Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 10 MONTHS.
ON 06/04/2024 MORE THAN 1.951.050
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
15-04-2017
NASA's MAVEN Probe Has Found Metal in Mars Atmosphere
NASA's MAVEN Probe Has Found Metal in Mars Atmosphere
The MAVEN space probe has been inspecting Mars’s upper atmosphere for about a year and a half now, and in that time it’s helped NASA researchers learn important insights about the red planet. Now MAVEN — which stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution — has revealed that Mars’ atmosphere contains charged metal atoms (aka “ions”) — just like the atmosphere on Earth.
The metal comes from small meteoroids that rain down constantly upon Mars. First, the meteoroids vaporize. Then charged particles within the atmosphere pull some metal atoms away and transform them into charged atoms.
The neat thing about metal ions is that they can be used to understand motion in the ionosphere layer of the atmosphere. Winds and electric fields move these ions far from their origin point. Since the ions have a long lifetime, researchers can use them to deduce how movement is occurring within the ionosphere over an extended period of time.
Earth’s atmosphere also contains metal ions. If any news about Mars makes you immediately ask, “What does this mean for the prospect of future human colonization of Mars,” we’ve got bad news for you.
It amounts to very little, unfortunately. That’s the professional opinion of Joe Grebowsky of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and one of the authors of the study.
“One effect, and here I am exaggerating, could be long distance radio communication between points on the surface,” Grebowksy said. “The anomalous metal layers we saw have features akin to complex Sporadic E ionosphere layers that in the past created problems with long-distance radio communication. This was done because communication was done by reflecting radio signals off the ionosphere and the complex sporadic layers screwed things up. But with current use of satellite communications, this is unlikely a big worry for surface communication.”
An artist's concept of MAVEN exploring Mars.
NASA researchers suspect that metal ions may exist in the atmospheres of every planet in our solar system, because radio signals emitted by roaming spacecraft are sometimes blocked as they pass through planets’ atmospheres.
However, this discovery is “the first direct detection of the permanent presence of metal ions in the ionosphere of a planet other than Earth,” Grebowsky says.
Up next for MAVEN: another year and a half of scientific research about Mars, and then six years as a telecommunications orbiter, before it finally runs out of fuel.
Saturn’s Moon Has Just Become The Best New Spot To Hunt For Alien Life
Saturn’s Moon Has Just Become The Best New Spot To Hunt For Alien Life
According to NASA, it has nearly all the ingredients needed to support life.
A new study published in the journal Science has revealed that molecular hydrogen is being generated in Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. Specifically, it’s being produced by Enceladus’ warm subterranean ice-covered ocean through the plumes of water vapor it’s shooting out. And based on the analysis of data, NASA believes that the most plausible explanation is the presence of chemical reactions between the moon’s hot rocky core and its warm ocean water, much like those that create ecosystems around deep seafloor vents on our planet.
Although NASA did not exactly find evidence of life, what’s remarkable about the discovery is that it adds to mounting proof suggesting that even if a celestial body might look inhabitable because it’s covered with ice, an entirely different story might be brewing beneath its surface. Just a few days before, they also spotted what looked like water plumes being spewed out by Europa, one of Jupiter’s icy moons.
Enceladus is one of Saturn’s larger moons with a diameter of about 313 miles (504 km) and a dynamic surface that’s considered young in terms of geological age. It orbits its host in a non-circular way, which is why astronomers believe that gravitational forces are tugging at it unequally (just like our own moon does, creating high and low tides). This turning and churning generates heat in the core, and it is likely this heat that allows Enceladus to keep its water in a liquid state.
Liquid water is one of the most essential elements of life, which basically means that every living organism needs liquid water to thrive. Life also requires a source of energy (in other words, food), and the right combination of chemicals to create an organism known as CHNOPS or carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur.
For the longest time, it was believed that sunlight is also essential in sustaining life. It was only in the late 70s when it was discovered that life can thrive even in darkness — when a host of ecosystems was found around holes on the ocean floor spewing hydrothermal vents or jets of hot water filled with all kinds of molecules.
That means that in lieu of sunlight, life can be created when there’s liquid water, an energy source, and the right chemical mix. And that opens up a host of possibilities that suggest life can exist even in the harshest and darkest environments.
The discovery of hydrogen in Enceladus was made by the Cassini spacecraft which had been orbiting Saturn since 2004. Its mission, however, is almost over. In less than two weeks, it will begin its descent through Saturn’s rings, until it eventually crashes into the planet and retires for good.
Cassini will be leaving a great legacy, though. Confirming the existence of hydrogen is almost a confirmation that Enceladus’ ocean might be habitable.
As explained by Linda Spilker, one of the Cassini project scientists working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): “Confirmation that the chemical energy for life exists within the ocean of a small moon of Saturn is an important milestone in our search for habitable worlds beyond Earth.”
Event celebrates 60 years of The Sky At Night. The show is the longest running TV show in the UK and is still exploring new worlds...
When Patrick Moore presented the first episode of The Sky At Night on April 24, 1957, no spacecraft had ever been launched beyond our atmosphere, Mars was thought to be home to alien life, and no one knew if there were any planets beyond our solar system.
Yet within a few months the launch of Russia’s Sputnik ushered us into the space age, and Mariner 4 later flew past Mars, heralding the first blurry images of its cratered surface.
When Patrick Moore presented the first episode of The Sky At Night on April 24, 1957, no spacecraft had ever been launched beyond our atmosphere
So began The Sky At Night’s remarkable intergalactic odyssey. It went on to become the world’s longest-running TV series, and was hosted by the same presenter for 55 years – the late and eccentric Sir Patrick Moore.
Today the monthly programme is hosted by astronomical researcher Professor Chris Lintott and scientist Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, who continue to amaze with new discoveries.
Now, as the BBC show celebrates its 60th anniversary, Event presents 10 heavenly reasons it’s such an enduring TV star.
