Rest easily, Earthlings … the planet is once again being protected. NASA, which has been looking since last August for a new Planetary Protection Officer to protect the planet against threats from other planets and to protect other planets from threats and contaminates being delivered by Earth-launched space probes, announced that the position has been filled. It’s a big job that just got bigger with the discovery of new planets outside of the Milky Way galaxy. Could that be why the previous Planetary Protection Officer retired?

NASA announced the search for a new PPO in August 2017 when the previous Planetary Protection Officer, Catherine Conley, retired after three years on the job. NASA advertised the up-to- $187,000-a year position for a month, then spent four months interviewing candidates before choosing Lisa Pratt, who will step down from her current position as associate executive dean of Indiana University’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Part of the Planetary Protection Officer’s job description?

“The title is not a title anybody should have.”

That doesn’t sound like someone who just got a new job, especially one that all of humanity is dependent on, but Lisa Pratt convinced her new bosses that she’s the right person to handle it. The daughter of a surgeon at the Mayo Clinic, she received a bachelor’s degree in botany from the University of North Carolina and a master’s in botany from the University of Illinois. Then she did what anyone with that kind of education behind them would do … she became a bartender.

Fortunately, a college mentor convinced her to go back to school and get a master’s and Ph.D. in geology, giving her what would eventually be the perfect combination of sciences to become a Planetary Protection Officer. But first, she caught NASA’s attention (and received a $2.4 million grant) with her work on the Greenland Ice Sheet (which is similar to conditions on other planets and moons) to study methane emissions and microbial life there.

The Planetary Protection Officer is responsible for sending clean equipment to other planets

Despite those qualifications, her work experience and encouragement from NASA colleagues, Pratt wasn’t sure she was right for the job, especially since it was located in Washington DC – not exactly a welcome home for scientists these days. However, she received the offer and, after getting the OK from her husband and daughters, accepted the big job. And Pratt knows it’s big.

“I am excited about the opportunity to contribute to the mission of planetary protection at a defining moment in human evolution and the advancement of science. We are on the verge of becoming a spacefaring species, and I feel privileged to be invited into an extraordinary conversation, pushing the frontiers of science, exploration and discovery at NASA. This position plays a direct role in seeking evidence to address a profound question: Are we alone?”

If we aren’t, it sounds like Lisa Pratt is the perfect Planetary Protection Officer to welcome ETs to Earth and assure them we’re not contagious and didn’t mean to send those germs to Mars.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/}

07-02-2018 om 22:00 geschreven door peter  

Space agencies around the world have made great strides in the search for alien worlds lately. NASA, in particular, discovered ten potentially habitable exoplanets just last year with a little help from the Kepler space telescope. While most new exoplanets are not believed to support life or are found to be the complete opposite of habitable, the search for exoplanets continues in the hope that at least one might contain alien life. Or at least some natural resources we can pillage. Up until now, all of the planets we have discovered have been in our own neck of the cosmos: the Milky Way galaxy. However, in a groundbreaking discovery, astrophysicists from the University of Oklahoma have announced they’ve found evidence of the first known planets outside of our galaxy. What could this discovery hold for the future of astronomy?

Albert Einstein predicted these types of discoveries over 70 years ago.

For now, likely not much. The planets are found some 3.8 billion light years away, meaning they’re much too far away for us to know much more about them – at least in our lifetime. The planets were found using a phenomenon known as gravitational microlensing which occurs when light traveling through space is ‘bent’ by immense masses such as clusters of galaxies. When the researchers were studying a distant quasar known as RX J1131-1231, they discovered light signatures which could only be explained by the presence of four exoplanets ranging in size from nearly that of our Moon to that of Jupiter.

The image created by microlensing. The galaxy thought to host the planets is in the center, while the light from several quasars is ‘bent’ around it in a ring.

One of the astronomers behind the discovery, OU postdoctoral researcher Eduardo Guerras, says that while the planets are too far away to really add much to our knowledge of space, at least we now know how to harness gravitational microlensing in the search for alien worlds:

This is an example of how powerful the techniques of analysis of extragalactic microlensing can be. This galaxy is located 3.8 billion light years away, and there is not the slightest chance of observing these planets directly, not even with the best telescope one can imagine in a science fiction scenario. However, we are able to study them, unveil their presence and even have an idea of their masses. This is very cool science.

Very cool science indeed. You know what would be even cooler science? Figuring out a way to reach one of these exoplanets someday and ensure the human race will after the Earth has been reduced to a radioactive lump of coal by a few spiteful old men. When are we going to make that happen?

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

07-02-2018 om 21:46 geschreven door peter  

The official Nevada state motto is “All for Our Country” and the state also has a variety of official and unofficial state slogans and nicknames, including “Battle Born,” “The Silver State,” “Home Means Nevada” (license plate slogan), “Wide Open” and “Nevada: Come Happy, Leave Broke.” While all of those appeal in some way to humans, which one would be best for convincing extraterrestrials to visit (or revisit?) Nevada? Or should it try a new one designed specifically for space aliens? Battle Born But We’ll Cease Fire While You’re Here? The Silver Parts for Your Spaceship State? ET Phoned Home and Nevada Answered? Come Happy, Leave Us Alone?

As part of a program to help the government find them, Travelnevada.com, a website managed by the Nevada Commission on Tourism, has published a travel itinerary it believes will appeal to ETs. As one might expect, it hits the hot spots of UFO and alien activity that appeal to humans as well, so the visitors should be ready to interact with them, especially if they decide to stay at a Bed (or whatever it is they sleep on) & Breakfast (or whatever it is they eat).

The guide begins the recommended trip in Las Vegas, which may be a mistake if the ETs lose all of their money on the first day and have nothing left for souvenirs. Then again, if they’re smart enough to get here, they’ve probably figured out how to beat the Vegas machines and will simply make enough to pay for the trip before moving on to …

Valley of Fire State Park, a red sandstone used to shoot scenes from “Star Trek: Generations.” Then it’s on to the Extraterrestrial Highway (no speeding on Nevada State Route 375 – being an actual ET won’t sway the trooper) and a stop at the Alien Research Center (no giggling) before heading to the place everyone visiting the area stops at …

The nearest rest stop with a bathroom, unless of course ETs have solved that problem. Then it’s time for Area 51 which, like the Extraterrestrial Highway, does not offer special privileges to ETs in human transportation vehicles. There’s probably not much there an ET hasn’t seen already, so the guide recommends eating at the famous Little A’Le’Inn restaurant (ignore the pun – it’s a human thing) and bedding down (powering down?) for the night at the Victorian-era (as if that means anything to ETs) Mizpah Hotel. With the money they saved using their intergalactic ID card for a 20 percent discount, they have extra cash to spend at …

The Tonopah Historic Mining Park (no free silver samples), the Central Nevada Museum and the Tonopah Brewing Co. for beer and barbecue that is out of this world – then again, that could be said of everything they’ve ingested on Earth. At that point, it’s time for the highlight of the tour … a trip to the hometown of …

No, not William Shatner … Art Bell! Art put Pahrump, Nevada, on the terrestrial map and it’s probably on the celestial ones as well. A few more souvenir stops and then it’s back to Las Vegas, where they can get rid of the rest of their useless-at-home Earth money at a casino or a strip club … the robot strippers from the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show may still be in town. Remember to ask for a discreet receipt, perhaps from the Nevada Robo-Research Facility, for the expense report.

