An artist's depiction of a stellar flare from an L dwarf star.

(Image: © ESA)

The strange flare also went unnoticed for more than a decade after it happened on July 5, 2008. It was caught by the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, but lay in an archive until a search turned up the event. It was quite the event, too, since the little star sent out more than 10 times the energy of the most intense flare sent out by our own sun.

"This is the most interesting scientific part of the discovery, because we did not expect L-dwarf stars to store enough energy in their magnetic fields to give rise to such outbursts," Beate Stelzer, a co-author on a new paper describing the event and an astrophysicist at Germany's Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics and at Italy's Astronomical Observatory of Palermo, said in an ESA statement.

Scientists don't really understand how this flare could have arisen. L dwarfs only have a surface temperature of about 3,320 degrees Fahrenheit (1,830 degrees Celsius). That's about a third of the sun's surface temperature of 10,340 F (5,730 C). At the lower temperatures of an L dwarf, astronomers' models suggested that there isn't enough energy to fuel a star's magnetic field, which would govern the flare. "We just don't know — nobody knows," Stelzer said of why the event happened.

But the astronomers did point out that XMM-Newton observed the star for 40 days and only saw the one flare, which suggests that an L dwarf takes a longer time to build up energy than the sun does — perhaps contributing to the size of the flare.

"A number of similar stars had been seen to emit super flares in the optical part of the spectrum, but this is the first unambiguous detection of such an eruption at X-ray wavelengths," ESA added in the same statement. "The wavelength is significant because it signals which part of the atmosphere the super flare is coming from: optical light comes from deeper in the star's atmosphere, near its visible surface, whereas X-rays come from higher up in the atmosphere."

A paper based on the research was published Feb. 12 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

• Stunning photos of solar flares & sun storms
• Solar blast! Sun surprises with 3 powerful flares (video)
• First new sunspots in 40 days herald coming solar cycle

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

24-02-2020 om 23:48 geschreven door peter  

Over 100 Stars Are Missing! Sky Quakes, Artificial Dimensions, Machine Elves & Ghosts

Anyone looking for something to binge watch? Here’s some MIND BLOWING stuff! Full version of a new 5 part series… Where are the stars going? Does Time exist? The 33rd Parallel, Megaliths, Missing stars, New Constellations, 13th sign of the zodiac, Strange sounds in the sky,

A.I. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, machine elves, deepDream machine art, chakras, dimensions, New Age Horoscopes, light workers and energy workers, bad trips, the “trip” gatekeeper… and so much MORE! (Please stick around to the end… saved the best for last 

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

24-02-2020 om 23:06 geschreven door peter  

Inexplicable Ancient Artifacts... Experts Are Still Trying to Explain These Relics

videos, selected by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

24-02-2020 om 22:31 geschreven door peter  

Black Disk Shoots Past Moon While Youtube Livestreams! Feb 10, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Feb 10, 2020

Location of sighting: Earths moon

 

This was brought to my attention by a Youtuber named Willease. He posted this video of a persons live streaming...where a UFO suddenly appears for a split second. The UFO is oval shaped and looks like a disk. Its only visible for a second so you have to watch the video carefully. Stop the video at 57 sec mark to see the UFO well. An awesome example of a disk. This is not a satellite, because it has no antennas or solar panels, its not the space station, because its totally the wrong shape...wow, just wow!

Scott C. Waring 

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

24-02-2020 om 22:05 geschreven door peter  

UFO On The Coast Of Denia, Spain 2018-08-03, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: 8-3-2018
Location of sighting: Denia, Spain 
Source: MUFON 106337

Here is a great UFO video. Why is it great? I was taken in the daytime with a high quality camera and has an excellent eyewitness description to go with it. Three things I really like. This person was at the beach in Spain and noticed a flying object in the sky. Its whitish silver and highly reflective as it changes its shape. The shape and the movement of the object reminds me of some UFO videos released by the military in infrared. These are drones...able to change shapes at whim. Sent by aliens to record and retrieve data...and they record everything...ocean temps, pollutants, animals, insects wind speed...everything. So don't think we are so important they are here for us all the time...because there are other things on earth too they are highly interested in learning about. 

This drone was heading out into the ocean, probably towards the location of an under the ocean alien base not far off  the coast of Spain. 
Scott C. Waring 

Eyewitness states: 

My wife, my son (7 years old at that time) and I were on the beach in Denia (38°51'02.3"N 0°05'59.5"E) having a relaxing afternoon while on holidays, when at around 17:30, my wife noticed on her right-hand side, a bright object cruising slowly just around above the Castle of Denia (38°50'50.6"N 0°06'49.0"E) towards our position, following the coastline in a South-East North-west path (38°53'53.9"N 0°03'54.0"E). In the beginning, we thought it was just a drone, but the object seemed too big and too bright from the distance to be just a drone, despite the sun could well reflect on metallic objects depending on the angle and position.

As the object was approaching, the brightness didn't seem to change but rather pulsate, which we started to think about something unusual. A commercial flight was around at that time but it was at a much further and a higher altitude and didn't interfere in any way with the object. I decided to get my phone and record it. I was a bit frustrated because in previous years I bring my camcorder with me for holidays and I like to record events and fun times. That particular year I decided not to get the camcorder and rely on solely on my smartphone. With the camcorder, I could have used the powerful optical zoom and better quality image to record the event.   

The object was travelling on a steady speed and steady path position (The object didn't move on the sky up and down, it was me trying to steady my phone). I estimate the object was travelling in between 100-200 miles/h and an altitude of around 3000 feet or possibly less, with an angle with respect of the horizon of around 35 degrees. The object seemed to be pulsating and was really quickly intermittently disappearing and appearing with black shades in contrast with its brightness.

As the sky was so clear cloudless, there is no appreciation of the object moving. Only at 2:21 in the video, I did a quick shot of the beach as a point of reference because I didn't want to lose track of it. It took my attention that while we were on the beach, no one noticed anything or no one noticed that we were very excited looking and filming this object in the sky like they weren't aware that we were there.

There was a couple just sitting 4 meters in front of us, facing nearly our direction and they didn't seem to care about our excitement or our finding in the sky.... They didn't even bother to look at what was going on in the sky... Weird! In fact, no one on the beach, and there were quite a few people, seemed to notice the strange event. We believe we sighted a very good case of an unknown object of unknown origin but you can prove us wrong of course. The object seemed to be flickering even more as it was disappearing in the distance towards Valencia. At one point we couldn't see it anymore. 

