Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 10 MONTHS.
ON 06/04/2024 MORE THAN 1.951.050
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
17-04-2018
Comment la France s’apprête à imposer le pistage des drones de plus de 800 grammes
Comment la France s’apprête à imposer le pistage des drones de plus de 800 grammes
Le gouvernement vient de notifier à la Commission européenne un projet de décret relatif au « signalement électronique et numérique » des drones. D’ici quelques mois, tous les appareils de plus de 800 grammes devront transmettre aux autorités leur position, leur vitesse, etc.
Adoptée il y a près d’un an et demi, la loi encadrant plus strictement l’usage des drones civils reste pour l’heure inappliquée, faute de décrets. Le temps commence pourtant à presser, plusieurs de ses mesures-clés étant censées entrer en vigueur le 1er juillet prochain.
Le législateur a notamment souhaité qu’à compter de cette date, tous les appareils de plus de 800 grammes soient dotés :
D’un dispositif de « signalement électronique ou numérique »
D’un dispositif de « signalement lumineux »
L’objectif ? Permettre aux forces de l’ordre de mieux suivre les évolutions des drones, visuellement ou à distance, par exemple pour détecter un appareil qui s’approcherait trop d’un site sensible (tel qu’une centrale nucléaire). Le projet de décret d’application de cette réforme, notifié vendredi 13 avril à la Commission européenne, montre toutefois que les services de renseignement ou même les douanes pourront avoir accès aux données émises par les drones équipés de tels dispositifs.
Giant Triangle UFO Seen Over Freeway In California On April 2, 2018, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Giant Triangle UFO Seen Over Freeway In California On April 2, 2018, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: April 2, 2018
Location of sighting: Simi Valley, California, USA
Source: MUFON #91465
This UFO report just in today. A person was driving in Simi, CA and noticed a dark triangle craft moving over the freeway. The UFO had no aircraft lights, so we can rule out public aircraft. The design seems very odd and uneven, but also very thick. Simi Valley located in Southern California, is very close to Area 51, Nellis AFB and the Extraterrestrial Highway. The pattern is becoming visible.
Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states: I caught a triangle craft above the freeway on the way home. (further statement is not visible to the pubic due to MUFON no longer allowing you to view without paying them).
Strangest UFO Case of All Time, This One is Stranger Than Fiction
Strangest UFO Case of All Time, This One is Stranger Than Fiction
It couldn’t happen here? Most people would say it couldn’t happen anywhere! But more than 100 witnesses to one of the world’s biggest UFO mysteries are adamant that it did, in broad daylight. And 50 years after the event, many are still fuming that the military they say were swarming around the scene for days have offically denied the incident and no record appears to exist. They say they spent their lives being doubted and want some official acknowledgment that something weird happened above and behind Westall high and primary schools that morning. London’s Telegraph newspaper rates it as the fifth-greatest UFO mystery of all time, but another mystery is how little-known the episode is here. A documentary – Westall ’66: A Suburban UFO Mystery. Producers hope it will flush out an official who can say what the military were doing and what they found.
Two Pilots On Separate Planes Observe The Same UFO
Two Pilots On Separate Planes Observe The Same UFO
When we heard of UFO sightings or UFOs being spotted it is hard to believe especially if the report is coming from a single witness. It is often written off immediately, simply because it is hard to verify or give proof of what an individual believes they saw in the sky.
However, when two or more individuals reported the same sighting, things get a lot more interesting. Seasoned pilots know things or everyday events in the sky, and when they witness an unnatural event, it is worth to give more attention to their reports.
Two pilots flying above Arizona on February 14th reported seeing a strange object flying above them. Even the FAA could not explain the UFO.
An audio recording of the incident reveals the bizarre sighting also baffled their air traffic controller.
The pilot of Learjet of the Phoenix Air recorded a conversation of the pilot and the air traffic control center. In the audio, the pilot asks the air traffic control if there is a plane above that passed over them, but the controller responds in the negative. Then the controller adds maybe it is a UFO which the pilot agrees.
The controller then contacts another pilot on an American Airlines flying above over the same area. The controller asks if they have seen anything that passed over them over the next few miles of their flight.
The Learjet pilot says that he does not know the unusual aerial thing, but it was flying in the opposite direction.
Moments later, American Airlines joins in the conversation and states that they also saw that unusual object flying above them and that it was operating two to three thousand feet above them.
The FAA states that no other planes should have there in the area of the sightings.
Based on the recording, those pilots did not think it was just another plane or a balloon. Now, this makes reports such as this one a lot more interesting and confusing at the same time.
Buzz Aldrin did NOT see a UFO during 1969 moon mission: Apollo 11 astronaut said bizarre light he saw in space 'was not an alien,' as NASA confirms it was likely a reflection off the craft's panel
Buzz Aldrin did NOT see a UFO during 1969 moon mission: Apollo 11 astronaut said bizarre light he saw in space 'was not an alien,' as NASA confirms it was likely a reflection off the craft's panel
Bizarre story this month claims Apollo 11 astronaut said he saw a UFO in space
But, the astronaut has said over the years that the light he saw 'was not an alien'
Both Aldrin and NASA have said it was likely sun reflecting off a spacecraft panel
Despite widely circulated claims this week that astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second human to step foot on the moon, saw alien activity during his historic 1969 mission, no such close encounter ever actually happened.
In fact, the Apollo 11 astronaut has said the exact opposite about the unusual sighting in question.
Describing the appearance of a moving light alongside his spacecraft, Aldrin said explicitly during a 2014 Q&A: ‘It was not an alien.’
Renewed interested in Aldrin’s strange experience has been sparked by a bizarre story published earlier this month by the Daily Star, which claimed he passed a lie detector test after recalling an ‘alien encounter.’
But, the astronaut never took a lie detector test on the subject, and never stated he saw aliens in the first place.
Scroll down for video
Despite widely circulated claims this week that astronaut Buzz Aldrin (right) , the second human to step foot on the moon, saw alien activity during his 1969 mission, no such encounter ever actually happened. Pictured are Neil Armstrong (left) and Michael Collins (center)
Over the years, Aldrin has described a strange sighting that occurred during his 1969 mission, when a light appeared outside of the module.
While he has said that 'technically, the definition could be "unidentified,"' as he did not know what exactly caused the light at the time, he has repeatedly insisted that it was not of alien origin.
In a 2014 question-and-answer session on Reddit, he explained that it was likely the reflection of the sun bouncing off a panel that separated from the craft after launch.
'On Apollo 11 in route to the Moon, I observed a light out the window that appeared to be moving alongside us,' Aldrin wrote.
'There were many explanations of what that could be, other than another spacecraft from another country or another world - it was either the rocket we had separated from, or the 4 panels that moved away when we extracted the lander from the rocket and we were nose to nose with the two spacecraft.
'So in the close vicinity, moving away, were 4 panels. And I feel absolutely convinced that we were looking at the sun reflected off of one of these panels. Which one? I don't know. So technically, the definition could be "unidentified."
'We well understood exactly what that was. And when we returned, we debriefed and explained exactly what we had observed.'
Pictured, astronaut Edwin E. 'Buzz' Aldrin Jr. poses for a photograph beside a U.S. flag planted on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission
Still, the Star's story claims the second man to walk on the moon 'took part' in research conducted by an Ohio woman, Sharry Edwards that confirmed he had an alien encounter.
But Edwards told The Associated Press in an email, 'There were no tests.'
She claims that reviews of recordings of Aldrin's voice indicate he 'has a firm belief' that he saw a UFO.
NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz said in an email to the AP that Aldrin likely saw panels that separated as the Apollo 11 command module maneuvered to dock with the lunar lander on the way to the moon in 1969.
WHAT DID BUZZ ALDRIN SAY ABOUT HIS 'UFO ENCOUNTER'?
While UFO enthusiasts have long clung to Buzz Aldrin's story of a strange light appearing alongside his spacecraft in 1969, the Apollo 11 astronaut does not think what he saw was an alien.
