The 5 States With the Largest (and Smallest) Number of UFO Sightings

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12-03-2020 om 00:08 geschreven door peter  

THEIA IS ALIVE

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11-03-2020 om 22:44 geschreven door peter  

If that wasn’t strange enough, the article included declassified footage from a U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter’s AN/ASQ-228 sensor display as it trailed a still-unidentified flying object over the Pacific near San Diego on Nov. 14, 2004.

In the footage, the Super Hornet pilot, while traveling at 252 knots at nearly 20,000 feet, switched between his display’s infrared and visual modes as the sensor tried to lock onto the blurry, oblong or pill-shaped object. The flying object appeared white in IR mode, and black in TV mode — indicating that whatever it was, the sensor had picked up on the object’s emission, temperature or reflection.

The video comes from the same incident when Cmdr. David Fravor, a veteran Navy pilot assigned to the USS Nimitz carrier fighter squadron VFA-41 Black Aces, was on a training mission off San Diego. “It was a real object, it exists and I saw it,” Fravor told the Washington Post. Telling the paper that he believes it was “not from the Earth.”

During an exercise, commanders ordered Fravor to intercept an object that was appearing at 80,000 feet — above the range of Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Princeton’s SPY-1 air-search radar — before dropping suddenly to 20,000 feet. “Officials told they had been tracking a couple dozen of these objects for a few weeks,” the paper reported.

The story that followed has circulated in the military aviation world and fighter community for several years, including this write-up by former Navy F-14A Tomcat pilot Paco Chierici at Fighter Sweep. With orders to intercept the object, Fravor in his jet — callsign FASTEAGLE 01 — headed toward with aid from an E-2 Hawkeye early warning and control plane.

The Hawkeye’s sensors, however, couldn’t detect the object and vector him toward it, so Princeton directed FASTEAGLE 01 and Fravor’s wingman, FASETEAGLE 02 to the location, and even asked Fravor whether he was carrying weapons — he wasn’t. He just had two training missiles. Below the jets, Fravor saw whitewater sloshing in the blue ocean.

All four aircrew were eyes out from this point forward. The first unusual indication Dave picked up was the area of whitewater on the surface that Cheeks was looking at over his shoulder as he flew away. He remembers thinking it was about the size of a 737 and maybe the contact they had been vectored on had been an airliner that had just crashed. He maneuvered his F-18 lower to get a better look. As he was descending through about 20K he was startled by the sight of a white object that was moving about just over the frothing water. It was all white, featureless, oblong and making minor lateral movements while staying at a consistent low altitude over the disk of turbulent water.

[…]

In his debrief comments, Dave, his WSO and the two other crews stated the object had initially been hovering like a Harrier. They described it as uniformly white, about 46 feet long (roughly fighter-sized), having a discernible midline horizontal axis (like a fuselage) but having no visible windows, nacelles, wings or propulsion systems.

There was no apparent exhaust or rotor wash, either. The pill-shaped object then “oriented one of its skinny ends towards him,” and rose in a “right 2-circle flow” — fighter speak for when each aircraft have their noses pointed at each other’s tails. The object then accelerated away at “multi-Mach” speed.

The video of the AN/ASQ-228 sensor display occurred later in the day with a different set of fighters. The object at this point appeared stationary before taking off.

This is consistent with a U.S. Navy report obtained by To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science, a UFO research company which published the footage. The Navy pilots, apparently, first believed the object could have been a classified missile test from a submarine. The Navy report cited a source who indicated the object maneuvered in a manner “that seemed to defy the laws of physics” and “‘tumbled’ into nonsensical angles that made any engagement by the F-18 impossible.”

So what was it? A secret U.S. test project? A classified drone or hypersonic weapon? A maneuverable reentry vehicle or something like DARPA’s Falcon Project? Naval Air Systems Command, which tests airborne weapons, has 36,000 square miles of controlled sea and airspace off the Southern Californian coast. And the Falcon Project’s Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 has reached Mach 22 — albeit six years after the 2004 object sighting in the Pacific.

Or perhaps it was an elaborate hoax, or a software or sensor error. Maybe an atmospheric disturbance? Or let’s say it was an alien spacecraft powered by technology impossible for our tiny primate brains to understand. I hope it’s the last one, but I’m not counting on it. Your guess is as good as mine.

Eyewitnesses, even fighter pilots, are prone to human error. Pilots also know how aircraft operate, and the belief that there is something unusual in the skies is more common in that community than you might assume. Fravor certainly believes what he saw, and many fighter pilots believe him.

The Pentagon UFO-hunting mission, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, is still partially classified. In any case, even if the explanation is as mundane as a weapons test, the eyewitness accounts and FLIR footage make this an interesting mystery worth further study. Whether Fravor saw an object of extraterrestrial origin is beside the point.

It’s also worth reading the comments section at Fighter Sweep:

I was on board the USS Princeton (2001-2005) when this all went down. We actually went to GQ (General Quarters) for about 4 hours as all if this was going down. I’ve been telling everyone about this even, but have gotten the usual “yeah right” look when I tell them about it. I saw the video after it happened, but didn’t think that it would somehow make it’s way to the public, considering all of the “security” that surrounded the issue.

Crazy how the world turns, isn’t it?!

Thank you for giving this event life! I no longer look like a tin foil hat wearing idiot!

This article first appeared several years ago.

• Image: Reuters.

{ https://nationalinterest.org/ }

11-03-2020 om 18:42 geschreven door peter  

Are UFO’s Real???

Are aliens real? Learn about sightings, abductions, and crashes around the world. Hear about unbelievable stories, dating back to ancient Egypt, including the famous crash in Roswell, New Mexico that eventually led to the government cover-up in Area 51. UFO’s in the universe confirmed!

Transcript Provided by YouTube:

00:00
Ancient Egypt, Roswell, New Mexico, and David Grohl. Here are some of the biggest
00:05
UFO sightings in history. Stay tuned to number one to see how the famous rock
00:10
band the Foo Fighters are involved.
00:22
Number 10: The Tulli Papyrus.
00:25
in approximately 1440 BC scribes of the
00:29
Pharaoh Thutmose III claimed to have seen fiery discs in the sky.
00:33
What’s amazing about this story is that it’s the first written account of humans
00:38
seeing UFOs in history the translation of the ancient tule papyrus asserts that
00:42
strange fiery objects were seen in the sky
00:45
for at least four days, and continued to grow in number. Here’s what current
00:49
historians believe the papyrus to have read, “Now, after some days had passed over
00:55
these things lo, they were more numerous than anything they were shining in the
00:59
sky. More than the Sun to the limits of the four supports of heaven powerful was
01:04
the position of the fire circles the army of the King looked on and His
01:08
Majesty was in the midst of it it was after supper thereupon they went up
01:13
higher directed to south fishes and volatile fell down from the sky he was a
01:18
marvel never occurred since the foundation of this land. Caused his
01:22
Majesty to be brought incense to pacify the earth. What happened in the book of
01:27
the house of life to be remembered for the eternity.” Some claim the ancient
01:32
Egyptians merely saw strange astrological or weather phenomena. But
01:37
opposing arguments remind us that the Egyptians were one of the most advanced
01:41
astrologers of any ancient culture. For them to mistake a weather phenomenon for
01:46
an unnatural object is highly unlikely.
01:50
Number 9: Roswell, New Mexico.
01:52
Probably the most famous of all UFO sightings occurred in Roswell, New Mexico
01:57
in 1947. The deep conspiracies and cover-ups that have spawned from these
02:02
events have influenced art, movies, and music, as that event is thought to be the
02:07
catalyst of all area 51 secrets. We’ll have to talk more about area 51 at a
02:11
later time, but for now, more about this famous UFO . William Brazil, better known
02:16
as Mac, was a ranch foreman on the Foster homestead about 30 miles north of
02:21
Roswell. On June 14, 1947, while out on the ranch, Mac noticed some metallic debris
02:28
in the desert and went to investigate. What he found, though, was indescribable. Tough,
02:33
pliable metal that would Bend, but would bounce back to its original
02:37
shape without even a crease. Mac mentioned what he’d found to the local
02:41
sheriff on July 7th and the rest, as they say, is history.
02:46
Immediately after being reported, the US government agencies swooped in to recover
02:50
the strange craft and its occupants. Initially they were moved to Wright
02:54
Field, in Ohio, where they were kept until 1951. But secrecy and security demanded
03:01
that the strange findings were moved to a remote location in the Nevada desert…
03:04
Area 51. Nobody knows for certain what was discovered in Roswell, or what
03:10
secrets the government is hiding from us in Area 51, but whether alien or
03:14
domestic, the truth is that something was discovered in Roswell in 1947. The
03:19
government collected it, and has managed to keep the truth a secret for over 70
03:24
years. That’s not suspicious!
03:27
Number 8: The second…first(?) Recorded Sighting?
03:32
June 19th, 1801, The streets of Hull, England were quiet…nothing out of the ordinary.
03:37
That is, until a strange blue glow began to light up the city. The people of the
03:43
town later said that a huge moon like orb was seen floating over the city,
03:47
casting a strange light upon the town. The moon was aid to form itself into
03:53
seven small distinct moons, or globes of fire, which disappeared for the space of
03:58
a few seconds. Its reappearance was equally brilliant. At first showing
04:02
itself like the face of the Moon, afterwards in five circular balls, and
04:07
lastly like several small stars which gradually faded away, leaving the whole
04:11
atmosphere brilliantly illuminated. Sounds amazing, right? After this sighting,
04:16
which was the first recorded sighting of modern times, more newspaper reports of
04:21
UFO sightings appeared all over Scotland.
04:24
Number 7: Tierport, South Africa.
04:26
South Africa has been a hotbed of UFO sightings, including a 1965 UFO landing
04:33
that was confirmed in a press release by Lieutenant Colonel JB Brits, the district
04:38
commandant of Pretoria North. Some folks in South Africa have even told stories
04:43
of abductions occurring as early as 1956. One such occasion, on July 24th, 1956, a
04:51
photographer capturing photos of an inexplicable object in the sky claimed
04:56
she was abducted by the craft and impregnated by one of the crew members…
05:00
Akon! Now, I don’t think this is the hip-hop artist Akon,
05:03
but it’s definitely a possibility. Sightings have continued through the
05:07
years, but in June of 2011 20 of these crafts were spotted as they crossed the
05:12
skies of Teirport. Some witnesses were even able to capture photos of seven of
05:17
the craft. These objects were described as silent orange lights traveling across
05:21
the sky. Witnesses stated that the orange lights moved much faster than the speed
05:26
of a commercial aircraft. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!
05:31
05:31
Number 6: The Ghost Rockets.
05:33
It’s not very often than multiple countries
05:37
report seeing the same unidentified objects in the sky, but that’s exactly
05:41
what occurred with the ghost rocket incident. 1946 was an active year for UFO
05:46
sightings over the skies of Europe. Over 2,000 reported sightings were logged by
05:51
the Swedish government, alone, however these same unexplained objects were also
05:56
reported in Greece, Portugal, Belgium, and Italy. And more than 200 sightings were
06:02
corroborated by government radar systems. Most of these reports described
06:06
fast-flying ,missile shaped objects. While they typically flew horizontally across
06:11
the sky, the concerning item for those who saw the phenomenon is the fact that
06:16
the objects maintained maneuverability in the sky – a feat that was unheard of
06:21
for rockets at the time. In a declassified US Air Force document, it is
06:25
clear that Swedish and US governments both believe that the objects had
06:29
extraterrestrial origins. “For some time, we’ve been concerned by the recurring
06:33
reports on flying saucers. They periodically continue to pop up.
06:37
During the last week one was observed hovering over Neubiberg Air Base for
06:42
about 30 minutes. They’ve been reported by so many sources,
06:45
and from such a variety of places, that we are convinced that they cannot be
06:50
disregarded and must be explained on some basis which is perhaps slightly
06:54
beyond the scope of our present intelligence thinking. When officers of
06:58
this Directorate recently visited the Swedish air intelligence service this
07:02
question was put to the Swedes. Their answer was at some reliable and fully
07:06
technically qualified people have reached the conclusion that these
07:10
phenomena are obviously the result of a high technical skill which cannot be
07:15
credited to any presently known culture on Earth. They are therefore assuming
07:22
that these objects originated from some previously unknown or unidentified
07:26
technology, possibly outside the earth.” The Ghost Rocket sightings ended as
07:30
quickly as they began in 1946, however, in both 2012 and 2014 recent sightings have
07:37
prompted both government and civilian investigations into potential landings
07:41
and crashes that seem to be occurring in a Swedish Lake. Maybe ET is just after the
07:47
Swedish Fish!
07:48
Number 5: Ängelholm Memorial.
07:50
During the same
07:52
period as the ghost rocket sightings, Swedish entrepreneur Gösta Carlsson
07:56
supposedly stumbled across a landed UFO and even got to meet a passenger of the
08:01
spacecraft, who had exited the saucer. Carlsson must have made quick friends
08:06
with the alien race, as it is told that they exchanged recipes for natural,
08:10
holistic medicines that Carlsson later shared with the world through his
08:13
pharmaceutical company. Alien pharmaceuticals, huh? Not sure if I trust
08:18
the source! Anyway, to memorialize the meeting, a concrete statue of the UFO was
08:23
constructed in 1972 and remains a tourist attraction to this day…
08:27
especially by UFO enthusiasts around the world.
08:30
Number 4: Abduction!
08:31
Speaking of memorials, if you were to travel the back
08:36
roads of New Hampshire on US Route 3, you might stumble across a strange
08:39
