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...
05-03-2022
We’ve found the first ever “shocked” zircon crystal from Mars
We’ve found the first ever “shocked” zircon crystal from Mars
Our research on a Martian meteorite provides new clues about early surface conditions on the red planet.
Are we alone in the Universe? Billions of dollars are being spent trying to answer that simple question. The implications of finding evidence for life beyond Earth are staggering. The “before and after” mark would punctuate human history.
Mars is currently the most popular exploration target to search for evidence of life elsewhere. Yet little is known about its early history. Our research on a Martian meteorite provides new clues about early surface conditions on the red planet.
Windows into the past
Today Mars is cold and inhospitable. But it may have been more Earth-like and habitable in a bygone era. Landforms on Mars record the action of liquid surface water, perhaps as early as 3.9 billion years ago.
Like Earth, early Mars was subject to a global bombardment from chunks of rock and ice floating around the Solar System. Giant impacts both destroy and create favourable environments for life. So to untangle when conditions suitable for life may have arisen on Mars, we have to track the history of both water and impacts.
A flotilla of rovers and orbiting spacecraft have been dispatched to Mars, with two NASA rovers specifically exploring impact craters for evidence of past life. Samples collected by rovers will be returned in future missions.
For now, meteorites are the only samples of Mars available to study here on Earth. Martian meteorites are born when an impact on Mars ejects rocky fragments that later intercept Earth’s orbit. Most Martian meteorites are igneous rocks, such as basalt. One meteorite, NWA 7034, is different, as it represents a rare sample of the surface of Mars.
Designated Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034, and nicknamed “Black Beauty,” the Martian meteorite weighs approximately 11 ounces (320 grams). (Credit: NASA)
Meteorite NWA 7034 has been dubbed 'Black Beauty'.
Credit: Carl Agee
Sending shock waves
The NWA 7034 meteorite, weighing about 320g, was found in the desert of northwest Africa and first reported in 2013. Unique oxygen isotope signatures reveal its origin from Mars. Other meteorites blasted off of Mars during the same event have since been found.
NWA 7034 is a complicated rock made of broken rock and mineral shards called “breccia”. Its various fragments record different snippets of Martian history.
In this element map of the martian meteorite NWA 7034 different colours correspond to different rock and mineral fragments. (Author provided)
Tiny grains of the mineral zircon occur in NWA 7034. Zircon is a “geochronometer”, meaning it records (and reveals to us) how much time has passed since it crystallised from magma. Prior studies of NWA 7034 found it contains the oldest known zircons from Mars – some up to 4.48 billion years old.
Zircon is quite useful for studying meteorite impacts. It preserves microscopic damage caused by the passage of shock waves, and these “shocked grains” provide a solid record of impact. However, no zircons with definitive shock damage had been identified in previous studies of NWA 7034.
NWA 7034 is similar to a type of sedimentary rock on Earth called conglomerate. In such rocks, every mineral can have a different origin. With that in mind, we set out to survey additional zircon grains in NWA 7034 to see if we could find any that recorded evidence of impact.
We looked at more than 60 zircons, but found only one shocked grain. This means the impact occurred before the grain was mixed into the pile of fragments that became a rock.
Reassessing Mars’s timelines
The type of shock features we found are called “deformation twins”. High pressure shock waves squeeze zircon like an accordion. This process can reorganise atoms within the crystal, to form a duplicated “twin” of zircon, which we can detect.
Scanning electron image of a shocked zircon in the matrix of martian meteorite NWA 7034. (Author provided)
We determined the zircon crystallised 4.45 billion years ago, making it one of the oldest zircons known from Mars – even older than the oldest known piece of Earth (also a zircon).
We don’t know what kind of rock the shocked zircon originally formed in. The original igneous host rock was ripped apart during impacts on Mars. The zircon is a broken fragment from a larger grain mixed in with the matrix of the meteorite.
We do, however, know where shocked zircons like this are made. On Earth, shocked zircons with deformation twins are only found at impact craters. Moreover, they occur at all of Earth’s largest asteroid strikes.
Zircons with shock features have been found at Vredefort in South Africa, Sudbury in Canada and Chicxulub in Mexico. The Mexican crater formed about 65 million years ago, and has been linked to the extinction of the dinosaurs. In this case, shocked zircons were one product of an impact large enough to cause a mass extinction.
Prior studies cited an absence of shock features in zircon from NWA 7034 to indicate a decline in catastrophic impacts on Mars by 4.48 billion years. It was further proposed that habitable conditions existed as of 4.2 billion years ago.
However, the shocked zircon we found crystallised 4.45 billion years ago. The shock event would have had to have occurred at least 30 million years after Mars had supposedly stopped being bombarded.
When exactly was the impact?
Although determining the precise age of impact is difficult, geochemical studies of NWA 7034 reveal its main components were subject to meteorite impacts before roughly 4.3 billion years ago. In this scenario, the zircon may have been shocked during this time, somewhere between 4.3 and 4.45 billion years ago.
Alternatively, it may have formed more recently, but before a decline in the rate of impacts earlier than 3 billion years ago. Both land forms and water-bearing minerals argue for early surface water on Mars, possibly by 3.9 to 3.7 billion years ago. This may be the best indicator for when habitable conditions existed.
Our findings raise new questions about the early impact history of Mars. Determining the origin of the shocked zircon, and time of impact, will provide better context for interpreting the planet’s history as archived in meteorite NWA 7034 – and potentially a timeframe for when conditions for life may have emerged.