 The whole event lasted about 4 to 5 minutes.

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

24-02-2020 om 18:27 geschreven door peter  

Daytime UFO over Denia, Spain

This is an old UFO footage recorded on 3rd August 2018 but it was just now submitted to MUFON. This happened in Denia, Spain.

Witness report: 

Unknown Orb/Light object travelling at steady speed along the coast of Denia, Spain. My wife, my son (7 years old at that time) and I were on the beach in Denia (38°51’02.3″N 0°05’59.5″E) having a relaxing afternoon while on holidays, when at around 17:30, my wife noticed on her right-hand side, a bright object cruising slowly just around above the Castle of Denia (38°50’50.6″N 0°06’49.0″E) towards our position, following the coastline in a South-East North-west path (38°53’53.9″N 0°03’54.0″E). In the beginning, we thought it was just a drone, but the object seemed too big and too bright from the distance to be just a drone, despite the sun could well reflect on metallic objects depending on the angle and position. As the object was approaching, the brightness didn’t seem to change but rather pulsate, which we started to think about something unusual. A commercial flight was around at that time but it was at a much further and a higher altitude and didn’t interfere in any way with the object. I decided to get my phone and record it. I was a bit frustrated because in previous years I bring my camcorder with me for holidays and I like to record events and fun times. That particular year I decided not to get the camcorder and rely on solely on my smartphone. With the camcorder, I could have used the powerful optical zoom and better quality image to record the event.

The object was travelling on a steady speed and steady path position (The object didn’t move on the sky up and down, it was me trying to steady my phone). I estimate the object was travelling in between 100-200 miles/h and an altitude of around 3000 feet or possibly less, with an angle with respect of the horizon of around 35 degrees.

The object seemed to be pulsating and was really quickly intermittently disappearing and appearing with black shades in contrast with its brightness.

As the sky was so clear cloudless, there is no appreciation of the object moving. Only at 2:21 in the video, I did a quick shot of the beach as a point of reference because I didn’t want to lose track of it.

It took my attention that while we were on the beach, no one noticed anything or no one noticed that we were very excited looking and filming this object in the sky like they weren’t aware that we were there. There was a couple just sitting 4 meters in front of us, facing nearly our direction and they didn’t seem to care about our excitement or our finding in the sky…. They didn’t even bother to look at what was going on in the sky… Weird! In fact, no one on the beach, and there were quite a few people, seemed to notice the strange event.

We believe we sighted a very good case of an unknown object of unknown origin but you can prove us wrong of course.

The object seemed to be flickering even more as it was disappearing in the distance towards Valencia. At one point we couldn’t see it anymore.

The whole event lasted about 4 to 5 minutes.

other videos - peter2011

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

24-02-2020 om 18:11 geschreven door peter  

Aspinning unidentified flying object crosses the moon before it disappears into deep space.

Notice the ring of energy when it crosses the dark side of moon.

The UFO was observed on 01.02.2020 and captured with a Camera Nikon p900, 30fps, exposure compensation.

  

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

24-02-2020 om 14:15 geschreven door peter  

Dark matter doesn’t emit light. It can’t be directly observed with any of the existing tools of astronomers. Yet astrophysicists believe it and dark energy make up most of the mass of the cosmos. What dark matter is, and what it isn’t. here.

Since the 1930s, astrophysicists have been trying to explain why the visible material in galaxies can’t account for how galaxies are shaped, or how they behave. They believe a form of dark or invisible matter pervades our universe, but they still don’t know what this dark matter might be. 

Image via ScienceAlert.

Dark matter is a mysterious substance thought to compose perhaps about 27% of the makeup of the universe. What is it? It’s a bit easier to say what it isn’t.

It isn’t ordinary atoms – the building blocks of our own bodies and all we see around us – because atoms make up only somewhere around 5% of the universe, according to a cosmological model called the Lambda Cold Dark Matter Model (aka the Lambda-CDM model, or sometimes just the Standard Model).

Dark matter isn’t the same thing as dark energy, which makes up some 68% of the universe, according to the Standard Model.

Dark matter is invisible; it doesn’t emit, reflect or absorb light or any type of electromagnetic radiation such as X-rays or radio waves. Thus, dark matter is undetectable directly, as all of our observations of the universe, apart from the detection of gravitational waves, involve capturing electromagnetic radiation in our telescopes.

Yet dark matter does interact with ordinary matter. It exhibits measurable gravitational effects on large structures in the universe such as galaxies and galaxy clusters. Because of this, astronomers are able to make maps of the distribution of dark matter in the universe, even though they cannot see it directly.

They do this by measuring the effect dark matter has on ordinary matter, through gravity.

This all-sky image – released in 2013 – shows the distribution of dark matter across the entire history of the universe as seen projected on the sky. It’s based on data collected with the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite. Dark blue areas represent regions that are denser than their surroundings. Bright areas represent less dense regions. The gray portions of the image correspond to patches of the sky where foreground emission, mainly from the Milky Way but also from nearby galaxies, prevents cosmologists from seeing clearly.

Image via ESA.

There is currently a huge international effort to identify the nature of dark matter. Bringing an armory of advanced technology to bear on the problem, astronomers have designed ever-more complex and sensitive detectors to tease out the identity of this mysterious substance.

Dark matter might consist of an as yet unidentified subatomic particle of a type completely different from what scientists call baryonic matter – that’s just ordinary matter, the stuff we see all around us – which is made of ordinary atoms built of protons and neutrons.

The list of candidate subatomic particles breaks down into a few groups: there are the WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles), a class of particles thought to have been produced in the early universe. Astronomers believe that WIMPs might self-annihilate when colliding with each other, so they have searched the skies for telltale traces of events such as the release of neutrinos or gamma rays. So far, they’ve found nothing. In addition, although a theory called supersymmetry predicts the existence of particles with the same properties as WIMPs, repeated searches to find the particles directly have also found nothing, and experiments at the Large Hadron Collider to detect the expected presence of supersymmetry have completely failed to find it.

Several different types of detector have been used to detect WIMPs. The general idea is that very occasionally, a WIMP might collide with an ordinary atom and release a faint flash of light, which can be detected. The most sensitive detector built to date is XENON1T, which consists of a 10-meter cylinder containing 3.2 tons of liquid xenon, surrounded by photomultipliers to detect and amplify the incredibly faint flashes from these rare interactions. As of July 2019, when the detector was decommissioned to pave the way for a more sensitive instrument, the XENONnT, no collisions between WIMPs and the xenon atoms had been seen.

