Over the last few days, here at Mysterious Universe, I have written several articles on FBI files concerning Flying Saucers, UFO-connected people, and paranormal phenomena that the FBI has declassified under the terms of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). They are files that the Bureau has placed on its website, The Vault. Today, however, I’m going to share with you some of the UFO/paranormal-related files that have been declassified by the FBI, but that have not yet been placed online at the The Vault. You can still obtain those files, of course: it just means to get those papers that have not yet been uploaded, you will have to file a FOIA request. So, with that said, let’s take a look at some of the declassified files that, presently, you can’t see at The Vault. One of them is the file on George Hunt Williamson – he was one of the early UFO Contactees of the 1950s and who died in 1986. The Williamson file runs to around 50 to 60 pages. I say “around” because a few pages of material on Williamson are also contained in another file: that of George Adamski, the most famous (or, more correctly, infamous) Contactee of all. And Williamson pops up, too, in the Truman Bethurum file. So, the precise number of pages on Williamson is somewhat hazy. With that said, let’s take a look at the content of the Williamson file.

Certainly, the most interesting aspect of the FBI file on George Hunt Williamson is that which concerns smuggling. It was in 1962 that the FBI heard rumors that Williamson was secretly transporting ancient artifacts across the border from Mexico into the United States. For a while the FBI deeply pondered on whether or not they should get further involved in the pursuit of a potential crime that had occurred outside of its jurisdiction and in another country – Mexico – but finally dropped the matter; rather fortunately, it must be said, for Williamson. There is one particularly curious aspect of this particular affair: a number of the relevant documents on this alleged smuggling caper are heavily censored and under category B1 of the Freedom of Information Act. Intriguingly, B1 covers nothing less than matters that may have a potential effect on U.S. national security.

Now, let’s take a look at Wilhelm Reich. As far back as the 1930s, Reich had researched what he ultimately came to call Orgone – or Orgone energy. In 2008, it was stated by wilhelmreichtrust.org that: “About eight years ago, Reich’s FBI file – comprising approximately 800 pages – became available online at the FBI website, in a section of the website dedicated to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Some time during 2007, a number of people reported to us that Reich’s file had been removed from that website.” There was, however, no conspiracy or cover-up involved  at all. The FBI explained: “Wilhelm Reich’s file was intentionally taken off the Electronic Reading Room. Last year, RMD [Records Management Division] worked closely with the FBI’s Historian to identify files which were either historically valuable or were popular files, that is more than 3-4 requests in the past 3 years. The file in question didn’t make the list, so they removed it from the website.”

Moving on, there’s the matter of a woman named Mary Hardy Reeser. As Wonders and Marvels states: “During the summer of 1951, the St. Petersburg (Florida) Police Department needed help. On July 2, 67-year-old woman named Mary Hardy Reeser had burned to death in her apartment, and the police did not know how or why. A fire of unknown origin had reduced her body to fine ashes — except for her skull (“shrunken to the size of a teacup”), a small section of backbone, and her left foot, which still wore a shoe.” Rumors quuckly began to circulate that Reeser was a victim of nothing less than Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC). The FBI has a sizeable file on Reeser and the SHC claims. In fact, it runs to 115 pages. It’s not online at The Vault, though. It can be found, however, at John Greenewald, Jr.’s website, The Black Vault at this link.

The list goes on in relation to the papers that aren’t yet at The Vault: Guy Ballard has an FBI file that runs to a whopping 768 pages. That is not a surprise, as he was a very controversial figure who claimed to have met with none other than the “Ascended Master Count St. Germain.” As for Heaven’s Gate, no less than 382-pages of Bureau-based material are available via the Freedom of Information Act. George Adamski’s file is close to 300-pages-long. Hopefully, the FBI will expand the “Unexplained Phenomenon” section of the The Vault  and create the ultimate online source for all of the now-declassified FBI files on matters of the mysterious and paranormal kind. I would be pleased to do it for them!

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

29-07-2020 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

How did Earth crack? New study may explain origins of plate tectonics on our planet.

28-07-2020 om 23:35 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s Perseverance rover will seek signs of past life on Mars

A plethora of instruments will collect rocks and study the weather on the Red Planet

NASA’s next rover is a connoisseur of Martian rocks. The main job of the Perseverance rover, set to launch between July 20 and August 11, is to pick out rocks that might preserve signs of past life and store the samples for a future mission back to Earth.

“We’re giving a gift to the future,” says planetary scientist Adrian Brown, who works at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Most of the rover’s seven sets of scientific instruments work in service of that goal, including zoomable cameras to pick out the best rocks from afar and lasers and spectrometers to identify a rock’s makeup. After the rover lands in February 2021, it’s capable of collecting and storing 20 samples within the first Martian year (about two Earth years). The NASA team plans to collect at least 30 samples over the whole mission, says planetary scientist Katie Stack Morgan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Fortunately, Perseverance is headed to a spot that should be full of collection-worthy rocks. The landing site in Jezero crater, just north of the Martian equator, contains an ancient river delta that looks like it once carried water and silt into a long-lived lake.

“We can already predict which parts of that delta might give us the highest return for possible biosignatures,” Stack Morgan says. The crater has a “bathtub ring” of carbonates, minerals that settle in shallow, warm waters that are especially good at preserving signs of life. “That makes Jezero special,” she says.

But Perseverance is more than a rock collector. The rover will probe the ground beneath its wheels, fly a helicopter, track the weather and test tech for turning Martian air into rocket fuel. Every part of the rover has a job to do.

RIMFAX

RIMFAX, or Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment, will use radio waves to probe the ground under the rover’s wheels. The instrument will take a measurement every 10 centimeters along the rover’s track and should be able to sense 10 meters deep, depending on what’s down there. The InSight lander, currently on Mars, has a seismometer that listens for Marsquakes, but a ground-penetrating radar to understand the Martian interior is a first.

MOXIE

Human explorers will need oxygen on Mars, but not just for breathing, says former astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman. “It’s for the rocket,” says Hoffman, now an engineer at MIT. To take off from the Martian surface and return home, astronauts will need liquid oxygen rocket fuel. Bringing all that fuel from Earth is not an option.

To demonstrate how to make fuel from scratch, MOXIE, or Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, will pull carbon dioxide out of the Martian atmosphere and convert it to oxygen. MOXIE will produce about 10 grams of oxygen per hour, which is only about 0.5 percent of what’s needed to make enough fuel for a human mission over the 26 months between launch windows. But the effort will teach engineers on Earth how to scale up the technology.

