13-10-2019 om 21:46 geschreven door peter  

13-10-2019 om 21:19 geschreven door peter  

Brilliant Midnight Fireball Lights Up Sky Over Northeast China

13-10-2019 om 20:52 geschreven door peter  

Alien Life Might 'Think' More Like an Octopus Than a Human

By Mindy Weisberger 

The giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) investigates its environment with arms that "think" for themselves.

(Image: © Dominic Sivitilli)

When an octopus coils one of its flexible arms around a rock or a bit of food, it's not because the animal's brain said, "Pick that up." Rather, the arm decides for itself what it's going to do next. For a person, that would be like having one's big toe call the shots about where they're going to walk.

But a cephalopod's nervous system isn't wired like a human's — or like the systems found in any other vertebrates, for that matter, where a central brain broadcasts marching orders to the rest of the body. Instead, octopus limbs are studded with concentrations of neurons called ganglia; these "arm brains" can therefore operate independently of the central brain.

In fact, scientists who recently visualized progressive movement in octopus arms discovered that the animal's central brain is hardly involved at all; they presented their findings June 26 at the 2019 Astrobiology Science Conference. [8 Crazy Facts About Octopuses]

The researchers used a camera and behavioral-tracking software to model how an octopus perceives and then processes information about its environment using its arms, Dominic Sivitilli, a graduate student in behavioral neuroscience and astrobiology at the University of Washington in Seattle, explained during the presentation.

"What we're looking at, more than what's been looked at in the past, is how sensory information is being integrated in this network while the animal is making complicated decisions," Sivitilli said in a statement.

An octopus's arm movement begins far away from the brain, triggered by sensors in a groping arm sucker feeling around on the seafloor or in an aquarium. Each sucker contains tens of thousands of chemical and mechanical receptors; to put that into perspective, a human fingertip holds just a few hundred mechanical receptors, Sivitilli said.

When an octopus touches something interesting, the "brain" in its arms processes the input and moves the signal along, telling the arm what to do next. Signals generated by one sucker are passed to its closest neighbor, activating arm muscles and generating a sweeping wave of motion that travels up the arm toward the body, the researchers discovered. While the arms are actively engaging with the environment — and with each other — the signal that reaches the animal's central brain is "highly abstracted" and not directly involved with arm interactions, Sivitilli explained.

Essentially, octopuses "outsource" computation about how to move their bodies, assigning those actions to local controls — ganglia — in each arm, rather than relying on the central brain to tell the arms what to do, Sivitilli said in the presentation.

"In a way, the octopus has sent its mind out into the environment to meet it halfway," he added.

But wait, you might be thinking — why are scientists talking about octopuses at an astrobiology conference? What does this have to do with extraterrestrial life? (And no, it's not because octopuses are really space aliens, as another group of researchers claimed in 2018.)

Octopuses are thought to be highly intelligent, yet their workarounds for perceiving and interacting with the world around them differ dramatically from techniques that evolved in intelligent vertebrates. Octopus cognition could therefore serve as an important alternative model for understanding intelligence, and it could prepare experts for recognizing unusual expressions of intelligent life that originated on other worlds, Sivitilli said in the statement.

"It gives us an understanding as to the diversity of cognition in the world," Sivitilli said. "And perhaps the universe."

• Photos: Ghostly Dumbo Octopus Dances In the Deep Sea
• In Photos: Amazing 'Octomom' Protects Eggs for 4.5 Years
• Octlantis: See Photos of Tight-Knit Gloomy Octopus Communities

Originally published on Live Science.

{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

13-10-2019 om 18:53 geschreven door peter  

Evolution upside down: did aliens leave Earth 20,000 years ago and are they our ancestors?

People who claim to have had contact with extraterrestrials often report that they have gained insight into the future of Earth from foreign visitors. They presented holographic images of our planet and explained that the future was variable because there are different timelines.

Let’s start with the possibility that the foreign visitors actually once lived on earth in the bygone days, we would be in some ways their descendants and the foreign visitors our ancestors, who are concerned about the development on earth, because the Earth, in a sense, also belongs to them or has once heard.

Phenomena such as time travel, incarnation and extraterrestrials are still three great puzzles of our present, which we can not clarify only because we still lack the necessary higher consciousness. From Frank Schwede.

So if you are looking for answers, you should first start with yourself and find out who he is and make a journey to your own self, because this kind of journey is a journey through the history of the universe and to the origin of the earth.

The necessary information can be found in our subconscious, in our soul DNA, which we have access to under hypnosis. But also often occurring in repetition dreams, which lead us to certain places, can be clues from the past.

{ https://www.soulask.com/ } 

13-10-2019 om 18:26 geschreven door peter  

‘Not of this earth’ Did ALIENS make daggers found in Tutankhamun’s tomb?

IRON daggers found in the tomb of ancient Egyptian Pharoah Tutankhaman which have baffled scientists for generations are made from metal “not from this earth” – sparking suggestions they could have been made using alien technology.