Although WIMPs have long been the favored candidate for dark matter, they’re not the only candidates. The failure to find WIMPs, and the attendant frustration with not being able to account for a significant percentage of the universe’s mass, has led many scientists to look at possible alternatives.

At the moment, a hypothetical particle called the axion is receiving much attention. As well as being a strong candidate for dark matter, the existence of axions is also thought to provide the answers to a few other persistent questions in physics such as the Strong CP Problem.

Astronomer Fritz Zwicky first predicted the existence of dark matter in the 1930s following his observations of the Coma galaxy cluster.

Image via zwicky-stiftung.ch.

The idea that there might be things in the universe which are invisible to us, that emit no light, has a long history going back hundreds of years to the days of Newton. With the discovery of so-called “dark nebulae” – clouds of interstellar dust blocking the light from background stars – and Pierre Laplace’s 18th-century speculations about objects which might swallow light, later to become known as black holes, astronomers came to accept the existence of a so-called “dark universe.”

But in modern times, it was astronomer Fritz Zwicky, in the 1930s, who made the first observations of what we now call dark matter. His 1933 observations of the Coma Cluster of galaxies seemed to indicated it has a mass 500 times more than that previously calculated by Edwin Hubble. Furthermore, this extra mass seemed to be completely invisible. Although Zwicky’s observations were initially met with much skepticism, they were later confirmed by other groups of astronomers.

Thirty years later, astronomer Vera Rubin provided a huge piece of evidence for the existence of dark matter. She discovered that the centers of galaxies rotate at the same speed as their extremities, whereas, of course, they should rotate faster. Think of a vinyl LP on a record deck: its center rotates faster than its edge. That’s what logic dictates we should see in galaxies too. But we do not. The only way to explain this is if the whole galaxy is only the center of some much larger structure, as if it is only the label on the LP so to speak, causing the galaxy to have a consistent rotation speed from center to edge.

Vera Rubin, following Zwicky, postulated that the missing structure in galaxies is dark matter. Her ideas were met with much resistance from the astronomical community, but her observations have been confirmed and are seen today as pivotal proof of the existence of dark matter. In honor of this crucial and historic piece of detective work toward establishing the existence of dark matter, the revolutionary Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, currently under construction in Chile and scheduled to see first light next year, was recently renamed the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

Dark matter pioneer Vera Rubin (1928-2016). This image – taken at Lowell Observatory – is from 1965.

Image via Carnegie Institute/ NPR.

Some astronomers have tried to negate the need the existence of dark matter altogether by postulating something called Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND). The idea behind this is that gravity behaves differently over long distances to what it does locally, and this difference of behavior explains phenomena such as galaxy rotation curves which we attribute to dark matter. Although MOND has its supporters, while it can account for the rotation curve of an individual galaxy, current versions of MOND simply cannot account for the behavior and movement of matter in large structures such as galaxy clusters and, in its current form, is thought unable to completely account for the existence of dark matter. That is to say, gravity does behave in the same way at all scales of distance. Most versions of MOND, on the other hand, have two versions of gravity, the weaker one occurring in regions of low mass concentration such as in the outskirts of galaxies.  However, it is not inconceivable that some new version of MOND in the future might yet account for dark matter.

Although some astronomers believe we will establish the nature of dark matter in the near future, the search so far has proved fruitless, and we know that the universe often springs surprises on us so that nothing can be taken for granted.

The approach astronomers are taking is to eliminate those particles which cannot be dark matter, in the hope we will be left with the one which is. 

It remains to be seen if this approach is the correct one.

• Bottom line: Dark matter makes up some 27% of the universe according to astronomical theories. It cannot be seen or detected directly via the existing tools of astronomers, but its effect can be measured via its gravitational pull on ordinary matter.
• Read more: What Is supersymmetry? fom How Stuff Works
• Read more: Miraculous WIMPs, from Symmetry Magazine
• Read more: Modified Newtonian dynamics, from Physics World
• Read more: Vera Rubin and Dark Matter, from the American Museum of Natural History

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

24-02-2020 om 01:12 geschreven door peter  

By Ken Croswell

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

24-02-2020 om 00:39 geschreven door peter  

By Bruce Bower

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

24-02-2020 om 00:30 geschreven door peter  

Supernova 'bullets' may have created Earth's iron core ...

There was a lot of activity in the skies this past week, including some which directly affected our own planet, so let’s check things out and see if we need to open a metal umbrella.

“Empirical evidence indicates that at least one supernova has rained heavy elements on Earth in the past. Supernovae are known to release significant quantities of dust at sub-relativistic speeds. We also see evidence of clumpiness or ‘bullets’ in supernova ejecta.”

That astronomer-speak comes from astronomer Amir Sira, co-author of the paper (submitted to the submitted to the Astrophysical Journal) “Observational Signatures of Sub-Relativistic Meteors” with Abraham Loeb, who’s made a name for himself recently with his theories on extraterrestrial life forms, alien space ships and more. Sira and Loeb’s latest theory is that Earth’s atmosphere is being bombarded by large meteors – 1 mm to 10 cm (0.04 to 4 inches) – that are traveling at a tremendous speed – up to 1% of the speed of light or 100 times faster than most meteors.

Sira and Loeb refer to clumps of them with a scary “bullets” description and proposed a way to detect them with a global network of 600 infrasound microphones and optical-infrared instruments to detect the acoustic signature and optical flashes and physical explosions created by these “bullets” as they enter our atmosphere. Are we in any danger? Only of learning more about our solar system and universe. Kudos to Sira and Loeb for promoting more ways to entice kids to become astronomers and create jobs for them.

Moving on to the colliding black holes …

Astronomers who study colliding galaxies refer to something known as the “final parsec problem.” While they can see the massive physical destruction of the merger, they are unclear about what happens when the central black holes of each galaxy are within one parsec (3.26 light-years) of each other. The good news (maybe) is, they may find out in April. Scientific American interviews astrophysicists Daniel D’Orazio and Rosanne Di Stefano who in 2017 predicted that the black holes entering the area of the final parsec would produce a flare that could be detected by gravitational lensing if the black holes line up with earth as one passes in front of the other, thus distorting and magnifying the light of the black hole in the rear. A 2018 study of Kepler space telescope data found an active galactic nuclei (AGN) called KIC 11606854 that appears to be a pair of merging black holes. The astronomers were so excited, they called it “Spikey.”

