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George Adamski

Long before there were Alien Abductees, there were the Contactees. They were the people chosen to spread the word by what became known as the “Space Brothers.” The “word” meaning: peace, love and understanding. In other words, the aliens were here to help us – provided we followed their slightly bullying agenda. While reports of – and encounters with – these very human-looking, long-haired, jumpsuit-wearing aliens were at their height in the 1950s, reports predated that era and still occasionally surface. The Space Brothers would target people in isolated locations – very often desert environments in the United States – and encourage them to share their experiences, write books, and go on the lecture circuit. So many of these people did exactly that. They included George Adamski, Dana Howard, Howard Menger, George Hunt Williamson, and Orfeo Angelucci. Much has written about the Contactees, but there is one glaring issue that is so often omitted. Or, even, unknown to so many.

Most of the Contactees’ experiences are assumed to have begun with the landing of a saucer-shaped craft of the kind that appeared in The Day the Earth Stood Still. That’s not entirely correct, though. The reality is that many of the Contactees said that their encounters actually began with the appearances of strange balls of light (BOLs). The ships, however, would dutifully follow them. Let’s take a look at what the Contactees had to say about those BOLs. We’ll begin with Daniel Fry, the author of The White Sands Incident. According to Fry he first saw what looked like an “especially bright group of stars” that “seemed to beckon me.”

Truman Bethurum claimed amusing and outrageous encounters with a curvy, stacked-to-the-max, hot-looking babe from the stars who announced herself as Captain Aura Rhanes, of the planet Clarion. Interestingly, Bethurum said that prior to his meetings with the captain, he would often see “a small flare” or what appeared to be “a meteor falling though the starlit purple night.” Orfeo Angeulcci – the author of (among others) The Secret of the Saucers – said that his main encounter with a pair of human-looking aliens involved the appearance of a red, glowing, oval-shaped light that was “about five times as large as the red portion of a traffic light.” The sound of a male voice was soon heard, which was “strong,” and had “well-modulated tones and speaking perfect English.” The voice from the lights assured Angelucci that “they” were “friends from another world.”

Dana Howard (who, in 1956, penned Diane: She Came from Venus) said that during one of her most significant alien encounters she saw, “…a rising glow of phosphorescence. It was very tall at first, but out of this phosphorescent substance a form began to manifest…a solid fleshy being, delicate in charm and manner.” Decades ago, a man named Ralph Lael claimed amazing encounters with the Space Brothers on Brown Mountain, North Carolina. Just like those characters above, Lael reported seeing – in close proximity – eerie balls of light. In Lael’s case, the BOLs were around twelve feet in circumference. Lael felt, as one of the BOLs approached him, that “it was alive and had intelligence.”

Bob Short was a Contactee who I met on several occasions – a couple of times at the UFO Congress in Laughlin, Nevada in the late 1990s, and at the Retro UFO gig, which is now no longer around. I often saw people poke fun at Bob and his Contactee-driven claims, but they shouldn’t have. Bob’s encounters, too, began with the sudden appearances of multiple BOLs. Bob wrote (in his book, Out of the Stars: A Message from Extraterrestrial Intelligence) that he often saw, specifically before an encounter of the Space Brother kind, “luminous ephemeral spheres of light.” Bob also said that the BOLs were “so dazzling” that “the actual form behind the light is masked and cannot be scrutinized visually.”

I had a few chats with Short about all of this over the years, and he pondered seriously on the scenario of the BOLs being the true alien entities – and the Space  being “visions” created by the BOL intelligence. If Bob was correct, then it puts matters in a very different state. Maybe all of the genuine Contactee-type experiences occurred in vision-style; in altered state-type situations dictated by those mysterious balls of light.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/  }

07-12-2019 om 21:22 geschreven door peter  

World's first monkey-pig hybrids are born in Chinese lab as part of ground-breaking bid to grow human organs inside animals for transplants

• Chimera piglets contained DNA from both pigs and cynomolgus monkeys
• They died within a week of being born at a laboratory in Beijing, China
• Scientists claimed the research aimed to find a way of growing human organs

By LUKE ANDREWS FOR MAILONLINE

Two chimera piglets containing monkey DNA have been born in China.

Although both died within a week and appeared to be normal, the baby animals had genetic material from cynomolgus monkeys in their heart, liver, spleen, lung and skin.

Scientists said the research, which required more than 4,000 embryos to get the piglets, aims to find ways of growing human organs in animals for transplantation.

The two piglets, born in Beijing, China, died within a week. They were made from both pig and monkey DNA. Scientists said the research aimed to find a way of growing human organs inside animals for transplantation

'This is the first report of full-term monkey-pig chimeras', Tang Hai at the State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology in Beijing told New Scientist.

Five-day old piglet embryos had monkey stem cells injected into them that had been adjusted to produce a flourescent protein, allowing researchers to find out where the cells ended up.

The scientists said it was unclear why the two chimera piglets died, but as eight other normal piglets that were implanted also died, they think this is a problem with the IVF process rather than chimerism.

Despite the research, some members of the scientific community have warned against creating chimeras due to ethical concerns. 

Neuroscientist Douglas Munoz at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, said that research projects like this 'just really ethically scares me'.

'For us to start to manipulate life functions in this kind of way without fully knowing how to turn it off, or stop it if something goes awry really scares me.'

Monkey stem cells were injected into five-day-old pig embryos before they were implanted into sows. Only ten embryos developed

However, China shows no sign of stopping after proposing in July to create monkeys with partially human-derived brains in order to better study diseases like alzheimer's.

And Yale University stem cell expert Alejandro De Los Angeles has written that the search for a better animal model to stimulate human disease has been a 'holy grail' of biomedical research for decades.

'Realising the promise of human-monkey chimera research in an ethically and scientifically appropriate manner will require a coordinated approach', he said.

A human-pig hybrid embryo was created in January 2017, at the Salk Institute in San Diego, but died 28 days later.

