While most of Brazil is focused on the out-of-control fires in the Amazon (and rightly so), a few people are excited about new information and a possible new release of previously classified documents which revealed unbelievable details about an “invasion of UFOs” in 2008 that brought with them “luminous beings.” Why are they calling it an “invasion,” what were these luminous beings and what else might the Brazilian Air Force and government be hiding?

“It all started around 10 pm on a Wednesday night, November 19, 2008, just before Brazil’s match against Portugal, when from her apartment, Mrs. Renata Veloso Guerck Austriaco spotted a hexagonal light object accompanied of two other spherical flying objects that rotated under its orbit. As the UFO approached the Nossa Senhora Aparecida church, the streetlights of the Bela Vista neighborhood had a blackout, extinguishing block by block. From that moment, several claudienses began to observe the strange lights flying over the city and arriving to land in the countryside, along the MG 260 highway.”

That Google translation of Portuguese comes from a recent investigative report in the Brazilian media source saudedomeio.com, which brings readers up-to-date on the original 2008 sighting in Cláudio, a city in the state of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil. Police officers called to the scene said “We saw an oval-shaped, rectangular-shaped perched object, the size and appearance of a wheelless minibus, emitting white light, like a xenon headlight. This light came out of an opening that cut through the middle of that object. Then he went up until we lost sight of him.” Multiple witnesses reported seeing the lights over the next few days. (Photograph here.)

In 2015, investigators from Ovni Pesquia (UFO Search) magazine requested and received police documents which revealed much more. On November 20, two officers reported seeing aliens.

“We saw two luminous beings, about three feet tall, gliding through the reeds. We were in the Mitsubishi pickup truck on a back road when Sergeant William saw something in the woods. He turned the car 13533 towards the ‘luminous beings’, as we approached (15 or 20 meters), they began to slide through the reeds. We were about 20 km / h and these continued forward and to the right, it was noticeable that those things ‘walked’ without touching the ground. We saw no feet, no toes, but we saw arms, legs, and oval heads, and though they were bright, they did not illuminate.”

Illustration of another luminous being with oval head

The witnesses believed the aliens controlled their thoughts because they later had headaches, confusion, anxiety and a period of unaccountable time. The report states that other non-military witnesses had similar alien contacts and also reported electrical problems with their cars.

That brings us to new information uncovered in February of 2019 by investigators from Ovni Pesquia. They interviewed the witness who took the photographs (Corporal Rabelo) who revealed he was visited by “military personnel from Lagoa Santa Air Base” who took away his digital photo cards (luckily, he had a backup) and told him what he saw was “artificial gas burning.” Rabelo told the magazine investigators that the “artificial gas” looked more like a “two-story wheelless minibus UFO” that was also seen by another witness they interviewed as well, who told them this:

“It was the size of a truck, a minibus! It made no noise, just floated. I saw the reeds shine, because it was a very bright light. It looked like it had fire inside, very strange color.”

Were the aliens just making a pit stop?

Based on that, UFO Search investigators made yet another request through the Citizen Information Service for the official report, a reported sketch and the photos. That was in late February and, as of this writing of the new report in saudedomeio.com this week, they have received nothing and are crying cover-up:

“Will we have news of this “invasion” or will our Brazilian Air Force continue to cover the facts in that mining city? This is the question that doesn’t want to shut up!” }Will they ever get the secret report? Will they get a visit from mysterious men asking questions and taking their photo cards?

Who were the luminous beings invading Cláudio?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/

29-08-2019 om 20:43 geschreven door peter  

Uranus smells like farts, astronomers have confirmed — and the discovery indicates there was ‘a big shakeup’ early in the solar system

Dave Mosher

• Uranus is one of the solar system’s most mysterious planets.
• Scientists had long believed that the “ice giant” world has clouds of hydrogen sulfide, a compound that smells bad to people, but they couldn’t be certain.
• New telescope observations confirm the planet is clouded by the chemical.
• The discovery may help astronomers further unravel the twisted history of the solar system‘s formation.

Foto: NASA/JPL-Caltech A photo of Uranus taken by Voyager 2 in 1986 (edited to show its moon and rings).

Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun, has held a vital (and smelly) secret of the solar system for decades.

An international team of researchers reported on Monday that they’ve discovered evidence that Uranus holds one of the most unpleasant-smelling chemicals known to humankind.

“They found hydrogen sulfide, the odiferous gas that most people avoid, in Uranus’s cloud tops,” according to a press release from Gemini Observatory, a high-power telescope atop a Hawaiian volcano.

Now, however, astronomers have used an instrument at the Gemini Observatory to “sniff” the planet’s gases from Earth. Their discovery could help write the book on when and where the planets of the solar system formed – and if they ever switched places.

“This is evidence of a big shakeup early on in the solar system’s formation,” Glenn Orton, a co-author of the new study and a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Business Insider. “There was definitely a migration taking place.”

The journal Nature Astronomy published the findings on Monday.

Why it took so long to detect Uranus’s stinky clouds

The reason most people avoid hydrogen sulfide is because the compound is a signature ingredient in the scent of rotten eggs – and farts.

Humans can smell hydrogen sulfide when it makes up as little as three out of every billion molecules in the air, the EPA says. At higher concentrations, such as near volcanic areas, it can be poisonous. Breathing a concentration of a few hundred parts per million can kill a person in about half an hour, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

“If an unfortunate human were ever to descend through Uranus’s clouds, they would be met with very unpleasant and odiferous conditions,” Patrick Irwin, a physicist at the University of Oxford who led the new study, said in the press release. But he added that “suffocation and exposure” to Uranus’ -200 degree Celsius temperatures “would take its toll long before the smell.”

Researchers had long suspected that Uranus’s atmosphere was laced with hydrogen sulfide, and in concentrations dozens of times higher than at Saturn or Jupiter.

They couldn’t be certain, though, since Uranus orbits the sun from 1.85 billion miles away.

The vast distance, aside from making the planet distant and difficult to study, leads to blisteringly cold temperatures that freezes hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen-sulfide ice can form clouds, but the solid crystals are hard for chemical-analyzing instruments called spectrometers to study. (The method works far better with liquids and gases.)

Irwin and others suspected there were at least whiffs of hydrogen sulfide gas drifting above the clouds. And now, thanks to an extremely sensitive Gemini instrument that can see light invisible to humans, Irwin said scientists “have the fingerprint which caught the culprit.”

Why the discovery might ‘shake up’ ideas about the solar system’s evolution

Astronomers like Irwin have an interest in hydrogen sulfide on Uranus that goes far beyond the gas’ smell.

The discovery of hydrogen sulfide may help piece together the story of how the solar system formed and arranged itself some 4.6 billion years ago. Figuring out the exact makeup of distant planets could help determine where in the solar system they first formed – and how far they migrated away from the sun afterward.

Like all planets, Uranus and Neptune formed from a giant disk of gas and dust that shrouded the sun some 4.6 billion years ago. The planets are mostly made of heavier elements, and didn’t balloon with lightweight hydrogen and helium gases.

“Uranus and Neptune never had the time to grow into gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn,” Imke de Pater, an astronomer at the University of California Berkeley who wasn’t involved in the study, wrote in an accompanying article in Nature Astronomy. “The composition of a celestial body is a fundamental parameter in determining its formation and evolutionary history.”

The two planets failed to become gas giants (and instead became “ice giants”) for two main reasons.

First, the solar system’s early disk of dust and gas grew more diffuse farther out from the sun. With less material available, it took Uranus and Neptune longer to form.

Second, this slower formation gave the sun more time to blow hydrogen and helium out of the solar system with its stellar winds – before Uranus and Neptune could grow massive enough to capture it with their gravity.

“Giant planets form really fast, in a few million years,” Kevin Walsh, who studies planet formation at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, told Space.com in March. “That creates a time limit because the gas disk around the sun only lasts 4 to 5 million years.”

Scientists agree on this much, but Orton said they have “too many theories” about the migration of Uranus and Neptune, which came next.

One leading idea says the planets coalesced millions of miles closer to the sun, then quickly migrated outward.

But Orton said the newly detected hydrogen sulfide – and a strange lack of ammonia in the Gemini Observatory readings – suggest the planets actually formed farther out, then moved inward. (The ratio of the two molecules suggests the worlds were once even colder than they are today.)