Mastcam-Z

Set atop Perseverance’s neck, Mastcam-Z, the rover’s main set of eyes, can swivel 360 degrees laterally and 180 degrees up and down to view the surrounding landscape. Like its predecessor on the Curiosity rover, the camera will take color, 3-D and panoramic images to help scientists understand the terrain and the mineralogy of the surrounding rocks. Mastcam-Z can also zoom in on distant features — a first for a Mars rover.

SuperCam

How can Perseverance look for signs of ancient microbes in rocks too far away to touch? Enter SuperCam, a laser spectrometer mounted on the rover’s head. SuperCam will shoot rocks with a laser from more than seven meters away, vaporizing a tiny bit of the minerals. Researchers will then analyze the vapor to help figure out what the rocks are made of, without having to drive the rover down steep slopes or up rugged crags. The laser will also measure properties of the Martian atmosphere and dust to refine weather models.

MEDA

MEDA, or Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer, is the rover’s weather station. Six instruments distributed across the neck, body and interior will measure air temperature, air pressure, humidity, radiation and wind speed and direction. The tools will also analyze the physical characteristics of the all-important Mars dust. Scientists hope to use the information from these sensors to better predict Mars weather.

PIXL, SHERLOC and WATSON

Geologists never go into the field without a hand lens. Likewise, Perseverance will be prepared with three arm-mounted magnifying instruments. PIXL, the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry, will have a camera that can resolve grains of Martian rock and dirt to scales smaller than a millimeter. It will also detect the chemical makeup of those rocks by zapping them with X-rays and measuring the wavelength of light the rocks emit in response. SHERLOC, or Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals, will take similar measurements using an ultraviolet laser. WATSON, the Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and Engineering, will take pictures with a resolution of 30 micro­meters to put the chemistry in context. The instruments will seek signs of ancient microbes preserved in Martian rocks and soil, and help scientists decide which rocks to store for a future mission to return to Earth.

Ingenuity

Perseverance will also carry a stowaway folded up origami-style in a protective shield the size of a pizza box: a helicopter called Ingenuity. At a smooth, flat spot, Ingenuity will drop to the ground and unfold, then take about five flights in 30 Martian days. These flights are mainly to show that the copter can get enough lift in the thin Martian atmosphere. If Ingenuity is successful, future helicopters might help run reconnaissance for rovers. “There’s always a question with the rover, what’s over that cliff? What’s over that rise?” says planetary scientist Briony Horgan of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. “If you have a helicopter, you can see those things ahead of time.”

RELATED videos, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

28-07-2020 om 23:16 geschreven door peter  

Mediterranean Sea Was Hotter 2,000 Years Ago!

International researchers have found proof that the Mediterranean Sea was 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) hotter during the time of the Roman Empire , from 1 to 500 AD, the warmest it has been over the past two millennia. The researchers claim that their investigation can show the relationship between climate change and important social and cultural changes, including the rise and fall of empires.

A multidisciplinary team of Spanish and Italians researchers were part of a project for “the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess the impact of historically warmer conditions between 2.7°F and 3.6°F (1.5°C to 2°C),” reports the Daily Mail . It is very challenging to retrieve information about past temperatures of the sea.

According to the Daily Mail , the experts believe that “the study of the fossil archives remains the only valid tool to reconstruct past environmental and climatic changes as far back as 2,000 years ago.” Due to the fact that it is enclosed, the Mediterranean Sea is more likely to be impacted by global climate change. “The sea occupies a ‘transitional zone’, combining the arid zone of the subtropical high and humid north-westerly air flows,” explains the Daily Mail .

The research team retrieved planktonic organisms from the sea floor off the coast of Sicily. The map shows the location of the sample (red triangle) and the location of marine records used for comparison (red circles).

( Margaritelli, G. et. al. / Scientific Reports )

Planktonic Organisms Hold Information About Past Sea Water Temperatures

The team recorded ratios of magnesium to calcite in planktonic singled cell organisms, called foraminifera Globigerinoides ruber, and this provided much-needed data. In 2014 the RV CNR-Urania research vessel was able to retrieve a skeletonized Globigerinoide ruber from the sea floor in the Sicily Channel, at a depth of 1500 feet (490 m). Professor Isabel Cacho, of the University of Barcelona, is quoted by Mirage News as saying that a chemical analysis of the “carbonated skeleton allows us to reconstruct the evolution of the temperature of the surface water mass over time.”  This is because the organism only lives in warm marine habitats.

The data suggested that between 2000 and 1500 years ago the Mediterranean Sea temperatures were warmer than at any time since. It is believed that the sea was warmer because of increased solar activity. It was almost certainly not a result of global warming caused by greenhouse gases, such as carbon emissions. “For the first time, we can state the Roman period was the warmest period of the last 2,000 years, and these conditions lasted for 500 years,” explains Cacho in Mirage News . The study was correlated with data from other samples taken from other locations in the Mediterranean Sea, which confirmed their hypothesis.

The data collected from the Sicily Channel was compared to data from other locations in the Mediterranean Sea, and superimposed on a graph showing the main historic periods discussed in the study.

( Margaritelli, G. et. al. / Scientific Reports )

Cooling Sea Water Linked to Fall of Roman Republic

The Mediterranean was cool and humid until 100 BC, in what is known as the sub-Atlantic phase. The sea began to cool markedly after 50 BC. This has been linked to the eruption of Mount Okmok, off the coast of Alaska, that threw ash into the atmosphere leading to the cooling of the earth.

• Can Any Civilization Make It Through Climate Change?
• The Roman Empire’s Crisis of the Third Century
• Following the Boom and Bust of the Roman Economy

This cooling may be linked to the collapse of the Roman Republic and the rise of the new imperial system in Rome. Augustus established the Roman Empire in 27 BC, after his victory at Actium. This was to endure for 500 years, during which time the Roman Empire dominated the Mediterranean world. The team wrote in Scientific Reports that “this climate phase corresponds to the so-called ‘Roman Climatic Optimum’,” characterized by mild and wet weather.

During his reign as emperor of the Roman Empire, from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD, Augustus increased the size of the empire substantially.

( Abraham de Bruyn / CC0 )

Warm Mediterranean Sea Temperatures Associated With Golden Age of Rome

The researchers believe that the Roman Climatic Optimum phase coincides with “the development of the expansion of the Roman Empire ,” explains Mirage News . The warm period has also been associated with the Golden Age of Rome, both culturally and economically.

