Strange object hovering in the dark sky over Preston

Preston, Lancashire, UK – A UFO was caught on camera flying above Preston in the early hours of February 20. Gail Jacques spotted a mysterious bright white object moving above the city’s rooftops. She first saw the UFO over Preston Prison at round 1:30 am.

Gail's picture of the 'Preston Prison UFO' has since been magnified.

Pic: Marek Ostiadel

According to Gail, the object hovered for several minutes before moving at incredible speed. She immediately snapped photos of the strange flying object.

Her interest in knowing the true identity of the Preston Prison UFO led her to share the pictures with friends on social media.

Gail said that the UFO was too fast and precise for a helicopter. She explained that it moved so fast in seconds.

The pictures have generated mixed reactions online, with many Prestonians offered possible explanations.

Some say it’s a plane or helicopter, others say it’s a drone, and a few say it’s something not of this world.

Is it a plane? Is it a drone? Or is it something out of this world...?.

Pic: Marek Ostiadel

There are also who say it’s a Venus or Jupiter. Some believe it is the International Space Station.

Stephen Hall explains that it’s not a star as it’s below the cloud cover. He finds it interesting.

Steve Connolley does not believe it’s the International Space Station (ISS) as it seems too far away from sunset or sunrise, as the ISS is generally only visible close to these times.

Alison Fidder countered the explanation that it’s the planet Venus by saying that the planet sets at around 9:30 pm at the moment.

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

11-03-2020 om 12:22 geschreven door peter  

The sun’s counterglow – or gegenschein – is kind of a stargazers’ legend. What is it, and how can you see it? Erwin Matys and Karoline Mrazek of Project Nightflight explain.

See the faint concentration of light toward the center of this image? That’s the elusive gegenschein – aka the counterglow – a diffuse spot visible in the darkest of skies, centered at the point directly opposite the sun. Sunlight reflecting on interplanetary dust causes it.

Image via Project Nightflight.

• Article and most photos by Erwin Matys and Karoline Mrazek of Project Nightflight, whose mission is “to promote the conservation of the starry sky as environmental resource.”

The sun’s counterglow — or gegenschein — is kind of a stargazers’ legend. Every amateur astronomer has heard about it, only a few of them have actually seen it, and even fewer were lucky enough to capture an image of this dim and ghostlike apparition.

As a fellow observer put it:

The gegenschein is certainly not a GoTo object.

Matter of fact, it isn’t an object at all. But let’s start from the beginning.

What exactly is the gegenschein?

It is widely known that the space between the planets isn’t empty. The plane of the solar system is filled with an enormous disk of small dust particles with sizes ranging from less than 1/1000 millimeter up to 1 millimeter. It is less commonly known that this interplanetary dust cloud is a highly dynamic structure. In contrast to conventional wisdom, it is not an aeon-old leftover from the solar system’s formation. That primordial dust is long gone. Today’s interplanetary dust is – in an astronomical sense of speaking – very young, only millions of years old. Most of the particles originate from quite recent incidents, like asteroid collisions.

This is not the gegenschein. The picture shows the zodiacal light, which is closely related to the gegenschein. Here imaged from a rural site, the zodiacal light is a cone of light extending from the sun along the ecliptic, visible after dusk and before dawn. The gegenschein stems from the same dust cloud, but is always opposite the sun, for example, highest in the sky at midnight. The gegenschein is much harder to detect or photograph than the zodiacal light. 

Image via Project Nightflight.

Exposed to various forces, the particles do not remain in stationary orbits but inhabit the disk in ever-changing motion. The smallest particles (less than 1/1000 millimeter) are swiftly blown out of the solar system by the solar wind. The larger particles don’t survive very long either. They tend to collide with larger bodies or slowly spiral into the inner solar system where they fall into the sun.

Nevertheless, the supply of interplanetary dust particles is constantly replenished by the above-mentioned asteroid collisions and the erosion of comets. So, the interplanetary dust cloud of the solar system is not a static formation but a dynamic structure consisting of quite young components.

For an observer on Earth, this dynamic dust cloud is mainly visible in the form of the zodiacal light. After dusk and before dawn it extends as a cone of light from the sun along the ecliptic path. Often called the “false dawn,” the zodiacal light is quite bright and can be seen from any observing site that doesn’t suffer from severe light pollution, especially when the ecliptic is high in the sky. For Northern Hemisphere observers, this is the case in the evening sky during spring and in the morning sky during autumn.

The morning and evening zodiacal light are the two areas of the interplanetary dust disk where sunlight gets forward scattered to earth, resulting in the bright silvery light cones. The interplanetary dust disk is also visible along the rest of the ecliptic path, where it is called the zodiacal band. Unlike the zodiacal light, however, these sections are very hard to detect since they have an extremely low surface brightness. But at the point directly opposite the sun the geometry again works in our favor and enhances the visibility of the interplanetary dust. This is the area of the gegenschein.

But why does the gegenschein glow brighter than the rest of the zodiacal band? Looking at the interplanetary dust disk from Earth, the section at the antisolar point is illuminated from directly behind our heads. This results in an increase in brightness that is called the opposition effect. The opposition effect is a frequent phenomenon for solar system bodies. For example, the moon shows a significant peak in brightness around full moon, i.e. at its opposition. Another example are Saturn’s rings in the days around opposition, when they brighten drastically.

The main reason for this brightening during opposition is shadow hiding, meaning that all particles are fully illuminated. This opposition effect can even be experienced here on Earth during daylight if you are outdoors and look at the ground in front of you. If the ground is sufficiently coarse, you will see a brightening around the shadow of your head. To document this phenomenon, we made the photo below, which shows the opposition effect on volcanic gravel.

This is like the gegenschein. For this photo, a small action cam was positioned on a tripod looking down on volcanic gravel on La Palma island. The insert shows some of the gravels with a size of several millimeters and their rough surface structure. Around the camera’s shadow the opposition effect results in an obvious brightening. The glow pictured here is similar to the glow of the gegenschein on the night sky.

Image via Project Nightflight.

Interestingly, the brightening around the camera’s shadow had an apparent diameter of 10 degrees, which is about the same size as the diameter of the gegenschein in the night sky. Next time you walk on a rough surface in sunlight, give it a try and look for this terrestrial version of the counterglow.

To sum it up, the gegenschein is not an object. It is a play of light on the solar system’s interplanetary dust disk. The section of the dust at the antisolar point is squarely illuminated, which results in a brightness enhancement due to shadow hiding. This so-called opposition effect can be encountered at many occasions, but with the gegenschein it makes its most ghostlike and outlandish appearance. This is probably the reason why it is such a prized trophy among amateur astronomers.

How we captured the gegenschein

From our observing and photography sessions at dark-sky sites, the gegenschein was a familiar companion. Out under the stars, sooner or later one of us would mention: “Mmh, the gegenschein is quite obvious tonight,” followed by the typical reply: “Yep, bright and shiny!” This short dialogue would indicate that our eyes had reached full dark adaptation and our night vision was at maximum capacity. We often talked about making an image of our good old dark-sky companion, the gegenschein. But for some reason it never came to it. Other projects were in the way, on other occasions the position in the sky was not right, or the atmosphere’s transparency was just not good enough.

But on the night from October 30 to 31, 2019, we finally did give it a go. On October 30 we were already several days on an imaging excursion on La Palma island. During daytime the annoying Calima weather pattern had finally stopped and skies were again as deep blue and transparent as they can be on this beautiful stars island. Accommodated in a solitary finca far away from inhabited areas and about 800 meters (2,600 feet) above sea level we had the perfect conditions for photographing the gegenschein. Around midnight, when the counterglow culminates, our instruments registered a sky brightness of 21.4 magnitudes per square arcsecond in the zenith. This is so dark that Sirius noticeably brightened the landscape when it rose behind a mountain ridge later that night. The gegenschein itself was pretty obvious to the unaided eye. Below the constellation Aries, directly on the ecliptic path, a distinct glow about 10 degrees across marked the antisolar point. The very faint zodiacal band crossing the whole sky was visible too, almost looking like an artificial marking of the ecliptic. Under these conditions, shooting the gegenschein was an easy task.

For those interested in the technical details: we made 23 unfiltered exposures of 4 minutes with a 16mm lens @f/5.6 on a Baader-modified 1100D Canon DSLR. For sky tracking we used a purely mechanical device, the Mini Track LX2. This innovative device is a frequent companion on our imaging excursions. For those interested in more details, we provide a thorough review of the Mini Track LX2 for download on our website. The total weight of our imaging gear was less than 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds), including camera and tripod. The 23 individual exposures of the gegenschein were later calibrated, registered and stacked with DeepSkyStacker. Processing of the final image was done in Photoshop, where we applied substantial contrast enhancement.

How you can see the gegenschein

If you never encountered the gegenschein yourself, don’t expect it to be as prominent as in the photograph at the top of this post. We applied heavy contrast enhancement to the image to make the counterglow, its shape, and its size better visible. To our human eyes, even under the best conditions the gegenschein is an elusive and dim glow. On several occasions we compared the visual brightness of the counterglow and sections of the Milky Way. We always found it to be about as bright as the dimmest parts of the winter Milky Way. The stretch of the Milky Way that approximates the counterglow’s brightness best is the section between the star Mirfak and the asterism called “the Kids” next to Capella. That is, very dim. Any bright object in its vicinity (e.g. Jupiter or Mars at opposition) makes it hard to observe.