To solve the question once and for all, Orton says researchers need to send spacecraft to plunge through the clouds of Uranus, not unlike how the Cassini probe dove into Saturn. The goal: figure out the exact abundances of hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, among other gases, and use the readings to pin the exact birth locations of Uranus and Neptune.

“We’re working on that now,” Orton said, referring to a proposal for a new Uranus probe.

{ https://www.businessinsider.nl/ }

29-08-2019 om 01:10 geschreven door peter  

Jupiter's Strange Core May Have Been Forged by a Colossal Head-On Crash

By Chelsea Gohd 

A massive planetary embryo may have hit Jupiter 4.5 billion years ago.

This Hubble Space Telescope view of Jupiter, taken on June 27, 2019, reveals the giant planet's trademark Great Red Spot, and a more intense color palette in the clouds swirling in Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere than seen in previous years. One new study suggest that the gas giant's dilute core was formed by a massive collision billions of years ago. 

(Image: © NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center) and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley))

About 4.5 billion years ago, a young Jupiter collided head-on with a planetary embryo 10 times more massive than Earth. This giant impact formed Jupiter's dilute core, which contains hydrogen and helium, one new study suggests.

Before NASA's Juno mission launched to orbit and study Jupiter, scientists thought that the planet's core was dense and compact. "Astronomers assumed that Jupiter has a small compact core with a mass ranging from 5 to 20 Earth masses," lead study author Shangfei Liu of Sun Yat-sen University in Zhuhai, China, said in an email to Space.com. 

This was assumed because Jupiter started off as a rocky and icy planetary embryo. However, studies using data from Juno found that the planet has an extended, dilute core — a core that is not only made up of rocky material and ice, but also hydrogen and helium. This "also means there is no sharp transition between the core and the envelope as we previously envisioned from planet formation theory," Liu said. This dilute core is something that scientists determined could not form naturally. 

• Related: Behold! Jupiter Is a Breathtaking 'Marble' in This NASA Juno Photo

(Image credit: Astrobiology Center, Japan)

"That's why we came up with the impact idea: Jupiter was smacked head-on by another massive planetary embryo (about 10 Earth masses) shortly after its formation," Liu said. "Such a catastrophic collision destroyed Jupiter's primordial compact core, and a dilute-core-like structure was formed."

The cores of both the young Jupiter and the planetary embryo merged in this violent impact, the authors of this new study suggest. The materials from both of these cores partially mixed with Jupiter's gaseous envelope, which can be detected in the planet's structure still today. 

(Image credit: Shangfei Liu)

When Jupiter began building the massive, gaseous envelope that surrounds its core, "its mass increases about 30 times in a fraction of a million years," Liu said. This process, known as the runaway gas accretion stage, disturbed planetary embryos that were developing nearby. 

"Through computational simulations, we show that there is at least 40% chance that Jupiter would collide with another planetary embryo in the next few million years," Liu added.

The team determined that the developing planet that collided with Jupiter must have been about 10 times the mass of the Earth, because "smaller impactors cannot penetrate Jupiter's massive envelope," Liu said. Additionally, the collision must have been head-on, because if the object didn't hit Jupiter directly, it would slowly sink toward the center instead of destroying the planet's core, as it would have less impact energy. 

• This study was published today (Aug. 14) in the journal Nature. 

• Spectacular 'Dragon's Eye' on Jupiter Spotted by NASA's Juno
• Volcanic Plume on Jupiter's Moon Io Spied by Juno Spacecraft
• Juno Finds Mysterious Currents in Jupiter's Magnetosphere

Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

29-08-2019 om 00:59 geschreven door peter  

Surprise Discovery Reveals Ancient City of Troy is 5,500 Years Old

The city of Troy has fascinated people for millennia. Once thought to be purely mythological, the lost city emerged as a real place in history when it was discovered in Turkey by Heinrich Schliemann in the 1870s. Archaeologists in Turkey have now made a surprising discovery indicating the ancient city could be 600 years older than previously believed. This could transform our understanding of the historic city and our past.

Experts from the Archaeology Department of Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University (COMU) have been working on the archaeological site of Troy in recent years.  

Troy is located in Turkey’s north-western Çanakkale province. It is located on a mound or tell, Hisarlık overlooking the Aegean.  Troy has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988 and in 2018 the Turkish government celebrated the 20th anniversary of the awarding of this accolade.

The ruins of the legendary ancient city of Troy in Turkey.

Credit: czamfir / Adobe Stock

The Siege of Troy

Troy was immortalized by the legendary Greek poet Homer in his epic poem The Iliad . The work was a key text in the Classical World and is often regarded as the first work in Western Literature. The historicity of the city was proven by German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the 1870s, who is regarded as one of the founders of modern archaeology. The Daily Sabahreports that Troy was the setting of the ‘‘Greek Trojan War in which Spartan and Achaean warriors from Greece besieged the city in 13th century B.C’’.

When Schliemann found the site, he believed that he had found evidence of the Trojan War that was so famously portrayed in the epic poem The Iliad . The German even named gold items he found after characters in the Homeric poem, such as ‘ Priam’s treasure’ and ‘Helen’s jewels’. However, there is much more to the history of the city than the reputed Greek and Trojan war.

• Was There Ever a Trojan War?
• History Versus Legend: In Search of Aeneas, the Trojan Refugee
• Helen of Troy, The Beauty Who Sparked the Trojan War

‘The Burning of Troy’ (1759/62) by Johann Georg Trautmann.

(  Public Domain  )

Troy was destroyed and rebuilt many times over the millennia. It was built on a very strategic site and was as a result possibly attacked many times by invaders. The city may also have been burnt down accidentally. Moreover, earthquakes also may have destroyed the legendary city.

Since the 19 ^th century, ‘‘a total of 10 layers of settlements were discovered’’ reports Greece High Definition . Experts have called the layers Troy I to Troy XI. The first layer was found by Schliemann and every layer found since has been numbered and they have yielded many artifacts. These layers all represent settlements from  Bronze Age cultures to the Byzantine Empire.

The Original Troy

The new layer which indicates a previously unknown destroyed settlement on the site has been termed Troy 0. Rüstem Aslan of COMU told the Daily Sabbah. "We found traces of burns, pottery and wooden beams in the Troy 0 layer". The archaeologists had found evidence for the earliest occupation of the location.

Based on the evidence found previously it was believed that the city was approximately 4,900 years old and dated to the Bronze Age. However, the latest discovery would indicate that the city was first established around 3,500 BC. This means that the settlement to the south of the Dardanelles dates back an astonishing 5,500 years. According to Greece High Definition , this ‘‘suggests the area may have been used as a  settlement more than six centuries earlier than previously known’’.

The Enigma of Troy

Based on the various layers found at the ancient site, it appears the city had a very ancient and complex history. The latest finds, according to Argophila ‘‘may reshape our view of this fascinating ancient city’’. Historians are hoping the new layer at Troy may also provide new information not only on the evolution of the city but also on Bronze Age societies. Given the cultural and historic significance of the storied city, any future investigations will be closely followed around the globe.

• Top image: Fresco of the battle of Troy. Credit: quasarphotos / Adobe Stock

By Ed Whelan

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

29-08-2019 om 00:33 geschreven door peter  

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AREA 51

The most recent social media movement regarding UFOs and Aliens involves Area 51. The idea is that a few hundred thousand people will attempt to #StormArea51 in search of UFOs and dead/alive alien bodies. Arguably, this can be blamed on various factors such as Bob Lazars appearance on Joe Rogan and an increased public interest in the UFO phenomena in recent years.

The idea of storming Area 51 is a joke, it is unlikely that most anyone will take the movement seriously or actually turn up. The secret military in Nevada base is most famously known for its development of advanced, next generation aircraft. However, some claims over the years have suggested there are other areas (S4) connected to the base that have crashed flying saucers. Bob Lazar being the most credible person to make such claims.

Area 51 itself doesn’t have UFOs, or aliens, and even if they ever did they would have been surely moved after the first unauthorised leak of the base by Bob back in 1989.

Despite the idiocy, illegal and bat-spit craziness of the idea of actively taking control of Area 51 there is something to be said for the baseline concept. Disclosing the secrets that are held by parts of the United States government on UFOs and Aliens, whatever they may actually be.

Tom Delonge, the head of To The Stars Academy (TTSA) took to social media (before deleting the tweets) to give an overview about the nature of the secrecy. TTSA have been working with congress to change the nature of national security policy regarding how UFOs are reported by military pilots.