plaque near the town of Lincoln. It’s dedicated to Betty and Barney Hill and
08:44
the fateful events of September 19th, 1961. Betty and Barney were traveling home in
08:49
their car following a vacation in Montreal. At some point during their
08:53
drive, the Hills noticed a strange light up in the night sky. Betty had thought
08:57
that it was a falling star, other than the fact that was falling up, and
09:02
continued to be visible for a long period of time. Betty found a pair of
09:06
binoculars in the car and was able to track the movements of the object as it
09:10
passed in front of the moon. She described it as an odd shaped craft that
09:14
was surrounded by flashing, multicolored lights. Concerned, the Hills climbed back
09:19
into their 1957 Chevy Belair and continued to drive home. Out of nowhere,
09:24
the craft descended upon them and Barney came to a screeching halt as the UFO
09:27
hovered above the road right in their path.
09:30
Fearing they were going to be captured, Barney began to speed away. Their car was
09:34
no match for the extra-terrestrial horsepower, though, and the saucer was
09:37
quickly hovering above their car. According to the Hills, the car began to
09:41
vibrate and their bodies begin to tingle.
09:44
And that’s it!
09:45
The couple of woke some 35 miles away. They had no idea how they got there.
09:50
They did remember seeing the UFO moments before, but they had no recollection of the
09:55
time in between. In the weeks following this incident, Betty Hill began to have
09:58
vivid dreams that seemed more like a recollection of actual events. She was in
10:03
the medical ward of the UFO while being examined by an alien figure. During her
10:08
conversations with the leader of the aliens, he showed her a star map of where
10:12
they hailed from. From Betty’s memory of the dream, she was able to recreate the
10:16
star map, which astronomers have identified as the system of Zeta Reticuli.
10:21
Many books and movies have been written concerning the first documented alien
10:25
abduction, and it’s most certain that Betty and Barney Hills lives were never
10:29
the same after this event. But what really happened that night? Honestly,
10:33
we’ll probably never know.
10:35
Number 3: Cape Girardeau Crash.
10:38
10:39
Cape Girardeau is a small Missouri town, a mere 118 miles south of St. Louis. One
10:45
fateful night in 1941, though, led to a government cover-up and members of the
10:49
town being sworn to secrecy. More than 75 years ago, on the night of April 12th,
10:54
1941 a reverend was asked to leave the comforts of his home in the middle of
10:58
the night so that he could administer last rites
11:01
to victims of what was thought to be a plane crash, just outside of town. As a
11:05
town sheriff and the Reverend arrived at the scene
11:07
they found firefighters working hard to put out a fire that resulted from the
11:10
crash. Through the smoke and fire, it was obvious that this was no plane. As later
11:15
transcribed by UFO researcher Michael Huntington, “The Reverend arrived and saw
11:20
a classic flying disc with part of the side ripped open and two alien bodies
11:24
that were, at least dead, and one that may have been dying, may have been alive,
11:29
couldn’t breathe. The Reverend looked inside of the flying
11:33
saucer and saw wires and components of some sort of alien design. There were
11:37
strange hieroglyphics and bizarre knobs and dials. The Reverend knew that he
11:41
couldn’t really give last rites. About that time the Army Air Corps arrived
11:45
from Sikeston Field and cordoned off the area and swore everybody to secrecy
11:50
and confiscated any pictures. There were pictures allegedly taken that night of
11:55
men holding one of the alien bodies and somewhere out there are those pictures.”
11:58
The story was kept quiet until the 1970s when the witnesses were aging. On his
12:03
death bed, the Reverend finally broke down and told his granddaughter,
12:06
Charlotte Mann what he had seen. Unsure how to take his news, Charlotte was able
12:11
to get corroborating stories from the other aging witnesses, who all claim to
12:14
have seen the craft firsthand. Since the 1970s, Cape Girardeau has become a hotbed
12:19
for UFO research
12:21
Number 2: The Battle of Los Angeles.
12:24
Okay number two sounds
12:27
like something directly out of a Hollywood action movie, the Battle of Los
12:31
Angeles. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the recent decision to enter
12:35
World War II, Americans were on high alert for anything suspicious that might
12:39
indicate an enemy attack. On February 25th, 1942 one such incident occurred and
12:45
has subsequently become known as the Battle of Los Angeles. In the early hours
12:49
of the morning, just after 2:00 a.m. military radar units sent word of what
12:54
appeared to be enemy aircraft approaching the mainland United States.
12:57
As not to give the enemy an easy target, a citywide blackout was ordered and the
13:01
air-raid siren sounded. Reports of an unidentified object in the
13:05
sky began circulating just after 3:00 a.m. and eventually the troops begin
13:09
firing anti-aircraft guns at whatever objects were in the night sky. As
13:13
reported by the Los Angeles Times, “Powerful searchlights from countless
13:17
stations stabbed the sky with brilliant probing fingers while anti-aircraft
13:22
batteries dotted the heavens with beautiful,
13:24
if sinister, orange bursts of shrapnel.” But what was strange was the objects
13:29
never fired back. In fact, after one full hour of firing 1,433 rounds of
13:37
anti-aircraft artillery into the sky…not a single enemy plane was taken down. Not
13:42
a single bomb was dropped from an enemy plane. And no evidence of an enemy
13:46
attack was ever found. There was plenty of damage due to friendly fire, though.
13:50
Beyond the scattered shrapnel of anti-aircraft ammo that had exploded all
13:55
over the town, windows were shattered in homes and businesses all over LA. Several
14:00
homes were completely destroyed by the friendly artillery shells falling from
14:03
the night sky. At least five people died from the events surrounding this attack,
14:07
from incidents ranging from car accidents to stress induced heart
14:10
attacks. While no one knows for certain what was seen over the night sky in Los
14:14
Angeles, many UFO theorists have gone on record to state that the glowing, moving
14:18
targets that the air raid troops were firing at with our rudimentary
14:21
earthbound weapon systems were actually groups of UFOs flying over the Los
14:26
Angeles night sky. Before we get to number one take a moment to subscribe!
14:30
Also don’t forget to leave a comment and let us know what you think about UFOs
14:35
and extraterrestrial beings.
14:39
Number 1: David Grohl and the Foo Fighters.
14:42
Any music lover that’s listened
14:45
to rock in the 90s or the 2000s should be familiar with rock legend David Grohl.
14:50
Beginning his rock stardom as the drummer for the legendary grunge band
14:53
Nirvana, David Grohl went on to found the also well-known fighters of foo or…
14:59
something like that. Anyway, what does this have to do with UFOs you ask?
15:04
Well, Mr. Grohl himself has gone on record to state that he was reading a
15:08
lot of UFO books at the time of the band’s inception. The term Foo Fighters
15:12
dates back to World War II where it was actually used to refer to the
15:16
unidentified objects that were regularly spotted by Air Force pilots as they flew
15:20
missions critical to war efforts. These reports talk in depth about bright
15:25
lights following Allied airplanes. Traveling in speeds of over 200 miles
15:29
per hour, these lights would complete amazing maneuvers and formations all
15:33
around the Allied Force planes, while others would simply follow the pilots
15:37
through the European and Pacific skies. Reports originating as early as 1941
15:42
have described these objects with many different characteristics ranging from
15:46
fiery and glowing red, to orange white, or even green. Some were reported as disk
15:52
shaped, while others were reported as cylindrical objects or even wedge-shaped.
15:56
One of the fiery objects was actually hit with gunfire which caused the larger
16:01
ball of fire to break up into several small pieces and fall to the ground.
16:05
While the buildings below caught on fire, nothing was found from this fireball
16:09
that would have identified its origin or makeup. To this day no known cause for
16:14
these strange appearances exist. Some say it was a secret Nazi unmanned weapon. So
16:19
secretive, in fact, that the Nazis still aren’t even talking about it today!
16:23
Others feel it is related to electrostatic discharge from the planes.