It is hoped the research could offer an alternative to organ donation.

Around three people a day die in the UK according to the NHS and 12 in the US because replacement organs cannot be found.

Read more:

• Exclusive: First ever piglets containing monkey cells born in China | New Scientist

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

07-12-2019 om 20:51 geschreven door peter  

“The findings could pave the way toward overcoming the obstacles in the re-engineering of heterogeneous organs and achieve the ultimate goal of human organ reconstruction in a large animal.”

Sometimes when you read “noble cause” statements like that one in scientific papers about research that border on, crosses over or flat-out erases the line of ethics, you can almost hear their eyes winking and their fingers straining to stay crossed from across the ocean. That seems to be the case with most recent stories out of China where scientists have already genetically-edited human embryos, with the twins being born last year and, as far as we know, are still alive. Unfortunately, that may not be the case with the researcher who did the embryo editing – he disappeared for a time and is said to be under constant surveillance. Now, a new report announces that other Chinese researchers have edited pig embryos and, unlike in previous experiments, the embryos were not destroyed and pig-monkey chimeras have been born. How soon before they’re creating pig-human chimeras?

“We believe this work will facilitate future developments in xenogeneic organogenesis, bringing us one step closer to producing tissue-specific functional cells and organs in a large animal model through interspecies blastocyst complementation.”

In China, “one step closer” seems to mean “we may be already doing it (wink-wink).” In a paper published in the journal Protein & Cell and reviewed by New Scientist, co-author Tang Hai, a researcher at the State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology, confirms these are the first full-term pig-monkey chimeras. (In a chimera, each cell is from a separate parent while hybrids cells have combined genetics from both.)

The team modified monkey cells to make them fluorescent, then took embryonic stem cells and injected them into over 4000 pig embryos which were then injected into sows. Ten piglets were born and two were confirmed to be chimeras, with multiple tissues – heart, liver, spleen, lung and skin – partly made of monkey cells. The two piglets died within a week, but so did all of the piglets born alive, which leads Hai to believe the problem had to do with the in-vitro fertilization, not the fact that they were chimeras.

“Interspecies chimerism still has a long way to go before clinical application is possible.”

Does it? This experiment created living pig-monkey chimeras. An experiment in Japan in August 2019 created human-rat chimeras, but the embryos were destroyed early in the process. The same was said to have happened with a human-monkey chimera in China. The latest experiment allowed the embryos to live – albeit without human cells being involved. How long before a human-monkey chimera arrives?

“What happens if the tem cells escape and form human neurons in the brain of the animal? Would it have consciousness? And what happens if these stem cells turn into sperm cells?”

he asks. Núñez assures that Izpisuá’s research team has created mechanisms “so that if human cells migrate to the brain, they will self-destruct.”

Doctor Ángel Raya, the director of the Barcelona Regenerative Medicine Center, asked that question of Estrella Núñez, who worked on the human-monkey experiment and was told they had created mechanisms “so that if human cells migrate to the brain, they will self-destruct.”

When the shortage of human organs for transplants becomes acute, what decision will those with money make? Past experience tells us that in these situations, the first thing to “self-destruct” is ethics.

Do you hear the wink-winking?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

07-12-2019 om 20:35 geschreven door peter  

The UFO Contactees of the 1950s were a varied bunch. They all claimed amazing encounters with human-looking aliens. Those same aliens demanded we lay down our nuclear weapons and live in peace with one another. Some chance of that happening – then or now! They included George Adamski, Truman Bethurum, Dana Howard, Arthur Bryant, Daniel Fry, and George Hunt Williamson. While many of their claims differed in varying ways, there’s one thing that links just about all of them. Namely, that nearly all of the Contactees had files opened on them by the FBI. Not only that, some of those files were lengthy. Very lengthy. To give you an idea, the number of pages that the FBI has now declassified on Adamski is in excess of 400 pages. Then, there is George Van Tasssel, who is mostly remembered for his annual flying saucer events held out at Giant Rock, California from the 1950s to the 1970s. At their height (the fifties) the outdoor gigs attracted audiences in their thousands. Van Tassel gained more attention when he created the near-legendary Integratron – supposedly designed to extent the human lifespan. The FBI’s file on Van Tassel makes it very clear that the Bureau took a great deal of interest in the man. Much of it revolved around concerns that Van Tassel was using the UFO subject as a means to spread communism. There is, however, another aspect to all of this.

In the most recent and relevant batch of material that the FBI has declassified there is an interesting Q&A between the FBI and Mrs. Van Tassel. Much has been said and written about George Van Tassel, but far less about his wife, Eva. Until now. The three-pages-long document provides us with some interesting data on Eva and her husband. Dated November 13, 1954 the FBI document begins as follows: “Mrs. Eva Van Tassel, wife of captioned subject [George, of course] was interviewed by SA [Special Agent, name deleted]and the reporting agent in the absence of her husband. Mrs. Van Tassel advised that her husband was in Los Angeles contacting a printer who prints a magazine named ‘Proceeding’ of the College of Universal Wisdom. She declared while in Los Angeles Mr. Van Tassel sleeps in a truck. Mrs. Van Tassel could not furnish the name or location of the printer.”

Giant Rock

The FBI documentation continues: “Relative to her husband and herself, Mrs. Van Tassel claims that she and her husband practice a metaphysical religion. She declared this religion is based on an occult principle in that she and her husband sit in a room in dead silence and receive thought transfers from one another and from other individuals who are not psychically present in the room. She declared that it was through this type of practice that her husband has learned or prophesied the coming of World War III and a gigantic explosion on the East Coast. She mentioned that at the present time she and her husband have undertaken a special project. This project is the founding and organizing of the College of Universal Wisdom.”