Interestingly, Tom eludes to the fact the government does have detailed information, technology and ‘biological treasures’ aka dead aliens in jars. TTSA are working within the system to change the system, they aren’t tying to break it. The problem is that illegally storming Area 51 will bring about not much. Maybe a lot of violence. The movement may do better to peacefully demonstrate the request for congress to change policy, so that in time we can all see what the true reality actually is.

{ https://www.the-unidentified.net/ }

29-08-2019 om 00:11 geschreven door peter  

Nearly 40,000 fires are burning in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, the latest outbreak in an overactive fire season. Don’t blame dry weather, say environmentalists. These Amazonian wildfires are a human-made disaster.

Smoke billows from a fire in the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, in the state of Amazonas, in the northwest corner of Brazil, on August 17, 2019.

Image via Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino/The Conversation.

By Catesby Holmes, The Conversation

Nearly 40,000 fires are incinerating Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, the latest outbreak in an overactive fire season that has charred 1,330 square miles (2,927 square km) of the rainforest this year.

Don’t blame dry weather for the swift destruction of the world’s largest tropical forest, say environmentalists. These Amazonian wildfires are a human-made disaster, set by loggers and cattle ranchers who use a “slash and burn” method to clear land. Feeding off very dry conditions, some of those fires have spread out of control.

Brazil has long struggled to preserve the Amazon, sometimes called the “lungs of the world” because it produces 20% of the world’s oxygen. Despite the increasingly strict environmental protections of recent decades, about a quarter of this massive rainforest is already gone – an area the size of Texas.

While climate change endangers the Amazon, bringing hotter weather and longer droughts, development may be the greatest threat facing the rainforest.

Here, environmental researchers explain how farming, big infrastructure projects and roads drive the deforestation that’s slowly killing the Amazon.

Huge fires are raging across multiple regions of the Amazon Basin.

Image via Guaira Maia/ISA/The Conversation.

1. Farming in the jungle

Rachel Garrett is a professor at Boston University who studies land use in Brazil. She said:

Deforestation is largely due to land clearing for agricultural purposes, particularly cattle ranching but also soybean production.

Since farmers need a massive amount of land for grazing, Garrett says, they are driven to

… continuously clear forest – illegally – to expand pastureland.

Twelve percent of what was once Amazonian forest – about 93 million acres – is now farmland.

Cattle farming is one of the main industries in the Amazon region.

Image via Nacho Doce/Reuters/The Conversation.

Deforestation in the Amazon has spiked since the election last year of the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. Arguing that federal conservation zones and hefty fines for cutting down trees hinder economic growth, Bolsonaro has slashed Brazil’s strict environmental regulations.

There’s no evidence to support Bolsonaro’s view, Garrett says. She said:

Food production in the Amazon has substantially increased since 2004.

The increased production has been pushed by federal policies meant to discourage land clearing, such as hefty fines for deforestation and low-interest loans for investing in sustainable agricultural practices. Farmers are now planting and harvesting two crops – mostly soybeans and corn – each year, rather than just one.

Brazilian environmental regulations helped Amazonian ranchers, too.

Garrett’s research found that improved pasture management in line with stricter federal land use policies led the number of cattle slaughtered annually per acre to double. She wrote:

Farmers are producing more meat – and therefore earning more money – with their land.

Locations of fires, marked in orange, detected by NASA’s MODIS satellite from August 15 to August 22, 2019.

Image via Wikimedia Commons.

2. Infrastructure development and deforestation

President Bolsonaro is also pushing forward an ambitious infrastructure development plan that would turn the Amazon’s many waterways into electricity generators.

The Brazilian government has long wanted to build a series of big new hydroelectric dams, including on the Tapajós River, the Amazon’s only remaining undammed river. But the indigenous Munduruku people, who live near the Tapajós River, have stridently opposed this idea.

According to Robert T. Walker, a University of Florida professor who has conducted environmental research in the Amazon for 25 years:

The Munduruku have until now successfully slowed down and seemingly halted many efforts to profit off the Tapajós.

But Bolsonaro’s government is less likely than his predecessors to respect indigenous rights. One of his first moves in office was to transfer responsibilities for demarcating indigenous lands from the Brazilian Ministry of Justice to the decidedly pro-development Ministry of Agriculture.

And, Walker notes, Bolsonaro’s Amazon development plans are part of a broader South American project, conceived in 2000, to build continental infrastructure that provides electricity for industrialization and facilitates trade across the region.

For the Brazilian Amazon, that means not just new dams but also “webs of waterways, rail lines, ports and roads” that will get products like soybeans, corn and beef to market, according to Walker. He said:

This plan is far more ambitious than earlier infrastructure projects that damaged the Amazon.

If Bolsonaro’s plan moves forward, he estimates that fully 40 percent of the Amazon could be deforested.

3. Road-choked streams

Roads, most of them dirt, already criss-cross the Amazon.

That came as a surprise to Cecilia Gontijo Leal, a Brazilian researcher who studies tropical fish habitats. She wrote:

I imagined that my field work would be all boat rides on immense rivers and long jungle hikes. In fact, all my research team needed was a car.

Perched culverts disrupt the water flow of Amazonian streams, isolating fish.

Image via Catesby Holmes.

Traveling on rutted mud roads to take water samples from streams across Brazil’s Pará state, Leal realized that the informal “bridges” of this locally built transportation network must be impacting Amazonian waterways. So she decided to study that, too. She said:

We found that makeshift road crossings cause both shore erosion and silt buildup in streams. This worsens water quality, hurting the fish that thrive in this delicately balanced habitat.

The ill-designed road crossings – which feature perched culverts that disrupt water flow – also act as barriers to movement, preventing fish from finding places to feed, breed and take shelter.

4. Rewilding tropical forests

The fires now consuming vast swaths of the Amazon are the latest repercussion of development in the Amazon.

Set by farmers likely emboldened by their president’s anti-conservation stance, the blazes emit so much smoke that on August 20 it blotted out the midday sun in the city of São Paulo, 1,700 miles (2,736 km) away. The fires are still multiplying, and peak dry season is still a month away.

Apocalyptic as this sounds, science suggests it’s not too late to save the Amazon.

Tropical forests destroyed by fire, logging, land-clearing and roads can be replanted, say ecologists Robin Chazdon and Pedro Brancalion.

Using satellite imagery and the latest peer-reviewed research on biodiversity, climate change and water security, Chazdon and Brancalion identified 385,000 square miles (997,145 square km) of “restoration hotspots” – areas where restoring tropical forests would be most beneficial, least costly and lowest risk. Chazon wrote:

Although these second-growth forests will never perfectly replace the older forests that have been lost, planting carefully selected trees and assisting natural recovery processes can restore many of their former properties and functions.

The five countries with the most tropical restoration potential are Brazil, Indonesia, India, Madagascar and Colombia.

• Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.
• Catesby Holmes, Global Affairs Editor, The Conversation
• This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
• Bottom line: Causes of wildfires burning Brazil’s Amazon rainforest in August 2019.

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

28-08-2019 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

Space medicine: The technology that will keep astronauts alive on their mission to Mars

Any mission to Mars will face many health risks, but researchers are already working on how to tackle them.

By Jo Best

https://www.zdnet.com/video/what-its-like-to-live-on-the-moon/

It's just over 50 years since the the Apollo 11 mission first landed humans on the moon, and (finally) the world's space agencies are now setting their sights on a new, ambitious target. It's quite possible that the next generation of astronauts may include the first person to set foot on Mars.

But if that's going to be the case, there's plenty of work to do yet. Successfully landing on Mars will mean overcoming a whole new set of challenges.

"We are not born to live in space – for us, space is still a hostile environment," says Tommaso Ghidini, head of the structures, mechanisms and materials division at the European Space Agency (ESA).

While it took days to the reach the moon, it's months or even years for the red planet. A zero gravity environment, loneliness and isolation, and a dangerous environment beyond the reach of traditional medical care all add up to make the journey to Mars one filled with risk.

For starters, astronauts on their way to Mars will need to deal with the higher levels of radiation that come with a journey outside the Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field. According to the ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, one single journey to Mars could see astronauts racking up 60% of the total radiation they should be exposed to in their entire lives – much more than their counterparts on the International Space Station, and several hundred times more than a human back on Earth would face in the same period. Increased radiation exposure is linked to a number of cancers, particularly leukaemia, so future Mars missions will need to develop new ways to cut the levels of carcinogens that astronauts are subjected to.

