Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 11 MONTHS.
ON 06/05/2024 MORE THAN 1.972.210
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
20-12-2020
2020’s December solstice is Monday
2020’s December solstice is Monday
Posted by Deborah Byrd in ASTRONOMY ESSENTIALS | EARTH
Late dawn. Early sunset. Short day. Long night. December solstice 2020 arrives on December 21 at 10:02 UTC. High summer for the Southern Hemisphere. For the Northern Hemisphere, the return of more sunlight!
Check this out … the Breathing Earth. It’s a year of seasonal transformations on our planet. John Nelson created this animation, using images from the NASA Visible Earth team. Read more about the animation via John Nelson.
For us in the Northern Hemisphere, the December solstice marks the longest nights and shortest days of the year. Meanwhile, the Southern Hemisphere is having short nights and long days. The 2020 December solstice moment – when the sun reaches its southernmost point in the sky – will happen on Monday, December 21, 2020, at 10:02 UTC (4:02 a.m.CST; translate UTC to your time).
No matter where you live on Earth’s globe – no matter what time the solstice happens for you – it’s your signal to celebrate.
View larger. | Ian Hennes in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, created this solargraph between a June solstice and a December solstice. It shows the path of the sun during that time period. Thank you, Ian!
Sunlight on Earth, at the December solstice. North Pole in 24-hour darkness; South Pole in 24-hour daylight.
Gif via Wikimedia Commons.
When is the solstice?
The solstice happens at the same instant for all of us, everywhere on Earth. In 2020, the December solstice comes on December 21 at 4:02 a.m. CST. That’s 10:02 Universal Time (UTC). It’s when the sun on our sky’s dome reaches its farthest southward point for the year. At this solstice, the Northern Hemisphere has its shortest day and longest night of the year.
Just remember: you’re translating from 10:02 UTC on December 21. For example, if you live in Perth, Australia, you need to add 8 hours to Universal Time to find out that the solstice happens at 18:02 (6:02 p.m.) AWST (Australian Western Standard Time).
An animation of Earth as it orbits, with points marking both equinoxes and solstices along with relevant information.
The earliest people on Earth knew that the sun’s path across the sky, the length of daylight, and the location of the sunrise and sunset all shifted in a regular way throughout the year. They built monuments such as Stonehenge in England – or, for example, at Machu Picchu in Peru – to follow the sun’s yearly progress.
But we today see the solstice differently. We can picture it from the vantage point of space. Today, we know that the solstice is an astronomical event, caused by Earth’s tilt on its axis and its motion in orbit around the sun.
Because Earth doesn’t orbit upright, but is instead tilted on its axis by 23 1/2 degrees, Earth’s Northern and Southern Hemispheres trade places in receiving the sun’s light and warmth most directly. The tilt of the Earth – not our distance from the sun – is what causes winter and summer. At the December solstice, the Northern Hemisphere is leaning most away from the sun for the year.
At the December solstice, Earth is positioned in its orbit so that the sun stays below the North Pole horizon. As seen from 23 1/2 degrees south of the equator, at the imaginary line encircling the globe known as the Tropic of Capricorn, the sun shines directly overhead at noon. This is as far south as the sun ever gets. All locations south of the equator have day lengths greater than 12 hours at the December solstice. Meanwhile, all locations north of the equator have day lengths less than 12 hours.
For us on the northern part of Earth, the shortest day comes at the solstice. After the winter solstice, the days get longer, and the nights shorter. It’s a seasonal shift that nearly everyone notices.
Earth has seasons because our world is tilted on its axis with respect to our orbit around the sun.
Image via NASA.
Where should I look to see signs of the solstice in nature?
Everywhere.
For all of Earth’s creatures, nothing is so fundamental as the length of daylight. After all, the sun is the ultimate source of all light and warmth on Earth.
If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you can notice the late dawns and early sunsets, and the low arc of the sun across the sky each day. You might notice how low the sun appears in the sky at local noon. And be sure to look at your noontime shadow. Around the time of the December solstice, it’s your longest noontime shadow of the year.
In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s opposite. Dawn comes early, and dusk comes late. The sun is high. It’s your shortest noontime shadow of the year.
Around the time of the winter solstice, watch for late dawns, early sunsets, and the low arc of the sun across the sky each day. Notice your noontime shadow, the longest of the year.
Why doesn’t the earliest sunset come on the shortest day?
The December solstice marks the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and longest day in the Southern Hemisphere. But the earliest sunset – or earliest sunrise if you’re south of the equator – happens before the December solstice. Many people notice this, and ask about it.
The key to understanding the earliest sunset is not to focus on the time of sunset or sunrise. The key is to focus on what is called true solar noon, the time of day that the sun reaches its highest point in its journey across your sky.
In early December, true solar noon comes nearly 10 minutes earlier by the clock than it does at the solstice around December 21. With true noon coming later on the solstice, so will the sunrise and sunset times.
It’s this discrepancy between clock time and sun time that causes the Northern Hemisphere’s earliest sunset and the Southern Hemisphere’s earliest sunrise to precede the December solstice.
The discrepancy occurs primarily because of the tilt of the Earth’s axis. A secondary but another contributing factor to this discrepancy between clock noon and sun noon comes from the Earth’s elliptical – oblong – orbit around the sun. The Earth’s orbit is not a perfect circle, and when we’re closest to the sun, our world moves fastest in orbit. Our closest point to the sun – or perihelion – comes in early January. So we are moving fastest in orbit around now, slightly faster than our average speed of about 18.5 miles per second (30 kilometers per second). The discrepancy between sun time and clock time is greater around the December solstice than the June solstice because we’re nearer the sun at this time of year.
Solstice sunsets, showing the sun’s position on the local horizon at December 2015 (left) and June 2016 (right) solstices from Mutare, Zimbabwe, via Peter Lowenstein.
The precise date of the earliest sunset depends on your latitude. At mid-northern latitudes, it comes in early December each year. At northern temperate latitudes farther north – such as in Canada and Alaska – the year’s earliest sunset comes around mid-December. Close to the Arctic Circle, the earliest sunset and the December solstice occur on or near the same day.
By the way, the latest sunrise doesn’t come on the solstice either. From mid-northern latitudes, the latest sunrise comes in early January.
The exact dates vary, but the sequence is always the same: earliest sunset in early December, shortest day on the solstice around December 22, latest sunrise in early January.
And so the cycle continues.
Solstice Pyrotechnics II by groovehouse/ Flickr.
Bottom line:The 2020 December solstice takes place on Monday, December 21 at 10:02 UTC (4:02 a.m. CST; translate UTC to your time). It marks the Northern Hemisphere’s shortest day (first day of winter) and Southern Hemisphere’s longest day (first day of summer). Happy solstice to all!
With all of the successes SpaceX has had recently – even the recent explosion upon landing of a Starship SN8 was spun into a success — it’s easy to forget the company had a number of significant failures on the road to stardom. One of those was a SpaceX 9 Falcon rocket explosion during a prelaunch test in September 2016 – an event whose video showed a mysterious UFO near the rocket… a UFO that even CEO Elon Musk could not rule out as a possible cause. While the explosion was eventually traced to the rupture of a helium-filled pressure vessel, the UFO was never explained – leaving it open to conspiracy theories. Those conspiracies came back recently when a video taken the day before the SN8 explosion – on December 8 when the launch was delayed for a day – shows a glowing orb over the ill-fated rocket. Are these connectable dots? If so, who or what is monitoring SpaceX’s failures?
