deployable tether and spool and will be far more like the finished product. If all goes to plan it will profile the ice on Devon Island to a depth of 100m.  This is still quite short of the kilometre thick ice expected but it is most definitely fantastic progress toward exploring the cold watery depths of alien worlds. 

Source : 

• SLUSH: AN ICE DRILLING PROBE TO ACCESS OCEAN WORLDS

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

A Neutron Star Merged with a Surprisingly Light Black Hole

Interactions between objects can generate gravitational waves. Before they were detected back in 2015, stellar mass black holes were typically found through X-ray observations. Neutron stars on the other hand, were usually found with radio observations. Between the two, was the mass gap with objects lacking between three and five solar masses. 

It has been the subject of debate among scientists with the odd object found which fell within the gap, fuelling debate about its existence. The gap has generally been considered to separate the neutron stars from the black holes and items in this mass group have been scarce. This gravitational wave discovery suggests maybe objects in this gap are not so rare after-all. 

One of the challenges of detecting mass gap objects and mergers between them is the sensitivity of detectors. The LIGO team at the University of British Columbia researchers are working hard to improve the coatings used in mirror production. Enhanced performance on future LIGO detectors will further enhance detection capabilities. It’s not just optical equipment that is being developed, infrastructure changes are also being addressed including data analysis software too. Improving sensitivity in all aspects of the gravity wave network is sure to yield results in future runs. However for now, the rest of the first half of the observing run needs analysing with 80 more candidate signals to study. 

Source : 

• New gravitational wave signal helps fill the ‘mass gap’ between neutron stars and black holes

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

UFO Disclosure: Unveiling the Mysteries with Dr. Steven Greer

In the enigmatic and ever-evolving realm of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), few names are as synonymous with the quest for truth as Dr. Steven Greer. A vanguard in the disclosure movement, Dr. Greer’s work casts a revealing light on the shadowy world of UFO sightings and the complex debate surrounding extraterrestrial life. His endeavors navigate through layers of speculation and government secrecy, aiming to expose a reality that could redefine our understanding of the universe and our place within it.

The Gravity of Discovery

Central to Dr. Greer’s narrative is the astonishing claim that, as early as 1954, humanity had already achieved “gravity control”—a technological leap that could have revolutionized transportation, rendering conventional highways obsolete. This revelation not only challenges our current understanding of physics but also raises profound questions about the direction of human development. Why, after such a groundbreaking discovery, did society continue to develop along a path dependent on fossil fuels and terrestrial infrastructure? The answer, according to Dr. Greer, lies in the deliberate concealment of these technologies by vested interests.

The Cost of Secrecy

Dr. Greer argues that the suppression of advanced, non-polluting energy technologies has had far-reaching consequences, from the perpetuation of environmental degradation to the entrenchment of economic disparities. By keeping these innovations hidden, those in power have maintained a status quo that benefits the few at the expense of the many. The potential for clean, free energy—drawn from the so-called Zero Point Energy field—promises a future where pollution and poverty are relics of the past. However, the path to such a future is obstructed by the immense influence of the global energy sector and the political and financial might it wields.

Psychological Warfare and the Manipulation of Perception

Another facet of Dr. Greer’s discourse is the psychological impact of harboring such monumental secrets. He introduces the concept of “disclosure PTSD,” highlighting the toll that managing such knowledge can take on individuals. Furthermore, Dr. Greer delves into the use of staged alien abductions and other forms of psychological manipulation aimed at shaping public perception of extraterrestrial life. According to him, these orchestrated events serve not only to distract but also to sow fear, thereby justifying continued secrecy and the consolidation of power.

A Vision for the Future

Despite the challenges, Dr. Greer remains optimistic about the potential for disclosure to transform society. He envisions a world where humanity is united not only by the shared knowledge of extraterrestrial life but also by the collective benefits of the technologies that have been withheld from us. Such a future would be characterized by environmental sustainability, economic equity, and a profound expansion of human potential.

Navigating the Path to Disclosure

Dr. Greer’s commitment to uncovering the truth is evidenced by his efforts to brief government officials and share classified information with the public. However, the journey toward full disclosure is fraught with skepticism and disbelief. The challenge lies not only in presenting the evidence but also in overcoming the pervasive influence of those who benefit from maintaining the status quo.

VIDEO:

• https://youtu.be/0igRLrKw3HY
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBM2vRP3wRk

Dr. Steven Greer’s work in the field of UFO disclosure invites us to question the narratives that have been constructed around extraterrestrial life and advanced technologies. By pushing for transparency and challenging the systems of power that thrive on secrecy, Dr. Greer’s endeavors offer a glimpse into a future where humanity embraces its full potential. The truth behind the shadows may hold the key to a new era of human development—one marked by unity, sustainability, and a deeper connection to the cosmos.

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

Harvard professor claims that UFOs could have travelled to Earth via 'extra dimensions' that CERN scientists are trying to unlock

• CERN scientists are seeking evidence of six extra dimensions
• Professor Avi Loeb believes aliens might travel through such dimensions
• READ MORE  CERN scientists test most powerful particle accelerator

By ROB WAUGH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

The US government has yet to unravel the mysterious sightings of UFOs soaring through our skies, but a Harvard professor believes the answer may sit 300 feet below the surface.

Avi Loeb, known for his efforts to prove we are not alone, has claimed that extraterrestrial visitors are travelling through hidden dimensions created by researchers at the CERN particle accelerator are seeking.

The accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), blasts particles are nearly the speed of light to recreate conditions of the Big Bang, with hopes of uncovering  hidden dimensions that will reveal how our universe formed.

Speaking in a new documentary, Loeb said that alien civilizations may have been developing dimension-hopping technology for billions of years.

The physicist also noted that extraterrestrials are using theoretical quantum gravity engineering to travel through 'curled' dimensions that humans can only detect in particle accelerators such as CERN.

A Harvard scientists has claimed that extraterrestrial visitors are travelling through hidden dimensions created by researchers at the CERN particle accelerator (pictured) are seeking

Avi Loeb made the claims in a new documentary, saying that extraterrestrials are using theoretical quantum gravity engineering to travel through 'curled' dimensions that humans can only detect in particle accelerators such as CERN

The Harvard scientist said in the documentary 'The Paranormal UFO Connection' that if alien technology is able to reach our doorstep, we would be awe-struck because it would represent something we don't possess.

'Just like a cave dweller coming to a city like London or Europe, and seeing all the technological gadgets there,' said Loeb.

'There will be a sense of religious awe, and we wouldn't understand it, especially if we are dealing with the effects of quantum gravity that we have any clue about.'

Loeb said that travelling through extra-spatial dimensions would mean the chance of collisions would be 'much smaller.'

READ MORE: 

• Scientists soon discover a parallel universe

It has found the 'God particle', but the Large Hadron Collider could soon detect a 'parallel universe'. 