{ https://goodmenproject.com/ }

11-03-2020 om 18:07 geschreven door peter  

Merciless Ancient Flood Carried 300,000 Lives Away

A new paper provides evidence that a historic Yellow River flood in China killed an estimated 300,000 people, suggesting the city of Kaifeng was to killer floods, what Pompeii was to mega-volcanoes.

The Chinese city of Kaifeng was a former imperial capital and a new study published in the journal  Scientific Reports provides geological and archaeological evidence supporting old literary accounts found in historical documents, that a catastrophic flood in 1642 AD destroyed the inner city and “entombed its inhabitants” within several meters of silt and clay.

Dr. Michael Storozum is a Doctor of Philosophy at Shanghai’s Fudan University Institute of Archaeological Science and, as lead author of the new research paper, he said this flood was particularly “catastrophic” because the city’s defensive walls had partially collapsed during a military siege which caused the floodwaters to become trapped inside.

China Vs Nature’s Wrath: The Flood of 1642 AD

Kaifeng is located on the southern bank of China’s Yellow River’s in the modern central Henan province and in antiquity it was one of the world’s largest cities serving as an imperial capital for several Chinese dynasties . The Yellow River is known to have flooded more than a thousand times in the past 2,000 years causing some of the deadliest flood disasters in recorded history, having claimed an estimated million lives. And over the past 3,000 years, while the Yellow River has flooded Kaifeng city around 40 times, according to the new paper, the 1642 AD event was “perhaps the most devastating of them all”.

Kaifeng and the Yellow River. (a) Topography of the North China Plain. (b) Area around Kaifeng, showing the elevation of the Yellow River compared to Kaifeng. (c) City walls of Kaifeng (solid line - Song dynasty wall, dashed line - Ming/Qing dynasty) (d) The super elevated channel of the Yellow River hanging above Kaifeng, with the tallest building in medieval Kaifeng, the Iron Pagoda, for scale.

(Storozum / Scientific Reports )

In a Newsweek article about the new study, Xin Xu and Rivka Gonen, authors of the book  The Jews of Kaifeng, China: History, Culture, and Religion , said that for six months Kaifeng had been resisting a rebel siege on its outer defensive walls and the governor fatefully ordered that the waters of the Yellow River be “unleashed in hopes of destroying the rebel army”. The walls were subsequently broken apart but rather than washing away the rebels the raging dirty waters penetrated the low-lying city taking the number of inhabitants from 378,000, to only “a few score thousand” (60,000) survivors.

The Flood Was Like A Washing Machine Loaded With Razor Blades

Storozum and colleagues explain in their paper that the constant influx of floodwater entering the city created a “deadly mix of mud and urban debris” that they say significantly amplified the destructive power of the flooding Yellow River, causing it to cut through and tear apart everything caught up in its wrath. What this 17th century flood event at Kaifeng tells the scientists is that “urban resilience is not static” but varies in accordance with the magnitude and type of natural hazard, the built landscape, as well as the city's social institutions, said the authors.

Victims of the 1642 AD flood were discovered along with a deadly mix of mud and urban debris.

(Storozum / Scientific Reports )

It’s not only historic floods that the researcher’s new investigations shine light on, for similar events are predicted to occur in our modern world in which “ climate change is expected to cause an increase in extreme weather around the globe,” wrote the scientists. And they also pointed out that as global temperatures continue to rise, which increases the frequency of extremities of floods, studying this one historic event provided an important reminder that unexpected events have happened in the past “and will likely happen again”.

The Facts As They Stand, Are Soaked To The Bone

According to a recent report on the science platform First Street , flooding is a natural process that greatly benefits the environment by, “abating erosion, protecting habitat, cultivating biological productivity” which leads to groundwater recharge. However, high frequency and excessive flooding conversely damage ecosystems, natural habitats, and entire communities, as was experienced over the last month in the UK and other places around the globe. According to a BBC report published today, Copernicus, the EU's climate change service, last winter was “the warmest winter on record for Europe, by a long margin,” being 3.4C above the 1981-2010 average and 1.4C higher than the previous warmest winter of 2015-16.

The site showing deposits from floods.

(Storozum / Scientific Reports )

In North America, according to First Street , between 2000 and 2017 tidal flooding increased “an average of 233% nationally” and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted that in 2019, “200 million people in 25 North American states were at risk from flooding”. Trying to explain this sharp increase in heavy downpours and flooding across most of the United States over the last 20 years, it is believed to be largely caused due to changes in “sea levels, surface temperature, and sea surface temperature,” and these fluctuating environmental factors bring about inconsistent, unpredictable, and increasing flood patterns.

• The Ancient Chinese Merchant Town Qikou: A Forgotten Jewel on the Banks of the Yellow River
• First Evidence of Legendary Great Flood in China May Rewrite History
• Shui-mu Niang-niang: The Old Mother of the Waters Who Submerged an Ancient City

Two victims of the flood found prone on a wooden bed.

(Storozum / Scientific Reports )

And so far as costs are concerned, according to NOAA, flood damage in America alone has cost the American tax payers, “$1 trillion in inflation adjusted dollars since 1980” representing over 63% of the costs of all disasters totaling a billion dollars or more.

• Top image: The Yellow River Breaches its Course by Ma Yuan  Source: Beijing Palace Museum / Public Domain

By Ashley Cowie

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

11-03-2020 om 17:27 geschreven door peter  

Two Faces of a Denisovan Revealed and Explained

Andrew Collins exclusively reveals the true face of a Siberian Denisovan.

What the Denisovans might have looked like has been one of the hottest debates in paleoanthropology since the discovery of this extinct human lineage back in 2010. Were they big or small? Did they look like their cousins, the Neanderthals, or were they more like anatomically modern humans in appearance? Lastly, were they the giants of legend as some are now speculating ?

Resolving these issues is difficult as just a handful of Denisovan fossil remains have been found. They include two enormous molars, two fragments of a parietal bone from a Denisovan skull, and a finger bone from a young female who lived 75,000 years ago - all found during excavations at the famous Denisova Cave in Siberia. There is also a 160,000-year-old mandible that was found in a cave on the edge of the Tibetan plateau in northwestern China and recently identified as being that of a Denisovan.

Despite this frustrating situation, in September 2019, it was announced that Professor Liran Carmel and Dr. David Gokhman of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, had used  epigenetics to analyze gene regulation and cytosine degradation in order to determine the suspected physical make up of the Denisovan face. Their finished reconstruction shows the head and neck of a young female with a rounded head, wide mouth and jaw, minimal chin, brown skin, and striking brown eyes. So well received was their reconstruction that in December 2019 the team won the 2019 Science magazine’s People’s Choice for Breakthrough of the Year .

The Hebrew University team’s award-winning reconstruction of the Denisovan face.

(Image: © Maayan-Harel)

Genetic Reconstruction

Crucial in Carmel and Gokhman’s reconstruction of the Denisovan face was data gained from the lineage’s genome first sequenced in 2010 by the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany. This showed that a significant number of Denisovan genes have been inherited by modern human groups through interbreeding in the distant past. It is perhaps for this reason that Carmel and Gokhman’s Denisovan bears similarities to Papua New Guineans and also to certain Australian Originals, both of whom display anything up to 5 percent Denisovan DNA ancestry, the highest rate in any human groups. (See, for comparison, figure below which shows Koori Originals photographed around 1847 in Victoria, Australia. Their features, particularly the man in the middle, can easily be compared with Carmel and Gokhman’s Denisovan reconstruction).

Koori Originals photographed by Douglas T. Kilburn around 1847 in Victoria, Australia. Their features are comparable with those of Carmel and Gokhman’s Denisovan reconstruction.