“UFO STOPS LAUNCH”
The video was first uploaded by the LabPadre YouTube channel which covers SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, live launches and testing. However, the UFO seems to have been spotted first by YouTuber A.I. Food, who uploaded it on December 11 with the above comment. It needed quite a bit of zooming to see and that made it difficult to determine just how close the UFO was to the SN8. UFO Sightings Daily posted a longer video on December 17 which had the obligatory red circle around the UFO but still didn’t put it in perspective next to the rocket. Nonetheless, it was enough for the site’s Scott Waring to add his usual “This UFO is 100% aliens” analysis.
“Orb Over SpaceX Rocket Launch, Camera Guy Zooms In, Stops Launch!”
Interestingly, Waring thinks this shows that the “aliens” support Elon Musk, even though the same rocket exploded on landing the following day … just as the Falcon 9 exploded in 2016 with a UFO overhead. That certainly doesn’t sound like support. On the other hand, UFOs were also seen during the SpaceX launch on May 30 taking astronauts to the ISS – the historic first launch of NASA astronauts on a commercially built spacecraft. Show of support or just debris and fertile imaginations?
Although Waring denies the possibility, the most recent orb could certainly be one of the drones that are used to monitor SpaceX launches, seen at such a distance that the pixels can’t be formed into a discernible shape. That fact that this and the other UFO appeared within 24 hours of the rocket on the pad being lost could certainly suggest something more than coincidence. Could it be an ironic payback to SpaceX for causing so many false UFO sightings with its nighttime launches and those annoying trains of Starlink satellites?
Aliens expressing their approval or disproval? Space debris? Drones? SpaceX rivals spying? Whatever it is, it accomplishes the one thing Elon Musk craves … publicity.
My previous article was titled “Taking a Look at Those Mysterious Ghost Lights.” In part, the article went like this went like this: “Over the years I’ve been asked for my thoughts on what have popularly become known as ‘Ghost Lights.’ Well, I can say for sure I’ve heard all sorts of theories for what they might really be. Those theories include some kind of intelligent ball of energy, the souls of the dead (people and animals), shapeshifting aliens, ball lightning, and entry points to other dimensions. Of course, there may be numerous other theories, too, but these are most definitely ones that I often hear about. I can’t say, at all, that I’m an expert in this field; however, I do have an interest in the subject.” I have to say I think at least some so-called Ghost Lights might actually be the creations of military agencies looking to use them on the battlefield. While such a thing might sound too way out for some people, bear with me.
There’s a distinct possibility some Ghost Lights are that rarely seen phenomenon called ball lightning. And what might that be? Read on. The following words are from the people at EarthSky: “Ball lightning is one of the best-known natural phenomena that few have seen. Until recent years, most scientists remained skeptical about ball lightning; it seemed more myth than reality. Nowadays, ball lightning’s street cred among scientists is stronger, but it’s still the case that most of the images you see online purporting to be ball lightning are just over-exposed images of ordinary lightning. In fact, no expert we asked could point us to an actual image of ball lightning in nature. What is ball lightning? Since the time of the early Greeks, there’ve been reports of small balls of bright plasma-like light moving over the ground and then vanishing. The explanation still eludes scientists for the most part, although various explanations have now been offered.”
Over the years, I have taken a deep interest in the matter of ball lightning. As my research has progressed, I have used the Freedom of Information Act and requested – from many of the ABC agencies within government – copies of any and all papers dealing with ball lightning. Some of the material that was released to me was highly intriguing. The long list included: Theory of the Lightning Ball and its Application to the Atmospheric Phenomenon Called ‘Flying Saucers’, that was put together by Carl Benadicks in 1954; Ball Lightning: A Survey, prepared by one J.R. McNally for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee [year unknown]; D.V. Ritchie’s Reds May Use Lightning as a Weapon, which popped up in the pages of Missiles and Rockets in August 1959; and An Experimental and Theoretical Program to Investigate the Feasibility of Confining Plasma in Free Spaceby Radar Beams, the latter being the work of a C.M. Haaland, in 1960, for the Armor Research Foundation, situated in the Illinois Institute of Technology.
One document really stood out: Survey of Kugelblitz Theories for Electromagnetic Incendiaries. It was the brainchild of W.B. Lyttle and C.E. Wilson. At the time, they were in the employ of Melpar, Inc., which is described as “an American government contractor in the 20th century Cold War period. At a time when most employment in Washington, D.C. was directly by the U.S. federal government, Melpar became an early private sector contracting company training a high technology workforce in the area.” Lyttle and Wilson were assigned to the Edgewood Arsenal, and to what was intriguingly titled as a “New Concepts Division / Special Project”” operation. At the beginning of their 92-pages-long report, the two wrote: “The purpose of this study was to review the theory and experimental data on ball lightning, to compare the existing theory and experimental data to determine whether ball lightning is a high or low energy phenomenon, and if it is a high energy phenomenon define an effective theoretical and experimental program to develop a potential incendiary weapon [italics mine].”
The pair added: “Three major categories were established for the purpose of grouping the numerous theories on the subject. These categories are the classical plasma theories, the quantum plasma theories, and the non-plasma theories. A theoretical and experimental Kugelblitz program is recommended by which the most promising high energy theories could be developed so that a weapons application could be realized.” On the matter of what, exactly, ball lightning was, the pair had a few ideas. Those same ideas included a “plasma created by a lightning strike and maintained by electromagnetic standing waves;” a “non-plasma phenomenon;” and the “nuclear theory;” which was “based on the assumption that the content of the ball is radioactive carbon-14 created from atmospheric nitrogen by the action of thermal neutrons liberated by a lightning strike.” Wilson and Lyttle said that “since the high energy Kugelblitz is clearly the only type weapon of importance, we believe that the major effort should be expended along these lines.” The effort continued.
Keep one important thing in mind: the document I quoted from dates back from the mid-1960s. That makes me wonder just how much we might have advanced – in relation to the utilization of ball lightning – since then?
Morgen verschijnt dit fenomeen aan de hemel voor de eerste keer sinds middeleeuwen
Astronomen kijken uit naar morgen, 21 december, de kortste dag van het jaar. Die dag staan Jupiter en Saturnus vanuit ons perspectief op aarde zodanig op bijna dezelfde lijn dat ze één heldere ster lijken, ook al staan de twee gasreuzen in werkelijkheid miljoenen kilometers van elkaar.
Zulke ‘grote conjuctie’ doet zich ongeveer om de twintig jaar voor, maar dit betekent niet dat het fenomeen telkens zichtbaar is. Als de twee planeten te dicht tegen de zon staan, speelt dit de waarneming zwaar parten. Iets wat deze keer heel goed meevalt. Ook de afstand tussen de twee planeten, afhankelijk van de positie van de aarde, is zeldzaam klein. Het zou dan voor het eerst sinds 4 maart 1226 zijn dat de conjuctie goed waarneembaar is. Telescopen bestonden toen nog niet, het fenomeen was die middeleeuwse dag in de vroege ochtend ongeveer een kwartier lang te zien in onze streken, stelt New Scientist.
Wie maandag een poging wil wagen de conjuctie te aanschouwen, moet in het eerste uur na zonsondergang naar buiten. In Brussel gaat die dag de zon onder om 16.39 uur. Ook moeten we hopen op een heldere hemel. Het KMI verwacht voorlopig voor maandag regenachtig weer...
Hoge gebouwen belemmeren het zicht, voor een optimale waarneming is een open plek uitkiezen een must. Dit omdat de conjunctie redelijk laag plaatsvindt. Onze blik moet zich richten naar het zuidwesten. Met een verrekijker zou het mogelijk moeten zijn de ringen van Saturnus te kunnen zien.
21 december geldt als hoogtepunt, in de dagen nadien bewegen de planeten van elkaar weg en gaan ze lager aan de hemel staan, wat hun zichtbaarheid doet verminderen.