13-10-2019 om 16:57 geschreven door peter  

Electronic E.T.: Intelligent Aliens Are Likely Machines

13-10-2019 om 16:42 geschreven door peter  

Buzz Aldrin: We were ordered away from the moon

It sounds like a science fiction script for an upcoming movie about NASA, Astronauts, and aliens on the moon. However, according to several reports, and alleged transcripts between the command center and Apollo astronauts on the moon, mankind encountered otherworldly technology upon setting foot on the lunar surface.

Interesting details about what astronauts may have encountered on the Moon comes from an interview with an unnamed Professor and Neil Armstrong at a NASA symposium:

Professor: What really happened out there with Apollo 11?

Armstrong: It was incredible … of course, we had always known there was a possibility … the fact is, we were warned off. There was never any questions then of a space station or a moon city.

Professor: How do you mean “warned off”?

Armstrong: I can’t go into details, except to say that their ships were far superior to ours both in size and technology – Boy, where they big! … and menacing … No, there is no question of a space station.

Professor: But NASA had other missions after Apollo 11?

Armstrong: Naturally – NASA was committed at that time, and couldn’t risk a panic on earth…. But it really was a quick scoop and back again. (Above Top Secret, p. 186)

Is it possible that Apollo astronauts actually encountered alien beings and UFOs while exploring the lunar surface?

There are a lot of reports, interviews, and documents that suggest it’s possible.

In fact, according to Dr. Vladimir Azhazha, a physicist, and Professor of Mathematics at Moscow University:

“Neil Armstrong relayed the message to Mission Control that two large, mysterious objects were watching them after having landed near the moon module. But his message was never heard by the public – because NASA censored it.” (Above Top Secret,p. 384)

According to numerous sources, Armstrong claimed that there was an alien presence on the moon, and astronauts were ORDERED away.

Reports indicate that Apollo astronauts stumbled across numerous ‘shops’ and structures on the moon which were obviously not man-made. Many UFOlogists claim that Buzz Aldrin even filmed the strange structures and all of the details were reported back to mission control, which deliberately ‘censored’ the information in order to prevent chaos and panic among the general population.

Neil Armstrong's sighting on the moon, "they're watching us"

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

13-10-2019 om 16:14 geschreven door peter  

Has CCTV Recorded a Real Man in Black? Just look at this video!

This video was brought to our attention by a man who claims to be working as a security guard in an area of Alaska.

The man claims that he managed to record something extremely fascinating on the surveillance cameras.

It is about Men in Black. Men in Black are known for their bizarre and sometimes violent ways in which they silence people who have witnessed strange happenings.

If you watch carefully the original video at the end of the article you will have a lot of questions.

Where did the man go? And especially, what was on the camera that he gave to the sinister Men in Black?

Watch the original footage and tell us your opinion:

other video - peter2011

{ https://alienblog.net/  }

13-10-2019 om 15:34 geschreven door peter  

Black Mass Alien Craft Makes Navy’s Torpedo Disappear

CIRCA 1999 ……OFF THE COAST OF SAN DIEGO

Former US Navy pilot David Fravor has revealed a previously undisclosed UFO incident from the 1990s. By now the story of the ‘Tic Tac’ UFO spotted by fighter pilots during training exercises off the coast of San Diego in 2004 is well known, with footage reportedly recorded during the incident being declared authentic by US Navy officials as recently as last month.

What isn’t so well documented however is another incident that happened a few years beforehand.

In a recent radio interview, former US Navy pilot Commander David Fravor described an encounter experienced by another pilot who was tasked with retrieving BQM aerial target drones and submarine telemetry torpedoes from the water.

The pilot reported a “kind of dark mass coming up from the depths” which quickly disappeared.

“As they hoist the BQM up, he’s looking at this thing going, ‘What the hell is that?’” said Fravor. “And then it just goes back down underwater. Once they pull the kid and the BQM out of the water, this object descends back into the depths.”

According to Fravor, another very similar incident happened a few months later.

“He’s out picking up a torpedo, they hook the diver up on the winch, and as they’re lowering him down, he sees this big mass,” said Fravor. “He goes, ‘It’s not a submarine’. He’s seen submarines before. Once you’ve seen a submarine you can’t confuse it with something else. “

“This big object, kind of circular, is coming up from the depths and he starts screaming through the intercom system to tell them to pull the diver up, and the diver’s only a few feet from the water.”

“They reverse the winch and the diver’s thinking, ‘What the hell is going on?’ And all of a sudden he said the torpedo just got sucked down underwater, and the object just descended back down into the depths.

Retired US Navy pilot commander David Fravor first came forward in a bombshell New York Times article in December 2017, describing how his squadron witnessed a 747-sized object just under the surface of the water during training exercises in the Pacific Ocean, 160km off the coast of San Diego.