1. The May & Moore show: Queen guitarist Brian May (right, with Moore) has been a guest on The Sky At Night several times. He was studying for a PhD on interplanetary dust at Imperial College before the band became a global success and finally completed it in 2007. He became a close friend of Moore, and when the astronomer ran into financial trouble in later years, May bought his house and leased it back to him for a peppercorn rent. May said the programme led to his interest in astronomy
2. How’s your Russian, Patrick? Moore once interviewed a Russian astronomer live about Lunik 2, the first spacecraft to reach the Moon, in 1959. As Moore was interviewing him, he noticed a producer behind him holding a sign that said ‘the man speaks no English’. So when the Russian replied, Moore simply turned to camera and gave his own answer in English, without knowing what the cosmonaut had actually said
3. How Moore mapped the moon: The first pictures of the far side of the Moon were shown live on the show on October 24, 1959, having arrived at the BBC during the broadcast. The pictures were taken from the Soviet satellite Lunik 3 – the Russians had borrowed Moore’s hand-drawn maps of the Moon, drawn from observations through his telescopes, to help align their pictures of the far side. In return, they promised to send their images to London as soon as they could
4. The fly at night: Moore claimed his most difficult moment doing The Sky At Night was when he swallowed a fly live on air in the late Fifties (the film hasn’t survived). ‘What else could I do? It buzzed all the way down,’ he said. On another occasion, in the late Sixties, Moore’s dentures snapped moments before he was due on air and he presented the programme with his teeth held together by Sellotape. In July 2004, Moore was unable to make the broadcast owing to a bout of food poisoning, caused by a goose egg. It was the only broadcast he missed in his 55-yeartenure
5. Michael Bentine’s potty time: The chat in 1979 between Moore and his long-time friend, Michael Bentine of the Goons (left, with Moore in 1968), must rate as one of the most bizarre episodes ever. The two men discussed, in serious tones, Bentine’s theories of UFOs, where he says ‘there’s no reason they shouldn’t resemble us’. The episode – now a classic – ends with two puppet figures representing aliens, squeakily debating whether there is any sign of intelligent life on Earth
6. When stars collide... One of Prof Brian Cox’s (above) favourite possessions is his 1979 edition of The Observer’s Book Of Astronomy (written by Moore), which he won as a school prize for 100 per cent attendance. ‘Later in life I met Patrick when I filmed the 700th Sky At Night with him,’ Cox recalls. ‘I took the book for him to sign. When he opened it he laughed when he saw what it was for’
7. Total eclipse of the senses: The first live broadcast of a total eclipse was filmed in Serbia in 1961, with Moore perched on a mountaintop. The crew had been told that animals go to sleep during an eclipse, so they floodlit the local cows to watch. But the animals just stood there, chewing. It was the local producer, who spoke no English, who had suggested the idea. If he had conveyed this in English Moore would have known the notion was ridiculous. Instead he was cross. Afterwards the crew skied down the mountain, and Moore injured his knee, before going off to get drunk
8. Terry goes bats: Author Terry Pratchett (above) was a regular guest on the show. He used to bring his bat detector with him and spend the evening listening for bats while observing through Moore’s telescopes
9. The number of the beastliness Programme #666 from May 2008, entitled What We Don’t Know, was about ideas that scare astronomers, and was filmed in a bizarre red-lit tent ‘to make us all look rather demonic’, according to producers. Topics included ‘What if there was no big bang?, dark matter and dark energy. The really scary thing was Moore cackling: ‘What if you’re all wrong about everything?’
10. Moore saves the day: The team was to present a show about the transits of Venus (when the planet crosses the Sun’s path) from Carr House in Hoole, Cheshire. Half an hour before transmission they discovered the record of Sibelius’s At The Castle Gate (the show’s theme tune) had been left in London. They tried to find a piano for Moore to play but could only find a harpsichord. Moore had never played one before but he managed it just as the show started...
‘The Sky At Night: 60th Anniversary Special’ features archive footage, interviews with those who were involved in the great discoveries, and re-creations of observations and experiments. It’s on next Sunday at 10pm on BBC Four
NASA: Ingredients for Life at Saturn’s Moon Enceladus
There are dozens of moons in Earth’s solar system, but not one of them is the same as the next. And because there is so much variety, some of these moons are more important than others, especially for people who are trying to find aliens.
Saturn's moon Enceladus might be hosting life beneath its surface of ice.
Photo: NASA
1. Enceladus
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has learned a lot while observing Enceladus, as well as its parent planet Saturn and Saturn’s other moons. But Enceladus is special because the space agency recently announced it might be hosting alien life in an ocean beneath its icy surface. Below the surface there is also a source of heat and, scientists have just discovered, hydrogen that could serve as a source of energy to certain life forms.
We don’t have a spacecraft on this moon’s surface yet, but NASA is preparing for such a scenario. Its Jet Propulsion Laboratory is working on a fleet of robots specifically geared toward crawling over and cutting into the thick surfaces of ice on bodies such as Enceladus. Those robots have tools such as heated prongs to melt ice, drills to dig down, buzz saws to power through tough blocks and catapults to send miniprobes out for more samples.
Europa, a moon of Jupiter, might be hosting alien life because it has oceans beneath its icy surface.
Photo: NASA
2. Europa
Scientists suspect Europa, a moon of Jupiter, has conditions similar to Enceladus, so it could also be harboring extraterrestrial life, even if only microbes. A probe that could launch in the next decade could make this idea more definitive, and some of the new ice-trekking robotic technology NASA is developing could be aboard.
Phobos is an irregularly shaped moon orbiting Mars.
Photo: NASA
3. Phobos
This oblong moon of Mars, larger and closer to the Red Planet than its only companion Deimos, is crucial because of its position around Earth’s closest planetary neighbor — a NASA spacecraft narrowly avoided crashing into it earlier this year — and because it is a possible target for a space probe of its own. Officials from France and Japan recently announced those two countries are considering working together to land a craft on Phobos and collect samples. The samples would be the first from a moon other than Earth’s to be brought back. And because Mars is such a large focus for scientists looking for alien life in the solar system, Phobos would represent one more way to learn more about that planet: A spacecraft settled on Phobos, which orbits Mars three times a day, would have a great vantage point.
Titan is the second-largest moon in the solar system, and the largest one orbiting Saturn.
Photo: NASA
4. Titan
The largest moon of Saturn is partly on this list because it is electric. Scientists recently found grains of sand on Titan’s surface are so light, a little breeze makes them rub together enough — causing friction — to produce a ton of static electricity. Enough static electricity, in fact, that if you were to build a sand castle on Titan, you would not even need any water; the particles would stick together on their own for weeks.
That’s cool on its own, but Titan is also a solid candidate for harboring extraterrestrial life because, as NASA notes, it is “the only moon in our solar system that has clouds and a dense atmosphere, mostly nitrogen and methane,” and the only place we know of where liquid flows on its surface in a way that looks like Earth, even if that liquid is ethane and methane rather than water. “These liquids form clouds from which the liquid gases sometimes rain from the sky as water does on Earth.”
Earth's moon is the only celestial body where humans have landed.
Photo: NASA
5. The Moon
What would a list of moons be without Earth’s only natural satellite? At a most basic level of importance, any observer can look up at the night sky — or sometimes the daytime sky — and see it in all its glory. The gravitational pull between Earth and the Moon influences the movement of ocean water, and the Moon played a key role in motivating humans to invent the technology to travel through space. Space science would not be where it is today without our beloved Moon.
And it’s not just a boring, dead rock. The Moon holds all sorts of mysteries to help us learn more about our universe. For example, scientists recently solved a mystery of why an iconic crater looks so much younger than the area around it: a special kind of foamy lava that erupted when the Moon’s volcanic activity was coming to an end billions of years ago.
There are potentially thousands of exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system. In the spirit of Halloween, scientific YouTube channel DNews lays out just a few alien exoplanets that sound "horrific" to us, Earthlings.
For starters, the exoplanet 55 Cancri e is oozing with poisonous liquid. About 40 light years away, it's known as a "super Earth," about eight times larger the mass of our home planet and much hotter because it's so close to its star. In fact, the high heat of the planet has made it so that water and other liquids are unable to exist in their regular liquid state, pushing them to "supercritical" states under the pressure. The fluids become exotic, oozing non-liquids, also gleaming with the poisonous hydrogen cyanide, oozing below the surface of 55 Cancri e.
Similar to Jupiter, except larger and hotter, is exoplanet CoRoT-2a. The planet orbits very close to its star, so it's now bloated due to extreme heating. Powerful ex-rays perpetually explode from the star, which cause five million tons of material to blast off the planet and into space every second.
Another exoplanet, Kepler-19b might have a ghost—okay, probably not, but the planet doesn't have a consistent orbit, which is anomalous. The planet will occasionally speed up and then slow down seemingly on its own, whereas it would seem that the planet would need some external force causing the abnormal orbit speeds. It could be, according to the video, that a "ghostly alien world" is tugging at Kepler-19b from afar.
