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...
29-12-2020
The Air Force’s Secret New Fighter Jet Will Come With an R2-D2
The Air Force’s Secret New Fighter Jet Will Come With an R2-D2
Not a trashcan-shaped droid, but something much cooler.
The AI could take over key tasks, flying and fighting the plane, to prevent the human pilot from being overwhelmed.
The U.S. Air Force's secret new fighter jet, which it designed, built, and tested in just one year, will feature some kind of artificial intelligence copilot—a trusted computer algorithm that human pilots can rely on to assume critical tasks in the air.
That's according to Will Roper, the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, who in September shocked the world when he revealed the surprise existence of the service's new, mysterious Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter.
The Air Force has been incredibly tight-lipped about the sixth-generation fighter, only confirming it exists, and it’s flying ... somewhere. But a few clues about NGAD have trickled out since the initial announcement, such as which defense contractor likely built the plane. And now, Roper has revealed (via Breaking Defense) that the NGAD will have an "AI-assisted copilot, maybe even ARTUµ.”
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In that groundbreaking experiment, the “crew” took part in an exercise centered around a simulated missile attack. The U-2 was assigned to locate enemy missile launchers on the ground. The human pilot kept a lookout for enemy aircraft, while the AI took over tactical navigation and sensors to search for the launch vehicles.
A U-2 spy plane equipped with the ARTUµ artificial intelligence takes off from Beale Air Force Base, California, on December 15, 2020.
A1C LUIS A.RUIZ-VAZQUEZ
Modern aerial warfare—even the act of flying the airplane—is growing increasingly complicated. Pilots must master interfaces, procedures, and individual sensors and weapon systems.
In addition to monitoring traditional things like altitude, speed, fuel state, and other factors in flight, a fifth-generation fighter pilot must also keep a watchful eye on a host of sensors, from the human eyeball to infrared sensors, threat warning systems, and radar. Once combat commences, flying becomes exponentially more complicated, as pilots must account for enemy air and surface-to-air capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses—while still flying the plane.
An AI-assisted copilot could take on relatively simple tasks, such as communications, monitoring for threats, network security, and navigation. ARTUµ, which took over and tied together a U-2’s navigation and sensors to search for missile launchers, is seemingly on the more advanced end of the AI cockpit buddy spectrum.
THE AIR FORCE'S NEW FIGHTER: EVERYTHING WE KNOW SO FAR
Meanwhile, a human pilot could concentrate on tasks reserved for humans, such as flying the plane, authorizing weapons releases, approving changes to flight plans, and communicating with other humans at home base, in the air, and on the ground. The AI could even free the pilot to use the most important tool available to the human mind—an imagination—to look at a developing situation and turn it to his or her advantage.
Roper revealed his plans to a recent Defense Writer’s Group meeting, via Breaking Defense:
“What I expect will happen in the pilot, copilot role—the Luke Skywalker, R2-D2 role—is that pilots will gain an instinct, just like they have an instinct for stealth today, about when their AI crew pilot is performing well, or could perform well, and will turn over more of the reins to it. And [the pilot] will have a similar instinct of when it won’t be performing well, and will pull the reins back to the human.”
This research adds the dimension of relative age to an ongoing discussion about alien life.
In a new study, researchers suggest the answer to the Fermi paradox could be pretty bleak: Maybe all the intelligent civilizations have annihilated themselves. Jeez, 2020, that’s a little on the nose.
You love searching for the truth. So do we. Let's find it together.
This is the Fermi paradox stated at its most succinct: The universe is unfathomably gigantic, but so far, we’ve never seen any sign that there’s intelligent life anywhere else.
We’ve never observed an extraterrestrial living thing, or uncovered any evidence for extinct ones. As we peer further out into our corner of the universe using more and more powerful telescopes, for example, people continue to hold out hope that we’ll find evidence of a civilization, Dyson sphere, or anything just around the next corner.
But there’s a problem with that line of thinking. A civilization that we’d see from this far away, let alone one that could have built something like a Dyson sphere, is likely to be peering back at us.
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Why aren’t they sending telescope satellites through our part of space? And how can it be that out of all the planets and systems we’ve peeked into so far, we’ve seen nothing?
There are as many individual theories as there are theorists, and these run a huge gamut.
“The existence of extraterrestrial intelligence is directly related to habitability and a galactic habitable zone (GHZ); where habitable planets are located and where potential life are most likely to form,” the new study's researchers (three Caltech physicists and one high school student), write:
“Overall, previous studies of habitability and the likelihood of intelligent life have provided many valuable insights; however, the precise propensity of galactic intelligent life to emerge has not yet been explored with spatial and temporal analysis, nor has any research explicitly estimated an age distribution for potential life within the Galaxy.”
Is it because they are getting their cues from the ETs themselves to keep us “in the dark” until we are ready?
Or maybe there are just a few powerful individuals who are profiting from keeping the public naive about the existence of aliens?
These are just a small sample of the questions I see coming across this channel’s desk and yes, people are frustrated.
The world is in a mess economically and spiritually. It’s become individualistic. We’re about to leave 2020 and head into 2021.
Wouldn’t an alien disclosure bring us together?
The Alien Coverup – Why Don’t They Want Us To Know?
I posed the question of “what would the world look like post disclosure” to Linda Moulton Howe.
Moulton Howe has no peers as a ufo researcher and her Earthfiles program continues to be one of the most watched ufo shows on YouTube.
And as always, she delivered more than just a stock standard answer.
In fact, during her response, Moulton Howe revealed some startling information she received more than twenty years ago from someone within the D.I.A. (Defense Intelligence Agency).
What Proof Does The Government Have That Aliens Are Real?
Moulton Howe immediately asked for proof but the response she got should send chills up everyone’s spine.
While most of us believe an alien coverup is going on and want to know the truth, maybe knowing the truth would not bode well for our health going forward.
“Earth has been used as a laboratory. That’s what a D.I.A. guy told me in December of 1999”.
“He said, ‘Linda, our government has proof’.”
“Three competing extraterrestrial civilizations have been mixing and matching genes and terraforming this planet as a laboratory”.
“That’s on a planet made up of two-thirds deep water for at least 270 million years”.
“And when I said, ‘sir, what is the proof’?”
“He said, ‘Linda, I’m sorry, that is too dangerous for me to tell. For me and for you’.”
“And to me, that’s intriguing”.
“What would be so dangerous about knowing the absolute fundamental proof of three competing extraterrestrial civilizations on our planet for at least 270 million years?”
“It goes back before the time of the dinosaurs. He told me, ‘we know for a fact the dinosaurs were an eighty five million year old experiment by the Ebens, the ones with the pear-shaped heads and grey skin. But they are not the only ones”.
“Well, why would they have an eighty five million year old experiment with dinosaurs on this planet if there are two other competing civilizations?”
Is There A Term Limit On An Alien Coverup?
So does this alien coverup have a term limit?
Is there a date in the future when either the ETs themselves, the government or both as a team come out and announce the truth about aliens?
I’m not sure. In fact, I’m not sure I want to know. Especially if knowing is going to affect the length of time one spends on this planet.
While we continue to hypothesize what the real truth is, and that’s that ufos and aliens are real, the vague signals we receive from behind the coverup curtain will continue to intrigue us.
Most times, the thrill is in the journey. It’s the mystery and conspiracy that creates intrigue among ufo believers.
I’m not sure what percentage it is, but a section of the crowd involved with ufo groups online are there because of the mystery and conspiracy.
But there is also truth in the fact that an alien coverup has hurt people.
The following is an excerpt from my interview with Moulton Howe during the Aliens Revealed Live Online Summit.
She talks about a post disclosure world. She also talks about the startling D.I.A. revelation, the political chaos around the world and will we still be putting up with the alien lie by 2100.
The following case file was written by BJ Booth of UFO Casebook, and is used here with permission. It can not be reproduced without prior permission.
Summary
On April 25, 1977 in Pampa Lluscuma (near Putre), Chile a soldier was in shock after a strange, five-day saga with a UFO. Six members of an army patrol saw two bright objects descending from the sky.
Cpl. Armando Valdes, the patrol leader, set out alone to investigate and, according to the men, simply vanished. Fifteen minutes later, they said, he reappeared, tried to speak and passed out.
The date on his watch had been advanced five days, and he now had about a week’s growth of beard.
Incident: “You don’t know who we are or where we come from but we will be back soon.” These are the strange words uttered by Corporal Armando Valdes, leader of a Chilean military patrol. Just some 15 minutes previously he had been subjected to a mysterious UFO encounter at Pampa Lluscuma near Putre in Chile.
The date was April 25, 1977, and the time about 4:00 AM. Putre is 50 air miles ENE of Arica, a larger city in Chile.
Corporal Valdes was in charge of a patrol on routine assignment near Putre in the early morning hours of April 25, 1977. He and his six-man patrol were sitting around a campfire alongside a wall of stones and mud at the secret army post of Pampa Lluscuma.
They were talking and singing quite a while to stay awake.
Two of the men kept watch several feet away. About four in the morning one of the men. Private Rosales, ran back to Valdes to report that two bright violet lights had landed, one of which was in sight and illuminated the whole area. The light approached closer.
Valdes ordered his men to cover up their fire with blankets. The violet light with a red spot at each end withdrew and then returned closer. The patrol was terrified.
There was no sound with the UFO motion. The Chilean high plateau was amazingly silent. Corporal Valdes stated “after praying to God and ordering the light to leave . . . after demanding that it identify itself, I moved a few meters away from my men.”
The corporal moved toward the object. He disappeared for some 15 minutes. When he reappeared, he was shaking and his voice seemed different. The light had been illuminating the whole area.
As Corporal Valdes reappeared he was heard to utter the words at the beginning of this article.
He then became unconscious and was attended by his fellow men till he awoke some two hours later. The UFO also disappeared about this time.