Hovering just over the surface of the water above the submerged object was a 12-metre-long “Tic Tac-looking object” moving erratically “forward, back, left, right”. Cdr Fravor attempted to intercept the object, but it shot away at incredible speed.

On a subsequent flight, another member of his squadron managed to film one of the objects using the plane’s infra-red targeting camera after its radar systems were jammed — which Cdr Fravor noted was “technically an act of war”. Advertisement A

The now-famous footage was acquired by former Pentagon official Luis Elizondo and released along with two other videos by To The Stars Academy, a UFO research organisation founded by Blink-182 rocker Tom DeLonge.

The circumstances around the release of the footage has been the subject of intense controversy over the past two years, but the US Navy last month confirmed for the first time that it considered the “phenomena” depicted in the three videos “unidentified”.

Appearing on the popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Saturday in his first major interview since the Navy’s official acknowledgment of the videos, Cdr Fravor discussed his sighting and also revealed how other pilots had “come out of the woodwork” to tell him their own encounters.

“They don’t feel alone,” he said. “One of the guys was a Navy helicopter pilot. He was flying a CH-53, a big heavy-lifter the Marine Corps uses for certain things. Off the East Coast they do a lot of shooting, at the time it was off Puerto Rico.”

Cdr Fravor said the helicopter pilot’s job at the time of the incident in the “mid to late ’90s” included retrieving BQM aerial target drones, which deploy a parachute and fall into the ocean, as well as submarine telemetry torpedoes that collect data before blowing ballast and floating to the surface.

“The helo drops a swimmer in the water, he hooks the whole thing up and they fly back. The first time they were out and they were going to pick up a BQM, he’s sitting in the front — in the CH-53 you can see down by your feet — and as he’s looking down, they’re 50 feet (15 metres) above the water, he sees this kind of dark mass coming up from the depths,” he said.

“As they hoist the BQM up, he’s looking at this thing going, ‘What the hell is that?’ And then it just goes back down underwater. Once they pull the kid and the BQM out of the water, this object descends back into the depths.”

The pilot thought the incident was “pretty weird”, according to Cdr Fravor. Then a few months later, it happened again. “He’s out picking up a torpedo, they hook the diver up on the winch, and as they’re lowering him down, he sees this big mass,” he said.

“He goes, ‘It’s not a submarine’. He’s seen submarines before. Once you’ve seen a submarine you can’t confuse it with something else. This big object, kind of circular, is coming up from the depths and he starts screaming through the intercom system to tell them to pull the diver up, and the diver’s only a few feet from the water.”

He continued, “They reverse the winch and the diver’s thinking, ‘What the hell is going on?’ And all of a sudden he said the torpedo just got sucked down underwater, and the object just descended back down into the depths. They never recovered it.”

Cdr Fravor said the helicopter pilot was adamant the torpedo “didn’t sink” but “literally looked like it got sucked down”. He said the pilot spoke to The New York Times about the incident ahead of the 2017 story but “they wanted something newer”.

Cdr Fravor marvelled at the technology displayed by the objects, up to a dozen of which had been tracked by the USS Princeton’s radar systems in the week prior to his squadron’s sighting.

“They would come down from above 80,000 feet (24,380 metres), drop down to about 20,000 feet (6100 metres). They’d hang out then go straight back up after about three or four hours,” he said.

“Just think of the physics — 80,000 feet is where you can start to see the curvature of the Earth. It’s considered space, they’re coming from above that. (Elon Musk’s) SpaceX is really excited because they can launch a rocket, have a booster come back to Earth and actually land on a pad. It’s a very impressive engineering feat. Next to this technology, that’s like a Model T next to a Porsche.”

Cdr Fravor said he was speculating but suspected the objects were somehow “manipulating the gravity field and just moving through a void”. “You could in theory fly, go into the ocean, cruise around, pop back up, fly around, go to space. You remove the barriers of the normal propulsion we have today,” he said.

Last week, Mr Elizondo claimed that TTSA had obtained physical evidence that could be from UFOs. “Our company over the last year and a half has actually obtained quite a bit of material,” he told Fox News. “Some of that material — its providence is frankly hearsay, while other providence of some of this material has been substantiated.”

NOTE: The above image is CGI.

KEN PFEIFER WORLD UFO PHOTOS AND NEWS

• HTTP://WWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOS.ORG
• HTTP://WWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOSANDNEWS.ORG
• HTTP://WWW.KENPFEIFERDISCOVERIES.COM
• Thanks to https://www.phantomsandmonsters.com

Source: 

• http://worldufophotosandnews.org/?p=25057

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

13-10-2019 om 13:27 geschreven door peter  

Alien Structures On Venus Seen Close Up, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Oct 12, 2019
Location of discovery: Venus 
Source photo: 

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus#/media/File:Venus_globe.jpg
  

I was looking for decent photos of Venus and found this incredible full planet view. The photo is on the Wikipeadia and has detail that is of the surface structures. Normally the clouds over Venus prevent us from seeing its surface, but now I'm going to show you the alien structures that NASA doesn't want you to see. Watch my video and tell me your thoughts. Some of these structures are bigger than the US state of Texas! This is 100% proof that aliens exist on our neighboring planet. 
Scott C. Waring

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

13-10-2019 om 13:11 geschreven door peter  

On October 9, 2019 a sky-watcher captured two unknown and odd split second flashes next to the Orion Nebula.

