Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 11 MONTHS.
ON 06/05/2024 MORE THAN 1.972.210
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
25-01-2020
Bizarre Encounters with the Demons That Come at Night
Bizarre Encounters with the Demons That Come at Night
Of all of the times in our life, we are at our most vulnerable and helpless when we are asleep. There is nothing we can really do about this, as all lifeforms that we know of must do this, but it is a rather awkward time for us. We lie there, unaware of our surroundings, paralyzed by our own bodies, surrounded by darkness. It seems unsurprising that many spooky tales and strange phenomena have come to gravitate towards the evening hours and our nightly vacation from the physical world, when we surrender ourselves to the night. It seems that this is a time when there are things that can come to us, which step out of the gloom and seem to be no mere nightmare. These are the seemingly demonic entities that descend upon us in the comfort of our own bedrooms, and are worse than any bad dream.
One frightening report comes from the site The Paranormal Society, with a witness who claims this all began when he developed an intense interest in the occult, and spent hours feverishly reading about it. He claims that one day the atmosphere of his room started to change, the air feeling heavier by the day, the room imbued with an unnatural cold and darkness, even in the summer, and he would experience a strange sense of being watched that grew in intensity with each passing day. This apparently went on for around a year before it would graduate to the truly frightening. The witness began to notice at night a strange, circular shadow in the corner of the ceiling of his bedroom. At first he thought nothing of this anomaly, but night after night it seemed to grow larger, ever blooming out across that ceiling in an inexorable crawl outward and possessing an inky unnatural black. No matter how much he moved the furniture around the shadow was always there, and he could not figure out what could be casting this strange shadow. He would still try to rationalize it as having a mundane explanation, but then a terrifying experience would prove him wrong. The witness says of what happened:
It seemed to get a bit bigger. Confused, I moved some things around in my room, figuring again something in there was casting a shadow, to no avail. The shadow stayed the same, and although I was a bit disturbed by it, I figured there was a scientific reason for it — something outside was casting the shadow — and I would go to sleep like normal. Then, one night as I turned out the light and went to bed as usually, I noticed the shadow seemed bigger than normal. I repeat, this was a very strange shadow. It seemed to be “thicker” than a normal shadow, almost like a puddle of black coffee.
As I lay there, trying to fall asleep, but feeling very uncomfortable for some reason, I began to notice that with each opening and closing of my eyes, the shadow would loom larger and appear to be seeping toward me. I was frightened, of course, yet intrigued. It seemed the longer I kept my eyes closed, the quicker it would move toward me, but it would always stop right where it was whenever I opened my eyes.
At one point, the thing was at the foot of my bed. I opened my eyes to look at it, expecting it to pause there. At this point, I was becoming increasingly frightened. Instead of pausing, it began to “pour” toward me, and I felt the most unnatural empty, cold, hungry, evil I’ve ever felt in my life come from it. It was then and there I knew for sure in my heart it was a demon, and I knew that it had relation to the junk I was studying. I pulled the blanket over my head, switched on the Christian music station, and prayed like crazy.
This seems to have worked, as the demon departed, and it encouraged him to give up his pursuit of the occult as a result, after which he says the entity then left him alone and did not come back. He remains convinced that what he saw was an actual demon, that came for him as a result of his dabbling in the arcane. Another bedroom encounter that is just as frightening was experienced by a commenter “RhythmSnail” on Your Ghost Stories. He claims this happened in Perth, Western Australia, when he was living with his mother in a home that had apparently had a rather violent history, although his mother would never tell him what exactly that was or what it entailed. Over time he became convinced that he was constantly being watched by something from the shadows, and would occasionally catch fleeting glimpses of something moving or skulking about in the periphery of his vision, never seen head on. This happened for some time before one night he had an experience he would never forget, which began with him waking in the middle of the night to a room far more frigid than it should have been. The witness says:
I noticed that my door was wide open, and I didn’t remember leaving it that way because I don’t usually do that. My mum was fast asleep and my sister was staying at her dad’s place for the night. To my horror, I saw a small figure watching me from the entrance of my room. It looked like a “dense” shadow. I’m not quite sure how else to explain it. Slightly propping myself up on one elbow, I spoke out my little sister’s name thinking it was probably her (I thought maybe she had changed her mind and had been dropped off during the night). Then suddenly, the being rushed up to my bedside in the blink of an eye and moved alarmingly close to my face.
Terrified, I found myself staring into a face with no discernible nose or eyes, and a gaping wide mouth. Where its eyes were meant to be, were dark holes from what I can remember, anyway. I’m not too sure. My body froze in horror. Moments passed with just that creature and me in the room, “gazes” transfixed on each other’s faces. Eventually, I was able to snap out of the frozen state my body had taken on in fright and I flailed and kicked at the thing until it suddenly dissipated with a blood-curdling sound that reminded me of an anguished scream of some sort. I heard it out loud and deep within my head, if that makes sense. It made my hair stand on end and my heart beat alarmingly fast.
To this day, I have no idea what it was. A demon of some sort? I don’t know what it wanted. It was terrifying and every so often I catch glimpses of shadow-like people/creatures from my peripheral vision. Many times I’ve awoken from sleep from someone calling my name, and it is usually a man or someone who sounds a lot like me. Even when I’m not asleep, I sometimes hear whoever it is calling my name. And occasionally, I can feel something touching me that I can’t see.
These sorts of frightening cases often seem to happen to witnesses who have just woken up to a completely alert state without any discernible cause, and that same can be said of our next account, which comes from a Reddit user called “P3rspective.” He says he woke up suddenly and without warning in the middle of the night to see something there with him in the room. He explains of the strange encounter:
I was lying in my bed and remember sitting up and seeing 3 figures standing in my room with a dim lit blue light coming from somewhere that illuminated them. I don’t remember what exactly they said, or rather, he said, cause the one in the middle was speaking directly to me. I remember his mouth opening in a very inhuman way, with the jaw extending further than it should be able to. Their mouth, and eyes, were black, not like, solid back, but a smoky type of black, so sorta grey, but you could still recognize teeth and such.
I remember them saying something about them coming in a few days for something, I don’t remember what it was exactly. I then remember passing back out, and waking up, actually waking up, and seeing some dark form dart across the room and hover directly over my bed (my bed is in a corner, so it was sitting/hovering between the wall and I, about 4-inch gap at the time). I then felt a very, VERY intense sense of dread and heaviness throughout my entire fiber and being, and remember feeling this for a few minutes while it was just sitting there, my back turned to it.
We also have the case of Reddit user JllFucherina, who says this happened one Christmas Eve when she was only 12 years old. She similarly woke suddenly with a start, already in a state of readiness and without any grogginess or sleepiness. She says of her unsettling experience:
I woke up suddenly and fully alert. I was laying on my back and when I opened my eyes they met another set of eyes. Outside sitting in the tree beyond the fence was what I can only describe as a demon, it’s fully fixed on me and not moving. The eyes reminded me of a cat’s, huge with elongated pupils, yellow and very iridescent. The body was not large, pretty lean, and dark scaly skin. It was sitting with its legs pulled up to its chest, kind of crouched. This visual has stayed with me so vividly for my entire life. Over twenty years have passed and I can still see it like it was right in front of me.
I felt scared and threatened inside of myself. We maintained eye contact for what felt like a very long time, and I don’t remember breaking eye contact, saying anything, or seeing it move. It seemed like I just fell back to sleep at some point but kind of doubt that’s how it really went. I wonder if I was hypnotized sometimes. I woke up the next day and remembered it immediately. I knew, just knew that it wasn’t a dream, it was far too real.”
To make this particular case even scarier, she claims that she now passes out every Christmas Eve at approximately the same time as she had this terrifying encounter. Why? Who knows? It is interesting to note how many cases like this have happened to people who were children or very young at the time and remember it so vividly well into adulthood, as if children have minds that are more malleable and susceptible to perceiving these outlandish entities. Another case involving a younger witness happened to a commenter on Ghost Village, who says she was only around 8 or 9 years old when this happened, and she explains:
I was sleeping in my grandma’s bed, when I woke up in the middle of the night cold. I look out the bedroom door into the kitchen and saw this manly figure. I assumed it was my dad, but then I saw what I thought was long hair. It was like a shadow, black, but like outlined in a glowing white, and it had red eyes. I was scared to death, and afraid it would see me (it was looking the other direction, straight on as if looking at or for something) I went under the covers and tried to fall asleep. The next morning my sister told me that that same night she felt an uncomfortable presence in the house and then I told her about what I saw. My dad being a skeptic said I was dreaming and tired, but man, I was WIDE awake. and my mom’s side of the family has had numerous paranormal experiences so she believed me.
There are countless other similar cases like these, far too many to cover all of them here, and they all leave us struggling to understand just what could possibly be going on here. The seemingly most rational explanation is that these people are experiencing what is known as “sleep paralysis,” also called the more ominous sounding “Old Hag Syndrome.” It is basically a condition in which the sleeper wakes in a half-dream state, with the mind active and awake yet the body still under the influence of sleep and the body’s chemicals that keep us immobile while sleeping. It is caused by an interrupted or dysfunctional REM cycle, the period of sleep in which we dream, and the result is that we experience a state between wakeful lucidity and a nightmare, compounded by the fact that it is often accompanied by being utterly helpless and unable to move. This is not some rare disorder, as it is estimated that between 25 to 50 percent of the population will experience this at least once in their lives, and the results can sometimes be extremely vivid and horrifying. One commenter on Thought Catalog says of his frightening experiences with sleep paralysis:
I have a few different “sleep paralysis demons.” The demon ones are the usual shadowy figure standing over me or by my bedroom door. The worst one was while I was lying on my side with my back to the door and it felt like someone got into bed behind me. Under the covers and put their arm round my waist. Then it felt like they were cuddling into me and I could feel breath on my neck. It felt like they cuddled me for about half an hour. All this time I’m trying not to show that I’m panicking because it feels like I’m getting cuddled by a skeleton with claws. It was only about the second, maybe third time I’d had sleep paralysis, so I nearly had a heart attack when this thing feels like its moving in closer to kiss me behind the ear. Worst of all it whispered “Not yet. You’re not ready yet. I’ll come back when you are.” To me it sounded disappointed and excited. It felt like it was silently telling me it meant that it was coming back when I was about to die. Scared the fucking shit out of me.
