UFO encounters always skirt the realm of the fantastical and weird, always perplexing and begging for answers on whether they really happened or not. Often there is no real evidence, and we are left with mere stories with no discernible substance, free to swirl about in the limbo of speculation and debate. Yet, there are those cases that are well-documented, recorded, and which serve to be genuine enigmas that stand out among the rest. Truly one of the great UFO cases of recent memory revolves around a flight of an experienced crew, and which was fully verified by numerous sources at the time to firmly cement itself into UFO legend.

It was July of 1957, and a highly advanced RB-47H reconnaissance aircraft loaded with state-of-the-art electronic countermeasure equipment was preparing for a mission. The 6-man crew was highly experienced, consisting of seasoned pilot Lewis D. Chase, copilot James H. McCoid, and navigator Thomas H. Hanley, as well as monitors John J. Provenzano, Frank B. McClure, and Walter A. Tuchscherer. It was to be a routine training mission beginning at Forbes AFB in Topeka, Kansas, and flying out over Gulf of Mexico to perform navigation and enemy radar detection exercises before returning back across the south-central U.S., after which they were to be deployed to Germany. The crew was seasoned and tested, the aircraft cutting edge, with the most sophisticated electronic intelligence available, and when they took off in the early morning hours of July 17, 1957 in clear, calm, and cloudless weather there was no reason to think this would be anything other than a by-the-books, typical training exercise, but it was soon to prove to be anything but.

At approximately 4:00 AM, the first part of the mission had already been completed without incident, and the aircraft was making its way back over Gulfport, Mississippi, to continue its exercises when an anomalous airborne signal was picked up by McClure to the rear of the aircraft somewhere out over the Gulf of Mexico. It was first thought that this signal was coming from a ground radar installation due to the nature of its frequency, but it was soon determined that the signal was moving at a rather fast clip, indeed surpassing the plane’s 500 mph airspeed to circle around it to fade and then disappear out over Mississippi. At this point no visual confirmation had yet been made of the object, and indeed McClure made no mention of it at the time, thinking it must have been due to a glitch.

In the meantime, the rest of the crew was oblivious to the whole strange incident, and the aircraft continued on its course over Jackson, Mississippi, where they were due to engage in a series of simulated war exercises against Air Force ground radar units stationed there. Things went smoothly until over Winnsboro, Louisiana pilot Lewis Chase noticed a rather odd sight up ahead. He reported a bright light approaching at a very fast speed. He at first took this to be possibly from the landing lights of an airliner, but it soon became clear that there were no navigational lights, and that the object was a singular very bright bluish-white light moving toward them at a dangerously high speed, and was described as being as big as a house. Alarmed, Chase warned the crew to prepare for evasive maneuvers, but before they even had time to get ready the light had sped by them in a flash and vanished. At this time only the pilot and copilot had actually visually seen the anomaly, and they described it to the rest of the crew even as they reconfigured their equipment to try and pick up whatever it was. McClure at this point came clean about his own odd experience, and they managed to pick up the signal again on several pieces of equipment, showing that this was no glitch, this time seeming to be keeping perfect speed with the RB-47H, and it was agreed that this was not from any ground based radar or normal aircraft.

Throughout all of this the pilot radioed it in and found that ground radar at the Carswell Air Force Base Ground Controlled Intercept (GCI) station was also picking up an unexplainable signature of something up there with them, and he asked for permission to approach the mysterious object, which was granted. However, as soon as the RB-47H moved in to intercept, the signal rapidly dropped over 20,000 feet in altitude almost instantaneously, beyond what any known aircraft was capable of. The mysterious object would then toy with the plane for over an hour, elusively evading them for over 600 miles, all while ground radar registered it and it emitted a powerful radar signal of its own. It was seen to change directions suddenly, speed up, slow down, and rise or dip far beyond what any known aircraft was capable of, as well as intermittently “winking out,” during which time it would be invisible to both ground radar at several locations and the plane’s instruments, before appearing again as if from nowhere. It also was starting to take on the appearance of a bright red light, and this was all very unsettling for the crew.

Low on fuel by this point, the RB-47H was forced to stop trying to engage the object and headed north into Oklahoma to land. The mysterious object showed up on their readings all the way up to Oklahoma City, before fading away, this time for good. In Edward U. Condon’s 1969 book Final Report of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, he would report that shortly after landing “electronic counter-measures, graphic data, and radar scope pictures which had been taken during the flight were removed from the plane by Intelligence personnel,” the crew was interrogated heavily, and the whole thing was kept very hush hush, with a “security lid” placed over the incident. Indeed, the case of the RB-47H would remain classified for years, and it was only with its declassification that it ever got out into the wild to be discussed and debated by the UFO community.

In the end it is all a rather harrowing encounter that is notable for the fact that it was fully registered visually by the crew of the plane, picked up on the aircraft’s on board electronic detection devices, and also documented by ground based radar in several locations, which when taken with the experienced crew on board points to this being one of the most authentic and credible reports of a UFO and airplane encounter on record. Nevertheless, Project Bluebook would try to wave it off as a misidentification of a passenger airliners, which, considering all of the available evidence and what was seen and detected, is rather absurd. What was it that harassed that crew up there? Surely it could not have been any normal plane. Was this some sort of experimental aircraft or something else, and why should it deem this training flight to be the subject of its game? Although we may never know, the account of the RB-47H remains one of the best documented and genuine unexplainable UFO cases out there, and will probably hold that title for some time to come.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

08-01-2020 om 17:18 geschreven door peter  

Today’s article demonstrates  – in a strange way – how the mind can provoke false memories of the UFO type. Before we get to that specific issue, however, we must first take a look at a series of books that are among my favorites. From 1990 to 1991, the late author David Bischoff penned a trilogy of novels: Abduction: The UFO Conspiracy; Deception: The UFO Conspiracy; and Revelation: The UFO Conspiracy. If you are into UFOs, cosmic cover-ups and the world of fiction (and all rolled into one), then if you have not read this great series, you really should. They are, in my opinion, the definitive UFO novels. While I won’t reveal the complete plot-line that links all three of the books – in case you plan on purchasing copies after reading this! – I will explain my enthusiasm for them. Imagine a combination of The X-Files meets The Fugitive meets Robert Ludlum meets The Invaders and you’ll have some idea of what this series is all about. Except that Bischoff’s books predate Mulder and Scully by a couple of years.

The overall theme of these highly entertaining, fictional tales is an intriguing one: a shadowy, powerful group in the U.S. government – a group that is pretty much answerable to no-one at all – has, for years, been secretly fabricating UFO incidents, and particularly so “alien abduction”-based encounters. So, does that mean there are no real aliens visiting us, after all? Well, no it does not mean that. Or maybe it does. Then again, perhaps it’s a bit of both. And that’s what makes the UFO Conspiracy series so entertaining: it keeps you on your toes and guessing from the very first page to the absolute last. As for the characters, they are a fine and equally entertaining bunch. We have maverick journalist Jake Camden (think of Mickey Rourke’s character of private-detective Harry Angel in Alan Parker’s 1987 movie, Angel Heart and that’s the closest thing you’ll get to Jake Camden). We also have Dr. Everett Scarborough, a UFO skeptic, and a best-selling author on books that the Flying Saucer faithful absolutely loathe. And there’s Marsha Manning, a gutsy character who provides the romance factor for Scarborough, while Camden prefers booze-filled, coke-fueled hook-ups in motel-rooms with UFO groupies.