The last of these scary, spooky exoplanets listed was Fomalhaut b, within the Fomalhaut star system. The planet resides in dusty debris 25 light years from Earth, making images of it look like the Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings.
While none of these exoplanets would be pleasant to Earthling senses, the way aliens react to them is a different story. It's not clear what kind of life exists on these planets, if any, but if they're out there, they're probably much tougher than we are.
As World War II was of an epic nature it might not come as any big surprise that those fighting on both sides in the war were said to have used the paranormal so as to gain an edge over their enemy.
Now a user on YouTube with the name of Dark5s has put together a very enlightening collection of paranormal stories which back to WWII and all of which involve something totally strange, weird, and unusual or things that cannot be explained.
One of the stories in the video may explain an even from the war that has perplexed people for a long time. This, of course, was Rudolph Hess and his bizarre flight to Scotland with the hope of negotiating peace between the Nazis and Britain. At the time the actions of Hess were thought to be baffling to both sides involved and just what could have motivated him to make such a trip has remained something of a mystery.
In the years that followed the war, it came to light that perhaps Hess may have been duped by the British Intelligence into making the strange journey. It has been suggested that perhaps the British Intelligence tapped into the psychic realm.
Rumors have been very persistent over the years that there had been a joint effort between magician Aleister Crowley and intelligence agent, who went on to write books about secret agents, Ian Fleming. It was said that Crowley was able to manipulate the mind of Hess using psychic messages and then Fleming did his part by making it look like the insights were real through propaganda pieces that were carefully used.
If this is true the tandem attack by the two proved to be successful, at least when it came to inspiring Hess to leave his post and take on a peace mission that was futile and one which caused chaos for the Nazis.
Along with this story, many other fascinating events have been included in the video. These include covens of witches who tried to protect England with a magic ritual and the quest of Hitler to find the Holy Grail.
CIA UFO Files: The Horrific Revenge of the Extraterrestrial – Siberia Incident
CIA UFO Files: The Horrific Revenge of the Extraterrestrial – Siberia Incident
The UFO attack on a military unit in Siberia where 23 Russian soldiers lost their lives. The CIA describes this event as a “horrific picture of revenge on the part of extraterrestrial creatures, a picture that makes one’s blood freeze”.
China’s Space Scientists Warn of Extraterrestrial Danger
China’s Space Scientists Warn of Extraterrestrial Danger
China’s Space Scientists Warn of Extraterrestrial Danger – “We are lucky to be in a special era, with the next generation of giant telescopes on the way. There may be some exciting discoveries in the following 10 to 20 years,” says Mao Shude, director of the Center for Astrophysics of the Beijing-based Tsinghua University. FAST, shown below, now under construction deep in the mountains of southwest China’s Guizhou Province, will become the world’s largest radio telescope once completed in September this year, which has spurred several of China’s leading astronomers to comment publicly about the potential as well as the unknown dangers to humanity of the search for advanced extraterrestrial civilizations.
According to mainstream scientific opinion, it is possible that extraterrestrial life exists, as the Earth is not unique in the universe. Our galaxy has hundreds of billions of stars, many with solar-like planetary systems, and there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. So it’ s reasonable to infer that Earth-like planets might be common, and the universe could teem with life.
“I think primitive life is likely to be abundant, but intelligent life might be rarer,” says Mao, also director of the Galaxy and Cosmology Division of the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC), Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The next generation of giant telescopes might help astronomers resolve some long-standing issues, such as analyzing the spectrum of distant planets, making it possible to detect biomarkers of life.
Biomarkers are certain elements that might indicate the existence of life. An important biomarker, oxygen molecules, without supporting life, can only last for a short time compared with the 13.7 billion-year history of the universe.
Oxygen easily reacts with other elements, and Mars appears red as a result of oxidation. “If we find a lot of oxygen molecules in the atmosphere of an extraterrestrial planet, they are probably produced by life activities,” Mao explains.
The most common method of searching for extraterrestrial life is to search first for planets similar to Earth, with plenty of sunshine, liquid water and a protective atmosphere. However, that method is constantly questioned as some speculate that life elsewhere in the universe might be quite different from that on Earth.
“We don’t know how to start if we don’ t know what kind of life we are looking for. At least, we know what conditions are needed for life on Earth,” Mao says. “So scientists tend to search for planets around Sun-like stars and put forward the concept of the ‘habitable zone’ .”
“Nature, however, has a much more wild imagination than we do. For example, whether life can exist in ice at extremely low temperatures is unknown to us,” Mao says. “It’ s easy for scientists to start with familiar conditions and then gradually expand the search to an unknown territory.”
Over the past decade, astronomers around the world have identified more than 3,000 extra-solar planets. However, most are giant planets, probably composed of gas, because they are more easily detectable.
A few dozen are Earth-like planets, which are likely composed of silicate rocks or metals and may have water on them. “Astronomers first pick sample planets suitable for life, and then think about further study and analysis, or even communication with them,” Mao says.
To further analyze the atmospheric composition of a planet, the telescope must be very sensitive to the sharp contrast of the light intensity between the star and the planet. The Earth is about one billionth of the Sun in brightness in the optical, a contrast still far beyond the range of current telescopes.
For more effective observation, astronomers are also striving for breakthroughs in another critical technology – adaptive optics. When light from a star or any other astronomical object enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it can be distorted by atmospheric turbulence, which can blur images produced by any telescope larger than tens of centimeters.
This annoyed Isaac Newton more than 300 years ago when he discovered that larger telescopes could not form clearer images due to atmospheric distortions. But today, after years of development, many observatories around the world, including those with telescopes of 8 to 10 meters in diameter, are equipped with adaptive optics systems.
Adaptive optics is a technology that aims to correct the distortions induced by atmospheric turbulence. The system is mainly composed by three parts: a wavefront sensor, a deformable mirror and a real time controller. The wavefront sensor is like the eye of the system, and it measures the light distortions a few hundred or even thousand times in one second, so that the turbulence distortion almost looks like a cartoon played frame by frame to the system; the real time controller acts like a super fast brain, and it calculates how correction should be applied and sends commands to the deformable mirror; and finally, like the hand of the system, the deformable mirror actually carries out those commands, and changes its surface shape accordingly to correct the distortions before the arrival of the next command.
The next generation of ground-based telescopes, including the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT shown at top of the page), the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), will have better adaptive optics systems, so they will be central to future observations, says Feng Lu, an associate researcher with the NAOC.
Compared with space telescopes, ground-based telescopes can be larger and connected to more instruments, and can work longer and look deeper into space. The adaptive optics technology will improve their resolution close to or even above space telescopes, making them capable of observation tasks previously impossible on the ground, such as tracking extra-solar planet candidates, Feng says.
For example, with the assistance of adaptive optics, TMT will have a resolving power and sensitivity much greater than the Hubble Space Telescope when it goes into use around mid-2020s. One of its major tasks will be to analyze the spectrum of extra-solar planets.
But the next generation of space telescopes will also revolutionize astronomy. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), to be launched by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 2017, is one of them.
Kepler, TESS’ predecessor launched by NASA in 2009, is the world’s first space observatory dedicated to the search for planets outside our solar system. So far, Kepler has confirmed 2,325 extra-solar planets, more than 70 percent of the total. Twenty-one of them are Earth-like, staying in habitable zone and within twice the size of Earth.
While both can monitor planetary transits, TESS is capable of carrying out all-sky surveys, while Kepler can only observe a small part of our region of the Milky Way.