The solution, according to Ghidini, is some elegant engineering. Hydrogen-containing substances are proven to be good at protecting against radiation, which would mean water could be used as a protective layer within Mars-bound spacecraft. But water is both heavy and bulky, and very expensive to transport into space.

So the ESA is planning to use the fluids that are already onboard – like drinking water for the astronauts or propellants – and store them around areas where the astronauts sleep to give them the best radiation for the longest time. "That way, the water that you have to bring anyway is doing another noble function – protecting the astronauts," Ghidini says.

Water-lined space suits, with fluids concentrated around blood-producing areas of the body, which are already being tested on the ISS, would also be deployed to reduce radiation exposure.

A prolonged lack of gravity, both in space and on Mars, is another problem. As new bone forms along lines of stress; regular weight bearing exercise (even if it's just carrying your own body weight) is needed to stop bone withering away. As space is close to a zero G environment, astronauts experience little stress on their bones, and so fall victim to osteoporosis, a condition where bones can thin and fracture more easily.

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While osteoporosis is a common condition on Earth, the near zero G environment in space could cause a new problem for astronauts' bones: they may be at risk of shattering, rather than fracturing as they might here on Earth. Astronauts will need to have a way of replacing any bone that may beyond repair.

The answer, says Ghidini, could lie in 3D bioprinting, where human skin, bones, and even organs could be printed on-demand in spacecraft or on the planet's surface.

Having on-demand replacement bones and organs available to Mars astronauts is one thing, but having the skills onboard the spacecraft when you need them to do the surgery is another.

"Once you have started the mission, you cannot abort it – you can't come back if you have a medical issue. You have to be able to heal the astronaut," Ghidini says.

Using robotic surgery equipment remotely operated by Earth-bound surgeons would seem like the ideal solution to onboard medical emergencies, but there's a 40-minute lag between a communication from Earth reaching Mars due to the distances involved – not the near real-time link that telemedicine would need.

Instead, one of the Mars crew would need to be the designated surgeon. If an emergency did strike, medical experts on earth could build a simulation of the astronaut-patient, which could be used by the astronaut-surgeon to practice on via an augmented reality (AR) headset, until they felt skilled enough to undertake the real surgery. The ISS has already tested the use of AR to help walk astronauts through new projects.

But the health problems that could dog a Mars mission would not only be physical: trapped in a small box floating through empty space with the same handful people for years would put a strain on anyone.

Keeping astronauts in good mental health is another priority for the ESA's researchers. The International Space Station is already seeing the first fruits of its work into mental health in the shape of an AI-equipped robot known as CIMON. It could eventually be used to help monitor and improve an astronaut's mood.

Keeping astronauts entertained is another way of helping their mental health hold up. Food, according to Ghidini, will be one source of distraction for the space travellers.

"We need to have, from an eating perspective, something that is more like an event – it's more social, it's even cultural. It's something where you stay together, you use your creativity, and you relax," he says.

That means cooking. Astronauts could be able to use 3D printing used to create meals with a sense of occasion, a break from a non-stop diet of pouches of dehydrated food. Ghidini's team has already 3D printed a pizza to show how on-demand food could help break the monotony of space dining.

Technologies developed as part of the race for space have now become commonplace: the CT scanner that was developed to test the structural integrity of materials used in the shuttle is now found in hospitals worldwide, while filters developed to recycle astronauts' urine inspired the filters used around the world to purify contaminated or unclean water.

Ghidini hopes that technology created for future Mars missions will eventually be used to improve the conditions for people here. And those next-generation technologies will have to be greener, too.

"We want to go to Mars in a respectful manner, and avoid the mistakes we have done on Earth. We want to go and do recycling on a massive scale – that's the way you do a mission like that, there is no other way. You have to recycle all the equipment, you have to use the resources you find in situ, and that is another lesson we need to bring back to Earth," Ghidini says.

Perhaps space travel will ultimately lend humanity a better perspective on its home planet.

"We are going to Mars because, first of all, we want to protect the Earth much better. Mars was an Earth before, and then it aged incredibly fast – we don't know why – and became what it is today, a cold desert with a mainly CO2 atmosphere. We want to understand what happened to Mars in order to avoid that it happens on Earth."

SPACE TECH

• Top 3 innovations used today developed by the Apollo program
• Cyberwarfare in space: Satellites at risk of hacker attacks
• How NASA chooses tech for the International Space Station, and why AI could help get us to Mars
• 10 amazing robots in space right now (in pictures)
• How Mark Shuttleworth became the first African in space and launched a software revolution (TechRepublic)
• Apollo 11: Poppy Northcutt explains what it's like to be part of space history via rare footage (CNET)
• Repairing dead satellites with robots
• Smaller, cheaper: How these tiny satellites are spinning off new space data movement

{ https://www.zdnet.com/ }

28-08-2019 om 23:32 geschreven door peter  

This Newfound Alien Planet Has a Truly Bizarre Looping Orbit

By Mike Wall 

Astronomers have never seen a world quite like HR 5183 b before.

This illustration compares the eccentric orbit of the exoplanet HR 5183 b to the more circular orbits of the planets in our own solar system.

(Image: © W. M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko)

Here's yet another reminder that alien worlds are far stranger and more diverse than our own solar system might suggest.

Astronomers just found a giant exoplanet three times more massive than Jupiter that loops around its host star on a highly elliptical path. 

If this alien planet, known as HR 5183 b, were magically dropped into our solar system, its orbit would reach inside that of Jupiter but extend way out beyond the path of Neptune, discovery team members said.

• Related: The Strangest Alien Planets (Gallery)

(Image credit: W. M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko)

"This planet is unlike the planets in our solar system, but more than that, it is unlike any other exoplanets we have discovered so far," Sarah Blunt, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena and lead author of a new study announcing the existence of HR 5183 b, said in a statement.

"Other planets detected far away from their stars tend to have very low eccentricities, meaning that their orbits are more circular," Blunt added. "The fact that this planet has such a high eccentricity speaks to some difference in the way that it either formed or evolved relative to the other planets."

HR 5183 b orbits a star that lies about 100 light-years from Earth. Blunt and her colleagues found the planet using the radial velocity method, which looks for the gravitational tugs a world exerts on its host star. 

The research team has been watching the parent star with several different telescopes since the 1990s. That's not long enough to capture a full orbit of the newfound world, which takes between 45 and 100 Earth years. 

But the astronomers were still able to confirm HR 5183 b's existence, showing that the radial-velocity method can identify planets even with such partial information.

"This planet spends most of its time loitering in the outer part of its star's planetary system in this highly eccentric orbit; then, it starts to accelerate in and does a slingshot around its star," study team member Andrew Howard, an astronomy professor at Caltech, said in the same statement.  

"We detected this slingshot motion," Howard added. "We saw the planet come in, and now it's on its way out. That creates such a distinctive signature that we can be sure that this is a real planet, even though we haven't seen a complete orbit."

The magnitude of HR 5183 b's gravitational tug allowed the team to calculate the planet's mass: about three times that of Jupiter. 

The exoplanet almost certainly started life on a circular path but then had its orbit reshaped by a gravitational encounter, probably with a similarly sized neighbor world, study team members said.

HR 5183 b reinforces a cosmic truth: Our Milky Way galaxy is studded with a staggering array of planets. There are worlds with three parent stars and "rogues" that zoom through space alone, forever in the dark. There are huge "hot Jupiters" that circle their parents in just a few Earth days, and there are big worlds like HR 5183 b that take decades to complete a lap.  

"Copernicus taught us that Earth is not the center of the solar system, and as we expanded into discovering other solar systems of exoplanets, we expected them to be carbon copies of our own solar system," Howard said. 

"But it's just been one surprise after another in this field," he added. "This newfound planet is another example of a system that is not the image of our solar system but has remarkable features that make our universe incredibly rich in its diversity."