Does that sound like a great trip for extraterrestrials? Probably not, but it’s definitely a good one for humans. Just make Vegas the LAST stop and dress nice in case any ETs want you in their selfies.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

07-02-2018 om 21:34 geschreven door peter  

Born in 1921, Air Marshal Sir Beresford Peter Torrington Horsleybegan his career with the British military in 1939, when he boarded the TSS Cyclops, a steamer bound for Malaya. For the return journey, and as the Second World War was declared, he changed ships – to the TSS Menelaus – and eventually gravitated to a career in the Royal Air Force. First as an air-gunner, then as a pilot, and subsequently as a flight-instructor. Horsley was later attached to the Communications-Squadron of the 2^nd Tactical Air Force in France. And, during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, he accepted the job of personal pilot to Major-General Sir Miles Graham. He returned to England in 1947, joined the staff of the Central Flying School, 23 Training Group, and was appointed Adjutant to the Oxford University Air Squadron in 1948.

In July 1949, Horsley entered the Royal Household as a Squadron Leader, and as Equerry to Her Royal Highness, the Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh (better known today as Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II), and to His Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh. In 1952, Horsley became a Wing-Commander and in 1953 became a full-time Equerry to the Duke of Edinburgh; it was a role he held until 1956. His final post in the Royal Air Force was as the Deputy-Commander-in-Chief of Strike Command, which he held from 1973 to 1975. And there’s one more thing: Horsley’s other claim to fame is that, in late 1954, he had a face-to-face encounter with a human-looking alien who went by the memorable and mysterious name of Mr. Janus.

The very strange affair began when Horsley learned of the Duke of Edinburgh’s fascination with the complexities of the UFO puzzle. According to Horsley (in his 1998 book, Sounds From Another Room): “[The Duke] was quite interested. As always his mind was open. He agreed I should do a study on the subject in my spare time; as long as I kept it in perspective and didn’t bring the Palace into disrepute. He didn’t want to see headlines about him believing in little green men.”

With typical British understatement, Horsley said: “At the end of my tour at the Palace, I had a very strange experience.” To say the least!

Sir Arthur Barratt, who worked at Buckingham Palace, as Gentleman Usher to the Sword of State, introduced Horsley to a certain General Martin, who, in turn, put him in touch with a mysterious Mrs. Markham. Interestingly, the English researchers Dr. David Clarke and Andy Roberts learned from Horsley that General Martin “believed UFOs were visitors from an alien civilization which wanted to warn us of the dangers posed by atomic war.” Mrs. Markham who told Horsley to turn up at a particular apartment in London’s Chelsea district on a specific evening, where he would meet a stranger: the aforementioned Mr. Janus.

Horsley said of his chat with the man that: “Janus was there, sitting by the fire in a deep chair. He asked: ‘What is your interest in flying saucers?’ We talked for hours about traveling in space and time. I don’t know what or who he was. He didn’t say he was a visitor from another planet but I had that impression. I believe he was here to observe us. I never saw him again. I have no qualms about the reaction to my experience with Mr. Janus.”

Rather disturbingly, and echoing the claims of so many of the Contactees that the Space-Brothers were concerned by our ever-growing nuclear arsenals, UFO investigator Timothy Good says: “In my second and last meeting with Sir Peter Horsley at his home in 2000, he revealed that, in addition to being disturbed by the realization that Janus was reading his mind, he was even more disturbed by the fact that this extraordinary man ‘knew all Britain’s top-secret nuclear secrets.’”

MI5 building

In light of what Mr. Janus knew, is it possible that this bizarre episode was actually part of some state-sponsored operation designed to ascertain the nature of Sir Peter’s character and his loyalty to the country? This particularly novel and thought-provoking theory was most assuredly on the minds of researchers Clarke and Roberts, who asked Horsley if he considered it feasible that he had been “set up” by MI5 to “test his vulnerability.” MI5 being the U.K.’s equivalent of the United States’ FBI.

Horsley provided the pair with an adamant, “no.” Right up until his death in 2001, Horsley’s position on the overwhelmingly weird experience was rock-solid: “I don’t care what people think – it was what happened. I would say they come from another planet somewhere in the universe but not in our galaxy. They are benign, not aggressive and, like us, are explorers.”

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/}

07-02-2018 om 21:27 geschreven door peter  

Worm uploaded to a computer and trained to balance a pole

Vienna University of Technology

Is it a computer program or a living being? At TU Wien (Vienna), the boundaries have become blurred. The neural system of a nematode was translated into computer code – and then the virtual worm was taught amazing tricks.

C. elegans worms.
Image credits PROZEISS Microscopy / Flickr.

It is not much to look at: the nematode C. elegans is about one millimetre in length and is a very simple organism. But for science, it is extremely interesting. C. elegans is the only living being whose neural system has been analysed completely. It can be drawn as a circuit diagram or reproduced by computer software, so that the neural activity of the worm is simulated by a computer program.

Such an artificial C. elegans has now been trained at TU Wien (Vienna) to perform a remarkable trick: The computer worm has learned to balance a pole at the tip of its tail.

C. elegans has to get by with only 300 neurons. But they are enough to make sure that the worm can find its way, eat bacteria and react to certain external stimuli. It can, for example, react to a touch on its body. A reflexive response is triggered and the worm squirms away.

This behaviour is determined by the worm's nerve cells and the strength of the connections between them. When this simple reflex network is recreated on a computer, the simulated worm reacts in exactly the same way to a virtual stimulation – not because anybody programmed it to do so, but because this kind of behaviour is hard-wired in its neural network.

"This reflexive response of such a neural circuit, is very similar to the reaction of a control agent balancing a pole," says Ramin Hasani (Institute of Computer Engineering, TU Wien). This is a typical control problem that can be solved quite well by standard controllers. A pole is fixed on its lower end on a moving object, and it is supposed to stay in a vertical position. Whenever it starts tilting, the lower end has to move slightly to keep the pole from tipping over. Much like the worm has to change its direction whenever it is stimulated by a touch, the pole must be moved whenever it tilts.

Mathias Lechner, Radu Grosu and Ramin Hasani wanted to find out whether the neural system of C. elegans, uploaded to a computer, could solve this problem – without adding any nerve cells, just by tuning the strength of the synaptic connections. This basic idea (tuning the connections between nerve cells) is also the characteristic feature of any natural learning process

The worm’s natural behavior is very similar to that required in this test.
Image credits TU Wien.