The FBI agents made notes concerning what Eva told them: “The purpose of the college is to promote and carry out interplanetary communication and the dissemination of Universal Wisdom gained through the median of space beings. She advised that her husband has contacted many individuals concerning his plans for the college. She mentioned that he has contacted professors and students and various colleges throughout the United States. Mrs. Van Tassel could not furnish the identities of any of these individuals that her husband has corresponded with. She also advised that this college would operate under the state laws of California as a place of learning pertaining to religion. She advised that her husband through his periodical mentioned above has solicited donations for the advancement of this college. She further advised that the college is to be located adjacent to the Giant Rock Airport at Yucca Valley.”

The FBI had much more to say: “Mrs. Van Tassel declared that on August 24, 1953, at approximately 2:00 A.M. while she and her husband were sleeping out of doors adjacent to the Giant Rock air strip, her husband was awakened by a person from outer space in a flying saucer which had landed on the air strip. Mrs. Van Tassel was quick to point out she was not awakened and did not see the spacemen or his means of transportation. Mrs. Van Tassel declared that her husband related that the spaceman took her husband aboard the flying saucer which was occupied by three additional spacemen. Mrs. Van Tassel declared that her husband failed to mention the color or the size of this space craft. She stated that the spacemen were similar in every description to earth men. She advised that the spacemen did not carry weapons nor was there any armament noticed on the flying saucer. She declared that according to her husband, the saucer and spacemen spent approximately twenty minutes on earth after which time they departed into outer space. The spaceman who woke up her husband was the leader or spokesman for the group. He spoke in English and informed her husband that earth men should give up using metal as they are ruining radio frequencies with the over-use of metal.”

There was this, too, regarding Eva and George: “Relative to her husband, she stated he was born in Ohio, city unknown, March 12, 1910. She mentioned that it is possible her husband was born in Ashtabula. He failed to receive a high school diploma as he lacked three months schooling. He left Ohio in 1929 for California. Mrs. Van Tassel declared she married her husband on January 31, 1932, in Yuma, Arizona; her maiden name being Eva Meek. She declared that her husband, prior to 1947, worked as a Flight Test Engineer at Lockheed Aircraft, Burbank, California, and lived on [illegible] Street in Los Angeles. She declared that in 1947 she, her husband, and her daughter, Darlene, moved to Yucca Valley. She stated her daughter is Secretary-Treasurer of the College of Universal Wisdom. She also pointed out that her husband presently operates the Giant Rock Airport under CAA regulations. She advised her husband is not a pilot, but does hold a mechanics certificate with CAA.”

It all got a bit surreal and amusing as the FBI concluded: “It was noted by the reporting agent that the air strip known as Giant Rock is a flat, dry, lake bed. The area surrounding being noted. The writer and [Special Agent deleted] interviewed Mrs. Van Tassel in an underground cave like room which was excavated from the base of the Giant Rock. Mrs. Van Tassel advised that this room is presently the headquarters of the College of Universal Wisdom. The area surrounding the air strip was in every respect very primitive.”

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

07-12-2019 om 20:13 geschreven door peter  

Doorway To Underground Home Found On Mars Near NASA Rover, Dec 2019, UFO Sighting News.

• http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/196368

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

07-12-2019 om 17:52 geschreven door peter  

White Spheres Over Lake Michigan Hover And Shoot Away, Dec 4, 2019, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: December 4, 2019
Location of sighting: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Source: MUFON #104897

During sunset giant round white orbs hovered over Lake Michigan on Dec 4th that caught the attention of a passing motorist. He watched as the hovered in place and then they moved horizontally and then straight up and away. Such UFOs are one of the top 3 most commonly seen UFOs...giant white orbs of florescent like light that very in size from the size of a baseball to the size of a 747. This is absolute proof of an alien base below lake Michigan. 

Its not just reading and research that led me to this...I witnessed such an event in 1989 at Rapid City, SD where I saw 25 of these orbs the size of 747s about 1 mile up above my parking lot. I worked at Ellsworth AFB SAC base, where I worked on B-1s. No...they were not ours. 
Scott C. Waring-Taiwan

Eyewitness states: 

Driving on a clear morning, pulled over to view sunrise over Lake Michigan near my home. Dotted in the sky hovering objects over water, shinning brightly, no clouds, commercial jets flying much higher on approach to O'Hare with recognizable red flashing tail and wing lights.Took just a few photos, watched for 5 mins. as objects hovered in place, then shot across the sky horizontally and straight-up at speeds not achievable by modern aviation known to me. I have witness other objects over Lake Michigan especially in 2012 during NATO Summit held in Chicago during President Obama's administration. Over 3-days I witnessed major activity during early morning hours, capturing unbelievable photo's that were so disturbing I never reported and only have a few photo's to this day. I felt strongly objects knew I had taken photographic evidence and rarely shared experience.

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

07-12-2019 om 17:43 geschreven door peter  

Lightning UFO In Earths Orbit Seen From Space Shuttle Discovery, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Dec 7, 2019

Location of discovery: Earths orbit

Source photo: 

• https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?mission=STS039&roll=75&frame=32

I was searching through NASA archive photo and saw this beautiful moon photo taken from the Shuttle Discovery. I didn't think I would find anything at the time, just thought it was a beautiful photo. I enlarged it and put it into auto focus and found something amazing. There was a black lightning bolt UFO in the lower right hand corner of the photo. I have never ever reported a UFO of this shape. Its very rare and unlike anything I had come to expect. And yet, there it its, above the sunset clouds in earths orbit on a NASA website. This is 100% proof of the existence of intelligent aliens watching over earth. 

Scott C. Waring

 

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

07-12-2019 om 17:32 geschreven door peter  

On December 1, 2019 Peter Lawrence of Thornton, England recorded a strange red flash on the moon. What caused the red flash?

Credit image and video clip Peter Lawrence via Spaceweather.com

Something exploded on the moon or was it a lunar wave, a hologram or perhaps a glitch in the matrix or something else?