Aside from being slightly brighter in the middle and fading out uniformly in all directions the gegenschein shows no structure at all. It has a roundish form, circular or elliptical, measuring approximately 10 degrees across. That is about the size of a fist stretched out at arm’s length.

Drawing of the gegenschein as seen on November 23, 2019, from a dark-sky observing site in Lower Austria. On this night the antisolar point was between the 2 star clusters of the Hyades and Pleiades. The drawing gives a realistic impression of what to expect when looking for the counterglow.

Image via Project Nightflight.

If you want to hunt down the elusive gegenschein yourself, the tips below might come handy:

First of all, check the position: 

Before you begin searching for the gegenschein in the night sky you should check its current position. The map below helps you to determine where to look for it. It also shows you whether the counterglow is detectable at all, because its visibility highly depends on its position against the starry background. In June, July and December it is completely invisible, because it is in front of the Milky Way. Other obstacles can be the bright planets Mars and Jupiter. When one of them is near opposition, it is in the same region of the sky as the counterglow and may outshine it. Some planetarium programs or stargazing apps might also be useful tools to determine the position of the gegenschein. If the software provides an option to display the center of the earth’s shadow this will show you the current antisolar point.

View larger. | This map gives you an idea where to look for the gegenschein in front of the starry background. The scale at the bottom indicates the constellations that culminate at your local midnight on a given date. This also approximates where you can find the gegenschein on the dotted line of the ecliptic. For example, at the end of March it will glow in the constellation Virgo.

Image via Project Nightflight.

Look for it at maximum height above the horizon: 

The gegenschein is always highest above the horizon around local midnight, so that is the best time of the night to give an observation a try. There should also be no moon above the horizon. But that’s not all. Like the sun itself, the antisolar point too has different culmination heights during the course of the year. For observers in the Northern Hemisphere the antisolar point has its highest culmination at the winter solstice around December 21. Sadly, during December the gegenschein is in front of the Winter Milky Way and therefore invisible. So, the best months to see the gegenschein from northern latitudes are November and January. For Southern Hemisphere observers, the largest culmination height of the antisolar point happens at summer solstice around June 21. For southerners too, the Milky Way is in the way. Again, one should look before or after the solstice, in this case during May or August.

View larger. | Only if all of the conditions listed in this diagram are true, you have a valid chance of actually detecting the gegenschein.

Image via Project Nightflight.

Try from the best observing location you have access to: 

The gegenschein cannot be seen from light-polluted sites. Even moderate light pollution diminishes the counterglow’s contrast way too much. Based on our observations, the absolute minimum to detect the gegenschein is a sky brightness of 21.0 mag/arcsecond2 in the zenith. But this applies only if you are already quite familiar with the gegenschein and know exactly what and where to look for. For first-time observers we recommend a site with a sky brightness of 21.2 mag/arcsecond2 in the zenith or better. These conditions can only be found far away from cities or other inhabited areas. Observing sites in the mountains especially qualify because of the reduced air mass at higher altitudes above sea level.

Wait for favorable weather conditions: 

Even if you observe from a dark-sky location, the average clear sky might not be good enough for seeing the gegenschein. What you really want is a night sky with exceptionally high transparency. This will only be the case if the air mass above your observing site is as dry as possible. To get an idea of the current situation at your location, you can use a website that provides weather forecasts for astronomical observations (e.g. 7timer.info). Sites like this display data about humidity at all tropospheric layers. Another condition for high transparency would be that the air is clean, i.e. free of dust. At mid-latitudes, the necessary conditions of dry and clean air often can be found after the passage of a cold front or a trough.

Expand your observing skills:µ

Given you have good eyesight in the dark and you already have some observing experience, there are several observing techniques you need to master for the gegenschein. First of all, you need to learn how to become truly dark adapted. This might put your patience to a test, since your eyes need at least 3/4 of an hour to fully adjust to the dark. So, no smartphones or other handheld devices during this time. You should only use very dim red lights if you don’t want to ruin your night vision. A second technique you might need for seeing the gegenschein is averted vision. With averted vision, you do not look directly at an object but a little off to the side, while continuing to concentrate on the object. This way you are using peripheral vision which is more sensitive to low light levels than the center of the eye. Some observers report that this technique makes a big difference for them and it might help you too. In any case, hunting down the gegenschein will improve your observing skills a lot. Besides, it makes a highly interesting project and sooner or later you too will be able to put that prized stargazer’s trophy on your shelf.

About Project Nightflight: “Our mission is the starry sky. We internationally promote the conservation of the starry sky as environmental resource.To support this goal, we work together closely with our sponsors and international news media. We provide news portals, nature related websites, books, magazines and newspapers with high resolution images of the unspoiled night sky, catching stories about the magic of the starry sky, useful tips for stargazing and astrophotography and informative articles on light pollution prevention. With our images and stories, which are frequently published by major print and online news media, we raise awareness for the need to keep light pollution at bay. Our team is based in Vienna, Austria, and consists of experienced, world-wide active astrophotographers who work on a volunteer basis. Most of our active members are marketing or communication professionals. If you want to learn more about our organization please download the Project Nightflight profile.”

The gegenschein in the whitish blur toward the top of this photo by Jeff Dai from October 2016 at Lake Puma Yumco, Tibet. The prominent loop and colors near the horizon are airglow. 

Read more about this image.

• Bottom line: The gegenschein isn’t an object. It’s a play of light on the solar system’s interplanetary dust disk. The gegenschein lies at the antisolar point, the point exactly opposite the sun. At this point, sunlight squarely illuminates the dust that moves between the planets. In this way, the gegenschein is related to the zodiacal light, which also stems from sunlight reflecting from dust between the planets. But the gegenschein is much more elusive than the zodiacal light. It’s a diffuse patch in the night sky, which moves directly opposite the sun.
• Via Project Nightflight

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

11-03-2020 om 01:32 geschreven door peter  

Is the end near for Mars Odyssey? Trump's proposed 2021 budget could doom long-lived mission

By Nola Taylor Redd 

The new budget request includes a massive cut to Mars Odyssey that effectively ends its mission.

NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above Mars' south pole in this artist's concept illustration. The spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since October 24, 2001. The spacecraft will serve as a vital relay for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity's landing on Aug. 5, 2012. [Related: Mars Rover Curiosity Landing Coverage]

(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech )

NASA's longest-running Mars mission may be on the chopping block.

While President Donald Trump's 2021 budget request clearly threatened NASA missions like the jet-borne telescope SOFIA, another potential shutdown was tucked inside the request. Proposed cuts to the 2001 Mars Odyssey program would bring its budget to a scant million dollars a year, effectively terminating the mission. The budget request is just that, a request; Congress makes the ultimate decision about budgets and can choose to continue funding the mission. Nevertheless, the threat has Mars scientists anxious about the mission's future.

"I can't think of any situation where you would say, OK, let's just turn it off," said Tanya Harrison, a planetary scientist who studies Mars and has relied on Odyssey observations. "You never know what you're going to find if you keep going with these missions."

• Related: Mars Odyssey: Pictures from longest Mars mission
  

• More: A brief history of Mars missions

Odyssey launched in April 2001, arriving in orbit around the Red Planet six months later. Within a year of its launch, the spacecraft found water ice beneath the ground, the first direct evidence of subsurface water on the Red Planet. Since then, the spacecraft has made a number of important discoveries and observations, including the longest continuous observations of Martian weather.

But science isn't all Odyssey does. Right now, it's also the primary communications connection for the Curiosity rover. "It's the workhorse for sending data back from the rovers," Odyssey team member Phil Christensen told Space.com. Christensen, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University, leads the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) instrument on Mars Odyssey. With NASA's next Mars rover, Perseverance (formerly known as Mars 2020), scheduled to arrive in February 2021, a communication crisis could become a future concern.

The proposed defunding is even more puzzling, the scientists said, because the spacecraft is in relatively good health and has enough fuel to last up to a decade longer. "Something else [on the spacecraft] will die before we run out of fuel," Christensen predicted.

True, a series of strong solar flares put one instrument out of commission in 2003. And the spacecraft lost one of its reaction wheels in 2012, though its existing three are sufficient to point Odyssey in the right direction. But despite approaching its second decade, the spacecraft appears to have a bright scientific future in store — assuming it survives the 2021 budget proposal.

Budget woes

The concerns all stem from Trump's budget request, a document the executive branch sends Congress to start the annual budget process. The request outlined presidential priorities and how the administration would like money to be allocated for the fiscal year beginning in October.

That request highlighted the proposed cancellation of the SOFIA and WFIRST space telescopes, the latter of which previous requests have also targeted. In contrast, Odyssey's changes were tucked away in hundreds of pages of documents. There, a chart cuts Odyssey's budget from $11.5 million in 2019 to $1 million in 2021 and no funding in later years (fiscal year 2020 is only partially enacted at this point and so is not listed). No explanation for it is given.

It's easy to shrug off the long-lived mission, which has already received eight mission extensions. But when it comes to spacecraft, a functioning mission is worth more than might be expected. A colleague once told Christensen that a pile of parts is worth a certain amount value, which increases when the parts are assembled and again when a spacecraft survives the rugged testing required of space-faring machinery. But once the spacecraft is functioning at Mars, the value is without measure.