A Program without a Programmer

"With the help of reinforcement learning, a method also known as 'learning based on experiment and reward,' the artificial reflex network was trained and optimized on the computer," Mathias Lechner explains. The team succeeded in teaching the virtual nerve system to balance a pole. "The result is a controller, which can solve a standard technology problem – stabilizing a pole, balanced on its tip. But no human being has written even one line of code for this controller, it just emerged by training a biological nerve system," says Radu Grosu.

The team is going to explore the capabilities of such control circuits further. The project raises the question whether there is a fundamental difference between living nerve systems and computer code. Is machine learning and the activity of our brain the same on a fundamental level? At least we can be pretty sure that the simple nematode C. elegans does not care whether it lives as a worm in the ground or as a virtual worm on a computer hard drive.

 Explore further: 

• A brain chemical blamed for mental decline in old age could hold key to its reversal

More information: Worm-level Control through Search-based Reinforcement Learning:

•  docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid … Q3YjZhZTZiYWJiNDI5NA 

{ https://phys.org/ }

07-02-2018 om 21:15 geschreven door peter  

New research shows that the TRAPPIST-1 planets are even more Earth-like than we thought

BY MIHAI ANDREI 

Researchers from Bern University have performed the most accurate calculation of the density of the seven planets around the star TRAPPIST-1, making them the best-studied planets outside our own solar system. They found that all the planets are rocky and contain 5% water — much more than what Earth has.

An artistic depiction of what the seven planets might look like, based on available information about their size, density, and distance to the star.

Credits: NASA/JPL/Caltech.

TRAPPIST-1, also technically designated as 2MASS J23062928-0502285, is a seemingly inconspicuous ultra-cool red dwarf star. However, astronomers have taken a special interest in it, as it seemingly harbors seven Earth-like planets, several of which have the potential to host life. Now, a new study offers an unprecedented view into the physical and chemical characteristics of these planets.

In order to assess their density, astronomers took advantage of something called “transit timing variations,” a method which has also been used to detect planets. Essentially, when a planet passes in front of a star, it causes a dip in luminosity. By studying that dip, you can identify a planet and its size. But astronomers went even deeper.

“We now know more about TRAPPIST-1 than any other planetary system apart from our own,” said Sean Carey, manager of the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California, and co-author of the new study. “The improved densities in our study dramatically refine our understanding of the nature of these mysterious worlds.”

But while the planets might be similar to Earth, TRAPPIST-1 is extremely small by stellar standards, being only 9 percent as massive as our Sun. In turn, this means that it’s much cooler than our star, and in order for the planets to have Earth-like temperatures, they’d first need to be much closer to the star. This has indeed been confirmed by observation, as several of the planets lie closer to TRAPPIST-1 than Mercury to the Sun. In fact, a couple of them are actually much more illuminated than the Earth, while another planet, Trappist-d, matches Earth near-perfectly in terms of illumination.

This graph presents known properties of the seven TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets (labeled b through h), showing how they compare to the inner rocky worlds in our own solar system.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The fact that the planets have up to 5% water is also an intriguing sign, especially considering that on Earth, water accounts for only 0.02% of the planet’s mass.

However, just because these planets have the right density, structure, and distance from their star, doesn’t make them habitable. It makes them potentially habitable, which is a big distinction.

“Densities, while important clues to the planets’ compositions, do not say anything about habitability. However, our study is an important step forward as we continue to explore whether these planets could support life,” said Brice-Olivier Demory, co-author at the University of Bern.

This illustration shows the seven Earth-size planets of TRAPPIST-1. The image does not show the planets’ orbits to scale, but highlights possibilities for how the surfaces of these intriguing worlds might look. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

For instance, we have no idea how their surfaces might look like. Mars and the Moon have quite similar densities, but they look completely different. It’s tantalizing to think what the surface of these planets might be like, but for now, we just don’t have enough information to make any assumption. The next step will be using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to figure out whether these planets have atmospheres and if yes, what these atmospheres are like.

“Our conceptions of what these planets look like today may change dramatically over time,” said Robert Hurt, senior visualization scientist at the Spitzer Science Center. “As we learn more about these planets, the pictures we make will evolve in response to our improved understanding."

Journal Reference: S. Grimm et al.: The nature of the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 05.02.2018, in press.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

07-02-2018 om 20:56 geschreven door peter  

Scientists find massive quantities of mercury seeping out of the thawing permafrost

BY MIHAI ANDREI 

Researchers found surprisingly large quantities of mercury in the permafrost of the northern hemisphere. As temperatures rise and ice continues to melt, the mercury can be released, with significant consequences for both wildlife and mankind.

Maps of mercury concentrations (micrograms of mercury per square meter) in Northern hemisphere permafrost zones for four soil layers: 0-30 centimeters, 0-100 centimeters, 0-300 centimeters, and permafrost. The permafrost map represents the mercury bound to frozen organic matter below the Active Layer Depth (ALD) and above 300 cm depth.

Credit: Schuster et al./GRL/AGU.

The tentacles of climate change are long and far-reaching. As temperatures rise, it brings along a number of unforeseen changes. Rising temperatures are threatening the oceans, causing more hurricanes, and even causing a coffee crisis. Now, we can add mercury to that long list of problems.

A new study reports that permafrost soils contain more mercury than the rest of the planet’s soils, atmosphere, and oceans combined.

In the new study, geologists assessed the concentrations in permafrost cores from Alaska. They found that permafrost soils contain two times more mercury than soils elsewhere in the world — an unexpected discovery with important consequences.

“This discovery is a game-changer,” said Paul Schuster, a hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Boulder, Colorado and lead author of the new study. “We’ve quantified a pool of mercury that had not been done previously, and the results have profound implications for better understanding the global mercury cycle.”

This wouldn’t normally be a very high concern, but the problem is that temperatures are now rising.

Permafrost in Alaska is thawing, and a new study finds northern permafrost soils are the largest reservoir of mercury on the planet, storing nearly twice as much mercury as all other soils, the ocean, and the atmosphere combined.

Credit: John A. Kelley, USDA Natural Resources Conservation, CC BY 2.0.

Mercury tends to bind with organic material in the soil and gets stuck with that soil. As it gets buried by sediment, it becomes frozen into permafrost, where it can remain for thousands of years. But if temperatures rise, all that can change. When temperatures rise and the permafrost melts, mercury isn’t fixed in place anymore. Instead of being frozen in the permafrost, it can also be transported by waters or microorganisms, or it can slowly seep on its own.

“There would be no environmental problem if everything remained frozen, but we know the Earth is getting warmer,” Schuster said. “Although measurement of the rate of permafrost thaw was not part of this study, the thawing permafrost provides a potential for mercury to be released—that’s just physics.”

Locally, the effects could be dramatic. From microorganisms, things can slowly move up the food chain, and like most toxins, they tend to gather higher up the food chain — and potentially end up on our plates.

The release of mercury could also have far-reaching global consequences. If released into the atmosphere, it could travel quickly at the mercy of air currents, possibly ending up as far as thousands of kilometers away.

