17-10-2017 om 20:51 geschreven door peter  

First Detection of Gravitational Waves from Neutron-Star Crash Marks New Era of Astronomy

17-10-2017 om 18:28 geschreven door peter  

Ex-policeman still says he was abducted by aliens after 37 years

Joe Roberts for Metro.co.uk

Alan’s abduction made national headlines in 1980

(Picture: Cascade/Getty)

A former policeman is still claiming he was abducted by aliens while out on patrol, some 37 years later.

Alan Godfrey’s ‘close encounter’ made him famous in 1980, but it also led to the demise of his career as a copper.

In his tell-all book, the 70-year-old alleges his superiors tried to silence him and get him sectioned.

‘This is the story of secret forces and cover-ups plus terrifying attempts to destroy a brave officer’s career,’ he boldly claims. The ‘abduction’ on November 28, 1980, attracted national headlines. He was even interviewed by Frank Bough on BBC Breakfast.

Alan draws an impression of the UFO he saw while out on patrol

(Picture: Cascade)

Alan says his fame came at a price. He says his superiors banned him from Todmorden police station, effectively ending his nine-year career with West Yorkshire police.

It all came after Alan began investigating a case of missing cows, when he saw a very strange sight – a UFO hovering over his patrol car.

Alan tried to call for help but his radio was dead so he jotted down a sketch of it on his notepad. He experienced 30 minutes of ‘missing time’ and later underwent hypnosis in a bid to retrieve his memories.

And to his horror he says he remembered seeing several small beings and a tall man with a beard performing medical tests on him.

Alan wants his grandchildren to know the truth about that fateful night

(Picture: Cascade)

He said: ‘Someone was determined to stop at nothing to undermine my efforts to tell the truth. It turned into a nightmare and cost me dear but speaking about it is the right thing to do.’

Alan said he has kept quiet about things that happened to him during his time with the police force and the strange events that later unfolded.

After taking ill a year ago, he decided to write down his experiences so his grandchildren could know the truth.

‘This book tells it like it is – everything that occurred but which someone did not want you to read,’ he said.

Alan said the UFO was the size of a double decker bus and seemed to be rotating, then suddenly the object vanished and he was 30 yards further down the road.

The case of Alan’s ‘missing 30 minutes’ is one of the most famous ‘alien abductions’ this side of the pond

(Picture: Getty)

‘When you see something like that out of nowhere and you feel strange sensations and hear messages coming into your head then you know this is not just a routine police patrol.’

He drove back to the scene and discovered the road was dry despite it having rained. A bus travelling on the road stopped and the driver got out and noticed the same thing.

Alan said it got much weirder after that when images of strange beings and medical experiments and much more started to reappear.

Alan’s book is called Who or What Were They? as he is still trying to come to terms with what happened.

MORE: Aliens are actually immortal robots, and they’re billions of years old, scientist claims

MORE: The world’s top UFO experts ‘are being murdered, one by one’, conspiracy theorists claim

{ http://metro.co.uk/news/ }

17-10-2017 om 17:42 geschreven door peter  

Couple spot 'UFO' in holiday snap

Mysterious 'UFO' has been captured on video

VIDEO A mysterious 'UFO' has been captured on video circling over a remote country town. Source: SWNS

A baffled British couple has revealed eerie photos of what they claim is a UFO flying over the Cape Verde coast.

The couple, who do not wish to be named, claim they spotted the metallic blue shape when looking back over holiday snaps the next day and had no idea it was there at the time.

“It's just so very strange,” the man said.

"I remember on the day it was so beautiful and we were taking pictures of the scenery.

"I was just looking back through my photos after the holiday and I looked at this one, pointed at the object in the centre, and said 'what on earth is that?’.

The British couple were on a tour in Africa when they took this photo.

Photo: Caters News

"I suppose it looks like a black dot in the background. We just couldn't figure out what it was exactly."

The woman says she had no idea the 'UFO' was in the sky at the time because when she was there she was too busy looking out into the sea, and there were no obvious signs of overhead aircraft.

"What's strange is that I didn't see it at the time because it looked like there were no planes in the sky," she says.

"It was a clear day and it must have been very quick because I didn't notice anything flying in the air at the time.

In a bid to get answers on and identify the mystery object, she has employed the help of a UFOspecialist in an effort to get to the truth.

• Stunning images capture 'UFO' clouds surrounding volcano
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"Some people have suggested that it might be a fly or a drone but I just don't know what it is,” she says.

"I'd just like to speak to some people to get some answers. There weren't any planes in the sky or any helicopters so. It's just so unusual.

"Nobody has been able to tell me what it was. I'm really keen to get it out there to see what people's views are.”

The unidentified object, spotted while the pair were sightseeing on the island of Sal, has a similar shape to a Lockheed SR-71 Jet. The Lockheed 'Blackbird' was a Cold War-era jet but was retired in the 1990s.

The object can be likened to a cold-war fighter jet.

Photo: Caters News

Many conspiracy theorists believe the supersonic knowhow that the 'world's fastest jet' used came from alien technology hidden by the US government.

UFO expert Philip Mantle acknowledges it bears an uncanny resemblance to the Blackbird but says the image remains open to speculation.

"Even though it looks like a 'Blackbird Jet' those aircraft were taken out of service long ago and replaced by more up to date stealth technology,” Philip says.

"But it could have been somebody playing on the beach with a drone or it could have been a tourist aircraft of some kind.

"If I'm honest it looks like either a bug of some sort or simply a piece of air borne debris.

“My experience down the years has taught me that people put forward such photos and say that they observed nothing unusual at the time.