It reads very much like the other reports of these supposed demons, and this is somewhat usual for sleep paralysis cases. Yet, many people who have experienced these terrifying demonic night visitations insist that they were fully awake at the time and able to move, even getting up to walk around. Even people who suffer sleep paralysis and know what that is will have experiences that they are sure are different, such as a witness on Reddit called “JackmanB,” who says:
I swore it was wearing like a hood even though it was shadowy and it’s shape was ominous (but obviously humanoid). I couldn’t tell much else about its appearance because it was dark and because my reaction to fear like that is not to stare intently at what I’m looking at. I watched as the shadow figure slowly skirted the outside of the room before it cut inside to be standing right alongside my bed, in front of my face. Here’s what it did: It opened the door to my room and then shut it, and then it kind of hung out near the door at the edge of the room for a hot minute. At that point I started breathing loudly and unevenly (which was the only thing I could do) to try and scare it away.—Just some background, I get sleep paralysis semi-often, usually attached to naps, but never before have I experienced anything resembling this.
While some cases like this might be attributable to sleep paralysis, can they all be so easily dismissed? If some of these cases are not sleep paralysis then what could they be? There are many ideas on this. One is that they are actually demons, coming to us when we are at our most susceptible, in that borderline between sleep and wakefulness. Another idea is that they are some sort of interdimensional interlopers, invading the sanctity of our most vulnerable time for purposes we may never understand and perhaps are never meant to. They could also be aliens, Shadow People, ghosts, or even just flat out tall tales, but this is a widespread enough phenomenon that it seems to deserve some consideration and discussion.
What On Earth Was This Mysterious Light In The Sky Above The West Coast Last Night?
What On Earth Was This Mysterious Light In The Sky Above The West Coast Last Night?
Last night a mysterious light lit up the skies over California, leaving people as far east as Louisiana perplexed. What was that weird blue glow in the sky? Naturally, there was some speculation that perhaps the light was a UFO or even a meteor - but in reality it was the launch of a Trident II (D5) missile by the U.S. Navy.
The unarmed missile launched from the Kentucky, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine that sits off the coast of Southern California in the Pacific Test Range. The test was pre-planned although not announced or confirmed until a few hours after the launch. These types of launches are routine, although rarely announced ahead of time, and help ensure the reliability of Naval systems.
According to the San Diego Times, Cmdr. Ryan Perry with the Navy’s Third Fleet said, “The test was part of a scheduled, on-going system evaluation test. Each test activity provides valuable information about our systems, thus contributing to assurance in our capabilities.”
The Navy frequently uses a test range just northwest of Los Angeles to test fire standard cruise and Tomahawk missiles from submarines and other ships. The airspace over the test range has been activated and all nighttime flights to and from Los Angeles International Airport have been diverted away from that area for the coming week. Neither the military nor the FAA have disclosed what activities will be taking place near the country’s second-busiest airport over the next six nights.
Since there was no advance warning of the test fire, witnesses across the state and several states over speculated that the object streaking across the sky could be part of the annual Taurid meteor shower, which is currently reaching itspeak and is known to produce fireballs. According to astronomer Phil Plait, “this was moving far too slowly to be a meteor, and the behavior was all wrong.”
Brian Keating, an astrophysicist at UC San Diego told the Times, “The Taurid meteors would be coming from the east — and this light came from the west. We'd also be more likely to see meteors about midnight, and the flash came near sunset.”
Since the launch occurred at sunset, it made for a spectacular show. The missile’s exhaust reflected sunlight as it soared through the sky, producing a stunning view. You may remember earlier this year when an Atlas V launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral and produced similar striking views. An expanding halo can be seen in most of the pictures and that is most likely due to a staging event. The missile has three stages and as one is shut down and ejected, the next stage ignites via a small explosion known as an ordnance. If the staging event occurred when the missile was high enough in the atmosphere, it would produce a bright flash and a halo of gas.
Who knows what else we may witness over the next week as the test range remains active.
“Anybody else see this tonight? The sky was flashing pink and purple – super bright. Thought it might be lightning, but it’s fairly cold (40 degrees), and there was no thunder.”
Well, that certainly sounds strange and the witness has a video from his doorbell camera – the 2020’s replacement for the dash cam, Google Maps and security cameras for capturing strange phenomena. (Watch it here.) One would think that giving it broad media coverage would quickly identify the source of these flashing lights in the sky over Bethel, Ohio. Weather anomaly? Fireworks? Transformer explosions? Meteor? Military? Aliens? Yet it’s been over a week and no one has solved the mystery of the flashing lights of Bethel.
“The first thing that came to mind was what just happened with Iran, and I thought it might be a nuclear explosion. It was that bright and that powerful. I was in the Army and it reminded me of phosphorescent flares we used that light up the whole sky.”
Tim Walker and his daughter Carolyn Walker saw the flashes on the evening of January 12. Walker got the video from Ring.com and posted it on Facebook, where it was picked up by multiple media sites. Over a week later, the comments on the video are still speculative with no confirmed cause. Another witness, Charles Rogers, sent his video to local station FOX19 NOW, which contacted all of the usual suspects and experts.
“We contacted Clermont County Emergency Management. They have no explanation but did hear from plenty of people reporting the flash. Bethel Police had the same response. We also reached out to Duke Energy. According to them, 584 customers lost power for two minutes just before 7 p.m. Sunday. Crews drove that line Monday and found no issues. We also asked an astronomer if this could be a meteor. He says no because a meteor would flash above the clouds rather than below. As for lightning, the nearest strike was hundreds of miles away.”
That was the latest from them as of January 14. On January 20, the Lexington Herald-Leader picked up a story by Mark Price of the Charlotte Observer, who asked Walker if the flashes had been identified. Walker said they hadn’t. Other witnesses have posted on his Facebook page, but no confirmed explanations. Price had no answers either.
“I’ve done a lot of reporting on UFOs and other strange phenomenon, and this is really the strangest light show I’ve ever seen caught on video.”
It’s too bad David Letterman is no longer doing his show with the popular segment, “Is this anything?” Bandleader Paul Schaefer always had interesting, speculative comments on the strange things Dave would show him. That seems to be better than asking government agencies or local authorities these days, as the fine folks in Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming are finding out with the mysterious drone formations they’ve received no answers on despite their presence in the night sky since before Christmas.
Which brings us back to Tim Walker’s first reaction when he saw the lights over Bethel, a small village east of Cincinnati near the Kentucky border.
“The first thing that came to mind was what just happened with Iran.”
There’s no doubt Walker was in the majority in having that first reaction … one that the people in Colorado have while watching their own mysterious things in the sky.
Perhaps it’s time to accept the obvious … getting no answer is now the new norm.
The mysterious giant drones that have been flying in formation over parts of Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming just got a possible explanation … and it may create more mysteries than it solves … if it solves any. A member of a group of amateur UFO trackers claims they’ve been flying drones in formation over Colorado in an organized search for the “unidentified aerial phenomenon” that has become known as the Tic Tac UFOs. Yes, the ones seen by USS Nimitz pilots in 2004 on the east coast. What are they doing in Colorado, you ask? Let’s find out.
“If there was any interference with any other aircraft, that absolutely was not ours.”
In what appears to be an exclusive report by the Sterling Journal-Advocate (Sterling is in far northeastern Colorado where many of the drone sightings have occurred), Michael Spicer of Durango (a long way from Sterling in far southwest Colorado) takes an obviously defensive position as he talks the drone formations he and his group have been flying in and around Sterling. Spicer says the group is known as ArchAngleRECON and they’re headquartered in Wichita, Kansas – almost 500 miles from Sterling. He admits the group has been flying groups of 6 to 12 drones along longitude and latitude lines in northeast Colorado – the “grid pattern” many witnesses have described. Of course, he didn’t think they were doing anything wrong. Until …
“Spicer said the group was unaware of the stir caused by drones until he was contacted recently by the Federal Aviation Administration. He said he was interviewed by special Agent Michael Bumberger of the FAA’s Investigations and Law Enforcement Assistance Program. He said none of ArchAngelRECON’s drones were ever flown anywhere near any airport, and they did not encounter any other civilian aircraft.”
That was probably as part of the multi-government-agency investigation that ended recently with the “no harm, no foul” conclusion that they still don’t know whose drones they are, but they’re not illegal, so go back to what you were doing and forget about them. Despite that, Spicer seemed shaken by the contact and was probably questioned about reports that a drone may have interfered with a hospital helicopter and others were seen over Sterling Municipal Airport – an obvious FAA violation.
Before you ask, there’s not much info about ArchAngelRECON. There’s a 75th ArchAngel Recon “Multi game clan” with some videos on YouTube, but they’re related to gaming, not drones or UFOs. As usual these days, Spicer claims the group is tracking the new technology aircraft which is what the infamous Tic Tac UFOs from the 2004 incident are suspected by many of being. However, he’s quick to point out that not all of the drones seen recently belong to his group. He doesn’t say how many are and the report is pretty empty of any additional investigative evidence. Spicer also gives no information on whether they saw any of the drones/Tic Tacs.
It’s almost as if “looking for Tic Tac UFOs” is the new cover for any nefarious activities, and heading to Colorado to hunt the drones is becoming this year’s “Storm Area 51.” Will ‘Storm Sterling’ solve the mystery or end up in a failed rock concert too?
“That absolutely was not ours.”
OK, Michael Spicer, we’re not blaming you for that. In fact, you’re not the first to connect the drones to the Tic Tac. That honor belongs unofficially to Mike Turber, the investigative journalist and cybersecurity expert who made the link earlier this week.
So, despite the government’s plea to “move along, nothing to see here,” the Colorado/Nebraska/Wyoming/??? Drone mystery isn’t going away.
The final nail in the coffin for the Standard Model of particle physics might be coming from under the Antarctic ice. While a series of new discoveries have challenged our understanding of physics, recently astrophysicists revealed they had detected ; according to the researchers, any possible explanation of these particles defies the Standard Model of astrophysics.
The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) floats above Antarctica on a NASA balloon and detects cosmic particles that manage to pass through the Earth. Since 2016, three bursts of particles caught the ANITA researchers by surprise. They all looked like ultra-high-energy neutrinos, but they couldn’t be. While low-energy neutrinos can pass through the Earth with ease, ultra-high-energy neutrinos shouldn’t be able to—according to our current understanding of physics.