Off a stretch of empty West Texas highway some 400 miles from Austin, crowds gather every night to experience the inexplicable. Come nightfall in Marfa, bright orbs of white, yellow, pink, blue, and red dance just above the horizon of the Chinati Mountains: twinkling, darting, hesitating, and disappearing back into the darkness of the Chihuahuan Desert.
Some claim they’re UFOs. Others believe they’re Mexican ghosts. Everyone just calls them the “Marfa Lights.” But what are they really, and why have people been wondering about them for more than a century?
The first historical account of the Marfa Lights dates back to 1883. A cowhand named Robert Reed Ellison thought he was seeing the light of an Apache campfire in the distance. But upon investigation the next morning, there were no traces of humans. And ever since that fateful day, locals have been passing down eyewitness accounts of these glittering desert orbs.
The once-dying town of Marfa eventually embraced its local mystery, throwing the first Marfa Lights Festival in 1986, and erecting a Marfa Lights viewing platform in 2003. Now, thousands flock to this spot in El Despoblado to catch a glimpse of the strange phenomenon.
Dig deep enough into Marfa’s mythology and you’ll find everything from legitimate academic studies to homespun websites in Comic Sans devoted to debunking the lights. In 2004 and 2008, teams from UT–Dallas and Texas State, respectively, studied the perceived phenomenon. Both concluded that the Marfa Lights could be explained by headlights off Highway 67, or small fires.
“When car headlights are seen through 15 miles or so of West Texas air that is unevenly heated by the ground, the light rays are bent and scattered slightly so that the headlights are fuzzy and wavering, even when viewed through a telescope,” explains Karl David Stephan, a professor in the Ingram School of Engineering at Texas State University. “It’s the same reason that stars twinkle.”
This bending and scattering also affects the lights’ perceived size, another tally in the column for “everything’s bigger in Texas.”
But, Stephan cryptically adds, “the ‘real’ Marfa lights are not headlights.”
Most locals you ask about the lights will give the same caveat: The “usual” Marfa lights are indeed car headlights—but somewhere around two dozen nights a year, the “real” Marfa lights show up. Tourists will spend hours watching headlights, and not just because they came on the wrong night: The official viewing platform seems to suggest looking straight at the highway. The “real” lights usually appear further east, dancing above the cacti on the desolate Mitchell Flats, away from the roadway.
But if not headlights—which weren’t exactly common when this all started in 1883—then what? Multiple theories abound, with some insisting the Marfa Lights are essentially ball lightning, stirred up by underground electrical energy. Others say swamp gas, aliens, or the ghosts of conquistadors.
The viewing platform nine miles east of Marfa on US–90 is the go-to stop. Arrive there before the sun sets to get your bearings, note the faraway line of the Chinati Mountains, locate the radio tower, and study the highway.
You won’t be alone. Despite Marfa’s remote location, the funky, artistic town of 1,700 attracts an outsized number of visitors (and has a surprisingly good food scene). Alternatively, head out to the Shurley Ranch, 22 miles south of Marfa, where Mike Shurley invites travelers to gaze from his open land, where a hard-to-miss sign reads “Starlight Gazing — Parking.”
Back in the one-traffic-light town, stay at the Hotel Paisano, where James Dean obsessed over the lights while filming Giant here in 1955. Dean, it’s worth noting, tragically died shortly after leaving Marfa. Maybe he knew too much?
MIT STARTUP DRILLING 12 MILES INTO THE EARTH TO SUCK OUT ENERGY
MIT STARTUP DRILLING 12 MILES INTO THE EARTH TO SUCK OUT ENERGY
OKAY, THAT'S KINDA AWESOME.
GETTY IMAGES/FUTURISM
Fusion Drilling
An MIT spinoff has locked down significant funding for a literally groundbreaking project: using fusion power tech to drill 12 miles into the Earth and harvest the immense energy down there.
The startup is called Quaise, and it picked up $40 million in series A funding last month, according to a press release. It says the money is going toward its efforts to leverage fusion technology to drill one of the deepest holes of all time. If it proves viable, it could give humans access to nearly limitless and clean geothermal energy.
That’s right. Fusion drilling.
“We need a massive amount of carbon-free energy in the coming decades,” Mark Cupta, managing director at Prelude Ventures and one of the investors in the company, said in the release.
“Quaise Energy offers one of the most resource-efficient and nearly infinitely scalable solutions to power our planet,” he added. “It is the perfect complement to our current renewable solutions, allowing us to reach baseload sustainable power in a not so distant future.”
Potential Gamechanger
Aside from being just kinda awesome in a sci-fi-sounding way, using fusion tech to dig these ultra-deep holes could offer a number of notable benefits. For one, traditional drill bits are limited with how far they can go before the hot temperatures, gasses, and liquids prevent them from going further.
However, Quaise would use a machine called a gyrotron, which is typically used to create millimeter electromagnetic waves to superheat plasma in fusion reactors. Instead of plasma, though, the startup would point at the ground — and drill into it using energy beams.
The tech has the potential to take drilling to a depth we’ve never seen before. In theory, this could also allow people to access geothermal power from the Earth no matter where they are in the world.
Of course, this tech still has a long way to go. Quaise is slated to launch its first full-scale demonstration machines in 2024, with its first commercial operation by 2026. Plus, there’s a good chance that hiccups like running out of funding or pesky supply chain issues could prevent this from ever actually launching.