While the unconscious Corporal Valdes was assisted by his patrol, his men made another strange observation. They saw that Valdes had a beard growth equivalent to several days without shaving. He had been well shaven before the incident. As Valdes awoke he exclaimed, “I don’t remember anything from the moment I left you.”
He then ordered, “Get ready to leave because it’s 4:30 in the morning. It was actually about 7 AM. His calendar watch had stopped at 4:30 but the date was five days advanced – to the 30th instead of the 25th.
These are the bizarre circumstances in the case. Many of the details were related some two hours after the incident to Pedro Araneda, a correspondent and lecturer. The presence of UFOs are not a surprise to Corporal Valdes. He, as well as others in the interior of Chile near Arica, often see luminous UFOs moving about the skies.
Valdes states, “The surprising thing was the way it approached us. As soldiers we are trained to deal with any situation. But this phenomenon didn’t seem to have any logical explanation. I would like to regain my memory of those fifteen minutes. I would even like to submit to hypnosis to draw out information about what happened.”
President and Commander in Chief Augusto Pinochet of Chile has prohibited further interviews with the soldiers. Medical, psychiatric and eventually hypnotic tests are planned for member of the patrol to confirm their stories.
Meanwhile more sightings have occurred at Arica, Punta Arenas, Santiago, and other locations up and down the 2700 mile length of Chile. NASA and the University of Chile jointly operate a space tracking station north of Santiago, Chile. Officials of the station could offer nothing to elucidate the facts in this case.
The time fact in this particular case – increased beard growth and accelerated clock time – are elements which make this case exceptional and worthy of further consideration.
APRO, July, 1977
Chile: Controversy Over an Intriguing UFO Case
The Valdés Case – the most paradigmatic episode of Chilean ufology – has been revisited in “La noche de los centinelas” (The Night of the Sentries), an 8-year -long journalistic investigation that looks into background events, locates the protagonists and “uncovers more than one surprise”, according to the author.
It occurred one early morning on April 1977 near Putre, in the Chilean highlands.
Eight young soldiers were keeping watch around a fire when they were startled by the appearance of two ghostly lights of unknown origin in the vicinity of some nearby hills.
One of them disappeared behind a small hill while the other placed itself at the foot of a mountain, flying over the area and engaging in approach-and-retreat maneuvers before the eyes of the disconcerted soldiers.
After three minutes of terror, corporal Armando Valdés, in charge of the squad, walked away from his companions toward the light. The young conscripts watched him vanish from sight for 15 minutes, during which their calls for him and their search yielded no result.
At a given moment, they heard the subofficer’s voice pleading for help, and they saw him walking toward them unsteadily. He had a dense growth of beard despite having been clean-shaven just minutes earlier, and the calendar on his digital watch was five days fast.
The startled conscripts settled him near the fire. And that was when he said, in a strange voice:” “You will never know who we are, nor where we come from, but we will return again.” He then fell asleep.
The case became a journalistic sensation and achieved global notoriety. But within days, its protagonists slipped into obscurity and Corporal Valdés became a legend.
Twenty-five years later, journalist and researcher Patricio Abuselme took up the challenge of reinvestigating the case and interview its main protagonists, an effort which is summarized in his book La noche de los sentinelas, an in-depth journalistic investigation on the incident, which he published in late 2010 under his own publishing house
Terra Incognita.
“This is the case that made Chilean ufology known worldwide. However, no one bothered to conduct a serious, in-depth investigation of the case. I took up the challenge in 2002, and it took me eight years to compile the protagonists’ accounts and reassemble this “impossible story,” says the author.
In less than 300 pages, Abusleme provides a comprehensive view of the case, from the first journalistic dispatches reporting the incident to exclusive interviews with the main protagonists, including subofficer Valdés (Ret.) – unpublished details and conclusions that the author has described as preliminary.
“When I started this investigation, I did so in the secret hope of explaining the whole case in conventional terms. And I thought I was well on the way until the main protagonist of the story debunked the cases most controversial aspects – the growth of his beard and the wristwatch’s date change – by providing conventional explanations.
The problem is that when I tried to corroborate it with the other witnesses, they provided a version that was mutually congruent, but at odds with the one offered by Valdés. For this reason, the book poses a controversy,” says Abusleme.
“If someone is looking for a story of mystics in direct contact with Martians, he or she won’t find it here. What they will find is information, information and more information. The outcome of a detailed journalistic investigation that enables the reconstruction of an intriguing real case that captured headlines over 30 years ago.”
CORPORAL VALDES CONFESSES: “TRULY, I WASN’T ABDUCTED”
TEMUCO, September 26, 2003 – In an exclusive interview with Terra.cl, legendary corporal Armando Valdes claimed that from the start he knew ha had not been abducted. From his home in Temuco, he stated that his story had been misinterpreted, “although the matter of the beard and the wristwatch was true.”
He likewise spoke about his current project: a book that should appear by year’s end in which he retells his version of the events which transpired on April 25, 1977 in Chile’s First Region.
Terra: Recently, you have been engaged in discreet research into your experience. Is this true?
AV: Yes, in fact I’ve been fully involved in developing my book and furthermore, looking into my experience, since I wish to be as factual as possible in my story.
Terra: As a result of this research, have you returned to the scene of the events?
AV: Yes, I went back in November 2002–25 years later… Pampa Lluscuma and the remains of the horse stables where the events occurred. There, in the company of researcher and journalist Patricio Abusleme, we recreated the events and made a series of measurements, gathering very significant background information.
Terra: How did you feel about going back?
AV: As you can imagine, it was shocking. It was the first time I went back after two decades. It was a motivating experience which allowed me, first and foremost, to confirm or recall certain details which were lost with the passing of time.
Terra: While much was said about the “abduction” of Corporal Valdés, there was none. What’s your version?
AV: Truly, I wasn’t abducted. This is the reason for sensitive nature of what I’m putting forth in the book. Some important background details are being released.
Terra: Did you think at any time that you had been abducted or did you always know this wasn’t the case?
AV: Look, it’s really complicated to explain all of a sudden. That’s the reason behind my trip to Putre, my scientific studies and the book I’m writing, because it’s all very complicated.
Terra: But did you think at first that you’d been abducted?
AV: I would say that I knew immediately how things had happened. What I’m explaining in my book [is making known]the reasons for which certain items went off on another track.
Terra: In other words, your initial story was misconstrued?
AV: Indeed. I didn’t think at first that I’d been abducted, although the matter of the growth of beard is true, as well as the subject of my wristwatch. But for this reason I have taken to writing the book to explain the reasons behind all of these things.
Terra: Lately you have been silent in the media. Why is this?
AV: What’s happening is that I’m engrossed in finishing my book. I wanted to work in silence until the task was done.
Terra: When can we expect the book to be published?
AV: In the book itself I say that it’s been a serious mistake to promise dates. Many special situations have occurred–some very strange things–but I’m making an effort to finish it by the end of the year. I’m giving it my all, since I’d like to finish it as soon as possible.
Terra: Any options to publish the book abroad?
AV: Yes, there have been offers from abroad, but I don’t want to entertain them until the book is finished. My greatest desire is for everyone to read it, since I have a message for all humankind in it. Therefore its publication in Chile or elsewhere is unimportant. We will decide where to publish it at some point.
Terra: I understand that you are a [born again]Christian and an evangelical. Is this true?
AV: Yes, I am, and a teacher of the evangelical faith.
Terra: How have your religious surroundings influenced your story? Or rather, how has your story been received?
AV: My story and explanations have been accepted to a certain extent, and I have told them certain things and in a certain manner. There are many who hold points of view different from my own and I don’t have to deny that there are contradictions. But as I said, the story is mine and they have not influenced me at all regarding my book. In fact, there are those who may agree or not agree with my book tomorrow, and will not stop what I’m doing.
Terra: Would you say that the experience you underwent in Pampa Lluscuma was more of a spiritual than a ufological event?
AV: There are mixed items. The term UFO today is contaminated by another type of thing, and I prefer to speak in terms of FANI (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena). I think that in my experience there is a bit of everything–a good measure of paranormal phenomena, strange effects, lights, many things acting in unison and this is what I am showing in my book, although it’s been hard for me to convey on paper what I felt, what I experienced and what really happened.
Terra: Finally, are you in touch with those who also took part in the unusual event and who formed part of your patrol?
AV: Yes, over the phone more than anything. For some reason we haven’t been able to have a closer relationship, but we are in touch by phone and I must say that we currently have disagreements over the events that occurred. Some are telling another story. – Terra Networks Chile S.A
VLBA image of the blazar PSO J0309+27, 12.8 billion light-years from Earth. Credit: Spingola et al.; Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF.
National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA)’s supersharp radio ‘vision’ revealed previously unseen jet details. The jet is emitting from a galaxy that lies almost 12.8 billion light-years from Earth.
Discovered in 2019, PSO J0309+27 is located some 12.8 billion light-years away from Earth. The galaxy, dubbed PSO J0309+27, is a blazar, with its jet pointed toward Earth.
PSO J0309+27 is an active galactic nucleus or a galaxy whose central nucleus is exceptionally bright due to the presence, in its center, of a supermassive black hole fed by the gas and the stars it engulfs. Moreover, the PSO J0309+27 is the most powerful persistent radio source in the primordial Universe, within the first billion years since its formation.
It is the brightest radio-emitting blazar yet seen at such a distance. It also is the second-brightest X-ray emitting blazar at such a distance.
Scientists noted, “In this image, the brightest radio emission comes from the galaxy’s core, at the bottom right. The jet is propelled by the gravitational energy of a supermassive black hole at the core and moves outward toward the upper left. The jet seen here extends some 1,600 light-years and shows structure within it.”
An active galactic nucleus has a disk of material surrounding the central supermassive black hole. If the AGN is also ejecting jets and the jets happen to point toward us, it’s considered a blazar.
Sophia Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF
This image of Centaurus A, an active galactic nucleus ejecting material from its center, combines X-ray, microwave, and visible light images.
