Blue UFO making maneuvers in the sky above Sun City Center, Florida 11-Aug-2020

Check out this interesting UFO sighting that happened in the sky above Sun City Center in Florida on 11th August 2020.

Witness report: 

Spotted star like object moving in the skies in strange ways and started filming. On 8-11-20 around 8:30 pm I looked outside my window to view a beautiful sunset. While looking up at the sky I noticed what looked like a star. I knew it couldn’t be a star because the sky was filled with dark clouds. While further watching it I noticed it started moving in strange ways. I continued watching when all of a sudden it turned into a blue color, flickered out and disappeared. I knew this was something strange so I grabbed my camera and went outside with the hope of finding and filming it. While outside I saw nothing for almost 10 minutes then to my surprise I spotted it and starting filming.

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

19-08-2020 om 18:03 geschreven door peter  

What does the Pentagon's new UFO task force mean? Experts weigh in.

By Leonard David

U.S. Navy videos of alleged UFO sightings were previously available but had not been officially declassified.

(Image: © U.S. Navy)

If you're a fan of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and alien visitation, this is manna from heaven.

Three videos showing U.S. Navy pilots encountering mysterious, fast-moving objects emerged in 2017 and 2018. The videos were made public due to reporting by The New York Times and efforts by To The Stars Academy, a research, development and media center for cutting-edge science and technology. 

One of the UAP videos was taken in November 2004, and the other two were shot in January 2015. All were captured by Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet jets with pilots utilizing Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) technology, hardware that detects heat and creates images.

The three released UAP videos are called "Gimbal," "GoFast" and  "FLIR1" (also known as the "Tic Tac" video). 

• Related: 7 things most often mistaken for UFOs

New task force

Last week, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced the creation of a task force to analyze and understand the "nature and origins" of UAPs. The Department of the Navy, under the cognizance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, will lead the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF).

The mission of the UAPTF "is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security," DoD officials said in a brief statement released on Friday (Aug. 14).

But before you set up greeting signs and start tossing out welcome mats for the incoming aliens, a little perspective and context are in order. I asked some UFO specialists what they thought of the newly announced task force.

Cautiously optimistic

"The formation of a task force on UFOs is another welcome development in the recent renewed interest and attention to these reports by government agencies and political actors," said Mark Rodeghier, president and scientific director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies in Chicago.

Without further details, it's impossible to judge how well-positioned the task force will be to seriously investigate reports, Rodeghier added, "but I remain cautiously optimistic for now."

Rodeghier said he understands the need for secrecy. However, "I would hope that as much information as possible is released to the public so we can all be informed on this potentially world-shattering subject," he told Inside Outer Space.

• Related: UFO watch: 8 times the government looked for flying saucers

Reasons for the DoD to care

"I have no doubt that military intelligence services around the world have always been interested in ‘UFO reports' — whether or not a real 'unexplainable' phenomenon is behind a few of them."

That's the view of Jim Oberg, a noted space journalist, historian and a debunker of a slew of UFO sightings. He's an admitted "lifelong space nut" and professional rocket scientist whose career includes 20-plus years at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

There are many non-extraterrestrial reasons why the Defense Department is interested in UFO reports, Oberg said.

• First, to identify and ameliorate instrumental "funnies" in new sensory technology, to make sure we don't accidentally misinterpret or overlook future readings.
• Second, to determine how detection "funnies" might be deliberately induced by hackers and real enemies, and what we can do to frustrate such efforts.
• Third, to deliberately induce anomalous targets into the range of our own new detection/tracking technology, as a way of testing it.
• Fourth, to test enemy detection systems with deliberate pokes to identify exploitable weaknesses.
• Fifth, to assess which reports from within or near adversary nations are indicators of their classified military testing and operations that we need insight into.
• Sixth, to determine which detections (at home or abroad) accidentally reveal highly classified operations of our own that might be revealed to enemy nations that are also looking for such indications, so as to improve our masking, misdirection and stealth.
• Seventh, in so far as observations of UFO reports from adversary nations are indicators of leaked observable clues to military capabilities, to do nothing to provoke such regimes from curtailing their own news media coverage of the "pseudo-UFOs." Never announce how such innocent (to them) news items can be exploited.
• Eighth, in so far as our own domestic UFO reports may be authentic indicators of classified military activities, to purposefully create camouflage and masking reports to distract, confuse or lull foreign observers and analysts.

"Perceptive observers of the UFO scene over the last two-thirds of a century have noted a telltale feature of the evolution of reports," Oberg said. "Their nature has been changing, keeping uncanny pace with the progress in human observation and detection technologies."

Oberg added that, year by year, the "old UFOs" fade away just before the advent of new technologies that would have unambiguously documented them come online, to be replaced by a new flavor of "anomalies" that precisely match the limits of vision of new technologies.

• Related: 5 bold claims of alien life

Not open-ended and ongoing

"I don't think this [task force] is as significant as some people are suggesting," said writer and UFO skeptic Robert Sheaffer. "It's just a response to all the publicity generated by To The Stars leaking the three Navy infrared videos, which the Pentagon later released."