• The new study will appear in The Astronomical Journal.
• 10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life
• Sweet Super-Puffs: These 2 Exoplanets Have the Density of Cotton Candy
• Our Milky Way Galaxy: A Traveler's Guide (Infographic)

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

28-08-2019 om 23:10 geschreven door peter  

SpaceX Starhopper Rocket Prototype Aces Highest (and Final) Test Flight

28-08-2019 om 22:57 geschreven door peter  

Dark Energy, Dark Matter

In the early 1990s, one thing was fairly certain about the expansion of the universe. It might have enough energy density to stop its expansion and recollapse, it might have so little energy density that it would never stop expanding, but gravity was certain to slow the expansion as time went on. Granted, the slowing had not been observed, but, theoretically, the universe had to slow. The universe is full of matter and the attractive force of gravity pulls all matter together. Then came 1998 and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of very distant supernovae that showed that, a long time ago, the universe was actually expanding more slowly than it is today. So the expansion of the universe has not been slowing due to gravity, as everyone thought, it has been accelerating. No one expected this, no one knew how to explain it. But something was causing it.

Eventually theorists came up with three sorts of explanations. Maybe it was a result of a long-discarded version of Einstein's theory of gravity, one that contained what was called a "cosmological constant." Maybe there was some strange kind of energy-fluid that filled space. Maybe there is something wrong with Einstein's theory of gravity and a new theory could include some kind of field that creates this cosmic acceleration. Theorists still don't know what the correct explanation is, but they have given the solution a name. It is called dark energy.

What Is Dark Energy?

More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the universe's expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn't be called "normal" matter at all, since it is such a small fraction of the universe.

Universe Dark Energy-1 Expanding Universe

This diagram reveals changes in the rate of expansion since the universe's birth 15 billion years ago. The more shallow the curve, the faster the rate of expansion. The curve changes noticeably about 7.5 billion years ago, when objects in the universe began flying apart as a faster rate. Astronomers theorize that the faster expansion rate is due to a mysterious, dark force that is pulling galaxies apart.

Credit: NASA/STSci/Ann Feild

One explanation for dark energy is that it is a property of space. Albert Einstein was the first person to realize that empty space is not nothing. Space has amazing properties, many of which are just beginning to be understood. The first property that Einstein discovered is that it is possible for more space to come into existence. Then one version of Einstein's gravity theory, the version that contains a cosmological constant, makes a second prediction: "empty space" can possess its own energy. Because this energy is a property of space itself, it would not be diluted as space expands. As more space comes into existence, more of this energy-of-space would appear. As a result, this form of energy would cause the universe to expand faster and faster. Unfortunately, no one understands why the cosmological constant should even be there, much less why it would have exactly the right value to cause the observed acceleration of the universe. 

Dark Matter Core Defies Explanation

This image shows the distribution of dark matter, galaxies, and hot gas in the core of the merging galaxy cluster Abell 520. The result could present a challenge to basic theories of dark matter.

Another explanation for how space acquires energy comes from the quantum theory of matter. In this theory, "empty space" is actually full of temporary ("virtual") particles that continually form and then disappear. But when physicists tried to calculate how much energy this would give empty space, the answer came out wrong - wrong by a lot. The number came out 10¹²⁰ times too big. That's a 1 with 120 zeros after it. It's hard to get an answer that bad. So the mystery continues.

Another explanation for dark energy is that it is a new kind of dynamical energy fluid or field, something that fills all of space but something whose effect on the expansion of the universe is the opposite of that of matter and normal energy. Some theorists have named this "quintessence," after the fifth element of the Greek philosophers. But, if quintessence is the answer, we still don't know what it is like, what it interacts with, or why it exists. So the mystery continues.

A last possibility is that Einstein's theory of gravity is not correct. That would not only affect the expansion of the universe, but it would also affect the way that normal matter in galaxies and clusters of galaxies behaved. This fact would provide a way to decide if the solution to the dark energy problem is a new gravity theory or not: we could observe how galaxies come together in clusters. But if it does turn out that a new theory of gravity is needed, what kind of theory would it be? How could it correctly describe the motion of the bodies in the Solar System, as Einstein's theory is known to do, and still give us the different prediction for the universe that we need? There are candidate theories, but none are compelling. So the mystery continues.

The thing that is needed to decide between dark energy possibilities - a property of space, a new dynamic fluid, or a new theory of gravity - is more data, better data.

What Is Dark Matter?

By fitting a theoretical model of the composition of the universe to the combined set of cosmological observations, scientists have come up with the composition that we described above, ~68% dark energy, ~27% dark matter, ~5% normal matter. What is dark matter?

We are much more certain what dark matter is not than we are what it is. First, it is dark, meaning that it is not in the form of stars and planets that we see. Observations show that there is far too little visible matter in the universe to make up the 27% required by the observations. Second, it is not in the form of dark clouds of normal matter, matter made up of particles called baryons. We know this because we would be able to detect baryonic clouds by their absorption of radiation passing through them. Third, dark matter is not antimatter, because we do not see the unique gamma rays that are produced when antimatter annihilates with matter. Finally, we can rule out large galaxy-sized black holes on the basis of how many gravitational lenses we see. High concentrations of matter bend light passing near them from objects further away, but we do not see enough lensing events to suggest that such objects to make up the required 25% dark matter contribution.

Abell 2744: Pandora's Cluster Revealed

One of the most complicated and dramatic collisions between galaxy clusters ever seen is captured in this new composite image of Abell 2744. The blue shows a map of the total mass concentration (mostly dark matter).

However, at this point, there are still a few dark matter possibilities that are viable. Baryonic matter could still make up the dark matter if it were all tied up in brown dwarfs or in small, dense chunks of heavy elements. These possibilities are known as massive compact halo objects, or "MACHOs". But the most common view is that dark matter is not baryonic at all, but that it is made up of other, more exotic particles like axions or WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles).

Dark Matter Goes Missing in Oddball Galaxy

Researchers were surprised when they uncovered galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 which is missing most, if not all, of its dark matter.

Recent Discoveries

{ https://science.nasa.gov/ }

28-08-2019 om 22:30 geschreven door peter  

On April 21, 2019 I was fishing alone under a cloudless, clear blue sky. It was on Easter Sunday.

I noticed some thick contrails, then a circular object moving alongside of the jet. I put my rod down and began recording on my iPhone xf.

The video is the original with no editing.

 

Second video ( peter2011)

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

28-08-2019 om 21:57 geschreven door peter  

Take heart, Pluto-is-a-planet believers. You have a comrade at NASA. In fact, it’s the head honcho himself – Jim Bridenstine, the current NASA Administrator. While on a recent tour of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Aerospace Engineering Sciences Building, Bridenstine unexpectedly blurted this out:

“Just so you know, in my view, Pluto is a planet. You can write that the NASA administrator declared Pluto a planet once again. I’m sticking by that, it’s the way I learnt it, and I’m committed to it.”

OK, we just wrote it, Jim. However, does it really mean anything? Is Pluto officially a planet again? Will science textbooks and science fair solar system models be forced to change once more? What about some of the other so-called dwarf planets – at least one of which is actually larger than Pluto? Should they start lobbying?

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) issued an official proclamation on the definition of planets, which included this bad news for Pluto:

A “dwarf planet” is a celestial body that
(a) is in orbit around the Sun,
(b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces
so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape,
(c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and
(d) is not a satellite.

The IAU further resolves:
Pluto is a “dwarf planet” by the above definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category of Trans-Neptunian Objects.

The reason for Pluto getting voted off the planetary island by the IAU is that it has not used its gravitation to clear the area around it of space debris. The International Astronomical Union, founded in 1919, is an organization of the world’s astronomers whose mission is “to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects” and whose primary purpose is to hold scientific meetings. However, deeper down in its mission statement, it also takes on the responsibility of serving as “the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and surface features on them.” Did we get to vote on this? Can we vote them out now?

One astronomer thinks so. Planetary scientist Alan Stern, leader of NASA’s New Horizon’s mission – the one that sent back all of those fabulous photos of Pluto – had this to say about the IAU.

“My conclusion is that the IAU definition is not only unworkable and unteachable, but so scientifically flawed and internally contradictory that it cannot be strongly defended against claims of scientific sloppiness, “ir-rigor,” and cogent classification. The New Horizons project, like a growing number of the public, and many hundreds if not thousands of professional research astronomers and planetary scientists, will not recognise the IAU’s planet definition resolution of Aug. 24, 2006.”