A balloon launch at ANITA.
According to a new paper, the last remaining Standard Model explanation for these mysterious articles has some serious flaws. The explanation revolves around cosmic neutrino accelerators: big, violent cosmic objects like the stars at the centers of galaxies that could accelerate neutrinos and other particles fast enough to push them through our planet. According to Anastasia Barbano, a University of Geneva physicist, either the mysterious particles are coming from cosmic accelerators, or from some unknown source here on Earth. The problem is, however, that if there were a big group of neutrino guns blasting particles through Antarctica, they wouldn’t only be shooting ultra-high-energy neutrinos. There should be a whole bunch of other particles along with them. But they’re not there.
According to the recent paper, the team looked at seven years of data and attempted to find cosmic accelerator sources that matched the angle and length of the mysterious particles detected in Antarctica. No potential cosmic accelerators matching those parameters were found.
We’ve always known there was something weird under Antarctica.
The results don’t completely exclude the cosmic accelerator explanation, but they do “severely constrain” it. Right now the data the researchers have is very limited, and they’re not sure which way they should go with it. With many of the plausible explanations seemingly rendered impossible (along with many of the less plausible ones too), all remaining explanations are “revolutionary”—they just don’t know which revolutionary explanation is the right one.
Anastasia Barbano, a University of Geneva physicist, says that what they’re trying to say is that, whatever it is, it’s a big deal:
“The message we want to convey to the public is that a Standard Model astrophysical explanation does not work no matter how you slice it.”
According to Barbano, the team will have to wait until the next generation of neutrino detectors are online before they can attempt to unravel the mystery any further. So yeah, our physics is all broken. We just don’t know how yet.
NASA Abruptly Cuts Live Feed ISS After This Appears Over The U.S.
NASA Abruptly Cuts Live Feed ISS After This Appears Over The U.S.
Jujubee’s Adams had just turned on his ISS app to take a look when some kind of object appeared on the live feed, so Adams took some photos and a video of the strange anomaly, just before NASA abruptly cuts the live broadcast.
And it is not the first time NASA cuts the live feed from the International Space Station. At the moment alien objects appear on camera, they switch over to the well known screen and text that there is a sudden loss of signal between the station and the communications network.
The following video recorded by Adams on January 22, 2020 is a clear example of how NASA is trying to disguise the existence of UFOs and other unknown advanced objects in space.
Watch: The UFO Footage That American Navy Admits Is Genuine
Watch: The UFO Footage That American Navy Admits Is Genuine
The US Navy has revealed that the three videos showing leaked military footage of UFOs are real. The clips show several UFOs travelling through the air at incredible speed while the military tracked them. One video was from 2004, and the other two were from 2015 that feature audio from US fighter pilots expressing doubt at what they just saw whether the objects were drones or something else.
To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science, a team co-founded by Blink 182 singer Tom DeLonge to research UFOs, originally published them in December 2017 and March 2018. The US Navy has confirmed recently that the leaked footage is real and the UFOs have been classified as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).
Spokesman Joseph Gradisher said that these three videos show incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena into their military training ranges. The Navy has characterised the mysterious events as unidentified.
Tom DeLonge’s group had claimed the clips went through a declassification review process and were approved for release.
China's space agency has released a huge batch of stunning images from the far side of the moon, revealing the beauty of the mysterious terrain.
The high-resolution images were released on the agency's dedicated website and were enhanced by a NASA expert.
Doug Ellison, who heads up the engineering camera team for the Curiosity Mars Rover at NASA, processed the images and posted them on Twitter.
One image of the Chang'e-4 lunar lander with the immaculate tracks of the Yutu-2 rover was brought to life in colour using sophisticated computer software.
Scroll down for video
Some of the images include a look at the Von Karmer crater in which the mission landed and reveals the criss-crossing tracks of the rover (pictured)
Pictured: Tracks of the lunar rover Yutu-2, which translates directly as Jade rabbit, are shown etched into the powdery surface of the moon
Detailed images of the surface of the far side of the moon were released by the Chinese space agency as the rover and lander continue their scientific missions to learn more about the geology and history of the moon
Pictured: the ridge of the Von karmer crater in which the Chinese mission landed and is now exploring. The panoramic images taken from the Yutu 2 rover's on-board camera capture the bleak landscape
The images were taken by Chang'e-4 lander's terrain camera and the panoramic camera on the Yutu-2 rover.
The data dump measured more than 10GB and includes images taken over the course of its first year in operation.
Mr Ellison tweeted 'Oh - this is so pretty' after successfully debayering the photos.
Debayering is a technique that uses computer software to reveal the true colour of a photo.
Doug Ellison, who heads up the engineering camera team for the Curiosity Mars Rover at NASA, processed the images and posted them on Twitter. He debayered the images to reveal their true colour
The data dump measured more than 10GB and includes images of more than a year in operation. It includes images of the moon's pockmarked surface (pictured, a small crater imaged by Yutu)
The images were sent back in what appears to be black and white but it is actually an incomplete colour image. Computer programmes can be set up to extract the true colouration (pictured)
WHY IS THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON KNOWN AS THE 'DARK SIDE'?
The far side of the moon - colloquially known as the dark side - actually gets as much light as the near side but always faces away from Earth.
Less than a fifth of the opposite half of the moon is ever visible and it wasn't until 1959 until we received images of what it looked like when the Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft returned snapped the mysterious region.
In 1968, astronauts aboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft were the first humans to set eyes on the far side in person as they orbited the moon.
Since then, several missions by NASA and other space agencies have imaged the lunar far side.
That includes NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft, which imaged the far side from a distance of 31 million miles (49m km) in 2008.
This relatively unexplored region is mountainous and rugged, making a successful landing much harder to achieve.
Professor of astrophysics at the University of Nottingham, Christopher Conselice, said the far side is much more rugged and has less volcanic activity than the side we see from Earth.The images were sent back in what appears to be black and white, but they are actually incomplete colour images.
Computer programmes can be used to extract the true colouration.
Some of the images feature views of the Von Karmer crater in which the mission landed.
It is the largest impact crater in the entire solar system at eight miles (13 km) deep and 1,600 miles (2,500 km) in diameter.
The far side of the moon - colloquially known as the dark side - actually gets as much light as the near side but always faces away from Earth.
This is because the moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate that it orbits our planet, so the far side - or the 'dark side' - is never visible from our planet.
Days on the moon last for 14 Earth days thanks to its orbit around Earth and it can only operate during the lunar day when it is warmer.
Chang'e-4 and Yutu-2 are entering their 14th lunar day in operation.
The Chang'e-4 lunar probe mission - named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology - launched last December from the southwestern Xichang launch centre.
It is the second Chinese probe to land on the moon, following the Yutu rover mission in 2013.
The remarkable images are a secondary perk to the vital data that it is beaming back to Earth via its own dedicated relay satellite named Queqiao.
It is permanently stationed in operational orbit about 40,000 miles beyond the moon and is used to bounce images from the far side of the moon back to Earth.
The tasks of the Chang'e-4 include astronomical observation, surveying the moon's terrain, landform and mineral composition, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment on the far side of the moon.
China's Chang'-4 mission was the first from any nation to land on the far side of the moon. It followed the success of Chang'e-3 and is laying the foundations for future missions
Jade Rabbit 2 - the direct translation for Yutu-2 - weighs 308lbs (139kg) and has six individually powered wheels so it can continue to operate even if one wheel fails. It rolled on to the lunar surface from the lander via two ramps in January 2019
Yutu-2 has a host of instruments and is powered by solar panels. This includes a spectrometer which analyses the bizarre terrain on the far side of the moon
The Lunar explorer touched down at 10.26am local time (2.26am GMT) January 4 2019. Chang'e-4 landed in the Aitken basin, the largest impact crater in the entire solar system at eight miles (13 km) deep and 1,600 miles (2,500 km) in diameter
Recently, it was revealed how an on-board biosphere was used to grow a plant on the moon.
Xie Gengxin of Chongqing University devised a cylindrical garden capsule to try and bring gardening deeper into outer space.
The capsule stood around 8 inches tall with a 6.5 inch diameter and had a rectangular seed bed that was loaded with cotton, potato, rape seeds, a variety of weed called Arabidopsis, and fruit fly eggs.
Arabidopsisis a plant used widely by scientists in experiments and is used ot model how many plants will respond to various stimuli.
WHAT DO THE NAMES OF CHINA'S MOON MISSION MEAN?
Chang'e-4
Chang'e is the moon goddess and wife of god Houyi in Ancient Chinese mythology.
Houyi is one of the most powerful mythological figures in China.
It is said that he shot down nine Suns to make Earth a liveable habitat for human beings.
The number four in the name is a more modern-day nod to the space programme.
This spacecraft is the fourth of the Chang'e missions.
Yutu-2
Yutu (jade rabbit) is the companion of Chang'e in the mythological stories.
This is fittingly also the name of the rover on-board Chang'e-4.
Yutu-2 is so labelled because it is the successor to Yutu-1 which was deployed from the Chang'e-3 mission earlier this decade.
Queqiao
Queqiao is the relay satellite and translates to Magpie Bridge.
This name also stems from Ancient Chinese mythology.
Queqiao, or the Magpie Bridge, is a legendary bridge which appears once a year to connect Niu Lang and Zhi Nv.
Niu Lang is a cattle herder on Earth while Zhi Nv, or the Weaving Maid, is a goddess in heaven.
The couple met and fell in love when Zhi Nv snuck to the 'human world' in secret to play. Their union enraged the chief goddess, Queen Mother of the West.
The couple got banished to live at different sides of the Milky Way.
Every year on the seventh day of the seventh month on the Lunar Calendar, thousands of magpies that are moved by the couples' love story will form the Magpie Bridge, or Queqiao, so that Niu Lang and Zhi Nv can meet each other.
This relay satellite will allow communication between the moon probe and Earth.
Startup Exodus Space Corp. plans to build a space plane to ferry cargo aroundEarth. Eventually, that cargo could include people, if the spacecraft is deemed safe enough.
The spaceship — called AstroClipper — will take off from a runaway, make a flight into space and then land again, plane-style. A heft booster at the space plane's back end will help it get into orbit by giving AstroClipper the speed it requires to break out of Earth's atmosphere.