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Ancient Aliens Bombshell! Lost Race of Biblical Giants Uncovered
Ancient Aliens Bombshell! Lost Race of Biblical Giants Uncovered
Ancient Aliens: Lost Race of Biblical Giants Uncovered (Season 15) | History
“Ancient Aliens” explores the controversial theory that extraterrestrials have visited Earth for millions of years. HISTORY® is the leading destination for award-winning original series and specials that connect viewers with history in an informative, immersive, and entertaining manner across all platforms.
The network’s all-original programming slate features a roster of hit series, premium documentaries, and scripted event programming.
I found an interesting human-like face on the side of a hill on Mars in a Mars photo today. The face has features similar to us, forehead, eyes, nose, lips chin, neck. It's made from materials in the hill itself, much how humans have carved faces in Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. It measures about 4 meters tall and is looking out over Mars. Undeniable proof that aliens similar to humanity once walked the surface of Mars long, long ago.
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Glowing Discs Appear On The Horizon
Glowing Discs Appear On The Horizon
The strange event happened near Le Bourg-Dun, Haute-Normandie in France when a photographer captured several colorful glowing discs in the night sky.
The photographer was on a plain path with his photography equipment (Nikon D600 & Nikon 28mm F1.8 lens plus tripod and wired remote control) for a night landscape session.
He arrived at the place near Le Bourg-Dun, Haute-Normandie at about 10.30 pm, took several pictures of the landscape when a bright colorful disc-shaped light appeared on the northwest horizon for a few seconds.
A few seconds later, another similar light appeared, but much closer to its observation site, when it suddenly brightened to orange-red light as it floated for about seconds before disappearing.
Then, a few seconds later, another colorful disc-shaped light appeared, but this time there were two of them, floating and visible for about 10 seconds. The entire observation of these lights took about 40 minutes.
Later, while checking the internet for these strange anomalies in the night sky, he was surprised to learn that several other people in France had also seen them, but at different times of the night.
Since the event took place a few days before New Years Eve on December 28, 2016, we may wonder whether these strange lights may have actually been fireworks.
However, we may assume that the photographer should recognize fireworks, but he did not talk about it, indicating that he has seen something that is inexplicable to him. Mufon.
UFOs filmed over Iztaccíhuatl Volcano in Mexico 9-Dec-2020
UFOs filmed over Iztaccíhuatl Volcano in Mexico 9-Dec-2020
These bright unidentified flying objects were filmed in the sky above Iztaccíhuatl Volcano in Central Mexico. This happened on 9th December 2020! You can find more videos about UFO activity near volcanoes at this link:
This daytime footage of a bright (solid?) UFO was filmed in the skies above Johannesburg in South Africa. This happened yesterday (on 19th December 2020).
Everyone needed a respite from 2020, and tales of discovery provided a happy distraction from the worries of the day. Here are a few reminders that we still live in a world full of wonders.
Flowers at the South Pole
Antarctica was once home to a diverse rainforest. The unearthing of traces of vegetation in 90-million-year-old sediments off the coast of West Antarctica shows just how radically different the planet was during the age of dinosaurs, with conifers, ferns and blooming flowers where an ice sheet sits today (SN: 4/1/20).
Roughly 90 million years ago, a diverse rainforest (shown in this artist’s reconstruction) flourished within about 1,000 kilometers of the South Pole.J. MCKAY/ALFRED WEGENER INSTITUTE (CC BY 4.0)
Life finds a way
Researchers are still identifying new species and cataloging the amazing diversity of life on Earth. This year saw the discovery that the sparkly “Elvis worm” of the deep sea is actually four different species (SN: 5/25/20). Other scientists found a bonanza of 10 new bird species and subspecies on remote Indonesian islands (SN: 1/9/20). And the first complete count of plant species on New Guinea revealed more than 13,600 species of vascular plants, the most of any island on Earth (SN: 8/18/20).
New Guinea’s impressive array of floral diversity includes this Syzygium plant, a member of the myrtle family.YEE WEN LOW, R. CÁMARA-LERET ET AL/NATURE 2020
Raining reptiles
During a cold snap in southern Florida, lizards started falling from trees, landing legs-up (SN: 10/30/20). The reptiles weren’t hurt, just so cold that they couldn’t move and lost their grip. Oddly, this may be good news for the six lizard species scientists examined. The ability to withstand temperatures down to about 5.5° Celsius may suggest some resilience to extreme weather caused by climate change.
This iguana fell out of a tree in Key Biscayne, Fla., after a cold snap in January. Scientists have learned that such lizards are more tolerant of the cold than previously thought.BRETT PIERCE
Super chill
Hot water can sometimes freeze more quickly than cold, a baffling phenomenon called the Mpemba effect. Scientists couldn’t explain it — and weren’t sure it was even real. Now researchers have demonstrated the bizarre effect for the first time in the laboratory by cooling glass beads as a proxy for the more complex freezing process of water. In some conditions, the researchers say, materials can take a cooling “shortcut” that allows warmer objects to cool faster than colder ones (SN: 8/7/20).
Edge of the map
Astronomers have found the edges of the Milky Way, for the first time showing its enormous span and potentially helping to gauge its heft. Our home galaxy stretches almost 2 million light-years across, more than 15 times as wide as the Milky Way’s spiral disk of stars and planets (SN: 3/23/20). Beyond that disk lies a broad stretch of gas surrounded by a vast halo of invisible dark matter.
The vastness of the Milky Way (shown in a gamma-ray image) seems almost immeasurable, but this year, astronomers put limits on our home galaxy’s bounds.FERMI LAT COLLABORATION/DOE AND NASA
Go fly a snake
Paradise tree snakes can fling themselves 10 meters or more through the air, and engineers have now figured out how they stay aloft. Once the snakes are in the air, they undulate both side to side and up and down, giving them the stability needed to glide (SN: 6/29/20).
Scientists captured the undulating motion of paradise tree snakes as they glide through the sky. A computer simulation based on high-speed video shows that the undulation is necessary for stable flight.
Floats our boat
Here was a chance to witness the seemingly impossible: tiny toy boats floating along both the top and bottom of a levitating liquid. Physicists made this magic happen by shaking a container of liquid, thus keeping a fluid layer aloft above a layer of air and allowing the inverted flotation (SN: 9/2/20).
Physicists knew it was possible to keep a layer of liquid levitated over a cushion of air by vigorously shaking the layers up and down in a container. But new lab experiments have revealed a surprising effect of that antigravity trick. Toy boats and other objects are able to float along the bottom surface of a levitated liquid as well as its top.
Will to survive
One inspiring creature just refused to accept being eaten. The Regimbartia attenuata water beetle is the first prey known to survive a trip through a frog’s entire digestive system, not just by taking a ride (like the fish eggs found this year to survive ducks’ digestive systems) but by actively escaping through the back door (SN: 8/3/20; SN: 6/29/20).
About two hours before this video begins, this pond frog (Pelophylax nigromaculatus) ate a water beetle (Regimbartia attenuata). After traversing the digestive tract, the beetle emerges from the back end of the amphibian, alive. It’s the first documented example of prey actively escaping a predator through the digestive system.
Everybody smile
From grins to grimaces, facial expressions may be universal across human cultures, and from ancient times to the modern day. Just by looking at the faces of sculptures crafted between 3,500 and 600 years ago, without the context of the rest of the sculpture, present-day people correctly interpreted expressions such as anger in depictions of combat and pain in sculptures of people being tortured (SN: 8/19/20).
This ancient sculpture of a beaming Maya woman holding a child was among the artworks included in a study of universal facial expressionsPRINCETON UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM 2003-26, GIFT OF G.G. GRIFFIN
Meet PigeonBot
A robotic bird made with real pigeon feathers can change the shape of its wings by fanning its feathers out or gathering them in, making for more birdlike flight. Using the robot, scientists discovered that a bird can steer into a turn by bending just one “finger” on one of its wings (SN: 1/16/20).