Still, the idea of a fusion drill tapping into the Earth for bountiful, clean energy is pretty dope.
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As Tensions Soar With Russia, NASA Buys a Ton of SpaceX Astronaut Launches
As Tensions Soar With Russia, NASA Buys a Ton of SpaceX Astronaut Launches
If there's a winner in this conflict, it's SpaceX.
Image by NASA
NASA has awarded SpaceX contracts for three more Crew Dragon trips to the International Space Station, which brings the total number of crewed missions to the outpost for the company from six to nine, including the three successful operational trips from the last two years.
The newly signed contract is an extension of the agency’s Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract, and will allow “NASA to maintain an uninterrupted US capability for human access to the space station,” according to an announcement.
The timing of the announcement is noteworthy, as well. While NASA makes no mention of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and the subsequent breakdown of international space relations — the news does seem to demonstrate that the space agency is serious about relying on American-made rockets for the foreseeable future.
Ever since retiring the Space Shuttle in 2011, NASA has had to rely on Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft to shuttle astronauts to and from the space station.
After retiring the Space Shuttle in 2011, NASA had to rely on Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft to shuttle astronauts to and from the space station.
But starting in 2020, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft has allowed NASA to launch its astronauts to the station from US soil, greatly reducing its reliance on Russia.
So far, SpaceX has successfully flown astronauts to the ISS during three operational missions and one crewed test flight. The new contract means SpaceX will fly astronauts at least six more times.
Given Russia’s invasion and the international community distancing itself as a result, it’s worth noting that SpaceX has given NASA a much better bargaining position in the face of the conflict.
“It’s critical we begin to secure additional flights to the space station now so we are ready as these missions are needed to maintain a US presence on station,” Kathy Lueders, head of NASA’s space operations mission directorate, wrote in a December notice of intent to modify the contract.
Lueders also pointed out at the time that SpaceX is the only company in the US actually certified to fly astronauts to the space station.
NASA has signaled it is willing to invest billions of dollars in SpaceX to keep operations going on board the aging orbital outpost. As TechCrunch points out, the CCtCap contract is now worth $3.49 billion — a considerable sum, even to SpaceX.
With Soyuz spacecraft increasingly out of the question, NASA’s efforts to establish a commercial crew program appear to be paying off, and just in the nick of time.
Astronomers Scan 800 Pulsars to See If Any of Them Have Planets
Astronomers Scan 800 Pulsars to See If Any of Them Have Planets
Astronomers discovered the first exoplanets in 1992. They found a pair of them orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12 about 2300 light-years from the Sun. Two years later they discovered the third planet in the system.
Now a team of astronomers are trying to duplicate that feat by searching 800 known pulsars for exoplanets.
The team of astronomers is from the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. Jodrell Bank has a group that works on Pulsars and time-domain astrophysics. Pulsars are objects of interest for a number of different reasons, and Jodrell Bank monitors 800 pulsars as part of their work.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell, an astrophysicist from Northern Ireland, discovered the first pulsar in 1967. It took a while for her and another astrophysicist to figure out what they were. There was the usual speculation about alien sources, but once other pulsars were discovered and studied, it became clear they were naturally-occurring objects.
Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that are highly magnetized and emit beams of electromagnetic radiation from their poles. When one of the poles is pointed at Earth, we can see it, kind of like a lighthouse. Pulsars are known to emit in radio, visible light, x-rays, and even gamma rays. As a pulsar rotates the beam is visible then invisible in intervals as small as several milliseconds. The intervals are very precise—more accurate than an atomic clock—and that makes pulsars useful tools for astronomers.
Their precise intervals make them ideal for searching for planets around them. Even a slight variation in their timing means the pulsar is moving back and forth. That means one or more planets could be tugging on it. Looking for exoplanets around pulsars is called the pulsar timing method.
The transit method is the more common method of looking for exoplanets. That involves watching the light from a star and looking for regular dips in its light. A dip in the starlight could signal the presence of a planet transiting in front of the star, and if the dip is repeated regularly, it’s evidence of an orbit. Scientists find most exoplanets with this method, although follow-up measurements with other methods are often used to help confirm a planet’s presence.
One problem with the transit method is its inherent selection bias. It’s much easier to detect large planets because they block more starlight. It’s also easier to find planets orbiting close to their stars because they orbit more quickly and cause dips in starlight more frequently.
This illustration shows a pulsar with its magnetic field lines shown in blue. The beams emitting from the poles are what washes over our detectors as the dead star spins. Image Credit: NASA
But pulsar timing is different. Because pulsar timing is so precise, even small planets can tug on pulsars enough to signal their presence. The planets detected around PSR B1257+12 in the early 1990s were smaller than most exoplanets found with the transit method. The smallest of the three was only 0.002 Earth masses. As of 2019, the smallest exoplanet ever found with the transit method was 80% of Earth’s size.
This new effort to find exoplanets around 800 pulsars is different than other planet-hunting efforts. This effort isn’t a new survey or monitoring program. Instead, it’s based on searching the existing data on pulsars at the Jodrell Bank Centre. “The dataset used in this work is composed of observations of approximately 800 pulsars from the Jodrell Bank pulsar timing database,” the authors explain.
But what is the likelihood of finding more exoplanets around pulsars? Pulsars are extreme objects with long histories punctuated by episodic catastrophes. “The apparent rarity of systems like that of PSR B1257+12 may well be a consequence of the extreme conditions in which pulsars form,” the authors write.