(Image: National Gallery of Victiria / Public Domain )

Denisovan Sub-species

So did all Denisovans look like Australian Originals, or indigenous Melanesians? The answer is almost certainly no. For example, studies of Denisovan genes inherited by modern populations in East Asia, Island Southeast Asia, and Papua New Guinea have revealed new information about the evolution of the Denisovan genome. This shows that soon after the Denisovans split from a common ancestor they shared with their cousins the Neanderthals (as much as 475,000-450,000 years ago) the population diverged into two separate types.

One Denisovan population came to inhabit a vast territory possibly extending from Central Asia, Siberia, and northern China in the north to Mongolia and Tibet in the south. Their descendants most likely moved through the Russian Far East before finally crossing the Beringia land bridge into North America; this occurring perhaps as early as 20,000 years ago. From the many discoveries being made in the Denisovan layer at the Denisova Cave it would seem that these Siberian Denisovans as they are known displayed a high level of advanced human behavior.

This included the creation of beautiful jewelry (see, for instance, the Denisovan bracelet below), the making of the earliest known musical instrument in the form of a whistle or flute, the earliest manufacture of bone needles, used most probably to create warm winter clothing, and the production of the earliest symbolic art. This takes the form of an exquisite carving of a mountain lion, possibly a child’s comfort toy, which has incised markings suggestive of a basic knowledge of cyclic time.

Denisovan bracelet found in the Denisova Cave, Siberia, and thought to be at least 50,000 years old.

(Siberian Times)

It is also thought possible that the Siberian Denisovans developed a sophisticated blade tool technology that was afterwards adopted by the first modern humans to settle in Mongolia some 30,000-40,000 years ago.

Sunda Denisovans

The other population of Denisovans lived in southern and southeastern Eurasia, as well as in Island Southeast Asia, Melanesia and possibly even Australia. They displayed a more basic genome, suggesting that they were a more archaic lineage than their northern neighbors.

This second branch of Denisovans are known as Sunda Denisovans (occasionally Australo-Denisovans) after the former Sunda landmass that once linked the Malaysian Peninsula with Indonesia. They themselves would appear to have split into two distinct groups, the youngest of them, according to genetic evidence, perhaps lingering on in places like the Philippines and Papua New Guinea until around 15,000 years ago.

So far there is no hard evidence that the Sunda Denisovans developed the same advanced human behavior achieved by their northerly neighbors. Stone tools as much as 50,000 years old found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi may have been made by Denisovans. If they were created by Denisovans then it would imply that their ancestors had not only crossed the Wallace Line, the deep water channel dividing most of the Indonesian archipelago from Sulawesi, but also that they had sea-going capabilities.

This said, the Sunda Denisovans are unlikely to have developed a sophisticated blade tool technology like their northerly counterparts, since only so-called flake tools existed in Island Southeast Asia during the prehistoric age.

If the portrait of the young female created by Carmel and Gokhman’s Hebrew University team is truly representative of a Denisovan, then it is the likeness of a Sunda Denisovan, not a Siberian Denisovan, whose evolutionary development was quite different to that of its southerly counterparts.

• Face of the Denisovans? Portrait of a Teen Revealed by Her DNA
• A Trove of New Denisovan Discoveries Revealed At A Recent Anthropological Conference

Extreme Environments

So the question remains: what did the Siberian Denisovans look like? How different would they have been to Carmel and Gokhman’s reconstruction? To answer this question the present writer asked independent researcher and writer Debbie Cartwright to help in the collation of everything available on the physical appearance of a Siberian Denisovan.

This included all obvious information obtained from the Denisovan genome, such as the fact that Denisovans had brown hair, brown eyes, and brown skin, along with any further information to be gleaned from the few fossil remains found to date. We also looked at the suspected effects on the lineage’s evolutionary development derived from knowledge that the Siberian Denisovans would appear to have thrived at very high altitudes and also in extremely cold conditions. This probably included the Altai Mountains of Siberia and Mongolia and the Tibetan plateau, one of the highest places on earth.

Such extreme environments might well have necessitated the development of specialized respiratory systems including highly adapted noses that were able both to absorb all available oxygen at altitudes where the air was particularly thin, while at the same time warming up the air sufficiently before it passed into the lungs. For instance, a study by Mark Shriver, a geneticist and anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University, found that the effects of climate upon the evolution of nose size and shape suggested that larger, narrower noses are more suited to higher and colder climates, while wider flatter noses are more suited to hot tropical climates.

The Neanderthal Connection

It is important also not to forget that Denisovans were related genetically to Neanderthals, meaning that they would have borne at least some physical characteristics in common with them. This probably included a heavy brow bridge, thickset features, and a receding chin - a fact confirmed with the discovery of the 160,000-year-old Denisovan mandible found in a cave on the Tibetan plateau in northwestern China. This is extremely wide and robust and lacks a well-defined chin.

The Xiahe mandible, only represented by its right half, was found in 1980 in Baishiya Karst Cave.

(  Dongju Zhang, Lanzhou University  )

Also, like the Neanderthals, the Denisovans probably had receding foreheads and extended occipital buns, meaning they perhaps had long heads, as opposed to the more rounded craniums displayed by some early modern human populations such as Australian Originals.

Modern Human Introgression

Having made the connection between Denisovans and Neanderthal physiology it is also likely that Denisovans had at least some traits in common with anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ). When a previously misplaced fragment of the finger bone found in the Denisova Cave in 2008 was reunited with the second, more famous, fragment used by the Max Planck Institute to sequence the Denisovan genome, it was realized that the finger did not resemble that of a Neanderthal as had been widely expected. Although the finger bones of archaic humans such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus are extremely thick and quite stubby, the Denisovan finger bone is a lot slimmer, like that of an anatomically modern human.

This connection between anatomically modern humans and Denisovans is perhaps far deeper than anyone has so far suspected for, as the current writer has speculated elsewhere, there is a strong likelihood that the ancestors of the Siberian Denisovans, after leaving Africa, encountered pre-dispersal modern humans already occupying the Levant. Evidence for the existence of these early modern humans has come from the discovery at the Qesem Cave in Israel of eight teeth belonging to members of the Acheulo-Yabrudian Cultural Complex (AYCC), which thrived in the Levant corridor circa 420,000-250,000 years ago. These were found to be almost identical to those of anatomically modern humans.

Having interbred with these early modern humans, the Siberian Denisovans would then have continued their migration eastwards, entering Central Asia, Siberia, and finally, Mongolia and China. If correct, they would have been carrying physiological traits picked up from early modern humans living in the Levant. This is something that the Sunda Denisovans would seem to have missed out on since they most likely took a different route out of Africa, crossing the Arabian peninsula before entering southern Asia, southeastern Asia, and, finally, Island Southeast Asia.

The possibility that the Siberian Denisovans were carrying at least some early modern human genes might also help explain why the Siberian Denisovan genome is slightly different to that of the Sunda Denisovans, and why they would appear to have displayed advanced human behavior before their final disappearance around 45,000 years ago.

And so this brings us to an impression of the Siberian Densovan that appears as follows…

The face of a Siberian Denisovan by artist George Hernandez working in concert with writer-researcher Debbie Cartwright and the present author. Genetic information, Denisovan and Neanderthal fossils, and unique traits in anatomically modern humans were used to reconstruct this likeness.