Now, it’s time to return to the opening sentence of this article. Namely, the matter of false memories and the UFO phenomenon. A week or so before Christmas I received an email from a guy who said that he had read one of my two books on Roswell (The Roswell UFO Conspiracy) and wanted to make a few points. He said he knew that aliens came down not too far from Roswell, New Mexico in the summer of 1947. He also said that in terms of the bodies allegedly found on the Foster Ranch, they were not the large-headed, small creatures that most people associate with when it comes to the famous case. Rather, he said that the aliens at Roswell actually looked just like us, for the most part. He also said that the aliens were genetically designed so that when they died on the ranch, their bodies  decomposed extremely quickly – and, as a result, the U.S. government never had the chance to study their rapidly decaying remains. On top of that, he said that he had read all of this in one of the controversial Majestic 12 documents that surfaced from the 1980s to the 1990s; but which, oddly, he could no longer find.

The guy assured me that this was the correct scenario for Roswell. I said he was wrong. Rather, I explained, this is the exact scenario  presented in the second novel in David Bischoff’s The UFO Conspiracy series. No, I was wrong, he told me. He said he only ever read UFO non-fiction, rather than saucer-themed fiction. Well, he got back to me two days later, and lo and behold, he said that he did have these very three books – after all – on one of his many bookshelves, which he had read when they were published. While he was searching his shelves, I spent a couple of hours going through my own copies of the trilogy looking for the relevant page on the decomposing aliens. I finally found it, on page 233 of Deception. When we chatted again I told him to turn to page 233 and read it. He did. Three decades after reading Deception, and after we chatted again, he realized his error. In the early 1990s he had read Deception (and not Majestic 12-themed documents at all); but around thirty years later his mind and memories had turned the Bischoff scenario for Roswell into a real event, rather than what it really is: a fine piece of entertaining UFO conspiracy-fiction.

Of course, there was no attempt on the part of the guy to deceive me. Rather, his memories had deceived himself. It’s a cautionary, UFO-themed story of how the passage of time can turn one thing into something very different.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

08-01-2020 om 17:09 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers discovered an Earth-sized planet located in the habitable zone of a nearby star that could potentially contain liquid water. A group of NASA exoplanet astronomers (Josh Schlieder and his students Emily Gilbert, Tom Barclay, and Elisa Quintana) were looking at data from TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) when they found the planet and it’s really not that far from Earth. In fact, it’s so close that its atmosphere may potentially be observed by using the James Webb Space Telescope or even large ground-based telescopes.

The Earth-sized exoplanet’s host star is called TOI-700 (or TESS of Interest number 700) and it’s relatively small and dim. It’s only around 40% of the size of our own sun and approximately 1/50 of its brightness. It’s located in the constellation Dorado – which can be viewed from the Southern Hemisphere – and is approximately 100 light-years away from Earth. To put this into better perspective, Proxima Centauri, which is the closest star to us, is located 4.2 light-years away from us and would take us around 20,000 years to travel there. So, although it’s quite far away, it’s still relatively close in comparison to other stars and exoplanets that have been found.

In the past decade, around a dozen Earth-sized exoplanets have been discovered that are located in the habitable zone of their host stars; however, most of them are between 600 and 3,000 light-years away from us and are pretty much impossible to study and observe.

Three planets surround TOI-700 and are simply named b, c, and d. Planet d is the one that’s located in the habitable zone and is around the same size as Earth. What’s even more interesting is that it orbits its star every 37 days. Planet b is also Earth-sized but orbits its star at a very close range (Planet c is mini-Neptune sized). For comparison, Venus receives twice the amount of sunlight that Earth gets and the planet is dry and extremely hot. Planet b receives five times that amount of sunlight.

And since liquid water is essential for life, it’s very important for astronomers to figure out if there is any on Planet TOI-700 d and what its atmosphere is like. Based on different models studied by the astronomers, if the planet’s atmosphere has a combination of methane or carbon dioxide, or water vapor, it could possibly be habitable. Hopefully the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to confirm or deny these hypotheses when it’s launched next year.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

08-01-2020 om 16:48 geschreven door peter  

“They’re he-ere!”

Anyone who remembers the movie “Poltergeist” knows that hearing someone say those words is not good news. That could explain why residents of Castle Rock, Parker and Fort Collins, Colorado, aren’t thrilled to hear the news that the mysterious giant drones that have been flying in formation over parts of northeastern Colorado and across the border into Nebraska are now moving west and southwest and are getting dangerously close to Denver — Castle Rock and Parker are just a few miles south of the state’s capitol and most populated city. This may also explain why residents in those cities and those in the northeast who have been seeing these drones every night since a week before Christmas are skeptical at best about the announcement that a government task force has been set up to investigate them. With many believing these drones are tied to the military, they’re wondering if this is an investigation … or a cover-up.

It wouldn’t be such a mystery if the drones appeared at dusk rather than at night.

“You could see them. There were four of them, perfectly spaced. I don’t understand why they don’t want the public to know unless there’s something hidden.”

Castle Rock resident Jim Tewes told the local Fox News affiliate that he’s seen the drones on multiple nights and they’re definitely not airplanes or helicopters. Castle Rock is considered to be part of the Denver metropolitan area even though it’s halfway between that city and Colorado Springs, the home of the US Air Force Academy. Tewes wife, Patti, is more forceful in her assessment of the growing fear of a conspiracy.

“The fact that no one is jumping on it from the government, the FAA doesn’t seem concerned, it’s got to be the government.”

What are they watching?

Now that the giant drones are both literally and physically out in the open, more people are coming forth with sightings, including Castle Rock’s Brian Swanson, who claims he may actually be a target for the mysterious force behind them. He has taken a video of the drones he claims have been flying over his home for two years. Swanson told ABC Contact7:

“They’re just kind of like trailing me. You don’t mention it too much to people because they think you’re nuts. It just ain’t normal stuff in the sky … Who’s operating the drones? is it legal to do this? I have no idea. No idea. I’d like to find out.”

Whether he’s really a target of the drones or not, many Colorado and Nebraska residents, not to mention concerned citizens around the country, agree with Swanson … they want to find out. Fortunately, the federal government is FINALLY here to help.

“We take every drone-sighting report seriously. Multiple FAA divisions are working closely with federal, state and local stakeholders to determine whether the reported sightings in Colorado and Nebraska are drones and, if so, who is operating them and for what reason.”