Scientists at CERN have attempted to detect six 'extra spatial' dimensions, and look for particular particles as evidence that such dimensions exist.

The underground LHC is located at the border of France and Switzerland and first went live on September 10, 2008.

In 2012, scientists used it to discover the Higgs boson or God particle, which was a missing piece in the jigsaw for physicists in trying to understand how the universe works.

'Quantum mechanics was discovered exactly a century ago. And all the most sophisticated technologies we currently employ, such as the Internet, artificial intelligence, and so forth, rely on our understanding of quantum mechanics,' Loeb explained.

'But the process of learning is incomplete - there are several major puzzles in modern physics.'

'Within the mainstream of theoretical physics for the past decades, the prevailing paradigm is that it is possible to unify quantum mechanics and gravity unless you work with extra-spatial dimensions.

'We see only three of them in our daily life. But the idea is that the others are curled. And we can't really detect them unless we shoot particles that have exceptionally high energies that will probe these tiny scales.

'Of course, if there are extra dimensions, then the reality that we are familiar with extends into them. And then one can imagine life in more than three spatial dimensions. It will be far more diverse and interesting.'

Last year Loeb set off for Papua New Guinea on a $1.5m ocean expedition to find what he believes might be a piece of alien technology, which crashed into the sea in 2014.

Film-maker and musician Mark Christopher Lee, 'The Paranormal UFO Connection' explores different ways that UFOs and other unexplained phenomena might arrive at our planet 

The accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), blasts particles are nearly the speed of light to recreate conditions of the Big Bang, with hopes of uncovering hidden dimensions that will reveal how our universe formed

His expedition found metal 'spherules' on the sea bed, which Loeb claims might be 'techno signatures' of an alien civilization.

The Israeli astronomer and his research partner Amir Siraj concluded in 2019 that an object from outside our solar system had hit Earth in 2014.

The Papua New Guinea object travelled towards Earth at more than 30 miles per second, a speed so high it suggests it originated outside our solar system.

Loeb also argues in the film that world governments should divert the $2 trillion a year he claims is spent on military budgets to the search for alien life.

Film-maker and musician Mark Christopher Lee, 'The Paranormal UFO Connection' explores different ways that UFOs and other unexplained phenomena might arrive at our planet.

Speaking to DailyMail.com, Lee said: ' I have a science degree so I'm pretty rational. I was really keen to see what Avi's take on this would be. He's one of the few serious scientists in the world taking an interest in this subject.

'Our chat was very enlightening: he does think that advanced civilizations elsewhere in the universe may be able to use other spatial dimensions in order to travel easily through the universe. 

'Particularly with the advances happening at CERN in regards to proving the existence of other dimensions then it makes logical sense for a far more sophisticated civilization to have developed the technology to utilise these.'

• 'The Paranormal UFO Connection' is on Tubi TV in the U.S. and available via YouTube worldwide.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

• READ MORE:  Here's when and where you can see the next solar eclipse

By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

The solar eclipse may have been overshadowed in Texas by a UFO soaring through the skies over Arlington.

Footage captured a darkened sky as the moon traveled in front of the sun, but also featured the shadow of a a long, narrow object shooting through the clouds.

The video has made waves on social media, with some proclaiming it as a close encounter of the third kind or even a dragon.

However, many other users came forward with what could be a more reasonable explanation - it was the shadow of a high-altitude plane.

The solar eclipse may have been overshadowed in Texas by a UFO soaring through the skies over Arlington

Texas was deemed the 'hotspot' on the solar eclipse path of totality that started in The Lone Star State and extended to Maine.

Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to Texas because the eclipse was predicted to be visible for three minutes and 51 seconds.

And many of these visitors have shared pictures and footage of the celestial event - with one capturing something that some claimed was out of this world. 

The footage shows glowing clouds hanging in a darkened sky when the object appeared to be swimming by.

‘What is that,’ several people can be heard saying, then ‘aliens’ could be heard loudly.

‘Something is flying through the air,’ another spectator can be heard.

The footage shows glowing clouds hanging in a darkened sky when the object appeared to be swimming b

‘What is that,’ several people can be heard saying, then ‘ aliens ’ could be heard loudly. ‘Something is flying through the air,’ another spectator can be heard

But solar eclipse spectators spotted another plane flying across the event in McKinney, which is about 50 miles from Arlington

The surrounding crowd appeared baffled by what they had witnessed - and so did many social media users.

The object appeared to fly back and forth in the area of the sky where the sun and moon had met. 

Comments on the video shared on X suspected the object was a helicopter due to how fast it appeared.

‘It’s literally a helicopter shadow coming through the clouds,’ one user posted. ‘Seen this several times with airplanes.’

But an Arizona man who claimed to live near Luke Air Force Base said ‘helicopters don’t move that fast.’

Others suggested that the shadow was from a plane.

‘I thought aircraft shadow when I saw it. Not that it couldn't be a UFO shadow, but probably not anything that fun,’ another user shared.

One X user posted that it was 'clearly a plane,' citing the outline of the engines were visible in the video. 

Another shared: 'Shadow on the clouds from an higher altitude airplane. I have seen this many times as an aviation spotter.'

They continued to explain that the shadow disappears when the plane moves into part of the sky without clouds - and that the shadow appeared similar in size to the craft. 

One X user noted that the ‘video [was] created for entertainment clicks.’

But solar eclipse spectators spotted another plane flying across the event in McKinney, which is aout 50 miles from Arlington.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

Surf board-shaped UFO filmed speeding around the moon by NASA's lunar orbiter

• The object and NASA's orbiter were moving past each other at about 7,000 mph
• It looks like a blur, but NASA scientists quickly figured out what they had caught 
• READ MORE: South Korean lunar orbiter sends back STUNNING photos of Earth 

NASA's lunar orbitwas investigating the moon when it captured a surf board-shaped UFO whizz by the surface.

Photos taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) showed a long, narrow, and apparently flat object in a few shots.

While some had speculated the sighting was nothing more than a digital artifact, others were sure NASA had captured aliens visiting close to our world.

But the American space agency later revealed LRO captured Korea's lunar orbiter, Danuri as it soared just a few miles away.

This image shows Danuri in the white box. The large bowl-shaped crater visible in the upper left is 7.5 miles wide.

Danuri streaked by the LRO, about 3 miles closer to the moon than the NASA spacecraft. Its appearance is due to its speed.

READ MORE: 

• South Korea's first lunar orbiter is launched into space 

The Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, nicknamed Danuri – meaning 'enjoy the moon' – was fired into space atop a Falcon 9 booster. 

The LRO has been orbiting Earth's moon and snapping photos since 2009, when it was NASA's first moon mission in a decade.

And it turns out the craft is on a nearly parallel orbit with Danuri, which was launched in 2022 by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI).

The relative speed of the two objects to one another is a whopping 7,200 miles per hour, so the LRO operations team had to have lightning quick timing to capture it on camera.