“More importantly, TESS will look for extra-solar planets in orbit around the brightest stars, which will help analyze the physical nature of these planets. Kepler’s planets are often around dim stars, which makes it difficult to carry out follow-up studies,” Mao says. “The number of planets that TESS will detect is not necessarily much more (than Kepler), but the quality will be more advanced.”
As well as searching for Earth-like planets, scientists also scan the skies for extraterrestrial signals via radio telescopes, as some believe other civilizations will inevitably produce and release radio waves, as we do, during their evolution.
Frank Drake, a U.S. astronomer and astrophysicist, was the first to test the method. In 1960, he started Project Ozma, a pioneering SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) experiment, at the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, West Virginia. The objective was to examine nearby Sun-like stars for signs of life through interstellar radio waves. Although the project ended in vain, it triggered dozens of later SETI programs.
However, the work of selecting possible meaningful signals from massive background noise consumes time and resources. The Space Sciences Laboratory, at the University of California, Berkeley, launched the SETI@home (“SETI at home”) project in 1999, to search for possible radio transmissions from extraterrestrial intelligence via public volunteer computing.
Part of the worldwide SETI effort, the project uses observational data from Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory, the world’s current largest telescope, and the Green Bank observatory. The data, taken “piggyback” or “passively” while the telescopes are used for other scientific projects, are divided into small chunks and sent to millions of home computers for analysis. The software searches for signals with variations that cannot be ascribed to noise, and hence possibly contain information.
So far, about 9 million volunteers in 226 countries have analyzed a total of 15 years of data from the Arecibo telescope, according to Dan Werthimer, co-founder and chief scientist of the SETI@home project.
“We have identified about 100 very short radio bursts, about one millionth of a second long, that we don’t fully understand,” Werthimer said in an e-mail interview, Radio communications from Earth still haven’t been ruled out as the source of these signals.
So far, no signals have been confirmed as from extraterrestrial civilizations. “We’ve only had radio for 100 years and lasers for 60 years,” Werthimer said. “We are just getting in the game and just beginning to explore the potential different frequencies and signal types that another civilization might use. There’s a long way to go before we can do a thorough search.
“The good news is that the capabilities of earthlings are growing. The computing power is developing quickly and the FAST telescope will be very powerful,” he added. With a dish the size of 30 football grounds, FAST is 500 meters in diameter and made of 4,450 panels. Scientists have depicted it as a super-sensitive “ear”, capable of spotting very weak messages – if there are any – from “cousins” of human beings.
It will be 10 times more sensitive than the telescopes in the Breakthrough Listen project, a 100 million-U.S.-dollar initiative by Russian tycoon Yuri Milner to search for extraterrestrial civilizations, says Li Di, chief scientist with the radio astronomy department of the NAOC.
Werthimer is seeking cooperation with Chinese astronomers to develop a SETI@home project for FAST. “We hope to work with China to do SETI at the same time while the telescope carries out sky surveys to search for pulsars, fast radio bursts and to map the galaxy as planned.”
Though unsure of how such cooperation would work, Li Di is interested in working with the SETI@home project. “With their experience and advanced technologies, they will help us improve the telescope’s scientific capabilities and operating conditions. It’s like standing on the shoulders of a giant,” Li says.
Chinese scientists have also actively participated in the preparations for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), a large multi-radio telescope project to be built in Australia and South Africa.
The SKA will eventually use thousands of dishes and up to a million antennas, which will enable astronomers to monitor the sky in unprecedented detail and survey the entire sky much faster than any system currently operating. The search for extraterrestrial life is one of its key science programs.
Scientists have surveyed the entire sky with radio telescopes for a half-century now, and they have found interesting signals occasionally.
On August 15, 1977, a strong narrow-band radio signal, bearing the expected hallmarks of extraterrestrial origin, was detected by astronomer Jerry R. Ehman while working on a SETI project at the Big Ear radio telescope of Ohio State University. The signal appeared to come from the constellation Sagittarius and lasted 72 seconds.
Ehman circled the signal on the computer printout and wrote the comment “Wow!” beside it, which the event is now commonly called. But it has never been detected again.
“Some strange signals have been found, but it’s hard to confirm their origins, because these signals do not repeat,” Li Di says.
“We look for not only television signals, but also atomic bomb signals. We shall give full play to our imaginations when processing the signals,” Li says. “It’s a complete exploration, as we don’t know what an alien is like.”
Sometimes, radio telescopes are “confused” by signals from astronomical objects. For example, astronomers once mistook signals from a pulsar for extraterrestrial signs, because a pulsar can also give out very stable periodical signals.
“We don’t know when earthlings will discover ET. It could be 1,000 years from now, or in our lifetimes. It could be next year, when FAST gets going on the sky surveys,” Werthimer said.
However, with no clues of extraterrestrial life over the past five decades, questions are constantly asked as whether the search methods are appropriate.
Even on Earth, land and sea host completely different forms of life. “It is highly possible that life on other planets is entirely different from that on Earth, and it might not be carbon-based,” says Jin Hairong, deputy curator of Beijing Planetarium.
Liu Cixin, a Chinese science fiction writer and winner of the Hugo Award for his novel The Three Body Problem, points out the current method assumes that aliens also communicate in radio waves. “But if it’s a truly advanced civilization, it is possible to use other more advanced forms of communication, such as gravitational waves.”
But Mao Shude believes many methods deserve a try: “Who knows what they are and how they think? “When we study the origin of life, we risk going down a blind alley if we only have one sample from Earth,” Mao says. “If we could find more samples in the universe, we could look at the puzzle more comprehensively and solve it more easily.”
He gives an example in astronomy to explain the limitations of a single sample. “When scientists started to look for planets around Sun-like stars, they thought it must be difficult as their period might be as long as a year. However, the first such planet discovered outside our solar system takes only four days to orbit its host star – much faster than astronomers expected. At that time, some people doubted it, showing how the example of our solar system narrowed their thinking.”
“If we really discover extraterrestrial life, I’d like to know how life spreads in the universe. Is it distributed uniformly in space, or clustered?” Mao wonders.
However, the idea communicating with aliens comes with concerns. British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has warned that communicating with aliens could be a threat to Earth: “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans.”
The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin depicted the universe as a jungle with every civilization as a hidden hunter. Those who are exposed will be eliminated.
But Han Song, another leading Chinese science fiction writer, believes humans naturally want to connect, citing the Internet as proof. “I think aliens might think similarly. It is a biological instinct to connect with each other. Everyone wants to prove that they are not alone in the universe. Loneliness is intolerable to humans,” he says.
He also points out that the contact will be driven by curiosity and real requirements. “Humans will ultimately go to space to find resources and expand their living area, so it will be hard to avoid aliens. Contact with them, especially those with more advanced intelligence, may help us leap forward in civilization.”
Regardless of the theoretical debate, scientists have never wavered in the search. “I think we shall call out. As a matter of fact, we have been yelling for years, and our radios and televisions are broadcasting in space all the time,” Mao says, “Aren’t you curious what our counterparts would look like?
“If they are inferior or equal to us in terms of civilization, we won’t be easily destroyed. If they are much more intelligent than us, they wouldn’t be so narrow-minded as to compete with us. Some worry they will come to rob us of our natural resources, but they likely have the power to transform the entire globe already. What’s the point of eliminating a much lower civilization?”
Mao believes the result will be significant however it turns out. “If we find other life, it will undoubtedly be the most important scientific discovery in our history; if not, it shows that life on Earth is unique and we should respect life and cherish each other.