It gets better. According to their preprint paper, “Spikey” may flare again in April 2020, so the astronomers have reserved NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to watch it. Are we in any danger? Only of disappointment should Spikey not live up to its name. On the other hand, a flare will push the theory closer to fact and give future space telescope missions better data to work with and more likely locations to point to.

Then there’s the mysterious Milky Way gas …

“The absence of stellar counterparts indicates that the point-like object may be a quiescent black hole. This discovery adds another intermediate-mass black hole candidate in the central region of our Galaxy.”

Astrophysicist Shunya Takekawa of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and colleagues were studying the motion of a high-velocity gas cloud in the center of the Milky Way called HCN-0.085-0.094 when they noticed that one of the three clumps that made up the cloud appeared to be swirling around a black hole. Its actions suggested this is an unusual quiet black hole, but its size is what got them excited — 100 to 100,000 solar masses. That would make it an intermediate-mass black hole, something that has been theorized but never actually proven or seen. In this case, that’s because it’s quiescent – giving off no detectable radiation because it’s not feeding. As they write in their preprint paper, this is the closest potential intermediate black hole ever found and that discovery itself is amazing, considering the possible event horizon (outer boundary) of this black hole is only the size of Neptune or Uranus.

Yes indeed, it was a busy week for black holes, supernovas and astronomers.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

23-02-2020 om 23:44 geschreven door peter  

Secret chamber found inside King Tut’s famous tomb may solve hunt for Nefertiti

Egyptologists are on the verge of solving one of history’s biggest mysteries — the location of Queen Nefertiti’s elusive tomb.

Jamie Seidel

Tantalising radar shadows have revived hopes that one of history’s most beautiful, and controversial, women — Queen Nefertiti — may indeed be buried in secret chambers within King Tut’s famous tomb.

British and Egyptian Egyptologists earlier this week conducted a three-day radar scan of the world-famous tomb discovered by Howard Carter in 1922.

Upon opening its still-sealed door, he declared he saw “wonderful things”. Everywhere was the glint of gold and priceless examples of some of history’s most exquisite art.

But, since then, the tomb has presented something of a mystery.

It was immediately odd that so many of the statues attributed as Pharoah Tutankhamun had hips and breasts. And more recent, closer, examination reveals a significant proportion of the artwork to have been rebadged, and repurposed, from previous rulers.

And that includes his iconic burial mask.

• RELATED: The hunt for Nefertiti is on
• RELATED: Was King Tut a fraud?
• RELATED: In search of Nefertiti: Egypt’s heretic queen

WHAT LIES BENEATH

In 2015, a ground-penetrating scan of the 3300-year-old tomb was conducted by controversial radar technician Hirokatsu Watanabe. He declared he had detected, with “90 per cent certainty”, several hollow spaces along with “metallic” and “organic” objects.

The world erupted in excitement.

Could another extraordinary discovery be tantalisingly within reach?

Would one of Egypt’s greatest mysteries finally be solved?

Egyptologists were immediately doubtful. His radar scan images seemed uninterpretable — just a mass of blue lines with the occasional red dot. Nobody other than Watanabe seemed able to determine what the scans revealed.

So, the Egyptian Antiquities department organised a second scan — this time with the assistance of National Geographic — in 2016. It found … nothing.

“If we had a void, we should have a strong reflection,” geophysicist Dean Goodman of GPR-Slice software told National Geographic News. “But it just doesn’t exist.”

The locations of speculative chambers have been supported by infra-red and radar scans of Tut’s tomb.

Source:Getty Images

THIRD TIME LUCKY?

The Egypt Independent reports the latest scan of Tut’s tomb concluded on Wednesday.

Egyptian technicians from the Centre for Sound Vibration and Smart Structures at the Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, joined a team from the English Terravision Centre to scour the rock for any trace of hidden chambers.

It’s part of an assessment that is due to be completed by the end of the year.

Egyptian archaeologist Francis Amin told the Egypt Independent the most recent radar survey, conducted by the University of Turin, had revealed spaces behind the walls.

But the resolution of the images did not confirm if these were man-made or natural cavities in the rock.

“The results of previous radar surveys have found evidence of the existence of spaces and organic material behind the walls of the cemetery,” Amin said. He added that specialist chemists will need to help analyse the radar survey results.

BOY KING OR PR STUNT?

Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb doesn’t follow the well-established pattern applied to other Egyptian god-kings. It’s unusually small. And it is shaped more like a burial chamber intended for a queen. And why do so many of the statues and images attributed as King Tutankhamun have feminine hips and breasts?

Some have theorised Tutankhamun suffered from his royal inbreeding and had deformities such as breasts and female hips.

Source:Supplied

British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves put these clues together, including the discovery of partially erased royal names, to suggest the tomb — and much of its contents — was initially intended for Tut’s stepmother, Nefertiti.

Dr Reeves’ 2015 academic paper The Burial of Nefertiti quickly grabbed international attention.

About the same time, a high-resolution 3D laser scan made to help preserve the tomb indicated there may be “hollows” hidden behind the tomb’s plasterwork and paintings. Were these sealed doors?

“The implications are extraordinary: for, if digital appearance translates into physical reality, it seems we are now faced not merely with the prospect of a new, Tutankhamun-era storeroom to the west; to the north appears to be signalled a continuation of tomb … and within these uncharted depths an earlier royal interment — that of Nefertiti herself, celebrated consort, coregent, and eventual successor of pharaoh Akhenaten,” Dr Reeves wrote.

While the evidence was circumstantial, it was enough to pique the interest of the Egyptian Antiquities department to invite Dr Reeves — and others — to examine the tomb more closely.

“Each piece of evidence on its own is not conclusive but put it all together, and it’s hard to avoid my conclusion,” Dr Reeves said. “If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but if I’m right, this is potentially the biggest archaeological discovery ever made.”

British archaeologist Nicholas Reeves believes the new chamber could be the last resting place of Queen Nefertiti, King Tut's mother-in-law.

Source:Supplied

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Dr Reeves has been chasing Nefertiti’s ghost for almost two decades.

In 2000, Dr Reeves led a radar examination of the ground around Tutankhamun’s tomb in a search for Nefertiti’s burial. He reported finding a “void”. But digs failed to locate anything.

His continued enthusiasm, however, has proven contagious.

In 2016, Egypt’s tourism minister enthused: “We do not know if the burial chamber is Nefertiti or another woman, but it is full of treasures … It will be a ‘Big Bang’ — the discovery of the 21st century.”

An interior view of the King Tutankhamun burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt.

Source:AAP

So far, the Big Bang hasn’t happened.