In the end, Danuri appeared 10 times longer than it really is, hence its surfboard appearance.

Even though the LRO's camera exposure time was only 0.338 milliseconds, Danuri's immense speed meant that it still only showed up as a blur, stretched beyond recognition.

Paul Byrne, a professor of planetary science at Washington University in St Louise, shared a few of LRO's images on X.

'To be clear, the Danuri orbiter is not a weirdly thin load of pixels—it's a fairly normal-looking orbiter,' Byrne posted.

'But the terrific speeds involved mean that it's smeared on the LRO's camera detector.' 

Danuri was traveling just five miles below LRO last week when the images were taken.

Over three separate encounters, NASA staff snapped photos of the object, each time yielding a surfboard.

Danuri is actually a typical uncrewed spacecraft shape: a box in the middle with two solar panels on either side. 

Both Danuri and the LRO are designed to take photos of the moon, capturing images of regions of the moon that are permanently shadowed. 

Danuri snapped this image of the LRO in April 2023 as the Korean spacecraft passed 11 miles above the NASA one.

For their second encounter, the LRO was only about 2.5 miles above Danuri. Once again, though, the photo it captured was stretched out because of their relative speeds.

In the new set of photos, Danuri is all but unrecognizable.

Not only were both spacecrafts traveling at thousands of miles an hour, but they were going in opposite directions from each other - adding to the blur effect.

And while the LRO is set to orbit the moon indefinitely, Danuri's passes are meant to set the stage for an eventual landing mission on the moon's surface.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

Meer microplastics op Antarctica dan tot nu toe gedacht

Meer microplastics op Antarctica dan tot nu toe gedacht

© Aangeboden door Belga

Er bevindt zich meer plastic op Antarctica dan tot nu toe gedacht. Een groot deel van de deeltjes is zo klein dat ze bij eerder onderzoek niet opgemerkt werden, blijkt uit een Zwitsers onderzoek.

Volgens de Universiteit van Bazel werd er bij eerder onderzoek gebruikgemaakt van een net met mazen van ongeveer 300 micrometer klein, ongeveer een derde van een milimeter. De kleinste deeltjes werden zo niet opgevist.

Bij nieuwe staalnames in de Weddelzee, op Antarctica, stelden de onderzoekers vast dat 98,33 procent van de plastic deeltjes kleiner was dan 300 micrometer. Het internationale onderzoeksteam, onder leiding van de Universiteit van Bazel, publiceerde de data in het tijdschrift Science of the Total Environment.

In plaats van een net maakten de wetenschappers gebruik van een waterpomp, waarmee ze zeewater naar een reservoir overpompten. Ze analyseerden het water met infraroodspectroscopie, waarbij stoffen geanalyseerd worden door gebruik te maken van het infrarode deel van het elektromagnetische spectrum. Ze vonden zo deeltjes die tot 11 micrometer klein waren, een fractie van de dikte van een mensenhaar.

"Er is ongerustheid dat die kleinere en vaker voorkomende deeltjes microplastics een groter risico vormen voor waterorganismes", schrijven de auteurs in de studie. Die levende organismes, die aangepast zijn aan extreme levensomstandigheden, zijn bijzonder kwetsbaar voor vervuiling.

Ook is onduidelijk hoe de microplastics tot in de geïsoleerde Weddelzee zijn geraakt, en of ze er ooit nog weg kunnen. Mogelijke bronnen zijn de scheepvaart in de regio, voor toerisme, visvangst of onderzoek, en de wetenschappelijke onderzoekstations. Maar de microplastics kunnen ook vanuit andere regio's op Antarctica belanden via oceaanstromingen.

Clara Leistenschneider, de hoofdauteur van de studie, toont zich optimistisch in het persbericht van de Universiteit van Bazel. Er wordt veel werk verricht om het probleem beter te begrijpen en om ideeën te ontwikkelen om plasticvervuiling te verminderen, zegt ze.

{ https://www.msn.com/nl-be/feed?ocid=msedgntp&pc=acts }

On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky – FULL MOVIE (Alien, UAP Coverups and Bizarre Encounters)

In the realm of the unexplained and the mysterious, “On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky” emerges as a compelling documentary that delves deep into the phenomena of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP). This cinematic journey takes viewers on an exploration that transcends mere speculation, offering a nuanced look at decades-long encounters, cover-ups, and the personal accounts of those who have witnessed what lies beyond our understanding.

Set against the backdrop of West Virginia’s enigmatic landscapes, the documentary embarks on retracing steps and expanding insights into the myriad reports of mysterious objects and entities. From the heart of Appalachia, where the skies are a witness to uncharted anomalies, to the historical corridors of sightings that span across the United States, “On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky” seeks answers to questions that have lingered on the fringes of the known world.

• https://youtu.be/rzc0bu2WpCw

The narrative unfolds through the eyes of witnesses who share their encounters with phenomena that defy conventional explanations. From crafts drawing energy from power lines to silent, hovering lights that vanish into thin air, each account adds layers to the complex tapestry of UAP encounters. The documentary doesn’t just stop at sightings; it delves into the personal impact these experiences have on individuals, exploring the profound sense of awe, fear, and curiosity that accompanies each encounter.

Central to the film is the exploration of West Virginia’s peculiar connection to the UFO phenomenon. With its history of sightings, including the iconic Flatwoods Monster case, the state serves as a focal point for investigating a century’s worth of encounters. The documentary skillfully navigates through the labyrinth of local lore, government cover-ups, and the whispers of secret military operations, presenting a picture that is as bewildering as it is fascinating.

Beyond the spectacle of lights in the sky, “On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky” ventures into the implications of these encounters on human understanding and the pursuit of truth in an age of skepticism. It raises critical questions about the nature of these phenomena, their origins, and their purposes. Are these manifestations extraterrestrial, or do they stem from human military endeavors cloaked in secrecy? Or perhaps, they are manifestations of something even more profound, hinting at realities that exist just beyond the veil of our perception.

In its essence, the documentary is a journey that challenges viewers to look beyond the confines of conventional wisdom and to consider the possibilities that the universe harbors secrets awaiting discovery. “On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky” stands as a testament to human curiosity and the unyielding quest for understanding in a world where the unknown remains just out of reach.

As the documentary concludes, it leaves the audience with more questions than answers, a deliberate choice that echoes the complex nature of the UFO and UAP phenomena. It’s a reminder that, in the pursuit of the unknown, the journey is as significant as the destination. The dark sky of West Virginia and beyond continues to hold secrets, and for those willing to look, the search for answers goes on.

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

Art Bell: Unveiling the Mystery of Alien and Military Encounters with Jim Sparks

In a remarkable broadcast from February 25, 2007, Art Bell, the late night radio icon known for exploring the unexplained, engaged in a profound conversation with Jim Sparks, a man who claims to have experienced repeated alien abductions and interactions with the military in relation to extraterrestrial beings. This discussion not only captivated the imagination of the audience but also offered a unique insight into the complex relationship between humans, aliens, and military operations surrounding extraterrestrial encounters.