A robotic pigeon that can change its wing shape like a real bird paves the way for creating more agile aircraft, and offers a new way to study bird flight.
It’s alive!
Putting Rip Van Winkle to shame, microbes that had been buried in seafloor sediments for more than 100 million years revived and multiplied. All the microbes needed was food to pull them from their dormant state (SN: 7/28/20).
Seafloor sediment from beneath the Pacific Ocean contains still-living microbes (green in this microscopy image) that are more than 100 million years old.JAMSTEC
In just twelve short verses the Gospel of Matthew records the visit of the mysterious Magi to pay homage to the baby Jesus. The allure of mystical wizards from exotic lands captured the imagination of early Christians. Matthew’s short narrative was expanded and elaborated to the Christmas tale we hear today.
But did any such wise men exist, and if so, who were they and where did they come from? The predominant opinion among New Testamentscholars is that the whole story is a fabrication—a fantastic myth devised to make the birth of Jesus extra special, but are they correct?
Making of the Magi Myth
The Magi story began to be elaborated along with the growth of Gnosticism and early Christianity. Extra Biblical writings about the mysterious Magi proliferated. The earliest apocryphal version of Jesus’ birth is a document called The Gospel of James or The Protoevangelium of James. The Protoevangelium tells the story of Mary’s birth and childhood, her betrothal to Joseph and the birth of Jesus. The account of Jesus’ birth follows Matthew and Luke’s account, but there are some extra details: Mary rides a donkey to Bethlehem, there is no mention of an inn as such, and the stable where Jesus is born is in a cave.
There is a midwife named Salome present, and as Jesus is born, a wonderful, mysterious light appears. In the Protoevangelium there are no shepherds, but the story of the Wise Men is told— obviously quoting from Matthew. Adding to Matthew, the Wise Men in the Protoevangelium say, the star was so bright on its appearing that all the other stars dimmed in its light.
Around the same time one of the earliest Christian writers, Ignatius of Antioch (d.108) in his epistle to the Ephesians, waxes eloquently about the star, “a star shone in the night brighter than all other stars. Its light was indescribable, and its strangeness produced wonder. And all the rest of the stars with the sun and the moon made a choir around that star which outshone them all.” The exaggeration and glorification of the Magi story had already begun.
By the third century the idea that the Magi were kings was starting to get traction. Tertullian and Origen mused on the Old Testament prophecies that kings would come to worship the Messiah bearing gold and frankincense, and concluded that the Magi must have been kings.
It was also in the third century that the Magi story began to take the leap from legend to myth. The Legend of Aphroditianus is an apocryphal writing that originated in Syria, where there was a strong Persian influence. The tale begins with the account of a miracle in the temple of a pagan goddess in Persia at the time of Christ’s birth. According to the myth, the statues in the temple danced, sung and announced that the goddess Hera had been made pregnant by Zeus.
Suddenly a star appears above the statue of the goddess Hera. A voice from heaven is heard, and all the dancing statues fall on their faces. The wise men of the court take this to mean that a king is to be born in Judea. That evening the god Dionysus confirms their interpretation. Then the god sends the Magi to Judea with gifts, the star pointing them along their way. The story tells of the Magi’s journey to Bethlehem, and how they meet the Jewish leaders, and finally Mary and Jesus. They return to Persia bringing a portrait of Jesus and Mary, and subsequently put it in the temple, where the star first appeared.
Depiction of The Magi following the star in search of baby Jesus.
In another third century work, the opus imperfectum, a writer named Ephraim said the Magi saw a human image in the star. While the eighth century Chronicle of Zuqnin says there were twelve Magi, all of whom saw a different human image in the star. Clearly, the Magi story had found its wings and soared to mythical heights impossible to imagine by the simple storyteller Matthew.
Another bizarre apocryphal text is The Revelation of the Magi. This story pretends to be told by the Magi themselves. The Wise Men are residents of a mythical land called Shir in the Far East. They are the descendants of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve , who passed on to them a prophecy from his father that one day a star of amazing brightness would appear to announce the birth of God in human form.
The story continues as every year the mystical Magi of Shir ascended their holy mountain where the Cave of Treasures is located. This cave contains the wisdom of Seth and the treasures of Adam, and it is there that the super bright star, brighter than the sun, appears to them as a tiny radiant human. The star child tells them to go on a long journey to Bethlehem. After long preparations they set off only to find that the star child accompanies them, removing all obstacles and miraculously providing them with food and protection.
Apart from being historical curiosities, these Gnostic texts have no value apart from being mildly entertaining. They are about as important to the search for Matthew’s Wise Men as Disney’s Sword in the Stone is to the search for the historical King Arthur .
The Medieval Myth
By the sixth century Christians may not have believed the wildly fantastic Magi stories of the Gnostics, but the idea that the Magi were wise men from Persia had taken root. So in the sixth century we find the Emperor Justinian commissioning the famous mosaic of the three Magi in Ravenna. Justinian’s mosaic actually named the Wise Men, and it is at the beginning of the sixth century that their names were first documented.
Mosaic of the Three Magi (young, middle aged & elderly) in Sant Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna.
The Excerpta Latina Barbari composed in Alexandria, calls them Bithisarea, Melichior and Gathaspa or as we now know them, Balthasar, Melchior and Caspar. In contrast, Syriac Christians named the Magi, Larvandad, Gushnasaph, and Hormisdas. Ethiopian Christians called them Hor, Karsudan, and Basanater, while the Armenians said they were named, Kagpha, Badadakharida and Badadilma.
The various ethnic names of the Magi also indicate a widening out of the Magi tradition from the assumption that they were Persian priests. The Syrian, Ethiopian and Armenian Christians were among the first to accept the Christian message, and their independent Magi traditions attests to both the antiquity of the Magi story and affirms St Augustine of Hippo’s (d. 430) suggestions that the Wise Men represented the whole of the Gentile (non-Jewish) world.
Some two hundred years after Justinian’s famous mosaics, an eighth century Irish manuscript Collectanea et Flores offers more details about the appearance of the Wise Men, explaining that they represent the three ages of man (youth, middle-age and old age). By this time, they were no longer Persian Magi. Instead the Wise Men assumed three different racial characteristics showing that they represented Europe, Africa and Asia - the three regions of the known world. At the same time, the British historian, Venerable Bede mused that the international origins of the Three Wise Men could also signify the three sons of Noah who, as tradition had it, re-peopled the globe and were the source of humanity’s three basic racial groups. These accumulated traditions explain why, in Christian artwork, the Magi are shown to be young, middle-aged and elderly: African, Asian and European.
Detail of the Three Kings from The Adoration of the Magi (elderly, middle-aged, young / European, Asian, African).
The legends about the Magi continued to develop, so that according to the 12th-century life of St Eustorgio , the bodies of the Three Kings were discovered in Persia in the early fourth century by St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine and eventually translated to the cathedral in Cologne.
In the fourteenth century the Venetian explorer Marco Polo recorded that he had visited the village in Persia where Helena had identified the tomb, and in the same century, the Carmelite monk John of Hildesheim wrote Historia trium regum, (History of the Three Kings). John of Hildesheim recounts how the star was first sighted in the forty second year of the Emperor Augustus from the summit of Mount Vaus in the East by a group of pagan astrologers who were aware of the Old Testament prophecy of Balaam.
Hildesheim says the star was as bright as the Sun, and that the Three Kings from their own lands set out to follow the star they had seen. Melchior travelled from Nubia and Arabia. Balthasar from Godolia and Saba, and Caspar from Tharsis and Egrisoulle. Each with a magnificent retinue, they followed the star for thirteen days and arrived at the same time in Jerusalem, where they were amazed to discover that they understood one another’s languages. After their audience with King Herod , and instructed by his scribes, they continued their journey to Bethlehem, again guided by the magical star.