(Picture credit: © Hernandez/Cartwright/Collins)

Human Elements

For our reconstruction of the Siberian Denisovan we have included some physical traits seen in modern human populations that perhaps benefitted from introgression with this archaic human population. They include modern populations in North Asia, East Asia, and even North America - where First Peoples of the Great Lakes-St Lawrence River region such as the Ojibwa and Cree have been found to possess some Denisovan DNA. They, more than any other population, might well have retained Siberian Denisovan traits through the isolation of their ancestors prior to first contact with Europeans at the start of the historical period.

Debbie Cartwright and I then worked with talented Californian artist George Hernandez to achieve the best likeness of an archaic Siberian Denisovan, here revealed for the first time. It is shown also for comparison alongside Carmel and Gokhman’s own reconstruction.

The reconstructed face of a Siberian Denisovan (left) alongside the Hebrew University’s own representation of a Sunda Denisovan (right).

(Picture credits: Left, © Hernandez/Cartwright/Collins; Right, © Maayan-Harel)

Many similarities can be noted between the two versions, including wide mouths, receding chins, heavy brow ridges, brown eyes, skin and hair, and also large noses, but there are also some differences as well. The face of the Siberian Denisovan is much longer, the brow ridge more prominent (like that of a Neanderthal), the forehead recedes more, while the cheekbone is much higher.

Aquiline Noses

We have also chosen to give the Denisovan a narrow, aquiline nose with a prominent bridge, as opposed to the large, but much flatter nose, of the Carmel and Gokhman reconstruction. As we have seen, such distinctive noses helped in the absorption of oxygen in elevated environments where the air is particularly thin. Yet curiously, an aquiline nose (also known as the Roman or hooked nose) combined with a prominent bridge has often been compared with the head shape of a large bird, most obviously that of an eagle (the Latin word aquiline means “eagle-like).”

Bird shamanism would appear to have played a significant role in human development for as much as 400,000 years. If, as we suspect, the Siberians Denisovans did possess aquiline noses, then with their prominent bridges and heavy brow ridges there is every reason to suspect that their facial details could be said to resemble those of a bird, something noted in individuals with aquiline noses in more modern times.

Illustration comparing an individual with an aquiline nose, heavy brow and prominent nose arch with the head of an eagle by Charles Le Brun

(Image: CC BY 4.0 ).

If correct, then this might have encouraged Siberian Denisovan groups to adopt the guise of birds to engage in early forms of animism and even shamanism, similar to that noted in connection with the AYCC inhabitants of the Qesem Cave in Israel as much as 400,000-250,000 years ago. In other words, Siberian Denisovans came to resemble birds both in physical appearance and in mannerisms, a connection emphasized and even celebrated through ritual practices.

Dreadlocks

Lastly, we chose to give our Denisovan thick, dreadlocked hair as opposed to the frizzy hair seen in Carmel and Gokhman’s reconstruction. Why did we do this? The answer is two-fold. First, it comes from the adoption of dreaded hair for socio-cultural and socio-religious purposes by various modern human populations such as the Himba people of Namibia, the Hindu Sadhus or holy men of India, and the Rastafarians of Jamaica.

Secondly, the deliberate management of long thick hair by dreading and the subsequent use of mud (as well as goat hair in the case of Himba women) to help coat it aids in the prevention of lice and other insect infestations. In addition to this, dreadlocks bunched up on the head would have accentuated the Denisovans’ suspected elongated heads, emphasizing their individual identity in a world that towards the end of their time circa 45,000-50,000 years ago, would have included Neanderthals, anatomically modern humans and, most likely, hybrids stemming from an admixture of all these various lineages of the homo genus.

• Genetic Study Suggests Denisovans Were the Mythological Rakshasas
• The Coming of the Thunder People: Denisovan Hybrids, Shamanism and the American Genesis

Personal Bias

Clearly, such a unique feature is based on speculation of how the Siberian Denisovans managed long hair without cutting it and how it might have come to signify their ritual culture. This is an important point, for no matter what evidence is used to reconstruct the face of an archaic human, it will always involve some personal bias. This can be seen, for example, from the many different representations of Neanderthals. They range from virtual ape-men covered in thick body hair, to others where the individual becomes almost indistinguishable from any red-haired, freckled person you might encounter on the street today.

Thus, it has to be accepted that the Denisovan face imagined by artist George Hernandez under the directions of Cartwright and the author must by definition have its own personal bias. This said, we feel it is the closest representation to date of a Siberian Denisovan, as opposed to the face of the Sunda Denisovan developed by Carmel and Gokhman.

Further assessments on the shape of the Denisovan skull and the proportions of the face can only be achieved following the discovery of additional fossils; most urgently a complete cranium. Beyond this will be the eventual discovery of a Denisovan femur, which will help settle the debate over whether or not the Denisovans were of exceptional size and height.

This was first implied by the enormous size of the two Denisovan molars found in the Denisova Cave. Although the two fragments of the Denisovan skull found at the site in 2016 are also suggestive of a large body frame, not enough fossil remains have come to light to answer the question of height and girth with any degree of certainty. So, until such times we must be content with the two faces of a Denisovan presented to the public so far – that of Carmel and Gokhman’s team from the Hebrew University and that of our own. At least these provide some idea of what this extinct branch of the Homo genus might have looked like.

• Top image: The reconstructed face of a Siberian Denisovan (right) alongside the Hebrew University’s own representation of a Sunda Denisovan (left).           
• Source: Left © Hernandez/Cartwright/Collins; b) © Maayan-Harel)

By Andrew Collins

Andrew Collins is a history and science writer. His most recent book is Denisovan Origins, co-authored with Gregory L. Little (Bear & Co, 2019).

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

11-03-2020 om 17:16 geschreven door peter  

Rare Masterpiece Uncovered on Ancient Egyptian Sarcophagus

An Italian-Egyptian team have reconstructed a masterpiece of ancient Egyptian art. They have been able to virtually recreate the face of a leopard that was found on a sarcophagus lid in a necropolis. They recreated the face of the big cat using the latest digital technology.

A team led by Italian archaeologist Patrizia Piacentini, from the Milan State University, found the necropolis under the sands of the desert not far from Aswan. The burial site was unearthed some 15 feet (5m) underground. According to Ansamed, the necropolis “extends for more than 25,000 square meters on the western bank of the Nile River , near the Mausoleum of Aga Khan III.”

Apart from the network of tombs found underground, some burials were also discovered dug into a nearby hill. It is believed that the burial site was in use for a millennium from the 7 ^th century BC until the 3 ^rd century AD when Egypt was a Roman province.

Entrance of the newly discovered tomb, where the leopard painting on the sarcophagus was found.

( University of Milan )

Treasure of Burial Goods

Ansamed reports that “one of the tombs, number AGH026, already made news last year when a large room was found with about 30 bodies buried during the 2nd century BC.” This had a treasure trove of grave goods, including funerary art and a very rare stretcher for transporting mummified cadavers. 

In this location, the team found a leopard that was painted onto the stucco of a shattered lid of a sarcophagus. In ancient Egyptian culture, this animal was the symbol of power and determination. Live Science reports that the representation of the predator was “likely intended to strengthen the spirit of the recently deceased for the journey to the land of the dead.”

The painted image of the leopard was found in a poor condition and much of it was missing.  It was painted onto the fragment of a lid of the sarcophagus, which was very fragile and full of sand. The experts decided to remove the stucco, with the image, from the lid in order to save the artwork. It was a very delicate task and it could easily have gone wrong. Archaeology.org quotes Piacentini as saying “it was a very delicate operation that had us holding our breath, we had tears in our eyes.”