ESO/WFI (visible); MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al. (microwave); NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray)
Journal Reference:
C. Spingola et al., Parsec-scale properties of the radio brightest jetted AGN at z > 6, Astronomy & Astrophysics (2020). DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202039458
The Cost of Visiting Earth May Be Too Astronomical For Aliens
MATT WILLIAMS, UNIVERSE TODAY
In 1950, Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi sat down to lunch with some of his colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he had worked five years prior as part of the Manhattan Project.
According to various accounts, the conversation turned to aliens and the recent spate of UFOs. Into this, Fermi issued a statement that would go down in the annals of history: "Where is everybody?"
This became the basis of the Fermi Paradox, which refers to the disparity between high probability estimates for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) and the apparent lack of evidence.
Since Fermi's time, there have been several proposed resolutions to his question, which includes the very real possibility that interstellar colonization follows the basic rule of Percolation Theory.
One of the key assumptions behind the Fermi Paradox is that given the abundance of planets and the age of the Universe, an advanced exo-civilization should have colonized a significant portion of our galaxy by now.
This is certainly not without merit, considering that within the Milky Way galaxy alone (which is over 13.5 billion years old), there are an estimated 100 to 400 billion stars.
Another key assumption is that intelligent species will be motivated to colonize other star systems as part of some natural drive to explore and extend the reach of their civilization.
Last, but certainly not least, it assumes that interstellar space travel would be feasible and even practical for an advanced exo-civilization.
But this, in turn, comes down to the assumption that technological advances will provide solutions to the single-greatest challenge of interstellar travel.
In short, the amount of energy it would take for a spacecraft to travel from one star to another is prohibitively large, especially where large, crewed spacecraft would be concerned.
This theory essentially states that the speed of light (in addition to being constant) is an absolute limit beyond which objects cannot travel.
This is summarized by the famous equation, E=mc2, which is otherwise known as the "mass-energy equivalence." Put simply, this formula describes the energy (E) of a particle in its rest frame as the product of mass (m) with the speed of light squared (c2) – approx. 300,000 km/s; 186,000 mi/s. A consequence of this is that as an object approaches the speed of light, its mass invariably increases.
Therefore, for an object to reach the speed of light, an infinite amount of energy would have to be expended accelerating it. Once c was achieved, the mass of the object would also become infinite.
In short, achieving the speed of light is impossible, never mind exceeding it. So barring some tremendous revolution in our understanding of physics, a Faster-Than-Light (FTL) propulsion system can never exist.
Such is the consequence of living in a relativistic Universe, where traveling at even a fraction of the speed of light requires tremendous amounts of energy.
And while some very interesting and innovative ideas have been produced over the years by physicists and engineers who want to see interstellar travel become a reality, none of the crewed concepts are what you might call "cost-effective."
A Matter of Principle
This raises a very important philosophical question that is related to the Fermi Paradox and the existence of ETIs. This is none other than the Copernican Principle, named in honor of famed astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.
To break it down, this principle is an extension of Copernicus' argument about the Earth, how it was not in a unique and privileged position to view the Universe.
Extended to the cosmological realm, the principle basically asserts that when considering the possibility of intelligent life, one should not assume that Earth (or humanity) is unique.
Similarly, this principle holds that the Universe as we see it today is representative of the norm – aka, that it is in a state of equilibrium.
The opposing view that humanity is in a unique and privileged position to observe the Universe is what is known as the Anthropic Principle.
In a nutshell, this principle states that the very act of observing the Universe for signs of life and intelligence requires that the laws that govern it be conducive to life and intelligence.
If we accept the Copernican Principle as a guiding principle, we are forced to concede that any intelligent species would face the same challenges with interstellar flight as we do.
And since we do not foresee a way around these, barring major a breakthrough in our understanding of physics, perhaps no other species has found one either.
Could this be the reason for the "Great Silence"?
Origin
The notion that distance and time may be a factor (in relation to the Fermi Paradox) has received quite a bit of consideration over time.
Carl Sagan and William I. Newman suggested in their 1981 study, "Galactic civilizations: Population dynamics and interstellar diffusion," that signals and probes by ETIs may simply not have reached Earth yet. This was met with criticism by other scientists who argued that it contradicted the Copernican Principle.
By Sagan and Newman's own estimates, the time it would take for an ETI to have explored the entire galaxy is equal to or less than the age of our galaxy itself (13.5 billion years). If an exo-civilization's probes or signals have not reached us yet, this would imply that sentient life started to emerge in the more recent past.
In other words, the galaxy is in a state of disequilibrium, moving from a state of being uninhabited to inhabited.
However, it was Geoffrey A. Landis who made what is perhaps the most compelling argument about the limits imposed by the laws of physics.
Central to Landis' argument was the mathematical and physics statistics concept known as "percolation theory," which describes how a network behaves when nodes or links are removed.
In accordance with this theory, when enough of the network's links are removed, it will break down into smaller connected clusters.
According to Landis, this same process is useful in describing what happens to people engaged in migration.
In short, Landis proposed that in a galaxy where intelligent life is statistically likely, there will not be a "uniformity of motive" among extraterrestrial civilizations. Instead, his model assumes a wide variety of motives, with some choosing to venture out and colonize while others choose to "stay at home."
As he explained it:
"Since it is possible, given a large enough number of extraterrestrial civilizations, one or more would have certainly undertaken to do so, possibly for motives unknowable to us. Colonization will take an extremely long time, and will be very expensive.
"It is quite reasonable to suppose that not all civilizations will be interested in making such a large expenditure for a pay off far in the future. Human society consists of a mixture of cultures which explore and colonize, some times over extremely large distances, and cultures which have no interest in doing so."
To summarize, an advanced species would not colonize the galaxy rapidly or consistently. Instead, it would "percolate" outwards to a finite distance, where increasing costs and the lag time between communications imposed limits and colonies evolved their own cultures.
Thus, colonization wouldn't be uniform but would happen in clusters with large areas remaining uncolonized at any given time.
Of course, Landis' model contains some inherent assumptions of its own, which he laid out beforehand.
First, there was the assumption that interstellar travel is difficult due to the laws of physics and that there is a maximum distance over which colonies can be directly established. Hence, a civilization will only colonize within a reasonable distance from its home, beyond which secondary colonization will occur later.
Second, Landis also makes the assumption that the parent civilization will have a weak grasp over any colonies it creates, and the time needed for these to develop their own colonization capability will be very long. Hence, any colony established will develop its own culture over time, and its people will have a sense of self and identity distinct from that of the parent civilization.
As we explored in a previous article, it would take between 1,000 and 81,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri (4.24 light-years away) using current technology.
While there are concepts that would allow for relativistic travel (a fraction of the speed of light), the travel time would still be anywhere from a few decades to over a century. What's more, the cost would be extremely prohibitive (more on that below).
But getting colonists to another star system is just the beginning.
Once they have settled a nearby habitable planet (and not all died off) and have the infrastructure for interstellar communications, it would still take eight-and-a-half years to send a message to Earth and receive an answer. That's simply not practical for any civilization hoping to maintain centralized control or cultural hegemony over its colonies.
Space is expensive!
To put things in perspective, consider the costs associated with humanity's own history of space exploration. Sending astronauts to the Moon as part of the Apollo Program between 1961 and 1973 cost a hefty US$25.4 billion, which works out to about US$150 billion today (when adjusted for inflation).
These two programs, which put the first American astronauts in orbit and developed the necessary expertise for getting to the Moon, respectively ran about US$2.3 billion and US$10 billion (when adjusted).
Add them all up, and you get a grand total of around US$163 billion spent from 1958 to 1972.
By comparison, Project Artemis, which will return astronauts to the Moon for the first time since 1972, will cost US$35 billion over just the next four years!
That doesn't include the costs of getting all the various components to this stage in the game, like the development of the SLS thus far, the Orion space capsule, and research into the Lunar Gateway, human landing systems (HLS), and robotic missions.
That's a lot of money just to get to Earth's only satellite. But that's nothing compared to the costs of interstellar missions!
Going interstellar?
Since the dawn of the Space Age, many theoretical proposals have been made for sending spacecraft to the nearest stars.
At the heart of each and every one of these proposals was the same concern: can we reach the nearest stars in our lifetimes?
In order to meet this challenge, scientists contemplated a number of advanced propulsion strategies that would be capable of pushing spacecraft to relativistic speeds.
Of these, the most straightforward was definitely Project Orion (1958 to 1963), which would rely on a method known as Nuclear Pulse Propulsion (NPP).
Led by Ted Taylor of General Atomics and physicist Freeman Dyson from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, this project envisioned a massive starship that would use the explosive force generated by nuclear warheads to generate thrust.
These warheads would be released behind the spacecraft and detonated, creating nuclear pulses. These would be absorbed by a rear-mounted pressure plate (aka, "pusher") that translate the explosive force into forward momentum.
Though inelegant, the system was brutally simple and effective, and could theoretically achieve speeds of up to 5 percent the speed of light (5.4×107km/hr, or 0.05c).
Alas, the cost. According to estimates produced by Dyson in 1968, an Orion spacecraft would weight between 400,000 and 4,000,000 metric tons.
Dyson's most conservative estimates also placed the cost of building such a craft at US$367 billion (US$2.75 trillion when adjusted for inflation). That's about 78 percent of the US government's annual revenue for 2019, and 10 percent of the country's GDP.
Another idea was to build rockets that rely on thermonuclear reactions to generate thrust.
The resulting design called for a two-stage spacecraft that would generate thrust by fusing pellets of a deuterium/helium-3 in a reaction chamber using electron lasers.
This would create a high-energy plasma that would then be converted to thrust by a magnetic nozzle.
The first stage of the spacecraft would operate for just over 2 years and accelerate the spacecraft to 7.1 percent the speed of light (0.071c). This stage would then be jettisoned and the second stage would take over and accelerate the spacecraft up to about 12 percent of light speed (0.12c) over the course of 1.8 years.
The second-stage engine would then be shut down, and the ship would enter into a 46-year cruise period.