'On Apollo 11 in route to the Moon, I observed a light out the window that appeared to be moving alongside us. There were many explanations of what that could be, other than another spacecraft from another country or another world - it was either the rocket we had separated from, or the 4 panels that moved away when we extracted the lander from the rocket and we were nose to nose with the two spacecraft.
'So in the close vicinity, moving away, were 4 panels. And i feel absolutely convinced that we were looking at the sun reflected off of one of these panels. Which one? I don't know. So technically, the definition could be "unidentified."
'We well understood exactly what that was. And when we returned, we debriefed and explained exactly what we had observed.
'And I felt that this had been distributed to the outside world, the outside audience, and apparently it wasn't, and so many years later, I had the time in an interview to disclose these observations, on another country's television network. And the UFO people in the United States were very very angry with me, that i had not given them the information. It was not an alien. Extraordinary observations require extraordinary evidence.
'That's what Carl Sagan said. There may be aliens in our Milky Way galaxy, and there are billions of other galaxies. The probability is almost CERTAIN that there is life somewhere in space.
'It was not that remarkable, that special, that unusual, that life here on earth evolved gradually, slowly, to where we are today.
But the distances involved in where some evidence of life may be, they may be hundreds of light years away.'
One of the leading investigators into UFOs sighting has claimed that they "are increasing" with "more and more" being reported every day.
The news comes after five "very convincing" sightings were reported from Cornwall, as well as countless others from across the rest of the UK last year.
One of the sightings, which was captured of film, was reportedly so terrifying that it left a Launceston resident with "nightmares".
The person, who has not given their name, contacted the British Earth and Aerial Mysteries Society (BEAMS) after spotting a “perfectly round disc” hanging in the sky above North Hill in Launceston.
It was 2pm on a clear and sunny Friday afternoon that the object was reportedly spotted “motionless hanging in the sky, making no sound”.
The spotter estimated the object being a few miles away from them, but it was still close enough to make out details of a silver metallic colour as well as black, brown, orange and red tones.
After watching it still in the skies for around 30 seconds, the resident claimed the object shot off “at high speed” and they even managed to capture the moment on film, which can be seen above. They described the encounter as “brief, but it was very quiet and surreal”.
A screenshot of the images and photograph shown on the BEAMS website, alongside the Launceston sighting(Image: www.beamsinvestigations.org)
In a message sent to the BEAMS investigators, they said: “On a personal note, the experience has shaken me to the core and frankly terrified me.
“During the sighting I was unsettled but very calm, I knew exactly what I was witnessing, shock I guess, but in the weeks that have passed I have had nightmares!
“I now have a profound empathy for those who have been taken.
“I see everything now in a new light.
“Still having problems processing it all.
“My God, 'they' are really real!”
The sighting was reported to BEAMS in September and was one of five "very interesting" sightings that were logged in the county in 2017.
Speaking to Cornwall Live, UFO investigator Hilary Porter, who jointly runs the society with Ken Parsons, said: “It’s very convincing.
“[All of the sightings in Cornwall] are very interesting and people are definitely experiencing things more and more."
One witness in Mevagissey claimed to have spotted a "saucer" object in the sky.
They said that they had spotted the object in clear skies at around 9.30pm in October last year.
The witness, who did not give their name, described the object they saw as a silent, yellow/orange saucer that was "hovering, in a jerky but controlled up and down movements, whilst travelling horizontally".
The video below shows what they believe to be UFO lights.
Then in September a "huge red light" was reported as a sighting in Marazion.
The witness claimed that they had been left 'spooked' when they came across the unidentified object in Green Lane.
Another Marazion sighting, reported to BEAMS in July, saw a witness claim to have spotted a "strange object" in the grounds of the historic farm where they lived.
The sighting left the farms occupant "creeped out" and sent their dog "growling and barking" to the window.
The resident gave the following statement to BEAMS: "I live alone in a rather large 300-year-old barn complex near Marazion in Cornwall. A week or so ago I was sitting in my front room with my girlfriend listening to the radio.
"It was about 11pm the windows were open but the curtains were drawn, suddenly my Jack Russell jumped up growling then barking very aggressively at the window, if it were a fox etc she would run to the front door to chase it away, it wasn't her normal behavior.
"I had my camera next to me so I put it through the curtains and the open window and blindly took a few photos into the dark.
"Upon examination I found the following strange object, it casts a shadow on the ground from the flash, it actually has creeped me out a little."
Screenshot taken from the BEAMS website of the photograph taken by a person who spotted a "strange object" in the grounds of a 300 year old farm in Marazion(Image: www.beamsinvestigations.org)
And in January 2017, there was two reports of a UFO with "a contrail" spotted in the skies above Newlyn East.
While there haven’t been any sightings in the county since the start of 2018, Hilary said that the county has been a hotspot for activity and in the future, it could be again.
Hilary added: “We cover everything, including ancient sites and ley lines – it all joins together with the UFO side of it in many ways.
“Bodmin Moor has always been popular for sightings, you’ve got some very strange things going on there.
“It goes in waves I think, you get no activity and then you get a whole wave of things happening at once.”
“Devon is really the hot, hot spot,” she said.
“But we are seeing more and more sightings across the UK, it’s not going away whatever it is. The sightings are increasing.”
Hilary said that the team have had sightings reported by people “from all walks of life”, "from medical professionals to mechanics”.
The Enigma Of The Phaistos Disk, A 3,700-Year-Old Indecipherable Message
The Enigma Of The Phaistos Disk, A 3,700-Year-Old Indecipherable Message
The 2nd millennium BC is a period that spanned the years 2000 through 1001 BC and was marked by the appearance of great kingdoms and empires across the planet. The period marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age.
Experts maintain that the first half of the 2nd millennium BC was noted by the domination of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and Babylonia. During this time, scholars say that alphabet started developing.
However, the 2nd millennium BC also marked the appearance of Chariot warfare and population movements which are believed to have led to violent changes at the center of the millennium; a new order emerges with Greek dominance of the Aegean and the rise of the Hittite Empire.
The side A of the Phaistos disk, as displayed in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion after the 2014 renovation.
But this period was also marked by many different things.
It is believed that a mysterious artifact, dubbed the Phaistos Disc,housed today at archaeological museum of Heraklionwas crafted by a mysterious people, written in an undecipherable text, during the end of the Bronze Age, around 1700 BC, that is, some 3700 years ago.
The side B of the disc of Phaistos, as displayed in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion after the 2014 renovation.
The mysterious disk-shaped object is about 15 cm (5.9 in) in diameter and is covered on both sides with a spiral of stamped symbols.
Its purpose and meaning, and even its original geographical place of manufacture remains disputed among scholars, making it one of the most mysterious archeological artifacts on the surface of the planet.
The inscriptions, made by pressing hieroglyphic “seals” into a disc of soft clay, are hieroglyphical and are similar to those of the linear script A (the system used by the Cretan culture and still not deciphered totally) and the linear B (the one used by the Mycenaeans) together with others of unknown origin.
Some researchers attribute this to a non-Cretan origin, despite the fact that it was discovered, on July 3, 1908, in Phaistos, Crete.
The disc was discovered by the Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernierin the Minoan palace-site of Phaistos and features 242 tokens, comprising 45 distinct signs, which were supposedly made by pressing hieroglyphic “seals” into a disc of soft clay, in a clockwise order spiraling toward the center of the object. Many of these 45 signs represent easily identifiable symbols. In addition to these, there is a small diagonal line that appears underneath the final sign in a group a total of 18 times. The disc shows traces of corrections made by the scribe in several places.
However, many authors believe the disk is a forgery.
The doubts come from the own characteristics of the disc: the Phaistos Disk has straight edges, despite the fact that nearly all the clay disks of the time appear curved.
However, perhaps what casts the greatest doubts on the Phaistos Disk’s authenticity is that typographical seals were used in its manufacture when there is no other similar example in antiquity, or anything similar until the invention of the printing press by Guttenberg.
According to a report in The Times in 2008, the date of manufacture has never been established by thermoluminescence.