And Egyptian Antiquities Minister Khaled El-Enany has insisted no invasive exploration would be allowed to damage the priceless tomb. “It is essential to perform more scans using other devices and more technical and scientific methods,” Mr El-Enany said.

The challenge has since been one of developing the technology capable of achieving that task.

Former Egyptian antiquities minister and high-profile archaeological personality Zahi Hawass has long been a sceptic of the hidden chamber theory.

“If there is any masonry or partition wall, the radar signal should show an image,” he reportedly told National Geographic News.

“We don’t have this, which means there is nothing there.”

Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer. Continue the conversation @JamieSeidel

7

{ https://www.news.com.au/ }

23-02-2020 om 22:56 geschreven door peter  

One of the great mysteries of ancient Egypt is the whereabouts of Nefertiti – she of the famous bust. Her tomb has never been found, leading to various theories that the sparse records of her time as a powerful partner in the reign of her husband, Pharaoh Akhenaten, and her own reign as pharaoh may have been covered up for some reason. The small size of her stepson King Tut’s tomb have caused many to believe it has hidden chambers, resulting in many unsuccessful searches using various non-invasive methods, including an extensive search with ground-penetrating radar in 2018. However, it’s never say never with Nefertiti, so yet another search was just completed and this time they found a hidden chamber. Is this the big one?

Queen Nefertiti

“Clearly there is something on the other side of the north wall of the burial chamber.”

In a review by Nature of an unpublished report by archaeologist Mamdouh Eldamaty, a former Egyptian minister of antiquities, Ray Johnson, an Egyptologist at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute who wasn’t involved in the research, confirmed that the radar found something, but what that ‘something ‘ is will require further scans. So far, it looks like a corridor a few meters east of Tut’s burial chamber. The space is 2 meters (6.5 feet) high, 10 meters (33 feet) long and at the same depth and direction as the tomb’s actual entrance.

The depth and location of this new chamber suggest a number of things. Being parallel to the entrance tunnel and perpendicular to the main chamber puts in in the tomb’s orientation, which would indicate it’s a part of the tomb and not an extension of another tomb – nearby tombs generally don’t line up with each other. The depth reinforces that theory and implies that the chamber was (or perhaps still is) connected to the main chamber at one end. Which leads to the obvious question: what’s at the other end?

“If Nefertiti was buried as a pharaoh, it could be the biggest archaeological discovery ever.”

British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves has long supported the idea that Tut’s tomb is bigger and Nefertiti is buried somewhere in it. However, he thought the location was north, not east. Could this mean there are hidden chambers all around KV62, the un-sexy Egyptological designation for Tut’s tomb? Eldamaty plans to find out, especially since his ground-penetrating radar search was more successful than previous scans from inside the tomb. Still smarting from being replaced as Minister of Antiquities by a cabinet reshuffling, he plans to test Reeves’ north chamber theory after failing on his previous attempt due to not a mummy’s curse but a modern curse — interference from nearby air-conditioning units.

As always, it’s important to note the tremendous effort the government of Egypt puts into preserving these historic tombs and their artifacts from destructive physical invasions by even the most careful archeologists. Let’s hope this continues without interference from those with money who want to make more money on these priceless historical locations. They should be preserved for all, not just for the rich.

Nefertiti would certainly approve of this message.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

23-02-2020 om 22:40 geschreven door peter  

Some of the most remarkable UFO encounter reports are those that have left behind some sort of physical evidence for us to look at and try to make sense of. Such accounts have occurred all over the world, always leaving something behind, although this has not necessarily led to any concrete answers. One place that has its share of cases like this is the country of France, and here we will take a look at some of the more well-known perplexing cases of UFOs that not only baffled, but left something physical behind.

Our earliest report comes from the year 1954, at Quarouble, Nord, France. On the night of September 10, 1954, railroad worker Marius Dewilde was woken by his dog barking frantically at something in the night. Dewilde groggily got out of bed, grabbed his flashlight, and ventured outside to see what was going on, not really expecting to find much other than maybe a stray cat or some other animal running around. He decided to walk out towards the nearby railway tracks and that is when he would claim he saw something large resting on the ground not far away. Almost as soon as he noticed this anomalous object he heard footsteps behind him, which caused him to whip his flashlight around.

There, standing in the beam were allegedly two small humanoid beings only about 3 feet tall, which were wearing some sort of helmets on that reflected the light of the beam. Things would get intense when he says that the large landed object then suddenly emitted a beam that trained on him and seemed to paralyze his entire body. It was also noticed that his flashlight flickered out as if it’s batteries had been suddenly drained. He collapsed to the ground, but was able to witness the two figures make their way towards the craft and board it, after which the object changed colors and hot off into the sky. Shortly after, Dewilde would gain control of his limbs once again and make his way home to frantically tell his wife about what had happened. He would later lead police to the scene, but found that he was unable to approach the site, as he was overcome with an incapacitating nausea every time he tried to do so, although no one else experienced such symptoms.

They were nevertheless able to find some odd details, such as a deep indentation and small rocks under the site that were all carbonized on the depression. Spookily there were also later found cows in the area that had been killed and drained of blood. Dewilde himself would go on to suffer from myriad health problems such as respiratory problems and chronic headaches throughout his life, and it would later be found that other locals had seen something odd in the sky as well, and some even said they had seen the same strange entities wandering around. What are we to make of this odd case?

In July of 1965 a very weird series of events went down in the quaint region of Valensole, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France. It all started near the small village of Valensole, and on July 1, 1965, a farmer by the name of Maurice Masse was taking a cigarette break before starting his morning chores. As he puffed out wisps of smoke into the air, something caught his attention through the haze of cigarette smoke, and he could see some sort of strange object descend from the sky to land in a field of lavender flowers not too far away. At this point he did not take it to be a UFO, thinking it instead to be a helicopter, but when he extinguished his smoke and took a look out across the field, his eyes met with an oval shaped object perched up on four leg-like apparatuses. Stranger still was that there appeared to be two humanoid figures standing in front of it.

The figures were described as standing approximately 4 feet high, and dressed in tight gray-green clothes, seemingly not human. Their heads were oversized and bald, holding within them large, almond shaped eyes and small, pointed chins, and they seemed to be making some sort of low grumbling noise. As the farmer stood there mouth agape in awe, one of these curious figures allegedly turned to him and raised into the air a device of some kind, which looked cylindrical and “pencil-like” in nature. Before Masse could even really register what was going on he says that the device projected some sort of beam that caused him to lose all control of his limbs and go crumpling to the ground in a heap. He would claim that as he lay there in a daze the figures boarded their craft and then flew off at great speed. It would later be found that the ground had a deep indentation in it and a hardened area like concrete. It would also be found that Masse was honest, very sincere, and was considered to be telling the truth.