But we don’t really know how much and how far the mercury can travel. Scientists are also unsure how much of the stored mercury would affect ecosystems if the permafrost were to thaw.

Schuster hopes to analyze that those issues in further studies.

“24 percent of all the soil above the equator is permafrost, and it has this huge pool of locked-up mercury,” he said. “What happens if the permafrost thaws? How far will the mercury travel up the food chain? These are big-picture questions that we need to answer.”

W5: What happens when the permafrost thaws?

Journal Reference: Paul F. Schuster et al. Permafrost Stores a Globally Significant Amount of Mercury. DOI: 10.1002/2017GL075571.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

07-02-2018 om 20:36 geschreven door peter  

EN RUSSIE, UN OVNI LUMINEUX A FAIT LA JOIE DES UFOLOGUES

YOUSSOUF

Les théoriciens du complot prétendent avoir repéré un OVNI « noir de forme triangulaire » survolant la Russie la semaine dernière

Ils affirment que c’est la « meilleure preuve » de l’existence des extraterrestres jamais enregistrée. Une vidéo montre l’objet mystérieux volant dans le ciel nocturne à une vitesse que les théoriciens du complot prétendent être trop lente pour être un avion.

Mais tout le monde n’est pas convaincu que l’objet soit un OVNI, et certains suggèrent qu’il pourrait simplement s’agir d’un drone.

Un étrange objet volant dans le ciel nocturne russe

La vidéo, intitulée « Un OVNI de type TR-3B a été filmé en Russie – Meilleure preuve à ce jour » a été postée sur YouTube par UFO Today, une chaîne basée en Belgique et qui publie régulièrement des vidéos sur de prétendues observations extraterrestres. La vidéo montre un objet qui vole dans le ciel nocturne, avec trois lumières scintillantes disposées sous forme de triangle, ce que UFO Today considère comme étant potentiellement un OVNI TR-3B.

Dans la description de la vidéo, UFO Today écrit : « L’objet bouge à un rythme très lent, trop lent pour être un avion classique. La vitesse à laquelle cet objet se déplaçait est physiquement impossible pour tout avion construit par l’homme ».

Les théoriciens du complot prétendent donc que l’objet pourrait être un OVNI noir triangulaire – une classe d’OVNI ayant une forme triangulaire caractéristique.

Mais tout le monde n’est pas convaincu qu’il s’agit d’un OVNI

En effet, tout le monde ne partage pas l’avis de UFO Today à propos de l’objet volant observé dans le ciel nocturne en Russie. C’est le cas notamment de Nigel Watson, auteur du « UFO Investigations Manual », qui déclare que :

« La nuit, il est difficile d’évaluer la distance et la taille d’un objet ou des lumières, ce qui rend difficile le jugement de leur vitesse. Comme l’objet semble voler plus lentement qu’un avion, je dirais que c’est un drone avec des lumières. Les drones peuvent planer et se déplacer lentement, avec peu de bruit. Donc, je ne considère pas cette vidéo comme une preuve que des extraterrestres visitent notre planète. »

Alors, OVNI ou pas ? La question reste posée une fois de plus, peut être jusqu’au jour où on verra l’un de ses engins se poser au sol et en sortir des aliens !

{ http://www.fredzone.org/ }

07-02-2018 om 18:13 geschreven door peter  

Intelligence means technology: SETI expert says they’re actually searching for “technosignatures”

 by: David Williams

(Natural News) The term extraterrestrial used to stand for something truly great. Now, as far as the general public is concerned, it has all but lost its meaning. The same applies to the related phrase, extraterrestrial intelligence. Perhaps both terms just don’t roll off the tongue. No matter the reason, it’s quite clear that both words are, for lack of a better term, obsolete. Now, one of the world’s leading experts on the subject has given her thoughts on it, and surprisingly, she wants to get rid of it entirely.

According to Jill Tarter, a world-renowned astrophysicist who served as a former director of the Center for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Research, it’s pretty much high time for the term “SETI” to be changed or rebranded. In her view, it’s a misnomer and could ultimately end up leading people down the wrong path on the search for alien life outside of the planet Earth.

During a recently concluded meeting of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Astrobiology Science Strategy for the Search for Life in the Universe, Tarter said that the term “search for extraterrestrial intelligence” implies something that was simply not remotely possible, based on current understanding of space and, indeed, extraterrestrials. Instead, she proposes that experts use the term “the search for technosignatures” which means to look for signs of old but standing and working alien technology.

Tarter said that it’s important to make the changes to the term “SETI” because of the implications that it sets forth on anyone who happens to come across it, especially those who decided to dedicate parts of their lives to it. “We need to be very careful about our language,” she said during a presentation at the committee meeting last January. “SETI is not the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. We can’t define intelligence, and we sure as hell don’t know how to detect it remotely. [SETI]… is searching for evidence of someone else’s technology. We use technology as a proxy for intelligence.

She concludes: “‘SETI’ [as a term] has been problematic in history, and we should just drop [it] and just continue to talk about a search for technosignatures.”

Based on her comments on the subject, it’s clear that Tarter simply wants to make the distinction that intelligent life outside of Earth would have the capability to develop different kinds of technologies to make their lives easier and maximize the use of their resources. Therefore, it would be useful to search for a certain level of “technosignature” that would be left behind by any sufficiently advanced life form or civilization.

“We have a pragmatic definition for technology, which is the ability to deliberately modify an environment in ways that can be sensed over interstellar or interplanetary distances,” Tarter explained further. “Life does this, but it doesn’t do it deliberately.

One example of a technosignature that signifies intelligent life is the presence of communication signals. In short, if it ever comes to the point where the SETI Institute happens upon an alien communication signal, then that would mean their search is successful. Other technosignatures are waiting to be detected, of course. But unless the focus of experts and all others here on Earth changes from simply searching — somewhat vaguely — for “intelligent extraterrestrials” to actual extraterrestrial with functioning intelligence that can be translated into technosignatures, then perhaps the world would be that much closer to meeting its first non-human life forms.

Here’s hoping that it doesn’t turn out to be a disaster for humankind.

Learn more about the many changes happening in the space industry through Space.news.

Sources include:

• Space.com
• Inquisitr.com

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

07-02-2018 om 17:54 geschreven door peter  

NEW MASS SIGHTING: LARGE GROUP OF UFOS SEEN IN THREE USA LOCATIONS ON SAME DAY

EXCLUSIVE: UFO investigators are looking at three separate sightings of multiple UFOs which occurred in the US within less than eight hours.

Groups of UFOs were seen over three US locations the same day.

“I observed planes in the air and compared them to what I saw and the objects were much higher. “The objects seemed to hover and remain still. One was slowly moving as the others remained still.

“I was able to observe the UFO’s for close to an hour.”

NUFORC said: “Seven observers witness a cluster of at least five tiny white objects that hovered almost motionless in a clear, cloudless sky, for approximately an hour.

“High-quality video footage of the event accompanied the written report.