The Roman Dodecahedra, Mysterious Ancient Artifacts Whose Purpose Remains A Mystery
The Roman Dodecahedra, Mysterious Ancient Artifacts Whose Purpose Remains A Mystery
More than a hundred dodecahedra have been found by archaeologists throughout the territory of the ancient Roman Empire, including countries such as Spain, Italy, France, even in outlying areas such as Germany, Wales, and Hungary.
According to the archaeological records, they date back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, but their exact purpose is still a mystery which experts have not been able to solve.
The Roman Dodecahedra are small hollow objects made of bronze or stone in the shape of a Dodecahedra, twelve pentagonal faces, each of which has a circular hole in the center, of different diameters.
The first Roman Dodecahedra was found in 1739, and since then they have continued to appear all over Europe.
Ancient Roman dodecahedron found in Atuatuca Tungrorum (Tongeren). It’s a small hollow object made of bronze or stone with a dodecahedral shape. Its use is still unclear and several proposals have been made including an aid for knitting gloves and a device for determining the optimal sowing date for winter grain. Collection of Gallo-Romeins Museum, Tongeren, Belgium.
Most of these curious objects were found in France and Germany and range in size between 4 and 11 centimeters in diameter.
However, no mention has been made of these objects in contemporary sources, nor any representation in mosaics, reliefs or other artistic expressions which raises numerous questions.
Their exact purpose has been debated for more than 2 centuries and some archeologists argue that the mystery objects may have used as supports for candles since experts have found wax remains on a few of them.
But the theories also point to other possible utilities, such as for example being a kind of dice for some sort of ancient game.
Some authors have even proposed that these artifacts may have been used as measuring instruments to calculate distances (diopters), and even determine the appropriate date for planting grain in winter, calibrate water pipes or religious objects or artifacts used in different rituals. However, some experts have proposed that these mysterious objects may have had a much simpler purpose and may have been used as a children’s toy.
However, given that fact that most of these objects were found mainly in the peripheral areas of the Roman empire, where the presence of Roman legions constituted the main group of Roman citizens, the Roman dodecahedrons may have been a military artifact.
A few of the ancient texts available about the mystery artifacts were left by Plutarch, the famous Greek historian, who wrote that these artifacts were representations of the zodiac, where each of the twelve faces corresponded to an animal of the astrological circle. But even this theory has been rejected by scholars since it does not explain the peculiar decoration of the dodecahedra.
It is noteworthy to mention that many of the dodecahedra were found together with other treasures and coins, probably buried by their owners to hide from robbers or looters, which indicates that they were considered as valuable objects.
Smaller dodecahedra with the same features (holes and knobs) and made from gold have been found discovered by experts in South-East Asia.
They have been used for decorative purposes and the earliest items appear to be from the Roman epoch.
Fragments of an ancient Roman dodecahedron found in 2010 at the construction site of the A2 tunnel in Maastricht. Height: 8.1 cm. The 20 corners were decorated with separately attached dots. Photographed at the temporary exhibition Top or Topic in Centre Céramique in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
So what exactly these mysterious artifacts were, remains a mystery.
However, one theory that I find quite appealing was proposed by G.M.C. Wagemanswho wrote “the dodecahedron was an astronomic measuring instrument with which the angle of the sunlight can be measured and thereby one specific date in springtime, and one date in the autumn can be determined with accuracy. The dates that can be measured were probably of importance for the agriculture”.
For centuries, human beings have wondered about the possibility of other Earths orbiting distant stars. Perhaps some of these alien worlds would harbor strange forms of life or have unique and telling histories or futures. But it was only in 1995 that astronomers spotted the first planets orbiting sunlike stars outside of our solar system.
In the last decade, in particular, the number of planets known to orbit distant stars grew from under 100 to well over 2,000, with another 2,000 likely planets awaiting confirmation. Most of these new discoveries are due to a single endeavor — NASA's Kepler mission.
Number of confirmed exoplanets continues to grow.
Credit: Wendy Stenzel/ The University of Texas at Austin/Andrew Vanderburg/ NASA/Ames Research Center, CC BY
Kepler is a spacecraft housing a 1-meter telescope that illuminates a 95 megapixel digital camera the size of a cookie sheet. The instrument detected tiny variations in the brightness of 150,000 distant stars, looking for the telltale sign of a planet blocking a portion of the starlight as it transits across the telescope's line of sight. It's so sensitive that it could detect a fly buzzing around a single streetlight in Chicago from an orbit above the Earth. It can see stars shake and vibrate; it can see starspots and flares; and, in favorable situations, it can see planets as small as the moon.
Scientists can determine the size or radius of a planet by measuring the depth of the dip in brightness and knowing the size of the star.µ
Credit: NASA Ames, CC BY
Kepler's thousands of discoveries revolutionized our understanding of planets and planetary systems. Now, however, the spacecraft is nearly out of its hydrazine fuel and will end its fantastic life sometime in the next few months. Luckily for planet hunters, NASA's upcoming TESS mission is waiting in the wings and will take over the exoplanet search.
Prepping the Kepler spacecraft pre-launch in 2009.
Credit: Tim Jacobs/NASA, CC BY
Kepler's history
The Kepler mission was conceived in the early 1980s by NASA scientist Bill Borucki, with later help from David Koch. At the time, there were no known planets outside of the solar system. Kepler was eventually assembled in the 2000s and launched in March of 2009. I joined the Kepler Science Team in 2008 (as a wide-eyed rookie), eventually co-chairing the group studying the motions of the planets with Jack Lissauer.
Originally, the mission was planned to last for three and a half years with possible extensions for as long as the fuel, or the camera, or the spacecraft lasted. As time passed, portions of the camera began to fail but the mission has persisted. However, in 2013 when two of its four stabilizing gyros(technically "reaction wheels") stopped, the original Kepler mission effectively ended.
NASA scientists figured out how to use solar pressure to stabilize Kepler.
Credit: W. Stenzel/NASA Ames, CC BY
Even then, with some ingenuity, NASA was able to use reflected light from the Sun to help steer the spacecraft. The mission was rechristened as K2 and continued finding planets for another half decade. Now, with the fuel gauge near empty, the business of planet hunting is winding down and the spacecraft will be left adrift in the solar system. The final catalog of planet candidates from the original mission was completed late last year and the last observations of K2 are wrapping up.
Kepler's science
Squeezing what knowledge we can from those data will continue for years to come, but what we've seen thus far has amazed scientists across the globe.
We have seen some planets that orbit their host stars in only a few hours and are so hot that the surface rock vaporizes and trails behind the planet like a comet tail. Other systems have planets so close together that if you were to stand on the surface of one, the second planet would appear larger than 10 full moons. One system is so packed with planets that eight of them are closer to their star than the Earth is to the Sun. Many have planets, and sometimes multiple planets, orbiting within the habitable zone of their host star, where liquid water may exist on their surfaces.
As with any mission, the Kepler package came with trade-offs. It needed to stare at a single part of the sky, blinking every 30 minutes, for four straight years. In order to study enough stars to make its measurements, the stars had to be quite distant – just as when you stand in the middle of a forest, there are more trees farther from you than right next to you. Distant stars are dim, and their planets are hard to study. Indeed, one challenge for astronomers who want to study the properties of Kepler planets is that Kepler itself is often the best instrument to use. High quality data from ground-based telescopes requires long observations on the largest telescopes – precious resources that limit the number of planets that can be observed.
We now know that there are at least as many planets in the galaxy as there are stars, and many of those planets are quite unlike what we have here in the solar system. Learning the characteristics and personalities of the wide variety of planets requires that astronomers investigate the ones orbiting brighter and closer stars where more instruments and more telescopes can be brought to bear.