DiversityJ - Ohio Skywatching: It's been a long time coming -- Orion and Orion's Nebula in the early morning Ohio sky. Also, there were 2 separate split second flashes out by the constellation. 4:36am to 5:23am, Wednesday Oct 9th 2019, NE Ohio (USA) 42°F (5°C), Southern Sky.

Photos & Video from the Canon 90D & F/2.8 17-55mm Lens & F/2.8 70-200mm L III. Lens Photos Processed in Lightroom Classic. Everything put together in Final Cut Pro X

It is unknown whether these flashes or signals came from alien spacecraft or not but it is known that huge cigar-shaped UFO flying through space next to the Orion Constellation.

  

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

13-10-2019 om 12:55 geschreven door peter  

SEARCHING FOR ARTIFACTS OF ANCIENT TECHNOLOGICAL SPECIES IN OUR OWN SOLAR SYSTEM

Since its birth around a half century ago, SETI has largely focused on looking for alien civilisations beyond our own solar system, searching for radio signals from prominent or nearby stars. But what if there were earlier technological civilisations in our own solar system, or even here on Earth?

That’s the question explored in a new paper posted to arXiv.org (and soon to be published in the International Journal of Astrobiology), “Prior Indigenous Technological Species“, by astronomer Jason T. Wright.

SETI typically focuses on interstellar radio signals or other studies of objects beyond the Solar System, however an alternative search avenue has been appreciated for nearly as long: the search for alien artifacts within the Solar System. This has not only been a topic for science fiction (e.g. 2001: A Space Odyssey) but in the SETI literature. Indeed, the apparent lack of such artifacts has been used as evidence that humanity must be the only spacefaring civilization in the Galaxy (Hart, 1975). Despite Hart’s claim, we can hardly rule out such artifacts in the Solar System, as demonstrated by Freitas (1983a) and Haqq-Misra & Kopparapu (2012).

In these discussions it is assumed, implicitly or explicitly, that the origin of such artifacts would be not just extraterrestrial (Haqq-Misra & Kopparapu, 2012, refer to them as “Non-Terrestrial Artifacts” (NTAs)) but extrasolar. But if such technology were to be discovered, we should consider the possibility that its origin lies within the Solar System, and potentially on Earth.

After all, given that the bodies in the Solar System are at least five orders of magnitude closer than the nearest star system, and given that we know that not only are the ingredients of and conditions for life common in the Solar System, but that one of its planets is known to host complex life, it is perhaps more likely that their origin be local, than that an extraterrestrial species crossed interstellar space and deposited it here. At the very least, the relative probabilities of the two options is unclear.

In this paper, I discuss the possibility for such prior indigenous technological species; by this I mean species that are indigenous to the Solar System, produce technosignatures and/or were spacefaring, and are currently extinct or otherwise absent.

Wright notes that one of the great difficulties in finding evidence for previous technological civilisations in our solar system is simply the passage of time – old stuff disappears. “The Earth is quite efficient, on cosmic timescales, at destroying evidence of technology on its surface,” he notes. “Biodegredation can destroy organic material in a matter of weeks, and weathering and other forms of erosion will destroy most exposed rock and metals on a timescale of centuries to millennia, if human activity does not erase it faster.

Wright points out that, at the very longest, some “large and durable structures, in the right environments” – such as the Giza pyramids – might last for ‘just’ tens of thousands of years. Given complex life has existed on Earth for over 400 million years (40,000 sequential periods of 10,000 years), you see the problem in searching for ‘ancient aliens’. Not least, because, on timescales of hundreds of millions of years “plate tectonics will subduct almost all evidence for technology with the crust it sits upon, erasing it from the surface entirely.

Regardless of those difficulties, where should we look? Wright suggests that Venus – with a thinner atmosphere in the past – and Mars, once covered in water, would be good candidates. And he reminds us that search should also include Earth (though he disavows the topic of ‘ancient aliens’ on his blog). Furthermore, he notes, “while all geological records of prior indigenous technological species might be long destroyed, if the species were spacefaring there may be technological artifacts to be found throughout the Solar system.”

It’s a fascinating hypothetical topic, though it is worth pointing out that Jason Wright is not particularly happy about “all the wrong kind of attention” the paper has received “from the yellow press and the ufologists….it is mortifying…Now excuse me while I answer all these emails from Coast to Coast and ufologists sending me pictures of clouds.”