“No matter the outcome, we shall never stop searching, and I hope to hear more voices and contributions from Chinese scientists.”
Scientists: Alien Life Detected on The Sun – Scientists have uncovered missing pieces in alien communication, and these puzzle pieces can be found in light from the sun. In fact, an at home researcher has found alien life in the light of the sun. He has discovered that they use light in order to communicate as well. Have aliens been watching humans on Earth since the beginning of time? Bentlight.com is turning the tables and using bent light to watch and talk to aliens.
How can the sun be used to talk with alien leaders from space, and what is bent light?
Bent light uses frequency and vibrations to talk to aliens. Tuning into a high frequency using water vibrations to bend light from the sun. Bentlight.com explains that the memory of water retains information because sunlight creates a wavelength. Metal is then used to read the light particle form. Once the particle forms are found, photos are taken to capture the images. It’s simply quantum entanglement used to get the space info.
A water bottle can even be used to bend light from the sun and decode alien messages
The light from the sun you and I see is not a simple as it appears. It is actually riddled with alien code. Based on research from bent light experts, a hidden layer is beneath what we see. In fact, a water bottle can be used to bend light and bring the space code from aliens out. What are the aliens saying? Interestingly, the researcher who bends light says he built trust with aliens over time. He says he is getting closer to the truth.
Scientists opened Pandora’s box in space by using the sun to talk with aliens; the apocalypse is upon us
The window into space and time scientists have opened using the sun to talk with alien leaders could have a big impact. A cosmic microwave background was created when our universe collided with another long ago. Finding the threshold could unlock the door to the multiverse. Aliens use light to communicate with one another. And naturally, they travel at the speed of it as well.
Documentary Video: Plans of Grey Aliens for Humans
Documentary Video: Plans of Grey Aliens for Humans
One of the most promoted types of aliens in paranormal, New Age, and ufological communities are Grey aliens, which also referred as Grays, Greys, or Roswell Greys. Around 50 percent of alien encounters in the U.S. involve Grey aliens. The origin of the idea about the existence of Greys can be attributed to the Betty and Barney Hill abduction claim.
Greys are usually described as small humanoid beings with dark grey skin. They possess reduced or completely lack external human organs, such as sex organs, ears, or noses. They have elongated bodies with small chest without muscular definition or visible skeletal structure. Their legs are shorter than average humans, and their limbs are proportionally different from humanity. Their humerus has the same length with their forearms. The same goes with their thighs and shins when it comes to length.
Greys have large heads in proportion to their bodies. They have no visible hair anywhere on the body. Their mouths are small, but they have large opaque black eyes without discernible iris or pupil. Other witnesses reported Greys as having no nostrils or mouths. Their height could be anywhere from 2 to 4 feet.
Alien abduction claims commonly include Greys, which make up approximately 90 percent in Canada, 67 percent in Brazil, and 50 percent in Australia. Abductees typically determined leaders of their abductors by their demeanor. Some abduction researchers and ufologists suspect taller Greys are the only Grey type to be biologically alive and that the smaller ones are just robots acted as servants.
UFO Fan Disappears Without A Trace – Leaving Coded Writings In His Room VIDEO!
UFO Fan Disappears Without A Trace – Leaving Coded Writings In His Room VIDEO!
The mysterious disappearance of a UFO enthusiast in Brazil causes speculations of alien abductions. Bruno Borges left behind a locked room full of coded writings and bizarre photos of extra-terrestrials. The internet is convinced that Borges has been either nabbed by the Men in Black or aliens after he suddenly disappeared without telling his family.
A video inside the room of Borges shows notebooks with cryptic writings on the covers and symbols apparently associated with pentagrams.
Bruno’s relatives said that he did not reveal details of what he was working, but hinted that he was into writing a series of books, which, according to Bruno, would change humanity in a good way.
The family had not yet received substantial information on what has happened, according to Father Athors Borges, who also said that they tried to call him on his mobile phone, but it was off.
The family said that this is the first time Bruno disappears without a trace. Athors stated that his son did not take anything and he was leaving their home the last time they saw him.
A new documentary captures the comedy and tragedy of Christo Roppolo, a man who's been seeing UFOs since he was 8.
Christo Roppolo was eight years old when he was contacted by aliens for the first time.
He was at home with his younger brother when a creature that looked like Bullwinkle emerged from a glowing ambulance and pressed itself against the window of his bedroom. When he regained consciousness, his parents were in the room arguing with one another and his younger brother had smeared soiled diapers all over the living room window, as if in attempt to keep something out.
"[The alien] told me it was going to give me a little bite on the nose, but when I woke up everything would be okay," Roppolo told Motherboard. "For a long time after that, I didn't even want to go to sleep, but as a kid I didn't place too much significance on what had happened. As I got older, I started to realize that it wasn't just a dream."
Today, Roppolo is 57 years old and resides in Monterey, California, an idyllic coastal city about 6 hours north of Los Angeles. Although thousands of miles and five decades separate Roppolo from his childhood home in the suburbs of Cleveland, the extraterrestrial encounters never stopped. But instead of freaking out that the aliens were trying to contact him, Roppolo did what any filmmaker would do—he grabbed his video camera and started shooting his encounters.
When Roppolo reached out to Justin Gaar, a filmmaker newly arrived in Los Angeles, he had dozens of hours of UFO footage he had filmed around Monterey. Roppolo was trying to make a movie out of this footage, but was dissatisfied with the cut that had been given to him by his previous editor. He found Gaar through the friend of a friend who worked as a sales rep at the company from which Roppolo would order synthesizers to make his otherworldly electronica music.
"I honestly watched maybe an hour's worth [of Roppolo's footage] and was like what is this?" Garr told Motherboard. "It's really just hours and hours of him going 'what the fuck is that fucking shit?' and pointing at blinking dots in the sky. My mind wasn't entirely open to what it was."
Garr told Roppolo he didn't see anything in the footage and made some suggestions for how he could improve his filmmaking, but didn't really anticipate getting involved in the project. Yet as Garr continued to received new footage from Roppolo, some of it featuring himself, he was eventually persuaded to meet with Roppolo in Los Angeles to discuss his UFO sightings.
It's their experiences together that make up the footage of Gaar's latest film, Curse of the Man Who Sees UFOs, which was released on Tuesday.
"We went to dinner and the whole time [Roppolo] is looking up at the sky for stuff," said Garr. "He'd keep talking about UFOs and aliens as if they're right there with us in the room. The he told me about his family and I knew there was a narrative here."
Roppolo's troubled past really began when his dad was killed in a drunk driving accident while Roppolo was working his way through culinary school. His father was the only person Roppolo ever felt close to in his family and was the person who had originally sparked his passion for filmmaking when he took Roppolo to see the Godfather in theatres.
"He'd keep talking about UFOs and aliens as if they're right there with us in the room. The he told me about his family and I knew there was a narrative here."
After the accident, Roppolo and his brother came into a significant sum of money as a result of the settlement. His brother squandered it on land in the American south and soon went bankrupt. Roppolo spent a portion of his money on filmmaking equipment and with $10,000 produced his first major film, a remake of the classic 1964 gore film, The Flesh Eaters.
The film was decently well received, but shortly after its release Roppolo learned that his brother had stolen $129,000 from his bank account and disappeared. Amazingly, this would soon turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg on Roppolo's downward slide.
After a series of increasingly tragic events, Roppolo's life was a mere fragment of what it had been only a decade before—and that's when the UFOs really started showing themselves to him.