A rather similarly weird alien encounter report would be made in 1967, with a 13-year-old boy and his 9-year-old sister in Cussac, Cantal, France, who claimed that they had seen four small, black entities in a field measuring a mere 3 feet high. Above them was apparently a large disc hovering, towards which the mysterious figures floated up off the ground towards, disappearing within. The object then took off with great speed, and when the children brought back investigators it was found that the area was redolent with a “sulfur odor” and that the grass beneath was oddly all dried out for reasons that could not be explained.

Another famous French case supposedly occurred at Trans-en-Provence,Var, France, in January of 1981. Another farmer, this one by the name of Renato Nicolaï, who on January 8, 1981 at 5pm was at work on his property when an eerie whistling sound caught his attention. When he looked around to see what was going on he apparently witnessed a large, saucer-shaped craft come down to rest upon a parch of nearby field, before once again lifting off to fly away. The farmer would describe it as follows:

The device had the shape of two saucers, one inverted on top of the other. It must have measured about 1.5 meters in height. It was the color of lead. This device had a ridge all the way around its circumference. Under the machine I saw two kinds of pieces as it was lifting off. They could be reactors or feet. There were also two other circles which looked like trapdoors. The two reactors, or feet, extended about 20 cm (8 in) below the body of the machine.

When the area was later investigated it was found that the location where the mysterious craft had landed held within it strange scorch marks that could not be identified. It was also found by authorities that there was a patch of ground that had been heavily compressed by something weighing several tons, and had been heated to around 300 and 600 °C (572 and 1,112 °F). A two year investigation into the incident would fail to turn up any definitive answers, and the case remains unsolved.

The very following year, in 1982, one of the most famous UFO cases in French history would go down in the region of Nancy, France. On October 21, 1982, an anonymous cell biologist known only as “Mr. Henri” was with his wife in the modest garden of their home in the small town of Laxou, near Nancy in northeast France, on a clear day when a highly reflective, glinting ovoid object came floating down out of the sky. The object apparently headed straight toward them, causing them to step back warily, before it came to a hovering position right over their home. It was described as being very smooth and metallic, “similar to Beryllium,” as well as completely silent the entire time. Mr. Henri would claim that he had tried to take a photograph as it hovered there, but that something had caused the device to malfunction. The object would descend to just three feet over the ground and simply stay there for a full 20 minutes before ascending again to fly off into the distance, seeming to pull up the grass beneath it as it did so. The plants of the garden were then found to be dried up and withered as if some sort of force had affected them, with some of the fruit of the trees burst open and “cooked” as if by some high heat. Investigators at the scene would come to the conclusion that the vegetation had been affected by some sort of intense “electromagnetic wave of energy.” What was going on here? Who knows?

This has been just a selection at some of the stranger UFO reports to come out of France, and which are remarkable in that they all left behind some sort of physical evidence, although that that entails is largely open for debate. In the end we are merely left with more truly weird cases of possible brushes with things from beyond our understanding and possibly from beyond our world, adding to the mystique of the UFO phenomenon in general and still without solid answers.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

23-02-2020 om 18:17 geschreven door peter  

UFO Abducts Plane Over Fiji Islands! Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Feb 22, 2020
Location of sighting: Fiji islands
Google coordinates: 18° 3'22.84"S 178°41'8.51"E

I was looking at Google Earth map when I found this mysterious glowing object in front of a plane. The objects color is what really stands out. It the back of the UFO its pinkish like a half circle and in the front its glowing white. I believe this is because the UFO has lowered part of its shield so that they could bring things in and out of the plane into the UFO. This may be a frozen in time event, a moment in time frozen because the aliens erase the memories of the people on board and then put them back hours later. This is an example of an alien abduction taking place over the ocean in a plane. 100% proof that aliens are abducting humans. 
Scott C. Waring 

23-02-2020 om 17:37 geschreven door peter  

The ISS live feed cam captures a cone-shaped metallic object for about 22 minutes before it moves upwards and disappears into deep space.

The stunning footage, recorded on February 21, 2020, has led to many speculations about what the object could be.

While many people suggest that it is a real UFO, whether alien or a man-made spacecraft belonging to the space fleet, others say that the cone-shaped object is a satellite or a probe intended for experimental purposes in deep space, released by the ISS.

  

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

23-02-2020 om 17:19 geschreven door peter  

The Top Secret Area 51 Military Base with UFOs and Experimental Aircrafts

Area 51, secret U.S. Air Force military installation located at Groom Lake in southern Nevada. It is administered by Edwards Air Force Base in southern California. The installation has been the focus of numerous conspiracies involving extraterrestrial life, though its only confirmed use is as a flight testing facility.

For years there was speculation about the installation, especially amid growing reports of UFO sightings in the vicinity. The site became known as Area 51, which was its designation on maps of the Atomic Energy Commission. Conspiracy theories gained support in the late 1980s, when a man (Bob Lazar) alleging to have worked at the installation claimed that the government was examining recovered alien spacecraft.

videos by pieter2011

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

23-02-2020 om 17:07 geschreven door peter  

UFO sightings: Why Mount Shasta is the new Roswell

A volcano in California is a hot spot for conspiracy theorists.

PAUL RATNER

• Unusual UFO-shaped formations were observed in the skies over Mount Shasta.
• These were actually lenticular clouds that often look like lenses or flying saucers.
• This volcano peak in California has long been the subject of conspiracy theories.

Mount Shasta has also seen other unusual happenings, with a mysterious side hole that appeared over 10 years ago becoming the subject of a documentary. Its sudden emergence connected with local legends about a lost continent of Lemuria supposedly hidden under the mountain. This mythical kingdom would be there along with its capital city Telos.

The first thought of the documentary filmmaker Elijah Sullivan about the giant hole was that it was from people trying to find Lemuria.

"You'll hear a lot of people talking about Lemuria, maybe even asking for directions," he told the news in 2018. "People make pilgrimages here — it's like a New Age mecca."

In 1987, the area was home to a New Age conference dubbed a "spiritual Woodstock".

It is also known to be sacred to the Native American Winnemem Wintu tribe, indigenous to this area.