"When it's in orbit and has proven itself for 20 years, it's literally a priceless resource," Christensen said. "Why would you turn off something that's already there and working and doing a great job?"

Money is most likely the motivating factor. The NASA budget tends to be a zero-sum game, with few overall increases. And the agency wants to beef up a program to bring samples home from Mars, which generally requires moving money from another NASA column in the budget request. That's what Christensen suspects is happening.

Odyssey isn't the only Mars mission facing a requested budget reduction. The 2021 budget also proposes cutting the Curiosity rover's funds by about 25%, a substantial hit for the brave little rover. Christensen suspects that the $10 million cut from Odyssey and $10 million from Curiosity has all been applied to a sample return mission. At the same time, the Mars Future Mission program request jumped by nearly $200 million in 2021 alone, with funding forecast to increase further over the next five years. 

But to Christensen, it doesn't make sense to scrap Odyssey to make that happen. "Sample return is going to be a multibillion-dollar endeavor," he said. "In the big picture, saving $10 million isn't really that important."

Bringing rocks back from Mars is something Mars scientists have long fought for. Coincidentally, Christensen said he's spent many years advocating for sample return because he thinks it's important. And he's sure that shutting down Odyssey isn't something that NASA administrators are undertaking lightly.

"They've got some tough decisions to make," he said.

A rock and a hard place

NASA has struggled through proposed budget cuts in the past that failed to kill their missions. The SOFIA "telescope on a plane" mission has lost funding in presidential budget requests several times over the past few years, yet it's still flying. 

But if Congress goes along with the Odyssey cancellation, the process will be long and complicated. The Odyssey mission control room sits not at a NASA center but at Lockheed Martin's Colorado office.

A spacecraft can't just be turned off, especially not one orbiting a world with potentially habitable environments, like Mars. Exactly how Lockheed Martin would decommission Odyssey has not yet been disclosed. According to a member of the Odyssey team who wished to remain anonymous, NASA has declined to acknowledge the proposed budget cut to the team or take steps to decommission the spacecraft, according to team members. 

NASA did not respond to requests from this reporter for the decommissioning plan and postponed interview requests, At NASA's request, Lockheed Martin canceled a scheduled interview to discuss the subject, leaving not only the Odyssey team but also the public in the dark.

In January, NASA and Lockheed Martin shut down the Spitzer Space Telescope, an infrared instrument orbiting the sun behind Earth. That decommissioning took roughly six months of coordination between the two organizations. "It's not a trivial process to decommission a spacecraft," Christensen said.

To close its mission by October 2020, when the proposed 2021 budget goes into effect, the spacecraft would likely have to begin its decommissioning program about six months earlier. If the budget hasn't been sorted out by May 1, 2020, the Lockheed Martin team may find itself between a rock and a hard place.

One option is to continue operating the spacecraft as normal, fingers crossed tightly for a budgetary rescue. If Congress stands by the spacecraft, the mission will continue into its second decade and hopefully beyond that. But otherwise, the private company may find itself scrambling at the last minute to rush the decommissioning process, potentially causing entirely new problems.

The other, more likely option according to the confidential source is that the company will balk at the potential funding loss and begin the shutdown process. (Without comment from NASA or Lockheed Martin, it's unknown what other steps would be required to decommission the spacecraft.) 

Both Christensen and the anonymous source said that they've heard rumors that Odyssey would dump its fuel at some point between May and October. Christensen speculated that could be a step to prevent potential explosions in the future, which would litter the Martian atmosphere with thousands of pieces of debris. 

Once the spacecraft has dumped its fuel, even an increased budget wouldn't save Odyssey. Without fuel, the spacecraft won't be able to point or transmit. If unchanged, its current orbit should keep it drifting around Mars for another 30 years, per the guidelines that prevent a spacecraft from impacting a planet within 50 years of leaving Earth.

A continued presence

Odyssey has been in orbit for a long time. A child born when the spacecraft launched would be in their first year of college today. So a proposed cancellation is "not surprising, since the mission is so old," Harrison said. "The oldest missions tend to be put on the chopping block."

Odyssey carries what is currently the only infrared imager orbiting Mars. Over the last 19 years, that instrument, THEMIS, has produced an incredibly detailed view of the planet and its physical nature. Measuring the surface temperature at day and night provides insight into the properties acting on Mars today, such as wind and glaciation, as well as the volcanic processes of the past.

The spacecraft has also been able to study Martian weather patterns over its lifetime. "If you showed up on Earth and watched the weather for one year, you'd say, this is what the climate is like on Earth," Christensen said. "If you keep track of the climate over a 20-year period, then you have a totally different view of how the atmosphere is behaving."

Those records can have long-term implications for one day sending humans to Mars, and continued observations can only improve them. In 2018, a global dust storm single-handedly shut down the Martian rover Opportunity by obscuring its solar panels for an extended period. 

The same phenomenon could endanger human habitats on Mars. "If we're going to send humans there, the weather's going to be really important," Christensen said. "To this day, we cannot predict when the next big Martian global dust storm is going to occur."

Threats to Odyssey may also affect other missions at Mars, since the spacecraft serves as a major communications hub for surface missions. Rovers carry very small antennae, perfect for sending data short distances but an option for the long transmission from Mars to Earth. Instead, they ping satellites orbiting the planet. Christensen said there are currently four spacecraft capable of relaying those signals home: Odyssey, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), NASA's MAVEN spacecraft and the European Trace Gas Orbiter. Of those, Odyssey does most of the heavy lifting.

"Odyssey is really good at communication," Christensen said. "We've done it for a really long time."

MRO, the most likely communication replacement, has had its own share of trouble since its 2005 launch. "It seems to have gone into safe mode more frequently [recently]," Harrison said. She remembered a period where the spacecraft was out of commission for four months, making it a tenuous replacement for Odyssey.

MAVEN is currently focused on studying the upper atmosphere. Its orbit was recently shifted to allow it to shoulder some of the burden of communication, but doing so limited its scientific observations. The European spacecraft could also serve as a redundancy, as long as the agency is willing to give up collecting some of its own scientific data to allow Curiosity and the future Perseverance rover, formerly known as Mars 2020, to phone home.

The tradeoff between orbital and surface science is something all of the potential replacements would face. Shutting down the working Odyssey mission would not only eliminate the science produced by the spacecraft itself but also cut into the time other orbiters can spend doing science.

Both Harrison and Christensen said that communication redundancies mattered. "Having that backup contingency is really important, especially as we're about to launch another rover to Mars," Harrison said. "The more communication relays we have to Earth, the better."

Christensen remains optimistic about Odyssey's odds of survival and suggested some alternative models that could support the spacecraft even if Congress does cut its funding. "I think there are creative ways to keep this mission alive," he said. The mission could become student-run, he said, providing undergraduate and graduate students with the hands-on training they need and allowing them to engage with Mars. Or science could be outsourced to countries unable to send their own mission to the Red Planet, in exchange for additional funding. Or a college or university could step up to run the spacecraft and handle the funding.

"These things are too priceless to just flip the switch when you don't have to," Christensen said.

Harrison echoed that sentiment. "These missions are so complicated and we put so much effort into them that it seems like a waste to turn them off from a budget standpoint if they're still working," she said.

• Trump calls for $25 billion NASA budget for 2021 to boost moon and Mars goals
• Trump's 2021 NASA budget request supports X-59 experimental jet 
• Space Force gets $15.4 billion in 2021 budget request

Follow Nola on Facebook and on Twitter at @NolaTRedd. 

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

11-03-2020 om 01:11 geschreven door peter  

'Cosmos: Possible Worlds' takes us back into a universe of science

A new season of the rebooted television show "Cosmos" arrives on screens today (March 9) after a one-year delay.

As in 2014's second season, the third installment of "Cosmos" is hosted by American Museum of Natural History astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson. The original series, which aired in 1980, featured Cornell University astronomer Carl Sagan and introduced countless people to the wonder of space science, and the reboot, which airs on the National Geographic channel, is carefully designed to do the same.

(The release of the new third season of "Cosmos" was delayed for a year while National Geographic investigated claims of sexual misconduct by the show's host. The network eventually dismissed the allegations and Tyson apologized publicly for any misunderstanding of his behavior.)

"Part of the DNA of 'Cosmos' is its capacity to blend the science with storytelling," Tyson said during a media event held by the Television Critics Association in California in January. "We all know storytelling from the beginning of our species. We all know science because you learned it in your science textbooks. Previously, when you wanted to communicate science … it felt very lecture-y." The new "Cosmos" is not lecture-y. It is easily digested science backed by great visuals.

• Related: The best sci-fi TV shows on Netflix 

The new season consists of 13 episodes, with subjects including the fascinating story of the unlikely originator of the rendezvous concept that enabled the Apollo lunar landings, the 20-year Cassini mission to Saturn and a visit to the New York World's Fair of 2039.

The Cassini episode in particular touches the heart: The show quite lyrically presents the end of the probe's long life, when it was directed to destroy itself in Saturn's atmosphere. This sort of creative, daring storytelling is at the core of the success of "Cosmos" and is bolstered by lavish, feature-quality visual effects.

"We have animations, we have visualizations, and there's music behind it," Tyson said. "These are tools that have been well known in the industry, but no one ever thought to put it to science. That's what 'Cosmos' does." 