Exodus is new and still raising money, but its team includes deep experience across the space industry. Principals at the company have worked at SpaceX, Lockheed Martin and NASA, among others.
The company's first step is a technology demonstrator in 2022 that would remain within Earth's atmosphere but eventually lead to suborbital and orbital spacecraft. The eventual dream, in the 2030s, would be carrying passengers if Exodus can get the necessary human-rating regulations achieved.
"This has been a very private project that was in the works for the last 10 years," Exodus CEO Miguel Alaya told Space.com. "It was not all full-time, but just an ongoing process. Since last year, we have put together a strong leadership team to commercialize this intellectual property."
He added that the focus on human passengers will come only after Exodus feels confident it can launch reliably and regularly. "Once our concept is well understood and we have a strong track record of success, we will start focusing on human-related applications," he said.
Exodus has filed for patents and the company is now asking for an undisclosed amount of money. The first test vehicle, called AstroClipper Pico, will launch a drone-size craft to 6 miles (10 kilometers) in altitude to make sure the technology works. If all the funding and development goes to plan, Pico should fly in about 2022.
An artist's depiction of the Exodus Space Corp.'s AstroClipper space plane. (Image credit: Exodus Space)
After that vehicle, Exodus may raise more funds to get ready for its first suborbital flights, which the company hopes to achieve in 2024. It will do so using a Cessna-size spacecraft, called AstroClipper Nano, that will be designed to launch up to 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of cargo to roughly 60 miles (100 km) in altitude.
"With that suborbital vehicle, we are targeting at least three markets," Alaya said. Exodus is looking at suborbital research and development, hypersonic research (relating to vehicles moving five times the speed of sound or faster, a field of research that is popular with the U.S. government) and also faster point-to-point transport for the government and for commercial clients.
Exodus plans to follow Nano with two more models of AstroClipper that could eventually carry about 2,650 pounds (1,200 kg) of cargo into space by 2030. The company's current final target is dubbed AstroClipper Max and would fly up to 20 passengers sometime in the 2030s, should the vehicle be approved to carry humans.
Alaya acknowledged that the AstroClipper series of vehicles are in an early stage of development right now, but maintained that the company's leadership has the expertise to help see the work through. "Looking at the market for the last 10 years, we have a strong understanding of what things we can work or not, and in addition we are not new to the space or the aerospace industry," he said.
"We've worked on vehicles, spacecraft and aircraft. We're a very experienced leadership team. We also have an extended team of around 40 people that helps us with different aspects of our technology … [so] we do have a big team we're going to draw from. Once we get funded, we have the people in line to start getting to the work."
Linda Moulton Howe: Alaska Underground Dark Pyramid Is Real.. Incredible Discovery Beyond Comprehension
Linda Moulton Howe: Alaska Underground Dark Pyramid Is Real... Incredible Discovery Beyond Comprehension
This is a truly huge discovery, in many ways. This pyramid is 4 times bigger than the great pyramid. Who built this pyramid in Alaska and is it an energy source?
Linda Moulton Howe is a graduate of Stanford University with a Masters Degree in Communication. She has devoted her documentary film, television, radio, writing and reporting career to productions concerning science, medicine and the environment. Ms. Howe has received local, national and international awards, including three regional Emmys, a national Emmy nomination and a Station Peabody award for medical programming.
Linda’s documentaries have included A Strange Harvest and Strange Harvests 1993, which explored the worldwide animal mutilation mystery. Another film, A Prairie Dawn, focused on astronaut training in Denver. She has also produced documentaries in Ethiopia and Mexico for UNICEF about child survival efforts and for Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta about environmental challenges.
Antarctica is the planet's southernmost continent where the geographic South Pole is located and is home to some 1,000 scientists attempting to understand more about the history of Earth and the effects of climate change. However, one programme, known as the Antarctica Drilling Project (ANDRILL), took things one step further by drilling more than 400 feet into the ice sheet, exposing a shocking past. Their experiment was shown during NOVA’s “The Secrets of Antarctica” documentary, in which they hoped to uncover more about past periods of global warming and cooling.
The narrator revealed in 2015: “Unlike drilling through sea ice which is just 26 feet thick the ice shelf here is 400 feet at least.
“But that’s only the beginning, no one has ever drilled through an ice shelf and it presents a challenge because they float up and down with the tide so you’ve got to deal with vertical and sideways change.
“Eventually the drill pipe will get bent, to you need to drill through a thick layer of ice that is constantly moving without breaking.
“To confront this unique challenge, the ANDRILL team invents a new tool, a hot-water drill, this marvel of engineering is a moving ring of heat that blasts jets of steaming water to melt a wide hole so the drill can operate freely through 400 feet of shifting ice.
Antarctica scientists made a stunning discovery
(Image: GETTY/NOVA)
The drill went more than 400 feet below the ice
(Image: NOVA)
It contains microfossils of single-celled animals known as forams
Secrets of Antarctica
“Once again, time is so precious that the team must work around the clock, not only retrieving cores but also analysing them.”
The narrator went on to reveal the groundbreaking discovery made thanks to the revolutionary drill.
He added: “An 80 feet core dates back about three million years and is closely examined.
“It contains microfossils of single-celled animals known as forams.
“They are from the crucial warm period called the Pliocene and these tiny shells are precise indicators of ocean temperature.”
Dr Gavin Dunbar, from the Antarctic Research Centre, explained how the sample of forams may reveal a shock to Earth’s path.
He said in 2015:“These guys are about the size of a grain of sand and because the same species lived through time we can use the chemistry and molecule examples to calibrate the ancient examples.
“We can measure two metals, magnesium and calcium that are in the ocean that get incorporated into their shells.
“That process depends on the temperature of the ocean, so if we know those levels, we can determine the temperature of the ocean at the time that foram lived.
“What this is telling us is that temperatures were three to four, maybe even five degrees above present.”
Shockingly, the find may mean that Earth once suffered global warming levels considerably worse than what we see today.
However, more research needs to be done to confirm the results.
The ANDRILL project involves scientists from Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and the United States and is based at the McMurdo Station.
The $30million (£23million) programme has since achieved its operational goal of retrieving a core record of the last 17 million years, filling crucial gaps left by previous drilling projects.
It is now up to scientists to study each sample and come up for a future hypothesis.
They return every so often, especially when the weather grows cold and the media runs out of stuff to talk about, or the story runs afoul of a hungry editor starving for a juicy ration of paranormal ghoulishness.
The flaps of “cow mutilations” or cases involving “cattle mutilations” represent a branch phenomenon of popular ufology or the urge to find evidence of extraterrestrial activity on Earth. It is also kept alive, however, by other media-created mysteries, such as the Chupacabras, or it receives a dose of crafty explanations such as those built by conspiracy theorists (which should not be cast aside, despite their minimal diffusion, as these are often turned into successful sci-fi scripts).
On August 25 of this year, the La Nación newspaper published another news item. Last year another appeared in Tucumán, and if we keep searching, or google back even further, there isn’t a year that does not include a report on this mystery that proves hard to extinguish. Likewise, we find a more intensive presence in provinces such as Entre Rios, where local UFO groups – highly interested in the matter – publicize accounts that would otherwise go unnoticed.
In 2002, this phenomenon manifested itself in Argentina with unprecedented strength. Personally, its importance was such that a chapter based on the matter displaced another on the mysteries of Capilla del Monte in my book Invasores: Historias Reales de Extraterrestres en Argentina (Sudamericana, 2009).
The following is an abbreviated version of the most theoretical part of the chapter included in Invasores:
12 years ago, Argentina experienced its first ufological cow-icide. I started in April and reached its climax in June 2002, particularly in the province of Buenos Aires and the Pampean region. Farmhands, cattlemen and local residents woke up to find dead cows of all breeds and ages all over the place. Dozens of bovine carcasses rested near circles of flattened grass, near empty water tanks – drained by who knows what and for which reason – and others in unusual circumstances.
All of the animals presented as “proof” of the flap bore similar injuries: their edges were irregular, as though cauterized. According to farmhands and cattlemen, these incisions appeared to have a purpose. Their carcasses had been despoiled of their soft tissue (tongue, eyes, ears, nipples, genitals, udders) and sometimes they appeared exsanguinated. Locals would sink their knives into them and the blade would emerge dry, as if they had been plunged into a piece of pound cake.
The discovery of over two hundred mutilated animal carcasses was reported in less than three months, a ruthless and doubtful notion, but giving the impression that an intelligence had been at work and the deaths were not due to natural causes, such as the onset of the cold of winter or seasonal diseases followed by the instinct of certain predators looking for nourishment. Agreement between cattlemen, journalists, policemen and ufologists was overwhelming: the incisions looked artificial. These animals filled the ranks of the bizarre while predator activity was dismissed by some veterinarians in their homilies. The cult of the mutilated cow was confected by all of them, with or without an awareness of the subject.
The flap ended almost if by decree. On July 1, 2002, the National Food Safety and Quality Service (SENASA) blamed the weather and carrion animals. Presto: a mystery cauterized.
The official body stated that rodents belonging to the Oxymycterus rufus genus – among other vermin – had devoured the cattle in fine gourmet style while other victims lay dead as a result of ice storms, disease or natural causes. Bernardo Cané, the head of the organization, stated: “We are dismissing Martians, the Pombero and other rural Argentinean beliefs.” (1) The sentence would have been less odious if Cané had not ascribed the mutilations to “esoteric practices” a week earlier. (2) Forty-five days later he was dismissed from his position under suspicion of underhanded dealings. (3)
Other experts were also caught on the hop. Veterinarian Alejandro Martínez suspected “some sort of techno-cattle rustling” wielding the thermocauterizer (a pistol that fires darts) to underscore that the mysterious incisions could be caused by “any agency”. Pathologist Ernesto Odriozola supported “the actions of some madman”. Even the most experienced forensic pathologists stoked the mystery. Days later, SENASA disclosed the results of a necropsy performed on twenty animals collected from fifteen farms in different sections of Buenos Aires province. Cané presented his conclusions in a press conference: the cattle died “due to pneumonia, malnutrition, metabolic or infectious diseases that are highly prevalent during the winter season.” Thus, the mystery was halved: the mutilated cows…were already dead. The enigmatic incisions had been subsequently caused by various carrion animals, the red-muzzled mouse among them.