According to the Project's estimates, the mission would take 50 years to reach Barnard's Star (less than 6 light-years away). Adjusted for Proxima Centauri, the same craft could make the trip in 36 years.
But in addition to technological barriers identified by the Project, there was also the sheer costs involved.
Even by the modest standard of an uncrewed concept, a fully-fueled Daedalus would weigh as much as 60,000 metric tons cost over [US$5.2 trillion] (based on 2012 estimates). Adjust to 2020, the price tag for a fully-assembled Daedalus would cost close to US$6 trillion. Icarus Interstellar, an international organization of volunteer citizen scientists (founded in 2009), has since attempted to revitalize the concept with Project Icarus.
Another bold and daring idea is Antimatter Propulsion, which would rely on the annihilation of matter and antimatter (hydrogen and antihydrogen particles).
This reaction unleashed as much energy as a thermonuclear detonation, as well as a shower of subatomic particles (pions and muons).
These particles, which would then travel at one-third the speed of light, are channeled by a magnetic nozzle to generate thrust.
Unfortunately, the cost of producing even a single gram of antimatter fuel is estimated to be around US$1 trillion.
According to a report by Robert Frisbee of NASA's Advanced Propulsion Technology Group (NASA Eagleworks), a two-stage antimatter rocket would need over 815,000 metric tons (900,000 US tons) of fuel to make the journey to Proxima Centauri in approximately 40 years.
At this rate, the craft could reach Proxima Centauri in a little over 8 years, but there's no cost-effective way to do this and no guarantees there ever will be.
In all cases, propellant makes up a large fraction of these concept's overall mass. To address this, variations have been proposed that could generate their own propellant.
In the case of fusion rockets, there's the Bussard Ramjet, which uses an enormous electromagnetic funnel to "scoop" hydrogen from the interstellar medium and magnetic fields to compress it to the point that fusion occurs.
Similarly, there's the Vacuum to Antimatter Rocket Interstellar Explorer System (VARIES), which also creates its own fuel out of the interstellar medium. Proposed by Richard Obousy of Icarus Interstellar, a VARIES ship would rely on large lasers (powered by enormous solar arrays) that would create particles of antimatter when fired at empty space.
Alas, neither of these ideas are possible using current technology, nor are they within the realm of cost-effectiveness (not by a long shot).
Under the circumstances, and barring several major technological developments that would reduce the associated costs, it would be fair to say that any idea for interstellar crewed missions is simply impractical.
Sending probes to other stars within our lifetimes is still within the realm of possibility, especially those that rely on Directed-Energy Propulsion (DEP).
As proposals like Breakthrough Starshot or Project Dragonfly show, these sails could be accelerated to relativistic speeds and have all the necessary hardware to gather pictures and basic data on any orbiting exoplanets.
However, such probes are a potentially-reliable and cost-effective means of interstellar exploration, not colonization.
What's more, the time-lag involved in interstellar communications would still place constraints on how far these probes could explore while still reporting back to Earth.
Therefore, an exo-civilization is not likely to send probes very far beyond the boundaries of its territory.
Criticisms
A possible criticism of percolation theory is that it allows for many scenarios and interpretations that would permit contact to have happened at this point.
If we assume that an intelligent species would similarly take 4.5 billion years to emerge (the time between Earth's formation and modern humans), and consider that our galaxy has been around for 13.5 billion years, that still leaves a 9 billion years window.
For 9 billion years, multiple civilizations could have come and gone, and while no one species could have colonized the entire galaxy, it's hard to imagine that this activity would have gone unnoticed.
Under the circumstances, one may be forced to conclude that in addition to their being limits to how a civilization can reach that there are other limiting factors at work here (Great Filter, anyone?)
However, it is important to remind ourselves that no proposed resolution to the Fermi Paradox is without its share of holes.
Also, expecting a theory or theorist to have all the answers to a subject as complex (yet data-poor) as the existence of extraterrestrials is about as unrealistic as expecting consistency in the behavior of ETIs themselves!
Overall, this hypothesis is highly useful because of the way it breaks down many of the assumptions inherent to "Fact A."
It also presents an entirely logical starting point for answering the fundamental question. Why haven't we heard from any ETIs? Because it's unrealistic to conclude that they should have colonized the better part of the galaxy by now, especially when the laws of physics (as we know them) preclude such a thing.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Patents suggest potential alien technology in the US Army
Patents suggest potential alien technology in the US Army
According to some researchers, various governments (such as the US) have recovered “alien” artifacts. Were these artifacts the source of much of our technology? Some people question this.
Internal emails recently obtained by The War Zone suggest that the US Navy is in possession of exotic energy-producing technologies of potentially extraterrestrial origin.
The patents created by cryptic inventor Dr. Salvatore Pais bear names and descriptions such as “high temperature superconductor”, “high frequency gravitational wave generator”, “electronic field generator” and “plasma compression fusion device”. All of which sound very advanced and others mundane, don’t they?
The US Navy also appears to have some kind of hybrid aerospace / submarine craft that patent applications reveal to be equipped with an ‘inertial mass reduction device’. A diagram of what The Drive describes as the theoretical building blocks of a UFO-like craft is also present in the patent applications (see below):
Dubbed as a “ship using an inertial mass reduction device,” the image above is one of many created by Pais. Dubbed as a “ship using an inertial mass reduction device,” the image above is one of many created by Pais, who at the time these patent applications were filed was an aerospace engineer at Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and the Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) in Patuxent River, Maryland.
“Each of the recent Pais inventions relies on what the inventor calls’ the Pais effect ‘, described in numerous publications by the inventor as the’ controlled movement of electrically charged matter (from solid to plasma) through accelerated spin and / or accelerated vibration under fast (albeit smooth) acceleration-deceleration-acceleration transients’ ”.
Although some of the so-called “experts” scoff at these and other extraterrestrial concepts for lacking experimental evidence, Pais in a series of e-mail correspondence expressed confidence that his work will be correct “one good day.”
Does the military have advanced knowledge of nuclear fusion technology?
Although partially redacted, the emails and patent applications obtained by The War Zone are a true revelation. They suggest that the US military has some incredibly powerful technologies in its possession that, at first glance, would appear to exist only in science fiction movies.
However, Pais’ inventions are not mere chimeras, as evidenced by one of the redacted emails indicating that a doctor, whose identity has been blocked from view, gave his “unreserved approval” for a document covering patents .
This doctor describes himself as “one of the world’s leading authorities on advanced power and propulsion / quantum vacuum engineering,” and the email further explains that he sent Pais’s study to several of his colleagues for review.
The email the doctor sent to his colleagues indicates:
“I would like to draw your attention to a recently published article… ‘The High Energy Electromagnetic Field Generator’… which has great implications regarding the feasibility of gravitational (and therefore inertial) mass reduction by accelerated spin and accelerated vibration of electrically charged systems. Enabling extreme ship speeds, and therefore the feasibility of intergalactic travel using current engineering materials and methods, is possible with this publication. “
While the identities of the colleagues who received this email are unknown, it is speculated that one of them could be aerospace engineer H. David Froning, who has published numerous peer-reviewed studies on ‘new directions in electromagnetic fields to control nuclear fusion reactions. ‘
Many of the technologies discussed in the Froning studies were patented by Pais, so it is safe to assume that the two have worked together in the past, and probably still do.
The War Zone reports:
“… some of the language in Froning’s book review echoes the language in some of these internal NAVAIR emails.”
Pais concluded in his email:
“One thing is for sure, the existence of this whitepaper and its current acceptance by leading authorities in the field will greatly facilitate the patent examination process, which will hopefully culminate in two essential patents for the technologically advanced future of the Navy. ”.
Despite these new details, we are as baffled as ever by these strange patents and what they could mean for the “technologically advanced future of the Navy.” We have yet to find experimental validations or experts in the field that can confirm Pais’s theories.
NASA AND ASTROBOTIC VIDEO REVEALS A BRILLIANT LITTLE MOON ROVER'S MANEUVERS
NASA AND ASTROBOTIC VIDEO REVEALS A BRILLIANT LITTLE MOON ROVER'S MANEUVERS
The rover has to be small and light, but incredibly tough. Here's what it looks like.
THE NUMBER OF VEHICLESthat have landed on the Moon remains a very exclusive club. The Moon buggies of the ‘70s and China’s recent exploration of the far side of the Moon stand out, but a Pittsburgh-based company wants to see many more rovers on the surface. To do so, it’s thinking small.
WHAT'S NEW
This month, Astrobotic and NASA announced that the company's tiny CubeRovers had completed its mobility tests with NASA. The road is long, though. While the CubeRovers passed 150 mobility tests that NASA had placed before them, NASA still has more than 1,000 tests to perform. Before it can do donuts in the lunsar basin called the Sea of Tranquility, the tiny rover must still pass many tests before it can get approved for the trip.
The rovers are tiny, standing at a mere 3.3 feet (103 centimeters) and weighing only 73 pounds. While they have a long way to go before they are ready for launch, the company tells Inverse that they will “absolutely” be ready by 2024, in time for NASA’s planned Artemis mission launch date.
Mike Provenzano, Astrobotic’s Director of Planetary Mobility, tells Inverse that CubeRovers are a direct response to CubeSats, the tiny satellites that have revolutionized the satellite industry. Once the domain of major corporations and countries, satellites can now be built by college students.
“Imagine you’re going to go to university, build your own CubeRover, and fly to the Moon all before you graduate. How cool would that be? That’s a personal goal,” Provenzano tells Inverse.
The idea for the tiny rovers starts in 2017, Provenzano says, with a collaboration between Astrobotic and the Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon University. That’s not too surprising, considering that the company was originally spun out of the college. Since 2018, Astrobotic has “really taken the idea and turned it into a product we can sell,” he says. That has meant a series of design changes.
“It was a two-wheeled rover with a tail. And then it had four wheels with no solar panel, and now it has a solar panel,” he says. Above all, CubeRover's weight is a priority.