The Magi before King Herod, on a 13th-century stained glass window in Chartres Cathedral, France.
Matthew’s simple story burgeoned into a fantastic tale as no other Biblical narrative had. But what if the wildly elaborated myth, like that of King Arthur, was rooted in historical circumstances and real individuals? What if it could be shown that there were circumstances and players in first century Judea who fit the story? Always wanting to stand orthodoxy on its head, I set out on a quest of my own. I began to investigate whether there might be a foundation of historical truth beneath the accumulated legends surrounding the Magi story. To do this, I had to strip away the accretions that encrusted Matthew’s simple story.
What I found was astounding. First, I discovered that because of their assumption that the Magi story was a fairy tale, very few scholars had taken the time to investigate thoroughly the possible identity of the Wise Men. My research brought me into contact with an almost forgotten ancient civilization and new technologies, which shed light on the subject. Some fresh archaeological findings and new understandings from the Dead Sea Scrolls also contributed to the quest.
Matthew said the Wise Men were “from the East.” By the end of the first century, because of the destruction of Jerusalem, the center of Christianity shifted north and west to Asia Minor, Greece and Rome. If you lived in present-day Turkey or Greece “the East” is clearly Persia. The fact that Matthew used the word “Magi” was also a powerful pointer. There was indeed an ancient caste of shamans from Persia called ‘the Magi’. But like most mystery stories, the first and most obvious solution is rarely the correct one.
Christianity’s hub may have shifted north and west, but Matthew’s Gospel was written in Judea to the Jews of that area. “The East” for them was the Arabian Peninsula. Furthermore, in the Old Testament the “people of the East” are always the nomadic tribes of Arabia. The Persians come from the North. The earliest Christian witness outside the New Testament is Justin Martyr, who is also situated in Judea. He says that the Wise Men came from Arabia. I therefore began to search for possible candidates from Arabia.
Petra and the Nabateans
This led, of course, to the fabulously wealthy and mysterious kingdom of Nabatea with the ancient city of Petra as its capital. Suffice it to say that once I discovered the Nabateans, all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. The politics, economics, religion and culture of the time all combined to make the Nabateans the obvious choice.
Just two details will illustrate the wealth of evidence that combines to strengthen this theory. The finest gold in the ancient world was mined in Western Arabia, and the shrubs from which incense and myrrh are sourced only grow in Eastern Arabia and Northeast Africa, which is all territory controlled by the Nabateans. The gold, frankincense and myrrh were clearly diplomatic gifts (representative of the Nabtean kingdom) from King Aretas IV of Nabatea to honor a grandson or great grandson of his neighbor King Herod.
Secondly, new discoveries by archaeo-astronomers from Spain have shown that the Nabatean temples were aligned to the solstices and constellations, and the archaeological dig at the temple of Khirbet et Tannur, uncovered a stone carved zodiac proving that the Nabatean Magi were star gazers.
These are just two pieces of evidence that direct the quest for the identity of the Wise Men to Nabatea. It is perfectly probable that there were wise men who had the motive, the means and the method to pay homage to Jesus Christ, just as Matthew recorded.
My findings not only stand the established academic orthodoxy on its head, but they should cause everyone interested in New Testament scholarship, ancient history and the historical veracity of the Gospels to think again.
Like the story of King Arthur, the tale of the Wise Men who visited Bethlehem was embroidered and embellished over many years. But beneath it all there is a foundation of historical truth, which is fascinating and compelling.
The simple facts of the Magi story undermine the assumptions that the nativity narratives are fairy tales made up to make Jesus more special. Instead my findings show that beneath all the mystery, there is history.
Dwight Longenecker’s book The Mystery of the Magi - The Quest for the True Identity of the Three Wise Men is published by Regnery Press. It is available on Amazon and from his website: dwightlongenecker.com
Top image:The Magi with baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Source: Henry Siddons Mowbray / Public domain
A team of researchers from the University of Bern has discovered a very different binary system 450 light-years from Earth. The system — CFHTWIR-Oph 98 or Oph 98 for short — has twin occupants that appeared at first sight to be exoplanets existing in a star-less system. A deeper examination has revealed that they are brown dwarfs — Oph 98 A and Oph 98 B respectively — astronomical objects that are similar to stars but smaller and cooler.
This artist’s illustration represents a couple of planetary-mass brown dwarfs Ophiuchus 98. As they are very young, they are still evolving in the molecular clouds that saw their birth. (University of Bern, Illustration: Thibaut Roger)
These brown dwarfs wander the galaxy together, orbiting each other at an incredibly large distance equivalent to 200 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.
The discovery of the curious Oph 98 system by the research team led by Clémence Fontanive from the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) and National Centre of Competence in Research PlanetS (NCCR PlanetS) is documented in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The Oph 98 is a relativity new-born system in astrophysical terms, forming just 3 million years ago in the Ophiuchus stellar nursery (hence the ‘Oph’ element of its name). Its relative youth has some interesting consequences for the bodies that comprise it and led the team to properly identify its constituent bodies.
The system has not existed for long enough for it to start forming planets. This means that Oph 98 A and B must have both formed via the same mechanisms that give rise to stars. This conclusion is also supported by the fact that Oph 98 B is roughly the right size to be a planet, but Oph A is too small to have the reservoir of material needed to form a planet so large. That means they must be brown dwarfs.
“This tells us that Oph 98 B, like its host, must have formed through the same mechanisms that produce stars and shows that the processes that create binary stars operate on scaled-down versions all the way down to these planetary masses,” says Fontanive.
In terms of mass brown dwarfs exist between planets and stars (NASA/ Caltech/ R. Hurt (IPAC).)
The fact that brown dwarfs form in ways that are similar to stars and share similar masses, but do not ignite with the nuclear processes that power stars, has often led to them being nicknamed ‘failed stars.’ It is extremely rare for star-forming processes to create worlds that go on to exist in a system such as this.
The objects are rare examples of astronomical bodies similar to giant exoplanets that orbit each other without a parent star. Both are young brown dwarfs, with Oph 98 A being the larger of the two with a mass 15 times that of Jupiter. Its smaller companion — Oph 98 B — has a mass equivalent to 8 times that of the gas giant, which is the largest body other than the Sun in our solar system.
This isn’t the only thing that makes Oph 98 unique, however.
Brown Dwarfs with a Weak Bond
Another thing that makes the Oph 98 system so remarkable is the fact that, like all binary systems, the bodies are gravitationally bound. These bonds are greater with objects of greater mass but follow an inverse square law — meaning the bond’s strength falls off quickly as separation distances increase. Because these objects have relatively small mass coupled with an extremely large separation, the gravitational bond between them is one of the weakest in terms of energy that astronomers have ever observed.
Observing this system at all is no mean feat as brown dwarfs — especially low-mass ones — emit very little electromagnetic radiation and are thus, not easy to spot.
“Low-mass brown dwarfs are very cold and emit very little light, only through infrared thermal radiation,” explains Fontanive. “This heat glow is extremely faint and red, and brown dwarfs are hence only visible in infrared light.”
The Ophiuchus cluster that is home to Oph 98 sits in a cloud of dust that makes it difficult to see. In this image it is pictured in X-rays by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (Chandra X-Ray Observatory)
This visibility challenge was further compounded by the fact that Oph 98 and the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster itself is embedded in a dense cloud of dust that scatters visible light. “Infrared observations are the only way to see through this dust,” the researcher adds.
In fact, the team’s discovery was only made possible by the impressive power of the Hubble Space Telescope and the fact that it makes its observations from above Earth.
Hubble Shines Through Again
The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the only telescopes capable of observing objects as faint as the Oph 98 A and B and resolving the image of the brown dwarfs at such tight angles.