“Our initial thought was that the objects might have been seagulls soaring in upwelling wind, but the objects do not appear to look, or behave, like birds.”

Express.co.uk showed the video to Scott Brando, who runs debunking website Ufoofinterest.org.

He said he believes they were just a group of helium balloons that had been caught on the wind and were slowly rising away.

The second sighting was at 2.30pm, also on January 13, about 90 miles to the south in Carlsbad, California, when five oval or circular orbs were seen.

The witness was testing out new binoculars.

He wrote to NUFORC: “While I was scanning some edges of a few clouds and some contrails looking towards the west over the ocean around 2.30pm, I noticed one very outstanding whitish looking object, between egg and football shaped but sometimes looking more round and other times having more of a top shape.

The cases are being investigated by NUFORC, but Scott Brando says they were balloons and lanterns.

“I had to assume that possibly the changing viewing angle had something to do with shape change although at times the object seemed to either be vibrating or rotating.

{ alien-ufo-sightings­.com - }

07-02-2018 om 17:33 geschreven door peter  

CONTACTEE CLAIMS OUR MOON IS ARTIFICIAL AND WAS BROUGHT HERE FROM ANOTHER GALAXY

Contactee Alex Collier claims our Moon is actually the interstellar transport ship that was brought here from a distant solar system. It contained an experiment run by the grey aliens and their reptilian masters: our genetically-engineered ancestors.

Fluke or not, most Sci-Fi writers proved to be quite visionary, if not somewhat prophetic. The book “Letters from Andromeda”, the brainchild of Job Robinson and Alex Collier describes a telepathic conversation with alien beings originating from the Andromeda Galaxy. An ancient being called Moraney from the constellation Zenetae, transmitted important information to Collier, questioning the lies spread in our history books.

The Andromedan exposed the deceitful way humans are being ruled, the lies that govern our everyday lives without our consent or even awareness. We are being told nothing about the real concerns of real life, much less about what is actually happening in our Solar System.

Moraney’s biggest revelation pertained to mankind’s true history and a secret base on the Moon. Earth’s satellite carried a vital role in our genesis, but far from any way we have been taught so. The Moon was brought from the constellation Ursa Minor – 432 light years from Earth – to serve as a transport ship for reptilians, human-reptilian hybrids and the first generation of human ancestors to descend on Earth. Our moon made its way in our galaxy dragged by an asteroid that is believed to cross our galaxy every 25,000 Earth years.

Moraney also revealed that our Moon once orbited the 17^th planet of the Chowta star system, home of the Andromedans. What we see today of the Moon, are in fact the remains of a 6.2 billion years-old cosmic vestige called Maldek, a reminder of the ancient war between the tyrannical Grey aliens of the Orion Empire.

According to the information passed on to Collier by the Andromedan, we are here because we were brought here by an ancient extraterrestrial civilization surpassing our Sun in age.

To sustain this daring theory, we need to address speculation. Rumors have it that on the surface of the Moon, lunar missions detected the presence of some unknown chemical compounds, and that discovery was entirely covered up. Collier had his restraints on this matter, but Moraney’s telepathic communication confirmed all doubts:

“The Moon is hollow. It contains huge underground facilities built by E.T.’s and later humans from Earth. There are seven openings into the Moon’s crust, and the underground bases. Conservative scientists have wondered why so many craters seem so shallow, despite their size. The Andromedans say, it’s because much of the surface was built on top of a metallic shell of a circular space crest; or “A War Carrier”, as the Andromedans describe it.”

The craters on the Moon are a solid hint to a trained eye, for their depth does not match a straying cosmic body, but a uniform shape pressing against the layers of lunar dust and rock, but since we are alone in this galaxy, who is responsible for the so called craters? The answer comes from the Andromedan, who tells of cities and spacecraft hangars located on the far side of the Moon, that were destroyed in a war over 113,000 years ago, leaving behind the marks visible from our planet.

The Greys guided the first exploration mission of these ruins back in 1950, when a team of NSA (not NASA!) astronauts allegedly delved into a lunar underground facility the size of New York, right underneath the Jules Verne crater. Inside the facility they found the remnants of a violent battle, seeing pieces of reptilian bodies scattered all over the place.

“When the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon, the World Order had been there for some time,” Collier wrote. "This knowledge and technology was withheld from the lower levels of NASA and our military. NASA has been used as a blind to keep people from truly knowing what was going on there. The astronauts were silenced under threats and remain so today.”

Since then, the World Government maintained a lunar population program starting with 36,000 handpicked people. The colony is estimated to reach 600,000 occupants in the near future.

The leaders of the entire operation are the Greys, but they rarely interfere directly, but rather carry their messages through a group called the Black Monks. Originally human, the Black Monks have been radically modified to serve the Greys’ needs and can “no longer be considered Earth humans.”

The step below in the hierarchy are a group called the Blue Moon, who serve the Black Monks, comprised of American, British, Russian and French representatives. These groups operate and control the moon bases and under their command are two organizations: Alpha One and Alpha Two. Collier had reasons to believe that Alpha One was assigned with gathering resources on Earth and keeping the population unsuspecting.

The Andromedan Moraney told Collier that Alpha Two is actually MJ-12, the infamous organization tasked with recovering and investigating alien craft. If this is true, the organization we believe to be in charge of such covert projects is actually at the bottom of the ladder, and said ladder runs much higher than we previously thought.
To this day, Collier’s allegations have yet to be proven but completely rejecting their implications would be unwise.

The far side of the Moon is forever hidden from view and even if a number of alien bases were located there, we wouldn’t be able to spot them from Earth. But Alex Collier is pretty adamant about his enlightenment and the forbidden knowledge he was blessed with by the Andromedans.

{ https://www.tidiochat.com/}

07-02-2018 om 17:10 geschreven door peter  

Here Are 5 Mysterious Artifacts Which Date Back Millions Of Years

Technically speaking, these artifacts should not exist, and according to mainstream science, they don’t. Yet all around the globe, a set of enigmatic objects have been found that point towards the possibility that advanced life may have flourished on Earth, before the arrival of modern humans, millions of years ago.

Despite this fact, a number of strange, and extremely ancient artifacts have been found all around the globe that ultimately question the human origins and human history.

How long ago did modern humans appear on Earth? Where did we come from? And, is it possible that before the arrival of Homo Sapiens, another different species inhabited Earth, perhaps millions of years ago?

1. Ancient Hammer predating humans.

Let’s take a look at an artifact discovered in London, Texas, USA, in 1934. What appears to be an ordinary hammer is, in fact, a hammer embedded in stone.

What makes this extremely interesting is the age of the object; it is believed to date back 400 million years.  Impossible right?

It is believed that this mysterious hammer originated from rock that belongs to the Ordovician era, more than 400 million years ago. Researchers consider that since the head of the hammer was found embedded into the rock, it points to the possibility that the embedding process was performed under different atmospheric conditions to the current, and different atmospheric pressure more similar to those in the remote past.