With weight being a premium on every space flight, having rovers that weigh closer to a small child or a piece of furniture would have a major advantage over its heavier competitors. China's Yuta-2 rover, which has been making discoveries on the far side of the Moon, weighs over 300 pounds.
WHY IT MATTERS
The Moon presents many challenges to any entity foolhardy enough to grace its surface, human or machine. The weather is a big one, with one day on the Moon equalling fourteen Earth days. That means fourteen days of consecutive sunlight followed by fourteen days of darkness.
For the little CubeRover, it means “designing a system that can survive that negative 100 degrees Celsius up to 100 degrees Celsius,” Provenzano says, which he describes as “really tough.”
HERE'S THE BACKGROUND
Everything from the radiation from the Van Allen belts to the challenge of getting a good WiFi connection would be a challenge for a tiny vehicle, and Provenzano predicts that the company’s first generation of CubeRovers “are not going to survive, literally because it’s just too cold.”
But despite the challenges, NASA’s tests give room for optimism. Working out of the Kennedy Space Center, scientists tested CubeRover wheels with flour-like dust that compacts to hard rock when compressed, a close approximation of lunar regolith. A video provided by the company — watch it above — shows a NASA tester giving an enthusiastic thumbs up as a CubeRover climbs out of an imitation crater.
A NASA scientist observes the CubeRover climb out of a holeNASA/Kim Shiflett
The curious footage, Provenzano says, showcases a “really cool” potential idea—digging craters on the lunar surface and having the CubeRovers burrow underneath, shielding them from the extreme temperatures.
WHAT'S NEXT
The CubeRover could open up any number of possibilities on the lunar surface, where scientists are eager to learn about the origins of lunar water. While the Earth’s lone natural satellite is “a logical next step,” Provenzano says Mars “is really interesting too.”
While the Red Planet would offer its own challenges, it’s clear that the company is thinking big with its very small rovers.
Could invisible aliens really exist among us? An astrobiologist explains
They probably won’t look anything like this.
Martina Badini/Shutterstock
Could invisible aliens really exist among us? An astrobiologist explains
Life is pretty easy to recognise. It moves, it grows, it eats, it excretes, it reproduces. Simple. In biology, researchers often use the acronym “MRSGREN” to describe it. It stands for movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion and nutrition.
But Helen Sharman, Britain’s first astronaut and a chemist at Imperial College London, recently said that alien lifeforms that are impossible to spot may be living among us. How could that be possible?
While life may be easy to recognise, it’s actually notoriously difficult to define and has had scientists and philosophers in debate for centuries – if not millennia. For example, a 3D printer can reproduce itself, but we wouldn’t call it alive. On the other hand, a mule is famously sterile, but we would never say it doesn’t live.
As nobody can agree, there are more than 100 definitions of what life is. An alternative (but imperfect) approach is describing life as “a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution”, which works for many cases we want to describe.
The lack of definition is a huge problem when it comes to searching for life in space. Not being able to define life other than “we’ll know it when we see it” means we are truly limiting ourselves to geocentric, possibly even anthropocentric, ideas of what life looks like. When we think about aliens, we often picture a humanoid creature. But the intelligent life we are searching for doesn’t have to be humanoid.
Life, but not as we know it
Sharman says she believes aliens exist and “there’s no two ways about it”. Furthermore, she wonders: “Will they be like you and me, made up of carbon and nitrogen? Maybe not. It’s possible they’re here right now and we simply can’t see them.”
Such life would exist in a “shadow biosphere”. By that, I don’t mean a ghost realm, but undiscovered creatures probably with a different biochemistry. This means we can’t study or even notice them because they are outside of our comprehension. Assuming it exists, such a shadow biosphere would probably be microscopic.
So why haven’t we found it? We have limited ways of studying the microscopic world as only a small percentage of microbes can be cultured in a lab. This may mean that there could indeed be many lifeforms we haven’t yet spotted. We do now have the ability to sequence the DNA of unculturable strains of microbes, but this can only detect life as we know it – that contain DNA.
If we find such a biosphere, however, it is unclear whether we should call it alien. That depends on whether we mean “of extraterrestrial origin” or simply “unfamiliar”.
Silicon-based life
A popular suggestion for an alternative biochemistry is one based on silicon rather than carbon. It makes sense, even from a geocentric point of view. Around 90% of the Earth is made up of silicon, iron, magnesium and oxygen, which means there’s lots to go around for building potential life.
Artist’s impression of a silicon-based life form.Zita
Silicon is similar to carbon, it has four electrons available for creating bonds with other atoms. But silicon is heavier, with 14 protons (protons make up the atomic nucleus with neutrons) compared to the six in the carbon nucleus. While carbon can create strong double and triple bonds to form long chains useful for many functions, such as building cell walls, it is much harder for silicon. It struggles to create strong bonds, so long-chain molecules are much less stable.
What’s more, common silicon compounds, such as silicon dioxide (or silica), are generally solid at terrestrial temperatures and insoluble in water. Compare this to highly soluble carbon dioxide, for example, and we see that carbon is more flexible and provides many more molecular possibilities.
Life on Earth is fundamentally different from the bulk composition of the Earth. Another argument against a silicon-based shadow biosphere is that too much silicon is locked up in rocks. In fact, the chemical composition of life on Earth has an approximate correlation with the chemical composition of the sun, with 98% of atoms in biology consisting of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. So if there were viable silicon lifeforms here, they may have evolved elsewhere.
That said, there are arguments in favour of silicon-based life on Earth. Nature is adaptable. A few years ago, scientists at Caltech managed to breed a bacterial protein that created bonds with silicon – essentially bringing silicon to life. So even though silicon is inflexible compared with carbon, it could perhaps find ways to assemble into living organisms, potentially including carbon.
And when it comes to other places in space, such as Saturn’s moon Titan or planets orbiting other stars, we certainly can’t rule out the possibility of silicon-based life.
To find it, we have to somehow think outside of the terrestrial biology box and figure out ways of recognising lifeforms that are fundamentally different from the carbon-based form. There are plenty of experiments testing out these alternative biochemistries, such as the one from Caltech.
Regardless of the belief held by many that life exists elsewhere in the universe, we have no evidence for that. So it is important to consider all life as precious, no matter its size, quantity or location. The Earth supports the only known life in the universe. So no matter what form life elsewhere in the solar system or universe may take, we have to make sure we protect it from harmful contamination – whether it is terrestrial life or alien lifeforms.
So could aliens be among us? I don’t believe that we have been visited by a life form with the technology to travel across the vast distances of space. But we do have evidence for life-forming, carbon-based molecules having arrived on Earth on meteorites, so the evidence certainly doesn’t rule out the same possibility for more unfamiliar life forms.
Sterrenwacht gaat mee op zoek naar “strategieën om de baan af te buigen van asteroïden die met aarde kunnen botsen”
De Koninklijke Sterrenwacht mag een gravimeter (meetinstrument waarmee de dichtheid van een bepaalde stof gemeten kan worden) leveren voor de Juventas-satelliet, die binnen zeven jaar moet landen op asteroïde Dimorphos. Het meetinstrument moet de sterkte van het zwaartekrachtsveld van de asteroïde meten en inzichten leveren over “toekomstige strategieën om de baan af te buigen van asteroïden die met de aarde kunnen botsen”.
Het gaat om een onderdeel van het planetaire defensieprogramma van de Europese ruimtevaartorganisatie ESA, zegt de Sterrenwacht. De gravimeter moet inzichten opleveren over "toekomstige strategieën om de baan af te buigen van asteroïden die met de aarde kunnen botsen".
De Juventas-satelliet en het meetinstrument moeten in 2024 vertrekken met het Hera-ruimtevaartuig van de ESA. De Hera-missie is de Europese bijdrage aan een internationale missie met twee ruimtesondes naar een dubbele of binaire asteroïde. Een binaire asteroïde is een systeem van twee asteroïdes met een gemeenschappelijk zwaartepunt. In dit geval gaat het om Didymos, de grootste asteroïde met een diameter van 780 meter, en Dimorphos, een maan die rond Didymos draait, met een diameter van 160 meter.
In 2027 moet Juventas op Dimorphos landen. Dat gebeurt nadat het Amerikaanse ruimtevaartagentschap NASA al vijf jaar eerder (2022) zijn DART-missie heeft laten inslaan op Dimorphos. Verwacht wordt dat het NASA-ruimtetuig zo de baan van de Didymos-maan verandert. Bedoeling is dat Hera het nieuwe traject van Dimorphos gaat onderzoeken, na de eerste observaties vanop aarde.
"Van de gravimeter wordt verwacht dat hij waardevolle gegevens over de massaverdeling, de interne structuur en de dynamica van Dimorphos naar de aarde stuurt. Deze informatie zal bijdragen aan het opzetten van toekomstige strategieën om de baan af te buigen van asteroïden die met de aarde kunnen botsen", zegt de Sterrenwacht in een persbericht.
GRASS-gravimeter
De ESA selecteerde de Sterrenwacht samen met het Spaanse technologiebedrijf EMXYS voor de levering van de GRASS-gravimeter. De Sterrenwacht stelt de GRASS-gravimeter voor, ontwerpt ze en ontwikkelt ze, en werkt daarvoor samen met EMXYS, dat de definitieve ruimteversie van het instrument levert.
Het gaat in meerdere opzichten om een primeur. GRASS zal de eerste gravimeter ooit op een asteroïde zijn. Daarnaast is het voor het eerst dat de Sterrenwacht deelneemt aan een ruimtemissie naar een asteroïde. "Hera zal de eerste missie zijn om een gedetailleerde karakterisering van een binair asteroïde systeem uit te voeren", zegt Ozgur Karatekin van de Koninklijke Sterrenwacht in het persbericht.
The joint U.S.-European Solar Orbiter spacecraft had an appointment with Venus this morning (Dec. 27), the first in a series of planetary flybys to hone the probe's orbit on its journey to the sun.