According to atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley "The technical name of this event is a 'Ducted Mock-mirage Red Flash.' As the Moon set, it dipped into a strong temperature inversion layer with warm air above cooler air - light rays bend when they cross the layers, in this case strongly enough that 'ducting' occurs -- that is, the rays bounce up and down, trapped in an optical duct", reports spaceweather.

Lawrence created a short clip of the strange red flash.

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

07-12-2019 om 17:06 geschreven door peter  

Remember comet 46P/Wirtanen? It was a bright comet about this time last year. Around the time it swept near the Earth and sun, the comet entered the field of view NASA’s TESS planet-hunter. And boom! It underwent an outburst, caught by TESS.

This animation shows an explosive outburst of dust, ice and gases from comet 46P/Wirtanen that began on September 26, 2018, and dissipated over the next 20 days. NASA’s TESS spacecraft acquired an image of the comet every 3 hours during the first 3 days of the outburst.

Image via Farnham et al./NASA/University of Maryland.

What makes a comet flare up suddenly? No one knows exactly, but astronomers do know that outbursts are sometimes seen when comets are near their parent stars. Now University of Maryland astronomers say they’ve made the most complete and detailed observations to date of the formation and dissipation of a comet outburst. The comet is none other than 46P/Wirtanen, which last swept closest to the Earth and sun in its 5.4-year orbit in late 2018. You might remember this comet. We published many beautiful images of it, captured in November and December 2018 by members of the EarthSky community.

Shortly before earthly astrophotographers began to ogle it, the comet entered the field of view of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), whose job is to seek exoplanets. As it happened, while TESS was aimed its way, 46P/Wirtanen underwent an outburst. Researchers were able to gain a clear start-to-finish image sequence of the explosive emission of dust, ice and gases. Team members reported their results in the November 22, 2019 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

University of Maryland astronomer Tony Farnham is the lead author of the study. He said in a statement:

TESS spends nearly a month at a time imaging one portion of the sky. With no day or night breaks and no atmospheric interference, we have a very uniform, long-duration set of observations. As comets orbit the sun, they can pass through TESS’ field of view. Wirtanen was a high priority for us because of its close approach in late 2018, so we decided to use its appearance in the TESS images as a test case to see what we could get out of it.

We did so and were very surprised!

Farnham said that, although Wirtanen came closest to Earth on December 16, 2018, the outburst began in September. The astronomers’ statement explained:

The initial brightening of the outburst occurred in two distinct phases, with an hour-long flash followed by a more gradual second stage that continued to grow brighter for another 8 hours. This second stage was likely caused by the gradual spreading of comet dust from the outburst, which causes the dust cloud to reflect more sunlight overall.

After reaching peak brightness, the comet faded gradually over a period of more than two weeks.

• EarthSky lunar calendars make great gifts for astronomy-minded friends and family. Order now. Going fast!

Comet 46P/Wirtanen on November 26, 2018, by Gerald Rhemann in Namibia. View more photos of the comet.

In its search for exoplanets, it’s TESS’ job to acquire detailed composite images every 30 minutes. And so the team studying the comet was able to view each phase of the outburst in what they called “exquisite detail.” Farnham said:

With 20 days’ worth of very frequent images, we were able to assess changes in brightness very easily. That’s what TESS was designed for, to perform its primary job as an exoplanet surveyor. We can’t predict when comet outbursts will happen. But even if we somehow had the opportunity to schedule these observations, we couldn’t have done any better in terms of timing. The outburst happened mere days after the observations started.

Farnham and his colleagues said they’re also the first to observe Wirtanen’s dust trail. Unlike a comet’s tail — the spray of gas and fine dust that follows behind a comet, growing as it approaches the sun — a comet’s trail is a field of larger debris that traces the comet’s orbital path as it travels around the sun. Unlike a tail, which changes direction as it is blown by the solar wind, the orientation of the trail stays more or less constant over time, they said. Astronomer Michael Kelley – a co-author on the new paper – explained:

The trail more closely follows the orbit of the comet, while the tail is more offset from it, as it gets pushed around by the sun’s radiation pressure. What’s significant about the trail is that it contains the largest material. Tail dust is very fine, a lot like smoke. But trail dust is much larger—more like sand and pebbles.

We think comets lose most of their mass through their dust trails. When the Earth runs into a comet’s dust trail, we get meteor showers.

Their statement said:

The team has generated a rough estimate of how much material may have been ejected in the outburst (about 2.2 million pounds [1 million kg], which could have left a crater close to 65 feet [20 meters] across), but further analysis of the estimated particle sizes in the dust tail may help improve this estimate. Observing more comets will also help to determine whether multi-stage brightening is rare or commonplace in comet outbursts.

Farnham said:

We also don’t know what causes natural outbursts and that’s ultimately what we want to find. There are at least four other comets in the same area of the sky where TESS made these observations, with a total of about 50 comets expected in the first two years’ worth of TESS data. There’s a lot that can come of these data. We’re still finding out the capabilities of TESS, so hopefully we’ll have more to report on this comet and others very soon.

According to Farnham, the TESS observations of comet Wirtanen were the first to capture all phases of a natural comet outburst, from beginning to end. The astronomers’ statement explained:

… three other previous observations came close to recording the beginning of an outburst event. Observations of a 2007 outburst from comet 17P/Holmes began late, missing several hours of the initial brightening phase of the event. In 2017, observations of an outburst from comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 (SW1) concluded early, due to limitations on pre-scheduled observation time. And, while observations from the Deep Impact mission captured an outburst from comet Tempel 1 in unprecedented detail in 2005, the outburst was not natural
created instead by the mission’s impactor module. However, the current observations are the first to capture the dissipation phase in its entirety.

While the current study describes initial results, Farnham, Kelley and their colleagues said they look forward to further analyses of Wirtanen, as well as other comets in TESS’ field of view.