The result is quite moving, as we see a cluster of mission scientists barely holding back tears as their beloved spacecraft plunges to its demise.

In a later interview, Ann Druyan, Sagan's widow and co-writer on the original series, said that beneath the show's overall theme of exploring the history of our understanding of the universe, there is another strong motif — that of the relevance and importance of science in our lives and culture.

Druyan said she feels that in the last few years, there has been a "flight from reality" in how we deal with science. She was frank in her assertion that there is widespread "loss of respect for science" and that "deception" about these topics has become "business as usual." 

That attitude permeates both the public and institutions, she said. Working on the original series, "Carl [Sagan] and I had many differences with our government, but we felt tremendous pride in the achievements of the space program and what it was doing," she said. "Now something has really changed in the government's attitude towards science, which was once its shining jewel. It's hostile and cynical. When anybody is hostile and cynical about our most powerful tool for apprehending reality, you know they're up to no good. 'Cosmos' is our way of standing up for the awesome power of science." 

She credited executive producer Seth MacFarlane with getting the reboot of the show on the air. "There would be no second season of 'Cosmos' without Seth … I'd been trying for years to get a new 'Cosmos' produced, and it wasn't until I met Seth that there was a champion for 'Cosmos.'"

The "Cosmos" team insists that good storytelling is the key to enlightening and engaging the public, according to producer Jason Clark. "We're not actually taking you out to space," he said, "so we have to visualize that in a way that feels profound and real, but that doesn't lose a connection with the audience in the art of storytelling." 

He described Sagan's performance in the original series as akin to a fireside chat and said that Tyson has embraced the same narrative style.

"I feel really in this season that [Tyson] delivered this incredible kind of connected, simple, one-on-one capability that we could support with visuals," Clark said, by taking viewers to "the far reaches of the universe or down into the quantum level. And when you go there, it's transformative." The team emulated the visual storytelling style of the best big-budget fiction films, he said, with the added benefit that "this is all real … it's true, so it's quite powerful."

Tyson brings his own unique style to this new iteration of "Cosmos," one that is well suited to increasingly cynical 21st-century viewers. When asked if he wrote in a different voice for Tyson than for Sagan, executive producer Brannon Braga said no. "It's in 'Cosmos's' voice," he said. "Neil's ability to take those words and make them naturalistic and connect with an audience on the camera is a perfect combination and resulted in success."

Tyson and the writers are dedicated to preserving the overall tone that Sagan and Druyan established in the original series, the team said, and rekindling a faith in science to answer the big questions that underlie "Cosmos." They have done so with grace and dignity, something rarely achieved in this kind of television, and one that has the potential to unite the viewing audience.

"Rather than hit people over the head for their beliefs, we present the notion that if we're going to survive … at some point we have to establish what is true and what is not," Tyson said. "If you understand that, you'll be in a much better position to make decisions that affect the survival of humanity. It's an appeal for all of us to gather together and imagine the future as a community — not as a country, not as a faction, but as a species."

"Cosmos" premieres on the National Geographic channel on March 9 at 8 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT and will be reprised on the Fox television network this summer.

•  Carl Sagan: Cosmos, pale blue dot & famous quotes 
•  Book excerpt: 'For Small Creatures Such As We' by Sasha Sagan 
•  Sasha Sagan dives into science, space and spirituality in new book 

 Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

11-03-2020 om 00:32 geschreven door peter  

Surprise! Earth and the moon aren't made of exactly the same stuff.

By Charles Q. Choi 

The new findings provide a boost to the giant-impact theory of the moon's origin.

This composite image of the moon was constructed using data gathered by NASA's Clementine mission in 1994.

(Image: © NASA)

The moon and Earth may be more different than previously thought, challenging existing models for how the moon formed, a new study finds.

Earth originated about 4.5 billion years ago, and previous research suggested that the moon arose a short time after that. For the past three decades, the prevailing explanation for the moon's origin was that it resulted from the collision of two protoplanets, or embryonic worlds. One of those was the newborn Earth, and the other was a Mars-size rock nicknamed Theia, after the mother of the moon in Greek myth. "Once the dust settled, two bodies were left — Earth and the moon," new study co-author Zachary Sharp, a planetary scientist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, told Space.com.

This "giant impact hypothesis" seemed to explain many details about Earth and the moon, such as the large size of the moon compared with Earth and the rates of rotation of the two bodies. However, in the past 20 or so years, evidence has emerged to challenge that hypothesis and suggest a multitude of alternatives.

• Related: How the moon formed: 5 wild lunar theories

Computer models of the giant-impact scenario often say that 70% to 90% of the moon should be made of material from Theia. The problem is that most bodies in the solar system have unique chemical makeups, and so the Earth, Theia — and therefore the moon — should too. However, rock samples that the Apollo missions returned from the moon show that the natural satellite's composition is uncannily similar to Earth's, much more similar than such models would predict for versions of elements called isotopes. (Isotopes of an element each have different numbers of neutrons in their atomic nuclei.)

This extreme similarity in isotopes of elements such as oxygen has raised great challenges for the giant-impact scenario. One possibility is that the proto-Earth and Theia were nearly identical to start with when it came to oxygen isotopes, which seems unlikely. Another is that the proto-Earth and Theia's oxygen isotopes were fully mixed in the aftermath of the collision, perhaps due to an impact so violent that it vaporized a large portion of the early Earth, with the moon emerging from the resulting, doughnut-shaped mass called a synestia. But this and other scenarios may require unlikely impact conditions, scientists have said.

In the new study, researchers conducted new high-precision measurements of oxygen isotope levels in a range of lunar samples. The researchers expanded on previous work by focusing on a wide variety of types of moon rock.

The scientists found that there were subtle but regular differences in oxygen isotopic composition depending on the kind of lunar rock tested, Sharp said. This suggested that prior work that averaged together lunar isotope data while ignoring differences in rock type might not have given an accurate picture of the differences between Earth and the moon.

"Going into this project, it was expected that our results would likely mirror that of previous studies," study lead author Erick Cano, a stable-isotope geochemist at the University of New Mexico, told Space.com. "The most surprising part of our results was finding the amount of variation that we did between the individual lunar samples."

• Related: How the moon was made: Lunar evolution explained (infographic)

To explain these findings, the researchers suggested that the giant collision between proto-Earth and Theia did indeed lead to mixing between the bodies. Still, the resulting moon and Earth had distinct compositions, albeit very similar ones, Sharp said.

Later, in the first 1,000 or so years after the impact, vaporized rock from the disk of debris left behind by the impact likely led "to lava raining down on the moon for hundreds of years," Sharp said. Complex physical and chemical interactions between this lava rain and the ocean of magma that covered the newborn moon could then have led to an oxygen isotopic composition in the uppermost lunar rocks that was more similar to Earth's. In contrast, samples that came from the deep lunar mantle had the most different oxygen isotopic composition of the lunar rocks tested when compared to Earth.

The most important implication from these findings is that giant-impact models no longer have to account for virtually indistinguishable oxygen isotopic compositions between Earth and the moon, Cano said. "I think this will open the door for an entirely new range of impact scenarios," he added.

Future research can expand on this new study by analyzing other lunar samples, Cano said. "The obstacles for this future research may be the limited quantities of material that we have from the Apollo missions," he said. "Some of these lunar rock types were only brought back in very small quantities and can be very difficult to obtain for study."

Cano, Sharp and study co-author Chip Shearer, a lunar scientist also based at the University of New Mexico, detailed their findings online Monday (March 9) in the journal Nature Geoscience.

• What is the moon made of?
• How was the moon formed?
• The moon on Earth: Where are NASA's Apollo lunar rocks now?

Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

11-03-2020 om 00:19 geschreven door peter  

UFO Captured By Drone In Utah

What I don't understand is why does it make a turn like a plane, I mean UFOs don't have to do that as they have inertial dampeners or gravity nullifiers with that rotating like that is done because of the ailerons, this object is rotating to make a turn like a plane does and that's illogical, might be something from the Air force new type of plane with that.

Other videos, selected by peter2011

Interesting video

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

10-03-2020 om 23:45 geschreven door peter  

Extraterrestrials Are Waiting For The Right Moment Before They Make Contact – Scientists Say

Cynthia McKanzie – MessageToEagle.com

If you were a member of an alien race would you think it’s wise to initiate contact with humans? Could humanity handle contact with extraterrestrials?

According to scientists, extraterrestrials are deliberately waiting for the right moment before they reveal themselves to Earthlings.

In a recent study published by the Astronomical Journal scientists have tried to shed new light on the Fermi paradox and the Aurora Effect by investigating the existence of alien civilizations on other planets.

Credit: Public Domain

“We model the settlement of the Galaxy by space-faring civilizations in order to address issues related to the Fermi Paradox. We are motivated to explore the problem in a way that avoids assumptions about the agency (i.e., questions of intent and motivation) of any exo-civilization seeking to settle other planetary systems,” researchers write in their study.

Scientists started by considering the speed of an advancing settlement front to determine if the Galaxy can become inhabited with space-faring civilizations on timescales shorter than its age.

They included the directed settlement of nearby settleable systems through the launching of probes with a finite velocity and range. In addition to this, researchers also considered the effect of stellar motions on the long-term behavior of the settlement front which adds a diffusive component to its advance.

“The results of these models demonstrate that the Milky Way can be readily filled-in with settled stellar systems under conservative assumptions about interstellar spacecraft velocities and launch rates,” scientists said.