Solar Orbiter reached its closest approach to Venus at 7:39 a.m. EST (1239 GMT), when the spacecraft was about 4,700 miles (7,500 kilometers) from the top of the planet's cloud tops. The probe, a partnership between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in February, bound to spend seven years studying our sun. But to get as close to our star as scientists want to, the spacecraft needs to make some loops, starting with today's flyby of Venus. And if you're flying a spacecraft past a planet anyway, you may as well try to get a little data out of the adventure.
"Solar Orbiter is of course a mission not designed specifically to take Venus observations," Daniel Müller, project scientist for the mission at the European Space Agency, said at a news briefing held on Dec. 10 at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, held virtually this month. "We are always looking for bonus opportunities to do science, so yes, we will be doing observations when we approach Venus."
However, the spacecraft's main goal of studying the sun does limit what work it can do flying past Venus. A key constraint comes from the spacecraft's sun-wary design. "We always need to point our heat shield toward the sun, that cannot be changed," Müller said. "The telescopes are all looking through the heat shield in the solar direction."
So no Venus images for us from this spacecraft. But while scientists are particularly excited for the detailed views of the sun's poles that Solar Orbiter will eventually provide, the spacecraft also carries a suite of instruments that focus on the immediate environment, and for these, direction isn't an issue.
During today's flyby, scientists gathered data using the spacecraft's magnetometer, radio and plasma waves instrument and some of the sensors on the energetic particle detector. Given those instruments and Solar Orbiter's distance from Venus, the observations will have a limited impact on science.
"At those kinds of distances, looking at how Venus interacts with the solar wind that's flowing past it is going to be the key thing we're looking at," Tim Horbury, a physicist at Imperial College London and principal investigator of one of Solar Orbiter's instruments, said during the same panel.
Unlike Earth, Venus doesn't have a magnetic field, so the solar wind interacts directly with the planet instead of with that field. "It's a very different interaction," Horbury said.
And because today's maneuver marks Solar Orbiter's first swing past Venus, the team wasn't sure what to expect scientifically from the flyby. The mission team was in communication with the spacecraft during the flyby, but it will be a few days before scientists can dig into the data the instruments gather during the operation, according to ESA.
"We'll really be looking out for new and interesting things," Müller said. "We can't really say yet what they will be."
Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow uson Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
Alien hunters are investigating a mysterious radio signal from our neighbouring star Proxima Centauri - causing the biggest excitement since the 'Wow' signal in 1977
Alien hunters are investigating a mysterious radio signal from our neighbouring star Proxima Centauri - causing the biggest excitement since the 'Wow' signal in 1977
By Ryan Morrison For Mailonline
Pictured, a not-to-scale representation of how far away Proxima B is from Earth compared to Voyager 1, the farthest man-made object which was launched in 1977
A strange radio signal was first detected by the Parkes telescope in early 2019
It was a 'short-lived' signal and astronomers can't identify the original source
Astronomers are looking to see if any human-made source could be responsible
The star is 4.2 light years from the Earth and includes an Earth-like rocky planet
A mysterious radio signal from our nearest stellar neighbour, Proxima Centauri, is being 'carefully investigated' by a team of alien-hunting astronomers.
Researchers from the Breakthrough Listen Project – a £70m initiative to find alien life through radio telescopes – have been studying the radio waves since April 2019.
Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years from Earth and has two confirmed planets, a Jupiter-like gas giant and a rocky world called Proxima b in the habitable zone.
The signal was spotted by the Parkes radio telescope in Australia in April or May 2020, according to a report in The Guardian, and, unlike previous radio bursts hasn't been attributed to any Earth-based or near-Earth human-created source.
It is likely that this signal has a natural explanation, but that hasn't stopped alien-hunting astronomers from listening more closely than they normally would.
The team say this is one of the most exciting radio signals since the 'WOW!' signal in 1977 that led many to speculate it originated from a distant alien civilisation.
Artist's rendering of Proxima Centauri system. Portrayed on the right, Proxima c orbits in about 5.2 years around its host star. The system also comprises the smaller Proxima b, on the left, discovered in 2016 that orbits in the 'habitable zone' closer than Mercury is to the Sun
Proxima b is an Earth-like rocky world that orbits within the 'habitable zone' of Proxima Centauri – that is an area where liquid water could flow on the surface of the planet.
However, as Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, the habitable zone is very close to the star, meaning the planet is likely tidally locked and exposed to intense radiation, making it unlikely any civilisation has been able to form – at least on the surface.
The radio signal was detected in the 980MHz range, and shifts in the frequency detected by the Parkes telescope are consistent with the movement of a planet.
This suggests it could be evidence of a third planet within the system, rather than signs of an alien civilisation, something researchers say would be 'very unlikely.'
Pete Worden, director of Breakthrough Initiatives, said the signals are likely interference from Earth-based sources we can't yet explain.
However, he told The Guardian that it was important to wait and see what the project scientists conclude from their close examination of the signal.
The beam being investigated hasn't been spotted since the first observation in April or May 2019, causing astronomers to speculate it is similar to the 'Wow! signal.
This was a short-lived radio signal detected from a distant star system by the Big Ear Radio Observatory in the US in 1977, and labelled with the word 'WOW!'.
Until now, that has been the best possible candidate astronomers have had to work with for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence - although like this new signal, very little is known about it or what unleashed the signal in the first place.
In this image from the Hubble Space Telescope is our relative neighbour Proxima Centauri, a low mass star in the triple-star Alpha Centauri system. Proxima Centauri is not visible to the naked eye due to its small size - eight times smaller than the Sun
The team from Breakthrough Listen are currently preparing a research paper on the findings, although no date for publication has been set.
Proxima b: The nearest exoplanet to the Earth
Proxima b is the nearest exoplanet to the Earth and the closest planet to the star Proxima Centauri.
It orbits within the habitable zone of the star - but as Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf and much smaller than the Sun this zone is very close to the star.
Proxima b orbits its star every 11.2 Earth days and has a mass of about 1.2 times that of the Earth.
The rocky world is subject to solar winds 2,000 times those experienced on Earth from the Sun.
While it is within a zone where liquid water could form - these stellar winds make it unlikely life could evolve.
The planet was discovered in August 2016 and is likely tidally locked.
For these reasons, despite being in the habitable zone, its actual habitability has not been established.
Studies have suggested the planet could have surface oceans and a thin atmosphere, but that hasn't been confirmed.
Astronomers won't know if it has water or an atmosphere until it can be seen transiting in front of its star - which has yet to happen.
If water and an atmosphere are present, even with the extensive radiation, it could be possible life has developed on the planet.
Scientists hope the James Webb Space Telescope - due to come online next year - could detect the atmosphere of Proxima Centauri b.
There is also a theoretical mission to send a probe to the planet in 2069 to search for biosignatures.
The initiative was launched by Silicon Valley tech investor Yuri Milner in 2015 to look for stray or intentional alien signals and designed to last a decade.
Breakthrough Listen involves listening out for 'technosignatures' within the range of signals coming from the universe and signatures from human-made objects.
Speaking to the Guardian, Lewis Dartnell, an astrobiologist from the University of Westminster, said it was incredibly unlikely this signal is from an alien civilisation.
'We've been looking for alien life for so long now and the idea that it could turn out to be on our front doorstep, in the very next star system, is piling improbabilities upon improbabilities,' he told The Guardian.
The professor of science communication said if there is intelligent life as close as Proxima Centauri then it is likely the galaxy is teeming with life.
'The chances of the only two civilisations in the entire galaxy happening to be neighbours, among 400bn stars, absolutely stretches the bounds of rationality,' he said.
Proxima b is also likely to be constantly bathed in stellar radiation, making it unlikely liquid water and life 'as we know it' could have formed on the rocky world.
An earlier study by University of Sydney researchers found that Proxima Centauri has regular coronal mass ejections that hit the nearby rocky planet.
This discovery was based on a different radio signal that is thought to have been caused by a particularly large ejection or solar flare from the star.
These solar flares would kill all life on a planet too close - and Proxima b is within this danger zone, and so likely showered with sterilising particles on a regular basis.
The planet is also likely tidally locked - just like the Moon is with the Earth - due to its close proximity to the star, meaning one side is always day, the other night.
'It's hard to imagine how you can have a stable climatic system and all the things you need to get from bacteria, which are hardy, up to intelligent animal life forms, which certainly are not,' Dartnell told the Guardian.
'But I'd love to be proved wrong,' he added.
It is possible there are other planets, slightly further from the star, that have yet to be discovered by astronomers, but they are likely too far away for liquid water to form.
KEY DISCOVERIES IN HUMANITY'S SEARCH FOR ALIEN LIFE
Discovery of pulsars
British astronomer Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was the first person to discover a pulsar in 1967 when she spotted a radio pulsar.
Since then other types of pulsars that emit x-rays and gamma rays have also been spotted.
Pulsars are essentially rotating, highly magnatised neutron stars but when they were first discovered it was believed they could come from aliens.
'Wow!' radio signal
In 1977, an astronomer looking for alien life in the nigh sky above Ohio spotted a powerful radio signal so strong that he excitedly wrote 'Wow!' next to his data.
In 1977, an astronomer looking for alien life in the nigh sky above Ohio spotted a powerful radio signal so strong that he excitedly wrote 'Wow!' next to his data
The 72-second blast, spotted by Dr Jerry Ehman through a radio telescope, came from Sagittarius but matched no known celestial object.
Conspiracy theorists have since claimed that the 'Wow! signal', which was 30 times stronger than background radiation, was a message from intelligent extraterrestrials.
Fossilised martian microbes
In 1996 Nasa and the White House made the explosive announcement that the rock contained traces of Martian bugs.
The meteorite, catalogued as Allen Hills (ALH) 84001, crashed onto the frozen wastes of Antarctica 13,000 years ago and was recovered in 1984.
Photographs were released showing elongated segmented objects that appeared strikingly lifelike.
Photographs were released showing elongated segmented objects that appeared strikingly lifelike (pictured)
However, the excitement did not last long. Other scientists questioned whether the meteorite samples were contaminated.