"Then it almost always turns out to have a perfectly rational explanation.”

With additional reporting by Caters News.

{ https://au.yahoo.com/ }

17-10-2017 om 17:12 geschreven door peter  

Na de ‘supernova’ is er ook de ‘kilonova’, waar we al het goud in de wereld aan te danken hebben - HLN.be

Bron: Washington Post; ESO 

WETENSCHAP & PLANEET Wetenschappers hebben ontdekt hoe goud en platina zijn ontstaan. De edele metalen werden uitgespuwd na een botsing tussen twee dode sterren. Voor het eerst heeft de Hubble Ruimtetelescoop ook rimpelingen in zwaartekrachtgolven waargenomen. Dat meldt het Europese Ruimtevaartagentschap ESA.

“Het is de grootste vuurwerkshow in het universum”, zegt een enthousiaste David Reitze van het Califorina Institute of Technology aan de NY Times. Een theorie die al heel lang geleden werd voorspeld, is eindelijk waargenomen. Dankzij een ‘kilonova’ werden goud en platinum de ruimte in gespuwd.

Een kilonova is de botsing van neuronensterren, de gekrompen kernen van dode sterren. Die botsing stuurt een hoge pieptoon naar de aarde, maar ook een rimpeling van zwaartekrachtgolven, zo blijkt. En die rimpeling kon de Hubble onlangs waarnemen.

Het bestaan van zwaartekrachtgolven werd vorig jaar bewezen toen het wetenschappers het geluid van een botsing van twee zwarte gaten konden registreren. Het leverde hen dit jaar de Nobelprijs voor de fysica op. Maar Albert Einstein voorspelde in 1916 al het bestaan van zwaartekrachtgolven. Hij dacht toen al dat die rimpeling het gevolg kon zijn van een botsing van hemellichamen.

Een botsing tussen twee zwarte gaten brengt niets meer voort dan geluid, maar uit een botsing van dode sterren ontstaat heel wat meer. Niet alleen radiogolven en röntgenstralen worden uitgespuwd, maar ook edele metalen, waaronder goud, platinum, zilver en uranium.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

17-10-2017 om 16:42 geschreven door peter  

17-10-2017 om 16:31 geschreven door peter  

With a build-up worthy of Tom DeLonge, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) teased both the scientific and general public for weeks with promises that it was about to make an announcement that would change astronomy as we know it. The wait was over on October 16th. Was it worth the hype?

“For the first time ever, astronomers have observed both gravitational waves and light (electromagnetic radiation) from the same event, thanks to a global collaborative effort and the quick reactions of both ESO’s facilities and others around the world.”

Whoa! Whoa? What does this mean? On August 17, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected a seemingly normal gamma-ray burst from an unidentified source. Almost simultaneously, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Washington State got an alert signaling it had received a gravitational wave signal. (It was later learned that the LIGO detector in Louisiana received the same signal but didn’t report it due to an error.)

Artist’s impression of neutron stars about to collide.

(ESO)

The short burst of gamma rays was also detected by ESA’s INTErnational Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL). That and the other signals helped pinpoint the source of all of the observations — a collision of neutron stars that resulted in a black hole. At that point, thanks to the astronomers’ grapevine, the news was picked up by observatories around the world and about 70 of them aimed their telescopes at the coordinates given and began picking up light, signals and photons of various wavelengths for weeks.

Composite of images of the kilonova

(ESO)

“There are rare occasions when a scientist has the chance to witness a new era at its beginning, This is one such time!”

Elena Pian, an astronomer with INAF, Italy, describes the feeling she and fellow astronomers and scientists had while observing this common phenomenon on their own specialized telescopes. What they all had seen for the first time was a kilonova – a supernova caused by neutron star collision. While one had been detected in 2013 by the Hubble telescope, this was the first time so many were able to observe it and to confirm the theories that such an event can cause both light waves and gravitational waves.

Artist’s impression of the kilonova

(ESO)

“The data we have so far are an amazingly close match to theory. It is a triumph for the theorists, a confirmation that the LIGO–VIRGO events are absolutely real, and an achievement for ESO to have gathered such an astonishing data set on the kilonova.”

As astronomer Stefano Covino describes it in the press release, the sound of backslapping after witnessing the kilonova must have been deafening (and painful). Another scientist and author of one of the papers detailing the discovery, Andrew Levan, described the importance of how the European Southern Observatory (ESO) managed to pull so many telescopes and instruments together so quickly.

“We have entered a new era of multi-messenger astronomy!”

Another artist’s impression of the collision

(NSF/LIGO/Sonoma State University/A. Simonnet)

What next? After the astronomers sober up from the celebrations, they will begin studying the volumes of data collected and attempt to resolve some anomalies, like why the collision didn’t cause a black hole immediately and why were the gamma-rays less intense than expected. Many of the telescopes are now undergoing sensitivity upgrades so they can respond even more quickly and collect even more data when the grapevine lights up again.

In the meantime, ‘Kilonova’ would make a great name for a metal band.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

17-10-2017 om 15:21 geschreven door peter  

NASA Spacecraft captured Ancient Mining Machine on Asteroid Eros?

Eros is an elongated peanut-shaped .asteroid and the first discovered and second-largest near-Earth object with a mean-diameter of approximately 16.8 kilometers and named after the Greek God of Love, Eros.

Eros was one of the first asteroids visited by a spacecraft, the first one orbited, and the first one soft-landed on.

NASA spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker visited Eros first with a 1998 flyby and entered orbit around 2000, and on February 12, 2001, at the end of its mission, it landed on the asteroid's surface using its maneuvering jets.