Jack Fusco Photography in California wrote in December 2018: “Hi EarthSky! I’m so excited to share my 1st photo of comet 46P/Wirtanen! We took our boxer, Kona, out to the Anza Borrego Desert with us and came home with a new family photo. : ) I shared some behind-the-scenes and outtakes over on my blog as well.” Awesome photo, and thanks for the how-to-photograph info on your blog, Jack! 

View more photos of the comet.

• Bottom line: Comet 46P/Wirtanen passed about 7 million miles from Earth at its closest, on December 16, 2018. That’s expected to be the brightest close approach for this comet for the next 20 years. Shortly before its closest approach to the Earth and sun, NASA’s TESS planet-hunter happened to catch a start-to-finish sequence showing an outburst of this comet. Astronomers are delighted.
• Source: First Results from TESS Observations of Comet 46P/Wirtanen
• Via University of Maryland

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

07-12-2019 om 01:18 geschreven door peter  

'Wow.' Astrophysicist Eugene Parker Reacts to Namesake Sun Probe's 1st Science Results (Video)

NASA Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen (left), solar astrophysicist Eugene Parker (center) and United Launch Alliance President Tory Bruno stand in front of NASA's Parker Solar Probe and its Delta IV Heavy rocket before the mission's Aug. 12, 2018 launch.

(Image: © NASA/Bill Ingalls)

The PSP takes its name from 92-year-old Eugene Parker, who in the 1950s controversially proposed that a stream of charged particles flows constantly from the sun. The existence of this stream, known as the solar wind, was confirmed shortly thereafter by spacecraft observations.

Parker, who's now an emeritus professor at the University of Chicago, made a number of other important contributions to our understanding of the sun during his long career — so many, in fact, that he's regarded as the father of modern heliophysics, said Nicky Fox, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

"He basically gave birth to an entire physics discipline," Fox said yesterday during a "NASA Live" event devoted to discussing the new PSP results. While humanity has sought to figure out the sun since time immemorial, she added, "really understanding that the sun had such a profound effect on Earth is really due to Gene Parker."

This outsize influence explains why NASA broke the mold with its naming of the PSP. It's the only agency spacecraft ever named after a living person.

Fox explained during yesterday's event that she paid Parker a visit a few months ago to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the spacecraft's arrival in orbit around the sun. 

The PSP launched on Aug. 12, 2018, with two big mission goals in mind: to determine how the solar wind gets accelerated to such high speeds (more than 1 million mph, or 1.6 million km/h), and to understand why the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, is so much hotter than the solar surface. (Temperatures in the corona can exceed 2 million degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.1 million degrees Celsius. The surface is just 11,000 F, or 6,000 C.)

During their meeting, which was captured on video and shared during the NASA Live event, Fox gave Parker a sneak peek at the results that were published yesterday. These data show, among other things, that one component of the solar wind appears to originate near the star's equator, in coronal "holes" that are cooler and less dense than the rest of the outer atmosphere. 

PSP also found surprising "switchbacks" in the solar magnetic field flowing close to the sun: The field's orientation, as measured by the probe, sometimes flipped 180 degrees, then reversed itself again within just seconds or minutes.  

• Related: NASA's Parker Solar Probe Sun Mission Explained (Infographic)

"Well, all I can say is, 'Wow,'" Parker said in the video. "When you go on a space mission, you always run into mysterious things, eventually figuring them out. But I wouldn't have expected anything like that."

Parker also reflected on the PSP's launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, which he attended. 

"I was very moved by the fact that that spacecraft was going off into the night sky, and he'll never come back," Parker said. His next words came more slowly, as the physicist appeared to get choked up: "Sort of sad, you know — your old friend."

Fox commiserated, replying that she experienced some separation anxiety as the spacecraft sped away from Earth. 

"It was like watching a member of the team, because after working with that spacecraft for so long, she became a person, and she became part of the team," Fox told Parker. "And to say goodbye to her was really, really tough."

We'll be hearing lots more from the PSP in the years to come. The spacecraft has completed just three of the 24 planned perihelion passes that will take place through the mission's end in 2025. And the last few close approaches will be the most exciting, and possibly the most fruitful. 

The PSP will pare down its perihelion distance repeatedly via trajectory-altering flybys of Venus, the next of which will occur next month. By 2025, if all goes according to plan, the spacecraft will get within a mere 3.83 million miles (6.16 million km) of the sun's surface at closest approach. And those encounters will feature top speeds of 430,000 mph (690,000 km/h), mission team members have said.

• Here's What Earth Looks Like When You're Heading to the Sun 
• Solar Quiz: How Well Do You Know Our Sun?
• Launch Photos! NASA's Parker Solar Probe Blasts Off to Touch the Sun

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/ }

07-12-2019 om 00:55 geschreven door peter  

There's Something Weird About the Craters of Asteroid Ryugu

By Meghan Bartels - Science & Astronomy 

A map showing 77 craters identified across Ryugu's surface. The western side, where craters are less common, is in the middle of the image.

(Image: © Icarus/Naoyuki Hirata et al.)

The Japanese mission Hayabusa2 just bid farewell to the asteroid the probe spent a year and a half studying, and scientists have now announced some intriguing trends they noticed in the spacecraft's photos.

Those trends had to do with the craters dotting the surface of the asteroid, dubbed Ryugu. The team used 340 different images of the space rock's surface and identified a total of 77 craters scattered over Ryugu, each measuring at least 66 feet (20 meters) across. But those pockmarks aren't distributed as evenly across the surface as the scientists might have expected, the researchers explained in a new paper.

Instead, the craters are clustered in a couple of different ways. There are more craters near the equator than the poles, the scientists found, and there are more on the eastern side of Ryugu than on the western. Additionally, the scientists didn't find as many relatively smaller craters within this size range as they might have expected given the number of very large craters the space rock sports.