In the military, a task force is something that is put together to deal with a specific situation or problem, Sheaffer said. It is expected to produce a report and recommendations concerning that issue and is disbanded when such work is complete.

"So, this is not something open-ended and ongoing, like Project Blue Book. It does not suggest an ongoing government interest in unidentified objects," Sheaffer observed. Conducted by the United States Air Force, Project Blue Book appraised the UFO situation starting in 1952 and officially closed down in 1970.

Intruding into their sandbox

Military operations areas (MOAs) are clearly designated on aviation maps, and civilian aircraft are generally supposed to avoid them, Sheaffer pointed out.

Most of the recent Pentagon comments about "unidentified objects" mention "range incursions," Sheaffer added — i.e., unknown objects that seem to be entering one of these MOAs.

"So, it seems that the military is worried about unidentified objects that might be intruding into their sandbox. If unidentified objects turn up elsewhere, the military doesn't care," Sheaffer said. "The 'Tic Tac' and 'Gimbal' videos appear to show distant jets, which are probably well outside the MOA, quite far away. The military is investigating out of an abundance of caution, and a sensitivity to criticism."

Temper expectations

Sarah Scoles is author of the recently published book, "They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers" (Pegasus Books, 2020).

"First, I'd say that the establishment of a task force to investigate and understand UAP makes sense and could, if done systematically and scientifically and transparently, provide data useful in interpreting pilots' sightings," Scoles told Inside Outer Space. 

And it also makes sense, she said, that the Department of Defense — whose job it is, of course, to protect the U.S. from threats — is undertaking this endeavor.

"However, I think those expecting big, exotic conclusions from the task force would do well to temper their expectations," Scoles said. "If you look at what the official announcement actually says, it's not quite as extraordinary as it might seem at first glance."

Boundary-crossing objects

Last week's three-paragraph DoD release, Scoles added, uses language similar to that of other, previous statements about UAPs. For example, a September 2019 statement from Joseph Gradisher, spokesman for the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare defining "UAP," reads, "The 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomena' terminology is used because it provides the basic descriptor for the sightings/observations of unauthorized/unidentified aircraft/objects entering/operating in the airspace of various military-controlled training ranges."

Scoles said that "UAP" technically could include aircraft or objects that are simply unauthorized, as well as aircraft or objects that cannot be immediately identified. "That means that, if a pilot sees something they cannot explain, but someone else explains it a few hours later, it could still fall under the definition of UAP."

The task force press release uses very similar wording to talk about DoD interest.

"It very specifically states that the DoD is concerned with boundary-crossing by objects that are — right when an observer sees them — unidentified," Scoles said. "It says nothing so specific about objects that remain forever unidentified and mysterious. It certainly says nothing nor implies anything about alien aircraft."

But, like all things UFO, Scoles concluded, "vague and somewhat weaselly wording leaves enough room for people to interpret this latest development very differently."

• Leonard David is author of "Moon Rush: The New Space Race" (National Geographic, 2019). A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. This version of the story published on Space.com.

{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

19-08-2020 om 01:16 geschreven door peter  

“Because Americans suddenly came back to this topic, it is difficult to say for sure. But every now and then this topic always comes up. About a year ago, Trump announced that they were considering such unidentified phenomena and should systematize them. Now, perhaps, this is due to some political events, which it would be good to draw the attention of our citizens and the world community, and at the same time receive some dividends …”

“This topic” is UFO investigations and the alleged speaker is said to be Brigadier General Vladimir Popov, the head of the Federal Aerospace Search and Rescue Directorate of the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Defense. A long statement apparently about the most recent announcement that the Pentagon has officially set up a new task force to investigate UFOs and UAPs is given as the reason for this alleged statement that appears to have started at the Soulask.com website. , although Ovnihoje.com has a longer quote. The numerous qualifications on this explanation are necessary because, although Brigadier General Vladimir Popov is a real person and appears to hold that title, no other source was found for this quote, so we don’t know if it’s real, where it was given, who the audience was, etc. However, its content warrants a look and some speculation anyway.

“I do not exclude the possibility that the topic of UFOs will give the American military the opportunity to expand secret intelligence. Hidden behind the study of UFOs, already in the post-war years and especially in the 60-70 years of the last century, the Americans carried out active intelligence activities.”

The quote proposes that the rennet announcement was politically driven by both the current presidential campaign and the desire to generate a smoke screen to cover up possible ulterior motives by the U.S. military, specifically …

“It is quite possible that the Pentagon, under the guise of “UFO research”, will place secret intelligence facilities somewhere in Norway, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia. In short, closer to our borders. I don’t know what to say about UFOs, but the Pentagon probably wouldn’t mind watching our new hypersonic missiles.”

The general seems to be boasting about Russia’s new missiles and alleges the Pentagon hide intelligence operations inside UFO investigations. That’s certainly plausible. In fact, so far the alleged statement makes sense as a cynical, propaganda-ish response to the Pentagon announcement. However, this section which seems to refer to the Roswell incident is … well, read it for yourself.

“That is why we have always been cautious about UFO claims. As a rule, it was later discovered that the “alien apparatus” was a huge balloon probe with all kinds of spy equipment. We weren’t even ready to talk about it at that time, and the Americans had already launched these devices. We used to slaughter them and get information about them.”