"[The frequency of their appearances] depends on whether or not I'm signaling them," Roppolo explained. "That's something I just started doing after studying the footage I had on camera and saw [the UFOs] were blinking at each other. If you signal them with prime numbers and do it in sets of three, they'll show up."
Yet for Gaar, there seemed to be a different sort of connection between the sightings.
"Whenever [Roppolo] was having emotional trauma in his life, it was always reflected in his ability to find the UFOs," Gaar said. "I sort of hypothesized that maybe some of this is psychological, but then also I don't know what the fuck that stuff is that he's videotaping. Some of it you can immediately write off and some of it is really hard to reason through."
Although Gaar was only able to find breaks from work to visit Roppolo on occasion during the two years it took to film Curse of the Man Who Sees UFOs, he was still treated to a few UFO sightings himself. The strangest sighting, which is detailed in the film, is still inexplicable to Gaar and he has little interest in trying to get to the bottom of it.
"I didn't end up pursuing this, but I had a theory about a couple of the sightings," said Gaar. "There are military installations near [Roppolo] and Lockheed Martin's Skunkworks—a pretty secret experimental aviation place—is located only so far south of Monterey. So I was going to get kind of scientific with it, but decided not to. The film was never about that."
After everything is said and done, Curse of the Man Who Sees UFOs is a documentary that is less about unidentified flying objects than the man who spends his nights looking up at the cosmos. Remarkable for the depth of its comedy and tragedy, it is one of the most poignant documentaries to be released this year. Although Gaar remains a skeptic about UFOs and leaves the legitimacy of the sightings up to the viewer to decide, for Roppolo there was never an option not to believe.
"Until the last breath of my life I will be making sure that people know this is no bullshit," Roppolo said. "From the bottom of my heart: it's all real."
It's a stellar time to be someone who knows that the truth is out there, and to trust absolutely no one.
Around this time last year, amateur Freedom of Information Act enthusiast John Greenewald, Jr. uploaded 130,000 pages of formerly classified documentation on the US Air Force's UFO investigations between 1947 and 1969. On Sunday, the CIA itself followed suit—sorta—by highlighting a handful of documents related to its own UFO projects, mostly in the 40s and 50s. Why? Apparently even the feds are stoked on the new season of The X-Files, which premiered on Monday.
There are tons of curiosities in the CIA's collection of UFO documents , including some referring to the persistent efforts of famous UFO truthers, including Major Donald Keyhoe and chemical engineer Leon Davidson, to declassify CIA documents on UFOs in the 1950s. Also buried in the pile are instructions for how to take a photo of a UFO for analysis.
The instructions are from 1960, which makes some of the tech outdated, but I was able to enlist the help of Vice Canada intern and digital photo whiz Jake Kivanc to walk me through how to make the CIA's advice worktoday.
This means setting your camera so that you can pull in as much detail as possible, with everything in the image in focus—you don't want to be the person telling anyone who will listen that the black smudge in your photo is a UFO and definitely not just some dirt on your lens.
With a modern DSLR camera, setting your camera to infinity is about the same as it was on an old film camera: turn your lens to the infinity focus point and it should keep just about every object that's a long distance off—including your UFO—in focus. Interestingly, though, some photographers believe that it was actually easier to quickly focus to infinity with a film camera. According to a post on B&H's blog, this is because the focus rings on old lenses would often have a hard stop at the infinity marker, so photogs could set it on the go. Now, lenses with autofocus have rings that often swing right past infinity.
"If you're trying to capture a UFO, it could be difficult if it's spontaneous and you're an amateur," Kivanc said. "If you're a pro or you have it set up on a tripod and are ready to shoot, then it's little issue."
Focusing to infinity should allow you to use a lower f-stop on your camera, which will help collect more light—for some reason, UFOs love to show up at early morning and dusk—while keeping a usable depth of field.
As you can probably guess, film types don't matter at all anymore. "Fast film" refers to film that is really sensitive to light, so you can have a faster shutter speed (letting less light into the lens) and shoot in darker conditions. These days, cameras have ISO settings that push way past what film could achieve. Tri-X was rated with an ISO of 400, for example, and the new Nikon D5 can shoot at well past 3 million ISO.
The slower your shutter speed, the longer your exposure, and the more motion blur you're likely going to have in the resulting image. By choosing a higher shutter speed, you mitigate the effects of blur. In the past, your shutter speed in nighttime conditions might be limited by your film's ISO, for example; go too fast with a low ISO, and you'll get a bunch of dark smudges. But with digital photography, you can crank the ISO up and push your shutter speed comfortably past 100, so the effects of any camera shake or UFO flight will be lessened.
This one's obvious and still holds true today, but to a lesser extent thanks to the advancements that make using higher ISO values possible. Shooting in dim light with a high f-stop and fast shutter speed produces a lot better results when your camera can shoot at 3200 ISO without much concern.
"This would be tougher on a film camera because ISOs were so low and the only way to get the light you need to actually capture an image with high f-stop was to use external flash," Jake said. "That would only work in a boardroom or something, not the Nevada desert."
The next few pieces of advice are as true for digital cameras as they were for the film cameras of the 1950s and 60s.
Obviously, negatives (and making copies of negatives) are a thing of the past, so you really don't have to worry about this. But, it is a good reminder to backup your files on a separate hard drive, just in case you lose your camera's memory card, or your laptop is destroyed or… uhm... goes missing.
Another advantage of digital files over film negatives, in terms of analyzing a photo from the original, is that most digital cameras can shoot RAW files—sometimes known as "digital negatives"—which are really just minimally processed sensor image data. Since these are digital from the outset, analyzers have a great deal of flexibility when manipulating the photo (in an image editor, say) to get more detail out of the shot.
Now, whether you're using your parents' old film camera or the latest DSLR kit, you'll be all set to capture proof of alien life visiting Earth—thank the CIA.
Enceladus' Subsurface Energy Source: What It Means for Search for Life
Enceladus' Subsurface Energy Source: What It Means for Search for Life
By Calla Cofield, Space.com Staff Writer
Saturn's moon Enceladus, imaged by the Cassini probe in 2015.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
A space mission that could hunt for definitive signs of life on Saturn's moon Enceladus looks even more enticing following the release of new evidence that a habitable environment lies under the surface of this icy world.
The surface of Enceladus consists of a solid ice layer that is estimated to have an average thickness of 11 to 14 miles (18 to 22 kilometers), and that covers a massive, liquid-water ocean. The new study indicates that the floor of Enceladus' ocean likely features hot water vents, similar to the ones that host lush ecosystems at the bottom of Earth's oceans. The alien ocean also features a type of molecule frequently used as a food supply by life-forms on Earth, the study said.
Drilling into the icy surface of Enceladus to get a direct look at potential deep-sea environments would be incredibly difficult, even if it didn't involve sending equipment halfway across the solar system, experts have said. But such a costly and elaborate mission might be entirely unnecessary, because Enceladus is giving "free samples" of its underwater ocean through the plumes that erupt from the moon's icy surface, said Morgan Cable, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. [Saturn’s Moon Habitable? Molecular Hydrogen Found in Enceladus’ Plume | Video]
Cable is part of a team of scientists putting together a proposal for a mission designed specifically to look for signs of life in Enceladus' plumes. The Enceladus Life Finder (ELF) proposal will be submitted to NASA later this month, along with other proposals that the agency will consider for its next New Frontiers planetary science mission. Previous missions in the New Frontiers program have included the Juno probe to Jupiter and the Osiris-Rex mission that will return a sample of an asteroid to Earth.