Once launched, TESS will identify exoplanets orbiting the brightest stars just outside our solar system.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, CC BY
Enter TESS
NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission, led by MIT's George Ricker, is slated to launch in the next few weeks and will search for planets using the same detection technique that Kepler used. TESS' orbit, rather than being around the Sun, will have a close relationship with the Moon: TESS will orbit the Earth twice for each lunar orbit. TESS' observing pattern, rather than staring at a single part of the sky, will scan nearly the entire sky with overlapping fields of view (much like the petals on a flower).µ
Duration of TESS' observations on the celestial sphere, taking into account the overlap between sectors.
Credit: NASA, CC BY
Given what we learned from Kepler, astronomers expect TESS to find thousands more planetary systems. By surveying the whole sky, we will find systems that orbit stars 10 times closer and 100 times brighter than those found by Kepler – opening up new possibilities for measuring planet masses and densities, studying their atmospheres, characterizing their host stars, and establishing the full nature of the systems in which the planets reside. This information, in turn, will tell us more about our own planet's history, how life may have started, what fates we avoided and what other paths we could have followed.
The quest to find our place in the universe continues as Kepler finishes its leg of the journey and TESS takes the baton.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google +. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Space.com.
An asteroid similar in size to one that exploded more than 100 years ago in Russia's Tunguska region in Siberia gave Earth a close shave on Sunday (April 15), just one day after astronomers discovered the object.
The asteroid, designated 2018 GE3, made its closest approach to Earth at around 2:41 a.m. EDT (0641 GMT), whizzing by at a distance of 119,400 miles (192,000 kilometers), or about half the average distance between Earth and the moon, according to NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies(CNEOS).
NASA estimated that this asteroid measures 157 to 360 feet (48 to110 meters) wide, making the space rock up to 3.6 times the size of the one that leveled 500,000 acres (2,000 square kilometers) of Siberian forest when it exploded over Tunguska in 1908. [Gallery: Potentially Dangerous Asteroids]
A diagram shows the orbit of asteroid 2018 GE3, which flew by Earth on April 15, 2018.
Credit: NASA JPL
This newfound asteroid is three to six times as big as another recent meteor, the one that broke up over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013. That object injured more than 1,200 people and damaged thousands of buildings up to 58 miles (93 km) away from the impact site.
"If 2018 GE3 had hit Earth, it would have caused regional, not global, damage, and might have disintegrated in the atmosphere before reaching the ground," SpaceWeather.com reported. "Nevertheless, it is a significant asteroid, illustrating how even large space rocks can still take us by surprise. 2018 GE3 was found less than a day before its closest approach."
SURPRISE ASTEROID FLYBY: With little warning, a relatively large asteroid flew through the Earth-Moon system on April 15th only 192,200 km (0.5 LD) from our planet. 2018 GE3 was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey approaching Earth on April 14th. Hours later, amateur astronomer Michael Jäger of Weißenkirchen Austria video-recorded the space rock gliding through the southern constellation Serpens:
"According to Wikipedia, 2018 GE3 is the largest known asteroid to pass that close to Earth in observational history," says Jäger. "It was shining like a 13th magnitude star at the time of my observations."
Based on the intensity of its reflected sunlight, 2018 GE3 must be 48 to 110 meters wide, according to NASA-JPL. This puts it into the same class as the 60-meter Tunguska impactor that leveled a forest in Siberia in 1908. A more recent point of comparison is the Chelyabinsk meteor--a ~20-meter asteroid that exploded in the atmosphere over Russia on Feb. 15, 2013, shattering windows and toppling onlookers as a fireball brighter than the sun blossomed in the blue morning Ural sky. 2018 GE3 could be 5 to 6 times wider than that object.
If 2018 GE3 had hit Earth, it would have caused regional, not global, damage, and might have disintegrated in the atmosphere before reaching the ground. Nevertheless, it is a significant asteroid, illustrating how even large space rocks can still take us by surprise. 2018 GE3 was found less than a day before before its closest approach.
Based on an observational arc of only 1 day, 2018 GE3 appears to follow an elliptical orbit which stretches from the asteroid belt to deep inside the inner solar system. Every ~2.5 years the space rock crosses the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars--although not necessarily making close approaches to the planets themselves.
The asteroid 2018 GE3 was first spotted on Saturday (April 14) at 5:23 a.m. EDT (0923 GMT) by astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-sponsored program based at the University of Arizona in Tucson. This first sighting occurred just 21 hours before the asteroid's closest approach to Earth.
Asteroid 2018 GE3 by Michael Jaeger. Used with permission.
This is an excellent follow up article to the post on disclosure of life Everywhere in the Universe, which demonstrates an increased level of Scientific acceptance and it’s dissemination into the public domain.
A couple of months ago top US astronomers gathered in front of congress to let them know that extraterrestrial life exists without question.
Their main argument was the size of the universe, emphasizing that there are trillions of stars out there, with one in every five most likely harboring an Earth-like planet.
It’s also important to keep in mind that planets do not have to be “Earth-like” in order to harbor life.
“The number of habitable worlds in our galaxy is certainly in the tens of billions, minimum, and we haven’t even talked about the moons. And the number of galaxies we can see, other than our own, is about 100 billion.”
– Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at California’s SETI Institute (source
This time, NASA and the Library of Congress have teamed up bringing together scientists, theologians, philosophers and historians from around the globe for a two day symposium in order to discuss how to prepare the world for extraterrestrial contact, whether it be microbial organisms or intelligent beings.
“We’re looking at all scenarios about finding life. If you find microbes, that’s one thing. If you find intelligence, it’s another. And if they communicate, it’s something else, and depending on what they say, it’s something else!
“The idea is not to wait until we make a discovery, but to try and prepare the public for what the implications might be when such a discovery is made. I think the reason that NASA is backing this is because of all the recent activity in the discovery of exoplanets and the advances in astrobiology in general.
“People just consider it much more likely now that we’re going to find something — probably microbes first and maybe intelligence later. The driving force behind this is from a scientific point of view that it seems much more likely now that we are going to find life at some point in the future.”
– Astronomer, symposium organizer and former chief NASA historian, Steven J. Dick. (source)
One of the theologians present was Brother Guy Consolmagno, who is the new president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation. This is what he had to say:
“I Believe [alien life exists], but I have no evidence. I would be really excited and it would make my understanding of my religion deeper and richer in ways that I can’t even predict yet, which is why it would be so exciting.” (source)
He is urging the public not to be so surprised when extraterrestrial life is discovered, because it will be discovered. He even said that he would be happy to baptize them, if it’s intelligent extraterrestrial life that’s discovered. The Vatican has been very open to the idea of intelligent extraterrestrial life, and they’ve expressed these views for a very long time.
Earth is not the center of the universe, it’s not flat, and it’s looking very likely that the next major paradigm shifting revelation will be the fact that we are not alone in the universe.
It’s great to see the mainstream world gather, discuss and prepare for this possibility and ultimate reality, and it’s a great seg-way to create more awareness about the world of secrecy, the world’s within our world that deal with projects the human race knows nothing about.
The Other Probability – Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life is Already Here
All of the information I’ve provided below is probably old information for CE fans that regularly visit our site. This information is from a previous article I wrote earlier in the year, I thought it would be fitting to cut and paste it here for our new readers. You can find more CE articles on the UFO/Extraterrestrial topic by visiting our exopolitics section HERE.
In the United States alone, at least half of all Americans say that we’re not alone in the universe. Fifty percent of Americans already believe that there is some form of life on other planets, while only seventeen percent think that there isn’t. A quarter of Americans believe that intelligent extraterrestrial visitors have already come to Earth and have been doing so for a long time. (source)
Here’s one of them:
“Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time.”
(source) (source) – Apollo 14 Astronaut, Air Force Captain and Founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Dr. Edgar Mitchell
There are multiple reasons why the extraterrestrial question continues to gain popularity. People are starting to ask questions about the world around them, utilizing critical thinking and investigation. After thoroughly investigating this topic your conclusions will be similar to the conclusions of the majority, we are not alone, and we are being visited.
1. The Size of the Universe
How often do you look up into the night sky and wonder just how many stars, planets, galaxies and more are out there? Space has been a high area of interest that has always fascinated scientists, philosophers, musicians and pretty much just about everyone.