“Slaughter them” sounds like a Soviet-era boast, but the Roswell incident was during that regime so a boast that the USSR “slaughtered” US balloons to get information about them seems plausible as well. At the end, the statement sounds like it was made in response to demands by the Russian people to reveal what the Russian military is doing, now that the Pentagon revealed it’s investigating UFOs (again).

We don’t need a UFO task force.

“I don’t think that today we would need to create a UFO structure like the one Americans claim. We designed the scheme to study incomprehensible objects in principle. All information of this type is taken into account by our command posts and on-call services. It is fixed and transmitted upwards. But as it is studied further, it is no longer so much about the military, but about scientists.”

Oooh, a response to the Russian public plus a dig at the Americans that the Russian government is more concerned about scientists than the military. If this is indeed a response to a Russian public request for UFO disclosure, then it sounds real. It would help if there was a Russian press release or media site to confirm it, but that may pop up soon. In the meantime, it’s interesting to ponder their viewpoint that the Pentagon announcement is both a political ploy and a military smokescreen to cover up spy operations.

Should we trust the Russian view? Do we trust the Pentagon? The current administration’s comments on UFOs?

Is the UFO field becoming too political to get anything done?

Russia? Popov? Vladimir? Bueller? Anyone?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

19-08-2020 om 00:28 geschreven door peter  

Lying off the southern tip of Japan’s Ryukyu archipelago, which includes Okinawa Island, is a small 11.5 square mile speck of land called Yonaguni Island. It is the westernmost inhabited island in Japan, lying just 75 miles off the coast of Taiwan, and its azure waters, rich biodiversity, and large populations of hammerhead sharks that gather in great numbers off the coast every year have made this place a haven for daring scuba divers from around the world. Indeed, it was the sharks that brought here a diver in the 1980s who would make a spectacular discovery in that inviting blue water, for down there in the depths he discovered a strange set of ancient ruins that have gone on to be discussed and debated to this day.

In 1986, a diving instructor by the name of Kihachiro Aratake, who was also the director of Yonaguni-Cho Tourism Association, was at Yonagumi looking to photograph and study the many hammerhead sharks that congregate here every winter. While scouting out a good spot from which to observe the sharks, he came across something very unusual. There on the bottom was what at first looked like an enormous cliff face, only here there were obvious geometrical terraces, nearly perfectly flat horizontal surfaces with sharp edges, walls, platforms, columns, vertical stone blocks, a road, and even a star-shaped platform. One of the structures was a massive, rectangular formation measuring 500 feet long, 130 feet wide and 90 feet tall, with closely placed pillars which rise nearly to the surface, as well as a ledge that circles the whole thing. For all appearances it seemed to be some sort of vast, manmade structure, evidently crafted out of the sand and mud stones of the area and in some cases seemingly directly merged with the bottom itself, but what was it doing out there under the water in the first place? What did this all mean?

It was not long at all before the word got out on this mysterious place, and one of the first scientists to arrive to seriously study it was marine seismologist Masaaki Kimura, who came to what is now called the “Yonaguni Monument” in 1990 with his team from the University of the Ryūkyūs, and he would spend the next two decades studying them. According to Kimura, the structures are most definitely and clearly manmade, likely carved thousands of years ago at a time when the site sat above water. He has claimed to have found a mysterious script carved into some of the stones, as well as quarry marks, various monuments, rudimentary sculptures, a triumphal arch, five temples, and even a pyramid and a stadium within the complex, in addition to various pottery, stone tools and fireplaces scattered throughout. Kimura has said of this place:

I think it’s very difficult to explain away their origin as being purely natural, because of the vast amount of evidence of man’s influence on the structures. The characters and animal monuments in the water, which I have been able to partially recover in my laboratory, suggest the culture comes from the Asian continent. One example I have described as an underwater sphinx resembles a Chinese or ancient Okinawan king. The largest structure looks like a complicated, monolithic, stepped pyramid that rises from a depth of 25 meters [82 feet].

He has said in the past that he believes the structures to be possibly remnants of the legendary ancient lost Pacific continent of Mu, or perhaps the remains of the lost 1^st century Japanese city of Yamagai. Adding to Kimura’s assertion that the ruins are artificial in origin are the sheer number of perfect 90-degree corners and sharp, straight edges to be found, as well as the sheer number of these structures in such a small area. Not everyone is so convinced that this is evidence of a lost civilization, though, and there are others who believe this is nothing more than anomalous looking natural formations caused by earthquakes, natural erosion from the strong currents of the area, and fracturing. One Robert Schoch, a professor of science and mathematics at Boston University, has personally seen the site up close, and has said of it:

I’m not convinced that any of the major features or structures are manmade steps or terraces, but that they’re all natural. It’s basic geology and classic stratigraphy for sandstones, which tend to break along planes and give you these very straight edges, particularly in an area with lots of faults and tectonic activity.