The above particular image of Eros, taken from the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft on May 1, 2000, at an orbital altitude of 53 kilometers (33 miles), shows, according to NASA, a large rectangular boulder which is 45 meters across.

But is it really a boulder or could it be a sort of ancient mining machine?

Given the fact that data from the spacecraft collected on Eros in December 1998 suggests that it could contain 20,000 billion kilograms of aluminum and similar amounts of metals that are rare on Earth, such as gold and platinum, it is not unlikely that the so-called boulder is an mining machine that has been used by an advanced alien civilization for the extraction of all these valuable metals. 

Image link: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02905

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

17-10-2017 om 15:03 geschreven door peter  

UFO Spotted Augusta, Georgia: A Fact Finding Mission

There are some prominent politicians and celebrities connected to the UFO subject in one way or another. Having witnessed a lot of UFO stories over the years, some people can appreciate their need to weigh a statement they might consider. In other words, they are carefully scrutinising the balances before speaking or writing the incidents for public consumption.

A resident of Georgia took a brief look at the sky during a football game between the Lincoln County Red Devils and the Grovetown Warriors. That night, he saw in the sky something that immediately captured his attention. Moving from west to east at a very slow pace was a wedge-shaped unidentified object that has a triangular shaped light configuration. Such object is visible from the stands. The witness wants to remain anonymous to avoid controversy. He tried to use his mobile phone to record the incident, but his phone became malfunctioned. So, he borrowed whose friend’s mobile phone who had joined him in the game that night.

Later on, the witness forwarded the photo to Donnie Brooke, who is a member of the Georgia Chapter of MUFON. Brooke said the witness told him via phone that he saw a “humongous” object.

Brooke said it would not be possible to make a direct connection between the army base and Grovetown sighting, but noted that Fort Gordon is a place of the U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence. A Chief Investigator Paul Jones told the Baltimore Post-Examiner that he is not surprised to hear of a possible sighting in Grovetown since the Augusta area is full of interesting cases.

According to Brooke, it is common for people to see unidentified objects flying in the sky but fail to report them to any agency or local authorities because they are scared of what others will think. The witness to whom Brooke is personally acquainted with is sure on the sightings, but just do not want to appear his name in the press.

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

17-10-2017 om 14:31 geschreven door peter  

Filmmaker Believes Alien Implant Topic Is Not So Crazy

The subject of alien abduction and the related phenomenon of alien implants often get ridiculed. However, paranormal documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell believes alien implants deserve a serious examination. Many find it hard to swallow the claims that aliens snatched people and return them without their knowledge. In addition to the claims, aliens allegedly put implants inside the abduction victims.

Corbell initially thought that documenting a surgery to remove an alien implant was way outside of his scope of knowledge or interest. It seemed too wild for him to put his mind around. However, Corbell decided to do it after his friends asked him to do so.

One of the main characters in the documentary film is paediatric surgeon Roger Leir, who is also an alien implant specialist.

Incidentally, Leir believed the idea of removing a suspected alien implant was ridiculous, but when he removed the object, he saw something he had not seen before. He started to think that the topic was fascinating. He then removed or help the removal of dozens of objects before passing away in 2014.

Corbell said that Lier died while he was putting together his documentary. However, Corbell revealed that it was not Leir that convinced him the implant phenomenon might be real. According to Corbell, it was the patient that changed his opinion.

Corbell referred the man as patient 17, who he described as an average guy of above average height – six foot nine.

The patient, according to Corbell, is a very down to earth person. Corbell revealed that experts had interpreted the data of the extraordinary object from test results as being made off-world.
He is convinced that this thing is bizarre but admits more testing has to be done.

17-10-2017 om 14:03 geschreven door peter  

Unusual Lights Appear In the Dark Sky Over Katy

Extra-terrestrials appear to have been checking the traffic jams in Katy, Texas. A person caught a cell phone video of multiple strange lights in the sky as he drove along Hyw 99 Grand Parkway north towards I-10 and Highland Knolls. The video initially shows three mysterious lights flying close to each other. Moments later, the fourth light emerges on the screen.

According to the driver, he was going home around 8:20 pm on September 18 when he noticed the lights in the night sky. The eyewitness noted that there is no airport in the area where he saw the strange aerial things flickering in and out. He said that the fourth one flicked into the video after one light disappeared.

The driver initially thought they might have been flares, but he saw the last light moved at a fast rate to the east at a 90-degree angle until it reached beyond the tree line and disappeared.

The eyewitness reported the sighting to Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) along with the video taken in Katy.

The sighting is still under investigation. MUFON encourages anyone to report own UFO sightings to their website.

Full video:

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

17-10-2017 om 14:00 geschreven door peter  

Gravitational Waves Detected from the Same Cosmic Event

This is the longest gravitational wave signal ever detected.

By Peter Hess

Astronomers have seen evidence of a handful of gravitational waves in the past two years, but this week they announced that they saw something they’d never seen before.

Two neutron stars colliding is what researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory — LIGO — saw this summer, news they revealed on Monday.

In an ongoing collaboration with the Virgo Observatory in Italy, the United States-based LIGO detected a prolonged signal that was different from previous black hole mergers they’d detected. This one, which occurred on August 17, was much higher frequency and lasted much longer. It turns out the signal came from two neutron stars circling each other before colliding about 130 million light-years from Earth.