Jim Sparks’ journey into the world of the unknown began in the mid-1980s when he started experiencing what he initially thought were vivid dreams of being escorted from his bed to a mysterious location by unknown entities. These occurrences, which Sparks later recognized as alien abductions, transformed from dream-like visions into conscious encounters, marking the beginning of a series of profound experiences that would change his understanding of reality.

Throughout his numerous abductions, Sparks described being subjected to a variety of procedures, including teaching sessions with aliens who communicated through a unique symbol-based language designed to facilitate telepathic communication. This method, as explained by Sparks, was not only about transferring information but also about shaping human consciousness towards a higher level of understanding and capability.

Art Bell

The complexity of Sparks’ encounters extends beyond interactions with extraterrestrial beings to involve the military. He recounted instances of being taken to underground facilities and witnessing the cooperation between military personnel and aliens. This collaboration hinted at a secretive, possibly global, effort to understand and harness extraterrestrial technology and knowledge, raising questions about the extent and objectives of such initiatives.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Sparks’ narrative is his transformation from a skeptic to a reluctant participant and, eventually, to an advocate for the messages he received from his alien abductors. These messages often centered on environmental concerns, suggesting a deep connection between the extraterrestrials’ interests in Earth and their interventions in human affairs. According to Sparks, these alien beings possess technologies capable of resolving some of the planet’s most pressing issues, such as energy production and environmental degradation, but are hindered by human reluctance and geopolitical complexities.

• https://youtu.be/eYKTEkmS-DE

The dialogue between Art Bell and Jim Sparks opens up a Pandora’s box of questions about the nature of our universe, the existence of other intelligent life forms, and their interactions with humanity. It challenges the conventional understanding of reality and invites us to reconsider our place in the cosmos. Whether one views Sparks’ accounts as factual, speculative, or somewhere in between, the themes of his experiences touch on fundamental human concerns about knowledge, power, and the future of our planet.

In essence, the conversation between Art Bell and Jim Sparks serves as a catalyst for broader discussions about the unknown and the unseen forces that may shape our destiny. It encourages us to ponder the possibilities of what lies beyond the familiar confines of our understanding and to remain open to the mysteries that await unraveling.

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

As the world attempts to meet increasing energy demands while also balancing the need for more sustainable power generation options, technologies like solar and wind power that tap into the environment’s natural energy production potential have continued to gain traction. Still, those power harvesting methods have limitations, making them unlikely to completely meet rising demands.

One increasingly popular approach involves collecting energy generated by friction using a technology known as a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). For example, a team of researchers created a prototype ‘rain panel’ equipped with a series of TENGs that collect energy from falling rain. Unfortunately, that invention has yet to make its way to everyday consumers.

Now, scientists say they have taken a 20th-century idea of capturing the energy of ocean waves and added a simple engineering hack that increases their energy output high enough that they could be used for a number of practical power harvesting applications.

Known as a liquid-solid TENG, the tube-shaped device is filled with water and placed on the surface of the ocean. When the waves move, the water inside sloshes back and forth. That motion causes friction on an electrode inside the tube, which in turn creates usable electrical energy that can be collected.

The team proposed improving the device by relocating the TENG from the center of the tube, where it is traditionally placed, to the extreme end. The hope was that the increased kinetic energy from the additional distance traveled by the liquid inside the tube would increase the energy generated by the TENG.

To test their hypothesis, Guozhang Dai, Kai Yin, Junliang Yan, and colleagues decided to construct two of their own liquid-solid TENGS. Each was 16 inches in length and then fitted with a copper foil electrode. The first had its electrode placed in the center location like traditional TENGs, while the second had the electrode placed at the end.

Next, the tubes were filled one-quarter of the way with water and then sealed at the ends. To measure their energy output, each TENG had a wire connected to the electrode and then fed to an external circuit.

Each of the two TENGs was placed on a tabletop rocker device that moved back and forth to simulate the motion of ocean waves. During this process, the electrical output of each generator was monitored externally. As hoped, the simple hack resulted in a dramatic increase in power.

As the press release announcing the blue energy generator hack explains, “Compared to the conventional design, the researchers found that the optimized design increased the device’s conversion of mechanical energy to electrical current 2.4 times.”

The paper outlining the blue energy generator’s improvements, which is published in the journal ACS Energy Letters, goes into more detail, explaining that “through the space volume effect, the open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current, and transfer charge of (TENG) can be improved by 3.5 times, 2.3 times, and 2 times, respectively.”

To further demonstrate the improved output of their ‘hacked’ TENG, the researchers also connected it to a series of 35 LEDs and watched them all flash on and off as the fluid inside the generator sloshed back and forth. The researchers note that this demonstration not only shows its power generation capabilities but also one possible application.

“The (TENG) not only boasts high output performance for harvesting low-frequency and high-entropy motion energy, but its output displacement current can also serve as a compact signal generator for underwater wireless communication.”

The researchers did not provide a timeline or clear path for when we might see these types of improved wave power generators in commercial use. However, they did sound hopeful, noting that “these demonstrations lay the foundation for larger-scale blue-energy harvesting from ocean waves.”

•  Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

George Adamski Photos & Videos of UFOs are the Best Evidence of ET Contact

Written by Dr Michael Salla - Posted in extraterrestrial life, Featured.

{ https://exopolitics.org/ }

This US President Cried After He Found Disturbing Alien Information In UFO Briefing

“We all saw it. And then the light, it got closer and closer to us. And then it stopped, I don’t know how far away, but it stopped beyond the pine trees. And all of a sudden it changed color to blue, and then it changed to red, then back to white,” Carter told GQ in 2005. The object reportedly hovered about 30 degrees above the horizon, moved towards and away from the Earth, and eventually disappeared into the distance. Carter’s experience led him to make a vow to never again ridicule individuals who claimed to have seen a UFO.

“One thing’s for sure, I’ll never make fun of people who say they’ve seen unidentified objects in the sky. If I become President, I’ll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists,” Carter said.

As for the object that Carter saw, it has since been classified as “a high altitude barium release cloud launched from Eglen AFB,” which sounds legit. However, after winning the presidency, Carter backed away from this promise, citing concerns about national security and defense implications. His experience with a UFO is just one of many reported sightings that have fueled conspiracy about extraterrestrial life and government cover-ups.

President Carter’s Disturbing Briefing on UFOs and Religion

Former NASA researcher Ed Harris claimed that serious researchers on the subject believe the story of former President Jimmy Carter crying after being briefed about classified UFO information to be true. According to the story corroborated by multiple witnesses, U.S. presidents are given only a brief overview of the subject by the CIA, and presidential curiosity is not considered a sufficient need to know.