No doubt his frustration has arisen from the “astronomer says ancient aliens existed in our own solar system” headlines that the paper has generated, with many mis-judging what the words “may” and “is possible” mean, in terms of likelihood of ancient alien civilisations. As Wright says on his blog, he put his paper together…

…not because I think they exist, but because we’re at the point where it should be possible to say for sure that certain types of them didn’t. The end of the paper is all about the things we can do to start drawing some conclusions.

I recommend – as I have to SETI people before – that it might be worth engaging with the ufologists and Forteans, rather than dissing them, as they could be some of your staunchest advocates, even if there is some disagreement over assumptions and conclusions.

Paper:

•  “Prior Indigenous Technological Species“, by astronomer Jason T. Wright.

You might also like:

• Our Alien DNA
• How Long Would It Take for Evidence of Our Civilisation to Disappear?
• Pyramidions of Mars

{ https://www.dailygrail.com/ }

12-10-2019 om 23:55 geschreven door peter  

The Cassini mission to Saturn is over, but scientists still pore over its data. The newest discovery is of organic compounds – the ingredients of amino acids, the building blocks of life – in water vapor plumes from Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

The geysers of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. These great plumes of water vapor erupt through fractures in the ice crust at this moon’s south pole. The Cassini spacecraft analyzed the plumes and found water vapor, ice particles, salts, methane and a variety of complex and simple organic molecules. Scientists think they originate from the ocean below the moon’s icy surface.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.

Is the subsurface ocean on Saturn’s moon Enceladus habitable? Could it be home to existing life forms? While we still don’t know the answer to the second question, evidence continues to build that this small moon’s ocean is habitable by earthly standards. On October 2, 2019, scientists announced another piece of the puzzle: the discovery of additional kinds of organic compounds that originate from Enceladus’ ocean, and were found by the Cassini spacecraft to be gushing out through geysers at the moon’s south pole. These compounds are the ingredients for amino acids, the building blocks of life on Earth.

The intriguing new peer-reviewed findings were published October 2, 2019, in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The findings come from continued analysis of data from the Cassini mission at Saturn, which ended in 2017. The spacecraft had sampled water vapor in the huge geyser-like plumes that erupt from fractures called Tiger Stripes at the south pole of the moon. The results showed water vapor, ice grains, salts, methane and organic molecules of various sizes existing in the plumes.

• The lunar calendars are here! Get your 2020 lunar calendars today. They make great gifts. Going fast!

Illustration depicting how the organic compounds, originating from ocean bottom hydrothermal vents, are condensed onto ice grains in cracks in Enceladus’ crust. The ice grains and organics then get ejected into space by the water vapor plumes.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Cassini also found evidence for active hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, similar to ones seen on the ocean bottoms of Earth. The new organic compounds were found to be nitrogen- and oxygen-bearing, condensed onto the ice grains. On Earth, those same compounds are produced by hydrothermal vents, and are part of the chemical reactions that produce amino acids. Is the same thing happening on Enceladus? As Nozair Khawaja, at the Free University of Berlin, explained:

If the conditions are right, these molecules coming from the deep ocean of Enceladus could be on the same reaction pathway as we see here on Earth. We don’t yet know if amino acids are needed for life beyond Earth, but finding the molecules that form amino acids is an important piece of the puzzle.

The ice grains from Enceladus’ plumes also get injected into Saturn’s E ring. The new compounds were found on these ice grains by Cassini’s Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA). The composition of the organic material was determined by the CDA’s mass spectrometer.

Enceladus as seen by the Cassini spacecraft. This small, icy moon has a global subsurface ocean that could possibly support life.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/NASA Science.

So how did these and other organics get into space? First, they were dissolved in the subsurface ocean itself. They were then evaporated out of the water, condensing and freezing onto ice grains inside the fractures in the moon’s crust. As the plumes of water vapor from the ocean move upward through the fractures to the surface, they transport the ice grains and organics with them. After being injected into space, these grains can then be sampled and analyzed by spacecraft such as Cassini.

Cassini had already found found larger organic molecules in the plumes. These new compounds, however, although smaller, are tied directly to the hydrothermal processes that would create amino acids. According to co-author Jon Hillier:

Here we are finding smaller and soluble organic building blocks – potential precursors for amino acids and other ingredients required for life on Earth.

Another co-author, Frank Postberg, added:

This work shows that Enceladus’ ocean has reactive building blocks in abundance, and it’s another green light in the investigation of the habitability of Enceladus.

Another recent study showed that Enceladus’ ocean is also apparently just the right age to support life.

Diagram of the amino acid lysine, which has carbon atoms attached and is used in the biosynthesis of proteins. Amino acids are the building blocks of life as we know it, and now they have been discovered in Enceladus’ plumes.

Image via Wikipedia/CC BY 3.0.

A “black smoker” hydrothermal vent on the ocean floor on Earth. Similar vents are thought to exist on the ocean floor of Enceladus as well, where the organic compounds most likely originate from.

Image via National Ocean Service (NOA).