On January 6th, local law enforcement agencies from eastern Colorado held a meeting with several federal agencies and later announced the formation of a task force to try and identify the owner of the drones. The task force will probably need a bigger room for the next meeting because it now includes local sheriffs from numerous counties, the FBI, the FAA, the Department of Defense, Colorado Information Analysis Center, the Colorado Department of Homeland Security, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and a few kitchen sinks.

“I don’t think it’s silly. It’s causing fear, and that’s not funny.”

Sorry, Phillips County Sheriff Tom Elliott, we’re not laughing at the drones but the idea that their nightly flights over many parts of Colorado and Nebraska for at least three weeks and quite possibly many months is a mystery to so many federal agencies and organizations chartered with protecting the public from just such fearsome aerial activities. It’s little comfort that everyone seems to agree it’s NOT aliens … but it’s becoming terrifying that the authorities have not been able to quickly solve this perceived threat. Are they waiting for a private citizen to do what none of them seem to want to (and warn against doing) … shoot one down?

Pilatus PC-12 drone hunter.

The task force claims to be looking for a command vehicle – a sinister-looking plain box trailer or van with antennas – that would be near the flight paths of a drone formation. Separately from the task force, the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control is flying a state-owned high-tech Multi-Mission Aircraft – a Pilatus PC-12 airplane – this week over areas where the drones have been seen. So far, a spokesperson says “The joint operation found no verification of suspicious drones.”

No evidence of something that now hundreds of people and law enforcement officials have seen with their own eyes and a few smartphones.

Mystery … or cover-up?

This is far from over because …

“They’re he-ere!”

We’re he-ere!

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

08-01-2020 om 16:34 geschreven door peter  

Big Glowing UFO Seen Over Volcano In Mexico, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Dec 31, 2019
Location of sighting: Colima, Mexico
Source: Volcano live cam

This raw footage was recorded from the Colima Volcano live cam and shows a glowing disk object moving around, up, over and down the volcano. The object looks big, about the size of a car and has a powerful glow to it. 

UFOs have been seen around the Mexican volcanos for over a decade and the sightings have not decreased at all. The objects are usually glowing brightly like this one, but some are longer and half actually enter or leave the mouth of the volcano. 

Absolute proof that an alien base exists below this volcano. 
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

Other videos of UFOS by Vulcans, peter2011

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

08-01-2020 om 14:28 geschreven door peter  

Real Reasons Behind US Government Secrecy on UFOs

In 2017, the New York Times revealed the shocking story of a secret Pentagon program to investigate unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The story led many researchers to delve into this strange world. Since then, the public has learned some interesting information about UFOs or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) as the Pentagon refers to them.

However, the US government makes it extremely difficult to know what and where UFO-related stuff is going on. Some believe the government is behind some significant conspiracy to cover up the evidence of alien visitation to Earth. Others think the government is in cahoots with ET species to create human-alien hybrids.

Perhaps, but many suspects not.

What many others believe is that the few people in the US government who know about it believe the phenomena might be a threat but don’t know how to deal with it.

Several UFO enthusiasts suggest the government’s assessment of the phenomena, though they won’t admit it, is that the UFOs are being monitored near the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. UFOs also are popping up near nuclear submarines and Air Force nuclear weapons bases.

On Robert Hastings’ documents, these UFOs have sometimes even temporarily shut down nuclear weapons systems in the US. It appears now that humanity’s perfection of nuclear energy piqued something or someone’s curiosity in us.

It is important to note that these UFOs are far more advanced than US military capabilities. These UFOs are observed as being capable of reaching hypersonic speeds, demonstrating anti-gravity and invisibility technologies. They have also been tracked moving in and out of Earth orbit, making the most advanced capabilities of the US military an absurd joke in comparison. If these UFOs intend harm, we don’t have a chance. For Pentagon planners, this scenario is an Armageddon-level thing.

Publicizing the truth about UFOs also risks another danger. If the US shares what it knows about UFOs, Russia or China might learn enough to replicate associated very advanced technologies behind UFOs for themselves. If Moscow or Beijing figures out the space-time manipulation before the US, we have a rather large problem.

So, don’t count the military to share more of what it knows anytime soon. We’ll get to the truth eventually, but it will take time.

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

08-01-2020 om 13:55 geschreven door peter  

These four questions need to be answered in 2020 to solve the mystery of UFOs

By Jasper Hamill, Science & Technology Reporter

You might not know it, but we’re currently living in a golden age of ufology.

In the 20th century, anyone who saw mysterious objects in the sky was dismissed as a crank or a fraudster. 

But that changed almost exactly two years ago when a bombshell article published in the New York Times revealed the existence of a shadowy US government project called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) which gathered information about ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’ (UAP).

This secret programme gathered information on at least three sightings of aircraft travelling at impossible speeds which were recorded by US airmen or military personnel.

In the most famous incident revealed during the uncovering of AATIP, two Navy pilots chased a ‘whitish oval object, about the size of a commercial plane’. This ‘Tic Tac’ UFO was observed off the coast of San Diego in 2004 and followed by two by jets launched from the USS Nimitz.

Since this report, details of the strange and almost unbelievable work carried out by AATIP has slowly leaked into the public domain. And in that time, Metro has worked closely with Nick Pope, a former Ministry of Defence UFO investigator, to cover all the revelations.

Now he’s set out four questions which need to be solved in order for us to solve the UFO mystery once and for all.

These pictures were taken by cockpit-cameras

(Picture: U.S. Department of Defense)

Pilots were shocked disbelief by what they saw

(Picture: U.S. Department of Defense)

3. Why is the Pentagon walking back on its earlier admission that AATIP investigated UAP?

Early official statements about AATIP described it as being a program to assess “far-term foreign advanced aerospace threats to United States” and added “including anomalous events (such as sightings of aerodynamic vehicles engaged in extreme manoeuvres, with unique phenomenology, reported by U.S. Navy pilots or other credible sources)”.

‘A May 2019 statement to New York Post journalist Steven Greenstreet from a US Navy spokesperson confirmed that AATIP “did pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena”.

‘However, in a recent statement to UFO researcher John Greenewald Jr., a Pentagon spokesperson stated  that AATIP was not UAP related’.

‘This contradicts former DIA official and AATIP point man Luis Elizondo, who said “AATIP was a 100% UFO program”, as well as former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who set up AATIP. To further complicate matters, in January 2019 DIA’s Office of Corporate Communications released to me a copy of a DIA letter to Congress where they attached “a list of all products produced under the AATIP contract”, which included studies into anti-gravity, invisibility, stargates, warp drive, wormholes and the Drake Equation, the latter being a theoretical construct designed to estimate the number of other civilizations in our galaxy – clearly not something you’d need to know if the concern was Russian and Chinese aircraft.

‘Whether it’s the President or someone in Congress, someone needs to step in and sort out this mess, because at present we have one part of the government saying one thing, while another says something else. It’s farcical and it makes everyone look foolish.

4. What’s the status of Congressional interest in all this?

‘There’s been previous interest in AATIP and the US Navy encounters from several parts of Congress: the Armed Services Committee, the Intelligence Committee and the Homeland Security Committee. There have also been suggestions that the Space subcommittee and/or the Emerging Threats and Capabilities subcommittee should be involved.