Into the plume
The Cassini probe, designed to study the entire Saturnian system, has flown through Enceladus' geyser plume seven times. Its most recent pass through the plume, in October 2015, is the subject of the new research paper. Cassini detected molecular hydrogen (H2), which the authors of the new paper think formed through interactions between hot water and rock. This supports the idea that the floor of Enceladus' ocean hosts hot-water geysers like those found on the bottom of Earth's ocean, the researchers said.
This artist's illustration depicts the possible interior of Saturn's moon Enceladus, based on observations by the Cassini probe.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Molecular hydrogen is also an ideal food source for many microbes and bacteria, NASA scientists said in a statement. Breaking apart the two hydrogen atoms releases energy stored in the bond between them, like a veritable energy piñata. Molecular hydrogen bonds are particularly easy to break, so their energy content is readily available to many life-forms.
"Combined with our knowledge that there's an ocean under Enceladus, that it's salty, that it contains organics and mineral interactions — these are all other discoveries that Cassini has made — when you put that on top of this, it really completes the case for the ocean being habitable or being able to sustain life," Jonathan Lunine, a professor of physical sciences at Cornell University in New York and one of the co-authors on the paper announcing the new discovery, told Space.com.
Cassini has revealed a wealth information about Enceladus' subsurface ocean, but the moon's plumes were first discovered in 2005, eight years after the Cassini probe launched toward Saturn, so Cassini's instruments were not specifically designed to study these plumes or search for life there. (Thankfully, the spacecraft came equipped with two instruments that could collect samples from the plumes, including one instrument called a mass spectrometer, which is used to determine the chemical makeup of a material.)
"'Cassini was not designed to be a seafaring mission,'" Cable said, quoting Linda Spilker, current project scientist for the Cassini mission as well as the project scientist for the ELF mission concept.
"We had no idea that the plume of Enceladus existed back then," Cable said. "Now … we have a much better idea of what instruments we should bring to be able to taste those key molecules present in the plume, to better understand habitability and to look for life."
ELF would look for life first by detecting molecules that are formed by biological processes, and then by comparing the ratios of those different molecules, Cable said. Those ratios are different when life is present, she said.
"We believe our payload can do the job," Cable said. "Now, of course, if there's only one microbe in the entire ocean, that's not going to be something that's easy to find. So, we've based our assessment on what we think are realistic assumptions and data we have on ocean environments here [on Earth] that we think are representative of what a hydrothermal ecosystem will be on Enceladus. … If there is a community of life there, ELF will find it." [See Enceladus' Geysers in Action (Video)]
Free samples
NASA may have a second opportunity to sample a plume from an icy world. New results from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that Jupiter's moon Europa may also be periodically spewing plumes of water into space from its subsurface ocean. Signs of the plumes have been spotted for a second time by Hubble, but the scientists behind the result said they were still hesitant to declare a definitive discovery.
NASA's Europa Clipper mission is set to launch in the early to mid-2020s and study the icy moon from orbit. It's possible the probe could sample Europa's plumes (if they exist), agency officials said.
That scientists do not need a lander to search for life on Enceladus, and perhaps on Europa, is a major draw of sending dedicated missions to those places, said Lunine, who is also principal investigator on the ELF mission concept.
"We don't have to build a mission to land [on Enceladus], to drill, to melt [the ice]," he said. "The next mission should fly through the plume repeatedly with modern mass spectrometers. With that [mission], we can test for the molecular signatures of life. And we can do it for an amount of money that is much, much less than [the cost of] Cassini."
The price cap on proposals to the NASA New Frontiers mission is $850 million, not including the cost of launch and operations. (For comparison, Cassini's price tag is about $3.2 billion.) ELF was previously submitted to NASA's Discovery mission program, which has a lower cost cap. Cable said at least one other team is expected to submit a proposal for an Enceladus mission to the NASA New Frontiers call for proposals.
"Enceladus is … spewing free samples into space. All we have to do is fly by and get it," Cable said. "These opportunities don't come along every day. If we are able, just by tasting some key molecules in that plume, to definitively say that we are not alone, I think that kind of revolutionary discovery is worth $850 million."
Austrian witness videotapes unknown lights in night sky
Austrian witness videotapes unknown lights in night sky
An Austrian witness just outside of Lower Austria reported watching and videotaping three slow moving, bright objects in the sky that made no sound, according to testimony in Case 82239 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.
Still image from the witness video.
(Credit: MUFON)
The witness was driving home with two friends on January 4, 2017, when the incident began.
“During the drive, we spoke almost nothing,” the witness stated.“It was about 10:30 p.m. and completely dark. Then we drove a path that was very deserted and also secluded. Without having thought something, I looked up into the dark sky and all of a sudden I saw three very bright light objects that floated very slowly, turned in a kind of circle pattern, and remained standing in the air.”
The three were very impressed by the objects and decided to stop and investigate.
Still image from the witness video.
(Credit: MUFON)
“We left the car and I tried with my phone to film these objects. Except for the chirping of insects in the nearby forest and far-away cars, it was deathly silent. So the three light objects made absolutely no noise. Unfortunately, I could shoot the three pulsating light objects on film for only a very short time because I had little space on my phone. And my friend, Franz, unfortunately has an older phone without a camera. Also, Gernot’s phone is older too. I was filming these three objects about 40 Seconds. After this 40 seconds of filming, we watched these three objects about 3-4 minutes before this object then just disappeared. Like turning off a Light. Actually, I’m skeptical about these things before, but after this scary event, I’m much more open to alien things/UFOs/extraterrestrials and so on. I hope that they perhaps can find out what it is/was.”
Still image from the witness video.
(Credit: MUFON)
Wolfgang Stelzig is investigating for MUFON International. . Please remember that most UFO sightings can be explained as something natural or man-made. The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please report UFO activity to MUFON.com.
Editor’s note: Viewers have pointed out there does seem to be a whirring noise at the beginning of the video that sounds similar to a drone.
Yesterday, a gentleman named Mauricio Morales posted some remarkable pictures on the internet that ended up going fairly viral across social media. They were snaps of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs, which does not mean they are extraterrestrial in origin).
That being said, don’t be fooled, there is a tremendous amount of evidence pointing toward the fact that some of these UFOs, whose presence were officially acknowledged within the mainstream using declassified documents and hundreds of high ranking military/political whistleblowers, are indeed extraterrestrial in origin.
There is ample evidence suggesting that many are ‘ours’ as well.
We’ve written about this quite extensively, and if you want to learn more about that and sift through all of the evidence we’ve accumulated over the past 8 years, please visit the exopolitics section of our website here. Another great place to start is with UFO researcher Richard Dolan.
Here’s Morales’ statement on what he experienced from his Facebook post:
“As I was driving back to Phoenix this evening, I was a few miles past Parker, AZ when I saw a shooting star with a green hue in the corner of my eye. I kept driving for a few miles and noticed a small orange light far in the distance to my right. At first I thought that maybe a meteor had hit nearby and set a fire in the desert or possibly a distant antenna light.
I didn’t quite think much of it and continued to drive for another three miles. I noticed that the light was gone. I drove another half of a mile and I saw the light appear again. This is when I realized that whatever this was, wasn’t normal.
I was about a quarter of a mile from the crossing between Highway 72 and Highway 95 between Parker and Quartzsite, Arizona.