Evidence for the warming of the Mediterranean during this period is also supported by separate studies from the Atlantic. The warm period may have helped to boost the Empire’s agricultural production , which was critical for the prosperity and stability of pre-industrial societies and even increased their military capabilities.

After the fall of the western Roman Empire, “a general cooling trend developed in the region with several minor oscillations in temperature,” clarifies the Daily Mail . This could have contributed to the decline of classical civilization after 500 AD. In Scientific Reports , the researchers write that the cooling was “also associated with socio-cultural changes in the central Mediterranean region.” The climate became drier and this meant that agriculture was not as productive and could not sustain cities in particular.

Destruction, by the English painter Thomas Cole, was painted to show the fall of the Roman Empire.

( Public domain )

Can Climate Change Cause the Rise and Fall of Empires?

Combined with other research studies, this study has helped to demonstrate a potential link between climate change and the rise and fall of empires and civilizations . Quoted in the Daily Mail , those involved in the study explain that their work “offers ‘critical information’ to identify past interactions between climate changes and evolution of human societies and 'their adaptive strategies’.” Moreover, their work can also help to understand the history of other empires that once thrived in the Mediterranean region, and the effects of changes in climatic temperatures.

• Top image: Mediterranean Sea. Credit: Sergii Figurnyi / Adobe Stock

By Ed Whelan

{ Ancient Origins }

28-07-2020 om 22:36 geschreven door peter  

WATCH BOSTON DYNAMICS’ ROBODOGS INVADE THIS FORD PRODUCTION PLANT

These robots act like the best-behaved dogs you've ever seen. Plus they have five cameras.

Boston Dynamics is heading to the Midwest. The perpetually viral robotics company, known across the world for videos of robots blowing people’s minds, has signed a deal with Ford Motor Company. Ford will be leasing two robots from the company in order to better scan their factories for retooling.

"WOW, IT'S, IT'S ACTUALLY DOGLIKE."

WHAT ARE THESE ROBOTS 

The robots, which are officially named Spot but have been nicknamed Fluffy by Ford, are four-legged walkers that can take 360-degree camera scans, handle 30-degree grades and climb stairs for extended periods of time. At 70 pounds with five cameras, they’re nimble, and Boston Dynamics wanted to make sure they had a dog-like quality as they save clients money.

As digital engineering manager at Ford’s Advanced Manufacturing Center, Mark Goderis was already quite familiar with the animal-like robots that have made Boston Dynamics famous.

But when he finally saw them in person, he tells Inverse, “I was like, wow, it's, it's actually doglike. I was really shocked at how an animal or dog like it really is. But then you start to think oh my god it is a robot. It was a moment of shock.”

One place that real dogs have the robots beat is speed: these bots can only go 3 MPH, a safety feature. But with handler Paula Wiebelhaus, who gave Fluffy its nickname in the first place, these robots will scan plant floors and give engineers a helping hand in updating Computer Aided Designs (CAD), which are used to help improve workplaces.

Paula Wiebelhaus taking Fluffy for a walk.

Ford

Wiebelhaus can control Fluffy with a device that's only somewhat bigger than a Playstation 4 controller.

Ford

Even engineering experts at Ford were surprised by how dog-like Fluffy can be.

Ford

WHY DOES FORD NEED THEM 

Although plants generally don’t change that much over the years, Goderis says, smaller changes take place over time and eventually become noticeable to those who work in them every day.

“It's like when you get up in the dark to do something in your house. You know how to walk through your house. But say you’ve moved something, a rocking chair. You kick it in the middle of the night because it's dark,” Goderis says.

The changes can be “as small as if you took a trash can and moved it from one location to another. But then we release a new trim level addition (used by car manufacturers to track the variety of special features on each car model), so you get a new part content on the line. And you literally just slide that into a workstation.

When you're adjusting in the facility, after production starts on a new vehicle, a lot of the time the process kind of smooths out. And as it smooths out, and you move things around, and the CAD images don't get updated as accurately as they should.”

Fluffy can climb stairs for hours.

Ford

HOW WILL THEY SAVE FORD MONEY

The problem is that old, manual methods of updating CAD images are pricey and time-consuming. Before the Boston Dynamics robots, one would need to “walk around with a tripod,” Goderis says.

“So think about a camera mounted on top of a tripod and you're posing for a family picture, but instead of having a camera we have a laser scanner on top of it. So we walk into a facility that's roughly 3 million square feet, and you would walk around with that tripod.”

That time-consuming process can work for family portraits, but it’s no good when it comes to car manufacturing. Even walking around at 3 MPH, Ford expects robotic Fluffy to cut down their camera times by half. That means faster designs, faster turnaround, and engineering teams getting plant designs faster. All of that means cars coming out faster.

And on top of that, the cameras will allow Fluffy’s video feed to be viewed remotely, meaning Ford engineers can, hypothetically, study plants thousands of miles away.

For now, Fluffy will start at a single plant, the Van Dyke Transmission Plant. But more dogs are likely in the company’s future.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

28-07-2020 om 22:11 geschreven door peter  

UFO sighting: 'Alien cube ship' TEN TIMES bigger than Earth captured by NASA

UFO hunters have shared NASA photos they believe show an enormous cubed alien craft exiting from the Sun.

28-07-2020 om 21:43 geschreven door peter  

Weird behavior of Earth's magnetic field over South Atlantic dates back 11 million years

Strange behavior in Earth's magnetic field over the South Atlantic region can be traced back as far as 11 million years ago, and it's unlikely to cause any impending reversal of Earth's magnetic field, a new study shows. 

The South Atlantic Anomaly is a weak spot in Earth's magnetic field, which protects the planet from high doses of solar wind and cosmic radiation. This anomaly exists because the Earth's inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to the planet’s surface, causing an increased flux of energetic particles. In turn, this anomaly also causes technical disturbances in satellites and spacecraft orbiting Earth. 

Researchers from the University of Liverpool in England studied igneous, or volcanic rocks from the island Saint Helena, which lies in the South Atlantic Anomaly. Records of Earth's magnetic field are preserved in igneous rocks, offering a detailed view of the planet's magnetic history. 

• Related: 'Vigorous' magnetic field oddity spotted over South Atlantic

"Our study provides the first long term analysis of the magnetic field in this region dating back millions of years," Yael Engbers, lead author of the study, said in a statement. "It reveals that the anomaly in the magnetic field in the South Atlantic is not a one-off, similar anomalies existed eight to 11 million years ago."