The fragmentary sarcophagus lid with the painted leopard face on it.

( University of Milan )

Recreating the Sarcophagus’ Leopard Face

At one time, the face of the leopard would have been aligned with the face of the mummy inside the coffin. Live Science quotes the lead researcher Piacentini, that the symbol of the leopard “was common in ancient Egypt, but it is very rare to find it painted.” The team took the fragment with the image of the leopard from the site, in order to preserve it.

Then they decided to use some breakthrough technology in an effort to digitally reconstruct the c.2200-year-old painting.  The researchers were able to recreate the leopard, which was originally very realistically painted, with vibrant colors and wide eyes. Piacentini told Fox News “we made the discovery at the end of January 2019, but just finished the 'virtual' restoration of the fragment.”  The digital reconstruction demonstrates the great skills of Egyptian artists and their ability to create realistic and naturalistic works of art.

• The Head of an Emperor, the Shrine of a God: Two Contrasting Finds at the Egyptian Sites of Luxor and Aswan
• Ancient temple dating back 3,500 years found near Aswan in Egypt
• Archaeologists Stumble Upon 10 Egyptian Late Period Rock-Hewn Tombs

Pine Seeds for the Afterlife

Also found in the same tomb as the leopard painting was a dish with some pine seeds.  Based on Roman era cookbooks it seems that these were very popular and used in a variety of foods. It is likely that the seeds were placed beside the burial of a person by his family. The Egyptians believed that the deceased would enjoy them in the afterlife.

The leopard found at Aswan is now being conserved.  Ilaria Perticucci and Rita Reale, both professional conservators, are planning to restore the image in the controlled environments of laboratories in Aswan. It is not known if the restored painting will be put on display in the future. The necropolis, where the remarkable image was found, continues to be excavated by archaeologists.

• Top image: Virtual rendition of the painting of the leopard face found on the ancient Egyptian sarcophagus.        
• Source: University of Milan

By Ed Whelan

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

11-03-2020 om 16:50 geschreven door peter  

Here’s what the 2020 candidates — past and present — have said about UFOs, and whether information about them should be declassified

• After the US Navy confirmed a spate of unusual sightings by its pilots last year, candidates in the 2020 election have been asked what they think of the possibility of extra-terrestrial life.
• Some candidates have dodged the question, others have openly shared their views.
• Sen. Bernie Sanders has suggested that he would declassify information about UFOs if he wins.
• President Donald Trump has expressed skepticism about UFOs but told a reporter last year the US was monitoring the situation.
• See what other leading candidates – including those who ran and then dropped out – think.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

As the 2020 presidential race heated up, the candidates came ever-closer scrutiny for their policies on the key issues facing the US.

But some reporters have made it their mission to find out where they stand on a subject usually relegated to fringes of the internet – the existence of UFOs.

The question is getting increasing attention after the Navy confirmed last September that a spate of videos showing military planes being buzzed by mysterious, fast objects.

In response to an freedom of information request in January, the Navy also said it had top-secret information about UFOs that it could not make public as it could cause “exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States” if released.

Here are some of the candidates who’ve shared their thoughts on UFOs, and what they said.

Bernie Sanders suggested he would release classified information if elected

Foto: Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate Sanders rallies in North Charleston, South Carolina

Source: Reuters

Sanders made the suggestion to podcast host Joe Rogan in an interview last August.

Here’s the full exchange:

Rogan: If you found out something about aliens. If you found out something about UFOs, would you let us know?

Sanders: Well, I’ll tell you, my wife would demand that I tell you.

Rogan: Is your wife a UFO nut?

Sanders: No, she’s not a UFO nut. She goes: “Bernie, what is going on do you know? Do you have any access to records?”

Rogan: You don’t have any access? You’ll let us know though?

Sanders: Alright, we’ll announce it on the show. How’s that?

President Donald Trump doesn’t seem to believe in UFOs, but did say his administration was looking into them

Foto: FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump visits India

Source: Reuters

President Donald Trump was quizzed about the rising number of Navy UFO sightings in an interview with ABC News last June.

And though he was sceptical about the reports, he did confirm that the US government was monitoring the situation.

“They do say, and I’ve seen, and I’ve read, and I’ve heard. And I did have one very brief meeting on it. But people are saying they’re seeing UFOs. Do I believe it? Not particularly.”

Asked if he would be told if extraterrestrial life was found, Trump said: “We’re watching, and you’ll be the first to know.”

Amy Klobuchar said she would declassify information so “earnest journalists” can dig into it

Foto: U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) speaks to guests during a campaign stop at the Marion County Democrats soup luncheon at the Peace Tree Brewing Company on February 17, 2019 in Knoxville, Iowa

Source: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who dropped out of the race after the South Carolina primary, made her remarks to Daymond Steer, a reporter on local New Hampshire newspaper Conway Daily Sun.

The state’s primary in February was the first of the election season.

In his interviews, he typically saves one big question for the last: Do they believe in UFOs and if elected president would they declassify information about them?

“I think we don’t know enough … I don’t know what’s happened, not just with that sighting, but with others,” Klobuchar told Steer in January. “And I think one of the things a president could do is to look into what’s there in terms of what does the science say, what does our military say.”

“Here’s the interesting part of that answer is that some of this stuff is really old,” she said. “So, why can’t you see if you can let some of that out for the public so earnest journalists like you who are trying to get the bottom of the truth would be able to see it?”

Pete Buttigieg said humans ‘should always be looking at what’s going on around us’

Foto: U.S. Democratic presidential candidate and Mayor of South Bend, Indiana Pete Buttigieg campaigns during a SEIU California Democratic Delegate Breakfast in San Francisco, California, U.S. June 1, 2019.

Source: REUTERS/Stephen Lam

Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, struck a philosophical tone when Steer asked him the same question in January. He dropped out at a similar time to Klobuchar.

The former military intelligence officer remarked that “strange things happen out there” and that though life outside Earth probably existed, he had not seen any evidence that alien life forms had visited this planet.

“As a curious species, [we] should always be looking at what’s going on around us,” Buttigieg told Steer.

“Unimaginably strange things often happened in the grand sweep of American and world history and we should never fail to be on the lookout for what’s happening around us.”

11-03-2020 om 16:02 geschreven door peter  

What in the blazes is a ‘blazar’ and should we be worried that the oldest and biggest one in the universe is pointed directly at Earth?

“We present the discovery of PSO J030947.49+271757.31, the radio brightest (23.7 mJy at 1.4 GHz) active galactic nucleus (AGN) at z >  6.0.”

Well, that opening line from a new study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics tells us absolutely nothing about blazars that a non-astronomer can understand. Fortunately, we have Silvia Belladitta, a Ph.D. student at the University of Insubria in Italy and leader of the study, to explain it to us in somewhat simpler terms in a statement to Phys.org.

“The spectrum that appeared before our eyes confirmed first that PSO J0309+27 is actually an AGN, or a galaxy whose central nucleus is extremely bright due to the presence in its center of a supermassive black hole fed by the gas and the stars it engulfs.”

Hey, watch where you’re pointing that thing!

PSO J0309+27 was first discovered when Belladita and her colleagues looked at bright radio sources captured by the NRAO’s Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System in Hawaii (Pan-STARRS), and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope. A bright object was isolated and named PSO J030947.49+271757.31 (PSO J0309+27 for short). Knowing its exact location, they then took measurements from the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona and NASA’s Sift space telescope to determine that it was an active galactic nucleus (AGN) – a black hole at the center of a galaxy that was consuming the stars around it. All exciting stuff, but one piece of data from the LBT made this a unique and mind-blowing discovery.