I immediately pulled over and attached my camera to my tripod. To my SW direction, there were six orange-red lights floating around in the horizon. Some of them would dim out and then brighten back up, others just seemed to float and hover away slowly. They seemed to travel in a parallel pattern with a very bright fiery glisten. I took photos and videos and in less than 15 minutes, the mysterious objects vanished without a trace.
All of the photographs are timestamped and are not edited whatsoever. The video is slightly cropped for better viewing.
Whatever this was, I have never seen anything like this in my life before. Super cool experience.
*UPDATE* 4/11/17 11:22pm
I have noticed that my cameras clock is set 8 minutes ahead. Which means that the time stamps are all 8 minutes ahead. I also saw a video of the same exact thing but from the opposite end in El Centro, CA. That means that whatever this was, it was visible for at least 100 miles.
ABC15 is reporting that the photos were part of the meteor. They were not. The meteor struck about 10 minutes before I pulled over on HWY 95 and got footage of these lights. The difference in lighting you see in the photos is because I was using different settings to get a more visible photo of what they were.”
Below are a few pictures, but you can view the video Timelapse on his Facebook page.
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UFO Over South Korea Caught By Professional Photographer On April 2017, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Over South Korea Caught By Professional Photographer On April 2017, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: April 12, 2017
Location of sighting: Seoul, South Korea
Source: MUFON #83126 This professional photographer was recording some actors for a TV show in South Korea. When he looked back at his photos two had UFOs in them. The UFO is far behind the people...at least as far as the building or more. How do I know? Easy, the focus of the camera cannot be fooled. The distant objects are blurred, the close objects are super HD clear. So this UFO was big, and far away.
However a concern I have is that this may be an advertising ploy to get more attention for their TV show, since they did mention its name. This remains a possibility. Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
It is really glad that I am writing a UFO report about my resent findings. Last Wednesday, 12th April, one of the our professional photographers took several series of continuous shooting, while taking a promotional poster of our newly launched drama of KBS in central Seoul, South Korea We are really surprised as well as thrilled that we captured a stunning moment that UFO was flying in front of our lens It was clear sky on that day and 7 out of 9 photos seem normal and only 3 of them captured black spots behind two actor and actress. They are attached files : CHA_2648, CHA_2688 and CHA_2689 The photographer has never acknowledged that he captured UFO-like object while shooting and there was no suspicious smell nor sound came out on the shooting site. With the photographer, there were other directors and crews making the drama and they have not acknowledged the fact he took photos of UFO either. We have tried our best what he has taken and what they are, but there was no specialist in South Korea, who is able to investigate the photographed UFO at this moment. We would love you to have a look at those photos and if you find something suspicious, please inform me whether it is really UFOs or not through this email. It is really thankful that your dedication to defining UFO in advance.
Leven op een planeet met twee sterren: dat is helemaal niet vergezocht
Leven op een planeet met twee sterren: dat is helemaal niet vergezocht
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Simulaties tonen aan dat het op zo’n planeet best aangenaam kan zijn.
Lang was een planeet met twee sterren iets uit sciencefiction-films. In Star Wars ziet Luke Skywalker op een dergelijke planeet het levenslicht. Die planeet – Tatooine genaamd – is dor en zanderig. Eigenlijk gewoon een woestijn. En dat is domme pech voor Luke, zo stellen onderzoekers nu. Want op een planeet met twee sterren kan het – als deze op de juiste afstand van zijn sterren staat – ook heel aangenaam zijn.
Simulaties Onderzoekers trekken die conclusie op basis van simulaties. Die simulaties draaiden om het dubbelstersysteem Kepler-35. Dit systeem bestaat uit twee sterren – Kepler-35A en -B – en een gasreus (Kepler-35b). De onderzoekers voegden in hun simulaties een hypothetische planeet aan dit stelsel toe. Deze planeet was ongeveer net zo groot als de aarde en met water bedekt. Ze keken hoe het klimaat op deze planeet was als deze in een periode die varieerde tussen de 341 en 380 dagen een rondje rond zijn twee sterren trok (het effect dat de zwaartekracht van Kepler-35b op de planeet zou hebben, werd even buiten beschouwing gelaten).
DE LEEFBARE ZONE
Een leefbare zone is een denkbeeldige zone rond een ster. Planeten die zich in deze zone bevinden, ontvangen genoeg warmte van de ster om te voorkomen dat eventueel water op hun oppervlak bevriest. Maar ze ontvangen ook weer niet zoveel warmte dat datzelfde oppervlaktewater verdampt. In andere woorden: planeten in deze leefbare zone kunnen vloeibaar water herbergen op hun oppervlak. Ook rond dubbelsterren vinden we zo’n leefbare zone.
Koud Uit de simulaties blijkt dat de planeet wanneer deze tegen het buitenste randje van de leefbare zone (zie kader) ‘schuurt’ met grote variaties in zijn oppervlaktetemperatuur te maken heeft. Omdat zo’n koude planeet slechts een kleine hoeveelheid waterdamp in de atmosfeer heeft, schommelt de gemiddelde oppervlaktetemperatuur over een periode van een jaar met wel twee graden Celsius. “Het is vergelijkbaar met hoe we op aarde – in droge klimaten, zoals woestijnen, grote temperatuurvariaties tussen dag en nacht ervaren,” legt onderzoeker Siegfried Eggl uit. “De hoeveelheid water in de lucht maakt een groot verschil.”
Atmosfeer Anders is het als de planeet een stuk dichter bij het binnenste randje van de leefbare zone staat. In dat geval is de gemiddelde wereldwijde oppervlaktetemperatuur vrijwel constant. Dat komt doordat er in de atmosfeer van de planeet meer waterdamp zit. Het resulteert in een dikkere atmosfeer die de temperatuur reguleert en stabiel houdt.
“Het betekent dat een dubbelstersysteem van het type dat we nu bestudeerd hebben, heel geschikt is voor het herbergen van leefbare planeten, ook al zijn er grote variaties in de hoeveelheid sterlicht die hypothetische planeten in zo’n systeem zouden ontvangen,” vertelt onderzoeker Max Popp. Eggl benadrukt dat het best veel moeite kost om naar potentieel leefbare planeten te zoeken. “Dus is het goed om op voorhand te weten waar we moeten kijken. Wij tonen aan dat het de moeite waard is om naar dubbelstersystemen te kijken.”
Saturn's adorable UFO-shaped moon, Atlas, gets a close-up
Saturn's adorable UFO-shaped moon, Atlas, gets a close-up
Can a moon be cute? If you're a tiny Saturn moon that resembles a flying saucer, the answer is "Yes!"
Sorry, folks, this isn't an actual UFO.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Saturn's minuscule moon Atlas is one of the smallest among the ringed planet's massive collection that includes dozens of satellites. NASA's Cassini spacecraft snapped some new images of Atlas on Wednesday from a distance of just 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers) away, giving us our closest look at the goofy little moon.
Atlas is just 19 miles (30 kilometers) across. Compare that to Saturn's largest moon, Titan, which is 3,200 miles (5,150 kilometers) across. Atlas has a distinctive central bulge, leading NASA to give it the "flying-saucer" moon nickname.
Atlas has made cameo appearances in Cassini pictures before, where it can be seen hiding in Saturn's rings, dwarfed by its much larger brethren. Atlas bears a passing resemblance to another itsy-bitsy moon named Pan. Pan, however, looks more like a ravioli than a UFO.
Cassini isn't long for this solar system. The NASA craft, which originally launched in 1997, is scheduled to end its mission later this year when it plunges into Saturn's atmosphere.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
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