‘However, the fact that Congress has two chambers – the Senate and the House of Representatives – complicates things. The public don’t know what committee or subcommittee – if any – has the current lead on all this, what documents have been generated by this Congressional activity and how much of this documentation will be releasable under the Freedom of Information Act.

‘It’s also not known whether or not this Congressional interest will evolve into formal hearings and, if so, whether these will be public hearings, or closed hearings, as may be the case if much of the information is highly classified.’

{ https://metro.co.uk/ }

08-01-2020 om 01:43 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious lights spotted above Reading spark UFO sightings

The mysterious lights were spotted "moving randomly across the sky" in Reading on Saturday night

By Hugh Fort & Joshua Smith

What could the strange lights be? 

(Image: Berkshire Live)

Strange lights have been spotted above a UK town - leaving locals very confused.

The mysterious lights were spotted "moving randomly across the sky" in Reading on Saturday night.

People in the town have reported their confusion over what the strange shapes could be.

Charlotte Butterworth said she saw a "distinct, large white light in the sky" while driving down the M4 on the night of Saturday, January 4 at around 10pm.

She said: "It was visible for at least the last 20 miles, moving randomly across the sky."

Another person spotted the light in Sonning Common area, saying it was "a white beam of light scanning the sky", coming from the direction of Reading, Berkshire.

She added it was "a bit like Batman's signal."

Jake New, of Tilehurst , spotted the light above the village and took the photos above.

One possibility is that the light is the one seen coming from the Winter On Ice event, which has been in Reading throughout December.

The light there can be seen from quite a way away, depending on the cloud cover.

UFO sightings are set to increase in 2020 - and there have already been a number of them as a gigantic ‘triangular UFO’ was spotted above Texas days after a New York sighting .

A cigar-shaped UFO has been captured hovering over an Arizona airport.

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

08-01-2020 om 01:14 geschreven door peter  

The home galaxy of a second repeating fast radio burst is a puzzle

Astronomers have traced a mysterious, recurrent blast of radio waves to a Milky Way–like galaxy

The first galaxy discovered to host a repeating fast radio burst was a tiny dwarf galaxy. Now a second host galaxy has been found (arrow points to the burst’s location), and it’s a massive spiral similar to the Milky Way.

SHRIHARSH TENDULKAR/GEMINI OBSERVATORY

By Maria Temming

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

08-01-2020 om 00:56 geschreven door peter  

Aliens definitely exist and they could be living among us on Earth, says Britain's first astronaut

By Rob Picheta, CNN

(CNN) - Aliens definitely exist, Britain's first astronaut has said -- and it's possible they're living among us on Earth but have gone undetected so far.

Final frontier: Helen Sharman, Britain’s first astronaut. Photograph: Alamy

Helen Sharman, who visited the Soviet Mir space station in 1991, told the Observer newspaper on Sunday that "aliens exist, there's no two ways about it."

"There are so many billions of stars out there in the universe that there must be all sorts of different forms of life," she went on. "Will they be like you and me, made up of carbon and nitrogen? Maybe not."

Then, in a tantalizing theory that should probably make you very suspicious of your colleagues, Sharman added: "It's possible they're here right now and we simply can't see them."

Sharman was the first of seven Britons to enter space.

Sharman became the first Briton in space in 1992.

The chemist spent eight days as a researcher on the space mission when she was 27, making her one of the youngest people to enter orbit.

NASA rovers are trawling Mars for evidence of past or present life forms, but humankind's endless fascination with extraterrestrial life forms has so far proved fruitless.

Sharman is not the only person to speculate that we've had brushes with aliens, though.

Aliens, flying discs and sightings -- oh my! A short history of UFOs in America

A former Pentagon official who led a secret government program to research potential UFOs, revealed in 2017, told CNN at the time that he believes there is evidence of alien life reaching Earth.

Elsewhere in her interview, Sharman said there is "no greater beauty than looking at the Earth from up high."

"I'll never forget the first time I saw it," she added.

Sharman also discussed her frustration with observers defining her by her sex. "People often describe me as the first British woman in space, but I was actually the first British person. It's telling that we would otherwise assume it was a man," she said.

"When Tim Peake went into space, some people simply forgot about me. A man going first would be the norm, so I'm thrilled that I got to upset that order."

CNN has reached out to Sharman for comment.

{ https://edition.cnn.com/ }

08-01-2020 om 00:49 geschreven door peter  

Posted by Andy Briggs in SPACE 

The red supergiant star Betelgeuse, a bright star in the constellation of Orion, has been making headlines due to a recent drop in brightness. Is an explosion imminent? If it happens, will Earth be affected?

View at EarthSky Community Photos. 

Brian Ottum kindly provided this direct comparison of Betelgeuse a few years ago and Betelgeuse now. He wrote: “Left is February 2016. Right is December 31, 2019. Note that the brightness/appearance of all background stars are identical left versus right, but Betelgeuse is definitely fainter on the right.” Thank you, Brian!

Why is the red supergiant star Betelgeuse in the news?

Beginning in October 2019, astronomers noticed that the brightness of Betelgeuse suddenly began to change. The star was dimming. Once one of the top 10 brightest stars in the sky, its brightness had fallen to 21st place by the end of December 2019. Wild claims have been made about this sudden dimming of Betelgeuse, and many misconceptions spread. Some media outlets claimed the dimming was evidence that the star was about to go supernova, ending its life in a spectacular explosion. Is that possible? And if Betelgeuse did go supernova, how would that affect Earth?

• See brightness estimates for Betelgeuse from the American Association of Variable Star Observers
• EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! Nearly sold out. Order now!

Betelgeuse is one of 2 very bright stars in the constellation Orion. The other bright star is Rigel. Notice Betelgeuse and Rigel on either side of the short, straight row of three medium-bright stars. That row of stars represents Orion’s Belt. Betelgeuse represents Orion’s Shoulder.

What is Betelgeuse?

Betelgeuse, pronounced “BET-tal-joos”, is a red supergiant star, located an estimated 642 light-years away. It’s the alpha star – that is the brightest star – of the constellation Orion the Hunter, which is a very prominent constellation in the sky at this time of year. Betelgeuse represents Orion’s left shoulder. It’s a distinctly red-colored star. Betelgeuse has an estimated diameter of 767 million miles (about 1,200 km), as befits a red supergiant star. It has an estimated mass nearly 12 times that of our sun. The star is estimated to be between nine and ten million years old, in contrast to our sun’s age of about 4.5 billion years. Yet our sun is only middle-aged, while Betelgeuse is nearing the end of its life. That’s because the massive supergiant stars, like Betelgeuse, burn their thermonuclear fuel more quickly that medium-sized stars like our sun.