• Related: Look Out Below! Japan's Hayabusa2 Drops Target Markers on Asteroid Ryugu

Those patterns became particularly clear when the team looked at particularly large craters, the 11 that measure at least 328 feet (100 m) across. (That collection includes Ryugu's largest crater, Urashima, which is about one-third of the asteroid's diameter.)

Of those 11 monster craters, five line up along the ridge ringing the asteroid's equator. That's more than twice as many as the team would have expected if Ryugu's craters were distributed randomly, the researchers said.

The discrepancies don't mean that the solar system has been targeting this one unremarkable space rock, of course. Instead, the team said that the clustering of craters is a result of the asteroid's geological history. 

The researchers said that most of the equatorial ridge is relatively old but the westernmost part is younger. That would explain why the craters are unevenly distributed: The rest of the ridge has had much more time to pick up these impact scars.

The scientists hope that when they analyze the samples from Ryugu now on their way back to Earth, it could better inform these theories about how the asteroid came to be the way it is now, a university statement about the project said. Those samples are due to land near the end of next year.

The research is described in a paper being published next spring in the journal Icarus. 

•  Watch Japan's Hayabusa2 Grab a Piece of an Asteroid in This Incredible Video! 
•  Shadow Selfie! Japanese Asteroid Probe Snaps Amazing Post-Landing Pic 
•  Japan's Hopping Rovers Capture Amazing Views of Asteroid Ryugu (Video) 

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

06-12-2019 om 23:59 geschreven door peter  

{ https://futurism.com/ }

06-12-2019 om 23:32 geschreven door peter  

‘Sonde die de zon aanraakt’ onthult eerste geheimen van onze moederster

Het ruimteschip dat Nasa in 2018 richting de zon vuurde, heeft zijn eerste wetenschappelijke vruchten afgeworpen. De sonde moet onder meer onthullen of de zon zich op termijn niet zal ontpoppen tot kosmisch gevaar voor onze technologische samenlevingen.

George van Hal

 Onderzoekers somden de bevindingen op in vier artikelen die woensdag verschenen in vakblad Nature.

Dat de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie Nasa geïnteresseerd is in het gedrag van de zon, is logisch. Niet alleen is vrijwel al het aardse leven afhankelijk van de zon, met een beetje pech kan onze moederster zich ook ontpoppen tot een kosmische ruiter van de Apocalyps. In de somberste astronomische scenario’s legt een fikse deeltjesuitbarsting op haar oppervlak bijvoorbeeld alle aardse apparaten plat, iets waar onze steeds nadrukkelijker van technologie afhankelijke samenlevingen slecht op zijn voorbereid.

Tegelijk snappen we nog maar verdraaid weinig van hoe de zon zich gedraagt. Reden genoeg voor de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie Nasa om een onbemand onderzoeksschip die kant op te sturen.

Een stukje van niets

Daarvoor moet die zogeheten Parker Solar Probe onze moederster wel relatief dicht naderen. ‘De sonde die de zon kan aanraken’, noemt de geoliede persmachine van Nasa het ruimtevaartuig daarom ook wel. Op kosmische schaal, moet je daar dan wel meteen bij denken. Want van écht aanraken is geen sprake. Op z’n dichtst nadert de Parker Solar Probe onze moederster tot zo’n 6,2 miljoen kilometer. Naar aardse begrippen is die afstand gigantisch – snij onze planeet doormidden, leg er een lange liniaal langs en je meet ruim 12.000 kilometer – maar op de schaal van het zonnestelsel is het een stukje van niets. Mercurius, de planeet het dichtst bij de zon, staat bijvoorbeeld op zo’n 58 miljoen kilometer afstand.

Op zijn punt van dichtste nadering boekt de sonde overigens wel een primeur. Het vaartuig vliegt dan de corona van de zon binnen, het gebied bomvol straling en deeltjes dat je vanaf de aarde kunt zien tijdens een zonsverduistering. In die corona wortelt de zonnewind en ook de deeltjesuitbarstingen die potentieel gevaarlijk zijn voor onze technologie.

Verrassende details

Over onder meer die corona duiken in de nieuwe onderzoeken nu details op die wetenschappers verrassen. Zo blijkt het magneetveld van de zon, dat met de zonnewind mee de ruimte in wordt gesleurd, bijvoorbeeld veel krachtiger van richting te veranderen dan tot nog toe gedacht. Verder werd onder meer de vorm van het magneetveld beter in kaart gebracht.

Sterrenkundige Rob Rutten, emeritus-hoogleraar aan de Universiteit Utrecht, noemt de uitkomsten heel interessant. ‘We leren hierdoor nieuwe natuurkunde. Het laat zien dat dit soort processen nog complexer is dan we al dachten’, zegt hij. ‘Maar voorlopig is de heilige graal van dit vakgebied – het voorspellen van zonne-uitbarstingen zoals je ook het weer voorspelt – nog niet in zicht.’

De komende jaren zullen wetenschappers de zon naar verwachting steeds beter leren kennen. De Parker Solar Probe vliegt in 2024 voor het eerst de buitenste delen van de corona binnen – de huidige metingen werden gedaan van zo’n 24 miljoen kilometer afstand. De Europese ruimtevaartorganisatie ESA lanceert in 2020 bovendien haar eigen zonnemissie. Die nadert onze moederster niet zo dicht als de Parker-sonde, maar heeft wel meer wetenschappelijke apparatuur aan boord om de zon haar diepste geheimen te ontfutselen.

{ https://www.volkskrant.nl/ }

06-12-2019 om 22:08 geschreven door peter  

NASA lokaliseert gecrashte maanlander - HLN.be

Bron: anp

De Indiase lander, met aan boord een karretje, steeg op 22 juli op vanaf aarde en op 7 september verloor het controlecentrum tijdens de landing het contact. Het was onduidelijk waar het apparaat was terechtgekomen.