They also argued that heat generated when the rock was blasted into space may have created mineral structures that could be mistaken for microfossils.
Behaviour of Tabby's Star in 2005
The star, otherwise known as KIC 8462852, is located 1,400 light years away and has baffled astonomers since being discovered in 2015.
It dims at a much faster rate than other stars, which some experts have suggested is a sign of aliens harnessing the energy of a star.
The star, otherwise known as KIC 8462852, is located 1,400 light years away and has baffled astonomers since being discovered in 2015 (artist's impression)
Recent studies have 'eliminated the possibility of an alien megastructure', and instead, suggests that a ring of dust could be causing the strange signals.
Exoplanets in the Goldilocks zone in 2015
In February this year astronomers announced they had spotted a star system with planets that could support life just 39 light years away.
Seven Earth-like planets were discovered orbiting nearby dwarf star 'Trappist-1', and all of them could have water at their surface, one of the key components of life.
Three of the planets have such good conditions, that scientists say life may have already evolved on them.
Researchers claim that they will know whether or not there is life on any of the planets within a decade, and said 'this is just the beginning.'
The Parkes Observatory in Australia detected radio signals from Proxima CentauriCSIRO/A. Cherney
Astronomers have spotted what may be the strongest candidate yet for an alien signal. Researchers at the Breakthrough Listen project have found an unusual beam of radio light coming from around our nearest neighbouring star, Proxima Centauri, according to a report in The Guardian on 18 December.
Any purported discovery of aliens always has to be taken with scepticism. That is especially true in cases where a signal appears to be a possible technosignature, a sign of alien technology rather than simply life beyond Earth. The Breakthrough Listen team has been extremely cautious about this find. “No one is claiming it’s a technosignature,” tweeted Pete Worden, chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation.
In fact, the researchers aren’t claiming much about it at all. News of the signal came to light by a researcher speaking to The Guardian before the scientific paper on it has been published – the data analysis isn’t yet complete, so nobody can be sure exactly what this strange radio beam is. All we know so far is that it is peculiar.
“The Breakthrough Listen team has detected several unusual signals and is carefully investigating,” Worden tweeted. “The strongest and most persistent are all from Proxima.”
The team detected several signals while examining data gathered by the Parkes Observatory in Australia in a 2019 search for stellar flares from Proxima Centauri. Nearly all of the signals flagged by Breakthrough Listen’s algorithms as potential extraterrestrial beacons turned out to be from human-made technology like satellites – except for one.
This odd signal lasted about 3 hours and was concentrated in a very narrow range of wavelengths – a range that isn’t generally used by our satellites and spacecraft. It was the first signal to pass through Breakthrough Listen’s first round of checks, which are mainly designed to weed out signals that actually originate from Earth. The researchers have named it Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1, or BLC1.
However, Worden urged caution and stressed that the Breakthrough Listen team still believes these signals will turn out to be radio interference from Earthly technology, rather than contact from an alien civilization. All previous signals the team has detected have been quickly explained by Breakthrough Listen’s first round of tests, but the researchers will have to run additional checks they have never used before on this new signal, says Jason Wright at Pennsylvania State University. They are running those checks now.
If it is truly a signal from Proxima Centauri, that is interesting not only because it is our solar system’s nearest stellar neighbour at just 4.2 light years away, but also because we know that it has at least two planets.
“Proxima is also neat because some people have speculated that if there is a lot of technology in the galaxy and if you wanted to communicate over long distances, sending the signal directly is a pretty inefficient way to do it,” says Wright. “It’s like how if I call you on the phone, my mobile phone is not directly sending your phone a radio signal.”
The idea is that advanced aliens would be more likely to set up a network that could look somewhat like an interstellar cellphone system, with many interconnected nodes relaying messages across the galaxy. “If extraterrestrial civilisations are doing that, we wouldn’t expect to get a lot of signals from distant stars, we’d expect to find them from nearby stars,” says Wright.
We will know whether BLC1 is just Earthly interference in the next few months, after Breakthrough Listen researchers run more tests and officially publish their investigations. Even if they rule out interference from our own satellites or spacecraft, astronomers will run through many other possible explanations before they conclude it is aliens. The team will be keeping a close eye on our closest neighbour.
Dr. Steven Greer on Remote Viewing, Higher State of Consciousness, and The Contact
Dr. Steven Greer on Remote Viewing, Higher State of Consciousness, and The Contact
Dr. Steven Greer on Remote Viewing, Higher State of Consciousness, and The Contact
The work that medical doctor, researcher and author Steven Greer continues to do through the organization CSETI has made some tremendous breakthroughs in establishing contact with an intelligent phenomena, often perceived as UFOs, Light Phenomena and strange looking entities.
Steven demonstrates that there is a conscious connection being established with this phenomena and on many occasions they are being caught on camera.
Something Falling From the Sky in Southern West Virginia! - Must Video
Something Falling From the Sky in Southern West Virginia! - Must Video
Hmm. So. did they go to where it landed? Was its landing spot afire? I would have to know a lot more/ Why end it as it., “landed”? Did it land? Meteorite?
Days Of Noah Reloaded - Hybrids Walk Among Us - A Documentary
Days Of Noah Reloaded - Hybrids Walk Among Us - A Documentary
Ordo Ab Cho is the Latin phrase for “Order Out of Chaos”. Professor Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a Freemason and a political and social scientist at the University of Berlin (1817-1831), maintained that man could shape history and achieve ultimate peace only through repetitive episodes of controlled conflict between opposing forces.
Hegel advocated the idea that men must create, manipulate and manage that conflict in order to create a pre-determined outcome – the controlled change, the synthesis. Bible Prophesies Chaos Ahead – The present turmoil we find ourselves in is child’s play compared to the world upheaval just ahead as foretold in the Bible. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. Rev 9:15
Huge cigar shaped UFO filmed over Andes mountain range, Chile
Huge cigar shaped UFO filmed over Andes mountain range, Chile
During a flight from Puerto Montt to Santiago a plane passenger filmed a huge partially cloaked cigar-shaped UFO over Andes mountain range in Chile on November 11, 2020.
My name is Rodrigo from Chile, on 11/11/2020 on the sky flight H272 from Puerto Montt to Santiago (departure 18:36, arrival 20:14 hours).
Approximately arriving in Santiago at 8:00 p.m., I was looking at the landscape (Andes mountain range) the only "cloud" (dark and fat, in the shape of a worm) catches my attention, "rain cloud" style, above the peak of the Montana. From my window at an angle of about 65 degrees.
As the plane was parallel to the "cloud", I noticed that it began to be "clearer" (I thought it was "something" normal of the winds and altitude) and it was there that at the right point of the cloud, it made a " small flash of white light "that caught my attention and amazement (in a matter of second), I couldn't believe what I was seeing,
I was stunned, when I turned around and saw inside the cabin if someone was looking at the same thing as me, the person closest to me, I was in an intermediate seat to mine (Mrs. Older) sleeping with masks (I also had the mask on), when trying to take my cell phone that was locked and is unlocked with facial recognition, I lost valuable seconds when using alphanumeric unlock. After enabling the cell phone, I focus on the "cloud"
As can be seen, "it was no longer a rain cloud", but it took the form of something solid and clearer.
After the first photo, go to video in slow motion format (effect that was used when making videos to my daughter), where "you can see that it is no longer a cloud" but a "solid disk" (it passed all its metamorphosis),
It was impressive to see the "UFO" (calmly in my house and thanks to google map, look for the reference hill, when measuring, it showed me that the UFO was approximately 6 kilometers long).
When the plane moves away from the UFO, at first glance it gives a visual effect of fading on the horizon, it may be an optical effect, but when occupying filters in the video the UFO was still but getting smaller.
At that moment the plane makes a U-turn preparing the landing, at that moment I thought I had already lost sight of the UFO, and to my surprise I see it again at another point of the Andes mountain range, on the horizon, where I take my cell phone , I unlock it for the last photo and video of the UFO. Mufon.
Israel’s Former Space Security Chief Claims Aliens Exist, And Trump Knows
Israel’s Former Space Security Chief Claims Aliens Exist, And Trump Knows
In interview with Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper, former head of Israel’s Defense Ministry’s space directorate Haim Eshed said the U.S. government has been in contact with extraterrestrials from a “galactic federation.” NBC News’ Bill Neely reports.
In January, the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope was declared fully operational in China’s Guizhou province. Beijing’s steadfast commitment to improving the nation’s position as a leader in the basic sciences can be gleaned from the fact that the construction of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) was completed in five years, a remarkable achievement for a project of its technical complexity. The scientific mandate of FAST is many ways quite conventional for a telescope of its size, including detection of “fast radio bursts” – bursts of extremely powerful radio-waves from deep space of varying duration whose origins remains a mystery. (In September last year, FAST detected a significant number of such bursts from a single source, a feat that could only be achieved due to the telescope’s sensitivity.)
It is, however, the inclusion of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) in FAST’s scientific agenda that has attracted the most media attention, not always savory. A February 2016 New York Times article on FAST, for example, was headlined “China Telescope to Displace 9,000 Villagers in Hunt for Extraterrestrials.” Other media reporting emphasized the inclusion of SETI in the telescope’s research mandate at the expense of commenting on its potentially path-breaking use to study natural cosmic phenomena such as pulsars (distant geriatric stars made of exotic nuclear matter).
There is also no fundamental reason, as astronomers has now come to see, why detection of alien life may always need radio astronomy. Increasingly, search for “techno-signatures” – signs of advanced alien intelligence – now includes scanning other bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, predominantly infrared waves. But that said, recent revisions of the estimates of the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy alone (up to 300,000) – sharpened by recent advances in exoplanetology – points to the increasing probability of their detection.