This image, made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), shows the red supergiant Betelgeuse, one of the largest stars known. In the millimeter part of the spectrum the star is around 1,400 times larger than our sun. The overlaid annotation shows how large the star is compared to our solar system. Betelgeuse would engulf all four terrestrial planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars — and even the gas giant Jupiter. Only Saturn would be beyond its surface.

Image via ESO.

Is Betelgeuse’ dimming unusual? Will the star go supernova?

The dimming of Betelgeuse is not unusual per se. It has been known for a long time that Betelgeuse is a variable star, that is to say one whose brightness fluctuates over time. The star has been found to have multiple cycles of dimming: a 5.9-year main cycle and, within that, several smaller ones. It’s conceivable that – when the minima of all the cycles come together – the star could look exceptionally faint, as it does now.

And there are other possibilities. Astronomers have also suggested that the change in brightness could be due to some sort of eruption of gas or dust, or changes in the star’s surface brightness.

So will Betelgeuse go supernova? Yes! But probably not in our lifetimes. Current understanding is that all supergiants, be they red or blue, end their lives as supernovae. However, in the case of Betelgeuse, this event is predicted to happen anytime within the next few hundred thousand years.

Most astronomers do not believe a supernova is imminent. For example, astronomers Richard Wasatonic and Edward Guinan, of Villanova University, postulate that the current dimming is due to an unusually extreme 425-day dimming cycle within the main 5.9-year one. Unusual, certainly, but nothing that indicates an imminent explosion.

The other thing to remember is that there is no precedent, in astronomy’s history of observing supernovae, for the end of a supergiant star’s life to be preceded by a dimming of its light. Such a phenomenon has not been observed, although it cannot be ruled out. But certainly there is nothing in the computer models of supernovae to indicate the existence of a dimming phase before the explosion. 

It must be said, however, that predicting supernovae is very much an inexact science, so there is still a possibility, however remote, that Betelguese’s fiery end could indeed happen tomorrow. Or, to be more exact, it happened 642 years ago and the light from it is about to reach the Earth.

Simon Briggs FRAS@darkmatter111

Just had a look at #Betelgeuse a few days ago seemed similar or just a little fraction brighter than Bellatrix, though in moonlight it seemed a bit brighter? circa ~1.4m. I will wait until the moon has moved away in a week or so then will look again.

• 1

11:19 PM - Jan 6, 2020

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If Betelgeuse did go supernova, is the Earth in any danger?

No. Our planet is simply too far away from Betelgeuse for the supernova to present any danger whatsoever. It will have absolutely no effect on the solar system. Stories you might have read in the media, about our planet being in danger, are just hype.

Astronomers believe the dimming cycle will end soon and Betelgeuse will return to its former glory. As its brightness increases, it is certain that the stories in the media about the star will fade and this episode will swiftly be forgotten.

However, one day Betelgeuse will explode and give us an amazing celestial show. It’ll be brighter in our sky than a full moon, and possibly visible in daytime!

Wonder of Science@wonderofscience

This is what the star Betelgeuse exploding would look like from Earth.

Credit: NHK/Cosmic Front

• 4,702

2:15 PM - Jan 6, 2020

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• 1,118 people are talking about this

• Bottom line: Questions and answers about the recent dimming of the star Betelgeuse.

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07-01-2020 om 22:29 geschreven door peter  

NASA's TESS Planet Hunter Finds Its 1st Earth-Size World in 'Habitable Zone'

07-01-2020 om 22:06 geschreven door peter  

NASA ontdekt nieuwe planeet die mogelijk bewoonbaar is (met dank aan haar ‘planetenjager’) - HLN.be

Bron: NASA, ANP, Space.com

Lees ook

Nederlandse professor waarschuwt: “Nóg meer groeien kan de aarde niet aan”

Goudvis

TOI 700 d maakt deel uit van het planetaire systeem TOI 700 en ligt op 100 lichtjaren of 946.000.000.000.000 kilometer van de Aarde. Dat lijkt misschien ver, maar dat is het niet in ruimtetermen. De planeet maakt deel uit van het sterrenbeeld Dorado (Goudvis). Dat bevindt zich aan de zuidelijke hemel en is minder bekend bij ons omdat het niet te zien is vanuit België. 

De planeet bevindt zich in de bewoonbare zone rond zijn ster, wat betekent dat hij niet te ver en niet te dicht staat. Daardoor kan er mogelijk vloeibaar water voorkomen op de oppervlakte. Dat kán op zijn beurt leven mogelijk maken, maar dat is niet noodzakelijk zo.

Enkele cijfers: de ster van TOI 700 d is ongeveer half zo groot als de zon en ook ongeveer half zo heet. TOI 700 d krijgt daardoor ongeveer 86 procent van de energie die de Aarde van de zon krijgt. De planeet zelf is ongeveer 20 procent groter dan de Aarde. Een jaar duurt er 37 dagen.

TOI 700 d wordt daarmee toegevoegd aan een voorlopig beperkt lijstje met planeten die de juiste omstandigheden hebben om er leven mogelijk te maken. Op dat lijstje staan onder meer ook zeven planeten in het TRAPPIST-1-stelsel. Vooral TRAPPIST-1e lijkt daar erg op de aarde. (lees hieronder verder)

AFP

 photo_news

Het planetaire systeem TOI 700 zou in totaal uit drie planeten bestaan, voor zover de wetenschappers nu weten. De binnenste planeet heet TOI 700 b en is bijna exact even groot als de Aarde. De oppervlakte zou rotsachtig zijn en hij zou in 10 dagen tijd rond zijn ster draaien. De middelste planeet TOI 700 c is 2,6 keer de grootte van de Aarde - iets tussen de grootte van de Aarde en Neptunus - en draait in 16 dagen rond haar ster. Vermoedelijk bestaat die planeet vooral uit gas. TOI 700 d is de buitenste planeet en de enige in de bewoonbare zone.

Donkere kant

Bij alle drie de planeten is de rotatieperiode om hun eigen as dezelfde als de omlooptijd rond hun ster. Dat betekent dat telkens dezelfde kant van de planeten naar de ‘zon’ gekeerd is en dat de planeten dus een verlichte en een donkere kant hebben. Zoals de maan altijd met dezelfde kant naar de Aarde staat.

Verder onderzoek moet nu uitmaken of de planeten een atmosfeer hebben en waaruit ze exact samengesteld zijn. Wat alvast vóór mogelijk leven pleit, is dat er nog geen zonnevlammen gezien zijn: uitbarstingen die veroorzaakt worden door het vrijkomen van energie van de ster.  