Researchers studied rocks from 34 volcanic eruptions that occurred at Saint Helena between 8 and 11 million years ago. When volcanic rocks cool down, small grains of iron-oxide in them get magnetized, preserving the direction and strength of the Earth’s magnetic field at that time and place. 

Earth's magnetic field lines run from south to north. The geomagnetic records from the rocks show that the magnetic field at Saint Helena has pointed in different directions during past eruptions. This suggests that the magnetic field in this region has been unstable for millions of years. 

Earth's magnetic field changes in strength and direction over time. It is believed that these fluctuations may eventually trigger a reversal of the Earth's magnetic field. However, given that the magnetic field at the region of the South Atlantic Anomaly has been unstable for several million years, it is not likely associated with any such impending reversal, according to the statement.

"It also supports earlier studies that hint towards a link between the South Atlantic Anomaly and anomalous seismic features in the lowermost mantle and the outer core," Engbers said in the statement. "This brings us closer to linking behavior of the geomagnetic field directly to features of the Earth's interior."

Their findings were published July 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

28-07-2020 om 21:08 geschreven door peter  

An asteroid the size of a car just zipped by Earth in close flyby

By Tariq Malik 

It posed no danger to our planet.

A car-sized asteroid discovered over the weekend made a close flyby of Earth today (July 28), passing our planet at a range that rivals the orbits of some high-flying satellites.

The asteroid 2020 OY4, which was first detected on Sunday (July 26), made its closest approach today at 1:31 a.m. EDT (0531 GMT) when it zipped by Earth at a speed of about 27,700 mph (44,600 km/h), according to the European Space Agency. The asteroid is just under 10 feet (3 meters) wide and posed no impact risk to Earth, but did approach the flight paths of geosynchronous satellites. 

"A tiny, 3 meter asteroid called 2020 OY4 skimmed past Earth just a few hours ago, passing within the orbit of satellites in the geostationary ring," ESA officials wrote in a Twitter update.

• Video: Watch asteroid 2020 OY4's orbit and flyby animation
• Related: Famous asteroid flybys and close calls (infographic)

Estimates from ESA's Center for Near-Earth Object Coordination Center and NASA's Asteroid Watch outreach tool vary in the exact distance of asteroid 2020 OY4 at its closest approach. 

NASA's tool listed the closest distance as about 25,800 miles (41,400 km), which is just outside the ring of geosynchronous satellites 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth's equator. ESA's asteroid-tracking center pegged the flyby range at about 21,900 miles (35,170 km), or just inside the satellite orbit ring. 

"Of course, there were no risks at all to our planet," wrote astrophysicist Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project in Ceccano, Italy.

RELATED STORIES

• Potentially dangerous asteroids (images)
• Tiny asteroid's flyby shows planetary protection in action
• About 17,000 big near-Earth asteroids remain undetected

Masi captured a photo of asteroid 2020 OY4 on Monday (July 27), just ahead of the flyby. In the image, the asteroid looks like a bright dot on a sea of black streaked by star lines. 

"The telescope tracked the fast apparent motion of the asteroid; this is why stars show as long trails, while the asteroid looks like a bright and sharp dot of light in the center of the image, marked by an arrow," Masi wrote in an image description.

Asteroids the size of 2020 OY4 fly by Earth several times a month, NASA officials have said in the past. In June 2019, an asteroid slightly larger than 2020 OY4 actually hit the Earth, but broke up harmlessly in the atmosphere, astronomers said.

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

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

28-07-2020 om 20:53 geschreven door peter  

An asteroid the size of a car just zipped by Earth in close flyby

By Tariq Malik 

It posed no danger to our planet.

A car-sized asteroid discovered over the weekend made a close flyby of Earth today (July 28), passing our planet at a range that rivals the orbits of some high-flying satellites.

The asteroid 2020 OY4, which was first detected on Sunday (July 26), made its closest approach today at 1:31 a.m. EDT (0531 GMT) when it zipped by Earth at a speed of about 27,700 mph (44,600 km/h), according to the European Space Agency. The asteroid is just under 10 feet (3 meters) wide and posed no impact risk to Earth, but did approach the flight paths of geosynchronous satellites. 

"A tiny, 3 meter asteroid called 2020 OY4 skimmed past Earth just a few hours ago, passing within the orbit of satellites in the geostationary ring," ESA officials wrote in a Twitter update.

• Video: Watch asteroid 2020 OY4's orbit and flyby animation
• Related: Famous asteroid flybys and close calls (infographic)

Estimates from ESA's Center for Near-Earth Object Coordination Center and NASA's Asteroid Watch outreach tool vary in the exact distance of asteroid 2020 OY4 at its closest approach. 

NASA's tool listed the closest distance as about 25,800 miles (41,400 km), which is just outside the ring of geosynchronous satellites 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth's equator. ESA's asteroid-tracking center pegged the flyby range at about 21,900 miles (35,170 km), or just inside the satellite orbit ring. 

"Of course, there were no risks at all to our planet," wrote astrophysicist Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project in Ceccano, Italy.

RELATED STORIES

• Potentially dangerous asteroids (images)
• Tiny asteroid's flyby shows planetary protection in action
• About 17,000 big near-Earth asteroids remain undetected

Masi captured a photo of asteroid 2020 OY4 on Monday (July 27), just ahead of the flyby. In the image, the asteroid looks like a bright dot on a sea of black streaked by star lines. 

"The telescope tracked the fast apparent motion of the asteroid; this is why stars show as long trails, while the asteroid looks like a bright and sharp dot of light in the center of the image, marked by an arrow," Masi wrote in an image description.

Asteroids the size of 2020 OY4 fly by Earth several times a month, NASA officials have said in the past. In June 2019, an asteroid slightly larger than 2020 OY4 actually hit the Earth, but broke up harmlessly in the atmosphere, astronomers said.

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

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

28-07-2020 om 20:53 geschreven door peter  

Franse astronaut Thomas Pesquet vliegt met SpaceX naar ruimtestation ISS - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

Pesquet wordt de eerste Europeaan om met de Crew Dragon van SpaceX te vliegen, startend vanop Cape Canaveral in Florida. Hij heeft reeds met de simulators van SpaceX getraind.

Lees ook

Stel een vraag aan Frank De Winne: astronauten van Europese Ruimtevaartorganisatie geven tips over leven in quarantaine

“Ik ben ontzettend blij dat ik de eerste Europeaan mag zijn die met de nieuwe generatie Amerikaanse bemande ruimtevaartuigen meevliegt, “ zegt Thomas. “Het zal extra interessant zijn om deze ervaring te kunnen vergelijken met mijn eerste vlucht als Sojoez-piloot en deze ervaring te delen met het team.”