The discovery of these smaller – but vital – organic compounds is another significant piece of the puzzle in understanding Enceladus’ possible habitability. Although completely frozen on the outside surface, on the inside, Enceladus is a most remarkable little world. Beneath the outer ice crust lies a global warm salty ocean, that, it appears, is not too different from oceans on Earth. The rocky bottom, including the hydrothermal vents, provides chemical nutrients just as it does on our planet. The environment is similar to that around hydrothermal vents – or “smokers” – on Earth’s ocean bottoms. The vents provide heat and nutrients, and at least on Earth, serve as an oasis for a multitude of life forms despite the surrounding colder waters and complete lack of sunlight.

These new findings make Enceladus and other ocean moons in the solar system, such as Europa and Titan, even more enticing targets in the search for life elsewhere in the solar system. Not that long ago, it was thought that Earth was the only world in our solar system with liquid water. Now we know of several moons in the outer solar system that do as well (and maybe even Pluto!), it’s just that the water is hidden below an outer layer of ice. We don’t know yet if any of those water worlds actually host any kind of life, but being able to study some of these alien oceans both now and with more advanced future missions is certainly one of the most exciting developments in planetary exploration.

Bottom line: Further analysis of material in Enceladus’ water vapor plumes has revealed the existence of additional organic compounds, the kind that are the ingredients of amino acids, the building blocks of life on Earth.

Source: Low-mass nitrogen-, oxygen-bearing, and aromatic compounds in Enceladean ice grains

Via Jet Propulsion Laboratory

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

12-10-2019 om 23:37 geschreven door peter  

Could Elon Musk's Starship Threaten Alien Life?

12-10-2019 om 23:25 geschreven door peter  

Leonardo da Vinci 'hid PROOF of aliens' in the Mona Lisa

LEONARDO da Vinci hid proof of ALIENS with secret messages in his paintings, according to conspiracy theorists.

12-10-2019 om 23:00 geschreven door peter  

Black Holes Stunt Growth of Dwarf Galaxies

Astronomers at the University of California, Riverside, have discovered that powerful winds driven by supermassive black holes in the centers of dwarf galaxies have a significant impact on the evolution of these galaxies by suppressing star formation.

Credit: SDSS

Dwarf galaxies hosting active galactic nuclei that have spatially extended outflows.

Dwarf galaxies are small galaxies that contain between 100 million to a few billion stars. In contrast, the Milky Way has 200-400 billion stars. Dwarf galaxies are the most abundant galaxy type in the universe and often orbit larger galaxies.

The team of three astronomers was surprised by the strength of the detected winds.

“We expected we would need observations with much higher resolution and sensitivity, and we had planned on obtaining these as a follow-up to our initial observations,” said Gabriela Canalizo, a professor of physics and astronomy at UC Riverside, who led the research team. “But we could see the signs strongly and clearly in the initial observations. The winds were stronger than we had anticipated.”

Canalizo explained that astronomers have suspected for the past couple of decades that supermassive black holes at the centers of large galaxies can have a profound influence on the way large galaxies grow and age.

“Our findings now indicate that their effect can be just as dramatic, if not more dramatic, in dwarf galaxies in the universe,” she said.

Study results appear in The Astrophysical Journal.

The researchers, who also include Laura V. Sales, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy; and Christina M. Manzano-King, a doctoral student in Canalizo’s lab, used a portion of the data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which maps more than 35% of the sky, to identify 50 dwarf galaxies, 29 of which showed signs of being associated with black holes in their centers. Six of these 29 galaxies showed evidence of winds — specifically, high-velocity ionized gas outflows — emanating from their active black holes.

“Using the Keck telescopes in Hawaii, we were able to not only detect, but also measure specific properties of these winds, such as their kinematics, distribution, and power source — the first time this has been done,” Canalizo said. “We found some evidence that these winds may be changing the rate at which the galaxies are able to form stars.”

Credit: UCR/Stan Lim

From left to right: Laura Sales, Christina Manzano-King, and Gabriela Canalizo.

Manzano-King, the first author of the research paper, explained that many unanswered questions about galaxy evolution can be understood by studying dwarf galaxies.

“Larger galaxies often form when dwarf galaxies merge together,” she said. “Dwarf galaxies are, therefore, useful in understanding how galaxies evolve. Dwarf galaxies are small because after they formed, they somehow avoided merging with other galaxies. Thus, they serve as fossils by revealing what the environment of the early universe was like. Dwarf galaxies are the smallest galaxies in which we are directly seeing winds — gas flows up to 1,000 kilometers per second — for the first time.”

Manzano-King explained that as material falls into a black hole, it heats up due to friction and strong gravitational fields and releases radiative energy. This energy pushes ambient gas outward from the center of the galaxy into intergalactic space.