The collision sent out gravitational waves in every direction, rippling spacetime. The merger also emitted a flash of gamma rays, which Earth- and space-based detectors caught. Here’s what scientists envision the collision looked like:

“While earlier detections of the black holes that we’ve made … only lasted for us a couple of seconds or much less, this neutron star inspiral lasted for over a minute,” LIGO spokesperson David Shoemaker told reporters on Monday.

The reason for this longer detection is that neutron stars, the smallest, densest stars known to exist, are much lighter than black holes. Whereas the merging black holes that created earlier gravitational wave detections were many times larger than the sun — the first detection in 2015 involved black holes of 29 and 36 solar masses — the neutron stars involved in this latest detection were only about the mass of the sun or maybe twice the mass of the sun.

As a result, this binary neutron star system emitted gravitational waves at a higher frequency, a frequency that Earth-based detectors could measure more easily.

“The result is that we can see the system for some 1,500 complete cycles of these two objects around each other,” said Shoemaker. “It gives us a chance to get a very precise measurement of the parameters of the system.”

Here’s how the latest detection compares to previous ones:

This prolonged signal came to Earth from the region defined by the Hydra Constellation. Scientists figured out where the gravitational waves came from by comparing the times when the signals hit the three different detectors involved: the Virgo Observatory detector in Italy, the LIGO detector in Louisiana, and the LIGO detector in Washington. Here’s what it looked like:

The miniscule differences in detection times helped astronomers discern where the waves emitted from originally. The next steps will be to figure out what exactly happened to the neutron stars after they collided.

“We don’t exactly know what happened to the objects at the end,” said Shoemaker. “We don’t know whether it’s a black hole or a neutron star, or perhaps something else.”

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

17-10-2017 om 01:08 geschreven door peter  

Gravitational waves plus new clues from space reveal new way to make a black hole

For the first time, two neutron stars are caught in the act of colliding

Date:

October 16, 2017

Source:

Penn State

Summary:

For the first time, scientists have detected both gravitational waves and light shooting toward our planet from the birthplace of a new black hole created by the merger of two neutron stars. The discovery marks the beginning of a new era of    

Artist impression of gravitational waves generated by binary neutron stars.

Credit: R. Hurt, Caltech/JPL

For the first time, scientists worldwide and at Penn State University have detected both gravitational waves and light shooting toward our planet from one massively powerful event in space -- the birth of a new black hole created by the merger of two neutron stars. This detection is important because it marks the beginning of a new era of "multi-messenger" as well as "multi-wavelength" space exploration -- an era when gravitational-wave detectors are triggering a global network of other types of instruments to focus their special detection powers simultaneously on one fleetingly explosive point in space.

All the previous gravitational-wave detections since the first in September 2015 had been the result of two merging black holes -- objects much more massive than a neutron star -- which have left only gravitational waves as fleeting clues of their merger. "The evidence that these new gravitational waves are from merging neutron stars has been captured, for the first time, by observatories on Earth and in orbit that detect electromagnetic radiation, including visible light and other wavelengths," said Chad Hanna, assistant professor of physics and of astronomy & astrophysics and Freed Early Career Professor at Penn State. Hanna has served as co-chair of the Compact Binary Coalescence Group of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), and is one of the primary data analysts involved in this research.

"Several graduate students and post-docs on my Penn State research team were among the first in the world to see the alert triggered by LIGO when this new gravitational wave arrived," Hanna said. "Cody Messick -- a graduate student -- sent the first email to the broader collaboration notifying everyone of what had happened." Penn State's LIGO team, along with other members of the LIGO and Virgo collaborations, quickly alerted a worldwide network of observatories whose scientists then commandeered their telescopes and other detectors to look for more evidence. "Because we now have three gravitational-wave detectors -- the two LIGO detectors in the United States plus the Virgo detector in Europe -- we were able to triangulate the location of the source of the waves sufficiently well for several observatories to find the counterpart" Hanna said.

NASA's Swift, Hubble, Chandra and Spitzer missions, along with dozens of ground-based observatories, later captured the fading glow of the blast's expanding debris. Numerous scientific papers describing and interpreting these new observations are being published in Science, Nature, Physical Review Letters and The Astrophysical Journal. Penn State scientists are leaders and innovators in many of the scientific collaborations contributing to these new multiwavelength discoveries. Penn State has earned a reputation rivaled by only a few other educational institutions for the breadth and depth of the contributions its scientists have made and are continuing to make in discoveries that enrich our understanding of the universe and its effect on our planet.

"We applaud this latest achievement of our many Penn State scientists and students who have helped to build and are helping to develop this innovative new technology and its system of international collaboration among many research teams worldwide," said Nicholas P. Jones, Penn State's Executive Vice President and Provost. "With their knowledge, skills, and creativity, our scientists are contributing to the evolution of this new way of exploring the universe."

Penn State scientists are leaders in the development and operation of NASA's Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer satellite. Two of Swift's three instruments were built with Penn State leadership, and Penn State continues to lead Swift's Mission Operations Center, which is located on the University Park Campus. "Swift's rapid response time enabled us to use it to rapidly search for and detect the electromagnetic counterpart of this gamma-ray burst after its detection by LIGO," said Jamie Kennea, associate research professor of astronomy and astrophysics, the leader of the Swift Science Operations Team at Swift's Mission Operations Center, located at Penn State's University Park campus.

"We saw ultraviolet light resulting from this gravitational-wave event as part of Swift observations of almost 750 different locations in the sky. Then, as this light rapidly faded from view, we intensely observed it with Swift's ultraviolet/optical telescope, the UVOT," Kennea said. "Because ultraviolet light from objects in space can be detected only by telescopes located outside Earth's atmosphere, Swift's UVOT telescope provided unique data on this event. These new data now present new questions for theorists to solve."