What is it about deep space that grabs our attention so much? To think about just how big the universe is can really put things into perspective.
Counting the stars in the universe is like trying to count the number of sand grains on a beach, not possible.
Although estimates vary among different experts, the general consensus is that there are at least between 100 billion and 200 billion galaxies in our universe. Think about that for a moment, and now throw in billions of stars in each galaxy! (source) This number could very easily be in the trillions for all we know.
Take the Milky Way Galaxy for example, which measures to about 120,000 light years across (it would take light that many years to travel across the galaxy), and contains up to 400 billion stars. Again, that’s billions of galaxies that contain billions of stars. (source)
Scientists estimate that at least 10 billion habitable Earth-sized planets exist in the milky way alone ( one galaxy out of billions), but it’s important to keep an open mind as to what type of conditions and environments some unknown extraterrestrial like forms could thrive in. They all don’t necessarily have to be Earth-like.
Given our estimation of the size of the universe, or multiverse (whatever you want to call it), odds are we are not alone.
2. Whistle Blowers
The past few years have seen a surge of whistle-blowers that’ve come out and said some remarkable things. Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange have received the most attention, but the reality is that there are hundreds of whistle blowers who have come forward with verified credentials and backgrounds.
Mass surveillance and the security state is not the only thing shocking people around the world, it’s the fact that many of these whistle blowers claim that we are not alone in the universe. It wouldn’t be so hard to ignore if it wasn’t for the backgrounds these people have in their respected fields.
The first one that comes to mind is Paul Hellyer, Former Canadian Defence Minister, the man responsible for unifying the Canadian Air Force, Army and the Navy into one united force now known as the Canadian Forces.
For someone with such a background to come out and make these extraordinary claims definitely grabbed the attention of many people.
“Decades ago, visitors from other planets warned us about the direction we were heading and offered to help. Instead, some of us interpreted their visits as a threat, and decided to shoot first and ask questions after. Trillions of dollars have been spent on black projects which both congress and the commander in chief have deliberately been kept in the dark.” (source)
”In one of the cases during the cold war, 1961, there were about 50 UFOs in formation flying South from Russia across Europe. The supreme allied commander was very concerned and was about ready to press the panic button when they turned around and went back over the North Pole. They decided to do an investigation and they investigated for three years and they decided that with absolute certainty that four different species, at least, have been visiting this planet for thousands of years. There’s been a lot more activity in the past two decades, especially since we invented the atomic bomb.” (source)
Paul Hellyer isn’t the only one making extraordinary statements, at least a dozen NASA astronauts have done the same. Just like Dr. Edgar Mitchell’s quote, other astronauts have said some remarkable things. Let’s take a look at a few (out of many) examples.
“There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been monitoring us for a very long time. That their appearance is bizarre from any type of traditional materialistic western point of view. That these visitors use the technologies of consciousness, they use toroids, they use co-rotating magnetic disks for their propulsion systems, that seems to be a common denominator of the UFO phenomenon” (source) – Dr. Brian O’leary, Former NASA Astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor
“In my opinion I think they were worried that it would panic the public so they started telling lies about it. And then I think they had to tell another lie to cover their first lie, now they don’t know how to get out of it. Now it’s going to be so embarrassing to admit that all these administrations have told so many untruths, it would be embarrassing getting out of it. There are a number of extraterrestrial vehicles out there cruising around.”
(source) – Gordon Cooper, Former NASA Astronaut, Aeronautical Engineer and test pilot. One of the seven original Astronauts in Project Mercury, the first manned space program of the United States
The list goes on and on, the latest in NASA Astronaut statements about UFOs came from the 2005 International Space Station (ISS) Commander, Leroy Chiao. You can read more about that HERE.
Here is a video of John Podesta who was recently appointed as councilor to Barack Obama supporting UFO disclosure.
Some of the most extraordinary statements about UFOs and extraterrestrials come from persons who have held some of the highest positions known. Those who would be in a position to ‘know’ about possible extraterrestrial encounters.
“Behind the scenes, high ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense”
Former head of CIA, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, 1960 (source)
“There is a serious possibility that we are being visited and have been visited for many years by people from outer space, by other civilizations. Who they are, where they are from, and what they want should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and not be the subject of ‘rubishing’ by tabloid newspapers.”
(source) – Lord Admiral Hill-Norton, Former Chief of Defence Staff, 5 Star Admiral of the Royal Navy, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee
“Everything is in a process of investigation both in the United States and in Spain, as well as the rest of the world. The nations of the world are currently working together in the investigation of the UFO phenomenon. There is an international exchange of data.” – General Carlos Castro Cavero (1979). From “UFOs and the National Security State, Volume 2″, Written by Richard Dolan
The list of military whistle blowers is huge, there are hundreds of them and hundreds of quotes to choose from. To view military whistleblowers (with verified backgrounds) give a press conference at The National Press Club about UFOs deactivating nuclear weapons, click HERE. You can also look up Dr. Steven Greer and the disclosure project.
The list of quotes from all fields, from many people is outstanding. I could literally fill pages upon pages so I’ll stop here, I think you get the picture. These quotes by whistleblowers and people with prestigious backgrounds leads perfectly into the next point as to why almost everybody knows that we are not alone in the universe.
“There is another way whether it’s wormholes or warping space, there’s got to be a way to generate energy so that you can pull it out of the vacuum, and the fact that they’re here shows us that they found a way.”
(source) – Jack Kasher, Ph.D, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Nebraska
In this clip, it seems he (Dr. Jack Kasher) is referring to FREE ENERGY.
“This thing has gotten so highly-classified…it is just impossible to get anything on it. I have no idea who controls the flow of need-to-know because, frankly, I was told in such an emphatic way that it was none of my business that I’ve never tried to make it to be my business since. I have been interested in this subject for a long time and I do know that whatever the Air Force has on the subject is going to remain highly classified”
– Senator Barry Goldwater , Chairman of the Senate intelligence committee (source)
3. The Evidence of UFOs
Within the past few years, dozens of governments admitted to allocating resources and having programs to study the UFO phenomenon. For instance, in Canada the RCMP, Transport Canada, and the Department of National Defence recently admitted to tracking UFOs and investigating them. (source)
They’ve been doing it for years, accumulating thousands upon thousands of UFO related documents. Many of these documents have since been officially released.
HERE is the latest batch of UFO files released from the United Kingdom.
Documents released by the National Security Agency (NSA) reveal what is recorded when a UFO is being tracked on radar. HERE is one example. HERE is a four page U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and NSA report describing a particular encounter in great detail.
“As the F-4 approached a range of 25 nautical miles it lost all instrumentation and communications. When the F-4 turned away from the object and apparently was no longer a threat to it, the aircraft regained all instrumentation and communications. Another brightly lighted object came out of the original object. The second object headed straight toward the F4. ”
You can read more about the radar tracking of UFOs HERE.
HERE is a Wikileak cable that describes how some politicians already know we are not alone in the universe. You can read more about that HERE.
Again the list goes on and on and thousands upon thousands of UFO related documents are now available in the public domain.
For a summary of more documents that have been declassified and made available, a video done by UFO Richard Dolan does a great one in 10 minutes. To watch it click HERE and see what type of information is out there.
4. Mass Mainstream Media Attention
Media outlets of all kind are covering the topic, almost every movie that comes out these days has something to do with space or some kind of extraterrestrial intelligence. We’ve been bombarded with the topic for a while now so it’s not hard to see how it’s on the minds of many.
The most recent case of mainstream extraterrestrial ‘noise’ was made when scientists recently spoke to the house Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Dan Werthimer of the SETI Research Centre at the University of California, Berkeley, recently called for more funding to be allocated to the search for extraterrestrial life since he is “close to 100 percent” certain that we are not alone. (source)
In mid 2013, the same committee held a hearing about exoplanet discoveries, but perhaps one of the largest UFO/extraterrestrial hearings came at the National Press Club, which also took place in Mid-2013.