In the end there has been no conclusive answer to just what the mysterious Yonagumi Monument actually is, but it has certainly become a popular diving destination for curiosity seekers. Interestingly, the ruins are not designated as important cultural artifacts and are not under any sort of protection. They might as well be just rocks lying on the bottom for all the government seems to care, which seems to be strange considering more research could definitely be done here. Whatever their origins, largely the formations have remained just forgotten curiosities and a cool dive site. What is the meaning and purpose of this place, if any? Was this crafted by some lost civilization for inscrutable reasons or is it just a neat geological formation? The mystery remains.

All related videos, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

18-08-2020 om 23:54 geschreven door peter  

Asteroïde zo groot als auto scheert op amper 2.945 km langs aarde, en niemand wist ervan - HLN.be

Bron: Business Insider

Lees ook

NASA schrapt beledigende namen in heelal

Onrustwekkender dan de eventuele impact van 2020 QG op onze planeet is dat we haar niet zagen komen, ondanks verscheidene programma’s die allerlei gevaarlijke ruimterotsen tijdig zouden moeten opsporen. Een daarvan, gefinancierd door NASA, spotte uiteindelijk toch de asteroïde, maar dan wel zes uur na haar bijna-botsing met de aarde. 

2020 QG is de dichtst bij de aarde gepasseerde ruimterots ooit gemeten, met uitzondering van asteroïden die in het verleden al op de aarde insloegen. NASA kent maar een fractie van deze ‘aardscheerders’ of, in het Engels, NEO’s (near-earth objects). Heel wat aardscheerders ontsnappen aan de aardse telescopen. Dat kan gevaarlijk zijn, als de verkeerde asteroïde of planetoïde door de mazen van het net glipt en op onze planeet neerstort. Tienduizenden aardbewoners zouden dan kunnen omkomen.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

18-08-2020 om 23:40 geschreven door peter  

Secret Black Triangle Manta Spacecraft Appears Over Texas

A red glowing triangular antigravity craft has been caught on video while it was parked in the sky over Texas on August 16, 2020.

Related videos, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

18-08-2020 om 22:57 geschreven door peter  

This Individual Has Just Released This Secret Recording Taken At Area 51 via Unexplained Mysteries

This individual has just released this secret recording taken at area 51. Today, we take a look at this secret recording that was made at area 51.

Area 51 is shrouded in mystery. Although the base has been a talking point for years, featured in movies and visited by countless people, it’s secrets are still well hidden.

Every so often someone will come forward with interesting photographs that allegedly show UFOs. When a UFO is captured it usually gets a lot of attention from those interested in the topic, but when a UFO is sighted at a place like area 51 it gets even more attention. This is because of the history of the base, and the alleged stories of UFO’s being housed there.

These recent photographs allegedly show a UFO at area 51. The craft is disc shaped, and can be seen slowly hovering above the nearby hill. When these photographs started to make the rounds on social media people got excited, and soon started to speculate about what the object was.

Thank you for watching!

Thank you to CO.AG for the background music!

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

18-08-2020 om 22:40 geschreven door peter  

Human Size Foot Found On Mars, 100% Proof Of Life On Mars! Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Aug 17, 2020
Location of discovery: Mars, Sol 855
Source photo: 

• http://www.gigapan.com/galleries/13476/gigapans/196240
  

I found a human size foot on Mars in a gigapan photo today. Its taken from Mars Sol 855 and it has incredible detail to it. The foot has muscles and veins showing though the skin surface. I believe this to be a real foot, because most of the statues on Mars are less quality and detail. Perhaps this is a foot of an alien that was part of an invasion force. The foot does not have five toes but instead has only two large areas in the front...probably toes, but would seem less weak than five toes would. Interesting really. There is no shoe or sock covering it...just the foot and upper ankle area. If this was found in Greece pulled from the ground...there would be no doubt that it was an ancient foot of person long ago...so how could we not do the same for Mars?
Scott C. Waring 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

18-08-2020 om 22:08 geschreven door peter  

UFO Cloud Caught Over Kjøllefjord, Norway On Aug 16, 2020, UFO Sighting News.

 

Date of sighting: Aug 16, 2020

Location of sighting: Kjollefjord, Norway

Source: 

• https://www.instagram.com/p/CD6RSIWJvJU

This amazing cloud is holding a UFO within it, creating the cloud as a way of flying low to the ground and monitoring humans without frightening them. The cloud has amazing disk like shape and edges. The sides seem very thick on this one and the top and lower bellies are smooth and curved like a disk. Its just a matter of time before someone catches such a cloud with an actual disk or UFO half in and half out of such a cloud. Mark my words, it will happen. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

 

Below is a close up, original untouched, above is added contrast and focus. 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

18-08-2020 om 22:03 geschreven door peter  

August 16, 2020 UFO Sighting Capture in Volusia County, Florida, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Aug 16, 2020
Location of sighting: Volusia County, Florida, USA
Source: MUFON 

This UFO video seems a bit blurry, but the eyewitness was at the beach for fun, and we are lucky she was able to catch what she did. The woman notices a strange object moving across horizon over the water. It moves to the right and she is capturing it, when suddenly it stops and darts to the left. The woman gasps in surprise at this. The whole video is 100% real. I had trouble focusing the screenshots but eventually got it. The object has a disk shape to it! Its a classic flying saucer disk with a hump on its upper middle and thicker at its center. Many UFO sightings have been caught off the coast of Florida over the years and this one convinces me that there is an alien base off the coast of Volusia County, Florida. The base is about 5 miles off of the coast line and 5km below the ocean floor. This UFO is huge! Close to fishing boat size...50 meters at least, but may be as big as 100 meters across. 