Pulsars are neutron stars, and neutron stars have calamitous origins. They start out as massive stars between about 10 to 25 solar masses. At the end of their lives of regular fusion, these stars explode as supernovae and then collapse into ultra-dense neutron stars made of neutron degenerate matter. It’s highly unlikely that any planet could survive all of that.
Artist’s impression of a supernova. Credit: NASA
Could planets form after the supernova? Maybe. The authors explain one feasible scenario where a planet forms around a binary pair of stars and then is captured by the neutron star after a collision between the two stars. The planet could’ve also “… survived the subsequent evolution of the initial system towards a neutron star system.”
“The resulting system would consist of a normal pulsar with planetary companions in eccentric orbits,” they write, although these types of planets would be very rare. It would require a very fine-tuned environment for planets to survive.
A second scenario might be more likely. In this case, the supernova expels an enormous amount of material when it explodes, blasting it out into space at high velocity. But some of the matter might not escape the remaining neutron star’s gravity. Instead, it forms a protoplanetary disk and planets form via accretion. In this case, “… a normal pulsar, surrounded by relatively small mass planets in circular orbits, is expected,” the authors say.
A third scenario is possible, too. In this case, a planet is actually a remnant of a neutron star in a binary pair of neutron stars. One of the neutron stars disrupts the other or causes the other to partially evaporate. The remnant core is now a planet, made almost entirely of diamonds.
Those are just three of the planet-forming possibilities around pulsars. One of the motivations behind finding more pulsar planets is to narrow down these possibilities into a better-understood framework. “Overall, there are a large number of proposed formation paths of planets around pulsars, and therefore large-scale searches of planetary-mass companions and their orbital parameters are crucial to constraining and determining the feasibility of various models,” the authors explain.
Despite the precision of pulsar timing, there are still some problems. A type of noise can creep into the measurements. “… the detectability of planets around pulsars is also limited by the presence of so-called “timing noise” that manifests as a long-term red noise process in the rotation of the pulsar. This presents a further challenge in searching for planetary companions, as it can not only mask binary signatures but also mimic them,” the authors write.
Before the team could get their results they had to model the effect a planet has on a pulsar. A pulsar/planet combination is best modelled as a binary pair. “When a pulsar is part of a binary system (either with a star or a planet), it revolves around the centre of mass of the system, moving with respect to the observer on Earth,” they explain. That movement creates a slight delay in the signal reaching Earth. That delay is called a Rømer delay.
This is an illustration of the binary pulsar J0737-3039. Most binary pulsars are pulsars paired with a planet or a neutron star, but J0737-3039 is a pair of pulsars. Image Credit: By Michael Kramer (Jodrell Bank Observatory, University of Manchester), Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=827204
The team of researchers used these factors and many others to develop their analytic method. There are necessary limits in work like this, and the most important one involves exoplanet masses. “We put limits on the projected masses of any planetary companions, which reach as low as 1/100th of the mass of the Moon (about 10-4 Earth masses).” Even though that’s a limit, it’s an extraordinarily small planet to be able to detect.
The researchers summarized their overall approach by saying that “This approach is well-suited for a systematic search of planets around pulsars, for placing limits on the mass of any orbiting celestial bodies, and therefore for inferring statistically significant properties of the population of these planets.”
So what did they find?
“We find that two-thirds of our pulsars are highly unlikely to host any companions above 2 ~ 8 Earth masses,” the team says. “Our results imply that fewer than 0.5% of pulsars could host terrestrial planets as large as those known to orbit PSR B1257+12 (about 4 Earth masses).” PSR B1257+12 is the first pulsar around which planets were found in 1992. It serves as a sort of benchmark for pulsar planet systems.
There’s at least one caveat to these results though, and it pertains to low-mass planets. “… however, the smaller planet in this system (about 0.02 Earth masses) would be undetectable in 95% of our sample, hidden by both instrumental and intrinsic noise processes…” The team also points out that it’s not clear if tiny planets like that could exist in isolation.
15 of the pulsars in the sample did display some irregularities, but they weren’t necessarily planets. The team explains that the severe magnetosphere around pulsars can cause irregular periodicities. “We detect significant periodicities in 15 pulsars, however, we find that intrinsic quasi-periodic magnetospheric effects can mimic the influence of a planet, and for the majority of these cases, we believe this to be the origin of the detected periodicity.”
In their final analysis, it appears that pulsar planets are very rare. Only a single pulsar in the 800 is a likely candidate to host planets. “We believe the most plausible candidate for planetary companions in our sample is PSR J2007+3120.”
PSR J2007+3120 might host a pair of planets. “Our initial analysis of PSR J2007+3120 revealed an oscillation consistent with a planetary companion of orbital period 723(8) days,” the authors write. The evidence for the second planet isn’t as strong and could be just noise. “… there is not a strong preference between a red noise component and the second planet,” they explain.
In the end, the team didn’t find many planets. Only one of the 800 pulsars shows strong evidence of planets, and the evidence for the second planet around PSR J2007+3120 isn’t very robust. What does this tell us about pulsars and planets? For one thing, it shows how unusual the PSR B1257+12 system is, with three planets.
“We therefore confirm the hypothesis that the formation of planets around pulsars is rare, and PSR B1257+12 is a special case.”
From “A search for planetary companions around 800 pulsars from the Jodrell Bank pulsar timing programme” by Nitu et al. 2022.