“Detecting a system like Oph 98 also requires a camera with a very high resolution, as the angle separating Oph 98 A and B is a thousand times smaller than the size of the moon in the sky,” Fontanive continues.
The Hubble Space telescope’s vantage point above Earth’s atmosphere allows it to spot water vapor from brown dwarfs (ESA)
Hubble’s space-based vantage point is also crucial for the observation of such objects. This is because the infrared signatures that are used to observe brown dwarfs arise from water vapors that form in their upper atmospheres. As Earth’s atmosphere is full of water also producing this signal, the fainter trace from distant brown dwarfs is almost always obscured beyond detection for telescopes at the planet’s surface.
“Both objects looked very red and showed clear signs of water molecules. This immediately confirmed that the faint source we saw next to Oph 98 A was very likely to also be a cold brown dwarf, rather than a random star that happened to be aligned with the brown dwarf in the sky,” says Fontanive.
The team also found Oph 98 in data collected by the CFHT (pictured) 14 years ago. (CFHT)
Interestingly, the team’s findings have helped confirm the fact that the Oph 98 system has actually been spotted before. The binary was also visible in data collected by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), located atop the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, 14 years ago. This older data helped the team confirm how Oph 98 A and B move together across the galaxy as a pair.
“We observed the system again this summer from another Hawaiian observatory, the United Kingdom Infra-Red Telescope. Using these data, we were able to confirm that Oph 98 A and B are moving together across the sky over time, relative to other stars located behind them, which is evidence that they are bound to each other in a binary pair”, explains Fontanive. “We are really witnessing an incredibly rare output of stellar formation processes.”
Original Research
Fontanive. C., et al, ‘A wide planetary-mass companion to a young low-mass brown dwarf in Ophiuchus,’ The Astrophysical Journal Letters, [2020], [https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.08871]
Humans have made contact with aliens but their existence has been kept secret at the behest of a Galactic Federation of extraterrestrials. The aliens have asked not to publish that they are here, humanity is not ready yet.
In a scene reminiscent of the Eighties horror film The Thing, a huge crashed flying saucer has been seen half-buried in the Antarctic ice.
They have been waiting for humanity to evolve and reach a stage where we will generally understand what space and spaceships are. There’s an agreement between the US government and the aliens. They signed a contract with us to do experiments here. They, too, are researching and trying to understand the whole fabric of the universe, and they want us as helpers. Part of that unsettling pact, includes a secret underground base on Mars which is staffed by a team of ETs and Americans. Remarkably, President Trump was on the verge of revealing, but the aliens in the Galactic Federation, which presumably governs intelligent species in the galaxy, are saying: Wait, let people calm down first. They don’t want to start mass hysteria. They want to first make us sane and und
A former CIA operative is teaming up with the family of the first Army officer on the scene of an alleged crash of an alien spacecraft near Roswell, to search for the truth in a new three-part investigation for History’s Greatest Mysteries.
On July 8, 1947, the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) distributed a press release claiming they had recovered the remains of a “flying disc” crashed in the New Mexican desert outside of Roswell. The news made headlines, but the media’s enthusiasm was short-lived. The next day the US Army released a second statement claiming the recovered object was just a weather balloon.
The incident would have been lost to the dustbin of history had it not been for Jesse Marcel, a former intelligence officer stationed at RAAF in 1947. When a local rancher reported the debris’ discovery, Marcell was sent out to take a look and bring some of the material back to the base. He was then ordered to fly some of it to Fort Worth, Texas, for examination, where he took photos with the material.
However, in the late 70s, Marcel told UFO researchers the photos with him and the debris was staged for the press. He claimed the Army whisked the real debris away while he was ordered to aid in the cover-up of what was really found. Marcel claimed the actual crash site included extremely strong shiny material that was foil-like but returned to its original shape after it was crumpled. He also described light balsa-wood-like I-beams with strange markings.
His claims began civilian UFO investigations that led to the Roswell event becoming world-famous as an alleged alien spacecraft crash.
History’s Greatest Mysteries hosted by Laurence Fishburne is dedicating three episodes to the Roswell incident. The lead investigator is former CIA operative, Ben Smith. The Marcel family joins him. According to the family, Marcel’s son, Jesse Jr., also saw the debris. Both Marcel and his son have since passed, but the grandchildren say Roswell has always been a part of their lives.
“My dad built a huge telescope in our backyard,” Denice Marcell, Jesse Marcel’s granddaughter, tells Den of Geek. “On the weekends, when the weather permitted, we would look through that telescope, just searching the night skies. And then, afterward, we would pull out our sleeping bags and look for UFOs. I probably was eight or nine years old, and I’ve never been embarrassed about it because it’s the truth. So I can’t be embarrassed about the truth.”
“He was honest,” Denice says of her grandfather. “He was hardworking. He loved his family. I think, above all, though, I think he was just a very honest man.”
“I’ve been interested in the UFO question for some time,” former CIA operative Smith adds.
“For me, it has always been a question of national security. I’m a national security professional, and had been in the intelligence community for almost 15 years. If UFOs are out there, are they a threat to us and the human species, to the United States national security regime?”
Shows investigating Roswell are common, but Smith says for History’s Greatest Mysteries, they are employing more resources than you typically see on TV.
In the first episode, they deploy a drone to investigate geographic anomalies, metal detectors, and other advanced tools to measure the area of the alleged crash for magnetic anomalies.
So far in the series, the tech and the forensics are not providing much of interest. What the show offers that is interesting and compelling is an abundance of testimony from Roswell locals and family members of those involved in the incident. The Marcels included.
“Now grandpa always said that he never saw any bodies, but here’s the thing,” explains Denice. “He was the base intelligence officer. He could have very well maybe seen them, but that’s one thing he’s just not ever going to say because that’s part of his secrecy oath.”
Alien bodies being part of the Roswell mystery did not become a part of the event’s mythos until well after it was famous. However, Denice says there didn’t need to be aliens present for the object to be extraterrestrial.
“What if it was something that was really old,” speculates Denice. “It came from another planet, obviously, but maybe it’s been out there traveling for hundreds of years.”
She holds out hope that the smoking gun evidence for what her grandfather saw will be found, and she hopes the show will inspire others to keep an open mind.
“I think once they see [the show], that they’re going to realize that this case is definitely not closed. It actually does need to be investigated further because, at the end of the day, this material has to be out there somewhere.”
History’s Greatest Mysteries airs Saturday nights at 9 p.m. ET on History Channel.
An optical image of the Abell 3391/95 system where scientists spotted the longest filament ever observed. (Image credit: Reiprich et al., Astronomy & Astrophysics)
Extraordinarily long threads of hot gas known as intergalactic filaments connect and surround galaxies and galaxy clusters throughout the cosmos — and scientists just discovered the longest one yet.
intergalactic filaments make up a cosmic web that stretches across the observable universe. Within this structure, galaxies are arranged in a web-like pattern, connected by and surrounded by these filaments.
According to previous research, after the Big Bang jump-started our universe 13.8 billion years ago, a lot of the hydrogen gas that makes up the known matter in the universe collapsed into sheets, which broke apart further into the long, snaking filaments.
Now, scientists led by researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany have observed the longest filament ever found. The gas thread stretches an astounding 50 million light-years, and its structure aligns with predictions made by computer simulations the researchers found, according to a statement released by the University of Bonn.
"According to calculations, more than half of all baryonic matter in our universe is contained in these filaments — this is the form of matter of which stars and planets are composed, as are we ourselves," study lead author Thomas Reiprich, a professor at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy at the University of Bonn, said in the same statement.