Stern was, and still is, mad enough to invent a new word to describe the lack of stiff scientific discipline (ir-rigor) by the IAU in knocking Pluto out of the planet club. Bridenstine is no astronomer (hence not a member of the IAU) and his only qualifications for the NASA administrator job were that he’s a former Republican congressman who once ran the Air and Space Museum in Tulsa. He’s also a former climate change skeptic who has since publicly admitted he’s changed his mind about that, so perhaps he can get the IAU to change ITS mind about Pluto. He can use those NASA New Horizon photos showing Pluto’s mountain ranges and plains, evidence of avalanches, plutoquakes and possible liquid oceans, and its nice spherical shape, which many scientists now believe are all better signs that a space rock is qualified to be a planet.

We love an underdog. You go, Pluto!

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

28-08-2019 om 21:42 geschreven door peter  

Senator Vows A Disclosure on Aliens and UFOs If He Takes the White House

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders promised to tell the American public anything he learns about UFOs or aliens if elected president next year. The senator, who’s seeking the Democratic nomination to take on President Donald Trump, did the pledge in an interview recently released.

When pressed whether he would be open about alien knowledge with the public if he takes the White House, he said that his wife would demand to let the public know. Sanders explained that his wife is not a UFO nut, but she always asks information about the subject and even asks if he does have any access.

When questioned if he does have any access, Sanders responded that he honestly doesn’t, but he will declassify any information concerning aliens or UFOs.

The idea of aliens and UFOs has become an increasingly hot topic online in recent months. It started earlier this summer with the launching of the Facebook event titled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us,”

The event ended up getting the attention of the Air Force after it racked up hundreds of thousands of Facebook users who signed up to raid the secret military facility in Nevada.

The Air Force made a warning to the would-be raiders that they are ready to defend the base that serves as their open training range.

The event page and its backup were shut down recently by Facebook because of violations to “community standards.”

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

28-08-2019 om 21:34 geschreven door peter  

Physicists Just Released Step-by-Step Instructions for Building a Wormhole

By Paul Sutter 

All you need are a couple of black holes and some cosmic strings. No biggie.

(Image: © Shutterstock)

Everybody wants a wormhole. I mean, who wants to bother traveling the long-and-slow routes throughout the universe, taking tens of thousands of years just to reach yet another boring star? Not when you can pop into the nearest wormhole opening, take a short stroll, and end up in some exotic far-flung corner of the universe. 

There's a small technical difficulty, though: Wormholes, which are bends in space-time so extreme that a shortcut tunnel forms, are catastrophically unstable. As in, as soon as you send a single photon down the hole, it collapses faster than the speed of light.

But a recent paper, published to the preprint journal arXiv on July 29, has found a way to build an almost-steady wormhole, one that does collapse but slowly enough to send messages — and potentially even things — down it before it tears itself apart. All you need are a couple of black holes and a few infinitely long cosmic strings. 

Easy-peasy.

The wormhole problem

In principle, building a wormhole is pretty straightforward. According to Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, mass and energy warp the fabric of space-time. And a certain special configuration of matter and energy allows the formation of a tunnel, a shortcut between two otherwise distant portions of the universe.

• Related: 8 Ways You Can See Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in Real Life

Unfortunately, even on paper, those wormholes are fantastically unstable. Even a single photon passing through the wormhole triggers a catastrophic cascade that rips the wormhole apart. However, a healthy dose of negative mass — yes, that's matter but with an opposite weight — can counteract the destabilizing effects of regular matter trying to pass through the wormhole, making it traversable.

OK, matter with negative mass doesn't exist, so we need a new plan.

Let's start with the wormhole itself. We need an entrance and an exit. It's theoretically possible to connect a black hole (a region of space where nothing can escape) to a white hole (a theoretical region of space where nothing can enter). When these two odd creatures join together, they form a brand-new thing: a wormhole. So you can jump into either end of this tunnel and instead of getting crushed into oblivion you just harmlessly waltz out the other side.

Oh, but white holes don't exist, either. Man, this is getting tricky.

Charge it up

Since white holes don't exist, we need a new plan. Thankfully, some clever math reveals a possible answer: a charged black hole. Black holes can carry an electric charge (it's not common because of the way they're formed naturally, but we'll take what we can get). The inside of a charged black hole is a strange place, with the normal point-like singularity of a black hole stretched and distorted, allowing it to form a bridge to another oppositely charged black hole.

Voila: a wormhole, using only things that might actually exist.

But this wormhole-via-charged-black-holes has two issues. One, it's still unstable, and if something or someone actually tries to use it, it falls apart. The other is that the two oppositely charged black holes will be attracted to each other — both through gravitational and electric forces — and if they fall together you just get a single, big, neutrally charged and altogether useless black hole.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Put a cosmic bow on it

So to make this all work we need to make sure the two charged black holes stay safely far away from each other, and make sure the tunnel of the wormhole can hold itself open. A potential solution: cosmic strings.

Cosmic strings are theoretical defects, similar to the cracks that form when ice freezes, in the fabric of space-time. These cosmic leftovers formed in the early, heady days of the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang. They are truly exotic objects, no wider than a proton but with a single inch of their length outweighing Mount Everest. You never want to encounter one yourself, since they would slice you clean in half like a cosmic lightsaber, but you don't have to worry much since we're not even sure they exist, and we've never seen one out there in the universe.

Still, there's no reason they can't exist, so they're fair game.

They have another very useful property when it comes to wormholes: enormous tension. In other words, they really don't like being pushed around. If you thread the wormhole with a cosmic string, and allow the string to pass along the outside edges of the black holes and stretch out of either end all the way to infinity, then the tension in the string prevents the charged black holes from being attracted to each other, holding the two ends of the wormhole far away from each other. Essentially, the distant ends of the cosmic string act like two opposing tug-of-war teams, holding back the black holes.

Calming the tremors

One cosmic string solves one of the problems (holding the ends open), but it doesn't prevent the wormhole itself from collapsing if you were to actually use it. So, let's toss in another cosmic string, also threading the wormhole, but also looping it through normal space between the two black holes. 

When cosmic strings are closed in a loop, they wiggle — a lot. These vibrations churn the very fabric of space-time around them, and when tuned just right the vibrations can cause the energy of space in their vicinity to go negative, effectively acting like negative mass within the wormhole, potentially stabilizing it.

It seems a little complex, but in the recent paper, a team of theoretical physicists gave step-by-step instructions for constructing just such a wormhole. It's not a perfect solution: Eventually the inherent vibrations in the cosmic strings — the same ones that might keep the wormhole open — pull energy, and therefore mass, away from the string, making it smaller and smaller. Essentially, over time the cosmic strings wiggle themselves into oblivion, with complete collapse of the wormhole not far behind. But the kludged-together wormhole may stay stable long enough to allow messages or even objects to travel down the tunnel and actually not die, which is nice. 

But first we need to find some cosmic strings.

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of Your Place in the Universe.

• 9 Ideas About Black Holes That Will Blow Your Mind
• Interstellar Space Travel: 7 Futuristic Spacecraft to Explore the Cosmos
• Science Fact or Fiction? The Plausibility of 10 Sci-Fi Concepts

Originally published on Live Science.

{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

28-08-2019 om 17:43 geschreven door peter  

One hypothesis is that some catastrophe, a single event such as a powerful storm, had befallen a large group of people. But DNA analysis of 38 of the skeletons has turned that idea on its head.

The remains appear to come from distinct groups of people from as far as the Mediterranean, and they arrived at the lake several times over a 1,000-year span.

"Through the use of biomolecular analyses, such as ancient DNA, stable isotope dietary reconstruction, and radiocarbon dating, we discovered that the history of Roopkund Lake is more complex than we ever anticipated," said geneticist David Reich of Harvard Medical School.

The story began to unfold a decade ago. Geneticist Kumarasamy Thangaraj of India's CSIR Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of 72 of the skeletons.

As Thangaraj and his late colleague Lalji Singh had expected, some of the skeletons had DNA consistent with a local Indian origin. But some did not. Several skeletons appeared to have originated around West Eurasia.

This warranted further investigation - a deep dive by way of whole genome sequencing. Genome-wide DNA was successfully generated for 38 individuals. These 38 genomes were then compared against 1,521 ancient and 7,985 present-day individuals from around the world.

(Himadri Sinha Roy)

This analysis revealed three distinct groups. The largest consisted of 23 individuals with DNA similar to that of people from present-day India. Apart from this, they seemed genetically unrelated.