“We confirm that PSR B1257+12 must have an unusual formation mechanism, placing an upper bound of 0.5% of pulsars exhibiting similar planets.” The team also says they can rule out a population of more massive pulsar planets. “We rule out a population of undetected planetary companions greater than about 10 Earth masses,” they write in the conclusion.
Artist’s impression of the planets orbiting PSR B1257+12. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC)
But they aren’t able to rule out a population of much smaller planets. Some of those planets could be hidden in the noise. “The timing noise present in most pulsars means that we cannot rule out a substantial population of tiny (
“We, therefore, confirm the hypothesis that the formation of planets around pulsars is rare, and PSR B1257+12 is a special case,” they conclude. For now, it remains the only pulsar to host Earth-size planets.
As technology improves astronomers might have more effective ways of finding smaller planets around pulsars, and of removing the noise in the signal. This effort won’t be the final word on pulsar planets
As for habitability, that’s extremely unlikely. The region around pulsars is extremely harsh. Powerful magnetic fields could wreak havoc on any planets in the vicinity. And pulsars are neutron stars so there’s no fusion taking place. They’re little more than cinders, though they can still be extremely hot. Some of the planets that are around pulsars are no more than the blasted remnants of a pulsar’s stellar companion and may be made of pure diamond. Others are captured objects.
But this study was never about habitability. It’s meant to probe some of the most unusual objects in the Universe. Could these extremely dense end-state stars made of degenerate neutron matter, stars that spin rapidly and generate extreme magnetic fields, host planets?
I found some interesting alien artifacts in a Mars photo today. The most interesting of them all was a satellite dish that was sitting on top of a hill. It was a huge curved dish with a large pyramid on its center focused on the sky. It makes sense, any intelligent culture will develop communication skills, and through time, they will evolve such technology.
I also found some other alien artifacts. A bizarre eye statue, similar to the ancient Egyptian eye of Horus sits near the Mar rover. There were other things too, but maybe you should watch the video to see them all. Kind of amazing and wonderful. So many artifacts in one photo clearly points to the fact that intelligent life on Mars evolved to a technology state equal or higher than our own.
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Ten Legendary Lost Cities that Have Emerged from the Past
Ten Legendary Lost Cities that Have Emerged from the Past
The story of Atlantis is one of the most renowned and enduring tales of a lost city, said to have been swallowed up by the sea and lost forever. Yet, the story of Atlantis is not unique, as other cultures have similar legends of landmasses and cities that have disappeared under the waves, been lost beneath desert sands, or buried beneath centuries of vegetation. Most of these legendary cities have never been found. However, there are now numerous cases of ancient cities, once seen as little more than myths and legends, that have now emerged from the past, raising the question as to how many more lost cities remain buried and waiting to be uncovered.
1. Iram of the Pillars, the Lost ‘Atlantis of the Sands’
Atlantis of the Sands is a lost city, tribe, or area spoken of in the Quran, which has come to be known as Iram of the Pillars. In the Quran, Iram was said to be adorned with lofty buildings, and was populated by a group of people known as Ad. As they had turned away from Allah, the prophet Hud was sent to summon them to return to the worship of Allah and to obey Him. The people of Iram reacted with hostility and did not heed the words of Hud. As a result, legend says that the Ad were punished, and a sandstorm was sent against their city for seven nights and days. In the end, Iram vanished beneath the sands as though it had never existed.
In the early 1990s, a team, led by Nicholas Clapp, an amateur archaeologist and filmmaker, announced that they had found the ancient city of Ubar, which was identified as Iram of the Pillars. This was achieved using NASA’s remote sensing satellites, ground penetrating radar, Landsat programme data, and images taken by the Space Shuttle Challenger. These resources allowed the team to identify old camel trade routes and the points at which they converged. One of these converging points was a well-known water hole at Shisr, in Dhofar province, Oman. When an excavation was carried out at the site, a large, octagonal fort with high walls and tall towers was uncovered. The team announced they had found the legendary Iram of the Pillars. While doubt still remains as to whether Ubar and Iram really are one and the same, it has been suggested that at the very least, the story of Iram was inspired by the city of Ubar, and over time became altered to incorporate a message to obey the will of Allah.
The legendary ancient city of Helike was situated in Achaea, on the northwestern part of the Peloponnesian peninsula. During its heyday, it was the leader of the first Achaean League, a confederation that consisted of 12 cities in the surrounding area. Due to this position, Helike was an important economic, cultural and religious centre. The patron god of Helike was Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea and earthquakes. This is unsurprising, given Helike’s position in one of the most active earthquake zones in Europe.
One night during the winter of 373 B.C., the city of Helike was obliterated. Some signs of the city’s impending doom were recorded, including the appearance of ‘immense columns of flames’ and the mass migration of small animals from the coast to the mountains several days prior to the disaster. A major earthquake, followed by a large tsunami from the Gulf of Corinth, wiped the city of Helike from the face of the earth. The rescue party that came in the following morning found no survivors. Over time, the location of Helike was lost.
In the early 19 th century, speculations about the actual site of Helike began to spread. However, it was not until 2001 that the ancient city was finally unearthed in Achaea, Greece. In 2012, the destruction layer was uncovered, which confirmed that the site is indeed Helike.
3. Ancient Egyptian City of Heracleion - on the border between myth and reality
The city of Heracleion, home of the temple where Cleopatra was inaugurated, plunged into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Egypt nearly 1,200 years ago. It was one of the most important trade centres in the Mediterranean before it sank more than a millennium ago. For centuries, the city was believed to be a myth, much like the city of Atlantis is viewed today. But in 2001, an underwater archaeologist searching for French warships stumbled across the sunken city.