Crew Dragon

Zijn missie zal de naam Alpha dragen, genoemd naar Alpha Centauri, het sterrenstelsel dat zich het dichtst bij de Aarde bevindt.

In mei heeft SpaceX voor rekening van de NASA met de Crew Dragon astronauten naar het ISS gebracht: de Amerikanen Doug Hurley en Bob Behnken. Zij keren op 1 augustus met de capsule naar de Aarde terug.

De tweede operationele missie van de Crew Dragon is precies die van Pesquet.

De 42-jarige Fransman verbleef in 2016-2017 reeds zowat zes maanden in het ISS, waarbij hij twee ruimtewandelingen maakte. De heen- en terugreis was met een Russische Sojoez.

Hij zal in de Crew Dragon het gezelschap hebben van de Japanner Akihiko Hoshide, aldus het Japanse ruimtevaartburaeu Jaxa dinsdag. De 51-jarige woonde en werkte al in 2008 en 2011 in het ruimtestation, waar hij de tweede Japanner wordt die het gezag zal voeren. De eerste was Koichi Wakata.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

28-07-2020 om 18:12 geschreven door peter  

Groen licht voor Amerikaanse Marsmissie: robotjeep Perseverance kan gelanceerd worden - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

De Marsverkenner heeft donderdag vanaf 13.50 uur (Belgische tijd) twee uur de tijd om te beginnen aan zijn reis, ingezet met een lancering door een krachtige Atlas-5 draagraket van lanceerbedrijf United Launch Alliance (ULA). Volgens de eerste meteoschatting bedraagt de kans op goed weer tachtig procent. De robotjeep moet op 18 februari landen in de Jezerokrater.

De zowat een ton wegende Perseverance moet zoeken naar sporen van vroeger microbiologisch leven. Bovendien moet de robotjeep het klimaat en de geologie van onze buurplaneet onderzoeken, door het nemen van stalen van stenen en stof. De missie moet tevens toelaten nieuwe technologie voor toekomstige onbemande en bemande missies naar Mars te testen.

Lees ook

Onbemande sonde ‘Hoop’ vertrekt deze week naar Mars (en er volgen er in juli nog twee)

Vinciane Debaillie, een wetenschapster van de ULB, is een van de vijf vorsers die het Europese Ruimtevaartbureau ESA heeft aangesteld om mee te werken met de 2,7 miljard dollar kostende Marsmissie. Haar werk bestaat onder meer uit de besturing van de robot, het documenteren van waarnemingen en het behandelen van gegevens. Ze maakt ook deel uit van het wetenschappelijk comité.  Wetenschappers willen ook meer leren over het ontstaan van het universum.

De jeep draagt een plakkaat mee dat hulde brengt aan de hulpdiensten en de gezondheidswerkers die met de coronapandemie te maken hebben gekregen, zegt de NASA. 

Mars 2020 Mission Overview ( bijgevoegd door peter2011 op basis van NASA )

The Mars 2020 mission with its Perseverance rover is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the Red Planet. The Mars 2020 mission addresses high-priority science goals for Mars exploration, including key Astrobiology questions about the potential for life on Mars. The mission takes the next step by not only seeking signs of habitable conditions on Mars in the ancient past, but also searching for signs of past microbial life itself. The Perseverance rover introduces a drill that can collect core samples of the most promising rocks and soils and set them aside in a "cache" on the surface of Mars. A future mission could potentially return these samples  to Earth.  That would help scientists study the samples in laboratories with special room-sized equipment that would be too large to take to Mars. The mission also provides opportunities to gather knowledge and demonstrate technologies that address the challenges of future human expeditions to Mars. These include testing a method for producing oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, identifying other resources (such as subsurface water), improving landing techniques, and characterizing weather, dust, and other potential environmental conditions that could affect future astronauts living and working on Mars.

The mission is timed for a launch opportunity in July 2020 when Earth and Mars are in good positions relative to each other for landing on Mars. That is, it takes less power to travel to Mars at this time, compared to other times when Earth and Mars are in different positions in their orbits. To keep mission costs and risks as low as possible, the Mars 2020 design is based on NASA's successful Mars Science Laboratory mission architecture, including its Curiosity rover and proven landing system.

{https://www.hln.be/ }

28-07-2020 om 18:04 geschreven door peter  

Secret Space 20 & Back Program Off Planet Earth

Some are called to service with the Secret Space Program, others are born into it. This is the case with Randy Cramer, who claims to have been engineered for a military life on the moon and on Mars. After his return from 20 years of service, disturbing memories flooded his mind which he worked hard to reconcile. Knowing that there are many others who are enduring the same ordeal, it has become his mission to tell his story, to encourage them to come forward and reveal their experiences and heal.

Featured Content is Authorised for Exclusive Distribution on UAMN TV, by Premiere Networks Inc & iHeartMedia, and COASTTOCOASTAM.COM

Related videos, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

28-07-2020 om 17:43 geschreven door peter  

Maybe the anomaly was just a cosmic ray but I have never seen that quite large and bright, it looks more like a spaceship similar to a fighter jet as you see it on an aircraft carrier.

It is said that interdimensional alien craft accessing our solar system using the Sun as a stargate, entering and exiting from dimensional portals in the Sun. 

Is the sun a natural stargate, a portal to other solar systems and what you are seeing is a huge alien spaceship using the solar flare to enter or to exit a portal in the sun?

Video: Possible alien spaceship starts at 2.40.

Related video, selected and posted by peter2011

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

28-07-2020 om 17:11 geschreven door peter  

Couple spotted huge bright UFO flying over Lakeview, Ohio 18-Jul-2020

New footage of a bright unidentified flying object that was filmed in the sky above Lakeview, Ohio. This event happened on 18th July 2020.

Witness report: 

Intense bright light with bluish tint. My wife and I were sitting in our far back yard viewing comet Neowise and off to my left (west) I noticed what I thought of as a blue beam. The beam effect could have been due to I wear glasses. Anyways I turned my head and noticed what appeared to be an unusually bright light. Kinda like aircraft landing light being seen head on but only one, not multiple.
I got up and walked to the north a bit and saw the light coming through the trees and saw it was heading our way so I ran back and got the camera from my wife and started filming.
It looked as bright and intense as a tig wielder but with a slight bluish tint. Did not see any anti collision lights, heard no noise from it at all. I would guess it seemed to be between 1000 and 2000 feet in altitude.
That’s all I can think of.