“What’s interesting is that these winds are being pushed out by active black holes in the six dwarf galaxies rather than by stellar processes such as supernovae,” she said. “Typically, winds driven by stellar processes are common in dwarf galaxies and constitute the dominant process for regulating the amount of gas available in dwarf galaxies for forming stars.”UC Riverside astronomers find large-scale winds associated with active black holes in small galaxies suppress star formation

Credit: UCR

Astronomers suspect that when wind emanating from a black hole is pushed out, it compresses the gas ahead of the wind, which can increase star formation. But if all the wind gets expelled from the galaxy’s center, gas becomes unavailable and star formation could decrease. The latter appears to be what is occurring in the six dwarf galaxies the researchers identified.

“In these six cases, the wind has a negative impact on star formation,” Sales said. “Theoretical models for the formation and evolution of galaxies have not included the impact of black holes in dwarf galaxies. We are seeing evidence, however, of a suppression of star formation in these galaxies. Our findings show that galaxy formation models must include black holes as important, if not dominant, regulators of star formation in dwarf galaxies.”

Next, the researchers plan to study the mass and momentum of gas outflows in dwarf galaxies.

“This would better inform theorists who rely on such data to build models,” Manzano-King said. “These models, in turn, teach observational astronomers just how the winds affect dwarf galaxies. We also plan to do a systematic search in a larger sample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to identify dwarf galaxies with outflows originating in active black holes.”

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Hellman Foundation. Data was obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, and made possible by financial support from the W. M. Keck Foundation.

Contacts and sources:

• Iqbal Pittalwala
  University of California – Riverside

Source:

• http://www.ineffableisland.com/2019/10/black-holes-stunt-growth-of-dwarf.html
  

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12-10-2019 om 21:47 geschreven door peter  

How Do the Strongest Magnets in the Universe Form?

How do some neutron stars become the strongest magnets in the Universe? A German-British team of astrophysicists has found a possible answer to the question of how these so-called magnetars form. The researchers used large computer simulations to demonstrate how the merger of two stars creates strong magnetic fields. If such stars explode in supernovae, magnetars could result. 

 

The simulation marks the birth of a magnetic star such as Tau Scorpii. The image is a cut through the orbital plane where the colouring indicates the strength of the magnetic field and the light hatching reflects the direction of the magnetic field line. 

Credit:  © Ohlmann/Schneider/Röpke

Scientists from Heidelberg University, the Max Planck Society, the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, and the University of Oxford were involved in the research. The results were published in “Nature”.

Our Universe is threaded by magnetic fields. The Sun, for example, has an envelope in which convection continuously generates magnetic fields. “Even though massive stars have no such envelopes, we still observe a strong, large-scale magnetic field at the surface of about ten percent of them,” explains Dr Fabian Schneider from the Centre for Astronomy of Heidelberg University, who is the first author of the study in “Nature”. Although such fields were already discovered in 1947, their origin has remained elusive so far.

Over a decade ago, scientists suggested that strong magnetic fields are produced when two stars collide. “But until now, we weren’t able to test this hypothesis because we didn’t have the necessary computational tools,” says Dr Sebastian Ohlmann from the computing centre of the Max Planck Society in Garching near Munich. This time, the researchers used the AREPO code, a highly dynamic simulation code running on compute clusters of the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS), to explain the properties of Tau Scorpii (τ Sco), a magnetic star located 500 light years from Earth.

Already in 2016, Fabian Schneider and Philipp Podsiadlowski from the University of Oxford realised that τ Sco is a so-called blue straggler. Blue stragglers are the product of merged stars. “We assume that Tau Scorpii obtained its strong magnetic field during the merger process,” explains Prof. Dr Philipp Podsiadlowski. Through its computer simulations of τ Sco, the German-British research team has now demonstrated that strong turbulence during the merger of two stars can create such a field.

Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

 Artists impression of a magnetar

Stellar mergers are relatively frequent: Scientists assume that about ten percent of all massive stars in the Milky Way are the products of such processes. This is in good agreement with the occurrence rate of magnetic massive stars, according to Dr Schneider. Astronomers think that these very stars could form magnetars when they explode in supernovae.

This may also happen to τ Sco when it explodes at the end of its life. The computer simulations suggest that the magnetic field generated would be sufficient to explain the exceptionally strong magnetic fields in magnetars. “Magnetars are thought to have the strongest magnetic fields in the Universe – up to one hundred million times stronger than the strongest magnetic field ever produced by humans,” says Prof. Dr Friedrich Röpke from HITS.

The research was funded by the Oxford Hintze Centre for Astrophysical Surveys and the Klaus Tschira Foundation (Heidelberg).

Contacts and sources:

• Heidelberg University

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12-10-2019 om 21:27 geschreven door peter  

Physicists Have Found a Way to 'Hear' Dark Matter

Source: 

• http://www.ineffableisland.com/2019/10/physicists-have-found-way-to-hear-dark.html

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12-10-2019 om 21:15 geschreven door peter  

The Milky Way Kidnapped Several Tiny Galaxies from Its Neighbor

Just like the moon orbits the Earth, and the Earth orbits the sun, galaxies orbit each other according to the predictions of cosmology. 