China’s SETI road
It is interesting to think of how China and the rest of the world would react if – and this is a mighty “if” – China’s new mega radio telescope manages to detect an alien signal. What immediate steps would Beijing take if this were to happen during Xi Jinping’s (indefinite) tenure? As strategic competition between Washington and Beijing heats up and talks of a new Cold War abound, how would the United States and other allied powers react to the fact that the greatest discovery in human history was made possible through the efforts of an authoritarian, repressive regime? Would this mark an intensification of the rivalry between the China and the West, or lead to its decline?
The irony of this thought experiment of course is in the fact that we are now forced to contemplate the possibility that it is China and not the United States that is in the pole position to detect a signal from an extraterrestrial intelligence. And in many ways, this was in the making for some time.
While the American radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico – the second-largest of its kind, after the Chinese dish – became iconic in the public’s imagination when it came to SETI, in 1993 the U.S. Congress terminated all research funding for what one American senator famously described as “Martian hunting season at the taxpayer’s expense.” (The SETI program at Arecibo, which lasted for a year till federal funding for it was stopped, was pioneered by astronomer Jill Tarter, widely assumed to be model for the character of Ellie Arroway, the protagonist of the movie and novel Contact. Early on in the movie version, Arroway’s SETI time on the Arecibo telescope is cancelled by a dismissive federal science administrator.)
This is not to say that American astronomers have stopped SETI research: substantial funding has since flowed from private sources. Most significantly, in 2015 Russian Silicon Valley billionaire (with serious Kremlin links) Yuri Milner announced a $100 million “Breakthrough Listen” initiative to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Milner’s funding continues to help the SETI program through the U.S. National Science Foundation-supported Green Bank Telescope, for example.
But private initiatives like Milner’s are international in character. For example, Breakthrough Listen is actively collaborating with the FAST project. While China has advertised FAST as an integral part of international collaborative efforts, it is controlled by the Chinese state directly. The ultimate arbiter of how of the new telescope’s time will go into the search for SETI is Beijing’s prerogative.
If directing state resources toward SETI is not an obstacle for China, could state ideology be so? Marxism-Leninism, the liturgy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has no problems imagining the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Writing in 1980, Soviet astronomer Boris A. Voronstov-Vel’yaminov noted the broad congruence between SETI and his state religion: “Dialectical materialism teaches that the infinite universe harbors an infinite number of inhabited worlds and that life will unfailing spring up where favorable opportunities present themselves.” (While doing so he also took a swipe at the Russian Orthodox Church, remarking that it was, on the other hand, altogether not comfortable with speculations about extraterrestrial life.) At a more concrete level, Soviet astronomers like Nikolai Kardashev were pioneers in detailed theoretical models of extraterrestrial civilizations.
Could there be other reasons why the Chinese may not be comfortable with idea of extraterrestrial intelligence? On this point many have drawn from the writings of Chinese science-fiction phenomena Liu Cixin. In Liu’s telling, the search for SETI may not be such a good thing after all. Based on China’s historical experience – and the “century of humiliation” narrative that finds such a significant place in Xi’s China – he has argued that humanity’s relationship with a sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial civilization may be fundamentally adversarial, resembling that of the hunter and the hunted. (Liu serves as an adviser of sorts to the FAST project.)
The Days After First Contact
Irrespective of the beliefs the leadership in Zhongnanhai holds when it comes to extraterrestrial civilizations, what happens if the FAST dish does receive a signal that, after processing, is determined not to have been generated by any natural astrophysical process?
As SETI Institute astronomer Seth Shostak points out, there are no binding international protocols that would require Beijing to make the discovery internationally known. But if China were to keep the option of non-disclosure open, its astronomical community must analyze the signal and definitely rule out any natural origins of the signal by itself. (Note that, as with recent claims around an unusual star or an interstellar rock that was found in our solar system , the majority of the international astronomical community would vastly prefer natural over artificial explanations.)
Following this, based on China’s recent domestic political behavior and the international environment, one can plausibly posit the following chain of events.
Leading Small Groups (LSGs) – “coordinating bodies that address important policy areas that involve several different (and occasionally competing) parts of the bureaucracy” – are a Chinese governance mechanism that have grown in importance under Xi Jinping. Given that dealing with the aftermath of the discovery of an extraterrestrial intelligence signal is likely to involve getting the science and technology, as well as the national-security bureaucracies to work together, it quite likely that Xi will form one exclusively to deal with it, just as he did for the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
While Xi has personally led key LSGs in the past, whether he himself oversees this one will depend on whether he sees a personal risk in doing so. (For the coronavirus LSG, Xi has let Premier Li Keqiang lead it, perhaps as a way to insure himself should the crisis prove to unmanageable.)
It is highly unlikely that news of this discovery – if not precise details such as its coordinates or content – can be confined to a few in the scientific and political leadership, and impossible if it is a result of an international collaboration using FAST, say with Milner’s Breakthrough Initiative. As soon as words gets out, the CCP will attempt to milk the discovery domestically, arguing that it proves superiority of the Chinese model. This signaling through state-controlled social media such as the microblogging site Weibo will be a further attempt at regime consolidation, especially if the discovery comes at a time when Xi assesses that the Party’s grip over power is slipping. It will be accompanied by aggressive perception-shaping exercise along the line on the discovery the CCP sets.
What about the reaction from the rest of the world? If the details of the FAST signal are not released publicly, there is bound to be Western skepticism – “fake news,” some could exclaim. This reaction will partly be because of the culture of secrecy that permeates Chinese science, leading to an understandable hesitance on the part of many to accept claims from Chinese scientists at face value.
This comes on top of the fact that any suggestions that an astronomical event or object may be artificial is inevitably met with serious skepticism and the discoverer(s) subject to personal attack at times irrespective of their scientific credentials. For Chinese scientists, such attacks may have serious professional and even personal costs, as biophysicist He Jiankui discovered after his claims about the world’s first gene-edited babies were met with international skepticism as well as outrage.
But it could also be due to an ideological backlash: many Western governments may not be readily willing to concede that an authoritarian rival may succeed where they have failed. At a time when the U.S.-China relationship is increasingly acquiring a zero-sum character across the spectrum – political, economic, scientific-technological – and at least one leading American expert has endorsed the clash-of-civilization thesis when it comes to her country’s relationship with China, conceding to the Chinese claim may indeed prove to be politically difficult.
Of course, China’s own stance when it comes to releasing the details of the signal – the coordinates of the source as well as the content of the signal if it was a nonrecurring one-time-only event – will determine much of the international response. Here, the People’s Republic will have two choices, assuming that the discovery was the result of sole efforts of Chinese scientists: release the details to bolster its own credibility (knowing that if the claim was to be dismissed it would do serious damage to China’s international reputation) or keep it a secret. What may ultimately determine Beijing’s choice?
To understand it, note that the ETI signal could be of two different type: a “directed” signal that carries a message (a broadcast, if you wish) or an “undirected” one that could originate from an artificial source but not carry an meaningful information content (for example, energy remnant from some advanced technology of a civilization that harnesses the energy of an entire star or even an entire galaxy – a “Type II” or “Type III” civilization in the Kardashev scale). The difference between the two – whether a signal is part of intelligent communication or simply a technological artifact of alien origin – can be estimated by measuring its Shannon entropy, for example.
If China determines that not only is the signal directed but it has the potential to carry significant amount of information, it may weigh the benefits of keeping the signal secret versus revealing it more carefully for the simple reason that such a message may potentially carry information about very advanced (and therefore useful) technologies. (An advanced technology-blueprint bearing signal was the premise of Contact.) However, note that Chinese scientific achievements are still quite uneven – for example, the People’s Republic was unable to find enough researchers to analyze the FAST data a couple of years ago. It may very well determine that deciphering the message will require coordinated international effort.
Should China indeed release the details of the signal – thereby establishing conclusively that there is intelligent life outside Earth – what would the long-term American reaction be? Just as the Soviet Union’s success in launching the world’s first artificial satellite in 1957 caused the United States to dramatically increase its investment in science and technology, a FAST signal is likely to provoke a similar response especially at a time when American leaders are openly competing with Beijing for technological dominance. But the flip side to this otherwise happy development – just as during the original Cold War – would be the resulting military-technological contest exacerbating already deteriorating US-China relations.
In the 2016 movie Arrival, the worldwide detection of messages from an extraterrestrial intelligence forces the United States, China, and Russia to cooperate despite their individual misgivings – about each other’s as well as the aliens’ intention. The reality, if and when such a time comes, may unfortunately be much more complex.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
NASA SUGGESTS SENDING BOSTON DYNAMICS ROBODOG TO MARS
NASA SUGGESTS SENDING BOSTON DYNAMICS ROBODOG TO MARS
NASA
DAN ROBITZSKI
Good Boy
NASA scientists have an unusual idea for exploring the surface of Mars: sending a four-legged robot dog.
Specifically, researchers suggested that a modified version of Boston Dynamics’ dog-like Spot robot would make for a great alternative to the classic Mars rover, Live Science reports. The idea is that they’re better suited to cover long distances and rough terrain — and could even help map out possible locations for the type of human outpost NASA hopes to eventually establish on the Red Planet.
Mecha-Laika
Scientists are already testing out the idea, equipping a Spot robot with new gear that could help it navigate and plot its surroundings, according to Live Science‘s account. The prototype robodog, nicknamed Au-Spot, would be able to cross terrain that’s inaccessible to a wheeled rover and do so much faster, while also hiking around obstacles and standing back up if it falls over.
“Toppling does not mean mission failure,” the NASA scientists said while presenting the idea at Monday’s annual American Geophysical Union meeting, according to Live Science‘s reporting. “Using recovery algorithms, the robot can self-right from a multitude of falls.”
Den Dweller
Part of Au-Spot’s mission would be to explore and develop maps of Martian caves and tunnels, according to Live Science, in search of suitable locations for a human outpost. For now, it’s doing test runs in hallways and tunnels that mimic Martian terrain in California.
“These behaviors could one day enable revolutionary scientific missions to take place on the Martian surface and subsurface, thereby pushing the boundaries of NASA’s capability in exploring traditionally inaccessible sites,” the scientists said.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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