According to studies of the Metallurgical Institute of Columbia, the inside handle underwent the process of carbonization, the head of the hammer was built with an iron purity only achievable with modern-day technology. According to analysis, the head of the hammer consists of 97 pure iron, 2 percent chlorine, and 1 percent sulfur.

2. There’s a 290-million-year-old footprint, and it should not exist. Ever.

A rock belonging to the Permian period—some 290 million years ago—has a curious detail on its surface.

Discovered in New Mexico, the Permian Period rock features a human footprint. But, humans did not exist on Earth 290 million years ago, so how’s that possible? Curiously, the Permian (along with the Paleozoic) ended with the Permian–Triassic extinction event, the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history, in which nearly 90% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial species died out. Recovery from the Permian-Triassic extinction event was protracted; on land, ecosystems took 30 million years to recover.

As noted by Dr. Don Patton, the footprint is genuine. If it is, it would mean that hundreds of millions of years ago, a different type of human called Earth their home. Of course, according to scientific evidence, that’s not really possible. The Permian Period was a time way before birds, dinosaurs, and MAN, were supposed to exist.

3. A Giant footprint which makes absolutely no sense.

It’s huge. It’s old. It’s striking.

Located in South Africa, in the vicinity of the town of Mpaluzi, close to the border with Swaziland is a mysterious rock that has an incredible feature.

A massive granite block has a massive footprint embedded on its surface. Geologists believe that the granite block dates back some 200 million years.

This fascinating footprint was discovered over a hundred years ago when a hunter called Stoffel Coetzee stumbled across it in 1912 while hunting in the area. The footprint left behind on ‘rough granite’ measures staggering 4 feet in length.

4. Ok, this one isn’t an artifact, but rather evidence of many artifacts combined on Earth.

Many researchers believe that there are several pieces of evidence pointing towards the existence of highly advanced ancient civilizations that existed on Earth millions of years ago.

According to Dr. Alexander Koltypin, a geologist and the director of the Natural Science Research Center at Moscow’s International Independent University of Ecology and Politology, there’s evidence of million-year-old structures scattered across the globe.

During his long career, Dr. Koltypin has studied numerous ancient underground structures mainly in the Mediterranean and has identified numerous similarities which have led him to believe that many sites were interconnected. But most incredibly, the weathering of the structures together with their material composition and extreme geological features has led him to believe these megastructures were built by advanced civilizations that inhabited Earth millions of years ago.

5. 300 million-year-old screw?

Apparently, we’ve got history all wrong.

What is the chance that there are numerous objects recovered across the globe that date back millions of years? If humans weren’t around at that time, who built them?

According to reports from Chinese News agencies, a mysterious object discovered in 2002 could be evidence of prehistorical civilizations. Tests have failed to show the exact composition of the mysterious rock, researchers that include geologists and physicists from the National Land Resources Bureau of Gansu Province, Colored Metal Survey Bureau of Gansu Province, the Institute of Geology and Minerals Research of China Academy, Lanzhou Branch, and the School of Resources and Environment of Lanzhou College are unsure of the origin of the artifact and point out that at this time, all theories are possible.

According to Lanzhou Morning News; After a discussion about the possibility of being man-made and the possible reasons for its formation, scientists unanimously labeled the stone as one of the most valuable in China and in the world of collections, researchers, and Archaeological studies.”

After many studies, Chinese scientists concluded that the artifact had not been made by contemporary hands or by current technology levels, the most accepted hypothesis is that it is a product of a prehistoric civilization.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

07-02-2018 om 16:54 geschreven door peter  

Dit is hoe de Europese Marsrover buitenaards leven zou kunnen ontdekken

07-02-2018 om 16:27 geschreven door peter  

07-02-2018 om 16:17 geschreven door peter  

VAN ONZE REDACTEUR PETER VANTYGHEM

BRUSSEL ‘Een sprong vooruit van 150 jaar’, noemt Stephen Houston, archeoloog aan Houston University, de ontdekking van een enorme ­Maya-stad in de jungle van Guate­mala, Mexico, Belize, El Salvador en Honduras (DS 5 februari). Het nieuws werd afgelopen weekend bekendgemaakt omdat National Geographic er deze week een documentaire aan wijdt. Daarin is de hoofdrol weggelegd voor het instrument dat alles mogelijk maakte: LiDAR-technologie.

https://www.nieuwsblad.be/extra/static/video/kaltura_player_voor_methode.html?id=1_ge1bq5wp#

‘Laser imaging, detection and ranging’, kortweg LiDAR, is niet nieuw en de toepassing ervan voor archeologie begon al in 2004. In 2010 slaagden Arlen en Diane Chase erin om over de oude Maya-stad Caracol in tien uur tijd meer data te verzamelen dan archeologen tussen 1983 en 2000 deden die zich moeizaam met machetes een weg door de jungle hadden gehakt. De Chases keken daarbij vanuit een vliegtuig dwars door de bomen naar de bodem.

‘In de Ieperboog toont LiDAR een onthutsend reliëf van kraters en structuren uit de Eerste Wereldoorlog’

BIRGER STICHELBAUT Archeoloog

Het was een kwestie van tijd voor LiDAR ingeburgerd zou raken in de archeologie. In 2013 werd in de jungle van Cambodja de 1.200 jaar oude stad Mahendraparvata gevonden. ‘Met LiDAR zagen we ineens een haarfijn beeld van een complete stad waarvan niemand het bestaan vermoedde’, zei de Australische archeoloog Damian Evans toen. Sindsdien heeft hij in die regio meerdere steden gevonden en wordt gesproken van ‘het grootste rijk ter wereld’, maar dat dient nog bewezen.

Evans scande immers ‘maar’ 230 vierkante kilometer. In Noord-Guatemala werd in 2016 een gebied van tien keer zo groot onderzocht: er bleken 60.000 bouwsels op te staan.

Meten met licht

LiDAR was aanvankelijk niet bedoeld om archeologen blij te maken. De technologie is vergelijkbaar met radar, maar in plaats van radiogolven gebruikt ze licht. Vanaf een bepaald punt, bijvoorbeeld een vliegtuig, worden laserstralen naar een oppervlakte gestuurd. Dan wordt gemeten hoelang het duurt voor de straal terugkomt. Zo kan men de hoogteverschillen op het onderzochte oppervlakte vaststellen. Die data worden met behulp van gps vertaald in een topografische kaart van het terrein, waaruit de begroeiing desgewenst weggefilterd kan worden (‘digitale ontbossing’).

‘In de bossen rond Antwerpen heb ik in 2010 met een gps het hele loopgravensysteem afgestapt. Datzelfde werk kan ik nu in drie uur doen’

WOUTER GHEYLE

Onderzoeker UGent

Al in de jaren zestig diende LiDAR aardrijkskundig, oceanografisch en atmosferisch onderzoek, maar de enorme datasets die vrijkwamen, wekten in de jaren nadien een bredere interesse op. De Amerikaanse Ruimtevaartorganisatie Nasa peilt ermee hoe dik de ijslagen aan de polen zijn en hoe snel de gletsjers smelten. New York gebruikte een 3D-kaart op basis van LiDAR-scans om zijn noodplan tegen overstroming op te maken.