Lees ook

NASA: geen spoor van ‘gecrashte’ maanlander

De lander zou de bodem bij de zuidpool van de maan gaan onderzoeken. Daar is misschien waterijs te vinden. Het zou tevens een primeur zijn, omdat mensen en verkenners nog nooit op dat deel van de maan zijn geweest.Vooralsnog zijn alleen de Verenigde Staten, de Sovjet-Unie en China erin geslaagd om op de maan te landen.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

06-12-2019 om 21:51 geschreven door peter  

Antarctica Google Earth Shows Something Really Weird

A lot of strange things going on in Antarctica. The latest video of MrMB333 shows a nearly 300ft wide black anomaly near the Belgica Mountains in Antarctica.

There is a lot of speculation about what the anomaly might be. While some people suggest that it is a lava flow out of a volcano that has had multiple eruptions, pointing at the white plume of smoke coming from the black anomaly, others say that the anomaly looks like a fossilized Pterodactyl, a winged reptile that lived on earth about 210 million years ago.

The video continues with another object in Antarctica and appears to be triangular in shape suggesting that it could be a UFO.

Google Earth coordinates: 72°35’13″S 31°19’09″E

https://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

06-12-2019 om 20:57 geschreven door peter  

Outrageous Ufo Sightings Tips

While ghost hunting is our favourite type of paranormal investigation, we additionally delight in an excellent alien conspiracy. In any event, UFO sightings aren’t something which’s new to society. They have become an ever-popular subject. It’s simple to comprehend why there are a lot of UFO sightings. UFOs aren’t so hampered. Ghosts aren’t violent by nature. A ghost is generally the spirit of a deceased individual.

Hearsay, Lies and Ufo Sightings

The video footage is quite apparent. It has been the fodder for a number of arguments and debates regarding the authenticity of the same. It is not shaky like most. It shows three different sightings of suspected UFOs in three different parts of the world. Of course, when you believe all real information will one day stream into your home via electronic media, you might be deluded since you may foster in illusory comprehension of democracy.

Hardly any folks have so far witnessed them, yet virtually all of us are mindful of their phenomenon. In reality, a great deal of these theories are representative of individuals attempting to make sense of things. Hard science will not accept any evidence that’s not observable by the five principal senses, in addition to being measurable, repeatable, and predictable. There’s an incredible quantity of literature available on poltergeists.

The heart starts pumping more difficult to compensate. Additionally we need to keep in mind this was years before the UFO craze started in america. Advanced beings are part of our history. The mere actuality that more happened later proves nothing either manner. Before you make a decision as to what you believe, we implore you to comprehend the evidence. For starters, so many men and women say reflexively that there’s no evidence of an ET presence engaging our planet, when they don’t really know the evidence. It seems there’s inadequate proof for people who don’t need to see it on the 1 side.

If you get a crazy or creepy story all you need to do is call and inform them, or email it to them. It’s also quite a sad story. You are able to read an intriguing article about that HERE. This topic is messy on several levels. Each and every year, this issue of UFOs grows in popularity, and that’s primarily because of the simple fact they’re actually real.

Information can become so out of shape it’s challenging to see the actual picture. It’s featured on an internet site named UFO Sightings Daily. The portal that’s seen to appear in the Australian skies looks somewhat much like a ball lightning, but nonetheless, it certainly isn’t an instance of ball lightning.

Ever since then, a host of UFO sightings are reported. This show is just one of the most fascinating and entertaining you’ll find. Apart from that, the increasing appearance of UFO’s at theaters can be among the reasons also. It would be best to take notice.

A few of the scenarios, in some few incidents, ended up about the steps of a small number of disturbed individuals. And though it may look a very unexciting explanation for the strange incidents in our skies, the reality is that it’s the opposite. Although there are a lot of questions regarding the JFK assassination, it is a prime example of individuals attempting to earn sense about something which you can’t make sense of. This is a sensible question. With the UFO there is a really real question about how religious institutions would be in a position to adapt to an objective confirmation of non-human intelligence. 1 thing for sure is these issues are likely to grow in the public eye. My issue with channels that concentrate on conspiracy theories, is that so a lot of them just state things as a fact rather than presenting it as a potential outcome.

Source: 

• http://footageofufos.com/2019/12/outrageous-ufo-sightings-tips-2/

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

06-12-2019 om 20:48 geschreven door peter  

06-12-2019 om 20:09 geschreven door peter  

Alot of strange things going on in Antarctica. The latest video of MrMB333 shows a nearly 300ft wide black anomaly near the Belgica Mountains in Antarctica.

There is a lot of speculation about what the anomaly might be. While some people suggest that it is a lava flow out of a volcano that has had multiple eruptions, pointing at the white plume of smoke coming from the black anomaly, others say that the anomaly looks like a fossilized Pterodactyl, a winged reptile that lived on earth about 210 million years ago.

The video continues with another object in Antarctica and appears to be triangular in shape suggesting that it could be a UFO.

Google Earth coordinates: 72°35'13"S 31°19'09"E

  

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

06-12-2019 om 19:33 geschreven door peter  

Parker Solar Probe – now in its 4th orbit around the sun – can endure heat and radiation like no previous mission. This week, 4 new studies in Nature reveal new insights about the sun’s mysterious corona and solar wind.

Scientists who study the sun are buzzing this week about four new papers published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on December 4, 2019. The papers are based on data collected by the record-setting Parker Solar Probe mission – launched in 2018 – during the spacecraft’s first two close sweeps past our parent star (late 2018 and early 2019). These early studies, the scientists say, have provided insights into the two fundamental questions the Parker Solar Probe mission was designed to answer. First, defying all logic, why does the sun’s outer atmosphere – or corona – become much, much hotter the farther it stretches from the sun’s surface? Second, what accelerates the solar wind – a supersonic stream of protons, electrons and other particles – emanating from the corona and permeating the entire solar system?