This video is incredible. I am just blown away by it. Its 100% proof that there is an alien off Florida. 
Scott C. Waring 

Eyewitness states: 

On vacation went out on the balcony and noticed a black disk-shaped object from a far distance on the beach just hovering in one spot for about minute or two that's what caught my attention. It then started to move and I lost it. I grabbed my phone to record hovering and then I thought I lost because the sun was shining so bright I could barely see or sit on the balcony. Then I noticed I found the object again it seemed to be scanning the same spot and then it took off so fast I could barely see because of the sun in my eyes I had to put the phone down to see where it went; but it kept hovering that area of the water drop real low go back up and shoot across the water and then disappear from my eye view.7

At this moment, the UFO stopped going right and tilted to turn left. Its propulsion was powered high causing the blur around it. The actual shape is impossible to make out. Then it shoots off to the left fast. 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

18-08-2020 om 21:57 geschreven door peter  

Jellyfish Like UFO Seen Over Colorado, Is Gov Trying To Cover It Up? Aug 2020, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Aug 10, 2020
Location of sighting: Mendano Pass, Colorado, USA
Source: MUFON #110988

Now this looks like similar unknown craft flying over Carolina, Georgia and Alabama last month. Back then, the gov claimed it was not a UFO, but an invention by Google create internet. But I'm not buying it. You see, these balloons could create a flight hazard for on coming jets. Imagine the destruction one balloon could do if it got caught on the windshield of a passenger jet or worse...in the engine intake...the plane could crash. I don't think Google would risk lives to make such an invention. I do however believe that the US gov would lie about UFOs and call them explainable...when in reality, they are trying to cover up the truth...that its a alien craft. 

I already know first hand how Google is working with the US gov to use an algorithm that attacks all UFO researchers so our posts get 5% the views they did 3 years ago...and google owns youtube using the algorithm to limit the UFO video views...which was 20X more 3 years ago. Thats called control. 100% Proof Google is part of the problem of keeping the public in the dark. Don't believe me? Ask any UFO channel or Youtube or blogger if its true...they will all tell you its absolutely correct. 
Scott C. Waring

Eyewitness states:

 
Was on Medano Pass by Great Sand Dunes National Park about 10,000 feet up camping on a mountain. When packing up around 7am, I noticed a weird object that was really small slowly moving across the sky. It's likely a weather balloon, but thought I'd report to make sure since I got decent photos of it. Pictures taken with a Canon Mark IV using a 100-400mm lens.

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

18-08-2020 om 17:19 geschreven door peter  

Multiple lights flying over Blackwood, New Jersey 16-Aug-2020

New footage of a multiple lights in the sky above Blackwood in New Jersey. This was taken on 16th August 2020.

Witness report: 

Several objects seen in sky that disappeared and re appeared and blinked. While driving down the highway noticed 2 aircraft flying close together to low and close to be airplanes had a fire glow to them. After getting of the highway I saw several of them just floating in the sky. I wanted to pull over and get a better picture and video. It when I tried to take video it would not work on my phone. I was having trouble making phone calls during this time and got freaked out and took off thinking I did not get any pictures or videos. After leaving the area I was able to use my phone and did indeed get a few seconds of videos and pictures. In the different pictures the objects appear to be different shapes upon zooming in.

Don’t forget to install our Android App for the latest UFO news & videos!

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18-08-2020 om 16:51 geschreven door peter  

Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation S02 E06

The UFO Coverup
15 Aug. 2020

Related videos, selected and posted by peter2011

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

18-08-2020 om 16:42 geschreven door peter  

18-08-2020 om 16:07 geschreven door peter  

Our solar system is getting more interesting with each passing year

 by Mihai Andrei

Astronomers have called Ceres many things: the largest object in the asteroid belt; a dwarf planet; a cold, barren rock. But ‘ocean world’ is not something they would have even considered — until very recently.

Ceres lies within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. First considered to be a planet in the 19th century, it is now known to be an asteroid, and classed as a dwarf planet, like Pluto.

Now, a flurry of studies forces us to rethink Ceres once again, as astronomers report evidence indicative of a salty ocean beneath its surface.

“We can now say that Ceres is a sort of ocean world, as are some of Saturn’s and Jupiter’s moons,” Maria Cristina De Sanctis, from Rome’s Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica and one of the study authors, told AFP.

De Sanctis and colleagues analyzed images sent from NASA’s robotic Dawn spacecraft, which entered orbit around Ceres in 2015. As Dawn approached Ceres, it offered an unprecedented glimpse into the planetoid, showing impact craters and signs of cryovolcanic activity (volcanism that erupts frozen water, ammonia, or methane, instead of molten rock). Now, researchers also analyzed infrared images, which showed the presence of a rock called hydrohalite.