Maya-specialiste Kathryn Reese-Taylor vertelt aan National Geographic hoe zij en anderen al decennialang de jungle van Guatemala doorzochten zonder ooit iets gevonden te hebben, laat staan een goed beeld te krijgen van een geheel. Nu is het alsof de mist opgetrokken is: het is duidelijk dat de vlakte tussen 250 en 900 na Christus erg druk bewoond was, naar schatting door 10 miljoen mensen. Er zijn enorme landbouwzones te zien, net als ook grote verdedigingsmuren en vier grote centra, compleet met pleinen en tempels. En dit is maar de eerste fase in een groot project dat 15.000 km² Maya-gebied in kaart wil brengen.

Mist trekt op

LiDAR wordt ook in Vlaanderen gebruikt. Sterker nog: van 2013 tot 2016 is de volledige oppervlakte van de regio gescand in opdracht van de overheid. In 2015 en 2016 werden veel van die gegevens ‘opgeleverd’. Dat betekent dat vandaag een enorme dataset beschikbaar is voor onderzoek. De overheid gebruikt die voor ruimtelijke planning, om nieuwe overstromingskaarten te maken, om de erosie van het landschap te bestuderen. Maar ook de archeologische sector zoekt er informatie.

Wouter Gheyle, wetenschappelijk onderzoeker aan de UGent, is zelf in Maya-gebied geweest. ‘De grote problemen in de jungle zijn toegankelijkheid en zichtbaarheid. Je herkent nog geen muur die op twee meter van je staat. Daarom is LiDAR zo belangrijk. Ik verwacht in de komende jaren nog veel andere ontdekkingen, al moeten die enorme datasets wel verwerkt worden. En dan moeten we de ontdekte structuren ter plekke ook gaan bekijken natuurlijk.’

Wat kunnen Vlaamse archeologen met LiDAR doen? Hier zitten geen steden in de bossen verstopt. ‘Nee,’ zegt Gheyle, ‘maar ook in Vlaanderen zijn boeiende ontdekkingen te doen en is veel erfgoed bewaard uit allerlei periodes. Ik bestudeer de archeologie van de Eerste Wereldoorlog. In de bossen rond Antwerpen heb ik in 2010 met een gps het hele loop­gravensysteem afgestapt. Datzelfde werk kan ik nu in drie uur doen. We kunnen bosbeheerders adviseren op sommige plekken voorzichtig te zijn. Op de hoogtemodellen zien we veel zaken die we nog niet kenden, zoals grafheuvels uit de protohistorie en de Romeinse tijd, houtskoolmijlers uit de middeleeuwen, en vooral veel erfgoed van de twee wereldoorlogen.’

De Eerste Wereldoorlog (1914-1918) en de Tweede Wereldoorlog (1940-1945) hebben veel sporen nagelaten in het Belgische landschap. Tot dusver werden die vooral onderzocht via historische bronnen en lokale graafwerken, recent ook via grondscans. LiDAR doet, zoals in de jungle van Guatemala, ook hier de mist optrekken. De bossen in de Westhoek zijn de oudste getuigen van de oorlog, omdat ze in de decennia daarna minder opgeruimd en niet doorploegd werden, zoals de rest van het land. Archeoloog Birger Stichelbaut (UGent): ‘In de Cabourduinen in Adinkerke, bijvoorbeeld, een zeer mooi en goed bewaard duingebied, liggen sporen uit WO II boven op sporen van WO I, zoals batterijen en loopgraven. Op de Heuvelrug van Bellewaerde bevindt een onafgewerkte V1-lanceerbasis zich boven op kraters uit WO I. In allerlei kleine bossen in de Ieperboog, de zwaar bevochten oostkant van Ieper, toont LiDAR een onthutsend reliëf van kraters en structuren van WO I.’

Roofputten

En er zit evolutie in. De nieuwe generatie LiDAR, die de Vlaamse overheid aankocht in 2015, scant de bodem al zestigmaal gedetailleerder dan in 2003. Dat betekent dat er nu zestien metingen per vierkante meter zijn, wat het bodembeeld heel precies maakt. ‘Een micro-reliëf is wat we nu zien’, zegt Stichelbaut, die LiDAR-beelden gebruikt in de expositie Sporen van Oorlog, die vanaf 17 februari te zien is in het In Flanders Fieldsmuseum. Daar wordt de Eerste Wereldoorlog bekeken vanuit archeologisch standpunt.

Eén bizarre gelijkenis heeft de Westhoek ook nog met de Maya-ontdekking: in beide gevallen werden de vindplaatsen, lang voor archeologen en LiDAR-scans erbij raakten, al druk bezocht door illegale grafdelvers. Op de beelden in Guatemala zijn duizenden roofputten te zien.

Documentaire op zondag 11/2 om 20 uur op Channel 4. Op www.standaard.be/lidar kunt u zien hoe LiDAR doorheen de bossen kijkt.

In ‘DSWeekblad’ leest u zaterdag een uitgebreide reportage over oorlogserfgoed in de Westhoek.

{ http://www.standaard.be/ }

07-02-2018 om 16:12 geschreven door peter  

Elon Musk (@ElonMusk on Twitter) re-tweeted this image from Brady Kenniston (@TheFavoritist on Twitter), who wrote: “Oh my god … Remote number one from Falcon Heavy!”

Elon Musk is founder of the private aerospace company SpaceX, which – on Tuesday, February 6, 2018 – successfully launched the world’s most powerful new space rocket, the Falcon Heavy. He’s also an inveterate tweeter, and a pleasure to follow on Twitter. The tweets below, shared with his nearly 19 million Twitter followers, gave us space fans the kinds of insights we used to only dream about.

Yesterday’s exciting and admittedly risky launch, SpaceX says, could mean game over for its private space company rivals. The Falcon Heavy will provide the United States a heavy-lift capability in space not seen since the Saturn V rockets of the Apollo era.

Elon Musk

✔@elonmusk

About 2.5 hours to T-0 for Falcon Heavy. Watch sim for highlight reel of what we hope happens. Car actually takes 6 months to cover 200M+ miles to Mars https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Tk338VXcb24 …

4:59 PM - Feb 6, 2018

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Prior to the launch, Musk had told reporters that the challenges of developing the new rocket meant the chances of a successful first launch might be only 50-50. He said after the event:

I had this image of just a giant explosion on the pad, a wheel bouncing down the road. But fortunately that’s not what happened.

Rocket payload comparison via SpaceX.

View image on Twitter

Elon Musk

✔@elonmusk

Flight profile #FalconHeavy #SpaceX

5:38 PM - Feb 6, 2018

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Elon Musk

✔@elonmusk

Launch auto-sequence initiated (aka the holy mouse-click) for 3:45 liftoff #FalconHeavy

7:52 PM - Feb 6, 2018

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The SpaceX Falcon Heavy launched from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on February 6, 2018, on its demonstration mission. It is now the world’s most powerful rocket.