After removing layers of sand and mud, divers uncovered the extraordinarily well preserved city with many of its treasures still intact including, the main temple of Amun-Gerb, giant statues of pharaohs, hundreds of smaller statues of gods and goddesses, a sphinx, 64 ancient ships, 700 anchors, stone blocks with both Greek and Ancient Egyptian inscriptions, dozens of sarcophagi, gold coins and weights made from bronze and stone. It was one of the most significant underwater discoveries in over a decade.
4. The Rediscovery of Urkesh: Forgotten City of the Hurrians
Ancient Urkesh was once a major hub of the ancient Near Eastern Hurrian civilization, known in mythology as the home of a primordial god. It flourished between 4000 and 1300 BC as a major political and religious center, and an important stop on both the north-south trade route between Anatolia and the cities of Syria and Mesopotamia, and the east-west route that linked the Mediterranean with the Zagros Mountains of western Iran. It was also the capital of a kingdom that controlled the highlands immediately to the north where the supplies of copper were located, which made the city wealthy and rich.
Little was known about Urkesh and the mysterious Hurrian civilization, as the ancient city had remained buried beneath desert sands for thousands of years, lost to the pages of history. However, in the 1980s, archaeologists discovered Tell Mozan, a towering mound that hid the remains of an ancient palace, temple, and plaza. A decade later, and researchers made the exciting realization that Tell Mozan was the lost city of Urkesh.
The excavations revealed most of what is known today about the early culture of the Hurrian people. The uncovered remains of this fabled ancient city revealed an open plaza, a monumental flight of stairs and a deep underground shaft – the 'Passage to the Netherworld’ which was related to religious rituals. A large royal palace yielded written evidence that was able to identify the ancient city.
5. Cantre'r Gwaelod – The Mythical Sunken Kingdom of Wales
During the sixth century, a legendary kingdom known as Cantre’r Gwaelod (meaning ‘The Lowland Hundred’) was said to have been ruled over by a king by the name of Gwyddno Garanhir. Up to around the 17th century, Cantre’r Gwaelod was known as Maes Gwyddno (meaning ‘Gwyddno’s Land’), so named after this Welsh ruler. An earlier version of the legend associated with Maes Gwyddno asserts that the land was submerged under water when Mererid, a priestess of a fairy well, allowed the water to overflow, sinking the kingdom forever.
Several decades ago, the emergence of prehistoric forests during stormy weather in Cardigan Bay, in the west of Wales, led to the suggestion that it may be the location of the legendary Cantre’r Gwaelod. Indeed, investigations revealed a wattle walkway with associated posts, fossilized human and animal footprints, as well as some human tools. The location of the ancient kingdom is now believed to lie between Ramsey Island and Bardsey Island in Cardigan Bay, and to extend about 32 kilometers west of the current shoreline into the bay.
6. Archaeologists find untouched ruins in their search for the Lost City of the Monkey God
Two years ago, an aerial search of the dense jungle of Honduras fuelled by local legends of a lost ancient city, revealed miles of seemingly man-made features. Announcements quickly spread that archaeologists had found La Ciudad Blanca (“The White City”), otherwise known as the Lost City of the Monkey God. But all they had to go on were vague scans of the jungle below. However, earlier this year, a ground expedition concluded its investigation and dramatically revealed that the aerial images did indeed show traces of a lost civilization. Archaeologists have now discovered extensive plazas, earthworks, mounds, an earthen pyramid, and dozens of finely carved artifacts belonging to a mysterious culture that is virtually unknown.
La Ciudad Blanca is a legendary city that was said to be located in the virgin rainforest of Mosquitia in eastern Honduras. Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés reported hearing "trustworthy" information about the ancient ruins, but never located them. In 1927, pilot Charles Lindbergh reported seeing monuments constructed from white stone while flying over eastern Honduras. By the 1930s, there were rumors of a place in Honduras called the "City of the Monkey God", which was equated with Ciudad Blanca, and in 1939 adventurer Theodore Morde claimed to have found it and brought thousands of artifacts back to the United States to prove it. According to Morde, the indigenous people said a giant statue of a monkey god was buried there. He never revealed the precise location of his find as he feared the site would be looted and died before returning to the site for a proper excavation.
In 1952, explorer Tibor Sekelj searched for The White City on an expedition financed by the Ministry of Culture of Honduras, but returned empty handed. Investigations picked up pace in the 1990s following reports of the legend in popular media and in 2012 the first significant discovery was made. Investigations have now revealed an extensive complex that had lain untouched since the city was abandoned centuries, perhaps even millennia, ago.
7. The Discovery of the Long-Lost Temple of the City of Musasir
The temple of the ancient city of Musasir was an important Araratian temple dedicated to Haldi, the supreme god of the kingdom of Urartu, an Iron Age kingdom centered on Lake Van in the Armenian Highlands, which extended out across what is now Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Armenia. The temple was built in the holy city of Ararat in 825 BC, but after Musasir fell to the Assyrians in the 8th century BC, the ancient temple became lost to the pages of history.
The temple of Musasir dates back to a time when the Urartians, Assyrians, and Scythians were all at odds, trying to gain control over the area that is now known as northern Iraq. Ancient inscriptions referred to Musasir as a "holy city founded in bedrock" and "the city of the raven", while the name Musasir itself means “exit of the serpent”. A depiction of the temple appears in an Assyrian bas-relief which adorned the palace of King Sargon II at Khorsapat, to commemorate his victory over "the seven kings of Ararat" in 714 BC.