The Fermi Paradox, a concept presented by physicist Enrico Fermi regarding the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence has intrigued all researchers searching for alien life. According to the Fermi Paradox due to the number of planets and stars in the galaxy, there should be another world teeming with intelligent extraterrestrial life. If this is true, then Earth should have already been visited or at least contacted by aliens.

However, since humans have not yet come across evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, many doubt the existence of alien civilizations.

See also:

• Are Extraterrestrials Capable Of Altering Our Reality?
• Extraterrestrial Material May Be Present On The Moon – Focus On Space Archaeology – Astronomy Professor Says
• Extraterrestrial Probes May Study Us Now But They’re Too Small To Spot – Astrophysicist Says
• More About Extraterrestrial Life

Researchers of the recent study say that it’s possible extraterrestrials are in close vicinity to the Earth, but they’re simply waiting for the time when Earth or the Solar System gets closer to their homeworld before sending out a probe or launching an expedition.

“If long enough is a billion years, well then that’s one solution to the Fermi paradox,” Carroll-Nellenback told Business Insider. “Habitable worlds are so rare that you have to wait longer than any civilization is expected to last before another one comes in range.”

“Every system could be habitable and could be settled, but they wouldn’t visit us because they’re not close enough,” he added.

Most people believe that humans will sooner or later establish open contact with aliens, but it’s possible certain requirements must be met before this meeting can take place. Science fiction authors and some scientists sometimes say humans will be invited to join the Galactic Club, but when this will happen is unknown.

Our world will change completely once we enter the Galactic Club.

Credit: Artist Unknown

According to David Schwartzman, a biogeochemist at Howard University in Washington D.C, there is a reason not to give up on SETI. Schwartzman thinks aliens are out there, despite the fact that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has only found silence. He also outlines what we need to do for planet Earth to be initiated into the Galactic Club.

“Our world will change completely once we enter the Galactic Club.

I submit that if we want to enter the Galactic Club, the challenge lies in reconstructing our global political economy. A few minor side benefits should result, like no more war, no more poverty, a future for all of humanity’s children with a substantial proportion of biodiversity intact. We should not expect the Galactic Club to save us from ourselves,” Schwartzman said.

Written by Cynthia McKanzie – MessageToEagle.com Staff Writer

{ http://www.messagetoeagle.com/ }

10-03-2020 om 23:20 geschreven door peter  

'Invisible UFOs' Fill the Skies

10-03-2020 om 21:58 geschreven door peter  

In my previous article on “Invisible UFOs,” I discussed three cases from the U.K., and all from the 1950s. It’s now time to take a look at a very similar case from the United States and also occurred in the 1950s. The documentation on this intriguing story can be found in the UFO section of the FBI’s website, The Vault. With that all said, let’s now take a look at the case itself.  It all goes back to 1951 and strange, aerial activity that occurred in the vicinity of a military installation, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. The documentation on the incident starts as follows: “On September 20, Andrew J. Reid G-2 [Army Intelligence] Ft. Monmouth, NJ, provided following report of unconventional aircraft observed by radar at above Army installation. On Sept 10, fifty one], an AN/MPG-1 radar set picked up a fast moving low flying target, exact altitude undetermined at approximately 11:10 a.m., southeast of Ft. Monmouth at a range of about twelve thousand yards. The target appeared to approximately follow the coast line, changing its range only slightly but changing its azimuth rapidly. The radar set was set to full aided azimuth tracking which normally is fast enough to track jet aircraft, but in this case was too slow to be resorted to. Target was lost in the N.E. at a range of about fourteen thousand yards.”

Matters had barely begun, however, as the following extract from the official papers reveals: “This target also presented an unusually strong return for aircraft[,] being comparable in strength to that usually received from a coastal ship [italics mine]. The operator initially identified target as a ship and then realized that it could not be a ship after he observed its extreme speed. September 10, fifty one  an SCR-584 radar set, at 3:15p.m., tracking a target which moved about slowly in azimuth north of Ft. Monmouth at a range of about 42,000 yards at extremely unusual elevation angle.”

Notably, the movements of the vast craft  were also picked up by another radar expert: “Both sets found it impossible to track the target in range due to it speed and the operators had to resort to manual range tracking in order to hold the target. The target was tracked in this manner to the maximum tracking range of 32,000 yards. The operator said the target to be moving at a speed several hundred mph higher than the maximum aided tracking ability of the radar sets. The target provided an extremely strong return echo at times even though it was the maximum range. However, echo signal occasionally fell off to a level below normal return. These changes coincided with maneuvers of the target.”

There was more amazing activity to come: “On September 11, fifty one [sic] at about 1:30 p.m. the target was picked up on an SCR-584 radar set that displayed unusual maneuverability. Target was approximately over Navesink, NJ, as indicated by his 10,000 range, 6,000 feet altitude and due north azimuth. The target remained practically stationary on the scope and appeared to be hovering [italics mine]. The operator looked out of the vehicle housing the radar in an attempt to see the target, since it was at such a short range, however, overcast conditions prevented such observation.”

And we have this incredible data from the base’s staff: “Returning to their operating position the target was observed to be changing in elevation at an extremely rapid rate, but change in range was so slow the operator believed the target must have risen nearly vertically [italics mine]…Once again the speed of the target exceeded the tracking ability of the SCR-584 set so that manual tracking became necessary…The weather was fair when the observation was made September 10th and cloudy for the September 11th report.”

Truly, a fascinating and amazing early encounter of the UFO kind. And of the invisible type, too.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

10-03-2020 om 21:34 geschreven door peter  

Back in late 2013, Micah Hanks wrote a feature here with the title of:“Arnold’s Flying Saucers: Were They Saucers at All? He stated: “Despite the popularity this subject would garner in those golden years after the War, perhaps there is no early UFO incident that has proven to be quite as influential as that of Kenneth Arnold, a civilian pilot who spotted an entire fleet of strange aircraft while flying over Washington state in June of 1947.

The strange craft that Arnold observed would spark a flame that grew like wildfire, eventually forming the modern UFO phenomenon, and at the center of it all was the curious staple that became known as the flying saucer.” Arnold’s encounter took place near to Mt. Rainier and, in no time at all, resulted in the birth of the UFO phenomenon. Of course, there are numerous theories for what Arnold encountered: alien spacecraft, top secret of the U.S. military and even a flock of geese. Whatever the truth, for many Arnold’s experience is still perceived today as one of the most important UFOs cases of the 20th century.

It was said for a long time that the biggest problem with Arnold’s encounter was that it lacked any kind of corroboration. That may not have been the case, though. It’s now time to introduce you to a man named Fred Johnson, a prospector who just might have been in the right place – and at the right time – to see exactly what Arnold sighted. Both the military and the FBI took an interest in what Johnson had to say, as the following documentation – from the FBI – demonstrates: “Fred Johnson reported without consulting any records that on June 24, 1947, while prospecting at a point in the Cascade Mountains approximately five thousand feet from sea level, during the afternoon he noticed a reflection, looked up, and saw a disc proceeding in a southeasterly direction. Immediately upon sighting this object he placed his telescope to his eye and observed the disc for approximately forty-five to sixty seconds.”

Johnson “remarked that it is possible for him to pick up an object at a distance of ten miles with his telescope. At the time the disc was sighted by Mr. Johnson it was banking in the sun, and he observed five or six similar objects but only concentrated on one. He related that they did not fly in any particular formation and that he would estimate their height to be about one thousand feet from where he was standing. He said the object was about thirty feet in diameter and appeared to have a tail. It made no noise. According to Johnson he remained in the vicinity of the Cascades for several days and then returned to Portland and noted an article in the local paper which stated in effect that a man in Boise, Idaho, had sighted a similar object but that authorities had disclaimed any knowledge of such an object. He said he communicated with the Army for the sole purpose of attempting to add credence to the story furnished by the man in Boise.”

The FBI concluded: “Johnson also related that on the occasion of his sighting the objects on June 24, 1947 he had in his possession a combination compass and watch. He noted particularly that immediately before he sighted the disc the compass acted very peculiar, the hand waving from one side to the other, but that this condition corrected itself immediately after the discs had passed out of sight. Informant appeared to be a very reliable individual who advised that he had been a prospector in the states of Montana, Washington and Oregon for the past forty years.”

We may never for sure if Fred Johnson encountered the very same craft that Kenneth Arnold did. At the very least, however, it’s a fascinating and thought-provoking story.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

10-03-2020 om 21:22 geschreven door peter  

Linda Moulton Howe: Earthly Phenomena Thousands of Years Old Could Have an Alien Origin

Linda Moulton Howe – For thousands of years they have been monitoring human development and interacting with the selected, molding and changing historical outcomes. We have been the subject of guidance, manipulation, and experimentation.

They have been referred to as the Ancient Sky Gods and The Watchers. But we would now refer to them as ‘The ET Presence’. Archived Show – Awakening Expo, Manchester, UK.

Linda Moulton Howe…1000′s Of Years Old Earthly Phenomena That Could Have An Alien Origin?

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

10-03-2020 om 20:55 geschreven door peter  

10-03-2020 om 20:44 geschreven door peter  

Black Ring UFO Seen Over Disneyland, Los Angeles, CA March 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: March 8, 2020
Location of sighting: Disneyland, Los Angeles, California, USA

Here is an interesting video of a possible ring UFO over Disneyland theme park in LA, CA this week. In the past some rides at parks have been known to cause black rings, however there are also serious US military reports that do note seeing a ring UFO suddenly change into a saucer shaped cloud over a military base. 