Penn State astronomers also are among the leaders in the development and use of NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory. Gordon Garmire, Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics, is the principal investigator of the team that built one of the primary instruments on board the satellite. He also is a co-discoverer of high-energy gamma rays and is responsible for developing many of the data-analysis algorithms used today in high-energy astrophysics.

Penn State's Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, directed by Eberly Professor of Physics Abhay Ashtekar, includes Penn State's Center for Particle and Gravitational Wave Astrophysics, where leading scientists in both theoretical and experimental physics collaborate. The center's faculty are prominent participants in eight major international projects that are making rapid-response observations -- using extremely high-energy protons and nuclei, neutrinos, gamma-rays, X-rays and gravitational waves -- as quickly as possible after gravitational waves are discovered by the LIGO and Virgo detectors. These projects are the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer satellite, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory, the Laser Interferometric Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational-waves (NANOGrav) and the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) TeV gamma-ray detector.

Long before it was possible to detect gravitational waves, highly respected theories about the kinds of evidence that two merging neutron stars could produce were developed by Peter Mészáros, Penn State's Eberly Family Chair in Astronomy & Astrophysics and Professor of Physics, together with his colleague Martin Rees. "Our theories predicted that neutron star binaries, which would inevitably merge as they emit gravitational waves, would produce a short and distinctive burst of gamma rays at the moment of their merger," Mészáros said. "Previously, as anticipated, gamma ray detectors had observed bursts of gamma rays such as were expected from neutron star mergers. However, we never before have had the important independent confirmation of the merger of two neutron stars that we now have obtained with this new gravitational wave detection. For the first time, exactly the evidence we needed has been provided by the gamma-ray detections that coincided with this new gravitational-wave burst."

The scientists now have not only gravitational-wave detectors but also a wealth of other types of observatories collaborating in this effort to capture a range of multimessenger signals from the sources that produce gravitational waves. "In order to facilitate this effort, Penn State is spearheading the new Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Network (AMON) in our Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos," Mészáros said. These combined detection capabilities give us a much better tool, which we now can begin to use to gauge -- much more accurately than previously was possible -- the age of the universe and how fast it is expanding."  

{ Science Daily }

17-10-2017 om 00:46 geschreven door peter  

ESO Telescopes Observe First Light from Gravitational Wave Source

Merging neutron stars scatter gold and platinum into space

ESO’s fleet of telescopes in Chile have detected the first visible counterpart to a gravitational wave source. These historic observations suggest that this unique object is the result of the merger of two neutron stars. The cataclysmic aftermaths of this kind of merger — long-predicted events called kilonovae — disperse heavy elements such as gold and platinum throughout the Universe. This discovery, published in several papers in the journal Nature and elsewhere, also provides the strongest evidence yet that short-duration gamma-ray bursts are caused by mergers of neutron stars.

For the first time ever, astronomers have observed both gravitational waves and light (electromagnetic radiation) from the same event, thanks to a global collaborative effort and the quick reactions of both ESO’s facilities and others around the world.

On 17 August 2017 the NSF's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the United States, working with the Virgo Interferometer in Italy, detected gravitational waves passing the Earth. This event, the fifth ever detected, was named GW170817. About two seconds later, two space observatories, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and ESA’s INTErnational Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), detected a short gamma-ray burst from the same area of the sky.

The LIGO–Virgo observatory network positioned the source within a large region of the southern sky, the size of several hundred full Moons and containing millions of stars [1]. As night fell in Chile many telescopes peered at this patch of sky, searching for new sources. These included ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) and VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at the Paranal Observatory, the Italian Rapid Eye Mount (REM) telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, the LCO 0.4-meter telescope at Las Cumbres Observatory, and the American DECam at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The Swope 1-metre telescope was the first to announce a new point of light. It appeared very close to NGC 4993, a lenticular galaxy in the constellation of Hydra, and VISTA observations pinpointed this source at infrared wavelengths almost at the same time. As night marched west across the globe, the Hawaiian island telescopes Pan-STARRS and Subaru also picked it up and watched it evolve rapidly.

“There are rare occasions when a scientist has the chance to witness a new era at its beginning,” said Elena Pian, astronomer with INAF, Italy, and lead author of one of the Nature papers. “This is one such time!”

ESO launched one of the biggest ever “target of opportunity” observing campaigns and many ESO and ESO-partnered telescopes observed the object over the weeks following the detection [2]. ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), New Technology Telescope (NTT), VST, the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) [3] all observed the event and its after-effects over a wide range of wavelengths. About 70 observatories around the world also observed the event, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Distance estimates from both the gravitational wave data and other observations agree that GW170817 was at the same distance as NGC 4993, about 130 million light-years from Earth. This makes the source both the closest gravitational wave event detected so far and also one of the closest gamma-ray burst sources ever seen [4].

The ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves are created by moving masses, but only the most intense, created by rapid changes in the speed of very massive objects, can currently be detected. One such event is the merging of neutron stars, the extremely dense, collapsed cores of high-mass stars left behind after supernovae [5]. These mergers have so far been the leading hypothesis to explain short gamma-ray bursts. An explosive event 1000 times brighter than a typical nova — known as a kilonova — is expected to follow this type of event.

The almost simultaneous detections of both gravitational waves and gamma rays from GW170817 raised hopes that this object was indeed a long-sought kilonova and observations with ESO facilities have revealed properties remarkably close to theoretical predictions. Kilonovae were suggested more than 30 years ago but this marks the first confirmed observation.