As the name implies (hydro=water, halite=rock salt), hydrohalite is a mineral that forms in salty waters and has until now only been observed on Earth. The deposit seems to have built up during the last two million years, which is extremely recent in geologic history, suggesting that the processes behind it are still very much active. In other words, it seems that brine is still ascending from the planet’s interior, a “smoking gun” for liquid water.

“That material is unstable on Ceres’ surface, and hence must have been emplaced very recently,” said co-authors Julie Castillo-Rogez, from the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Another published paper found evidence of cryovolcanism that started around 9 million years ago and lasted for several million years, also indicative of a deep brine source. Gravity data and thermal modeling also imply an extensive deep brine reservoir beneath the Ceresian surface.

In a separate paper, researchers used remote sensing to analyze the crust of Ceres, finding evidence of density and rheological variations, which are also consistent with a liquid ocean under the surface. Whether or not this is still an active ocean or just a remnant of one is unclear.

This finding could have massive implication for the field of astrobiology. Not only does Ceres (a seemingly dull object in the asteroid belt) feature liquid water beneath its surface, shielded from radiation — but it also features salt.

According to De Sanctis, the ingredients of life seem to be lining up nicely on Ceres.

“The material found on Ceres is extremely important in terms of astrobiology,” she said.

“We know that these minerals are all essential for the emergence of life.”

Journal References:

• C. A. Raymond et al. Impact-driven mobilization of deep crustal brines on dwarf planet Ceres, Nature Astronomy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1168-2
• A. Nathues et al. Recent cryovolcanic activity at Occator crater on Ceres, Nature Astronomy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1146-8
• R. S. Park et al. Evidence of non-uniform crust of Ceres from Dawn’s high-resolution gravity data, Nature Astronomy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1019-1
• M. C. De Sanctis et al. Fresh emplacement of hydrated sodium chloride on Ceres from ascending salty fluids, Nature Astronomy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1138-8
• B. E. Schmidt et al. Post-impact cryo-hydrologic formation of small mounds and hills in Ceres’s Occator crater, Nature Geoscience (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-0581-6

An animation stitches together images showing briny deposits, colored in reddish, splaying across Occator Crater on Ceres, as seen by NASA's Dawn mission.

(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

18-08-2020 om 01:15 geschreven door peter  

This visualization by Ian Webster and Peter Jenniskens uses NASA data to render known Perseid meteoroids in space. Don’t miss this!

Perseid meteor stream visualization. It looks blurry because it’s a screen shot from a video. Be sure to click into the interactive page; it’s awesome! Visualization via Ian Webster.

• EarthSky’s yearly crowd-funding campaign is in progress. In 2020, we are donating 8.5% to No Kids Hungry. Please donate to help us keep going, and help feed a kid!

This visualization uses NASA data to render known Perseid meteoroids as they move through the space of our solar system. What’s a meteoroid? It’s simply the name for a bit of debris in space before it has entered Earth’s atmosphere and vaporized, thereby becoming a meteor or fiery streak in our night sky. Meteors originate in the bodies of comets. The Perseids, in particular, come from Comet Swift-Tuttle, which last visited the inner solar system in 1992. Ian Webster developed this visualization of the Perseid meteor stream in space, using meteor data provided by Peter Jenniskens. The visualization was created with the help of the SETI Institute with the goal of making it easier to understand the natural phenomenon of meteor showers.

What’s so cool about the interactive page of this visualization? It’s always great to have an aid for picturing a three-dimensional aspect of outer space. This visualization is especially effective because it lets you click into the view from various perspectives. For example, the view below is the Perseid meteor stream as seen from Earth; be sure to click into the page to see the meteors coming toward you!

Perseid meteor stream from Earth’s perspective in space. Click into the interactive page to see the meteors coming toward you. Click the box in the upper left that says “Watch from Earth.” Visualization via Ian Webster.

• Bottom line: Two screen shots from Ian Webster and Peter Jenniskens’ wonderful visualization showing Perseid meteoroids in space.

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

18-08-2020 om 00:33 geschreven door peter  

Meet 'Tenacity': 1st Dream Chaser space plane gets a name

By Nola Taylor Redd 

Tenacity is scheduled to launch for the first time in late 2021.

An artist's rendition of Tenacity in space

(Image: © Sierra Nevada Corporation)

The first orbital Dream Chaser space plane recently got its wings, and a name.

Dream Chaser, which is built by Colorado-based company Sierra Nevada Corp., is the world's only non-capsule private orbital spacecraft. The winged vehicle will launch vertically atop a rocket but end its missions with runway landings, like NASA's now-retired space shuttle orbiters used to do.

This spring, the company unboxed the wings for the first operational Dream Chaser vehicle, bringing it one step closer to delivering supplies and science to and from the International Space Station. Sierra Nevada also announced the spacecraft's name: Tenacity.

• Related: Meet Dream Chaser, a Private Space Plane (Gallery)

This reporter had the opportunity to visit Sierra Nevada's Louisville, Colorado, production facility in March to get a sneak peek at the space plane. At that time, Tenacity's wings remained boxed up, but the space plane was still a sight to behold.