{ https://bigthink.com/ }

23-02-2020 om 01:50 geschreven door peter  

USS Nimitz captain reveals Navy pilots DO have to watch out for UFOs after one of the carrier's planes captured secret unreleased video of 2004 encounters with a 'Tic Tac-shaped' mystery aircraft

• Captain Max Clark, commanding officer of the USS Nimitz, tells DailyMail.com it is important his ship and everybody on it is kept safe from UFOs
• 'From my perspective we have an obligation to make sure the airspace is clear, whether it's UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon) or UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle),' he says  
• This comes just weeks after the Office of Naval Intelligence revealed the existence of a classified, unreleased video of a UFO
• The video was related to the notorious USS Nimitz carrier group's 2004 encounters with a 'Tic Tac'-shaped UFO 
• The encounters remain a mystery and the object's incredible speed and movements have led to speculation that it was extraterrestrial 

By RYAN PARRY WEST COAST EDITOR ON BOARD USS NIMITZ IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN

The commanding officer of the US Navy supercarrier, the USS Nimitz, has revealed his crew has an 'obligation' to make sure the airspace is clear of UFOs.

In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Captain Max Clark said it's important his ship and everybody on it is kept safe from Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) - the term for UFOs used by the Navy.

This comes just weeks after the Office of Naval Intelligence revealed the existence of a classified, unreleased video relating to the Nimitz carrier group's 2004 encounters with a 'Tic Tac'-shaped UFO.

The existence of the video was revealed in a response to a Freedom of Information Act request made by researcher Christian Lambright, and published by Lambright's friend Paul Dean.

The video is likely the full version of a leaked 76-second video clip that the Defense Department admitted in 2017 was authentic.

Captain Max Clark, commanding officer of the USS Nimitz, tells DailyMail.com it is important his ship and everybody on it is kept safe from UFOs after the Nimitz carrier group had an encounter with a UFO in 2004

This comes just weeks after the Office of Naval Intelligence revealed the existence of a classified, unreleased video of a UFO. The classified video is likely the full version of the leaked 76-second clip (above) which circulated online from 2007, and was confirmed as authentic in 2017 

The footage was taken by a pilot using a Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) gun-pod camera on an F/A-18 Super Hornet flying over the Pacific Ocean.

Speaking to DailyMail.com on the bridge of the Nimitz, Captain Clark said of the bizarre encounter: 'From my perspective we have an obligation to make sure the airspace is clear, whether it's UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon) or UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), this is part of the air space.

Nick Pope, who investigated UFOs for Britain's Ministry of Defence in the 1990s, said Captain Clark's comments come as a surprise because there are 'huge sensitivities' over the Nimitz incident

'It adds another level of... from a pilot's point of view, to see and avoid, and also our radar systems looking for things like that too, just to make sure everybody's safe.'

Philadelphia native Captain Clark, who assumed command of Nimitz on August 1, 2019, wasn't on board the Nimitz when the unusual sighting was recorded 16 years ago.

And the experienced officer wouldn't be drawn further on the video or the Navy's close encounters of the third kind.

Nick Pope, who investigated UFOs in an official capacity for Britain's Ministry of Defence in the 1990s, said Captain Clark's comments come as a surprise.

The commentator told DailyMail.com: 'These are fascinating comments and it's interesting they were made at all, because the Department of Defence recently took over responding to all UFO-related questions from the media, following some tension between them and the US Navy.

'But ship's captains are strong-willed characters who don't take kindly to being muzzled.

'That said, the captain was totally on-message, because the official line involves talking in general terms about the need to guard against unauthorized incursions into restricted military airspace, with the aim of promoting safety.

'What's being downplayed by everyone is the staggering fact that the US government still doesn't know what these objects are.

'The DOD's line is that the objects seen by naval aviators during the USS Nimitz incident remain "unidentified".'

Pope added that there are 'huge sensitivities' over the Nimitz incident and the recent admission by the US Navy that it has the secret unreleased video has put the affair back in the spotlight. And Captain Clark's comments further fuel the speculation surrounding the footage which has baffled the world.

At least six Super Hornet pilots made visual or instrument contact with the UFO on November 14, 2004.

The encounters, which are documented in numerous interviews with first-hand witnesses, remain a mystery, and the object's incredible speed and movements have led to speculation that it was extraterrestrial in origin.

Chad Underwood, the former Navy aviator who shot the famous leaked video clip, broke his silence last month in an interview with New York Magazine

Underwood was flying in an F/A-18F Super Hornet as part of the USS Nimitz (above) carrier group when he encountered an 'unidentified aerial phenomena'

A map shows the rough location of the USS Nimitz carrier group during the 2004 encounter

The original FLIR video from the Nimitz encounters leaked online as early as 2007.

Witnesses say that clips of the video had been circulated widely on the Navy's intranet - used to communicate between ships in the carrier group - and an unknown sailor in the group likely first leaked it.

The clip became one of the most-touted pieces of evidence in the UFO community when the Pentagon confirmed its authenticity in 2017.

Last month, Chad Underwood, the former Navy aviator who shot the famous leaked video clip, broke his silence in an interview with New York Magazine.

He said the oblong, wingless 'Tic Tac' shaped object was spotted off the coast of Mexico over the Pacific.

He also revealed that for about two weeks, the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton, part of Carrier Strike Group 11, had been tracking mysterious aircraft intermittently for two weeks on an advanced AN/SPY-1B passive radar.

The radar contacts were so inexplicable that the system was even shut down and restarted to to check for bugs - but operators continued to track the unknown aircraft.

Then on November 14, Commander David Fravor says he was flying in an F/A-18F Super Hornet when he made visual contact with the object, which seemed to dive below the water, resurface, and speed out of sight when he tried to approach it.

As Fravor landed on the deck of the Nimitz, Underwood was just gearing up to take off on his own training run.

Fravor told Underwood about the bizarre encounter, and urged Underwood to keep his eyes open.

He recalls how he suddenly saw a blip on his radar before tracking it on his FLIR camera.

'The thing that stood out to me the most was how erratic it was behaving,' Underwood told the magazine.

'And what I mean by “erratic” is that its changes in altitude, air speed, and aspect were just unlike things that I’ve ever encountered before flying against other air targets.'

The FOIA response letter above revealed that Office of Naval Intelligence has 'TOP SECRET' briefing slides and 'SECRET' video related to the 2004 USS Nimitz carrier group encounters

Underwood says the object wasn't obeying the laws of physics and dropped from 50,000 feet altitude to 100 feet in seconds, which he says, 'isn't possible'.

Underwood added that he saw no signs of an engine heat plume or any sign of propulsion.