Following the merger of the two neutron stars, a burst of rapidly expanding radioactive heavy chemical elements left the kilonova, moving as fast as one-fifth of the speed of light. The colour of the kilonova shifted from very blue to very red over the next few days, a faster change than that seen in any other observed stellar explosion.

“When the spectrum appeared on our screens I realised that this was the most unusual transient event I’d ever seen,” remarked Stephen Smartt, who led observations with ESO’s NTT as part of the extended Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey of Transient Objects (ePESSTO) observing programme. “I had never seen anything like it. Our data, along with data from other groups, proved to everyone that this was not a supernova or a foreground variable star, but was something quite remarkable.”

Spectra from ePESSTO and the VLT’s X-shooter instrument suggest the presence of caesium and tellurium ejected from the merging neutron stars. These and other heavy elements, produced during the neutron star merger, would be blown into space by the subsequent kilonova. These observations pin down the formation of elements heavier than iron through nuclear reactions within high-density stellar objects, known as r-process nucleosynthesis, something which was only theorised before.

“The data we have so far are an amazingly close match to theory. It is a triumph for the theorists, a confirmation that the LIGO–VIRGO events are absolutely real, and an achievement for ESO to have gathered such an astonishing data set on the kilonova,” adds Stefano Covino, lead author of one of the Nature Astronomy papers.

“ESO’s great strength is that it has a wide range of telescopes and instruments to tackle big and complex astronomical projects, and at short notice. We have entered a new era of multi-messenger astronomy!” concludes Andrew Levan, lead author of one of the papers.

Notes

[1] The LIGO–Virgo detection localised the source to an area on the sky of about 35 square degrees.

[2 The galaxy was only observable in the evening in August and then was too close to the Sun in the sky to be observed by September.

[3] On the VLT, observations were taken with: the X-shooter spectrograph located on Unit Telescope 2 (UT2); the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) and Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System (NAOS) – Near-Infrared Imager and Spectrograph (CONICA) (NACO) on Unit Telescope 1 (UT1); VIsible Multi-Object Spectrograph (VIMOS) and VLT Imager and Spectrometer for mid-Infrared (VISIR) located on Unit Telescope 3 (UT3); and the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) and High Acuity Wide-field K-band Imager (HAWK-I) on Unit Telescope 4 (UT4). The VST observed using the OmegaCAM and VISTA observed with the VISTA InfraRed CAMera (VIRCAM). Through the ePESSTO programme, the NTT collected visible spectra with the ESO Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera 2 (EFOSC2) spectrograph and infrared spectra with the Son of ISAAC (SOFI) spectrograph. The MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope observed using the Gamma-Ray burst Optical/Near-infrared Detector (GROND) instrument.

[4] The comparatively small distance between Earth and the neutron star merger, 130 million light-years, made the observations possible, since merging neutron stars create weaker gravitational waves than merging black holes, which were the likely case of the first four gravitational wave detections.

[5] When neutron stars orbit one another in a binary system, they lose energy by emitting gravitational waves. They get closer together until, when they finally meet, some of the mass of the stellar remnants is converted into energy in a violent burst of gravitational waves, as described by Einstein’s famous equation E=mc².

More information

This research was presented in a series of papers to appear in Nature, Nature Astronomy and Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The extensive list of team members is available in this PDF file

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and by Australia as a strategic partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

LIGO is funded by the NSF, and operated by Caltech and MIT, which conceived of LIGO and led the Initial and Advanced LIGO projects. Financial support for the Advanced LIGO project was led by the NSF with Germany (Max Planck Society), the U.K. (Science and Technology Facilities Council) and Australia (Australian Research Council) making significant commitments and contributions to the project. More than 1,200 scientists from around the world participate in the effort through the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which includes the GEO Collaboration. Additional partners are listed at http://ligo.org/partners.php.

The Virgo collaboration consists of more than 280 physicists and engineers belonging to 20 different European research groups: six from Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France; eight from the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Italy; two in the Netherlands with Nikhef; the MTA Wigner RCP in Hungary; the POLGRAW group in Poland; Spain with the University of Valencia; and the European Gravitational Observatory, EGO, the laboratory hosting the Virgo detector near Pisa in Italy, funded by CNRS, INFN, and Nikhef.

Links

• Team members
• FAQ (PDF file, 184 KB)
• Fact Sheet (PDF file, 105 KB)
• Science Paper 1: “Spectroscopic identification of r-process nucleosynthesis in a double neutron star merger”, by E. Pian et al. in Nature. (PDF file, 196 KB)
• Science Paper 2: “The emergence of a lanthanide-rich kilonova following the merger of two neutron stars”, by N. R. Tanvir et al. in Astrophysical Journal Letters (PDF file, 843 KB)
• Science Paper 3: “The electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational wave source unveils a kilonova”, by S. J. Smartt et al. in Nature (PDF file, 9 MB)
• Science Paper 4: “The unpolarized macronova associated with the gravitational wave event GW170817”, by S. Covino et al. in Nature Astronomy (PDF file, 230 KB)
• Science Paper 5: “The Distance to NGC 4993 — The host galaxy of the gravitational wave event GW17017”, by J. Hjorth et al. in Astrophysical Journal Letters (PDF file, 2.4 MB)
• Science Paper 6: “The environment of the binary neutron star merger GW170817”, by A. J. Levan et al. in Astrophysical Journal Letters (PDF file, 2.6 MB)
• LIGO press release
• ESA/Hubble press release

Contacts

Stephen Smartt
Queen’s University Belfast
Belfast, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 7876 014103
Email: s.smartt@qub.ac.uk