After being repeatedly stonewalled, Carter was given “the talk,” which reportedly left him deeply sobbing and visibly disturbed for weeks. He was told that major religions, including Christianity, were created by extraterrestrials to prevent humans from destroying themselves while they ran experiments on us, and that they made us. Carter, a deeply religious man who had witnessed a UFO with six other people, realized that releasing such information could cause tremendous economic and social upheaval.

Below you can read Ed Harris’ statement on the subject that he wrote on Quora:

Yes, the incident of Jimmy Carter crying after being briefed about classified information regarding UFO’s is largely believed to be true by the serious researchers on the subject. As a forewarning, the following information is very unsettling and will explain why Carter never “kept his promise” of revealing classified UFO information to the public.

According to the story that was corroborated by more than one witness, U.S. presidents are only given a cursory overview of the subject. Apparently, the CIA runs the program, only provide information to the President on a need to know basis, and do not consider presidential curiosity as sufficient need to know. This was implemented after Kennedy, and all presidents after him have been given only summary briefings (some presidents for unknown reasons were given more than others).

Okay on to your question. President Carter is a deeply religious man who had also witnessed a UFO with 6 other people. Everyone thought that he would be the one to finally release UFO info to the public but as the story goes, he was repeatedly stonewalled. Eventually, the CIA had “the talk” with him, and afterward it was reported that he sunk his head in his hands and not only began to deeply sob, but was visibly disturbed for some weeks afterward.

What was he told and shown?

He was told that the major religions including Christianity were programs created by extraterrestrials to prevent us from destroying ourselves while they ran their experiments on us – and that they made us. At this moment it became clear to Carter that such information could cause tremendous economic and social upheaval. I should add that I am not only a Christian but a clergyman, so I am in no way attempting to promote atheism here. In fact, how God fits into this might be an interesting separate post. Nevertheless, these are the facts as I know them to be.

Author and world’s leading UFO researcher Richard Dolan also writes about this incident in his book “UFOs and the National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed.” According to his book, there are claims that President Carter was given a UFO briefing at the White House on June 14, 1977, which he was then bound to secrecy about.

Read also:

• Man Who Ran Area 51 Claimed They Had Alien Crafts & Non-Human Beings: So Bob Lazar Is Telling Truth
• Nukes Attract Not Only UFOs but Something Bone-Chilling, Revealed By Ex-Worker At Nuclear Depot In Nevada Desert
• Harvard Professor Is Right: Some UFOs Are Aliens, Govt. Officials From D.C. Told Him
• Jacques Vallee On Footage Of UFO Landing At Holloman AFB: Occupant Carried Vertical Staff With Spiral Antenna

The briefing was supposedly given by a lone MJ-12 briefing officer and several independent sources. The leaked “Executive Briefing: Project Aquarius” document gives the standard account of multiple retrievals of alien technology. While there is no hard evidence to support the claims of the briefing, a presidential aide, who was “very, very close to Carter,” witnessed President sobbing after a UFO-related briefing in the Oval Office.

Carter Administration & Project Blue Book

Daniel Sheehan, a Harvard-educated Constitutional Trial Lawyer and Appellate Attorney has worked on many high-profile cases in his career. In 1977, he was approached by his friend Marcia Smith, who informed him that President Carter had demanded that the CIA provided classified information about unidentified flying objects to him, but George H. Bush, who was the CIA director at the time, refused to give this information to the president.

Sheehan tried to obtain information on the UFO phenomena and extraterrestrials from the Vatican Library but was unsuccessful. However, with Carter’s help, he managed to get access to the classified portions of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book for a few hours in May 1977, where he claimed to have discovered classified documents and photographs of a crashed UFO being investigated by Air Force personnel.

“There were these photographs of unmistakable — of a UFO sitting on the ground. It had crashed,” Sheehan said. “Apparently, it had hit into this field and had dug up, kind of plowed this kind of trough through this field,” he paused for a second.

“It was wedged into the side of this bank,” he said after taking a deep breath. “There was snow all around the picture. The vehicle was wedged into the side of this mud-like embankment — kind of up at an angle. There was Air Force personnel. As I cranked the little handle and looked at additional photos, these Air Force people were taking pictures.” (Click here to read the full article)

When Mr. Sheehan left the room, the guard asked to see his yellow legal pad and flipped through the pages, missing the alien hieroglyphs Sheehan had copied on the back of the pad. Sheehan offered to share this information with the religious establishment; they told him they were not interested.

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

Defence drops 10-page UFO dossier

{ https://www.themandarin.com.au/ }

De geheimen rond de Bermudadriehoek

©Shutterstock

De geheimen rond de Bermudadriehoek
De wateren rond Bermuda, dat Brits grondgebied is, hebben van meer dan 1.000 mensen het leven geëist. Veel schepen en vliegtuigen zijn op onverklaarbare wijze verdwenen in het gebied dat ligt tussen Bermuda en Miami. Door veel piloten zijn verhalen verteld over kompassen die niet meer werkten.

Mysterieuze verdwijningen en bizarre verhalen hebben geleid tot talloze complottheorieën en er heerst een akelig gevoel omtrent de Bermudadriehoek. Bekijk deze galerij om enkele van de meest intrigerende onverklaarde mysteries rond het eiland en zijn wateren te ontdekken.

©Getty Images

George Somers
In 1609 ging de Engelse zeeheld George Somers op reis naar de nieuwe Engelse kolonie Jamestown in de Amerikaanse staat Virginia.

©Shutterstock

George Somers
Hij vertrok vanuit Plymouth in Engeland met een vloot van zeven schepen. Zijn vlaggenschip, de Sea Venture, bracht kolonisten, voedsel en goederen met zich mee

©Getty Images

George Somers
De vloot kwam in een zware storm terecht en de schepen werden van elkaar gescheiden. Na een aantal dagen begon de Sea Venture vol met water te lopen en in een poging van wanhoop voer de uitgeputte kapitein het schip naar de riffen van wat Bermuda bleek te zijn.

©Getty Images

George Somers
Gelukkig hebben alle 150 passagiers die aan boord waren het overleefd. Ze verbleven tien maanden op het eiland en stichtten de eerste nederzetting van Bermuda.

©Shutterstock

Georgetown
De nederzetting kreeg de naam Georgetown, vernoemd naar de admiraal George Somers.

©Getty Images

Bermuda
Volgens het toerismebureau Bermuda Attractions liggen er meer dan 300 scheepswrakken op de zeebodem rond het eiland. Waarom er zoveel schepen zijn gezonken in de wateren rond Bermuda blijft een raadsel.

©Getty Images

Flight 19
In 1945 vloog een groep bommenwerpers van de Amerikaanse marine boven Bermuda voor een routinematige trainingsmissie.

©Getty Images

Flight 19
In een groep van vijf vliegtuigen waren er in totaal veertien man aan boord, waaronder de ervaren luitenant Charles C. Taylor. Ze verdwenen allemaal spoorloos. Naar verluidt zei een van de piloten via de radio: "beide kompassen werken niet meer en ik probeer Fort Lauderdale in Florida te vinden."