For example, more than 50 discovered satellite galaxies orbit our own galaxy, the Milky Way. The largest of these is the Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, a large dwarf galaxy that resembles a faint cloud in the Southern Hemisphere night sky.

UC Riverside-led research shows our galaxy is undergoing a massive merger with its largest satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud

Visualization of the simulations used in the study. Top left shows dark matter in white. Bottom right shows a simulated Large Magellanic Cloud-like galaxy with stars and gas, and several smaller companion galaxies

UC Riverside-led research shows our galaxy is undergoing a massive merger with its largest satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud

Credit: UCR/Ethan Jahn
 

A team of astronomers led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside, has discovered that several of the small — or “dwarf” — galaxies orbiting the Milky Way were likely stolen from the LMC, including several ultrafaint dwarfs, but also relatively bright and well-known satellite galaxies, such as Carina and Fornax.

The researchers made the discovery by using new data gathered by the Gaia space telescope on the motions of several nearby galaxies and contrasting this with state-of-the-art cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. The UC Riverside team used the positions in the sky and the predicted velocities of material, such as dark matter, accompanying the LMC, finding that at least four ultrafaint dwarfs and two classical dwarfs, Carina and Fornax, used to be satellites of the LMC. Through the ongoing merger process, however, the more massive Milky Way used its powerful gravitational field to tear apart the LMC and steal these satellites, the researchers report.

Laura Sales (right), an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at UC Riverside, is seen here with Ethan Jahn, her graduate student.

Credit: UCR/Sales group

“These results are an important confirmation of our cosmological models, which predict that small dwarf galaxies in the universe should also be surrounded by a population of smaller fainter galaxy companions,” said Laura Sales, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, who led the research team. “This is the first time that we are able to map the hierarchy of structure formation to such faint and ultrafaint dwarfs.”

The findings have important implications for the total mass of the LMC and also on the formation of the Milky Way.

“If so many dwarfs came along with the LMC only recently, that means the properties of the Milky Way satellite population just 1 billion years ago were radically different, impacting our understanding of how the faintest galaxies form and evolve,” Sales said.

Study results appear in the November 2019 issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Dwarf galaxies are small galaxies that contain anywhere from a few thousand to a few billion stars. The researchers used computer simulations from the Feedback In Realistic Environments project to show the LMC and galaxies similar to it host numerous tiny dwarf galaxies, many of which contain no stars at all — only dark matter, a type of matter scientists think constitutes the bulk of the universe’s mass.

“The high number of tiny dwarf galaxies seems to suggest the dark matter content of the LMC is quite large, meaning the Milky Way is undergoing the most massive merger in its history, with the LMC, its partner, bringing in as much as one third of the mass in the Milky Way’s dark matter halo — the halo of invisible material that surrounds our galaxy,” said Ethan Jahn, the first author of the paper and a graduate student in Sales’ research group.

Jahn explained that the number of tiny dwarf galaxies the LMC hosts may be higher than astronomers previously estimated, and that many of these tiny satellites have no stars.

“Small galaxies are hard to measure, and it’s possible that some already-known ultrafaint dwarf galaxies are in fact associated with the LMC,” he said. “It’s also possible that we will discover new ultrafaints that are associated with the LMC.”

Dwarf galaxies can either be satellites of larger galaxies, or they can be “isolated,” existing on their own and independent of any larger object. The LMC used to be isolated, Jahn explained, but it was captured by the gravity of the Milky Way and is now its satellite.

“The LMC hosted at least seven satellite galaxies of its own, including the Small Magellanic Cloud in the Southern Sky, prior to them being captured by the Milky Way,” he said.

Next, the team will study how the satellites of LMC-sized galaxies form their stars and how that relates to how much dark matter mass they have.

“It will be interesting to see if they form differently than satellites of Milky Way-like galaxies,” Jahn said.

Sales and Jahn were joined in the study Andrew Wetzel of UC Davis; Michael Boylan-Kolchin of the University of Texas at Austin; T. K. Chan of UC San Diego; Kareem El-Badry of UC Berkeley; and Alexandres Lazar and James S. Bullock of UC Irvine.

The research was supported by grants to Sales from NASA and the Hellman Foundation.

Contacts and sources:

• Iqbal Pittalwala
  University of California – Riverside

Citation:

• Dark and luminous satellites of LMC-mass galaxies in the FIRE simulations.
  Ethan D Jahn, Laura V Sales, Andrew Wetzel, Michael Boylan-Kolchin, T K Chan, Kareem El-Badry, Alexandres Lazar, James S Bullock. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2019; 489 (4): 5348 DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz245

Source: 

• http://www.ineffableisland.com/2019/10/the-milky-way-kidnapped-several-tiny.html

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12-10-2019 om 21:03 geschreven door peter