Because the filaments stretch so far, the particles that make them up are very spread out, making them extremely difficult to spot. However, Reiprich and his colleagues were able to make the gas completely visible for the first time, by using the eROSITA space telescope, an X-ray telescope built by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, according to the statement.
"eROSITA has very sensitive detectors for the type of X-ray radiation that emanates from the gas in filaments," Reiprich said about the observations. "It also has a large field of view — like a wide-angle lens, it captures a relatively large part of the sky in a single measurement, and at a very high resolution." These aspects of the space telescope allow researchers to take detailed images of enormous objects like the filaments, and do so relatively quickly.
On the right is the eROSITA image, with a computer simulation for comparison on the left. (Image credit: Reiprich et al., Space Science Reviews, 177, 195; right)
The team studied Abell 3391/95 — a system of three galaxy clusters 700 million light-years from Earth. The images taken using eROSITA show the clusters and individual galaxies speckling the system, but, perhaps even more amazingly, they show the tendrils that connect the galaxies and clusters, with the entire filament stretching 50 million light-years.
However, while this is the longest filament ever observed, the researchers think that it could be even longer than the section seen in the images, according to the statement.
"We compared our observations with the results of a simulation that reconstructs the evolution of the universe," Reiprich said. "The eROSITA images are strikingly similar to computer-generated graphics. This suggests that the widely accepted standard model for the evolution of the universe is correct."
This work was described in a study accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd.
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A new study from researchers at Rutgers University suggests that the best place to look for evidence of life on Mars is deep underground, where geothermal heat melted subsurface ice.
Cutaway illustration depicting subsurface lakes on Mars. Research suggests these underground lakes, or aquifers – formed by melting ice deep below the surface – would have been the best places for life to exist on a planet as cold as Mars. They might also help explain conflicting scenarios of a warm, wet early Mars versus the colder Mars we see today.
If there was ever life on Mars, where would it be? What would be the best place to look for evidence of Martian life, whether that’s ancient fossilized life or still-living microbes? As many scientists have suggested, the answer may be underground, where conditions are warmer and may be wetter. Now, a new study – announced by Rutgers University in New Jersey on December 2, 2020 – expands on that idea. It suggests the region most likely to hold such evidence is several miles below Mars’ surface, where geothermal heat (geothermal energy) could have melted subsurface ice sheets.
In explaining extensive evidence for past liquid water, the debate on whether Mars was primarily warm and wet or cold and arid 4 billion years (Ga) ago has continued for decades. The sun’s luminosity was ~30% lower 4 Ga ago; thus, most Martian climate models struggle to elevate the mean surface temperature past the melting point of water. Basal melting of ice sheets may help resolve that paradox. We modeled the thermophysical evolution of ice and estimate the geothermal heat flux required to produce meltwater on a cold, arid Mars.
We then analyzedgeophysical and geochemical data, showing that basal melting would have been feasible on Mars 4 Ga ago. If Mars were warm and wet 4 Ga ago, then the geothermal flux would have even sustained hydrothermal activity. Regardless of the actual nature of the ancient Martian climate, the subsurface would have been the most habitable region on Mars.
Was early Mars always cold, with most of its water underground (left) or was it once warm and wet? The conflicting evidence for both still has not been resolved, but the new study may help to finally answer this long-standing question.
The findings have direct implications for the possibility of life on Mars, past or present, and may also help scientists finally reconcile the two opposing scenarios of early Mars, whether it was warm and wet or colder and drier (or something in-between). As lead author Lujendra Ojha at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, stated:
Even if greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and water vapor are pumped into the early Martian atmosphere in computer simulations, climate models still struggle to support a long-term warm and wet Mars. I and my co-authors propose that the faint young sun paradox may be reconciled, at least partly, if Mars had high geothermal heat in its past.
We know Mars was much wetter in the past, with lakes and rivers, and maybe even an ocean. But most climate models still suggest the planet was colder and drier than that. If Mars had enough heat underground, that could help explain the paradox, even if the planet was cold on the surface due to a fainter sun at the time, about 4 billion years ago.
Current evidence suggests that Mars had abundant liquid water on its surface 4.1 billion to 3.7 billion years ago (the Noachian era). In this new scenario, water could have been produced by melting ice below the surface, due to radioactive decay. Elements like uranium, thorium, and potassium are known to do that on rocky planets, including Earth. Even if the surface was colder, there could still have been enough heat deep below to melt the ice.
Lujendra Ojha at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, lead author of the new study.
This process would likely have been similar to subglacial lakes in areas of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Canadian Arctic, and Greenland. Lake Vostok in Antarctica is a good example of one of these lakes. Drilling expeditions by Russian scientists in the dark subsurface lake have found microscopic life in the ice layers close to the liquid water. Further analysis has shown that Lake Vostok contains a diverse set of microbes, as well as some multicellular organisms.
So, could such heating have actually been possible during the Noachian era on Mars? The researchers say yes, saying that the conditions needed would have been ubiquitous.
After Mars lost its magnetic field and most of its atmosphere, it would have become impossible for liquid water to remain on the surface. But it could easily have persisted below the surface, at increasingly greater depths. Ojha said:
At such depths, life could have been sustained by hydrothermal (heating) activity and rock-water reactions. So, the subsurface may represent the longest-lived habitable environment on Mars.
If microbes ever existed on Mars on the surface or in the near-surface, they likely would have retreated deeper underground where liquid water was still available. It makes sense, then, that any traces of that life might be far below the surface, where they are protected from the harsh ultraviolet radiation of the sun.
The possibility of life in underground niches where water was or is available takes on extra significance with the discovery of what appear to be subsurface lakes on Mars right now. The first one was discovered by the Mars Express orbiter in 2018, beneath the south polar cap, with three more reported near it last October. These lakes, similar to ones in polar regions on Earth, are cold and probably very salty, but could still potentially support some kinds of microorganisms. The finding of any liquid water on Mars today is exciting in terms of possible life, since the surface is now so inhospitable.
Radar image from Mars Express in 2018 showing the first detected largest lake beneath the south polar ice. Similar subsurface lakes, created by melting ice, would have been the best places for Martian life to exist, according to the new study.
Image via ESA/ NASA/ JPL/ ASI/ Univ. Rome/ R. Orosei et al. 2018.
The lakes beneath the south polar cap are probably kept liquid by salts, since there is little or no geothermal heat in this location. But could could there be others, perhaps in locations near volcanoes where there could still be some latent heat left over from when the planet was highly geologically active? And indeed, there is also now evidence for some volcanic activity still occurring below the Martian surface.
If any of these lakes are not too salty, they might be ideal habitats for microbes, just as the Rutgers researchers have hypothesized. Being able to sample them, however, is still far off in the future, unfortunately. But in the search for life, they might just be where future explorers strike biological gold.
Bottom line: A new study suggests that the best place to look for evidence of life on Mars is miles underground, where geothermal heat melted subsurface ice.
Most Unidentified Flying Objects aren’t actually unidentified. Here’s a list of phenomena, either natural or human-made, that people often mistake for UFOs.
An experimental rocket test over Norway in 2009, which triggered many UFO reports. Read more about this photo.
If an alien spaceship were to appear in Earth’s sky, it’s likely it’d be seen first by those who spend a lot of time gazing upwards: astronomers. But professional and amateur astronomers don’t usually observe any Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). Because they know what sorts of objects appear in both the daytime and nighttime sky, they’re able to identify most sightings fairly quickly, no matter how strange they may appear. On the other hand, members of the general public do report UFOs. During the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, for example, there’s been anincrease in perceived UFO sightings in many countries. Many have been attributed to most people’s relative inexperience with interpreting cell phone camera shots. Lens flares– internal reflections within the camera – are often the culprit. In 2020, the bump-up in UFO reports is also an indication that people have had more time to observe the sky. That’s a trend we hope continues.