©Getty Images

Flight 19
Een opsporingsteam doorzocht in vijf dagen ruim 300.000 vierkante kilometer grondgebied. Helaas zijn er nooit overblijfselen van Flight 19 gevonden. Een boot met een zoekteam van dertien mensen verdween ook toen het op zoek was naar de vliegtuigen

©Getty Images

Christoffel Columbus
Toen Christopher Columbus zich tijdens zijn eerste reis door het Caribisch gebied baande, voer hij door de Bermudadriehoek.

©Shutterstock

Christoffel Columbus
Naar verluidt schreef hij in een van zijn memoires dat hij een vuurvlam in de zee zag slaan en dat er een paar dagen later in de verte een vreemd licht verscheen.

©Shutterstock

Christoffel Columbus
Columbus zei ook dat de wijzers van zijn kompas flink begonnen te draaien in het gebied.

©Getty Images

Mary Celeste
Het Amerikaanse handelsschip Mary Celeste vertrok op 5 november 1872 uit New York.

©Getty Images

Mary Celeste
Kapitein Benjamin Spooner Briggs, zijn vrouw, zijn dochtertje en acht extra bemanningsleden waren aan boord van het schip.

©Shutterstock

Mary Celeste
Volgens Bermuda Attractions werd het schip drijvend in de Atlantische Oceaan aangetroffen terwijl er niemand aan boord was. Er bestaan complottheorieën rondom het mysterie van de Mary Celeste die gaan van ontvoeringen tot buitenaardse wezens, natuurrampen en zelfs paranormale activiteiten.

©Getty Images

USS Scorpion
De USS Scorpion was een kernonderzeeër van de Amerikaanse marine. Hij vertrok op 15 februari 1968 uit Norfolk, gelegen in de Amerikaanse staat Virginia, voor een operatie van drie maanden en had een 99-koppige bemanning.

©Getty Images

USS Scorpion
Volgens History Net, een Amerikaanse uitgever van tijdschriften die artikelen publiceren over onderwerpen uit de geschiedenis, werd er een zoekteam ingezet toen de onderzeeër niet terugkeerde naar zijn thuishaven. De 76,5 meter lange onderzeeër verdween spoorloos.

©Getty Images

USS Scorpion
Het wrak van de onderzeeër werd in de Atlantische Oceaan voor de kust van de Azoren gevonden, maar complotdenkers hebben het mysterie van de USS Scorpion in verband gebracht met de Bermudadriehoek.

©Public Domain

Carroll A. Deering
De achterlating van het schip Carroll A. Deering is een van de meest beschreven mysteries van de 20e eeuw.

©Getty Images

Carroll A. Deering
In 1921 voer het schip door de Bermudadriehoek voordat het verlaten werd aangetroffen.

©Getty Images

Carroll A. Deering
Volgens Bermuda Attractions was er een lichtschip in staat om via de radio met de Carroll A. Deering te communiceren. De kapitein van het lichtschip hoorde een bemanningslid zeggen dat ze hun ankers waren kwijtgeraakt en dat dit aan het hoofdkwartier doorgegeven moest worden, maar de Carroll A. Deering stopte niet en voer langs het lichtschip.

©Shutterstock

Complot
Er bestaan verschillende complottheorieën rond mysteries van schepen die in omringende wateren van het eiland verdwijnen.

©Getty Images

USS Cyclops
In 1918 raakte de USS Cyclops, dat meer dan 300 mensen aan boord had, zoek in de Bermudadriehoek.

©Getty Images

US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker
In 1963 kwamen naar verluidt twee KC-135-vliegtuigen van de Amerikaanse luchtmacht met elkaar in botsing en stortten ze neer in de Atlantische Oceaan. Ze werden echter gevonden op twee verschillende locaties die ruim 260 kilometer uit elkaar lagen.

©Getty Images

De Ellen Austin
De Ellen Austin was een schip dat regelmatig tussen Londen en New York door de Bermudadriehoek voer. Tijdens een van haar reizen in 1881 kwam de Ellen Austin een ander schip tegen waarop niemand aan boord was.

©Getty Images

De Ellen Austin
In een poging het verlaten schip te redden stuurde de kapitein van de Ellen Austin enkele van zijn bemanningsleden. Twee dagen lang zeilden de schepen zij aan zij totdat ze door een storm van elkaar werden gescheiden. Het verlaten schip en de nieuwe bemanning zijn nooit gevonden.

©Shutterstock

Niet opgelost en onverklaard
Ondanks dat er ruim duizend mensen om het leven zijn gekomen, blijven de wateren rond Bermuda een van de drukst bevaren plekken ter wereld. Zou dit de illusie kunnen wekken dat er hier meer incidenten plaatsvinden of is er echt iets mysterieus aan de hand?

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The Mysterious Night Sky Phenomenon Over Salento, Italy

In the tranquil skies above Salento, Italy, a remarkable event occurred on the evening of January 9th, 2017, that left both locals and experts baffled. Luccio Margiota, an educator from the Music Academy of Salento, captured a perplexing aerial phenomenon that defied conventional explanations. The event added to Italy’s long history of mysterious sightings, intertwining with tales that span from ancient Roman lore to modern encounters.

A Shape-Shifting Enigma

As dusk fell over Salento, a glowing orb emerged, acting unlike any known aerial object. Witnesses observed it transforming shape, from a spherical form to an elongated, cigar-like figure, and eventually morphing into a circular, donut-like shape. This spectacle was not only about the transformation of shapes but also involved a captivating shift in colors, from a greenish hue back to white, before the object vanished into the night.

Historical Context and Eyewitness Accounts

Italy’s history is rich with tales of unexplained aerial phenomena, stretching back to Roman times when historians like Livy recorded sightings of phantom ships gleaming in the sky. The Renaissance period and beyond have also documented similar enigmatic occurrences, suggesting a continuity of these mysterious sightings through the ages. In Salento, the recent event mirrors these historical accounts, reinforcing the intrigue and speculation surrounding such phenomena.

Expert Analysis and Speculations

The event prompted analyses from various experts in an attempt to uncover a rational explanation. Meteorologists and astronomers were consulted, exploring potential atmospheric conditions or optical illusions that could account for the sighting. While some speculated that atmospheric phenomena like halos or sun dogs, which are caused by light refracting through ice crystals, might explain the sighting, this theory was quickly dismissed. The absence of a visible light source at the center of the phenomenon contradicted the characteristics of known atmospheric optics.

Marc D’Antonio, an astronomer and video effects designer, suggested that the maximum zoom of Margiota’s camera might have exaggerated distortions, potentially leading to misinterpretations of what was observed. He also pointed to possible lens artifacts from moisture or other substances as contributing factors to the unusual visual effects captured on video. However, even with these considerations, the origin of the light and its peculiar behavior remained unexplained.