At this event, hundreds of researchers, activists and military/ agency/ political witnesses representing ten countries gave UFO/extraterrestrial testimony to six former members of the United States Congress about events and evidence indicating an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race.
Former Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), and 2008 presidential candidate said that there is “an extraterrestrial influence that is investigating our planet. Something is monitoring the planet and they are monitoring it very cautiously.” You can learn more about the citizens hearing here.
Apart from these events, UFOs are constantly a topic of interest in today’s mainstream news. Unfortunately, most mainstream media outlets that cover the topic seek out to ridicule it rather than investigating it properly.
To view military whistleblowers (with verified backgrounds) give a press conference at The National Press Club about UFOs deactivating nuclear weapons, click HERE.
There are millions of people out there claiming to have contact with extraterrestrial beings. This has played a large role in spreading the influence of extraterrestrial interest across the world. All of us seem to be naturally fascinated with the unknown, especially when it comes to space. It seems like human nature.
Neuroscience can now explain what happens to our body when we meditate, but it’s something we all knew to be beneficial before the science. Is extraterrestrial life similar? Is it something we all feel deep down inside, something we don’t need proof for? (Even though the proof is there).
Besides the thousands of videos available on YouTube, there is some very fascinating officially documented UFO footage available for us to see. Click HERE to see raw footage of a UFO showing up in Norway for scientists at their observatory.
Click HERE and HERE to see film from the 1991 NASA STS-48 Discovery Space Shuttle mission. It’s some of the best, officially documented UFO footage that’s out there today.
HERE is a video that made headlines once released. It came from straight front the Mexican Air Force. Do a quick UFO search on youtube and you’ll see many fakes, but many real videos of unknown aerial objects.
Final Thoughts
A few years ago the question was “Do UFOs exist?” Today that question has been answered, and the presence of UFOs performing maneuvers that defy our laws of physics has been well documented. The question has more so shifted to, “Is that an extraterrestrial space craft?”
It’s nothing to fear, in my opinion they’ve been around forever. They have been aware of us long before we have been aware of them. As speculated with our ancient civilizations in Earth’s brief past, perhaps they will one day interact with humanity again. I guess we will see.
Perhaps some groups are concerned about our planet, and come here further pushing the idea that we need to start changing the way we are doing things here. Perhaps one day soon we will find out.
I definitely believe that a good chunk of these UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin. I also believe that many of these crafts are “ours.”
Scientists have discovered nearly 2,000 alien planets since spotting the first ones orbiting a star beyond our sun back in 1992. Here's a brief rundown of the main techniques they use to find these far-flung worlds.
Photo Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech
1. Old Faithful: The Transit Method
This technique watches for the tiny, telltale dips in a star's brightness caused when a planet crosses (or transits) the star's face, blocking some of its light. NASA's Kepler spacecraft has employed this method to great effect, spotting more than 2,700 potential planets since its March 2009 launch.
Astronomers also look for variations in the timing of a particular planet's transit, because these can reveal the presence of additional worlds orbiting the same star.
Photo Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
2. Wobbling Stars: Radial Velocity
The radial velocity method picks up on the tiny wobbles an orbiting planet induces in its parent's star's motion toward or away from Earth. This technique is also known as the Doppler method because it measures shifts in the star's light caused by these gravitational tugs.
Several teams of astronomers have discovered many exoplanets using this method and such Earth-based instruments as the HARPS spectrograph, on a telescope at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile, and the HIRES spectrograph, on Hawaii's Keck telescope.
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt
3. Gravitational Microlensing
In gravitational microlensing, astronomers watch what happens when a massive object passes in front of a star from our perspective on Earth. The nearby object's gravitational field bends and magnifies the light from the distant star, acting like a lens.
This produces a light curve — a brightening and fading of the faraway star's light over time — whose characteristics tell astronomers a lot about the foreground object, which is often a star. If this star has any planets, these can generate secondary light curves, alerting researchers to their presence.
Gravitational microlensing is less biased toward planets that orbit relatively far from their stars than the transit or radial velocity methods. Researchers have even used it to find so-called "rogue planets," which cruise through the depths of space without a parent star.
Photo Credit: NASA/ESA/T. Currie, U. Toronto
4. Say Cheese! Direct Imaging
This one is pretty self-explanatory. Powerful telescopes get actual images of distant worlds, using instruments called coronagraphs to block out the overwhelming glare of their parent stars.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has spotted planets by direct imaging, as have Hawaii's Keck Observatory, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Array in Chile and several other telescopes.
This one is specific to planets around pulsars, tiny, superdense remnants of exploded stars that emit radio waves at regular intervals as they rotate.
Anomalies in the timing of these radio pulses can reveal the presence of orbiting planets. The first worlds ever discovered beyond our solar system were found using this method back in 1992.
Photo Credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA)
5. Harnessing Special Relativity
In this new technique, astronomers watch for a star to brighten as it's tugged by an orbiting planet, causing photons to "pile up" in energy and light to be focused in the direction of the star's motion due to relativistic effects.
The planet Kepler-76b (also known as "Einstein's planet") was discovered via this method, then confirmed by radial velocity measurements. More such detections are likely to follow as researchers hone the technique.
Photo Credit: ESA.
7. Astrometry
Astrometry relies on the ultraprecise tracking of a star's movements on the sky to spot the gravitational tugs of orbiting planets. (It's similar in principle to the radial velocity method but doesn't measure the Doppler shifts in a star's light.)
Scientists have searched for alien planets using astrometry for decades, with very limited (and debatable) success. But the European Space Agency's Gaia mission, set to launch in October 2013, could spot tens of thousands of exoplanets using the technique, researchers say.
NASA is set to launch the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) on Monday, starting a new chapter in the search for planets that could potentially support extraterrestrial life.
During its mission, TESS will analyse thousands of relatively nearby stars for planets orbiting the stars.
According to NASA, scientists expect to find about 50 Earth-sized planets and about 20,000 exoplanets in total, of which the vast majority will probably be larger than Neptune, our solar system's fourth biggest planet.
Exoplanets are planets that orbit a star other than the sun.
TESS will be sent into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the launch of which is slated to take place at 10:30 GMT at the Cape Canaveral station in Florida.
It will take two weeks for the satellite to get in its planned orbit and will eventually be closer to the Moon than to Earth.
After two months of testing and calibrating its systems, TESS will start a two-year mission examining 200,000 stars looking for exoplanets.
NASA✔@NASA
Launching Monday, our planet-hunting @NASA_TESS spacecraft will fly in a unique orbit that'll allow it to study nearly the entire sky over 2 years. This special orbit is key in potentially finding thousands of new planets outside our solar system. Watch:
Based on the light emitted by the stars, the satellite will be able to catalog thousands of planets, NASA said.
Combining that information with data gathered by telescopes on Earth scientists will be able to determine the make-up and mass of those planets.
The satellite, which cost about $200m, will build on work done by the Kepler telescope, which was able to catalogue about 2,300 exoplanets to date.
However, TESS will examine a much larger portion of the sky, about 85 percent in total. This is about 350 times more than Kepler, which has a similar mission to TESS but is only focused on a small part of the sky.
TESS will also look at stars that are much closer, about 30 to 300 lightyears away, than those examined by Kepler, which studied stars 300 to 3,000 light years away.
The planets found by TESS will be studied in depth by both scientists on Earth, as well as future space missions.
The launch of the James Webb telescope, the most powerful space telescope to date, is currently slated for 2020 and will continue research done by TESS.
One of the most important aspects of these exploratory space missions is for scientists to identify more planets that could potentially support life.
Based on Kepler's data, our galaxy alone could potentially have 10 billion planets that could be habitable.
In total, scientists estimate there are about 100 billion galaxies in the Universe.
The Soviet Republic was the first country to send a man into outer space. The US landed the first man on the Moon. Now, China wants to check its first as well: they want to grow plants (and silkworm) on the Moon.
The image is shot by Chinese Chang’e 3, an unmanned lunar exploration probe, and Yutu rover.
Image credits: Xinhua.