Screams and cheers erupted at Cape Canaveral, Florida, as the massive rocket fired its engines and lifted into the sky. The Falcon Heavy is essentially three of SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 vehicles strapped together. In a typically Musk-ian touch of whimsy, the Falcon’s upper stage and test payload is Musk’s own old $100,000 cherry red Tesla Roadster sports car, and a dummy in its driver’s seat called Starman rocking to David Bowie’s Life on Mars.

Elon Musk

✔@elonmusk

Camera views from inside the payload fairing #FalconHeavy https://www.instagram.com/p/Be3m_LNgOYY/ 

9:37 PM - Feb 6, 2018

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Artist’s concept of the car and mannequin now its wway towards Mars’ orbit.

SpaceX has been working hard to bring the boost stages – the lower segments of the rocket – back to Earth in controlled landings. Here are two of them setting down.

Then the focus shifted back to the upper stage and its attempted burn to carry it toward Mars.

Elon Musk

✔@elonmusk

Upper stage restart nominal, apogee raised to 7000 km. Will spend 5 hours getting zapped in Van Allen belts & then attempt final burn for Mars.

10:28 PM - Feb 6, 2018

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Elon Musk

✔@elonmusk

View from SpaceX Launch Control. Apparently, there is a car in orbit around Earth.

10:44 PM - Feb 6, 2018

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Elon Musk

✔@elonmusk

Live view of Starman https://youtu.be/aBr2kKAHN6M 

10:50 PM - Feb 6, 2018

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{ http://earthsky.org/ }

07-02-2018 om 15:07 geschreven door peter  

Elon Musk, on Falcon Heavy’s triumphant launch - PART II16h

And finally … a successful burn to Mars!

View image on Twitter

Elon Musk

✔@elonmusk

Third burn successful. Exceeded Mars orbit and kept going to the Asteroid Belt.

4:46 AM - Feb 7, 2018

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What a day.

Can’t get enough? Check out the 30-minute video, below, from SpaceX. It’s an updated version of Tuesday’s live webcast and includes both side booster cameras and additional Starman views.

Bottom line: Tweets and video from SpaceX and Elon Musk on Tuesday’s successful launch of the Falcon Heavy. Go SpaceX!

{ http://earthsky.org/ }

07-02-2018 om 15:05 geschreven door peter  

Divorced father, 74, who claims to have lost his virginity to an ALIEN 'with a very nice body' is mocked by This Morning viewers (as Holly and Phil battle to keep a straight face)

• David Huggins recalled the multiple alien encounters he's had since he was eight
• Divorced father-of-one, from Hoboken, New Jersey, has painted the meetings
• Part-time deli counter worker appeared via live video link on ITV's This Morning
• Presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield interviewed him
• Viewers watching at home were amazed they managed to keep a straight face

By Natalie Corner For Mailonline

A seventy-four-year-old part-time deli-worker who claims he lost his virginity to an alien has appeared on This Morning via live video link to recall his saucy encounter.

David Huggins, a divorced father-of-one, from Hoboken, New Jersey, told the ITV show presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield that he was intimate with an extra-terrestrial called Crescent who had a 'very nice body'.

However, the duo could barely contain their laughter as David calmly claimed he had fathered hundreds of alien offspring over the years.

Viewers watching the segment at home praised Holly and Phil for not breaking down in hysterics while a serious David shared his story - including how different types of beings continued to visit him for decades and one female, whom he named Crescent, took his virginity at the age of 17 in the Georgia woods.

David Huggins, 74, from New Jersey, appeared on today's This Morning to recount how he believes he lost his virginity to an alien called Crescent when he was 17

This Morning presenters Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby battled to keep a straight face

During the interview Phillip made amusing faces as he attempted to understand how exactly the interviewee had had the encounters for six decades

Viewers watching the bizarre interview took to Twitter to praise the presenters for keeping a straight face  

The alien enthusiast, who had his first encounter aged eight when he was at the bottom of a tree in a field, has also replicated many of the meetings in paintings - which have been aired on Love and Saucers, a US documentary detailing his extraordinary claims.

Phillip looked bemused as he questioned David about why aliens had chosen him to father their offspring but he didn't have a clear answer.

He told This Morning: 'That was something I would like to know, I guess they want to do it on a gradual level.

'I haven’t asked them… I was always there for a reason and I would do whatever they asked me to do.' 

But Holly wanted more evidence and said she wondered why, despite there being hundreds of meetings with the aliens, David hadn't taken any pictures as proof.

David appeared via live link from New York to tell Holly and Phil about how he first met an alien when he was just eight years old

David has spoken recently about his extra-terrestrial encounters for a documentary by director Brad Abrahams

David, who claimed he had last seen Crescent about five months ago, said he would try to take a photo the next time he visited with the beings.

Explaining about his encounters, David also claimed that a 'portal' had opened up in his bedroom after he moved to New York City when he was 19.

'That was very interesting I was having these experiences for months,' he said. 

The extraordinary tale was too much for viewers watching at home, as one said: 'This alien sex man is the best thing I’ve ever seen on TV.' 

The alien enthusiast has painted several images of Crescent who he claims took his virginity during an intimate moment in the woods

It's testament to Holly and Phil's interviewing skills that they didn't break down in hysterics as they listened to David speak about his alien encounters

Another added: 'I love people that are bonkers. They fascinate me. This bloke on This Morning lost his virginity to an alien called Crescent.'

'Seriously .. HOW ARE THEY DOING THIS .. I would be in absolute hysterics,' said one impressed viewer.

'HOW are @Schofe and @Hollywills keeping their cool with this guy? If Phil stared at me while I was trying to be serious like that I would’ve cracked,' said another.

'Best topic to see on a Monday Morning! ‘I lost my virginity to a busty alien called Crescent’ And also claims to have fathered babies,' joked another. 

'I was walking in the woods, and I see a woman sitting under a tree – and she gets up and she starts coming towards me,’ he explains in the documentary.

‘I become very aroused sexually; I couldn’t get my pants down fast enough. I fall back on the ground and I’m lying there and she’s looking at me, and I reach my climax, which was quite painful, actually; it was very intense. And then I’m looking in her eyes and I pass out … Virginity lost.’

He continued his relationship with the beings and Crescent, even after his move at 19 to New York City. At times he even visited ‘there,’ the space or realm occupied by the extraterrestrials, he claims.

He says of Crescent: 'There was something very beautiful, something lovely about her. She had a very nice body. The only thing that was different about her was that she had very long fingernails and she had these very large eyes, and her face was very pale.'

This Morning airs weekdays on ITV at 10.30am  

{ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

07-02-2018 om 12:45 geschreven door peter  

'I lost my virginity to an alien called Crescent'

{ http://www.itv.com/thismorning }

07-02-2018 om 12:30 geschreven door peter  

07-02-2018 om 12:24 geschreven door peter