"It's an SUV for space — a Space Utility Vehicle," said Kimberly Schwandt, Sierra Nevada's communications director.

Tenacity is scheduled to launch for the first time in late 2021, aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Once it's up and running, the space plane will carry cargo to and from the space station for NASA. Dream Chaser's runway landings will allow efficient retrieval and removal of scientific gear coming back to Earth, which will also enjoy a relatively smooth ride down to the ground, Sierra Nevada representatives said.

"The gentle landing protects science," Schwandt said.

Tenacity of flight

Dream Chaser was originally designed to carry people, and Sierra Nevada won several rounds of funding from NASA's Commercial Crew Program to develop the vehicle. However, the company lost out to Boeing and SpaceX when NASA awarded astronaut-ferrying contracts in 2014.

But in 2016, NASA selected the space plane for its Commercial Resupply Services 2 contract, awarding Sierra Nevada a contract to fly six uncrewed cargo missions to the space station by 2024.

Sierra Nevada needed to change out only about 20% of Dream Chaser's module to transition from a passenger vehicle to a cargo plane, said Anna Hare, a company communications representative. 

Sierra Nevada therefore hasn't ruled out a crew-carrying future for the space plane at some point. "To go back to a crew ship wouldn't be so hard," Hare said.

Dream Chaser by itself can carry roughly 2,000 lbs. (900 kilograms) of supplies and cargo on board. A 16-foot-tall (4.9 meters) cargo module called Shooting Star can be attached to the space plane to provide an additional 10,000 lbs. (4,500 kg) of carrying capability.

After cargo is loaded onto the space station, astronauts can fill the Shooting Star with their trash. As Tenacity re-enters Earth's atmosphere, the Shooting Star will detach and disintegrate.

Because Dream Chaser carries relatively safe propellant, technicians can approach it quickly after landing. The back of the plane opens, providing rapid access to precious cargo. That can be key when the cargo is science experiments meant to operate in the low gravity of space.

"When the capsule sits on Earth, you kind of lose science," Schwandt said.

The space plane itself flies fully automated, without the requirement of a human pilot. My recent tour revealed a simulated cockpit that allowed technicians to practice handling the plane, as well as flying it.

According to Hare, Tenacity's initial flight most likely won't be full, giving the space plane a chance to stretch its wings. "But after that, we intend to fill the whole vehicle up with cargo," she said.

Eventually, Sierra Nevada would like to have more Dream Chasers join Tenacity in traveling to and from space. However, expanding the number of operational space planes depends on customer demand.

"Our dream is to have a whole fleet of space planes," Schwandt said.

Follow Nola on Facebook and on Twitter at @NolaTRedd.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

18-08-2020 om 00:19 geschreven door peter  

17-08-2020 om 23:56 geschreven door peter  

Mars 2020: The hunt for life on the Red Planet is about to get serious

Illustration of NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars.

(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The sudden flurry of activity is a result of planetary dynamics: every two or so years, the orbits of Earth and Mars align so that the two bodies are at their closest to each other. This results in a shorter interplanetary transit time, of just over six months. The next such launch window will not be until 2022 – when it is expected that the European Space Agency’s ExoMars 2022 will join the throng.

• Read more: Decades of attempts show how hard it is to land on Mars – here's how we plan to succeed in 2021

It is legitimate to question why we keep sending rockets to Mars. Surely we have acquired enough images of the surface and its landscapes to know that water used to be there, but has now vanished? True enough – but there are still mysteries to solve: when did the water go, and why? And, of course, the biggest question of all: is (or was) there life on Mars?

The three missions have different objectives: Hope will orbit the planet for at least two Earth years (one Martian year), acquiring data on Mars’ weather – just like the weather satellites orbiting Earth. Tianwen-1 will orbit Mars and is carrying a rover that will be parachuted down to the surface at Utopia Planitia, where it will analyse the soil and take images of the surface.

Perseverance will arrive almost at the same time – but a couple of thousand kilometres away in Jezero Crater. It will be deposited on the surface by sky-crane technology (see the video below), the same method that delivered Curiosity so successfully in 2012.

Perseverance carries a full complement of scientific instruments that will measure all the usual things that get measured on Mars: the chemistry and mineralogy of the rocks and soil, the amount and type or organic material present at and just below the surface, and so on. But there are two other features of the mission that make it unique.

The idea behind the flight is to test the concept of atmospheric flight on Mars. Eventually, it is anticipated, drones will be able to fly for much longer and for greater distances. This could help guide rovers, identifying features worth investigating and hazards to avoid.

The second unique feature is a drilling and caching system. Perseverance is the first rover to have the capability to drill a core, about ten centimetres long and one centimetre in diameter, and extract it intact from the drill hole. Perseverance will take samples from a range of different rock types as it traverses the crater floor. The drill cores will be left in a small pile - a cache – for collection, possibly in early 2027, and subsequent transport back to Earth (estimated arrival time is still not known, but maybe around spring 2032).