The second-largest group, comprising 14 individuals, was a huge surprise. Their DNA was most similar to people in present-day Crete and Greece.

Finally, the one remaining individual had DNA suggesting a Southeast Asian origin.

"We were extremely surprised by the getics of the Roopkund skeletons," said evolutionary biologist Éadaoin Harney of Harvard University.

"The presence of individuals with ancestries typically associated with the eastern Mediterranean suggests that Roopkund Lake was not just a site of local interest, but instead drew visitors from across the globe."

Analysis of isotopes extracted from the bones supported these findings. Certain stable isotopes in the soil can be taken up into plants, which are then consumed by people. The isotopes replace some of the calcium in teeth and bones; these can then be matched to geographical locations.

"Individuals belonging to the Indian-related group had highly variable diets, showing reliance on C₃ and C₄ derived food sources. These findings are consistent with the genetic evidence that they belonged to a variety of socioeconomic groups in South Asia," said archaeologist Ayushi Nayak of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

"In contrast, the individuals with eastern Mediterranean-related ancestry appear to have consumed a diet with very little millet."

(Pramod Joglekar)

Even more surprising was the staggered arrival times of the groups. Radiocarbon dating placed the Indian-related bones between the 7th and 10th centuries CE. It's possible they were divided into different groups at different times within this timespan.

But the other two groups, from the Mediterranean and from Southeast Asia, were dated to between the 17th and 20th centuries CE. That's just a few hundred years ago. And it's possible that the remains that haven't been tested could include other groups, from other times and other regions.

It's possible we may never know - but future research could contain answers.

"It is still not clear what brought these individuals to Roopkund Lake or how they died," said geneticist Niraj Rai of the Birbal Sahni Institute of PalaeosciencesRai.

"We hope that this study represents the first of many analyses of this mysterious site."

• The research has been published in Nature Communications.

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

28-08-2019 om 16:56 geschreven door peter  

28-08-2019 om 16:44 geschreven door peter  

Metal-detecting couple find one of Britain's biggest ever treasure hoards as they discover almost 2,600 ancient coins worth around £5m in an unploughed field

• Adam Staples and Lisa Grace unearthed 'once in a lifetime' find of 2,600 coins
• Although smaller than famous Staffordshire Hoard  it is about £1m more valuable
• The silver coins made up of King Harold II pennies from Anglo-Saxon England
• There were also William the Conqueror coins, from after 1066 Norman conquest
• Many in the find in Somerset in mint condition and could be worth £5,000 each

By JAMES GANT FOR MAILONLINE

A metal-detecting couple have found one of the biggest treasure hoards in British history which is believed to be worth around £5million.

Adam Staples and partner Lisa Grace unearthed the 'once in a lifetime' find of almost 2,600 ancient coins that date back 1,000 years.

Although the find is smaller than the famous Staffordshire Hoard - the biggest collection of buried coins and artefacts discovered in Britain - it is thought to be at least £1million more valuable.

Adam Staples (right) and partner Lisa Grace (left) unearthed the 'once in a lifetime' find of almost 2,600 ancient coins that date back 1,000 years

The 2,571 silver coins are made up of King Harold II (pictured) pennies from the end of Anglo-Saxon England and William the Conqueror coins, after the 1066 Norman conquest

The 2,571 silver coins are made up of King Harold II pennies from the end of Anglo-Saxon England and William the Conqueror coins, after the 1066 Norman conquest.

Many of the coins are in mint condition and could be valued anywhere between £1,000 and £5,000 each.

Experts say the coins would have been a substantial amount of money at the time and belonged to an important, wealthy person who probably buried them for safekeeping.

The couple (pictured) notified both the county's local finds liaison officer as they were obliged to by law and have given the coins to the British Museum in London to evaluate

Mr Staples and Miss Grace, 42, made the astonishing find with their metal detectors while searching an unploughed field on a farm in the north east Somerset area in January.

As King Harold's reign only lasted nine months, before he was famously struck in the eye by an arrow at the Battle of Hastings, coins from that period are incredibly rare.

The hoard is also thought to contain coins struck by previously-unknown moneyers.

In an interview with Treasure Hunting Magazine, they described the hoard as 'amazing' and 'absolutely mind-blowing'

The couple notified both the county's local finds liaison officer as they were obliged to by law and have given the coins to the British Museum in London to evaluate. 

Experts there have spent the last seven months assessing and cataloguing them and will later this week unveil them to the public for the first time.

If the hoard is declared treasure it will be up to a museum to compensate Mr Staples and Miss Grace with the monetary value of the coins - making them overnight millionaires.

The landowner will also be entitled to 50 per cent of the proceeds.

If the hoard is not deemed important enough for a museum then they will be returned to the finders who will will be able to sell the coins.

Mr Staples and Miss Grace, from Derby, have remained tight-lipped over their 'find of a lifetime'.

But in an interview with Treasure Hunting Magazine, they described the hoard as 'amazing' and 'absolutely mind-blowing.'

The metal detecting grapevine has also been rife with news of the find, with scores of people posting messages of congratulations to the couple.

What was the 'Staffordshire hoard'?

A treasure hunter made the find in 2009.

It was the most valuable hoard of Saxon gold in history - estimated to be worth £3.3million ($5 million) - and includes 500 pieces such as gold sword hilts, jewels from Sri Lanka and early Christian crosses.

The 1,300-year-old treasure was discovered by unemployed Terry Herbert in July in a field owned by a friend in Staffordshire.

Some of the artefacts uncovered in Fred's field that went on to be valued at more than £3m

Within days, the 55-year-old former coffin factory worker from Walsall had filled 244 bags with gold objects weighing in at more than 11lbs (5kg).

Mr Herbert, who bought an old metal detector for £2.50 18 years ago, said he was overwhelmed by the find – regarded as one of the most important in decades.

‘I have this phrase that I say sometimes – “spirits of yesteryear take me where the coins appear” – but on that day I changed coins to gold,’ he said.

Some of the artefacts uncovered in Fred's field that went on to be valued at more than £3m

‘I don’t know why I said it that day, but I think somebody was listening and directed me to it. Maybe it was meant to be, maybe the gold had my name on it all along.

‘I was going to bed and in my sleep I was seeing gold items.’

The jewels are thought to have come from Sri Lanka - carried to Europe by traders.

The gold probably came from the Byzantine Empire, the eastern remnant of the Roman Empire based in what is now Istanbul.

The treasure dates from 675 and 725AD, the time of Beowulf – the great Anglo-Saxon poem.

Nigel Mills, a coin expert and consultant for London auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb, said: 'I am told the coins are absolutely stunning.

'Each coin will have the moneyers name on and the mint of where it was issued.

'In the case of the Harold II coins, some will be from moneyers that we have not seen before.

'Harold II coins are rarer than William coins and could be worth between £2,000 to £4,000 each.

'The William I coins will be between £1,000 and £1,500. This hoard could be worth between £3m and £5m.

'Museums have been buying up all of the hoards found, but in this case the hoard may be too great for them. It maybe that an appeal for sponsors is launched to try and acquire them.'

He added: 'They would have been buried within two or three years after 1066 and probably before 1072.

'The Romans buried their coins for the Gods but in this case they were probably hidden and the owner died before they could go back for them.

'It would have been a substantial amount of money back not. Not a king, but somebody high up and important, somebody of substance.

'They didn't have banks back then so where else were they going to store their money safely?'

A spokesman for the Metal Detectives Group said: 'When you find something like that you keep where you find it very quiet.

'If it is treasure it will be put out to tender to museums to acquire. A museum and treasure valuation committee will give the hoard a value.

'But you are talking a minimum of £500 per coin and with 2,500 coins that is a lot. But some will be rarer and more valuable than others.'

A spokesman for the British Museum said: 'We can confirm that a large hoard of late Anglo-Saxon and Norman coins was discovered in January and has been handed in to the British Museum as possible Treasure under the terms of the Treasure Act (1996). This appears to be an important discovery.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

28-08-2019 om 16:37 geschreven door peter  

Adam Staples and Lisa Grace were out searching in an unploughed field on a farm in the Somerset area in January of this year when they discovered one of the biggest ever treasure hoards in British history. They found nearly 2,600 ancient coins that date back 1,000 years and have an estimated worth of approximately £5million (just over $6.1 million in American money). Many of the coins were in mint condition and could be worth as much as £1,000 and £5,000 each.