TESS ontdekte daarnaast ook een planeet die rond twee sterren draait en die dus twee zonnen aan de hemel heeft staan. Die planeet is zeven keer zo groot als de aarde. Een jaar duurt er ongeveer 3 maanden. De planeet is 1.300 lichtjaar van ons verwijderd en staat in het sterrenbeeld Schilder.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

07-01-2020 om 20:57 geschreven door peter  

Armies Of Unidentified Drones Are Appearing Over The Western U.S. At Night, And It Is Really Freaking People Out

• Michael Snyder is the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, The American Dream Blog and The Truth. You can follow him on Twitter right here

Since just before Christmas, armies of unidentified drones have been appearing each night in the skies above Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas.  The drones are approximately 6 feet wide and they have red and white lights, but nobody knows where they are from or who owns them.  This is a story that is now receiving national attention, and the FBI, the FAA and the U.S. Air Force are all investigating this mystery.  According to eyewitnesses, these drones can move “much faster than a regular aircraft”, and that would seem to indicate that they are highly sophisticated.  So far, the U.S. military, every government agency that has been asked, and many of the major companies in the area have all denied operating the drones.  Federal, state and local law enforcement officials have been doing all that they can to solve this mystery, but so far they have come up completely empty.

And even though these drones are now receiving so much attention, they just keep coming back night after night.  According to one northern Colorado resident, when the drones come out it looks like “something from a movie”…

For the last week, Michelle Eckert has spotted a high-flying, night-time mystery above her rural northern Colorado home. She has seen drones, sometimes a dozen or more with wingspans 6 feet wide.

“The sky is lit up with Christmas lights basically,” she told CBS News. “There’s lights and things flying all over. It reminded me of something from a movie.”

Sometimes eyewitnesses just see one drone.  In other cases, the drones are working in pairs.  And in other instances, there are large groups of up to 30 drones working in very close coordination.

On Thursday night, a Denver Post reporter went out in search of these drones, and it wasn’t long before some of them were spotted…

As light turned to dark Thursday, stars appeared in the night sky. And soon after, so did drones. Around 6:10 p.m., a Denver Post reporter and photographer spotted two unmanned aircraft whizzing west above I-70, 8 miles outside Limon.

More drones could be seen outside Last Chance, a slight whir audible as they passed overhead. The aircraft flashed one red light and one white. Two other yellowish lights remained on throughout the flight. In 20 minutes, a half-dozen flying objects could be seen traversing over the barren wind farms.

The fact that there are so many of them and that they are operating over such a large area would seem to indicate that this is not the work of some rogue individual.

But at this point we don’t have any answers.

Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Nestor has been working on this case for quite a few days, and his county map is now “dotted with blue and yellow thumbtacks” because so many people have been reporting sightings…

Inside the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office in Hugo on Thursday afternoon, Sheriff Tom Nestor and Capt. Yowell stared at a county map hanging in a narrow hallway.

It’s dotted with blue and yellow thumbtacks, depicting sightings from across the county of just under 5,500 people. There’s a series of tacks clustered around Interstate 70 in Limon, with a few scattered north and south of the interstate. Some people reported the drones flying in packs. Others saw solo flights.

Nestor immediately suspected that a local company may be doing some mapping, but that theory didn’t turn up anything.  And other law enforcement officials in the region have come up empty as well…

Nestor said he has spoken to local oil companies and drone experts, learning information but getting no answers. Neighboring sheriffs have spoken to the military, which has denied involvement, he said. The Air Force, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the University of Colorado Boulder have told The Denver Post that they’re not flying the drones.

The FAA has gotten involved, and you would think that they should be able to get to the bottom of this, but they are just as puzzled as everyone else…

Already, the FAA has contacted test sites, drone companies and companies that have received authorization to operate drones in the affected areas. But the agency has not been able to determine who is flying the aircraft, spokesman Ian Gregor said in a statement Monday.

The FAA also asked area airports and pilots to report sightings or people they see operating the drones from the ground.

So far there is no evidence that these drones are malicious, but just a few days ago we received a reminder of how deadly they can potentially be.  Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was killed by a drone, and he probably never even knew that the attack was coming.

On Monday, dozens of federal, state and local law enforcement officials gathered in the town of Brush to talk about these drones.  At the conclusion of the meeting, reporters were told that there is still “no explanation” for this mystery…

Mysterious drone sightings remains a mystery on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. Monday, more than 70 local, state and federal officials met in Brush to talk about findings and reports from the last couple of weeks.

Multiple law enforcement agencies, the FBI, United States Air Force and the FAA ended the meeting with no explanation of what the objects hovering over vast properties really are.

People living in Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas desperately want some answers, and now a similar sighting has been reported in Minnesota…

Drones were reported flying over Juniata and Hastings Sunday night. An operator has not been identified at this time.

Minneapolis Air Traffic Control contacted the Hastings Police Department with a report from an airplane pilot about the drones.

Air traffic control reported the drones were flying in a grid pattern around 9-10 p.m. Sunday, Police Capt. Mike Doremus said.

This sounds very similar to many of the other sightings, but nobody has been able to examine one of these drones up close yet, and so we still don’t know precisely what we are dealing with.

But what we do know is that our world is a very strange place, and it is getting stranger by the day.

Hopefully this is just some relatively harmless top secret U.S. military program that the Pentagon doesn’t want to talk about.

Because if these drones do not have a U.S. origin, then that opens up a completely different can of worms.

About the Author:

• I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.
• Michael Snyder is the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, The American Dream Blog and The Truth. You can follow him on Twitter right here

Source: 

• http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/armies-of-unidentified-drones-are-appearing-over-the-western-u-s-at-night-and-it-is-really-freaking-people-out

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

07-01-2020 om 20:29 geschreven door peter  

Retired USAF General Claims Advanced Technology Exists That Could Transport a Human Anywhere on Earth in 1 Hour

Recently retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast gave a lecture last month that seems to further signal that the next major battlefield will be outer space.

Kwast’s lecture included comments that heavily hint at the possibility that the United States military and its industry partners may have already developed next-generation technologies that have the potential to drastically change the aerospace field, and human civilization, forever, reports The Drive in their extensive article on advanced space technology.

Around the 12:00 mark in the video, Kwast makes the somewhat bizarre claim that the U.S. currently possesses revolutionary technologies that could render current aerospace capabilities obsolete:

“The technology is on the engineering benches today. But most Americans and most members of Congress have not had time to really look deeply at what is going on here. But I’ve had the benefit of 33 years of studying and becoming friends with these scientists.”

“This technology can be built today with technology that is not developmental to deliver any human being from any place on planet Earth to any other place in less than an hour.”

• https://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

07-01-2020 om 15:48 geschreven door peter  

How did life survive in the Snowball Earth? Scientists might have cracked the mystery

• The researchers do admit that ‘Snowball Earth is just a hypothesis’, but that period seems to have been an era of the most extreme long-term cold spell(s) ever detected on Earth.

There is very little life in Arctic tundras and glaciers. However that was the situation in a big portion of the world during Ice Ages, says Technology.org.

This is a dramatization of what happened 700 million years ago, when Earth fell into the deepest ice age in its history. This period is called the Snowball Earth.

Image credit: Neethis via Wikimedia

How did life survive these difficult periods? How didn’t everything just die, being cut off from any kind of sources of nutrition and oxygen?

Scientists examined the chemistry of the iron formations in Australia, Namibia, and California to get a window into the environmental conditions during the ice age. They selected rocks left there by the ice age, because they are representative of the conditions during that difficult period for life.