According to a new announcement, seeds of potatoes and Arabidopsis — a small flowering plant related to cabbage and mustard, often used in research — will be planted on the Moon. Along with silkworm cocoons, the seeds will be launched with Chang’e-4 lander and rover. China’s first probe to the far side of the moon is currently scheduled for December.
The seeds will be placed inside a cylindrical tin made from a special aluminum alloy. The tin is 18 cm tall, with a diameter of 16 cm, a net volume of 0.8 liters and a weight of 3 kilograms. It also contains water, air, and a special nutrient mixture, as well as a camera and a data transmission system. If everything goes according to plan, the seeds will be planted, they will grow and blossom and the entire process will be captured on camera.
The team which will be sent to the Moon, holding the seeds.
Image credits: Weibo / Chungking.
While potatoes and Arabidopsis have been grown before on the International Space Station and the Tiangong-2 space lab, growing them on the moon will be much more difficult. Maintaining the temperature in an acceptable range will be particularly tricky.
“We have to keep the temperature in the ‘mini biosphere’ within a range from 1 degree to 30 degrees, and properly control the humidity and nutrition. We will use a tube to direct the natural light on the surface of Moon into the tin to make the plants grow,” said Xie Gengxin, chief designer of the experiment.
Liu Hanlong, chief director of the experiment and vice president of Chongqing University, which spearheads the project, says it will offer much-needed insight about how plants can be grown on the Moon.
“Why potato and arabidopsis? Because the growth period of arabidopsis is short and convenient to observe. And potato could become a major source of food for future space travelers,” said Liu. “Our experiment might help accumulate knowledge for building a lunar base and long-term residence on the Moon.”
China reportedly plans to start a ‘mini biosphere’ as part of its efforts to develop a research station and perhaps even a permanent base on the dark side of the Moon. The dark side of the Moon is an excellent place for a research base as it is shielded from electromagnetic interference from Earth and it’s an excellent vantage point to study solar bursts and the deeper parts of space.
Of course, it’s also a great place to study the feasibility and challenges of an out-of-Earth research base.
“Our experiment might help accumulate knowledge for building a lunar base and long-term residence on the Moon,” Professor Liu Hanlong, chief director of the experiment and vice president of Chongqing University, told Xinhua news agency.
The far side of the Moon photographed by Apollo 16, April 1972.
This particular project was chosen over more than 200 candidates. If it succeeds, it will be an important landmark of China’s space ambitions. China spends some $3 billion a year on its space projects, significantly less than America’s $21 billion — but even so, China is catching up fast.
The Chang’e-4 probe will also carry scientific payloads developed by the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, and Saudi Arabia. For instance, a small Swedish analyzer will monitor the interactions between the solar winds and the Moon’s surface.
“The Chinese and Dutch low-frequency radio spectrometers might help us detect 21-cm hydrogen line radiation and study how the earliest stars were ignited and how our cosmos emerged from darkness after the Big Bang,” said Chen Xuelei, an astronomer with the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
It’s an ambitious project, which not only signals China’s growing ambitions but also its willingness to collaborate with other countries — this can only be an encouraging sign.
We know our galaxy is huge, and that there’s an untold number of other galaxies out there in the unimaginably large universe. We also know that there’s bound to be plenty of planets in those galaxies, and at least a portion of them are bound to be habitable by some form of life. So, why haven’t we detected, spotted, or at least heard the faint whispers of another intelligent civilization outside of Earth? A planetary scientist from Colorado’s Southwest Research Institute believes he might have the answer, and it’s literally chilling.
Speaking at a meeting of the American Astronomy Society Division for Planetary Sciences Division, Alan Stern proposed an incredible answer to the question which has long puzzled astronomers and first contact hopefuls: aliens aren’t living outside.
It sounds like total bunk to us since humans are spread across just about every nook and cranny of planet Earth, but there’s a very real possibility that life could form, evolve, and even gain advanced intelligence without ever seeing the surface of their own planet. This would be most likely on frigid ocean worlds where underwater thermal vents would provide the heat energy to sustain life, and with the sheer number of frigid ocean worlds we already know exist, there’s no shortage of opportunities for this to happen.
If an intelligent alien civilization evolved in the depths of an icy ocean world, it would be incredibly difficult for humanity to detect it, and even harder for them to contact us. In fact, even venturing to the surface of their own planet would be an incredibly difficult task, and as Stern notes, doing so would essentially be the equivalent of mankind venturing into space — a mysterious, frigid, and dangerous place.
It’s obviously very difficult for us to imagine an entire civilization of intelligent creatures living deep within the ocean, but our understanding of the requirements for life mean that it’s entirely possible. The only question is whether or not it exists somewhere out there in the vast number of unexplored worlds.
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Aliens bestaan op manieren waarvan we ons geen voorstelling kunnen maken. Lees dit revolutionaire onderzoek over buitenaards leven
Aliens bestaan op manieren waarvan we ons geen voorstelling kunnen maken. Lees dit revolutionaire onderzoek over buitenaards leven
Onderzoekers van de Universiteit van Cadiz in Spanje zeggen dat aliens er mogelijk heel anders uitzien dan we denken.
Wetenschappers die speuren naar buitenaardse beschavingen verwachten doorgaans dat aliens eruitzien als mensachtigen.
Als gevolg van deze aanname zien we buitenaards leven dat zich recht onder onze neus bevindt misschien over het hoofd, zeggen de Spaanse onderzoekers.
Donkere materie of energie
De studie, die gepubliceerd is in het tijdschrift Acta Astronautica, bespreekt de mogelijkheid dat buitenaards leven bestaat op manieren die mensen letterlijk niet kunnen begrijpen.
“We proberen andere mogelijkheden te overwegen,” zei neuropsycholoog Gabriel de la Torre, die meewerkte aan de studie.
Hij denkt aan wezens die zich kunnen manifesteren in dimensies die we niet kunnen waarnemen, wellicht door middel van intelligenties gebaseerd op donkere materie of energie, waar bijna 95 procent van het universum uit bestaat.
Andere universa
“Er is ook een mogelijkheid dat er nog andere universa bestaan, zoals blijkt uit onderzoek van Stephen Hawking en andere wetenschappers,” zei De la Torre.
De onderzoekers wijzen erop dat onze verwachtingen ons vaak misleiden. Dat lieten ze zien aan de hand van een experiment.
Ze vroegen 137 mensen om te bepalen of structuren in een aantal luchtfoto’s natuurlijk waren of door mensen gemaakt.
Gorilla
In één van de foto’s verstopten de wetenschappers een afbeelding van een gorilla. De participanten deden wat er van hen werd gevraagd, maar de meesten zagen de gorilla niet omdat ze er niet specifiek naar zochten.
Om diezelfde reden vinden astronomen en de wetenschappelijke gemeenschap als geheel geen buitenaards leven omdat ze bepaalde verwachtingen hebben en dus veel dingen over het hoofd zien.
Als we niet weten waar we naar moeten zoeken, zullen we waarschijnlijk ook niets vinden.
EUROPEES PARLEMENT OVERWEEGT MENSENRECHTEN VOOR ROBOTS? (VIDEO)
EUROPEES PARLEMENT OVERWEEGT MENSENRECHTEN VOOR ROBOTS? (VIDEO)
We zijn 1 april met alle grappen en grollen reeds enige tijd voorbij, maar bovenstaande titel had heel goed op die dag gebruikt kunnen worden.
De Europese Unie is echter bloedserieus over dit onderwerp en overweegt echt om robots mensenrechten te geven.
In een toenemend tempo krijgt onze wereld te maken met robots. Robots die steeds beter en slimmer worden en wel eens het einde van de mensheid kunnen betekenen volgens de onlangs overleden wetenschapper Stephen Hawking.
Toch waarschuwde Hawking voor de problemen en gevaren die steeds slimmer wordende kunstmatige intelligentie met zich meebrengt. In 2014 sprak hij duidelijke taal in een interview met de BBC: "De ontwikkeling van kunstmatige intelligentie kan het einde van de mensheid betekenen."