The silver coins included King Harold II pennies which were from the end of Anglo-Saxon England, as well as William the Conqueror coins which date back to after the 1066 Norman Conquest. Since King Harold only reigned for nine months, coins from that time period are extremely rare. Experts believe that a wealthy person of importance probably buried the coins as they were worth quite a bit of money at that time. It has been estimated that whoever buried the coins would have done so after the year 1066 but before 1072.

After the couple found the coins, they contacted the county’s local finds liaison officer and the “treasure” was brought to the British Museum in London so they could evaluate them. The coins will be displayed for the public to see later this week. If the coins are declared as a treasure, the museum will pay the couple for the coins (landowner will get 50% of their value), however, if the museum decides that they don’t want the coins, they will be returned to the couple who would then be able to sell them on their own.

A spokesman for the British Museum stated, “We can confirm that a large hoard of late Anglo-Saxon and Norman coins was discovered in January and has been handed in to the British Museum as possible Treasure under the terms of the Treasure Act (1996). This appears to be an important discovery.”

(Not the coins mentioned in this article)

The largest collection of buried coins and artifacts ever discovered in Britain was the “Staffordshire Hoard” that a treasure hunter found in 2009. The large 1,300-year-old collection of Saxon gold included gold sword hilts, early Christian crosses, and jewels from Sri Lanka. The hoard was valued at around £3.3million (just over $4 million in American funds). And while Mr. Staples and Ms. Grace’s discovery is smaller, it is at least £1million more valuable.

The couple have remained pretty quiet about their findings, but they did do an interview with Treasure Hunting Magazine where they described their discovery as “amazing” and “absolutely mind-blowing”. You can see pictures of the coins here.

not the first time ( peter2011)

 

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

28-08-2019 om 16:20 geschreven door peter  

Among the oldest city sites found in Mesoamerica is the enigmatic cultural center of Monte Albán, the ancient political hub of the Zapotec people. This remarkable cultural group, who during their reign were called Be’ena’a, or “The People” in the indigenous Zapotec language, ruled from around 700 BC–1521 AD. Monte Albán served as the hub of a loosely-knit alliance of several Zapotec groups that had been rivals up until around 2000 years prior to the arrival of the Spanish.

Monte Albán is a structural marvel in itself, resting atop and artificially leveled hilltop in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. The city rests between the confluence of the Rio Atomic and the Rio Salado rivers, and quickly became the economic anchor of the region, promoting trade and craftsmanship that may have attracted more than 30,000 residents at the height of its growth and political influence over the region.

However, what has remained among the site’s most famous—and curious—attractions are not just the building structures that were once the great city of Monte Albán, but also the famous carvings that adorn the site, known today as Danzantes.

Danzantes on display at Monte Alban; note that many of the stone slabs on display are replicas, with the originals kept inside the complex for protection

(Credit: Anagoria/Wikimedia Commons).

The Danzantes are a remarkable collection of carved stone slabs that feature bas-relief art depicting humans in various striking poses. Their name (“Los Danzantes” in Spanish) means “the dancers,” in reference to the curious gestures and contortions many of the figures on the stone faces depict, which are reminiscent of dancers. This early interpretation of the nature of these images may have given rise to their name, but little else about the Danazntes suggests dancing or festivity; as a result, the meaning behind these images has remained an item of debate among archaeologists for decades.

One peculiar feature of many of the Danzantes bas-reliefs is the presence of facial hair in the form of long beards worn by many of the figures. Facial hair is not common among the indigenous peoples of the region, which makes the images all the more curious; could this mean that some of the Danzantes actually depict foreigners?

Bearded figure depicted on one of the Danzantes slabs; note the curious positioning of the figure’s hands

(Credit: Anagoria/Wikimedia Commons).

This may provide a clue to the meaning behind the images, since another problem with the “dancer” theory has to do with the fact that most of the Danzantes are also depicted nude. Dancers, whether male or female, would not have been depicted nude by the cultures of Central Mexico during this period, as it was considered disgraceful. However, nudity does appear in art from other locations in the region, generally in depictions of captives from warfare who have been stripped in humiliation, often prior to their execution. The fact that many of the Danzantes appear to be foreigners would make sense, particularly if these figures represent the captives of war.

Other peculiarities in the appearance of the Danzantes include the fact that their feet appear to be placed at vertical angles, which has led some to theorize that the movements represented by the posing of the figures could actually denote swimming, as proposed by Augustín Villagra in the 1939, within a report he produced for the International Congress of Americanists in Mexico City.

While it is true that certain art depicting the Danzantes does appear to imply curving lines and similar features that might represent water, the “swimmer” theory has its own problems. Some of the figures appear to possess genital mutilation, as well as the appearance of glyphs, scrolls, or perhaps even tattoos adjacent to the apparent emasculations. Some have interpreted this as possible evidence of shamanic practices, where “ecstatic emasculation” might have served some kind of ritual purpose with the characters, especially if they might represent priests. Further, the notion of emasculation could be consistent with the bearded depiction of some of the characters, which might convey accelerated aging after castration has occurred.

Stelae depicting Danzantes figure with possible entrails spilling from the abdomen region

(Credit: Anagoria/Wikimedia Commons).

Altogether, the best theory appears to be that of prisoners, or perhaps even slain bodies lying on the ground; this would appear to reconcile most, if not all of the features associated with the Danzantes, from the mutilations and placement of the limbs, to the fact that the feet do not appear to convey that they stand on level ground.

In John F. Scott’s 1978 The Danzantes of Monte Albán, he noted the likelihood that the images depicted slain bodies:

The Danzantes have contorted and highly asymmetrical postures; their arms sprawl in front of their torsos or over their heads. Most significant are the leg positions, which usually avoid any suggestion of resting on a ground line; quite possibly the Danzantes should be seen as if lying on the ground. The position of the limbs, the frequent indication of closed eyes on the grimacing faces, and the horizontal placement of slabs with elongated figures, all indicate that they represent slain victims lying on their sides or backs.

However, if the images of the Danzantes actually do illustrate slain enemies, what message was this intended to convey about Monte Albán to those who came there at the height of the Zapotecs?

Danzantes stela depicting scroll-like glyphs and symbols, some of which overlay the body of the character; note the placement of the limbs, suggesting a prostrate position of an individual lying on the ground

(Credit: Anagoria/Wikimedia Commons).

“This is the kind of propaganda that one associates with an emerging state that is fighting to take control over previously autonomous regions and wants to discourage resistance,” wrote Joyce Marcus, a Latin American archaeologist and professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Marcus continues:

“Of the shared conventions in Mesoamerican iconography some of the most widespread are those depicting captives. Prisoners are displayed in humiliation: they are stripped naked and bound, and their posture is awkward. The captors, in contrast, are dressed in elegant regalia and are posed in rigid dignity. If a prisoner has been sacrificed, he is  shown with his eyes closed and his mouth open, and in many instances with flowery scrolls, presumably representing blood, issuing from his wounds.”

It would indeed seem likely that this is the best explanation for the enigma that is the Danzantes imagery at Monte Albán. In any case, their name appears to be a misnomer, as they certainly don’t seem to be dancers. And yet, unraveling the significance of these strange and, at times, rather grisly images tells us much about the politics and practices of this region of the ancient world. Nonetheless, Monte Albán and its curious stone stelae is a place that–to the modern observer–is, and probably will remain quite mysterious.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

28-08-2019 om 16:09 geschreven door peter  

Antarctica Irrefutable Evidence Of Hidden Civilization! New Location Reveal Stunning Finds!

Google Earth Pro 2019 Updated Imagery(!)

• Terra Nova Canyon Gray Alien Seen Exiting Cave…. 69°14’50.90″S 156°59’0.42″E
• Pleisiosaur (Elasmosaur ) Head, Neck and Body….. 69° 4’10.56″S 156°13’32.48″E
• Evidence of Tracks/Activity.. 69° 4’34.19″S 156°14’10.87″E
• Brown Ice/Kill Site… 69°13’57.69″S 157°45’9.08″E
• Saucer Crash Site… 69°25’45.23″S 156°22’48.57″E
• Ancient Trails/Foot paths.. 69°13’11.84″S 157°43’41.39″E 69°11’35.53″S 157°38’53.96″E

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

28-08-2019 om 15:38 geschreven door peter