Check out this amazing book about the top 10 UFO cases in the history.

Get your’s on Amazon: Top 10 UFO Sightings: Best Cases: Aliens are visiting us

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

28-07-2020 om 16:49 geschreven door peter  

With the New York Times chasing crashed saucers and Trump talking on-the-record, Roswell remains the original sin of the UFO cover-up.

  Bryce Zabel  

Take a moment to appreciate what’s going on in this photo. This is Major Jesse Marcel of the Roswell Army Air Base in July of 1947. He knows that something incredible has taken place outside of town because he has seen the crash site with his own eyes and touched the wreckage with his own hands. For almost a day, it’s been breath-taking for Marcel knowing that the world is going to change dramatically, something he knows because his military bosses seem to be trying to level with the American people.

Then, the next day, the door slams shut hard. The policy is now denial and ridicule, and it comes straight down from Washington, D.C. Worse, Marcel gets chosen to be the visual messenger that takes it all back, to say sorry, our mistake, just a weather balloon, nothing to see here.

In this photo, Marcel realizes that at this singular moment in human history his role is to play the joker who screwed up, someone so dumb he can’t tell the difference between a weather balloon from his own military base or a flying saucer from outer space.

That is exactly how Jesse Marcel got to wear the deer-in-the-headlights look on his face in this memorable photo. He is taking the most epic fall in human history. Shakespeare could not have written it better.

With the scene set, let’s get to the breaking news…

The New York Times Running with Fox News?

There’s a rumor buzzing about among UAP activists and researchers that the New York Times has reporters out making calls about actual crash retrievals of unidentified flying objects on American soil.

Update: That article was published on July 23, 2020.

Take a moment and appreciate what this might mean if it turns out to be true. That would mean the nation’s most famous newspaper may be on the verge of stating that we have recovered materials from crashes, and that the technology is not ours (the U.S.) or theirs (China, Russia), and comes from another source. Do the math on that one.

Why in the world would respectable journalists like Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean, working in the bosom of respectability that the New York Times, want to chase that old canard of crashed saucers out in the desert?

For starters, because there’s always been lots of anecdotal evidence and witness testimony from some key people. Only it just hasn’t been the Smoking Wreckage that proof demands. That, plus you’d be so far out on a limb as a journalist that you might never crawl your way back. And that might have been true until just last year.

That’s when Luis Elizondo, who ran the government’s AATIP, Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, said out loud what we knew he was thinking. While talking to Fox’s Tucker Carlson, he said that, yes, the U.S. had the goods, as in actual physical wreckage. Former military intelligence, Elizondo quit the government’s UFO program to live the activist’s life and advocate for new thinking and transparency about this reality.

Carlson: Do you believe, based on your decade of serving in the U.S. government on this question, that the U.S. government has in its possession any material from one of these aircrafts?

Elizondo: I do, yes.

Carlson: You think the U.S. government has debris from a UFO in its possession right now?

Elizondo: Unfortunately, Tucker, I really have to be careful of my NDA. I really can’t go into a lot more detail than that, but simply put, yes.

The whole topic just oozes the possibility of rapid Disclosure and change waiting in the wings, just off the stage of transparency. Here’s a great refresher on who’s said what about crash wreckage.

It is possible that the new headlines from The New York Times will be the kick to the barn door of Disclosure that lets all the horses out.

While we wait to see, let’s check in with what the Donald Trumps have to say about Roswell.

Roswell is the Holy Grail

Donald Trump Jr. just asked his dad, repeatedly, about Roswell in a Father’s Day 2020 interview. Red or blue, it is still semi-astonishing to hear the sitting President of the United States admit his awareness of Roswell, and say, “I won’t talk to you about what I know about it, but it’s very interesting.” If it was just a 73-year old mistaken weather balloon or even crash dummies story, it wouldn’t be all that interesting, would it? Those deceptions are now old news. But if Roswell was something authentic, well, that would be… interesting.

The Question You Just Have to Ask

Quick review of Roswell 101 —

In early July of 1947, the military brass at the Roswell Army Air Base put out a press release that was so forthright that the local paper headlined with “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region.” Here’s the front page:

The next day the same people said that all these trained military people who the U.S. trusted with nuclear weapons out at the base got it all wrong and they just misidentified a weather balloon, something they dealt with every day. Here’s that headline:

Why Do I Believe the Roswell Crash?

This is clearly a question to be answered cautiously. I start with what we know. We know the Roswell Army Air Base put out a press release saying they had captured a flying saucer and the next day took it all back and said they had only found a weather balloon. That’s shady behavior, but it’s not proof of anything.

We know over the years the U.S. military has variously announced that Roswell was a flying saucer, a weather balloon, crash dummies from a test flight, or a secret Mogul balloon to spy on the Soviets nuclear capability. Those are just the official attempts at explanation. Other interested parties have spun tales of Nazi Mengele-crewed saucers, Soviet saucers, and the work of the Devil. The subject has clearly been one open to interpretation for decades now.

Then, in shocking counterpoint to all of that, there’s a singular, other story that has been more or less consistently told from the beginning.

Roswell was exotic technology. We got wreckage and bodies. We don’t talk about Fight Club.

That storyline has hundreds of witnesses testifying to roughly the same fact trail. Some were first hand witnesses to debris and even the recovery of bodies, and several accounts came from death bed confessions. Many more witnesses were family members who learned of the secret their fathers and husbands had kept inside them for decades. There were dozens and dozens who attested to extremely tight security and transportation of material in the aftermath of what crashed at Roswell.

I know this because I worked with the top two researchers — Don Schmitt and the late Stanton Friedman — and I’ve spent dozens of hours going through their research while working on a film project about how Stan was the man who found Jesse Marcel back in 1978 and Don was the energetic young researcher who competed with him in a bitter 1990s feud. Both men always came back to this:

Would hundreds of people be enlisted in such an immense effort to guard the scraps of a mere weather balloon that would be shown later in a news conference?

Those witnesses, of course, do not agree on each and every detail, nor were they all direct witnesses, but taken together they tell a very compelling story about essentially the same thing.

It involves a crash in a thunderstorm, a rescue effort to assess and move the intact part of the craft, and a clean-up effort both literally and figuratively that probably yielded one survivor and four dead. Bodies, craft and wreckage were moved, mostly to Wright-Paterson Air Force Base, and to other places, as ordered.