1. Rocket launches.On the morning of September 2, 2015, many people in Miami, Florida, looked up to catch a glimpse of the strange moving light seen above. Some labeled it as a UFO when posting photos to Twitter or Facebook, but others knew it was an Atlas V rocket launched from Cape Canaveral.
Some observers have seen a slow-moving object displaying a strange single or double trail, which may even change its appearance over the moments you observe it. This can occur if an observer is fortunate enough to see a spacecraft just after being launched; you may be seeing one rocket stage separating from another, or the ignition of a new stage.
Take a look at the video below. This is a SpaceEx Falcon 9 launch in December 2017 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, as seen from Los Angeles, California.
2. Used rocket bodies
tumbling objects orbiting our planet – also produce flashes in our night sky. After launching a satellite, most rocket bodies continue to orbit Earth for weeks, months or even years. As a rocket body tumbles in orbit, it may be visible as a dim moving “star” that might produce bright flashes as various sides of the tumbling object are exposed to sunlight.
An interesting sighting of this kind is a flash that appears to come from a static point in the sky. How is this possible? Geosynchronous satellites need to be placed in a very high orbit, some 22,200 miles (35,727 km) above Earth’s surface. After the launch of this sort of satellite, the rocket body that carried the satellite to orbit will also remain orbiting our planet. Instead of having a circular orbit it will have a highly elliptical (elongated) orbit. It might produce some peculiar flashes, which might be visible from Earth. How does it happen? Depending on the location and perspective of the observer, the erratic flashes of the rocket body from a geosynchronous satellite might appear to originate from an apparent static place in the sky. This rare occurrence is possible if the reflecting rocket body is more or less moving towards, or more or less departing, Earth as it pursues its stretched-out (elliptical) orbit. This is the same principle that occurs when a distant airplane appears to be static as it moves towards you. To the unaided eye, the subsequent flashes may give the impression that they are originating from the same area of the sky. If you are fortunate enough to witness this kind of flash in the sky, grab your binoculars! Magnification may confirm that the object is indeed moving slightly instead of remaining static.
An apparent static bright dot that was visible in daylight, was later confirmed to be a globe. A view using a telescope revealed it was this balloon from Google’s Project Loon.
Image via Eddie Irizarry.
3. Atmospheric balloons
Some observers reporting UFOs describe:
… an apparent planet or stationary bright object seen in broad daylight.
Large, round objects in the sky can be strange-looking. They may not appear to be moving. Different types of balloons and globes are being launched by various groups trying to do various things – for example, study Earth’s weather or atmosphere – and although these objects are slowly drifting on the wind, their distance from an observer might cause them to appear stationary in the sky. An example is Google’s Loon program. Loon has launched a network of globes to test internet coverage with the goal of providing access to remote areas. They can gain an altitude of 60,000 feet (18,300 meters) or twice as high as commercial aircraft. Those balloons are reflective, and they appear bright in the sky. They can cause reports of UFO sightings.
Vince Babkirk captured this flare from an iridium satellite on July 22, 2016. He wrote: “There were lots of fast moving clouds tonight, but the Iridium 59 satellite was supposed to appear … [the clouds] parted just in time for me to capture the flare.” Read more about iridium flare satellites.
4. Earth-orbiting satellites.
Satellites are easily visible to the unaided eye one or two hours before sunrise and after sunset. We see them then because their high-altitude orbits let them receive and reflect sunlight, even if it is dark at the observer’s site. Satellites generally appear as slow-moving “stars” that may disappear as they pass into Earth’s shadow. Some satellites, including the Hubble Space Telescope, sometimes reflect sunlight in an optimum way for a brief time, causing a bright flash or flare. Iridium satellites, which provide cellular communications to remote areas, formerly had reflective antennas that produced very intense flashes as bright as -8 magnitude! That’s much brighter than the brightest planet, Venus. It’s bright that it appeared as a huge spotlight from up there for one or two seconds. Newer Iridium satellites do not have this property.
Satellites traveling in groups have also been known to cause a stir, and we can likely expect an increase in reports when the Starlink satellite network becomes even more noticeable. Below is a video of a train of them passing by, captured by Marco Langbroek in the Netherlands in 2019:
Especially when they’re seen in the west around sunset, jet contrails can look like falling objects.
Contrails are often confused with “slow-moving meteors” or “unannounced comets,” or other sorts of strange UFOs (in this case, often unidentified falling objects) by casual observers. These vapor or condensation trails are produced by high-altitude aircraft. They look impressive, especially when visible in the west around sunset. A contrail being illuminated by the setting sun may appear as a slow falling, burning, meteor-like object from the sky. Of course, it’s not falling or burning at all. It’s just jet exhaust released into the atmosphere. Still, its distance from an observer can cause it to look slow-moving. Just know that these are not UFOs; they’re ordinary jets. They’re also not comets, by the way, which are detected and announced well in advance, usually many weeks or months before they become visible to the unaided eye (if they ever do). Comets are visible for many days or weeks, not for a few minutes. So, do not confuse contrails with comets … or any falling spacecraft.
Chinese lanterns.
These sky lanterns or small hot air balloons are made of translucent paper and may look very curious from distance. People launch those colored lanterns at festivals, parties and other activities. Observers see a slow moving light high in the sky, and as soon as the small candle or the waxy cell is spent, the bright colored light that was seen in the sky “disappears.” Its bright light can be visible for several minutes in the sky. When a group of lanterns is launched, wind can send them at slightly different heights and directions, but a trio of Chinese lanterns is enough to cause reports of a formation of UFOs!
Smoke trail from a bright fireball whose sightings were centered on Arizona on June 2, 2016. Later, a team from Arizona State University found the meteorite from this event.
A meteor – or piece of debris from space – might leave a strange-looking trail as seen in the photo above. Or a bright meteor that happens to be moving toward you might appear as a short, bright light, which then disappears.
Some meteors – called fireballs – can be so bright that they can light up the night sky in such a way that can briefly turn the night into day. They’re actually pretty common, if you consider Earth as a whole. View the fireball logs from the American Meteor Society.
Why stars twinkle fiercely – sometimes even appearing to move around in the sky – when you see them near the horizon.
Atmospheric turbulence or different temperature layers in the atmosphere can make a bright star, especially a star low on the horizon, to show an erratic movement. Experienced observers see this frequently. It’s merely an effect of Earth’s atmosphere and is gradually reduced or eliminated as the star gets higher in the sky, and as the light from the star passes through less of Earth’s atmosphere (see the diagram above).
An erratically moving object – a great candidate for being considered a UFO – typically turns out to be a bright star seen low in the sky.
Which brings us to what is perhaps the all-time most reported UFO …
Photo taken October 2, 2015 by Mohamed Laaifat
Photographies in Normandy, France.
7. Planet Venus.
Venus is the brightest planet, and the third-brightest object in Earth’s sky after the sun and moon. If and when you see Venus, it’ll always be bright, much brighter than any other starlike object in the sky. And there are special times in the orbits of Venus and Earth around the sun when Venus looks even brighter than usual. These times of greatest brilliancy for Venus occur when the planet is about to pass between us and the sun, and, at such times, Venus typically looms low in our sky and shines with an eerie brilliant light. UFO reports always increase around then!
There are likely other objects that can be added to this list. If you know of any, tell us in the comments below.
Just know that – while some UFO sightings may be temporarily or indefinitely unexplained – most can be explained.
And don’t get too excited or scared if you ever see some rare or strange object in the sky; there’s no better way to investigate quickly than taking a closer look with optical aid. Keep a pair of binoculars handy! There are also excellent websites such as Heavens-Above to check celestial happenings and local satellites passing by.
Bottom line: A reference list of he most common natural and human-made phenomena in the sky that people frequently mistake for UFOs.
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Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
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