“Extraterrestrials Laugh at SENASA” proclaimed one of the screens of the Crónica TV channel. The mouse’s humorous moniker prompted the notion that it had all been a gag. It was around that time that I phoned Dr. Alejandro Soraci, one of the parties involved in the study conducted by Universidad Nacional del Centro (UNICEN). “Could you photocopy the report, and I’ll send for it?” But there was nothing to photocopy. The only material available, he explained, was the press release and the video of the mouse in action. SENASA results were simply two hastily drafted pages. The investigation could hardly be taken seriously with such apathy. “Why were mutilated cows found in places where the Oxymycterus isn’t found? And if it was the mouse, why didn’t SENASA undertake a campaign to control it?” wondered ufologist Quique Mario. To him, and to many other ufologist, the media oasis was deceitful. “Matters remain the same: nothing has changed. Two animals were found mutilated last Saturday, thirty kilometers from here. Last week there were five and seventeen down south, around Cuchillo Có,” he told me in mid-2003.
What factors were at play in unleashing the epidemic? Why now, and not before?
This is how SENASA – spokesman for official explanations – has belittled the human dimension of these experiences. Not everyone is willing to believe that cows are abducted by UFOs, or that a clandestine operation was set in motion to decimate the bovine population and attack those who came too close to the truth. It is also unfair that aliens should mock SENASA. The fact that the initial speculations of its experts should contradict the formal verdict speaks volumes about the fantasies that the mystery creates in all of them, scientists included. On the other hand, it doesn’t say as much about the quality of the study, which does not exempt SENASA from the mistake of making a pronouncement before the results were in hand.
The red-muzzled mouse’s leading role gave the matter an almost humorous cast: The scene-stealing and headline-grabbing mouse obscured the investigation’s credibility. It is possible that the media stressed the rodent’s involvement because there can be nothing better than a Supermouse to displace a Chupacabras. The irregular, serrated tooth marks of the Oxymycterus rufus appeared on the skin and bones of the analyzed animals. Those marks explained the origin of the strange incisions, some of them described as perfect circles. “Ever since Tom and Jerry, we know that a [mouse hole] has a circular opening. Rodents stand up and work from top to bottom,” explained Fernando Kravetz, full professor of Ecology in the School of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires. “The rodent population grew with the increase in the availability of dead animals due to classic diseases, changes in vegetation and pastures deteriorated by the ice storms. Crops are harvested in March and the weather changed abruptly in April.” (4)
The quantity and dispersion of dead animals did not startle the professor, considered the main expert in rural ecology. “If three hundred mutilations were reported, the existence of a total of two thousand carcasses could be estimated. A congruent number for that time of year.” SENASA also mentioned less photogenic predators, such as the Pampas fox, seagulls and armadillos. But the red-muzzled mouse was on the cover, because the cow mutilation wave resulted in the casual discovery of an unexpected mutation in it dietary habits. Up to 2002, it was believed to be an insectivore, but it feasted on beef when given the chance. Kravitz measured the marks appearing on the cattle’s toughest tissue (such as the base of the tongue) and found the same patterns as in “cattle mutilations”.
Nor was SENASA the only agency to reach a prosaic conclusion. The Animal Health Group of the National Livestock Technology Institute (INTA Balcarce) studied ten cases. “The incisions and absence of internal organs, ears and nipples are due to action by predators found in the region.” The causes behind these animal deaths – when they could be ascertained – were not mysterious either (intestinal parasites, mineral deficiencies, metabolic diseases, malnutrition) as well as the cold and ice storms that blanketed the southeastern region (5).
What SENASA neglected to do – never mind other official agencies that were unresponsive to the mystery – was to find a hypothesis able to answer a question that can be stated in three ways: Why did men experienced in cattle activities feel certain that those incisions were qualitatively different from those caused by other predators? How can the belief about the phenomenon’s novelty be justified? What changed so that some more or less ordinary deaths should turn into an epidemic? Perhaps the answers would offer no consolation to cattlemen and others impressed by direct experience, but it is better to try to answer tough questions that feel the breath of the Chupacabras on the nape of one’s neck again.
The cattle mutilation wave did not occur at just any moment in time. The harsh reality suggested that attention given to these “strange events” responded to the infinity of existing social concerns. The mystery, therefore, could be considered an outgrowth of the crisis. According to the theory’s most newfangled variant, the phenomenon had been deliberately inflated to distract the population from the nation’s state of malaise. But more than a smokescreen, the exaggerated diffusion of such news looked like another symptom of the same illness.
On December 19, 2001, a crowd of Argentineans took the streets, banging on cooking pots, to protest against a government asleep in the midst of the most brutal crisis of recent history. Ferocious reprisals followed the protests, resulting in thirty-nine dead at the hands of the police. Bank freezes, the uncontrolled dollar and high rates of unemployment added to the sad national ordeal. The ashes were still hot in 2002. Shortly before the wave of alien cattle rustling, the emblem of creole opulence had been prey to minor “depredations”. It is still hard to forget the image broadcast by a news program, when a truck with beef cattle overturned on the outskirts of Rosario, Santa Fe, in 2001 and a crowd surged to butcher the animals on the roadside. Other factors – frivolous to some, but serious in their psycho-social impact – fostered the dejected popular mood: around the same time, the Argentinean football team had been eliminated from the world cup in the first round.
For once, a modern expression of the supernatural drew the interest of two specialists in myth and legends. Martha Blache and Silvia Balzano, researchers with CONICET, put forth an explanatory model for the events. They suggested the possible interconnection between Chupacabras reports, the penetration of genetically-modified sorghum and the use of new herbicides whose preparation is controlled by American laboratories. They wondered, for example, if the phenomenon might not be a warning against the uncertainty created by these changes and the perceived lack of control evinced by cattlemen. Globalization may be related to the role played by a country that “benefits from our raw materials and natural resources, removing them in an efficient yet imperceptible manner,” without leaving traces. News about cattle mutilations, they write, seemed to condense a wider metaphor reflecting a country in a state of crisis that is trying to identify the culprits. Who is attacking the cows, tame and apathetic representative of Argentine heritage? Is our blood being sucked by international agencies or domestic carrion animals?” The popular imagination, they conclude, “could sublimate the conflicting demands of the IMF with regard to the foreign debt.” (6)
In proposing their model, Blache and Balzano did not conduct a survey on the political trends or the technical-scientific concerns of cattlemen. Implementing a sort of psycho-cultural analysis using press clippings is always risky. But the authors are the first to say that their hypothesis rests only on journalistic sources. At least they didn’t keep quiet.
The authors also noticed the similarity in the conclusions reached by Kenneth M. Rommel when the FBI assigned him to study the bovine massacre in the United States in 1980 and those of SENASA in 2002. In his study of twenty-seven cattle mutilations, Rommel ascribed the phenomenon to the combined effect of the media, the social influence of “experts” and the action of various predators in the genesis, formation and extension of the wave. (7) Both in the United States and Argentina, the mutilated carcasses were found according to pre-defined patterns. What the authors have termed “the media transmission chain” supposes the participation of narrators who contribute to disseminating a legend regardless of their posture toward it. This consensual version of the reality to be defined arises from an “identikit”, and these strangeness patterns configure, in turn a “selection criteria”. Thus, in order for the animal to belong to the category of “mutilated cattle”, it must meet a number of symptoms and even common scenarios. In order to build a “classic cattle mutilation scenario”, the animal must be found without its organs or soft tissue. The edges of its skin must be “clean, circular or with sharp angles” and the body must be as dry as possible, “as though exsanguinated”. Rommel did not find this “ideal case” in any of the one hundred seventeen mutilations he researched between 1975 and 1979, especially because – as in the Argentinean case – “surgical precision” vanished under the microscope and the exsanguination was only apparent. “Blood always pools in the lower parts of the carcass.” The missing parts – soft tissue organs – are the parts appealing to a carnivorous predator. He also discovered that the areas under the carcasses’ weight was also intact. An “intelligent mutilator” would have turned it over to devour the hidden parts. This was never the case.
[…]
In the United States, sociologist J.R. Stewart found that the number of cattle mutilation incidents was directly related to the volume of news devoted to the subject in the media. He also interviewed eight hundred adults and determined that the police, having no experience in elucidating the causes of cattle deaths, and certain local vets, more accustomed to treating live animals, were inclined to accept the farmers’ eyewitness accounts (9). A similar study was not performed in Argentina, but the phenomenon came to an end when the media moved on to other subjects. Application of the “pitted windshield theory” can lead one to think of a case of selective perception molded by the stereotype provided by the media. I must stress that I am not a sociologist who can reduce the phenomenon to a case of mass hysteria. Even so, this theory seems more convincing to me than finding explanations in the incursions of a bloodthirsty Chupacabras, aliens hankering to throw some creole spareribs on the grill or a gang of lunatic scientists injecting strange potions into our cows.
For the moment, we know that the media is accustomed to broadcasting mutilated images of reality, and we cannot ask cows for their opinion. They can’t even moo. The red muzzled mouse – Professor Kravetz told me – swallowed their tongues.
Sources
“El Senasa dictaminó que las vacas mutiladas murieron ‘por causas naturales’” (01-07-02), in diario La Nación , Buenos Aires. “Vacas muertas: eran mutiladas por ratones de campo y zorros”, in diario Clarín, Buenos Aires (2-07-2002).
“Las vacas podrían haber sido mutiladas”, in diario Clarín (22-06-2002) y “El enigma de las vacas mutiladas, reportado por dos investigadoras en Internet”, in diario Clarín (24-06-2002).
“La salida de Cané del Senasa fue por una disputa política” (23/8/2003). In diario Río Negro.
Agostinelli, Alejandro (2002); “Vague de mutilations animales en Argentine”. In VSD Hors Série N° 5, pp. 56-61. Ed. GS Presse Com., Francia.
Balmaceda, Oscar (2002); “El INTA dice que las vacas mutiladas murieron por causas naturales” (29-06-02), in Diario La Nación, Buenos Aires. “Observaciones sobre supuestas mutilaciones en bovinos en el sudeste de Buenos Aires. Grupo de Sanidad Animal” INTA EEA Balcarce.