Elena Pian
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)
Bologna, Italy
Tel: +39 051 6398701
Email: elena.pian@inaf.it

Andrew Levan
University of Warwick
Coventry, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 7714 250373
Email: A.J.Levan@warwick.ac.uk

Nial Tanvir
University of Leicester
Leicester, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 7980 136499
Email: nrt3@leicester.ac.uk

Stefano Covino
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)
Merate, Italy
Tel: +39 02 72320475
Cell: +39 331 6748534
Email: stefano.covino@brera.inaf.it

Marina Rejkuba
ESO Head of User Support Department
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6453
Email: mrejkuba@eso.org

Richard Hook
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: rhook@eso.org

{ https://www.eso.org/public/ }

17-10-2017 om 00:21 geschreven door peter  

ESO Scientists Unveil an “Unprecedented Discovery” About Gravitational Waves

by Brad Jones

 

 ESO

New Wave

Last week, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) teased news of an “unprecedented discovery.” Now, the organization has revealed that, for the first time ever, astronomers have observed both gravitational waves and light produced by the same event.

“This discovery is significant because it gives us two completely different ways to view the same thing,” Brian Koberlein, astrophysicist and Senior Lecturer at Rochester Institute of Technology, explained to Futurism. “Imagine trying to follow a detective show if you could just hear the show without video, or just see the show without hearing it. When you combine the two you get the whole picture.”

Gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime that were first theorized by Albert Einstein about a century ago. Last year marked the first time we’ve been able to observe the phenomena, and so far, all the gravitational waves we’ve observed have been caused by particularly intense events, such as the merging of neutron stars. This type of merger has also been considered the most likely cause of short gamma ray bursts, cosmic explosions that emit massive amounts of light.

On August 17, 2017, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) caught evidence of gravitational waves passing over Earth — only the fifth time such a detection has been made. Just two seconds later, both NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the ESA’s International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory detected a short gamma-ray burst in a similar region of the sky. This quick succession led the researchers to believe the gravitational waves and light were caused by a single event.

Scientists have long suspected that the merger of two neutron stars would be followed by a kilonova, an explosive occurrence some 1,000 times brighter than a standard nova. They speculated that the near-simultaneous observations of gravitational waves and a gamma ray burst could indicate that such an event was taking place, and subsequent study by ESO facilities indicates that this was the case: a kilonova had finally been observed.

“I had never seen anything like it,” Stephen Smartt, who led observations with the ESO’s New Technology Telescope, said in an ESO press release. “Our data, along with data from other groups, proved to everyone that this was not a supernova or a foreground variable star, but was something quite remarkable.”

Rare Occasion

No single facility was responsible for this breakthrough discovery — it was truly a collaborative effort. A large swathe of sky containing millions of stars needed to be monitored after the initial detection of the gravitational waves and light, so a host of different facilities were called into action.

Paranal Observatory’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope and VLT Survey Telescope, La Silla Observatory’s Rapid Eye Mount telescope, Las Cumbres Observatory’s LCO 0.4-meter telescope, and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory’s Dark Energy Camera were all used to observe further developments.

The Swope 1-meter telescope at Cerro Las Campanas was the first to spot a new point of light appearing close to the lenticular galaxy designated NGC 4993. This point of light was monitored by the Pan-STARRS telescope and the Subaru telescope in Hawaii overnight. Even more observatories and telescopes would study the event over the following couple of weeks.

“ESO’s great strength is that it has a wide range of telescopes and instruments to tackle big and complex astronomical projects, and at short notice,” said Andrew Levan, lead author of one of the papers. “We have entered a new era of multi-messenger astronomy!”

This interview has been slightly edited for clarity and brevity.

{ https://futurism.com/ }

17-10-2017 om 00:13 geschreven door peter  

Are we about to get proof of aliens? Clinton campaign chief tweets #TheTruthIsOutThere

UFOLOGISTS believe we are on the "threshold" of learning the truth about aliens after a former lawyer to US President Barack Obama hinted a big announcement about extraterrestrial life was coming.

17-10-2017 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

FLORIDA REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE BELIEVES ALIENS ABDUCTED HER WHEN SHE WAS 7 YEARS OLD AND STILL TALK TO HER

16-10-2017 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

Videos prove an unexpected hit on YouTube channel

Dave Parkinson

A YouTube channel set up by a Cardigan man concentrating on the weird and wonderful has reached its first million views.

The Wonderful World of Weirdness is a platform for all things paranormal, including ghosts, UFOs and all things weird and is the brainchild of John Clarke, from Blaenporth.

The channel had its humble origins back in May 2016 and is now a worldwide success. It was originally set up as a platform to share videos that were shared by people on Facebook.

However it was only in June 2016 when 52-year-old John made his first video and since then has never looked back and has partnered up with long-time childhood friend Julian Murphy, who lives in Carmarthen.

Julian is a musician and author and has now started writing the music for all the videos on the channel.

“I cannot believe how quickly it has all grown and never expected it to be such a success,” said John, who hit upon the idea while caring for his two-year-old child while his partner went back to work.

“I could not bear the idea of just sitting around all day so decided I had to do something. I had a bit of an interest in the paranormal but nothing other than that. I am not one of these paranormal investigators.

“I am self taught and just seem to have a knack of putting together videos that other people seem to like and to get to a million views so quickly is amazing.”

Following on the success of the You Tube channel, John and Julian have also now set up a website www.thewonderfulworldofweirdness.com which you can check out if you are a fan of anything weird and paranormal.