Over the years, numerous studies and excavations were launched to try to locate the ancient temple of Musasir. All of them were unsuccessful until an expedition in July, 2014, when an exciting announcement was made – the long-lost temple of Musasir had finally been found. Located in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, the findings included life-sized human sculptures and column bases from a temple dedicated to the god Haldi, all dating back to the period in which the temple of Musasir was built.
8. High-Tech Equipment Leads to Discovery of Lost City in Cambodian Jungle
In 2014, Australian archaeologists using cutting edge remote-sensing technology made a remarkable discovery in Cambodia – a 1,200-year-old lost city that predates the Angkor Wat temple complex.
Damian Evans, director of the University of Sydney's archaeological research center in Cambodia, and a small team working in the Siem Reap region, were given approval to use Lidar laser technology in the remote jungles of Cambodia, the first time the airborne technology has been used for archaeological research in tropical Asia. The discovery came when the Lidar data emerged on a computer screen. "With this instrument – bang – all of a sudden we saw an immediate picture of an entire city that no one knew existed, which is just remarkable," said Evans.
The finding occurred after years of archaeological ground research to reveal Mahendraparvata, a lost city where people lived on a mountain called Phnom Kulen, 350 years before the building of the famous Angkor Wat temple complex in north-western Cambodia. It was part of the Hindu-Buddhist Khmer Empire that ruled much of Southeast Asia from about 800 to 1400 AD.
Using the lidar data, the team of archaeologists discovered the ruins of five previously unrecorded temples, a huge statue of Buddha, evidence of ancient canals and roads and hundreds of mysterious mounds spread across the city, possibly tombs where the dead were buried. They also found a cave with historically significant carvings that was used by holy hermits who were common during the Angkor period. The research and excavation into the remarkable discovery of Mahendraparvata is still in its infancy and it is unknown what more the archaeologists will find there.
It is widely taught in the field of ancient history that Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and India, gave rise to the first civilizations of mankind. However, few are aware that at the same time, and in some cases before some of these societies emerged, another great civilization had sprouted - the Norte Chico civilization of Supe, Peru – the first known civilization of the Americas. Their capital was the Sacred City of Caral – a 5,000-year-old metropolis complete with complex agricultural practices, rich culture, and monumental architecture, including six large pyramidal structures, stone and earthen platform mounds, temples, amphitheatre, sunken circular plazas, and residential areas.
The ancient city of Caral had lain buried beneath the sand for thousands of years until the Supe Valley, which lies 200 miles north of Lima on the Peruvian Pacific coast, was surveyed in 1905 by the German archaeologist Max Uhle, who revealed the first archaeological discoveries in the area. It was not until several decades later that full-scale excavations took place, revealing the tip of a very large iceberg. In the 1970s, archaeologists discovered that the hills originally identified as natural formations were actually stepped pyramids, and by the 1990s the full extent of the great city of Caral had emerged. Excavations revealed six large pyramids (platform mounds) arranged around a huge plaza. The public architecture has stairs, rooms, courtyards, an amphitheatre, and three sunken plazas. Accommodation seems to have consisted of large rooms atop the pyramids for the elite, ground-level complexes for craftsmen, and small outlying dwellings for workers. In total, it is estimated that Caral was home to a population of about 3,000 people. Researchers believe the model of the city was used by many civilizations that came after the Norte Chico.
10.Archaeologists Discover Two Long Lost Ancient Maya Cities in Jungle of Mexico
In 2014, archaeologists made an amazing discovery in the jungles of Mexico –two ancient Maya cities that had been lost over time, including ruined pyramid temples, palace remains, a monster mouth gateway, a ball court, altars, and other stone monuments. One of the cities had been found decades ago but all attempts to relocate the ruins, which are named Lagunita, had failed. The other city was previously unknown and was a brand new discovery, shedding new light on the ancient Maya civilization.
One of the most impressive features of the Maya city is the enormous monster-mouth entranceway, which represents a Maya earth deity of fertility. Beyond the entranceway, archaeologists came across a large temple pyramid measuring 65 feet (20 metres) in height, as well as the ruins of a palace complex arranged around four large plazas. Nearby, they found numerous stone sculptures and several altars, all engraved with well-preserved reliefs and inscriptions.
Even more stunning than the rediscovery of Lagunita, was the fact that the research team also stumbled across another set of ancient ruins nearby, which were previously unknown, including a pyramid temple, altar, and large acropolis surrounded by three temples. The researchers named the city Tamchen (‘deep well’), after finding more than thirty chultans, deep underground chambers used for collecting rainwater.
Featured image: A compilation of lost cities that have since been found.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
12,000-Year-Old Lost City Off New Orleans Coast or Imagination Gone Wild?
12,000-Year-Old Lost City Off New Orleans Coast or Imagination Gone Wild?
A self-proclaimed amateur archaeologist professes that mysterious granite stones found over the years by fishermen near the uninhabited Chandeleur Islands, located 50 miles east of New Orleans in the United States, are actually architectural artifacts from a 12,000-year-old lost city. Having visited the site 44 times, George Gelé, a retired architect, is convinced that he has found the remains of a submerged city predating the ancient Inca, Maya and Aztec civilizations of the Americas.