What significance does this have to real UFOs? UFOs can create clouds around them, or so the evidence presented by the US government documents have stated since 1957 of the Fort Belvoir UFO Case, it's photos are below. The Condon Report (p.168) devoted 11 pages to this case. One morning in September, 1957 an Arm private at Fort Belvoir, Va. was called from his barracks by his buddies to witness what appeared to be a black, ring-shaped UFO approaching. The private grabbed his Brownie camera and snapped 6 pictures of it, of which this was the first. After about 5 minutes, the black ring, which appeared "solid" to the soldier and glided steadily along, began to be "engulfed in white smoke." Photos at end of this post. 
Scott C. Waring 

Eyewitness states: 

The following video is of what happening on earth date 3/8/2020 “Alien Portal.” Share it people got to know what’s coming 😰. That was not the only place that happened at, it happened at SD too.

Actual photos taken by a US solder of metal ring UFO making cloud around it. 

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

10-03-2020 om 18:24 geschreven door peter  

Coronavirus Could Give Us an Idea What Will Take Place When ET Life Reaches Earth

It would be nice to find life on other worlds, no doubt about it! However, it may be wise to reconsider this entire thing. If we indeed find alien life, can we handle it epidemiologically, biologically, and emotionally?

We are currently in the middle of an alarming worldwide situation with previously unknown disease COVID-19. As of this writing, confirmed cases reach close to 90,000 in 68 countries, leading to over 3,000 deaths. Tokyo Olympics are threatened to be postponed, flights have been grounded, major international gatherings canceled, and a global recession looms. In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had its worst week since the 2008 and 2009 recession, shedding one-third of its gains since the 2016 election. Most of these are due to fears of the negative impact of COVID-19.

Humanity is suffering the effects of the disease, but the Chinese and Asian-looking people are taking the big blow. The virus started in Wuhan, China, and ugly behaviors have surfaced around the world. At a California high school, an Asian-American 16-year old was assaulted and accused of carrying the virus. There’s an underlying anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea, with some shops posting signs not allowing Chinese. In Vancouver, a Chinese boy playing at a school playground was taunted as being a virus carrier.

COVID-19 has nothing to do with space, as it is an entirely terrestrial problem. But the thing is, even its terrestrial origin, it leads to thousands of deaths around the world. What more if the virus came from the space? NASA is poised to launch in July a new rover to Mars that will hunt for microbial life and collect some soil and rock samples that will be bought to Earth. These samples are potentially containing that microbial life.

NASA has a long history of protecting the Earth from biohazards from other planets and vice versa, according to a column in Space.com. The agency has one division solely formed for that goal, which is formally known as the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) and commonly known as the Planetary Protection office.

Still, the risk exists. Even the strictest labs always have a non-zero chance that something could escape. Imagine it will, and many people will become infected. Aside from the impact of their health, they would not only be racialized but also extraterrestrialized, in the sense that they are not even fully human anymore.

The battle against SARS-CoV-2 shows that humanity can have a unified effort, and it will be the same if one of those alien living things threatens us all. Collectivism is among our highest qualities. On the other hand, the othering, racializing, directed at people of Chinese descent, is one of our lowest qualities.

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

10-03-2020 om 17:47 geschreven door peter  

The Fascinating and Terrifying UFO Incident Experience of Travis Walton (1975)

The Travis Walton UFO incident refers to an American logger who claims he was abducted by a UFO on November 5, 1975, while working with a logging crew in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona. Walton reappeared after a five-day search. The Walton case received mainstream publicity and remains one of the best-known alleged alien abduction stories, although skeptics consider it a hoax.

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

10-03-2020 om 17:12 geschreven door peter  

Mohenjo-Daro: An ancient city destroyed by a nuclear attack thousands of years ago?

Is it possible that Mohenjo-Daro – an ancient city that belonged to the Indus Valley Civilization- was destroyed by a nuclear attack thousands of years ago?

Only seven years after the first atomic explosion in New Mexico, theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer, one of the people often named as “father of the atomic bomb” was giving a lecture at the University of Rochester. On that occasion, a student asked him if the first nuclear device that went off was the one at Alamogordo, during the Manhattan Project. Dr. Oppenheimer respond: Well … yes. In modern times, yes, of course.

What did Dr. Oppenheimer want to say? If we look at the theoretical physicist’s answer literally, it means that in ancient times nuclear bombs –or variations of them— existed among ancient civilizations.

Consequently, this brings us to one of the most important questions most of us have tried never to ask: Was mankind visited in the distant past by other civilizations beyond earth. And if so, did these ancient civilizations really have advanced technologies like nuclear bombs?

In modern-day Pakistan, in the vicinity of the banks of the Indus River, we can find one of the most enigmatic archaeological sites on the surface of the planet –which once belonged to one of the oldest civilizations on the planet, the Indus Valley civilization— Mohenjo-Daro.

Together with Harappa located some six hundred kilometers further northeast, Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa are two of the most prominent ancient cities that belonged to the Indus Valley Civilization.

Interestingly, if there is something surprising at Mohenjo-Daro, then it is the complete absence of buildings that can be identified as temples or palaces or any kind of symbolism that may be associated with such.

Archaeologists sustain that all buildings follow a uniform pattern, highlighting its construction in adobe bricks with no ornaments and windows, all within an urban planning far more advanced than that of any other ancient civilization thousands of years ago, with wide avenues and straight roads (many of them perfectly paved), with rectangular buildings which were all equipped with a network of drainage systems, canals, pipes and sewers, etc.

Interestingly, just as the ancient Sumerian civilization, the Indus Valley seemed to have emerged all of a sudden, without any trace of an earlier evolution prior to the apparition of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro.

But if the appearance of such amazing civilization remains a mystery, their disappearance is even more fascinating and was initially attributed to the arrival of invading peoples of Indo-European origin.

But many researchers argue that something entirely different happened at Mohenjo-Daro.

We only have to take a look at ancient Vedic texts, a set of antique Sanskrit writings which are considered legacies of the gods, where we find references which may help get to the bottom of the numerous mysteries that surround Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus Valley Civilization.

One of the ancient texts, the Mahabharata, an extensive poem of some 215,000 verses details events that occurred in the city of Mohenjo-Daro where both gods and mortals were wrapped in an epic war, overshadowing the remote origins of the city since the Mahabharata places the ancient city in the years 3103 BC during the Kali Iuga or ‘Black Age0 –a kind of apocalypse that occurred in the distant past that modified much of the ancient history of India.

There are hundreds and hundreds of unanswered questions, but there are ancient texts that offer many answers despite being considered as heretic and misinterpreted by modern scholars.

Interestingly, many ancient texts shed light onto the numerous enigmas of history and if not almost entirely, they illuminate the path of a truly untold story that bends the possibilities of our written history.

As we mentioned above, one of such texts is the ancient Mahabharata.

“Gurkha, flying a swift and powerful vimana,
hurled a single projectile
charged with the power of the Universe.

An incandescent column of smoke and flame,
as bright as ten thousand suns,
rose with all its splendor.

It was an unknown weapon,
an iron thunderbolt,
a gigantic messenger of death,
which reduced to ashes
the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.

The corpses were so burned
as to be unrecognizable.

Hair and nails fell out;
Pottery broke without apparent cause,
and the birds turned white.

…After a few hours
all foodstuffs were infected…
…to escape from this fire
the soldiers threw themselves in streams
to wash themselves and their equipment.”

 A second passage:

“Dense arrows of flame,
like a great shower,
issued forth upon creation,
encompassing the enemy.
A thick gloom swiftly settled upon the Pandava hosts.
All points of the compass were lost in darkness.
Fierce wind began to blow
Clouds roared upward,
showering dust and gravel.

Birds croaked madly…
the very elements seemed disturbed.
The sun seemed to waver in the heavens
The earth shook,
scorched by the terrible violent heat of this weapon.

Elephants burst into flame
and ran to and fro in a frenzy…
over a vast area,
other animals crumpled to the ground and died.
From all points of the compass
, the arrows of flame rained continuously and fiercely.”

— The Mahabharata

According to many researchers, this controversial ancient text perfectly describes the use of nuclear weapons 5,000 years before the Americans utilized them on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Similarly, there are plenty of texts that relate to all kinds of details that illustrate the existence of airships (vimanas) and rockets or missiles capable of reaching long distances.

While as always we must remain with a minor sense of skepticism, we can argue that the above-mentioned text is not original, or its translation is not the most accurate. However, there are many other details that point towards an abrupt end of the inhabitants of Mohenjo-Daro.

It is necessary to mention there is a great contradiction when assessing the reasons and causes that could have caused the sudden disappearance from the maps of an ancient city like Mohenjo-Daro.

Although on one hand it has been speculated that a possible invasion resulted in the slaughtering of its people at the hands of invading hordes, archaeologists have only found around 30 skeletons in the streets. The obvious question we need to ask here is: Where is the rest of the population then? Where does the name ‘mound of the dead’ come from?

Is it possible that most of the population of Mohenjo-Daro escaped before the terrible invasion?