Balzano, Silvia; Blache, Martha (2004); “La leyenda del Chupacabras en el área pampeana. Una posible interpretación” In Folklore Latinoamericano, Tomo V, pp. 41-53, Buenos Aires, Instituto Universitario Nacional del Arte. Also see: Balzano, Silvia; Blache, Martha (2003-2004); “La cadena de transmisión mediacional en una leyenda contemporánea: El caso de las vacas mutiladas como metáfora de la crisis argentina actual”. In Estudos de Literatura Oral, No. 9-10, 39-55, Universidade do Algarve, Portugal.
Stewart, James R. (1980); “Collective Delusion. A comparison of believers and skeptics” en Midwest Sociological Society, Milwaukee, Winsconsin, Estados Unidos.
[Translation (c) 2014 Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology (IHU)]
Several Ancient Viruses Have Been Discovered in 15,000-Year-Old Glacial Ice
Several Ancient Viruses Have Been Discovered in 15,000-Year-Old Glacial Ice
KRISTIN HAUSER, FUTURISM
In 2015, a team of scientists from the United States and China traveled to Tibet to gather samples of Earth's oldest glacial ice.
Earlier this month, they published a paper on the pre-print server bioRxiv detailing their discovery of 28 new virus groups in the 15,000-year-old ice - and warning that climate change could free the ancient viruses into the modern world.
The team drilled 50 meters (164 feet) down into the glacier to obtain two ice cores, which then underwent a three-step decontamination protocol.
After that, the researchers used microbiology techniques to identify microbes in the samples.
Those techniques revealed 33 virus groups - including, notably, 28 ancient viruses that scientists had never seen before.
"This study establishes ultra-clean microbial and viral sampling procedures for glacier ice, which complements prior in silico decontamination methods and expands, for the first time, the clean procedures to viruses," the team wrote.
As the team pointed out in their paper, climate change now threatens both our ability to exhaustively catalogue those tiny lifeforms - as well as our ability to stay safe from dangerous ones.
"At a minimum, [ice melt] could lead to the loss of microbial and viral archives that could be diagnostic and informative of past Earth climate regimes," they wrote.
"However, in a worst-case scenario, this ice melt could release pathogens into the environment."
Led by Catherine LaFarge, a geologist from the University of Alberta in Edmonton (Canada), they were exploring an area called the Sverdrup Pass, which until just recently had been covered by ice. The Teardrop Glacier had spread all across Ellesmere Island during the Little Ice Age, a global cold spell that affected weather and climate conditions in the Northern Hemisphere between 1550 and 1850.
While trudging across newly exposed ground, the scientists found clumps of moss that were mostly browned or blackened. But in among this dead plant life were some spots of green, indicating that a process of regeneration and regrowth had started to occur.
This was remarkable, because LaFarge and the other scientists knew they were not looking at moss that had grown recently. What they’d discovered had originally lived and died several hundred years ago, and it had been trapped beneath the ice for several centuries. Incredibly, moss that had been buried and frozen solid beneath the Teardrop Glacier had begun to regenerate, as if it hadn’t been affected by its centuries-long entombment at all.
LaFarge was able to identify these moss samples as bryophytes, which are extremely resilient plants that have been on Earth for millenia. They are vital contributors to the health and vitality of polar ecosystems, playing a role in their creation and maintenance. They’d been hardy enough to survive in the harsh Arctic climate in the first place, and now that warming trends had exposed them to the open air they had sprung to life once again. They had likely been exposed to the open air for about two years by the time they’d been discovered by the Canadian scientists.
The scientists took samples of the bryophytes back to their laboratory for further study and experimentation. Radiocarbon dating methods confirmed that the moss was approximately 400 years old, yet its ability to produce new life had not been extinguished by the trauma it had experienced.
To test its potency, LaFarge and her team sliced the moss into sections and placing them in controlled environments where light, temperatures and nutrition were ideal for growing. Eventually, seven out of 24 samples sprouted new plants, which to all appearances were perfectly healthy and vibrant.
As LaFarge explained, new moss doesn’t grow from seeds or spores, but from individual plant cells that can create copies of themselves directly. This unique quality may contribute to moss’s ability to regenerate quickly and robustly, even after being placed in suspended frozen animation underneath a glacier for more than four centuries.
More Moss Miracles
This important discovery forced biologists to revise their ideas about the ability of life to survive frozen conditions. But as remarkable as this finding was, scientists affiliated with the British Antarctic Survey and Reading University did their Canadian counterparts one better .
In 2014, just one year after the Ellesmere Island discovery, the British scientists retrieved moss samples from deep inside a frozen moss bank found on the Antarctic tundra. Using radiocarbon dating, they discovered the moss was approximately 1,500 years old. But despite its tremendous antiquity, when the plants were sliced into sections and placed inside an incubator, after a few weeks they, too, began to regenerate.
Even after suffering through the deepest of deep freezes in the coldest continent on our planet, these moss samples had not lost their capacity to regenerate when given enough light, water and nutrition.
“This experiment shows that multi-cellular organisms, plants in this case, can survive over far longer timescales than previously thought,” said Professor Peter Convey, one of the lead scientists involved in this study. “These mosses, a key part of the ecosystem, could survive century to millennial periods of ice advance.”
“If they can survive in this way,” he continued,” then recolonisation following an Ice Age, once ice retreats, would be a lot easier than migrating trans-oceanic distances from warmer regions. It also maintains diversity in an area that would otherwise be wiped clean of life by the ice advance.”
And while the idea may seem farfetched, Convey mentions another possibility that has probably occurred to everyone who has heard this story.
“Although it would be a big jump from the current finding, this does raise the possibility of complex lifeforms surviving even longer periods once encased in permafrost or ice.”
Convey doesn’t specify what he means by “complex lifeforms.” But it boggles the mind to think about what might be buried under the glaciers that cover the polar realms. One thing we know for sure is that thanks to global warming, much of the land that is currently ice covered above the Arctic Circle and near the South Pole may eventually be exposed.
Could Rampaging Viruses —or Vegetable Men —Be Next?
There are many science fiction movies that feature the reanimation of living creatures frozen solid in ice. In 1951’s “The Thing from Another World,” a man-eating, six-foot tall vegetable from another planet, originally encased in a block of ice, terrorizes the occupants of an Arctic research station after accidentally being thawed out by an electric blanket. In 1967’s “The Frozen Dead,” a mad scientist thaws and resuscitates Nazi soldiers he’s kept stored on his English country estate, unaware that they’ve been converted into bloodthirsty zombies.
Far-out storylines like this might appear to have no connection to defrosted and revived moss. But just because moss is benign, that doesn’t mean there aren’t dangers inherent in thawing out lifeforms that lived in others epoch. Some of these lifeforms could very well represent a threat to the health and safety of humanity, and scientists should think carefully about the possible ramifications before opening Pandora’s box and reviving everything they can find.
In the real world, the concern is not so much about frozen animals, Neanderthals, or aliens from crashed spaceships. The real fear is that scientists might mistakenly activate long-dormant viruses or bacteria that we would have no capacity to resist. As human activity continues to heat the planet, the thawing of the tundra in Siberia and the retreat of the glaciers inside the Arctic Circle and in Antarctica could release and reactivate hidden and potentially lethal microorganisms. If such a scenario were to be realized, we could be exposed to hazards that might be even more deadly than Nazi zombies or alien vegetable-men.
The possibility of such an event is not strictly theoretical. In 2014, a group of French scientists revived an ancient virus found frozen in a soil sample taken from 30 metres below the icy tundra of eastern Siberia. Dubbed Pithovirus Sibericum , this gigantic virus was far larger and more complex than the viruses we see today, and is believed to evolved entirely separately from modern infectious agents.
Fortunately, this virus was found to be harmless to humans. But the next one or the next one after that could be lethal, and if humans are unwittingly exposed to it because of thawing tundra there is no telling how much damage it might do.
Top image: Regenerating moss. Credit: mllevphoto / Adobe Stock
Ancient Mystery Viruses Discovered Sealed Within Tibetan Glacier For 15,000 Years
Ancient Mystery Viruses Discovered Sealed Within Tibetan Glacier For 15,000 Years
Scientists have found 28 new groups of ancient viruses buried deep within a cold slumber. The viruses were discovered inside the cores of a 15,000-year-old Guliya ice cap on the Tibetan Plateau.
In their paper available on bioRxiv, researchers explain that contaminating such samples of viruses is not difficult. Hence, scientists employed a new method to study microbes preserved within the ice for ultraclean microbial and viral sampling, according to LiveScience.
They employed their techniques to study two ice core samples of the Tibetan glaciers which were collected and stored previously without special care against contamination. So, the exteriors were contaminated but the insides of the samples were still in mint condition.
The team was able to access the samples by gradually getting rid of the outer layers of ice by various methods. In a cold room maintained at -5°C, researchers used a sterilized band to cut a layer of ice, followed by ethanol to melt another layer of ice and then washed with sterile water to remove another layer. A total of 1.5 centimetres of ice was removed to reach an uncontaminated layer. The researchers found 33 groups of virus genera of which, 28 were previously unknown. The microbes found in each ice core differed from the others, indicating that they were stored at different periods of climate conditions.
While these microbes were studied by researchers in controlled conditions, it is possible that the ice melt due to global warming might cause such ancient microbes to be released into the environment. The researchers in their paper explained, “At a minimum, this could lead to the loss of microbial and viral archives that could be diagnostic and informative of past Earth climate regimes; however, in a worst-case scenario, this ice melt could release pathogens into the environment.”
Using new geochemical models, SwRI scientists found that CO2 in Enceladus' ocean may be controlled by chemical reactions at the seafloor. Integrating this finding with previous discoveries of H2 and silica suggests geochemically diverse environments in the rocky core. This diversity has the potential to create energy sources that could support life. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A Southwest Research Institute team developed a new geochemical model that reveals that carbon dioxide (CO2) from within Enceladus, an ocean-harboring moon of Saturn, may be controlled by chemical reactions at its seafloor. Studying the plume of gases and frozen sea spray released through cracks in the moon's icy surface suggests an interior more complex than previously thought.
"By understanding the composition of the plume, we can learn about what the ocean is like, how it got to be this way and whether it provides environments where life as we know it could survive," said SwRI's Dr. Christopher Glein, lead author of a paper in Geophysical Research Letters outlining the research. "We came up with a new technique for analyzing the plume composition to estimate the concentration of dissolved CO2 in the ocean. This enabled modeling to probe deeper interior processes."