By analysing these rocks scientists from the McGill University were able to estimate the amount of oxygen in the oceans around 700 million years ago.

Oxygen concentration is a crucial condition for sustainability of life. Without oxygen everything dies in a massive domino chain. And scientists did find that a huge portion of the ocean was uninhabitable due to a low concentration of oxygen, but some areas, particularly where the grounded ice sheet begins to float there, became a critical source of oxygenated meltwater.

This effect, called the glacial oxygen pump, enriches water with oxygen. Air bubbles trapped in the glacial ice are released into the water as it melts, becoming a crucial supply of oxygen for various life forms, including eukaryotes.

Scientists believe that this explanation answers a question that has been puzzling them for decades – how did life on Earth survive the Snowball Earth time 700 million years ago, when our planet fell into the most severe ice age in its history?

Professor Galen Halverson, one of the authors of the paper, commented: “This study actually solves two mysteries about the Snowball Earth at once. It not only provides an explanation for how early animals may have survived global glaciation, but also eloquently explains the return of iron deposits in the geological record after an absence of over a billion years”.

Previous studies have hypothesized that oxygen-dependent life might have been restricted to meltwater puddles on the surface of the ice. However, now it seems that there were plenty of marine life forms as well, living in oxygen-enriched water. Furthermore, scientists think that this process of adapting to these extremely harsh conditions became one of the crucial accelerators for the evolution of life. They think that this situation enforced the  diversification of various species into more complex forms. It is always the environment that is the biggest factor in the course of evolution.

The Snowball Earth is just a hypothesis, stating that 650-700 million years ago Earth’s surface became entirely or almost entirely frozen over. Scientists cannot prove these claims, but there are many evidences pointing out that it could have been the case. Regardless, that period was the most extreme climate period for our planet and life managed to survive and rise for a new time for its evolution.

Source: 

• McGill University

{ https://www.technology.org/ }

07-01-2020 om 15:43 geschreven door peter  

On January 3, 2020 Vladimiir Kartsovnik posted a bizarre video on his Facebook page showing a blue glowing orb that appears at the edge of the forest.

Next, the orb hovers over the railway tracks and ends up on the other side of the tracks before it explodes.

Whether it is ball lightning or evidence of a spirit or alien orb, so far there is no explanation for this mysterious phenomenon.

Bottom photos rotated and in negative color show an alien face inside the orb.

Although Vladimiir did not mentioned the location, the recording seems to have been made in the regions of Russia.

  

• https://www.facebook.com/vladimiir.kartsovnik/videos/3199403310074816/

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

07-01-2020 om 15:08 geschreven door peter  

Ahomeowner appeared to vanish in a streak of light when he stepped off his porch in astonishing Ring doorbell footage.

According to coasttocoast it starts with the man exiting his house in Porter, Texas.

In the video, the man can be seen exiting the house and venturing down the front walk, when something very weird occurs. As he stands at the end of the path, he suddenly appears to transform into a ball of light that zips into the sky and disappears.

What happened to the homeowner, did aliens teleported or abducted him?

However, the man's financee explained that they were looking through their videos recorded on December 27, 2019 by Ring and they found a weird glitch. She told him: 'Look Ring had you abducted by aliens or you just been part of the rapture!'

But was it really a glitch or the homeowner just doesn't remember it.

  

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

07-01-2020 om 15:00 geschreven door peter  

Cigar-shaped UFO recorded hovering near airport as 2019 drew to a close

Jeff Parsons

The strange object filmed hovering over Arizona

(YouTube/Disclose Screen)

Last year was a big one for the alien-hunting community.

There was the declassifying of secret military documents, a ‘flaming’ UFO on Friday 13th and – of course – the ill-fated attempt to storm Area 51.

But even as the year drew to a close, more footage was emerging.

While most of us were eating and drinking too much over the festive break, conspiracy theorists were debating a 14-minute video filmed on December 28 showing a cigar-shaped object floating in the sky in the US.

The UFO was filmed above Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in Arizona and uploaded to YouTube by conspiracist Disclose Screen The Grimreefar. It racked up over a thousand views after it was uploaded with commenters weighing in about what they thought the cylindrical object was.

Most were convinced it was some form of blimp that had drifted too close to the airport.

‘You can tell it’s a zeppelin when you pause a video. You can even see the square display and stabilizers,’ wrote YouTube user Ivan G. ‘And silver or gray color match the description. Flies like a Zeppelin, looks like a Zeppelin, located near a hangar for the Zeppelin…. Then it must be a UFO.’

Is this just a blimp?

(YouTube/Disclose Screen)

The fascination of UFOs and possible alien contact surged in 2019 and it’s unlikely to abate as we continue on into 2020.

‘Explaining the widespread interest in UFOs has proven more challenging than tracking it,’ said Greg Eghigian, a professor of history at Penn State University.

‘The most common explanation offered has focused on the Cold War: worries over possible alien invaders has been seen as an expression of anxiety about the threat of global nuclear destruction on the part of the scientifically uneducated,’ he told Metro.co.uk.

‘Academic research, however, has revealed that enthusiasts and their curiosity are more difficult to pin down than that. Studies conducted in the early-2000s showed that those reporting UFOs were generally lower income white males of moderate to high education.

‘And a survey in the 1980s of British UFO researchers indicated that a majority did not believe the objects came from outer space.’

A UFO sighting does not necessarily mean aliens

(Photographer’s Choice/Getty Images)

‘Overall, those who take a deep interest in UFOs have ranged widely in their motivations and beliefs. There are those who take up UFO study as a hobby akin to trainspotting or birding. There are sceptics who delight in treating each case as a challenging puzzle to crack.’

So, what we’re saying, is to expect plenty more bizarre sightings in the sky over the next 12 months.

{ https://metro.co.uk/ }

07-01-2020 om 01:43 geschreven door peter  

This Is Venus, Earth's Boiling Twin

By Jennifer Leman

NASA/JPL/USGS

Like Earth, our Twin planet Venus’s origins began around 4.5 billion years ago, in a gyrating cloud of dust, rock and rubble. In many ways, the two planets are similar—in size, density and gravity. Both have iron-rich cores, mantles filled with churning molten rock, and thin, rocky crusts that cover their surface.

Scientists suspect that, at one point, the surface of Venus looked a lot like Earth, with plate tectonics and shallow water oceans.

An artist’s rendition of an ancient, Earth-like Venus.

NASA

Then, 2 billion years into its life, everything changed. Shallow oceans on the Venusian surface began to evaporate, according to NASA. The amount of radiation emitted by the sun grew stronger and stronger. Atmospheric water vapor disintegrated, and hydrogen floated out into space, leaving a wealth of oxygen left to be cobbled into a choking cloud of carbon dioxide.

This cloud would encircle the planet for billions of years, trapping the Sun’s heat and energy in what scientists have dubbed a “runaway greenhouse effect.” Under these conditions, the planet absorbs more heat from the sun than it is able to radiate back out into space.