The testimony I’ve seen comes from men and women who were there, at the base, in the field, in the hospitals and funeral homes, and flying cargo and guarding it with care at a level you’d never experienced. There are so many of them.

Not one witness has come forward to say, “well, you know, I never wanted to talk about it in all these years but it really was a weather balloon.”

Yes, some of the details may feel slippery as would be normal based on memory in a case of this magnitude. Especially one that’s been undermined for years by experts in psychological operations, both in government and out.

There may be an uncomfortable amount of noise in this one but, to me, the signal remains loud and clear. The big picture is crash recovery of exotic technology.

Roswell is Probably Off-Limts for a While Longer

The media has done a very poor job on the story over the years, preferring to cover people in alien cosplay costumes at the Roswell UFO Festival over actually digging in and doing research and interviewing witnesses.

The full story of Roswell likely won’t be written for years. When it is, the story will gain the respect it deserves. Historians and readers of that age will wonder how it came to be that such a serious matter was swept under the rug for so long. It will seem insane.

It’s doubtful that any imminent New York Times reporting will dare to touch the Roswell story, so tainted by disinformation, abuse, witness intimidation, and the twin pillars of cover-up, denial and ridicule, that to many it appears shaky and unreliable. It’s better for them to go after a fresh target, maybe something more recent, less well known. Roswell, it turns out, has hardly been the only crash. These wingless craft are not regularly falling out of the skies, but there have been a few, here and around the world.

The big game reporters are hunting is just one piece of material from a UFO wreck, or a craft itself. They want to know who got it, what they did with it, what we’ve learned from it, and where it is today.

So the news on the circuit is that calls have been widely made on the subject of testing exotic metals and crash retrievals. Predicting when such an astonishing story might drop is a fool’s errand. Because of the subject matter, editors will force reporters to source meticulously.

Here’s the prediction:

The story of Roswell is on a fast track to investigation and then de-classification. At that point, the game will continue with different rules.

{ https://medium.com/ }

28-07-2020 om 01:53 geschreven door peter  

Magnetic anomaly from 11 million years ago could help us understand how poles flip

If you could go back in time and look at a compass, it would show something very different.

28-07-2020 om 01:26 geschreven door peter  

Huge, Hovering and Silent: The Mystery of 'Black Triangle' UFOs

An illustration depicting a triangle UFO.

Getty Images

Some speculate they are super-secret US spy craft. Others question whether they might be from elsewhere, conducting some kind of surveillance.

Within the larger mystery of the UFO phenomenon is another, still-unsolved puzzle: Why do so many reports involve strange, triangular-shaped craft—often described as dark in color, virtually noiseless and the size of a football field or larger? What, exactly, are they? And why are so many witnessed hovering or moving slowly and methodically, with no visible contrails?

In the years after the U.S. Air Force coined the term “unidentified flying object” in 1952, reports often referred to UFOs generically as flying saucers. But witnesses then, and since, have described a wide array of shapes: saucers (or two saucers put together), eggs, hats, cigars, boomerangs, lightbulbs—even Tic Tac candies.

Among the most commonly reported shapes were V-shaped, arrowhead-like or triangular. David Marler, UFO researcher and author of Triangular UFOs: An Estimate of the Situation, says he has reviewed more than 17,000 case files involving unidentified triangular craft, sometimes called “black triangles.” Whether the sightings represent advanced U.S. spy craft—as some speculate—or something of unknown origin, their purpose remains mysterious. Given their consistent hovering behavior, Marler says, they might be engaged in “surveillance of some nature—or scanning. Or analyzing the topography.”

“There have been many instances in which these vehicles have been observed over bases operated by the Strategic Air Command,” says Chris Mellon, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, whose career has focused on unconventional threats to American security. Mellon is now an integral part of the investigative team featured on HISTORY’s “Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation.”

• READ MORE: Are UFOs a Threat to National Security? This Ex-US Official Thinks They Warrant Investigation

An International Phenomenon

In the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, triangular UFO reports hailed from across the U.S. and beyond. During the 1960s, at the height of Cold War UFO fever, mysterious flying triangles were reported over Connecticut, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Texas—as well as London, Madrid and Czechoslovakia. In 1969, two National Guard pilots tailed a “triangular shaped object, 50 feet in diameter” for 20 minutes over San Juan, Puerto Rico, until they ran low on fuel and had to return to their base. Many of these incidents would be attributed by officials to atmospheric conditions, weather balloons or other everyday sources, but some remained unexplained.

Between 1983 and 1986, a notable rash of mass sightings occurred in New York’s Hudson Valley, some 50 miles north of New York City. One witness, Kevin Soravilla, a retired lieutenant from the Yorktown Police Department, described a huge, silent craft, 100 yards from wingtip to wingtip, hovering low, which banked and made a 45-degree turn before abruptly speeding off. Soravilla said he called Stewart Air Force Base in nearby Newburgh to determine whether one of its C-5 transport planes—then the world’s largest and heaviest aircraft—had been in the skies that night; none had. Later that year, a hulking triangular UFO hovering over a stretch of New York’s Taconic Parkway prompted a huge traffic pile-up as scores of motorists stopped to get a better look. Similar incidents continued in the region for several years.

Related videos, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://www.history.com/ }

28-07-2020 om 00:59 geschreven door peter  

No More Hiding in the Shadows- Pentagon’s Secretive UFO Unit to make ‘Sensational Findings’ Public!!

By Tony Winterburn

The Pentagon- expect some mind-blowing revelations over the next few weeks.

image: Wikipedia

At last, after years of speculation and conspiracy theories, the Pentagon’s secretive UFO unit is going to make some of its findings public!!

They are out there

A consultant to the agency has briefed US Defense Department officials of some highly unusual discoveries ― including items retrieved from “off-world vehicles not made on this Earth.”

The Pentagon had claimed that it disbanded its UFO office, now it is understood that the department had in reality simply changed names and moved, and a US Senate committee report suggests it will be expected to make some information public every six months.

The main goal isn’t actually to confirm alien spaceships exist, but rather to see if thousands of confounding sightings ― including some by the military ― are actually advanced technology from rival nations like Russia and China for example. The soon to be released report also hints at possible artefacts from UFO crashes.

What do we know about Area 51?

Area 51 refers to a map location and is the popular name for a United States Air Force base. It is at Groom Lake, a dry lake bed in the Nevada Desert, 85 miles (135km) north of Las Vegas. What goes on inside is extremely secret. Members of the public are kept away by warning signs, electronic surveillance and armed guards.