Analysis of mass spectrometry data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft indicates that the abundance of CO2 is best explained by geochemical reactions between the moon's rocky core and liquid water from its subsurface ocean. Integrating this information with previous discoveries of silica and molecular hydrogen (H2) points to a more complex, geochemically diverse core.
"Based on our findings, Enceladus appears to demonstrate a massive carbon sequestration experiment," Glein said. "On Earth, climate scientists are exploring whether a similar process can be utilized to mitigate industrial emissions of CO2. Using two different data sets, we derived CO2 concentration ranges that are intriguingly similar to what would be expected from the dissolution and formation of certain mixtures of silicon- and carbon-bearing minerals at the seafloor."
Another phenomenon that contributes to this complexity is the likely presence of hydrothermal vents inside Enceladus. At Earth's ocean floor, hydrothermal vents emit hot, energy-rich, mineral-laden fluids that allow unique ecosystems teeming with unusual creatures to thrive.
"The dynamic interface of a complex core and seawater could potentially create energy sources that might support life," said SwRI's Dr. Hunter Waite, principal investigator of Cassini's Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS). "While we have not found evidence of the presence of microbial life in the ocean of Enceladus, the growing evidence for chemical disequilibrium offers a tantalizing hint that habitable conditions could exist beneath the moon's icy crust."
The scientific community continues reaping the benefits of Cassini's close flyby of Enceladus on Oct. 28, 2015, prior to the end of the mission. INMS detected H2 as the spacecraft flew through the plume, and a different instrument had earlier detected tiny particles of silica, two chemicals that are considered to be markers for hydrothermal processes.
"Distinct sources of observed CO2, silica and H2 imply mineralogically and thermally diverse environments in a heterogeneous rocky core," Glein said. "We suggest that the core is composed of a carbonated upper layer and a serpentinized interior." Carbonates commonly occur as sedimentary rocks such as limestone on Earth, while serpentine minerals are formed from igneous seafloor rocks that are rich in magnesium and iron.
It is proposed that hydrothermal oxidation of reduced iron deep in the core creates H2, while hydrothermal activity intersecting quartz-bearing carbonated rocks produces silica-rich fluids. Such rocks also have potential to influence the CO2 chemistry of the ocean via low-temperature reactions involving silicates and carbonates at the seafloor.
"The implications for possible life enabled by a heterogeneous core structure are intriguing," said Glein. "This model could explain how planetary differentiation and alteration processes create chemical (energy) gradients needed by subsurface life."
OUDSTE INSLAG OP AARDE SUGGEREERT DAT EEN METEORIET DE IJZIGE AARDE LIET ONTDOOIEN
OUDSTE INSLAG OP AARDE SUGGEREERT DAT EEN METEORIET DE IJZIGE AARDE LIET ONTDOOIEN
Vivian Lammerse
Door de immense klap kwam er veel waterdamp vrij, wat een einde maakte aan de bevroren staat van onze aarde.
Onderzoekers hebben zich in een nieuwe studie gepubliceerd in het toonaangevende tijdschrift Nature Communications gebogen over de Yarrabubba-krater. Deze krater is te vinden in het binnenland van West-Australië en is ontstaan door een inslag van een meteoriet. De bevindingen zijn zeer interessant. Want niet alleen hebben de onderzoekers de leeftijd van de krater weten te achterhalen, het is ook gelukt om de gevolgen van de impact bloot te leggen.
Leeftijd Het team besloot allereerst de precieze leeftijd van de krater te bepalen. “Yarrabubba was al vele jaren erkend als inslagkrater,” zegt onderzoeker Chris Kirkland. “Maar tot nu toe wist men nog niet hoe oud deze eigenlijk was.” Na een grondige analyse van de aangetroffen mineralen zirkoon en monaziet, zijn de onderzoekers erachter gekomen dat de Yarrabubba-krater een slordige 2.229 miljard jaar oud is. En dat is bijzonder oud. Sterker nog, het betekent dat deze krater de oudste op aarde is. De Yarrabubba-krater blijkt daarnaast zo’n 200 miljoen jaar ouder dan de eerstvolgende inslagkrater
Het mineraal zirkoon dat werd onderzocht om de Yarrabubba-krater te dateren.
Afbeelding: Curtin University
Bovendien lukte het de onderzoekers om een beeld van de meteoriet-inslag te schetsen. Waarschijnlijk stortte de meteoriet neer in een met ijs bedekt landschap. Hierdoor verdampte een grote hoeveelheid ijs dat vervolgens naar de atmosfeer werd getransporteerd. De inslag vormde bovendien een enorme krater met een diameter van wel 70 kilometer.
Sneeuwbalaarde Door verschillende gegevens en informatie over onze aarde naast elkaar te leggen, kwamen de onderzoekers erachter dat de inslag een grote klimaatverandering teweeg heeft gebracht. En dat is interessant. Waarschijnlijk heeft de meteoriet-inslag er namelijk voor gezorgd dat de eens bevroren aarde begon te ontdooien. “De Yarrabubba-krater ontstond aan het einde van wat ook wel de sneeuwbalaarde wordt genoemd,” legt Kirkland uit. In die tijd was de aarde volledig bedekt met ijs en herbergde bevroren oceanen. Maar op een bepaald moment werden oceanen zuurstofrijker en verdween het ijs. En het zou best weleens kunnen dat de meteorietinslag in de Yarrabubba-krater daarvoor het startschot gaf. “De leeftijd van de inslagkrater komt overeen met de ondergang van een reeks oude ijstijden,” legt onderzoeker Nicholas Timms uit. “Na de inslag zien we in de data 400 miljoen jaar lang geen ijsafzettingen. Deze speling van het lot suggereert dat de grote meteorietinslag invloed kan hebben gehad op het wereldwijde klimaat.”
Waterdamp Om daar een goed beeld van te krijgen, besloten de onderzoekers er wat modellen op los te laten. “Berekeningen gaven aan dat een dergelijke inslag op een met ijs bedekt continent een half biljoen ton waterdamp – een belangrijk broeikasgas – de atmosfeer in stuurde,” zegt Timms. En het zou heel goed kunnen dat dit een einde heeft gemaakt aan de bevroren staat van onze planeet.
De bevindingen hebben belangrijke implicaties voor toekomstige ontdekkingen van inslagkraters. “De resultaten benadrukken dat het belangrijk is om de precieze leeftijd van kraters te achterhalen,” zegt onderzoeker Aaron Cavosie. “Het bestaan van de Yarrabubba-krater was al zeker twee decennia bekend, maar nu pas weten we hoe oud hij is.” En dankzij deze informatie krijgen wetenschappers een steeds beter beeld van de geschiedenis van de aarde. De vraag is nu of de Yarrabubba-krater de oudste zal blijven, of dat onderzoekers op nóg oudere inslagkraters gaan stuiten. “Het roept de vraag op of alle oudere inslagkraters zijn geërodeerd, of dat ze nog steeds wachten om ontdekt te worden,” besluit Cavosie.
The Earth could be headed for a 'mini ice age' researchers have warned.
A new study claims to have cracked predicting solar cycles - and says that between 2020 and 2030 solar cycles will cancel each other out.
This, they say, will lead to a phenomenon known as the 'Maunder minimum' - which has previously been known as a mini ice age when it hit between 1646 and 1715, even causing London's River Thames to freeze over.
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A silent sun: In 2011 this image was captured showing an almost clear sun - which experts say could happen for almost a decade from 2030.
THE SOLAR CYCLE
Conventional wisdom holds that solar activity swings back and forth like a simple pendulum.
At one end of the cycle, there is a quiet time with few sunspots and flares.
At the other end, solar max brings high sunspot numbers and frequent solar storms.
It's a regular rhythm that repeats every 11 years.
Reality is more complicated.
Astronomers have been counting sunspots for centuries, and they have seen that the solar cycle is not perfectly regular.
The new model of the Sun's solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun's 11-year heartbeat.
It draws on dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, one close to the surface and one deep within its convection zone.
Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the 'mini ice age' that began in 1645, according to the results presented by Prof Valentina Zharkova at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno.
The model predicts that the pair of waves become increasingly offset during Cycle 25, which peaks in 2022.
During Cycle 26, which covers the decade from 2030-2040, the two waves will become exactly out of synch and this will cause a significant reduction in solar activity.
'In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other – peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun,' said Zharkova.
'Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other.
'We predict that this will lead to the properties of a 'Maunder minimum''
'Effectively, when the waves are approximately in phase, they can show strong interaction, or resonance, and we have strong solar activity.
'When they are out of phase, we have solar minimums.
'When there is full phase separation, we have the conditions last seen during the Maunder minimum, 370 years ago.'
THE MAUNDER MINIMUM
The Maunder Minimum (also known as the prolonged sunspot minimum) is the name used for the period starting in about 1645 and continuing to about 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time.
It caused London's River Thames to freeze over, and 'frost fairs' became popular.
This period of solar inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the 'Little Ice Age' when rivers that are normally ice-free froze and snow fields remained year-round at lower altitudes.
There is evidence that the Sun has had similar periods of inactivity in the more distant past, Nasa says.
The connection between solar activity and terrestrial climate is an area of on-going research.
Some scientists hypothesize that the dense wood used in Stradivarius instruments was caused by slow tree growth during the cooler period.
Instrument maker Antonio Stradivari was born a year before the start of the Maunder Minimum.
Maunder Minimum (also known as the prolonged sunspot minimum) is the name used for the period starting in about 1645 and continuing to about 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time
It is 172 years since a scientist first spotted that the Sun's activity varies over a cycle lasting around 10 to 12 years.
But every cycle is a little different and none of the models of causes to date have fully explained fluctuations.
The Frozen Thames, 1677 - an oil painting by Abraham Hondius shows the old London Bridge during the Maunder Minimum
Many solar physicists have put the cause of the solar cycle down to a dynamo caused by convecting fluid deep within the Sun.
Now, Zharkova and her colleagues have found that adding a second dynamo, close to the surface, completes the picture with surprising accuracy.
'We found magnetic wave components appearing in pairs, originating in two different layers in the Sun's interior,' she said.
'They both have a frequency of approximately 11 years, although this frequency is slightly different, and they are offset in time.
'Over the cycle, the waves fluctuate between the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun. Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97%,' said Zharkova.