While invading forces is one theory, some archaeologists speculate that the city may have been abandoned due to a sudden change in the course of the Indus River, some tie around 1700 BC, but it does not explain other mysteries that surround Mohenjo-Daro.

Although very few skeletons found, it seems that death came to them very quickly.

Interestingly, there is a so-called epicenter of around 45 meters in diameters at the center of the city where the terrain and buildings appear to be crystallized as if they were exposed to a massive heat source.

On the buildings located near the center of the city, researchers have found that the bricks of the walls that are faced towards the exterior and looking away from the epicenter are also fused or melted.

However, this could have only been achieved, according to researchers, by exposing the buildings to a temperature of above 1500 ° centigrade.

What kind of weapons could have caused such devastating effects on both people and the surrounding buildings? Is it possible that as some people sustain, Mohenjo-Daro was really destroyed by a nuclear explosion?

Due to the fact that this hypothesis is considered extremely sensationalist and many believe it to be impossible, there isn’t a single serious study which tackles the presence of radioactivity present at the location of the city of Mohenjo-Daro.

The presence of objects and surfaces which appear to be melted or fused have been associated with forces of nature as observed in other locations such as Scotland, Australia and Egypt, all product of rays and electric arcs of great power.

Regrettably, as with other discoveries that challenge our history, many researchers have ignored the numerous mysterious surrounding Mohenjo-Daro and have not tried to answer the mysteries behind its sudden disappearance and fascinating history.

When you think about Mohenjo-Daro and mention it in the same sentence with Nuclear Weapons you would then be called a conspiracy theorist.

Interestingly not only are Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro the only locations were we can discuss this extravagant hypothesis and question whether it is plausible, there are several locations where researchers have detected the “footprints” of what they are calling ‘possible nuclear explosions in ancient times’.

As it turns out, there are at least three major points in the area between the mountains of Rajmahal and the Ganges River where scientists have spotted large layers of ash and a presence of radiation which is higher than the average normal.

But stay curious and ask questions no one else is willing to ask, stay focused and always come to your own conclusion, Who knows, maybe after all the secrets of the atom and nuclear power were known to the ancients thousands of years ago.

• Featured image by KPEKEP

µ

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

10-03-2020 om 01:22 geschreven door peter  

The huge asteroid known as (52768) 1998 OR2 will pass closest on April 29, 2020. Observers peering through telescopes will see it as a slow-moving “star.” Charts, tips – plus how to watch online – here.

Orbit of asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2. It requires 3 years and 8 months to orbit the sun onc. It gets nearly as far from the sun as Jupiter (about 5 times Earth’s distance from the sun).

Image via NASA/ JPL.

Have you heard the buzz about a big – very big – asteroid that’ll pass close in April? We have! No, it won’t hit our planet. In fact, it won’t have any effects on Earth. Still, excitement is building among both professional and amateur astronomers about the upcoming flyby of asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 – the biggest asteroid due to fly by Earth this year – coming closest on April 29, 2020. This space rock is probably at least a mile wide (1.8 km) and maybe 2 1/2 times that big (4.1 km). Closest approach is April 29 around 5:56 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (09:56 UTC; translate UTC to your time). Professional observatories are already pointing their telescopes at the huge space rock. Amateur astronomers with smaller telescopes will have an opportunity to see it as a slow-moving “star” very soon; if that’s you, we give charts and tips for observers at the bottom of this post that should help.

No access to a telescope? No problem. The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome will host a free, online public viewing of the asteroid on April 28, 2020.

The Virtual Telescope Project will present an online viewing of Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 on April 28, 2020. As the time approaches, check this page for more details.

Image via Gianluca Masi/ Virtual Telescope Project.

Let’s make absolutely clear that there’s no chance of a collision between this asteroid and Earth. Asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 will pass at some 4 million miles (6 million km), or about 16 times the Earth-moon distance. It’s true the object is classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid. The Center for Near Earth Objects defines such an object as one that comes as close to Earth as:

… 0.05 AU or less [about 19.5 lunar distances] and an absolute magnitude of 22.0 or less …

In other words, such objects are reasonably close and reasonably big. And do we need to say there are a bunch of objects like this? Wikipedia lists 22 of the largest here. Recent decades have revealed more and more asteroids orbiting the sun, as the video below from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows:

None of the 22 Potentially Hazardous Asteroids listed by Wikipedia is known to be on a collision course with Earth in the foreseeble future. In fact, none of the asteroids in the video above is known to be on a collision course. Likewise, asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 isn’t on a collision course with Earth, not anytime soon. The orbit of this asteroid is well known for at least the next 200 years. Its closest approach to Earth in this century and the next will happen in 2079, when it’ll swoop to within about a million miles of Earth (still about four times farther away than the moon). That 2079 sweep past Earth will still be a big deal. Asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 is the largest known of all large Near-Earth Objects that’ll pass less than five times the Earth-moon distance over the next two centuries!

Astronomers at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico will study asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 from April 8 to 24, 2020, as the space rock travels through space at 19,461 miles per hour (31,320 km/h).

The high resolution radar images that will be obtained from Arecibo should provide scientists a better estimate of the space rock’s size and shape.

Astronomers with reasonably sized telescopes are already capturing images of asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2. This March 6, 2020, image of the asteroid comes from a single 30-second exposure, remotely taken with Elena, a 17-inch robotic telescope. At the imaging time, (52768) 1998 OR2 was at about 22 million miles (36 million km) from Earth. At its closest in late April, it’ll be about 4 million miles (6.4 million km) away.

Image via Gianluca Masi/ Virtual Telescope Project.

How to see asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 with a small telescope

During its April 2020 pass, this asteroid will at no time be bright enough to view with the unaided eye. However, it’s estimated to reach a visual magnitude of around 10 to 11, which means observers with at least 6-inch or 8-inch telescopes (the number indicates the size of the primary mirror) will see the asteroid (very slowly) moving in front of the stars!

Sky enthusiasts can initially use a wide-angle (32mm or 35mm) eyepiece to point the telescope to a reference star in the asteroid’s path (charts below). After being assured that the instrument is pointing at the correct patch of the sky, a 26mm or 27mm eyepiece is recommended to detect the asteroid’s slow motion. You will want to note the star field, and watch for the object that moves over a period of about 10 to 15 minutes. Yes, that’ll be the space rock.

This illustration shows the location of asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 on the night of April 24, 2020 around 11:45 p.m. central time. As seen from central U.S., facing west, southwest.

Illustration by Eddie Irizarry using Stellarium.

On April 24, 2020 at 11:45 p.m. central time, observers using small computerized telescopes can point their instruments at these reference stars, to observe asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2. Compare the views 10 or 15 minutes later to detect an apparent star that has changed position.

Illustration by Eddie Irizarry using Stellarium.

There will be closer approaches of asteroids in the future, including Apophis, which – although smaller – will pass very close to Earth in 2029. Another, larger space rock – 2 miles (3 km) wide – designated as asteroid (415029) 2011 UL21 will pass slightly farther than (52768) 1998 OR2 in June 2024.

But the upcoming flyby in April 2020 of asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 is the most significant close approach of an asteroid until 2027, as another huge asteroid known as (4953) 1990 MU will safely pass by Earth at 12 lunar distances.

Astronomers first discovered asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 on July 24, 1998, from Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii.

Have a Go-To Telescope? Point your instrument at star HIP 48674 on April 25, 2020 at 10 p.m. central time to find the huge asteroid, which will appear as a slow-moving star. To see its movement, compare the views over about 10 to 15 minutes.

Illustration by Eddie Irizarry using Stellarium.

Location of asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 on the night of April 27, 2020. The space rock passes close to star HIP 50745 around 9:15 p.m. central time.

Illustration by Eddie Irizarry using Stellarium.

Location of asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 around the nights of closest approach (April 28-29, 2020). Facing south, as seen from the central U.S.

Illustration by Eddie Irizarry using Stellarium.

Showtime! On April 29, 2020, around its closest approach to Earth, asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 will pass close to galaxy NGC 3463 and star HIP 53416. Around 9:30 p.m. CT, point your small computerized telescope to these reference objects. Compare the views 10 to 15 minutes later to detect the apparent “star” that changed position. That’s the asteroid.

Illustration by Eddie Irizarry using Stellarium.

On April 30, 2020 at 9:30 p.m. asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 is located close to stars HIP 54875 and 55201. Use a GoTo telescope to locate these reference stars to be able to locate the slow moving asteroid.

Illustration by Eddie Irizarry using Stellarium.

• Bottom line: The huge asteroid known as (52768) 1998 OR2 will pass closest to Earth on April 29, 2020. Observers peering through telescopes will see it as a slow-moving “star.” Charts, tips – plus how to watch online – here.

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

10-03-2020 om 00:58 geschreven door peter  

Are Humans the Meanest Species in the Universe?

NASA/ESA

Melinda Snodgrass got the idea for her science fiction novel The High Ground when she started thinking about how awful human beings can be.

“I had a sudden vision of this nine-foot-tall alien ant-like creature with mandibles and claws—just a hideous, horrifying creature,” Snodgrass says in Episode 370 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “And it was cowering in absolute terror from a small human holding a machine gun. And I got to thinking about humanity and our tendency to be really mean, mean monsters.”

The novel takes place in a universe in which a human empire called the Solar League has subjugated five alien species, who now live as servants and second-class citizens. Snodgrass thinks this is a pretty plausible first contact scenario.