VIDEO:

• Unexplainable UFO Spotted Above Italy (S2) | The Proof Is Out There | The UnXplained Zone

• https://youtu.be/Zk6hdjMN6bM

Despite extensive analysis and speculation, the aerial phenomenon over Salento remains unclassified. The Italian government has not provided an official explanation, leaving the object unidentified and adding to the growing list of mysterious sightings worldwide. This event underscores the ongoing fascination with and debate over unidentified flying objects, challenging our understanding of the known and the unexplored.

As we gaze up at the night sky, events like the Salento sighting remind us of the vastness of the universe and the potential for mysteries that lie beyond our current grasp of science and nature. The pursuit of explanations for such phenomena continues, fueled by curiosity and the unending quest for knowledge.

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De grootste mythes over het heelal

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De grootste mythes over het heelal
Hoewel we meer van het heelal begrijpen dan ooit tevoren, zijn er nog steeds veel misvattingen over de ruimte, die grotendeels te danken zijn aan Hollywood. Sommige van deze misvattingen zijn eigenlijk aannemelijk en hebben velen van ons voor de gek gehouden. Denk je bijvoorbeeld dat Mercurius de heetste planeet in het zonnestelsel is omdat hij het dichtst bij onze zon staat? En zuigen zwarte gaten echt materie naar hun kern?

To find out the answers to these questions and more, check out the following gallery on the biggest myths about space. LEES VERDER.

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De asteroïdengordel is heel gevaarlijk
De asteroïdengordel ligt tussen Mars en Jupiter en bevat meer dan drieduizend kleine planeten en meer dan 750.000 afzonderlijke asteroïden. De grotere asteroïden botsen soms op elkaar, wat de mythe voedt dat het gevaarlijk is voor ruimtevaartuigen om zich er een weg doorheen te banen.

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De asteroïdengordel is heel gevaarlijk
Er is echter geen gevaar, omdat de afstand tussen asteroïden enorm is. Gemiddeld is er een afstand van ongeveer 970.000 km tussen de asteroïden, wat meer dan twee keer zo groot is als de afstand van de aarde tot de maan.

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De zon staat in brand
De zon is eigenlijk een gasbol. Het brandt dankzij kernfusie, die in de kern plaatsvindt.

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De zon staat in brand
Elke seconde zet de zon 700 miljoen ton waterstof om in 695 miljoen ton helium. Er komt dan energie vrij in de vorm van gammastralen, die dan licht worden. De zon zendt dus licht en warmte uit, maar staat niet in brand, omdat er geen zuurstof aan te pas komt.

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De maan heeft een donkere kant
Terwijl de maan rond de aarde draait, draait hij ook om zijn as, dus we zien altijd dezelfde kant van de maan.

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De maan heeft een donkere kant
In tegenstelling tot wat vaak wordt gedacht, is de andere kant niet donker. Het krijgt dezelfde hoeveelheid zonlicht als de andere kant.

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Sterren in constellaties staan dicht bij elkaar
De sterren aan de nachthemel zijn verdeeld over 88 constellaties. Dit zijn herkenbare groeperingen die al duizenden jaren als richtlijn voor boeren en reizigers dienen.

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Sterren in constellaties staan dicht bij elkaar
Ondanks dat het lijkt alsof de sterren die de constellaties vormen dicht bij elkaar staan, zijn ze vaak tientallen of honderden lichtjaren van elkaar gescheiden.

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Saturnus is de enige planeet in het zonnestelsel met ringen
Wanneer de meeste mensen aan planeten met ringen denken, is er maar één die in hun gedachten opkomt. De gasreus Saturnus staat bekend om zijn zeven hoofdringen.

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Saturnus is de enige planeet in het zonnestelsel met ringen
Maar Saturnus is niet de enige. Jupiter, Uranus en Neptunus hebben ook allemaal hun eigen ringen. Niemand wist echter zeker dat ze bestonden totdat het ruimteschip Voyager in de jaren zeventig en tachtig heel dichtbij kwam.

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Zwarte gaten creëren een vacuüm
Zwarte gaten zijn eigenlijk meer een soort vliegenvangers dan vacuüms. Ze zijn vrij inactief totdat een ster te dichtbij komt. Dan worden ze actief en verscheuren ze lagen gas en versnipperen ze de bestaande atomen.

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Zwarte gaten creëren een vacuüm
In werkelijkheid lopen objecten die genoeg afstand houden en met een hoge snelheid passeren geen gevaar om in het centrum van een zwart gat gezogen te worden. Als de zon bijvoorbeeld zou worden vervangen door een zwart gat, zou de aarde gewoon blijven draaien.

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De zon is geel
Eigenlijk is deze gele kleur een illusie. De zon produceert alle golflengtes van zichtbaar licht en daarom is haar echte kleur wit. Maar als het zonlicht door de atmosfeer reist, verandert het van kleur.

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De zon is geel
De atmosferische gassen van de aarde buigen het licht af door een effect dat Rayleighverstrooiing heet en waardoor de lucht blauw lijkt.

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De schaduw van de aarde veroorzaakt de maanfasen
Maanfasen zijn eigenlijk het resultaat van de opkomst en ondergang van de zon boven de zichtbare kant van de maan terwijl deze om de aarde draait.

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De schaduw van de aarde veroorzaakt de maanfasen
Terwijl de maan om de aarde draait, worden verschillende delen ervan verlicht door de zon. Het draait dus allemaal om de positie van de zon, de maan en de aarde.

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Een lichtjaar is een tijdmaat
Een lichtjaar is eigenlijk een afstandsmaat. NASA omschrijft een lichtjaar als "de totale afstand die een lichtstraal, die in een rechte lijn beweegt, in één jaar aflegt".

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Een lichtjaar is een tijdmaat
Volgens de relativiteitstheorie van Albert Einstein is een lichtjaar de snelste snelheid in het heelal, met ongeveer 300.000 kilometer per seconde.

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Sterren twinkelen
Kinderrijmpjes zijn verantwoordelijk voor deze mythe. Het idee dat sterren twinkelen is alleen maar een illusie.

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Sterren twinkelen
Wanneer licht naar de aarde reist, passeert het gasmoleculen (sterren) waar onze atmosfeer uit bestaat. De sterren wervelen vanwege turbulentie in de atmosfeer. Hierdoor wordt een deel van het licht afgebogen, waardoor het lijkt alsof het licht verschuift en twinkelt.

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Mercurius is de heetste planeet in het zonnestelsel
Veel mensen geloven deze misvatting omdat Mercurius de planeet is die het dichtst bij de zon staat. De afstand tot de zon heeft echter weinig te maken met de gemiddelde temperatuur van een planeet.