The pilot refuses to speculate as to whether the object is an alien spacecraft or not, however.

'That’s not my job. But I saw something. And it was also seen, via eyeballs, by both my commanding officer, Dave Fravor, and the Marine Corps Hornet squadron commanding officer who was out there as well.'

DailyMail.com spoke to Nimitz commanding officer Captain Clark about the incident after being invited onboard the awesome 95,000 ton vessel earlier this month.

We joined the crew on a five day training mission in the Pacific Ocean and witnessed first hand it's awesome capabilities.

Capable of reaching more than 30 knots (35mph) the Nimitz-class supercarrier is one of ten nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in the US Fleet.

We observed flight operations as F/A-18 Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers and a handful of F-35C stealth strike fighters were launched off the ship and brought in to land.

The Nimitz is the lead ship of her class, one of the largest warships in the world and the flagship of Carrier Strike Group Eleven (CSG-11) with Carrier Air Wing Seventeen (CVW-17) embarked.

Its homeport is Naval Base Kitsap in Washington and the vessel is named for legendary fleet admiral Chester W. Nimitz (1885–1966), who helped the US defeat the Japanese Navy in World War II.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

23-02-2020 om 01:27 geschreven door peter  

Field of large boulders as seen by the Mars Pathfinder lander on Mars in 1997. A new study suggests that small pools of liquid water may be able to briefly form in the shadows of such boulders at mid-latitudes in the springtime.

Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ Popular Mechanics.

Mars is a cold, very dry, desert world. Although it has ice caps of water ice (as well as carbon dioxide ice) and vast amounts of ice below its surface, no liquid water has been found on Mars’ surface. But there might be some. We might just need to look behind large boulders, in springtime.

A new study from the Planetary Science Institute (PSI) in Tucson, Arizona – announced on February 12, 2020 – adds to previous evidence that small amounts of briny (salty) water might be able to form on the Martian surface under just the right conditions.

The new peer-reviewed paper, by planetary scientist Norbert Schorghofer at PSI, was published in The Astrophysical Journal on February 12.

From the paper:

The possibility of liquid water on present-day Mars has been debated for half a century. Melting is physically difficult under Martian environmental conditions, because with the total pressure of the atmosphere near the triple point pressure of water, evaporative cooling of ice is high near the melting point.

According to the study, the briny water might be possible for only a few days of each Martian year. The trick is that this can only happen under just the right circumstances. Schorghofer said:

Mars has plenty of cold ice-rich regions and plenty of warm ice-free regions, but icy regions where the temperature rises above the melting point are a sweet spot that is nearly impossible to find. That sweet spot is where liquid water would form.

Three-dimensional computerized view of the Martian surface temperature around a boulder at latitude 30° south. On the side opposite to the sun, temperatures are around -128 degrees Celsius. As the sun rises, this area heats up rapidly, melting frost on the salty ground. This could briefly create small amounts of briny water that later goes back into the atmosphere, via sublimation.

Image via Norbert Schorghofer/ PSI.

This sweet spot would involve protruding topography, such as boulders, at mid-latitudes. During the winter, a boulder might cast a continual shadow, where water ice can accumulate as frost. When spring came again, the temperature can increase quite quickly. In the computer models used, temperature would rise from -198° Fahrenheit (-128° Celsius) in the morning to -14° Fahrenheit (-10° Celsius) at noon. That is a short enough time that not all the frost would sublimate – pass directly from the solid to vapor state – as it normally does in the very thin, cold atmosphere. From the paper:

Protruding topography creates locations that experience a rapid transition from conditions where water frost accumulates to high solar energy input. Beyond the pole-facing side of a boulder, carbon dioxide and water frost can accumulate seasonally, and once the sun reemerges and the carbon dioxide frost disappears, the water frost is heated to near melting temperature within one or two sols [days on Mars].

The scientists said it is dust within the carbon dioxide frost that helps keep it from sublimating back into the atmosphere as temperatures rise. From the paper:

Overall, melting of pure water ice is not expected under present-day Mars conditions. However, at temperatures that are readily reached, seasonal water frost can melt on a salt-rich substrate.

The whole cycle would repeat, year after Martian year.

In 2008, what appeared to be small drops of briny liquid water were seen on the legs of the Phoenix Mars Lander. These images show changes in the drops over 36 days.

Image via Renno et al./ NASA/ Space.com.

As mentioned above, carbon dioxide ice can also form behind large boulders on Mars. That ice, too, will sublimate in the spring. Scientists have a name for the first day in spring when the carbon dioxide ice disappears. They call it the crocus date.

Water ice melting also occurs either on or just after that date. Thus it is referred to as crocus melting. According to Schorghofer:

Answering the question whether crocus melting of seasonal water ice actually occurs on Mars required a slew of detailed quantitative calculations, the numbers really matter. It took decades to develop the necessary quantitative models.

Today, Mars’ atmosphere is too cold and too thin for water to last long on the surface, even briny water. But there have been other hints that it may occur when conditions are right.

The famous recurring slope lineae on Mars may be evidence of seasonal briny water on Mars. The slope linae are dark streaks that occur on steep slopes during the warmer months and keep recurring in the same locations each year. It still isn’t known exactly what causes them, but theories have ranged from small amounts of flowing briny water to dust slides. If water is involved – not a certainty yet – it could come from the atmosphere, ice pockets or subsurface aquifers.

Norbert Schorghofer at the Planetary Science Institute.

Image via Planetary Science Institute.

During the Mars Phoenix Lander mission, which landed near the north pole in 2008, images showed small droplets forming on the legs of the spacecraft. While not proven, they certainly looked like drops of briny water that later sublimated away.

Last year, NASA’s InSight lander found possible evidence of current reservoirs of liquid water below the surface. If confirmed, that would be an exciting discovery, in particular for the potential of subsurface life, which would be protected from the severe conditions on the surface. In 2018, it was announced that the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter had found evidence of a salty subsurface lake beneath the ice at the south pole.

If there really are brief pools of liquid water hiding behind Martian boulders at times, that also would be exciting, as Mars would then be the only place other than Earth in our solar system where water would be known to be able to exist on the surface. This could have significant implications for the possibility of microbial life on an otherwise dry and hostile world.

• Bottom line: A new study from the Planetary Research Institute suggests that briny water could temporarily form on Mars’ surface under certain conditions.
• Source: Mars: Quantitative Evaluation of Crocus Melting behind Boulders
• Via Planetary Science Institute

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

23-02-2020 om 00:47 geschreven door peter