Montage of images of solar activity between August 1991 and September 2001 taken by the Yohkoh Soft X-ray Telecope, showing variation in solar activity during a sunspot cycle.
Zharkova and her colleagues derived their model using a technique called 'principal component analysis' of the magnetic field observations from the Wilcox Solar Observatory in California.
They examined three solar cycles-worth of magnetic field activity, covering the period from 1976-2008.
In addition, they compared their predictions to average sunspot numbers, another strong marker of solar activity.
All the predictions and observations were closely matched.
VAN WIEG TOT GRAF: ZO ZIET HET LEVEN VAN EEN STER ERUIT
VAN WIEG TOT GRAF: ZO ZIET HET LEVEN VAN EEN STER ERUIT
Jurjen de Jong
Als je ze ziet twinkelen aan de hemel zou je het niet zeggen. Maar al deze sterren worden mede mogelijk gemaakt door catastrofale explosies. En velen ervan komen door zo’n zelfde explosie aan hun einde.
Je hebt vast wel eens naar de hemel gestaard en je misschien afgevraagd wat al deze lichtpuntjes die wij sterren noemen nu werkelijk zijn en hoe het leven van een ster, zoals onze zon, begint en verdergaat. Na het lezen van dit artikel heb je antwoorden op al deze vragen.
Geboorte Sterren ontstaan door het samentrekken van gaswolken (nevels) die wel enkele lichtjaren – de afstand die licht aflegt in een jaar tijd – breed kunnen zijn. De ineenstorting ontstaat onder de invloed van zijn eigen gewicht en de zwaartekracht. Dit proces kan enkele honderdduizenden jaren duren. Het grootste deel van zo’n gaswolk bestaat uit de lichtste elementen van ons universum: waterstof en helium. De rest zijn zwaardere elementen. Dit zijn overblijfselen van oudere sterren die aan hun einde gekomen zijn door middel van een supernova explosie. Hier komen we later op terug. Zodra zo’n gaswolk begint ineen te storten, zal ook de temperatuur stijgen. Niet al het materiaal beweegt zich naar één punt, maar een gaswolk splitst zich op in meerdere subgaswolken. In de kern van zo’n subgaswolk komt materiaal samen en begint steeds sneller rond te draaien. Als gevolg daarvan wordt er een compact lichaam gevormd dat we een protoster noemen. De hoeveelheid van het beschikbare materiaal bepaalt hoe heet en groot de ster wordt. Ook komt het regelmatig voor dat er een dubbelstersysteem of soms zelfs een meervoudig sterysteem ontstaat, waarbij er dus meerdere sterren gravitationeel aan elkaar gebonden zijn.
Niet al het materiaal van een subgaswolk vormt een protoster. Dit betekent dat een ander deel rond de protoster in banen blijft draaien. Dit wordt de protoplanetaire schijf genoemd, waaruit later planeten kunnen ontstaan. Ondertussen stopt langzaam de ineenstorting van het materiaal van de protoster, doordat er ook een uitwaartse stralingsdruk is vanuit de kern. Zodra de zwaartekracht en de stralingsdruk in balans zijn, is de protoster stabiel en wordt dan een ster genoemd. De temperatuur is door de samendrukking van de atomen hoog genoeg geworden om kernfusie op gang te laten komen. Je kunt dan ook wel zeggen dat een ster eigenlijk een natuurlijke kernfusiereactor is.
Kernfusie Als eerste worden waterstofatomen door kernfusiereacties gefuseerd tot heliumatomen. Vier waterstofatomen zijn gelijk aan één heliumatoom plus een resterende massa. Deze overgebleven hoeveelheid massa wordt door de welbekende formule van Einstein 𝐸 = 𝑚𝑐2 omgezet in energie. Deze energie zorgt voor extra weerstand tegen ineenstorting. Over het volledig omzetten van een waterstofkern naar helium doet een gemiddelde ster ongeveer 90% van zijn leven (een ster leeft miljarden jaren). Zodra de ster zijn waterstof volledig ‘opgebrand’ heeft in de kern, stoppen de kernfusies en heb je een heliumkern. Omdat de temperatuur nog niet hoog genoeg is om helium te gaan fuseren, begint de kern weer in elkaar te krimpen en de temperatuur te stijgen. Aan de buitenrand van de kern zit nog waterstof en deze temperatuur stijgt ook, totdat het hier warm genoeg is voor de fusie van waterstof. De kern krimpt in de tussentijd, waardoor de temperatuur steeds meer toeneemt en de waterstoffusie in de buitenrand van de kern versnelt. Uiteindelijk is de temperatuur in de kern hoog genoeg geworden om helium te gaan fuseren tot koolstof en zuurstof.
Kernfusie. Links tijdens waterstoffusie, rechts tijdens heliumfusie in de kern en waterstoffusie in een schil er omheen.
Rode reus Als er buiten de kern een fusieproces plaatsvindt, gaat de ster plotseling veel meer energie opwekken en begint op te zwellen. Doordat de oppervlakte toeneemt, neemt de oppervlaktetemperatuur af en verandert de ster van kleur. In dit stadium wordt de ster een ‘rode reus’ genoemd. Dit is een vrij instabiele periode in het leven van een ster. De ster is aan het opzwellen en inkrimpen. Als een ster lichter is dan 2,2 maal de massa van de zon en de temperatuur opgelopen is tot 100-200 miljoen, ontstaat er een plotselinge heliumflits. Tijdens zo’n heliumflits komt er net zoveel energie vrij als alle sterren in de Melkweg in dezelfde periode opwekken. Bij zwaardere sterren gaat de kernfusie van helium naar koolstof en zuurstof een stuk geleidelijker, waardoor er geen plotselinge heliumflits ontstaat.
Laatste levensfases Wat er volgt in het leven van een ster is sterk afhankelijk van de grootte van de ster. Je zou misschien verwachten dat een kleinere ster een korter leven heeft. Dit is niet zo. Hoe groter, hoe korter het leven, omdat de kernfusies langzamer gaan in kleinere sterren. Zo kan de lengte van het leven van een ster variëren tussen de 1 miljoen en 100 miljard jaar. Sterren met een massa tussen de 0,08 en 0,5 maal de massa van de zon, worden ‘rode dwergen’ genoemd. Over hun laatste levensfases is weinig bekend, omdat ons universum nog te jong is om dit type ster de tijd te geven om op een natuurlijke manier aan zijn einde te komen. Voor sterren die lichter zijn dan achtmaal de massa van onze zon, is er geen volgende stap nadat het helium in de kern uitgefuseerd is, omdat er geen temperatuur behaald kan worden die zorgt voor fusie van koolstof. Uiteindelijk zal de kern samendrukken totdat er geen samenpersing meer mogelijk is. Op dit moment heet de ster een ‘witte dwerg’. De witte dwerg kan zijn buitenste lagen niet meer vasthouden en deze worden afgestoten en vormen een planetaire nevel (dit heeft overigens niks met planeten te maken). Dit lot staat onze zon dus ook te wachten. Maar geen paniek: het duurt nog 5 miljard jaar voordat onze zon door zijn waterstofvoorraad heen zal zijn.
“BEDENK DAT BIJNA AL HET MATERIAAL DAT JE IN HET DAGELIJKS LEVEN OM JE HEEN ZIET, OF HET IJZER DAT IN JE BLOED ZIT, UITEINDELIJK GROTENDEELS GEPRODUCEERD IS IN ZWARE STERREN”
Voor sterren die grofweg zwaarder zijn dan achtmaal de massa van onze zon is het wel mogelijk om een temperatuur te bereiken waarbij koolstof gefuseerd kan worden tot neon. Verder vindt nog, in verschillende lagen rond de kern, fusie van de lichtere elementen (waterstof, helium en koolstof) plaats. Hoe dichter bij de kern, hoe warmer en hoe zwaarder de elementen zijn die gefuseerd worden. De kernfusies van steeds zwaardere elementen gaan door totdat ijzer in de kern ontstaat. Dit element wordt niet gefuseerd tot zwaardere elementen, omdat de fusie in plaats van energie oplevert, juist energie kost. Als gevolg valt de druk vanuit de kern weg en stort de ster in onder zijn eigen zwaartekracht. Dit resulteert in een heftige explosie, welke ook wel bekend staat als een supernova. Voor sterren met een kern lichter dan driemaal de massa van de zon, blijft de kern over als een neutronster. Dit is een ster met een enorme grote dichtheid. Het kan zijn dat zo’n ster misschien maar een diameter van 10 km heeft, terwijl het gelijk is aan de massa van de zon. Als de ster zwaarder is, dan zal de kern imploderen en veranderen in het welbekende – maar toch mysterieuze – zwarte gat. Dit is een extreem compacte ‘massa’, die de ruimtetijd heftig vervormt. Hieraan kan niks ontsnappen, zelfs licht niet.
De elementen die door een supernova uitgestoten worden, zijn de zware elementen die weer in andere gaswolken terechtkomen. De explosie van zo’n supernova kan ook een gaswolk weer triggeren om ineen te storten. Op deze manier ontstaan er weer nieuwe sterren en begint het hele verhaal weer van voor af aan…
Over de auteur Jurjen de Jong (1993) heeft een bachelor wiskunde en bachelor natuurkunde behaald in Utrecht en een master wiskundige natuur-en sterrenkunde in Gent afgerond. Onlangs rondde hij de master-na-master in Space Studies in Leuven af met een stage bij de ESA en momenteel werkt hij als data scientist. Jurjen leest graag over de verschillende ontdekkingen en ontwikkelingen op wetenschapsgebied en door er over te schrijven hoopt hij zijn kennis te delen met een groter publiek. Zijn artikelen verschijnen niet alleen op Scientias.nl, maar ook op een blog die hij recent lanceerde: Asbronomers.com. Eerder verscheen van Jurjens hand al dit interessante artikel waarin hij uitzoekt of het nodig is dat ook de ruimtevaart groener wordt. Ook zocht hij voor Scientias.nl uit of de ruimtelift werkelijk toekomst heeft. Recent publiceerde hij ook artikelen over ruimtemijnbouw en de slimme stad.
Bronmateriaal:
S. G. Ryan., A.J. Norton (2010). “Stellar Evolution and Nucleosynthesis”. Cambridge University Press
NASA. “The Life Cycles of Stars: How Supernovae Are Formed”,
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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