A December 4, 2019, statement from scientists at the University of Michigan – who work with one of the instruments aboard the Parker Solar Probe – explained:

Both questions have ramifications for how we predict, detect and prepare for solar storms and coronal mass ejections that can have dramatic impacts on Earth’s power grid and on astronauts.

Nour E. Raouafi, project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, which built and manages the mission for NASA, added in a separate December 4 statement:

The sun has fascinated humanity for our entire existence. We’ve learned a great deal about our star in the past several decades, but we really needed a mission like Parker Solar Probe to go into the sun’s atmosphere. It’s only there that we can really learn the details of these complex solar processes.

And what we’ve learned in just these three solar orbits alone has changed a lot of what we know about the sun.

• EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! They make great gifts. Order now. Going fast!

Isn’t this beautiful? It’s an illustration of our sun – our local star – and its outer atmosphere, or corona, extending into space. Mysteriously, the corona is hotter than the sun’s surface. It releases the solar wind, a stream of charged particles that sometimes affects earthly satellites and power grids. Space scientists launched the Parker Solar Probe to study both the corona and solar wind.

Image via NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Lisa Poje/Genna Duberstein.

Justin Kasper of the University of Michigan, who serves as principal investigator for Parker’s Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons (SWEAP) instrument suite. He led one of the new studies and is co-author of two others. In their statement, these scientists said that the Parker Solar Probe revealed that the sun’s rotation or spin on its axis – completing a single spin only once every 27 days at its equator – has an impact on the solar wind much farther away than previously thought. They already knew that – near the sun – the sun’s magnetic field pulls the solar wind in the same direction that the sun spins. Farther from the sun, at the distance the spacecraft measured in these first encounters, they had expected to see, at most, a weak signature of that rotation. However, Kasper said:

To our great surprise, as we neared the sun, we’ve already detected large rotational flows – 10 to 20 times greater than what standard models of the sun predict.

So we are missing something fundamental about the sun, and how the solar wind escapes.

This has huge implications. Space weather forecasting will need to account for these flows if we are going to be able to predict whether a coronal mass ejection will strike Earth, or astronauts heading to the moon or Mars.

• See a video: How does the solar wind affect Earth?

Parker Solar Probe’s location with respect to Mercury, Venus and Earth on December 3, 2019. The craft completed its 3rd orbit around the sun on November 15. Its next milestone will be a Venus flyby on December 26.

Image via NASA/JHUAPL/Where is Parker Solar Probe?

Parker Solar Probe’s findings regarding the sun’s magnetic field – which is believed to play a role in the coronal heating mystery – were equally surprising, the scientists said. The new findings relate to what called Alfvén waves, which are waves that occur in a plasma (the sun is so hot that most of its gas exists in plasma form). Alfvén waves were detected in the solar wind long ago. Some researchers though they might be remnants of whatever mechanism is causing the mysterious heating of the sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona. Parker researchers were on the lookout for indications that might be the case, but found something unexpected. Kasper explained:

When you get closer to the sun, you start seeing these ‘rogue’ Alfvén waves that have four times the energy than the regular waves around them. They feature 300,000 mph velocity spikes that are so strong, they actually flip the direction of the magnetic field.

According to these scientists:

Those polarity-reversing velocity spikes offer another potential candidate for what may cause the corona to get hotter moving away from the sun.

That’s clearly an early result, but it gives space scientists something to be watching for as – aided by breakthrough technologies that let the craft endure heat and radiation like no previous mission – Parker Solar Probe continues to sweep closer and closer to the sun.

Image via Johns Hopkins University.

And sweeping close to the sun is, in fact, Parker Solar Probe’s job. It’ll ultimately come within 4 million miles of the sun’s surface.

The probe launched on August 12, 2018. On October 29 of that year, it broke its first record, coming closer to the sun than any other human-made object (passing within the previous record of 26.55 million miles from the sun’s surface, set by the German-American Helios 2 spacecraft in 1976).

As the Parker Solar Probe mission has progressed, the spacecraft has repeatedly broken its own records, coming closer and closer to the sun. Its most recent perihelion (closet point to sun) – perihelion #3 – was September 1, 2019. The next one – perihelion #4 – will be January 29, 2020. In 2024, the craft is expected to come within 4 million miles of the sun’s surface (3.83 million miles, or 6.1 million km). Click here for a timeline showing upcoming perihelions in the mission.

Data collected during the spacecraft’s first two solar orbits was released on November 12. This week, these four new papers are causing a stir.

And the Michigan scientists aren’t the only ones excited about the data from the Parker Solar Probe. Heliophysicists around the globe have a reason to be excited. For example, Joe Giacalone of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona – team member for another instrument aboard the probe (Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun) – commented to Jasmine Demers in an article in the Arizona Daily Star on December 2, 2019:

This is an exciting time to be a heliophysicist.

The data that is now publicly available comes from a region of space we have never sampled previously. With many brilliant scientists now poring through this amazing data set, new discoveries about our star are soon coming.

Artist’s concept of the Parker Solar Probe sweeping close to the sun. At its closest to the sun – toward the end of its 7-year prime mission – Parker Solar Probe will come well within the mysterious solar corona, or outermost atmosphere, within 3.83 million miles of the solar surface. Image via NASA: 10 Things to Know about Parker Solar Probe.

Bottom line: Parker Solar Probe – launched in 2018 and now in its 4th orbit around our local star – is designed to endure the sun’s heat and radiation like no previous mission. This week, 4 new studies in Nature – related to the solar wind and corona – have space scientists buzzing.

• Source: Highly structured slow solar wind emerging from an equatorial coronal hole
• Source: Probing the energetic particle environment near the sun
• Source: Alfvénic velocity spikes and rotational flows in the near-sun solar wind
• Source: Near-sun observations of an F-corona decrease and K-corona fine structure
• Via University of Michigan
• Via NASA

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

06-12-2019 om 02:06 geschreven door peter  

06-12-2019 om 01:18 geschreven door peter