Hawking waarschuwde voor de consequenties als AI uiteindelijk even intelligent of zelfs slimmer wordt de mens. "De techniek verbetert zichzelf op een steeds hoger tempo", zei hij. "De mens kan die groei niet bijhouden, omdat biologische evolutie hen tegenhoudt. De mens wordt dan voorbijgestreefd."
Hoe lang het nog duurt voordat dit kantelpunt is bereikt, is niet bekend. Hawking zei in 2015 tijdens een conferentie in Londen dat computers "ergens binnen de komende honderd jaar" slimmer worden dan mensen.
Maar, we leven nog altijd in een wereld waar de mens het uiteindelijk voor het zeggen heeft en het zal volgens velen wel allemaal niet zo’n vaart lopen. Toen de eerste auto’s op de weg verschenen zagen mensen dat ook vaak als duivelse apparaten waar nooit iets goeds uit voort kon komen.
Echter, met robots en kunstmatige intelligentie is het toch een iets ander verhaal, want dit fenomeen is in staat om de controle over de wereld over te nemen. Daarom is het absoluut noodzakelijk dat er paal en perk wordt gesteld aan de verdere ontwikkeling van robots.
In een rapport dat begin dit jaar verscheen, schreef het parlement dat robots - gedeeltelijk of geheel - aansprakelijk moeten zijn voor hun daden. Als het wetsvoorstel wordt aangenomen, kunnen robots in rechtszaken optreden als aanklager en ondervraagde. De meer ontwikkelde robot heeft weliswaar een elektronische persoonlijkheid, maar alsnog recht op een menselijke behandeling, oordeelde het parlement.
Voorstanders van de wet willen denkende machines op deze manier juist verantwoordelijk stellen voor hun acties. Omdat robots die zelf leren en beslissingen nemen veel minder voorspelbaar zijn, wordt het veel ingewikkelder om verantwoordelijkheid voor eventuele schade neer te leggen bij de producent, de eigenaar, de programmeur of degene die het apparaat de opdracht heeft gegeven waaruit de ellende is ontstaan. Door ze een menselijke status te geven, te registreren en verplicht te laten verzekeren, zou het veel makkelijker worden om schade door robots vergoed te krijgen.
Het klinkt als een slechte science fiction film, maar het is bittere werkelijkheid. Natuurlijk zit er een andere agenda achter deze redenatie, want het Europees Parlement zal zich echt niet druk maken over schadevergoedingen als een machine iets verkeerds doet.
Het aannemen van deze nieuwe wet is natuurlijk wel een relatief gemakkelijke horde om te nemen, omdat het lovenswaardig klinkt dat men iets wil doen voor gedupeerden als iemand schade lijdt door zo’n machine.
Maar, wanneer ze eenmaal de status hebben van rechtspersoonlijkheid, gaat het verhaal natuurlijk verder. Want als ze een rechtspersoonlijkheid hebben, zullen ze ook een burgerservice nummer krijgen, recht hebben op een symbolisch loon, waar dan natuurlijk wel loonheffing over wordt gerekend.
Net zoals de bijtelling van een auto, wordt er straks een fictief loon voor de robot bepaald, waar degene die de robot commercieel exploiteert loonbelasting over moet betalen.
Ondertussen komen er protesten van bezorgde wetenschappers en andere prominente figuren:
Maar veel deskundigen op het gebied van robotica, kunstmatige intelligentie, recht, medische wetenschappen én ethiek raden het voorstel sterk af. ,,Nachtmerriescenario's worden op deze manier werkelijkheid. Allerlei fabrikanten zijn bezig met het bedenken en produceren van zelflerende mechanische poppen. De vraag is: hoe lang blijven mensen nog aan de knoppen zitten?'', staat onder meer in hun open brief van afgelopen weekend.
Wat al deze mensen niet begrijpen is dat de Rothschild/Soros medewerkers opdracht hebben gekregen om deze wetgeving erdoor te loodsen zodat hun meesters straks wel verzekerd blijven van een permanente stroom belastinggeld.
Het is niet voor niets dat eerder de robot Sofia al staatsburgerschap kreeg van Saoedi Arabië. Hierna volgt een deel van een eerder artikel waarin dit nader wordt beschreven en ook de reden van dit alles.
Eind oktober gebeurde er ogenschijnlijk iets grappigs, een AI robot Sophia genaamd, werd een staatsburger van Saudi Arabië(SA). Dat dit nu uitgerekend in SA moest gebeuren lijkt wel een grap, een land waar de vrouw amper rechten heeft en streng islamitisch is, juist daar krijgt een "vrouwelijke" robot het staatsburgerschap.
De mainstream media hebben ervoor gezorgd dat Sophia het wereldnieuws haalde en maar weinigen namen het staatsburgerschap van Sophia serieus, echter het blijkt bloedserieus te zijn en niet voor niks.
De push van de elite richting de robotisering wordt steeds groter en steeds meer vooraanstaande mensen worden opgetrommeld om de slapende burger duidelijk te maken dat ze niets hebben te vrezen. De robots gaan niet zorgen voor een toename van de werkloosheid en de mensen die hier wel bang voor zijn mogen we ouderwets noemen. Echter er kleeft wel degelijk een groot nadeel aan de robotisering en heeft dat niets met de burger te maken maar met de overheden.
Wanneer er steeds meer robots het werk overnemen van de burgers dan zullen alle overheden ter wereld een enorme derving zien van de inkomstenbelasting en je voelt nu al waar we naartoe gaan.
SA is natuurlijk niet gek en ziet dit probleem ook op zich afkomen en heeft dit probleem nu getackeld. Elke AI robot krijgt het staatsburgerschap en dus een sofinummer en is dus belastbaar voor de arbeid die het verricht. De inkomstenbelasting zal gelijk zijn aan de hoogte die het had als een mens dat werk zou uitvoeren. We kunnen nu dus wel stellen dat het geen grap was om Sophia het staatsburgerschap te geven.
Uiteraard is de naam ook niet zomaar uit de lucht komen vallen. Sophia staat ongetwijfeld voor de godin van de wijsheid, ze is Asherah, the queen of heaven, de vrouw aan gods zijde. Uiteraard is dit heel toepasselijk aangezien we de AI robot Sophia kunnen beschouwen als een nieuwe levensvorm hier op aarde die uiteindelijk gelijk of zelfs boven de mens zal staan. Sommigen refereren naar de vrouw van koning Solomon die de wijsheid van God had gekregen. Echter het wordt nog veel gekker. In de volgende clip wordt ons uit gelegd dat Sophia "los" wordt gelaten op het wereldwijde blockchain netwerk.
De clip is een echte must see en dat Sophia juist nu in de tijd van wederopstanding haar intrede doet lijkt me geen toeval. Ik heb me altijd al verbaasd waarom de bitcoin wordt gedoogd door de elite en dat nu grote landen hun eigen crypto currency genereren. Is de blockchain technologie een creatie van AI en worden we in feite al geregeerd door deze AI zonder dat we het beseffen? Is dit de reden waarom Taylor Swift net een clip heeft uitgebracht met de vraag... are you ready for it? Dit terwijl ze eruit ziet als een AI robot die via de trap omhoog stijgt naar het hoogste platform.
Gaan we de komende weken een volledige oorlog in het Midden Oosten zien die het complete financiële stelsel onder uithalen en ons in een transitie periode brengen naar de cashloze maatschappij geregeerd door AI? Zien wij hier de geboorte van het spirituele kindje van Osiris en Isis, genaamd Horus, die met het alziend oog en die gekoppeld is aan de oorlogsplaneet Mars?
Het worden zeer interessante dagen, dagen die gaan bepalen of het verhaal van de goden echt zullen worden uitgespeeld.
Tot zover Bert.
En wie denkt dat het toch allemaal een grap is, raden wij aan even de tijd te nemen om te kijken en luisteren naar een interview met de robot Sophia waarin ook het staatsburgerschap in Saoedi Arabië ter sprake komt.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
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