“In addition, the data obtained by LBT also confirmed that PSO J0309+27 is really far away from us, according to the shift of the color of its light toward red or redshift with a record value of 6.1, never measured before for a similar object.”

OK, mind-blowing for astronomers. PSO J0309+27 is a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy and is a billion times more massive than our Sun. For an apples-to-apples (or AGN-to-AGN) comparison, the supermassive black hole at Milky Way’s center is only four million times more massive than the Sun. While PSO J0309+27’s mass is impressive, its light is even more extraordinary. It means that the radar jets blasting out of PSO J0309+27 are pointed directly at Earth – THAT’S why it’s called a ‘blazar’. Any slight deviation would make it a barely detectable non-blazar AGN. At the distance of 13 billion light years, the third remarkable thing about PSO J0309+27 is that it’s barely a billion years older than the entire universe.

“Thanks to our discovery, we are able to say that in the first billion years of life of the universe, there existed a large number of very massive black holes emitting powerful relativistic jets. This result places tight constraints on the theoretical models that try to explain the origin of these huge black holes in our universe.”

Other supermassive black holes pale in comparison.

Yes that’s a big deal to Belladitta and her fellow astronomers, who are now anxiously awaiting the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile coming online this year. The first objects they’ll most likely study are the 100 other known AGNs.

And finally … is Earth in any danger with the biggest and oldest blazar in the universe blazing its jets directly at us? Not a chance.

It’s about time we got some good news.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

11-03-2020 om 14:17 geschreven door peter  

Airbus A319 Close Encounter With Two Alien Disc

MARCH 25, 2004 ……. FLIGHT OVER MINNESOTA

It was while the Northwest Airlines Airbus A319 was in the airspace of Minnesota, at around 8 pm on the evening of 25^th March 2004, when the air traffic control in Minneapolis received communication from the crew that they could see two unidentified objects approximately 15 miles in front of their position and seemingly traveling in the same direction (and so maintaining this steady cushion).

The plane was traveling at an approximate altitude of 35,000 feet and it appeared the two strange objects were possibly only slightly higher than that. The crew requested any information from the control tower of other air traffic in the area.

However, the response returned that there were no signs of any other aircraft in the plane’s vicinity. They would ask the crew, though, if they were “still seeing the targets” to which they would respond they very much were.

Upon focusing on the scene in front of them further, one of the pilots felt he could see two sets of two objects, which, if correct, would mean that four individual, solid crafts were making their way, from the north, in a west, southwest direction to a destination unknown.

The two spherical objects would remain in their sight for approximately a quarter of an hour before eventually vanishing into the distance. While the plane continued its flight with no further incidents, eventually landing as planned in Los Angeles, the air traffic controller would make a report of the incident to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC).

The incident would catch the attention of Peter Davenport the NUFORC’s director. So much so, that Davenport would initially arrange to speak with the witness on an upcoming talk radio broadcast. However, before the show could take place, the controller’s supervisor somehow became aware of the impending appearance and would order that the witness not appear on the show and was not to speak of the incident publicly.

While this might be nothing more than a desire to keep such “sensationalist” stories away from a commercial airline so as to avoid any potential negative effects, it also smacks ever so slightly of the way other witnesses, particularly those connected to airlines, have been silenced from telling their stories. NOTE: The above image is CGI.

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THANKS TO MARCUS LOWTH AND https://www.ufoinsight.com

Source: http://worldufophotosandnews.org/?p=25456

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

11-03-2020 om 13:56 geschreven door peter  

Latest UFO Footage From the Mediterranean

The most recent UFO footage on the Internet is completely free to download, yet you still can’t find a single video on the Internet that has more images and color than the latest UFO video to come from the Mediterranean. If you need any more proof of how important this newest UFO video is, then just read on.

Most people are familiar with UFO sightings in the United States such as those which have been reported in the Midwest region or the Mississippi Valley Delta. However, there are many videos of UFOs in the Mediterranean which are as varied as the countries they come from. There are many UFO videos from France, Italy, and Spain, and another from Switzerland, to name a few.

Although most UFO videos in Europe and North America take the viewer on a ride through the sky and onto the ground, some of these videos feature scenes that are taken from within the atmosphere of earth. These images are especially impressive because they include blue and green flashes and streaks that appear to be video film. Of course, this doesn’t mean that they’re actually from an extraterrestrial craft, but it does show that UFO videos from the Mediterranean can be as captivating and mesmerizing as those from other parts of the world.

What does this mean for someone who wants to see a UFO up close and personal? It means that if they want to be truly amazed by the amazing technology we humans have at our disposal, then they need to watch a video from the Mediterranean. You can’t compare these videos to the ones from Florida, Texas, or California, because the European videos feature some amazing imagery and not all of them are filmed on black and white.

Because the many images in these videos are taken from the atmosphere of earth, they don’t make much sense unless you understand what’s going on. You need to remember that NASA scientists didn’t believe in the existence of UFOs until they started taking pictures of them from the surface of the moon. When you take a video from the atmosphere of earth, you are viewing what is known as an enhanced digital video.

But not all videos from the atmosphere of earth show the same footage, so you need to watch one from each country in order to compare. In fact, some European UFO videos do not include footage at all, as they come from both above and below the atmosphere of earth. If you want to see some of the most spectacular images of the new generation of UFO footage from the Mediterranean, then you need to get on the Internet and see for yourself.

The videos that feature imagery from the atmosphere of earth are typically far superior to the ones that don’t, and they all have the power to awe anyone who views them. The human race has been fascinated by the UFO phenomenon since the very first time a person took a picture of an object in the sky. Nowadays, the technology used to capture the most exciting UFO videos from the earth has reached new heights.

There are even several of these videos on the Internet that you can download without having to pay a cent, but you can only do that if you want to see these videos for yourself. People who want to see the latest UFO footage on the Internet can find numerous websites that offer it, and if you want to experience what it is like to be on the ground when a UFO zooms across the sky, then you need to see one of these videos from the Mediterranean. There is no arguing the fact that these videos are the latest and greatest form of entertainment available, so why would you be interested in anything else?

• http://footageofufos.com/2020/03/latest-ufo-footage-from-the-mediterranean/

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

11-03-2020 om 13:35 geschreven door peter  

The camera from NASA's satellite Stereo Ahead HI2 which orbits around the Sun has has picked up somethings that shouldn't be there.

The unknown object which looks like a huge "Ezekiel's Wheel" made its appearance on February 19, 2020 and it is still out there and NASA has not yet issued a response to the strange apparition.

It is not the first time that this UFO, which also looks like the spacecraft in the 2001 movie "A space Odyssey", appears in front of the Stereo Ahead HI2, the same satellite also caught this object in 2011.

It was said at the time that it was a camera artifact, but when it comes to a camera artifact then why does it only come back after nine years and not more often as you would expect.

Stereo is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched in 2006 into orbits around the Sun that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth. This enables stereoscopic imaging of the Sun and solar phenomena, such as coronal mass ejections.

  

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

11-03-2020 om 12:39 geschreven door peter  

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. 

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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 

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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.

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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

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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

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

'Invisible UFOs' Fill the Skies

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