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Mercurius is de heetste planeet in het zonnestelsel
Venus bijvoorbeeld, die bijna twee keer zo ver van de zon staat, heeft een gemiddelde temperatuur van 462ºC. Het verschil is te danken aan de atmosfeer. Op Venus is de atmosfeer dik en bestaat deze voornamelijk uit kooldioxide, waardoor de warmte wordt vastgehouden in een isolerende luchtbel, terwijl Mercurius een hele dunne atmosfeer heeft.

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Komeetstaarten geven aan welke kant ze opgaan
Kometen zijn in wezen brokken vies ijs die opwarmen wanneer ze de zon naderen. Op dat moment laten ze gas en stof los.

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Komeetstaarten geven aan welke kant ze opgaan
Op aarde zouden we verwachten dat de staart naar achteren wijst, maar in de ruimte is er geen lucht. Kometen worden gevormd en voortgeblazen door stralingsdruk en zonnewind, dus wijzen ze altijd van de zon af.

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Zonder ruimtepak exploderen mensen in de ruimte
De menselijke huid is rekbaar genoeg, dus het zal niet tot een explosie komen. Maar na ongeveer 10 seconden blootstelling raken mensen bewusteloos.

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Zonder ruimtepak exploderen mensen in de ruimte
In 1966 gebeurde dit helaas met een technicus tijdens een NASA-test, nadat bepaalde apparatuur uitviel. Gelukkig was de druk na 30 seconden al hersteld en knapte de technicus weer op.

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De zon is de enige ster met planeten
Deskundigen geloven dat de meeste sterren in de Melkweg planeten om zich heen hebben. Elke planeet die buiten ons zonnestelsel wordt gevonden, wordt een exoplaneet genoemd en deze beïnvloeden de manier waarop een ster verschijnt.

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De zon is de enige ster met planeten
Eén manier om exoplaneten te vinden is door op verschillende tijdstippen te zoeken naar een afname van het licht van bepaalde sterren. Dit kan betekenen dat een planeet voor de ster langs beweegt, wat invloed heeft op de manier waarop het licht voor ons verschijnt.

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Now, NASA officials have revealed the identity of the strange-looking object and the reason for its curious appearance in the photos the LRO obtained last month.

In 2022, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) launched its own orbital spacecraft, the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), on August 4 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Also known as Danuri, the KPLO represents the first official mission launched by South Korea, which will see the spacecraft in orbit around the Moon for one year.

During its mission, Danuri will be utilizing a suite of scientific instruments built by South Korea, as well as one U.S.-built instrument, to carry out several experiments that will study the lunar environment, as well as help demonstrate a “lunar internet” and identify potential future landing sites.

Operating in almost parallel orbits, last month, the KPLO and LRO passed each other going in opposite directions, allowing the LRO to capture images of the South Korean spacecraft as it whizzed by.

Due to their opposite directional paths and the speed at which each lunar orbiter is traveling in their respective orbits (estimated to be close to 7,200 miles, or 1,500 kilometers, per hour), Danuri appeared elongated, making it look close to ten times its actual size, even despite the short exposure time of just 0.338 milliseconds used by the LRO’s narrow-angle camera.

 According to the LRO operations team based at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, the high travel velocities between the LRO and Danuri meant that perfect timing was required in order for the NASA team to capture images of the South Korean spacecraft.

The KPLO appears close to ten times its actual size in the images obtained by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in March, 2024

(Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University).

The images obtained by NASA in March aren’t the first time that one of these spacecraft has obtained images of the other. Last April, the KPLO successfully obtained images of the LRO using its ShadowCam, which was provided by NASA for the South Korean orbiter’s mission.

Possessing a conventional box shape with a pair of solar panel wings and a parabolic antenna, Danuri relies on a mono propulsion system that incorporates four 30N thrusters, which help it achieve orbital maneuvers, and an additional four 5N attitude control thrusters.

Although designed to operate for just a year, it is possible that the KPLO, like the LRO, may enter an extended phase, during which it will descend to a lower position in orbit, placing it just 70 km above the lunar surface.

In addition to the LRO and the KPLO, there are at least ten other objects that are currently known to be orbiting the Moon, some of which are now defunct.

You can learn more about the KPLO mission here. Meanwhile, additional details about the LRO’s ongoing collection of imagery and valuable data about the lunar surface can be found on NASA’s official Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter page.

• Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on X: @MicahHanks.

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The First Atmospheric Rainbow on an Exoplanet?

When light strikes the atmosphere all sorts of interesting things can happen. Water vapor can split sunlight into a rainbow arc of colors, corpuscular rays can stream through gaps in clouds like the light from heaven, and halos and sundogs can appear due to sunlight reflecting off ice crystals. And then there is the glory effect, which can create a colorful almost saint-like halo around objects.

Like rainbows, glories are seen when facing away from the light source. They are often confused with circular rainbows because of their similarity, but glories are a unique effect. Rainbows are caused by the refraction of light through water droplets, while glories are caused by the wave interference of light. Because of this, a glory is most apparent when the water droplets of a cloud or fog are small and uniform in size. The appearance of a glory gives us information about the atmosphere. We have assumed that some distant exoplanets would experience glories similar to Earth, but now astronomers have found the first evidence of them.

A solar glory seen from an airplane. Credit: Brocken Inaglory

The observations come from the Characterising ExOplanet Satellite (Cheops) as well as observations from other observatories of an exoplanet known as WASP-76b. It’s not the kind of exoplanet where you’d expect a glory to appear. WASP-76b is not a temperate Earth-like world with a humid atmosphere, but a hellish hot Jupiter with a surface temperature of about 2,500 Kelvin. Because of this, the team wasn’t looking for extraterrestrial glories but rather studying the odd asymmetry of the planet’s atmosphere.

WASP-76b orbits its star at a tenth of the distance of Mercury from the Sun. At such a close distance the world is likely tidally locked, with one side forever boiling under its sun’s heat and the other side always in shadow. No such planet exists in our solar system, so astronomers are eager to study how this would affect the atmosphere of such a world. Previous studies have shown that the atmosphere is not symmetrical. The star-facing side is puffed up by the immense heat, while the atmosphere of the dark side is more dense.

For three years the team observed WASP-76b as it passed in front of and behind its star, capturing data on the intersection between the light and dark side. They found that on the planet’s eastern terminator (the boundary between light and dark sides) there was a surprising increase in light. This extra glow could be caused by a glory effect. It will take more observations to confirm this effect but if verified it will be the first glory observed beyond our solar system. Currently, glories have only been observed on Earth and Venus.

The presence of a glory on WASP-76b would mean that spherical droplets must have been present in the atmosphere for at least three years. This means either they are stable within the atmosphere, or they are constantly replenished. One possibility is that the glory is caused by iron droplets that rain from the sky on the cooler side of the planet. Even if this particular effect is not confirmed, the ability of modern telescopes to capture this data suggests that we will soon be able to study many subtle effects of exoplanet atmospheres.

A glory in Earth's atmosphere photographed by ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst from the ISS in 2018.

(ESA/NASA)