A free download of their single " I'm Weird and I Know It" is available.

{ http://www.tivysideadvertiser.co.uk/ }

16-10-2017 om 23:40 geschreven door peter  

Tom DeLonge Challenging Boundaries of What is Possible.

By Cheryl Costa

Columnist Cheryl Costa discusses Tom DeLonge’s UFO research endeavor, To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science.

TOM DELONGE IN 2012. PHOTO BY A.SAVIN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS.

For decades the UFO community and beyond has wanted to see a good-faith and honest effort to research everything to do with Unidentified Flying Objects. We’ve all wanted to see the topic talked about in a factual way with the specter of mockery and the societal boundaries removed. We’ve all wanted the scientific community to get past the shadow of ridicule, receive funding and get to the theoretical bottom of the unknown physics that UFOs represented — no matter how fantastic.

In 1940, if you were an American high technology student in some of the nation’s best engineering schools and you mentioned to your professor that you were interested in rockets, you were frequently made fun of and dismissed as a crackpot. A MIT professor of the era said, “I don’t understand how a serious scientist or engineer can play around with rockets.”

Of course, that wasn’t the feeling in Nazi Germany. They saw great promise in rockets for their own objectives.

A few years after World War II, Dr. Werner Von Braun and his band of German rocket scientists were working for our government and military community. Von Braun wanted to put a satellite in orbit around the planet by September 1956 or by early-1957. Regrettably, nobody in the U.S. government understood the potential or had the vision to give Von Braun the green light to do it. Why? Well, there were certain touchy Cold War-policy considerations but beyond the politics, there was still the nagging notion that putting mechanisms in orbit still seemed to be the stuff of science fiction and fantasy.

On Oct. 4, 1957, the Russians showed they had the vision and political will to launch Earth’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit. This event woke everybody up in both the science and arts communities. Suddenly, rocket research and outer space came out of the realm of science fiction and became very real, and the possibilities were evident in a few short years.

What we as a society needed at that time were two things: the arts community to dare to imagine the future and share the stories of the possible and the sciences to do rational inquiry and the research to make it all real.

In September 1962, five years after Sputnik was launched, President John F. Kennedy had the vision to challenge the country to go to the moon. Nine years after Sputnik, DesiLu Studios and Gene Rodenberry launched a science fiction television series that has helped several generations to imagine the possibilities of exploring the galaxy; that series was Star Trek.

On Oct. 11, rocker Tom DeLonge presented his much-anticipated, long-promised disclosure announcement. Was it disclosure? This question has caused great ambivalence within the UFO community. Many say yes, and many say no. So let me quote independent investigative journalist Leslie Kean, who put it most clearly:

“Folks, I’m concerned that some of you are missing the point. The head of a secret UFO program at the DOD has just come forward to confirm the existence of that program. Based on the work of this official program, he has stated for the world to hear that UFOs are unquestionably real. He left that program less than two weeks ago. This is as close to official ‘disclosure’ as we have come since the close of Project Blue Book.”

The former DOD official to whom she is referring is Luis Elizondo. So we didn’t get everything, but we did get some disclosure, or as some would say another splash of drip-drip disclosure. It certainly wasn’t the drink from the fire hose that many in the UFO community really wanted.

The principal focus of DeLonge’s presentation was his challenge to take the next step with the launch of “To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science.”

What DeLonge and his team of experts did was form a public benefit corporation with a charter to encourage scientific research efforts related to Unidentified Flying Objects. In addition, this corporate charter has a strong artistic element to this effort, intended to stimulate the cultural imagination to a new level of contemplation of future of possibilities. The objective is to challenge the boundaries of our thinking by inspiring exploration, and imagining and manifesting a bold and prosperous future. DeLonge and his prestigious colleagues are asking people to invest in the project with a stock offering.

This is a new and different approach to the issue of disclosure. They are challenging the UFO community to put their money where their mouths are, so to speak. It will be interesting to watch and follow their progress.

Click here to see Delonge’s 4:30-minute pitch. Click here to see the entire 39-minute presentation.

Note: Neither New York Skies or Syracuse New Times has any connection to the DeLonge project, and this is not an endorsement.

Cheryl Costa will be speaking at the following events in October:

• Oct. 23, 7 p.m.: Connetquot Public Library, 760 Ocean Avenue, Bohemia, N.Y. Presenting via Skype, library will be giving data handouts.
  • Oct. 26, 7 p.m.: Center for the Arts, 72 S. Main St., Homer, N.Y. Speaking in person.

If you have a UFO sighting to report, you can use either one of the two national database services: nuforc.org or mufon.com. Both services respect confidentiality. Follow me on Twitter @American_Skies.

Attention, Central New York residents: Join a monthly MUFON-sponsored speakers presentation and discussion group in Syracuse. Regularly held the last Saturday of the month, it runs from April 29 through October 28, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m, May Memorial, 3800 E. Genesee St. Plenty of off-street parking is available

{ https://www.syracusenewtimes.com/ }

16-10-2017 om 23:18 geschreven door peter  

Miami politician says aliens took her on a spaceship. Now she’s running for Congress.

Miami congressional candidate, Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, speaks in 2009 about her relationships with extraterrestrial beings in an Américan Tevé program. Courtesy of América Tevé

BY ALEX DAUGHERTY AND PATRICIA MAZZEI

adaugherty@mcclatchydc.com

WASHINGTON - Florida has a U.S. senator who once flew aboard the Space Shuttle.

{ http://www.miamiherald.com/ }

16-10-2017 om 23:12 geschreven door peter