It is also illegal to fly over Area 51, although the site is now visible on satellite images. The base has runways up to 12,000ft (2.3 miles/3.7km) long.                         

“Off-world vehicles not made on this Earth”.

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.):

“After looking into this, I came to the conclusion that there were reports — some were substantive, some not so substantive — that there were actual materials that the government and the private sector had in their possession,” he told the newspaper.

Astrophysicist Eric W. Davis, who has been a subcontractor and consultant for the Pentagon, said he had briefed the Defense Department in March this year about the “off-world vehicles not made on this Earth.”

He said he has examined some of the materials and made a startling discovery, he concluded: “we couldn’t make it ourselves.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also indicated that he was concerned that supposed UFOs could be advanced tech from foreign nations.

Regular Sightings at Military bases

“We have things flying over our military bases and places where we’re conducting military exercises, and we don’t know what it is, and it isn’t ours,” Rubio, who is acting chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he continued:

“I would say that, frankly, that if it’s something from outside this planet, that might actually be better than the fact that we’ve seen some technological leap on behalf of the Chinese or the Russians or some other adversary that allows them to conduct this sort of activity.”

He said the objects in these sightings “exhibit, potentially, technologies that you don’t have at your own disposal” making them a national security risk.

The military’s encounters with possible UFOs have come under intense interest in recent years since several videos were leaked in 2017 showing encounters with fast-moving objects including one given the nickname “Tic Tac” because it looked like one of the candies. This object, still not publicly identified, dropped from 60,000 feet to just 50 feet in a matter of seconds:

“The part that drew our attention was how it wasn’t behaving within the normal laws of physics,” pilot Chad Underwood filmed the “Tic Tac” encounter. The military has since confirmed that the footage is real, and formally declassified it in spring, but has said little else about it.

National Security could be compromised

The Navy told UFO researcher Christian Lambright in a Freedom of Information Act request that releasing more information “would cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States.”

To The Stars Academy, a company co-founded by former Blink 182 frontman Tom DeLonge which has worked to reveal UFO information and helped expose the 2017 videos, celebrated the newest developments. “TTSA welcomes the increase in transparency and is steadfast in our mission to educate policymakers and support continued interest and engagement on this topic,” the organization said via Facebook.

Expect some mind-blowing revelations over the next few weeks. The time has finally come when we will be told what we already knew- WE ARE NOT ALONE. TW

If you liked reading this article, ‘No More “Hiding in the Shadows”- Pentagon’s Secretive UFO Unit to make Sensational findings Public!! ’, please make sure to like, share, and comment!

{ https://www.euroweeklynews.com/ } 

27-07-2020 om 23:53 geschreven door peter  

Earliest evidence for humans in the Americas

27-07-2020 om 23:06 geschreven door peter  

Between March and May 2020, many people across Earth went into lockdown. During those months, seismographs recorded a drop in human-linked vibrations in the solid Earth, by an average of 50%.

You can see the human signal fall away as the world goes into lockdown. The first clip shows the ‘wave’ of noise dampening as the world locks down. The second shows the UK’s seismic noise

• EarthSky’s yearly crowd-funding campaign is in progress. In 2020, we are donating 8.5% of all incoming revenues to No Kids Hungry. Click to learn more and donate.

Seismometers measure seismic waves from big events such as earthquakes, volcanos, bombs and so on. At the same time, they pick up what’s called seismic noise – ambient vibrations – from things like wind, rivers, ocean waves and human activities (especially travel and industry). According to a new study by an international team of researchers, Earth’s seismic noise level dropped by an average of 50% between March and May 2020, during the Covid-19 lockdown.

In a July 23, 2020, statement from Imperial College London, which took part in the study, researchers said this quiet period was likely caused by the total global effect of social distancing measures, closure of services and industry, and drops in tourism and travel.

They said it is the longest and most pronounced quiet period of seismic noise in recorded history.

Before this study, scientists knew that human-generated noise tends to dampen during quiet periods, for example, over the Christmas and New Year holidays in the western hemisphere, over Chinese New Year in Asia, and even during weekends and overnight. However, the researchers said that the drop in vibrations caused by Covid-19 lockdown measures eclipse those seen during such periods.

View larger. | This map shows 268 seismometers in 117 countries, 185 of which detected a drop on seismic noise between March and May 2020.

Image via Imperial College London.

The new research showed that the largest drops in vibrations were seen in the most densely populated areas, for example, Singapore and New York City. Drops in vibrations were also recorded in remote areas, such as Germany’s Black Forest and Rundu in Namibia. The statement explained:

The strongest drops were found in urban areas, but the study also found signatures of the lockdown on sensors buried hundreds of meters underground …

Stephen Hicks from Imperial College London is a co-author of the study, which was published July 23 in the peer-reviewed journal Science. Hicks said in the scientists’ statement:

Our study uniquely highlights just how much human activities impact the solid Earth.

He added that the study could also let scientists see more clearly than ever what differentiates human and natural noise.

Image via Imperial College London.

For this study, researchers looked at seismic data from a global network of 268 seismic stations in 117 countries. They found significant noise reductions compared to before any lockdown at 185 of those stations.

Beginning in China in late January 2020, and followed by Europe and the rest of the world in March to April 2020, researchers tracked the “wave” of quietening between March and May as worldwide lockdown measures took hold.

Citizen-owned seismometers (like the one pictured above), which tend to measure more localized noise, noted large drops around universities and schools around Cornwall in the U.K. and Boston in the U.S., a drop in noise 20% larger than seen during school holidays.

Image via Imperial College London.

Countries like Barbados, where lockdown coincided with the tourist season, saw a 50% decrease in noise. This coincided with flight data that suggested tourists returned home in the weeks before official lockdown.

The study reports the first evidence that previously concealed earthquake signals, especially during daytime, appeared much clearer on seismometers in urban areas during lockdown. The study’s authors hope that their work will spawn further research on the seismic lockdown, as well as finding previously hidden signals from earthquakes and volcanoes. Hicks said:

The lockdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic may have given us a glimmer of insight into how human and natural noise interacts with the Earth. We hope this insight will spawn new studies that help us listen better to the Earth and understand natural signals we would otherwise have missed.

• Bottom line: The Covid-19 lockdown caused a 50% global reduction in human-linked Earth vibrations between March and May 2020.
• Source: Global quieting of high-frequency seismic noise due to COVID-19 pandemic lockdown measures
• Via Imperial College London

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

27-07-2020 om 22:38 geschreven door peter