“If we do invent a faster-than-light drive, and go out into the universe, and meet other aliens, I am convinced that the first thing we will do is kick the holy crap out of them,” she says. “So instead of us always fighting off the invading aliens, we are the invading aliens.”

She also believes that any moral progress humans have made is much more tenuous than people realize, and that women’s rights could quickly vanish if childbearing became a priority, as is the case in the Solar League. “When you’re going out into space and colonizing planets, if you happen to end up on a planet that isn’t a goldilocks planet—a very Earth-like world—where there’s a harsh environment, the thing that becomes a precious commodity is your ability to sustain the population,” she says. “So over the ensuing years, women fall back into a much more traditional role.”

All of that creates a lot of conflict for her character Mercedes de Arango, one of the first women to attend the Solar League’s elite military academy. It’s a predicament Snodgrass can relate to, having once been the only female lawyer at her law firm.

“I literally had a bunch of male lawyers from this big office building run downstairs, and I heard them calling, ‘We hear Charlie’s hired himself a girl. Where’s the girl?'” Snodgrass says. “And they all came and looked at me in my office like I was a creature in a zoo. It was very bizarre.”

Listen to the complete interview with Melinda Snodgrass in Episode 370 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below.

Melinda Snodgrass on her father:

“My dad was just fantastic, he was the center of my life. I loved him so much, and he gave me every opportunity—to study opera in Europe, to ride horses, when I was 16 he sat me down and said, ‘We’re opening a checking account and you have to manage it,’ and on and on. At the time of his death he was managing a small natural gas and oil company, and now I actually manage the company. I took it over in 2002, and I’ve been running it ever since. So I have this sense of history with being the heir apparent—or the heiress apparent—to a business. … It is weird though, because at times my dad would slip. I had a half-brother, who was a great deal older than I was, and dad would sometimes say, ‘My other son, John.’ And then people like Senator Montoya, who was having lunch with us that day, was laughing and saying, ‘Wait a minute, what’s she?'”

Melinda Snodgrass on Roger Zelazny:

“Roger and I became very close in the final two years of his life. He joined our gaming group, he would come and have dinner at our house many, many evenings. He was just the most charming, kind person I’ve ever known. … When I had just started writing, this literary agent that I had—who was also Victor Milan‘s and Bob Vardeman‘s agent—we were all at this dinner, at the local science fiction convention, and she said, ‘You have to change your name.’ And Roger immediately said, ‘No. No she doesn’t.’ He said, ‘Look at my name. Even though I’m on the bottom shelf in every bookstore, nobody forgets my name.’ And he turned to me and he said, ‘Don’t you change your name, because nobody will ever forget that name.’ And I kept it.”

Melinda Snodgrass on the Jean Cocteau Cinema:

“[George R.R. Martin] has turned it into probably the best science fiction independent bookstore in the Southwest. Because in addition to the little movie theater, there’s a bar—they have a liquor license—and then there’s concessions, and he has artists come in and hang their art for a few weeks, so you get to see various Santa Fe artists, and he has all of our books. And when they’re not doing movies, he’ll have events. Connie Willis will come down, and I’ll interview her, and then she’ll do a signing afterward. … So you can go in and buy some books, and have a White Walker Cocktail while you’re there, watch an independent movie, and when George is in town you’ll often find him there, ensconced in his armchair by the fireplace, in the evenings, to visit with people.”

Melinda Snodgrass on Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back:

“I was in this law office, and I hated it. I would get into work in the morning, close my door, cry for about 15 minutes, and then get control of myself and get on with work. … [Victor Milan and I] went to see The Empire Strikes Back, and we got to the scene with Yoda and Luke, and Luke says, ‘I’ll try,’ and Yoda says, ‘Do or do not. There is no try.’ And for some reason it was like a thunderbolt for me, and I was like, ‘I can spend the rest of my life in this law firm, and in a few years maybe I’ll have the big office and I’ll be terrorizing some young associate the way I’m being terrorized, or I can try to chart my own life. ‘Do or do not, there is no try.’ So I walked into the office the next morning, I typed off a letter of resignation, I packed up my plants and my diplomas, I laid it on my boss’s desk, and I walked out.”

{ https://www.wired.com/ }

10-03-2020 om 00:22 geschreven door peter  

One of the biggest mysteries out there in the Universe is inching closer to answers. An astonishing eight new repeating radio signals known as fast radio bursts (FRBs) have been detected flaring from deep space.

At the start of 2019, just one of these mysterious signals, FRB 121102, was known to flash repeatedly. In January, scientists reported a second repeating one (FRB 180814).

This new paper - available on preprint server arXiv, and submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters - describes eight new repeating signals detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope.

This brings the known total of repeating FRBs to 10. It means we're starting to build a statistical database of repeaters, which could help astronomers to figure out what these signals actually are.

Fast radio bursts are certainly perplexing. They are detected as spikes in radio data, lasting just a few milliseconds. But, in that time, they can discharge more energy than 500 million Suns.

Most FRBs are only detected once and can't be predicted, so tracing them back to their source is really tricky (although, as demonstrated earlier this year for the first time, not impossible).

That's why repeaters are so important. And the news that they are not as rare as we thought means it might be possible to trace more back to their source galaxies, and determine what kinds of environments they come from.

We can also start looking for similarities and differences between repeating FRBs.

"There is definitely a difference between the sources, with some being more prolific than others," physicist Ziggy Pleunis of McGill University told ScienceAlert.

"We already knew from FRB 121102 that the bursts can be very clustered: sometimes the source doesn't burst for hours and hours and then suddenly you get multiple bursts in a short amount of time. We have observed the same thing for FRB 180916.J0158+65, for which we report ten bursts in this paper."

On the other side of the scale, six of the FRBs reported in the paper only repeated once, and the longest pause between signals was over 20 hours. The eighth one (FRB 181119) repeated twice after the initial detection, pinging a total of three times.

We don't yet know what this means, but it could indicate - as hypothesised in a paper last month by Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Vikram Ravi - that all FRBs are actually repeaters, but some are a lot more active than others.

"Just as some volcanoes are more active than others, and you can think a volcano is dormant because it has not erupted in a long time," Pleunis noted.

But there are similarities between FRBs, too. The individual bursts from repeaters seem to last a little bit longer than the bursts from one-off FRBs. That's pretty interesting.

There's also the frequency drift. The first two repeaters - FRB 121102 and FRB 180814 - showed a downward drift in frequency, with each burst getting successively lower. Think of a sad trombone sound effect.

Most of the eight new repeaters,also demonstrated this downward frequency drift. This could be a clue as to what's producing the signals.

"I just think it is so amazing that nature produces something like that," Pleunis said. "Also, I think that there is some very important information in that structure that we just have to figure out how to encode and it has been a lot of fun to try to figure out what exactly that is."

CHIME is optimised for monitoring a very broad swathe of the sky, across a lower range of frequencies than radio telescopes like ASKAP or the Parkes Observatory in Australia, which have also detected FRBs.

So far, CHIME's approach is proving remarkably effective at detection. In addition to these repeaters, and the repeater announced in January, CHIME has detected a number of one-off bursts, too. It's not optimised for tracing those detections to a source, though.

That's where the broader scientific community comes in. Just today, a different team of researchers, including Ravi, announced they had made headway localising the eight new repeaters to known galaxies, just based on the direction the signals came from.

We can even roughly tell how far away the bursts may have originated based on how dispersed the signal is - the higher these measures, the farther the distance.

In fact, this is where it gets intriguing, because one of the signals, FRB 180916, has the lowest dispersion seen yet, indicating that it could be nearby.

"Even with the biggest telescopes, if it's closer to you, you always get a better view than if it's something farther away," astronomer Keith Bannister from Australia's national science agency CSIRO, who was not involved in the research, told ScienceAlert.

"So that particular low dispersion measure was super exciting, because there's a good chance that that will be nearby. And that means it will be easier to look at, once we really know exactly where it is in the sky."

The polarisation of the signals (how twisted the signal is) is informative, too. If the signal is really twisted up, it means it came from an extreme magnetic environment, such as can be found around a black hole or neutron star. This is what the signal from FRB 121102 was like.

But the team was able to measure the polarisation of one of the new signals, FRB 180916, and it was really low. This tells us that not all repeating FRBs come from extreme environments.

We don't know what this means yet. We don't know if there are several different classes of objects or events producing these signals. We don't know if they all repeat, or why they repeat. But these results are bringing us tantalisingly close to finally having some answers.

"I think (and I hope!) the paper will prompt other astronomers to point their telescopes to these newly discovered sources," Pleunis said.

"Then, there is a lot of information here for model builders to work with. I think it will help them figure out what produces repeating FRBs.

"Also, I think our findings will influence the search strategy of other teams that try to discover repeating FRBs."

• The research has been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal and is available on arXiv.

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

09-03-2020 om 23:54 geschreven door peter  

Designing 'Avenue 5': HBO's epic space cruise ship comedy's look explained

Avenue 5 concept imagery for a 2-mile space cruise ship at the heart of of HBO's space comedy.

(Image: © HBO)

( Image credit: HBO )

• The world's first space tourists in pictures
• SpaceX to fly private astronauts to space station for startup Axiom in 2021
• Bigelow Space wants to launch you into orbit with SpaceX for $52 Million

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

09-03-2020 om 23:36 geschreven door peter