Sample return

Why is it so important to bring samples back from Mars? The instruments carried by Perseverance will be able to undertake fairly sophisticated chemical analyses of the rocks and soil. But even though the instruments and measurements are a tremendous achievement, they do not have the full range of equipment that we employ on Earth to squeeze every drop of information from a rock.

Tests to check for organic compounds – and whether they might have a biological origin – require a chain of different analyses that are far too elaborate and complex to be undertaken on Mars. Boiling acids, alcohol rinses, addition of chemicals, subtraction of solids, are steps in the chemistry needed to extract and separate organic molecules from their rocky hosts. This just cannot (as yet) be done on Mars.

The rocks will be weighed and measured practically on a grain-by-grain basis and analysed, in some cases down to the individual atoms from which the material is composed. This will be an international effort – there is already a multi-national panel (called MSPG-2) which will draft the requirements for the first sets of analyses and how the samples will be stored, curated and subsequently distributed to the wider scientific community.

There is another set of reasons to bring samples back from Mars – the future of human exploration of Mars. If we send humans to Mars, we have to know how to bring them back again. We have not returned anything directly from another planetary body since the Apollo 17 astronauts left the Moon in December 1972. Yes, we have captured bits from a comet and an asteroid and returned them to Earth – but those missions did not land, collect and come back.

We have been investigating Mars for a long time: for over 150 years by telescope, 50 years from orbit and 20 years by rovers. Only another 12 years, then, before we can analyse Mars in our own laboratories.

Perseverance to get things done is a gift of humanity. Here’s hoping that the rover will live up to its name.

• This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. 

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17-08-2020 om 23:17 geschreven door peter  

Here's how 2 Indian schoolgirls discovered a 'Mars-Crosser' asteroid

It's not every day that two Indian schoolgirls spot a space rock that scientists haven't yet, but that's exactly what happened this summer in a stroke of cosmic good luck.

Radhika Lakhani and Vaidehi Vekariya, two students in Surat, a city in Gujarat in western India, were taking part in a citizen-science project using astronomical data when they realized they were seeing something new. That something turned out to be an asteroid now dubbed 2020 OE6.

It was an exciting moment for the space-minded schoolgirls. "This was a dream. I want to become an astronaut," Vekariya told CNN.

"I don't even have a TV at home, so that I can concentrate on my studies," Lakhani told Reuters.

• Related: Photos: Asteroids in deep space

The 2020 OE6 designation is a standardized nomenclature that reflects the object's discovery date. But someday, Lakhani and Vekariya could propose a more accessible name to the International Astronomical Union, the body that oversees all names in the solar system, an opportunity they told Reuters they were excited about.

Lakhani and Vekariya made their find through a campaign with a citizen-science project called the International Astronomical Search Collaboration. The group connects people around the world with data from two key asteroid-hunting observatories, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in Hawaii and the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. Both projects specialize in scanning huge swaths of the sky frequently, enabling newly seen moving objects to stand out against the steady background of the stars.

That said, it's unusual for human eyes to actually discover asteroids these days, and Lakhani and Vekariya got lucky to do so, Paul Chodas, who leads the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, told Space.com in an email. Typically, algorithms do the hard work of spotting an unexpected object moving across the frame.

But for this particular asteroid, those algorithms didn't have enough information to spot the space rock. Lakhani and Vekariya found it in images taken by Pan-STARRS on June 23. The observatory's view is an arrangement of squares, with narrow seams between them that block out certain parts of the sky in each image. And the newly discovered object spent too much time in those seams for the observatory's algorithms to detect it in those images..

Although the asteroid slipped through the net that night, however, scientists would have detected it sooner or later, Robert Weryk, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii, told Space.com in an email. And it turns out that the newly discovered asteroid has turned up before: Weryk was able to track it down in images from another asteroid-hunting observatory and in images taken in 2013 and 2017, as well as in July 2020, a month after the images the students had used.

In the context of some media reports about the discovery, which have labeled the asteroid "Earth-bound," that delay might be worrying. But 2020 OE6 is 50 million miles (70 million kilometers) away from Earth right now and will stay at more or less that distance for at least centuries if not millennia, Chodas said. (For comparison, the moon is about 240,000 miles or 390,000 km away, making this particular asteroid about 200 times more distant.)

All the observations combined have allowed scientists to identify the object's orbit quite precisely, Weryk said. The asteroid takes a bit more than three Earth years to orbit the sun and is perhaps between 1.2 and 3 miles (2 to 5 kilometers) wide. And 2020 OE6 is what scientists call a Mars-Crosser, which means it orbits at around the same distance from the sun as Mars does, although despite the name, the two bodies' paths don't actually cross, according to Chodas.

That's not a particularly unusual type of asteroid — in fact, scientists have discovered more Mars-Crossers than near-Earth asteroids, although both tallies pale in comparison to main-belt asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, which represent the vast majority of asteroids scientists have discovered to date.

The coronavirus pandemic has put a damper on Lakhani and Vekariya's celebrations, according to news reports. But International Astronomical Search Collaboration Director Patrick Miller, a mathematician at Hardin-Simmons University in Texas, told Space.com that the group is preparing commemorative plaques and organizing a ceremony for the pair in New Delhi.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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17-08-2020 om 22:57 geschreven door peter