I'm Your Venus, I'm Your Fire

L. ESPOSITO (UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER), AND NASA/ESA

The surface of Venus is now far less-inviting.

It is the hottest planet in the solar system—scorching surface temperatures clock in at 880 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hot enough to melt lead. Ultra high temperatures have rendered the search for life on Venus's surface all but futile. Researchers don't think we're likely to find any sort of living organism—in any form.

For centuries, Venus was shrouded in mystery—literally. Scientists weren't able to peer past its cloudy atmosphere and weren't certain it even had a rocky surface. That's also one of the reasons why the planet is the brightest non-moon object in the sky—its bright, white haze reflects light readily. Its atmosphere is also a staggering 90 times more dense than Earth’s, we've recently discovered, exerting crushing forces on the planet's surface.

That thick atmosphere, made of 96.5 percent carbon dioxide, 3.1 percent nitrogen with piercing droplets of sulfuric acid, does a marvelous job of insulating the planet in a cushion of fire.

It doesn't sound very hospitable, but oddly, scientists believe the upper reaches of its thick atmosphere may be the spot we'd be most likely to find life. This is despite the fact that winds in the upper Venusian atmosphere churn and spiral at speeds of more than 220 miles per hour.

Temperatures at these altitudes are much more habitable—closer to that of Earth's surface. A 2018 paper published in the journal Astrobiology, suggested that dark, swirling clouds in Venus's atmosphere could be indicative of swirling colonies of light-absorbing bacteria.

Venus's close proximity to the sun, while still in the habitable zone, likely kicked off this unfortunate planetary process. It’s dramatic, but some researchers see the sweltering demise of Venus as a harbinger of things to come if we aren't able to control our own levels of carbon dioxide.

In any case, there are lessons to learn about our own future weather and climate from Venus’s atmosphere.

A Hidden Rocky Surface

NASA/JPL

Venus's impenetrable rocky surface is just as intriguing as its atmosphere. The crust is riddled with mountains, valleys, and volcanoes—like Maxwell Montes, the planet's highest peak, which stretches 20,000 feet above the surface. Atmospheric pressure on the surface of the planet, which has a radius of just 3,760 miles, is equivalent to what you might find more than half a mile beneath the ocean.

Large plateaus of lava spread across the planet's hemispheres. Last year, a paper published Aug. 9 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets called into question the composition of some of these highland plateaus, and, in turn, the Venus’s water-logged history. Instead of being composed fully of granitic rock, researchers reanalyzed old Magellan data and posited that these landforms could be made of basaltic lava. Basaltic rocks do not need water to form, unlike granitic rocks.

Our understanding of the surface of Venus is changing all the time. Venusian volcanoes on may be a lot more active than previously thought, according to research published on January 3, 2020, in the journal Science Advances. Researchers analyzed rates of weathering in olivine crystals—the chemical signature of which ESA's Venus Express Orbiter discovered in the early 2000s—and found that lavas containing these chemically altered minerals would have been just days old.

Venus has strange features seen nowhere else in the solar system, too. For example, ring-like structures jut out, warping the planet’s surface, according to Space.com. It does have craters, but only large ones—most meteoroids large enough to create craters smaller than .09 miles burn up as they tumble through the atmosphere.

Interestingly. the planet itself is the only one named for a woman. Venusian surface features are named after powerful female historical figures, such as Sacajawea and the Roman goddess Diana.

In a Weird Orbit

NASA/BILL DUNFORD

Venus also has a highly unusual orbit and rotation. It's one of two planets in our solar system—here's to you, Uranus!—to rotate "backwards" from east to west instead of from west to east. And with no axial tilt, there are also no seasons.

Because Venus rotates extremely slowly on its axis, a single day on the planet is equivalent to 243 Earth days, but it takes Venus 225 Earth days to orbit the sun. So, yes, a year on Venus is shorter than a day on Venus. Curiously, Venus also has a nearly circular orbit, whereas, other planets that circle the sun do so on along an elliptical orbit.

Because of Venus's sluggish race around the solar system, its iron core isn't able to generate a robust, protective magnetosphere like we have here on Earth. Eventually, like every other inner, rocky planet in our solar system, Venus will be gulped up by the sun. Fortunately, researchers say this won’t happen for roughly 7 billion years.

A Soviet Obsession

JAXA / ISAS / DARTS / DAMIA BOUIC

A new mission to Venus could be on the horizon. Recently, scientists have suggested lofting a fleet of hot-air balloons equipped with super-sensitive seismometers that can capture infrasound waves down into the thick Venusian atmosphere. Others have hatched wild plans to launch "cloud cities" in the upper reaches of the Venusian atmosphere.

The last NASA spacecraft to venture to Venus was Magellan, which spun around the planet more than 15,000 times in four years before crashing into its surface in 1994. Magellan painted a previously never-before-seen picture of the planet, mapping more than 90 percent of its surface. Before that, Mariner 2, sped past Venus, gathering temperature and atmospheric readings of the planet, along with the Pioneer orbiter of the 1980s.

In the 1970s, the Soviet Union sent several probes to Venus, including the first spacecraft to successfully land on another planet, Venera 7, which touched down on the rocky surface on December 15, 1970, before being crushed and melted by Venus’ extreme pressure and scorching heat. In total, the Soviet Union sent seven missions to Venus, and returned a number of images, important atmospheric readings, and soil analysis.

RUSSIAN SPACE AGENCY

The European Space Agency's orbiter, Venus Express, which launched in 2006 circled the planet for eight years, revealed secrets about its dark side, and found evidence of lightning. The agency has ambitious goals to revisit the sweltering planet. At a meeting in Madrid in 2019, scientists proposed sending a pair of orbiters, a handful of landers, a balloon, and rocket which would return samples to Earth.

A GUIDE TO THE SOLAR SYSTEM

• 

Small Yet Mighty Mercury Is Still a Mystery

• 

Everything You Need to Know About the Sun

• 

Jupiter Is a Jerk

Currently, Akatsuki, JAXA's spacecraft, which launched in 2010, is the sole spacecraft orbiting the planet. It's unlocked secrets about the planet's atmosphere and, in 2017, caught sight of a strange atmospheric disturbance, an arc of gravity waves, which washed over the planet and slowed its rotation.

In December 2019, Park Solar Probe, which isn’t designed to study planets, swung close to Venus. While the spacecraft primarily studies the sun’s plasma, it will use the flyby to study the location of the Venus's bow shock, a protective boundary around planetary objects that protects them from solar winds, and make measurements about the loss of Venus’s atmosphere. In July, 2020, and Feb., 2021, Parker will circle back around to measure atmosphere loss, which is caused by intense solar winds, again.

The greatest challenge of visiting Venus, of course, is designing a lander that can survive the trials of operating on its scorching surface. NASA has steadily increased its investments in developing "hot technologies," which can last up to weeks on surfaces as hot as Venus.

Hopefully, someday, we'll get there.

{ https://www.popularmechanics.com/ }

07-01-2020 om 01:10 geschreven door peter