Even more startlingly, he claims that there is a pyramid in the granite city, which he has named “Crescentis”, that is related to the Great Pyramid at Giza ! The oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World , the Great Pyramid is located in Greater Cairo in Egypt. “What’s down there are hundreds of buildings that are covered with sand and silt and that are geographically related to the Great Pyramid at Giza. Somebody floated a billion stones down the Mississippi River and assembled them outside what would later become New Orleans ,” Gelé told CBS affiliate WWL-TV.
George Gelé claims that the lost city located off Chandeleur Islands is related to the Great Pyramid of Giza, seen here.
The Building Blocks of the Lost City of “Crescentis”
So what exactly has Gelé built his theory of a lost city on? While its foundations may be weak, the building stones are solid enough. Local fishermen have for years been talking about netting strange square rocks near the Chandeleur Islands. Granite in the area is certainly something that requires explanation, given that it isn’t found naturally in Louisiana or Mississippi, reports the Sun.
Gelé, who has taken 44 trips to the site over nearly 50 years, has produced underwater sonar images of what he is convinced are discernible ruins of major buildings. These, he claims, include a large pyramid. “All I know is somebody built a city 12,000 years ago and it’s stuck out in Chandeleur. Whether or not they had someone on their shoulder who flew in with a UFO, I don’t know. All I know is they left a whole lot of granite rocks out there,” he said according to WWL-TV.
An aerial view of Chandeleur Islands. Louisiana, Chandeleur Islands, St. Bernard Parish.
But that’s not all. According to Gelé, the pyramid, which he estimates is 280 feet (85 meters) tall, produces an incredible amount of electromagnetic energy . His claims are corroborated by local shrimper Ricky Robin who’s been out with him on four excursions.
According to Robin, the compass on his boat spun completely out of control as they neared the point which Gelé told him was the tip of the pyramid. “Everything will go out on your boat, all your electronics. Like as if you were in the Bermuda Triangle . That’s exactly what we got here,” he is quoted in the Sun as saying . He added that the granite slabs that fishermen found in the area at regular intervals had long been a topic of discussion and putting two and two together, he thought of them immediately as pieces of the pyramid since it was exactly where his compass went crazy.
George Gelé has spent almost 50 years studying the site where he believes a lost city is hiding underwater.
A Lost City? Or Are There More Mundane Explanations?
Though he has his adherents, many treat Gelé’s claims with skepticism, subscribing to explanations that are as of now less of a stretch of imagination than the theory of a submerged city near the Chandeleur Islands . And there are several of these rather more realistic explanations. One is from a late 1980s Texas A&M study which claims the granite blocks originate from old shipwrecks or ballast stones thrown overboard by Spanish and French ships to lighten their load as they entered shallow waters.
In fact, Gelé himself made a presentation in 2014 along similar lines. There he explored possibilities of the stone piles being from a construction dump or a build up from several shipwrecks. LSU archaeology professor Rob Mann told local newspaper the Advocate in 2011 that he believed the granite slabs originated from an abortive attempt to build an artificial reef. The state’s archaeologist told the same newspaper that while he agreed that barge loads of stones seemed to have been dumped there, the reasons were not clear.
The jury is still out on whether there is any substance to Gelé’s claims of a 12,000-year-old lost city, or whether the more commonplace explanations are closer to the truth. Certainly, Gelé’s hypothesis is more romantic. But until future dives, solar technology or satellite imaging help him put some proof out there, he will find it difficult to find serious scientific backing for his lost city ideas.
Top image: Representational image of a lost city at the bottom of the ocean. Source: diversepixel / Adobe Stock
George Gele has found an ancient city off the coast of Louisiana. A city that contains a pyramid that is almost 200 feet tall. He has sonar scans and ancient artifacts as proof. An ancient underwater city should not be hard to believe. Hundreds of ancient cities have been swallowed up by the ocean over the last half million years. Imagine an alien culture making a city on an island and then leaving, making it sink on purpose to hide it...Atlantis. Well, its possible that Atlantis was in Louisiana ..but since the waters are so murky, no-one seems to care to check. But just because people are ignorant of the cities existence, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We may have just found an ancient alien city of Atlantis!
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan
News states:
An amateur archeologist says he’s discovered the ruins of an ancient civilization off the coast of St. Bernard Parish. He claims there are large underwater granite mounds near the Chandeleur Islands that may have once been the site of the lost city. The Chandeleur Islands are a chain of uninhabited barrier islands located in the Gulf of Mexico, 50 miles east of New Orleans.Twelve thousand years ago, before a dramatic sea-level rise at the end of the last Ice Age, this area may have been dry land. Retired architect George Gelé believes the site, now underwater was once a major city, predating the Maya, Inca, and Aztec civilizations in Mexico and in Central and South America. He dubbed the city “Crecsentis.” “What’s down there are hundreds of buildings that are covered with sand and silt and that are geographically related to the Great Pyramid at Giza,” Gelé said.
Scientists believe that before our universe, another , previous cosmos existed. In a way, they are calling this p
“The next universe will be just like ours — but only in overall appearance, not in detail, of course…”
A researcher may just have discovered conclusive evidence that another cosmos existed before this one. Not only that, but he also claims that ours is just the latest in an infinite series of universes. Professor Sir Roger Penrose argues that our known cosmos is the latest in a long line of previous universes, answering the question of what was ‘there’ before the Big Bang.
Another Universe Before This One
According to Professor Sir Roger Penrose, a former College of late Professor Hawking, our universe still carries the scars of the events of our universe’s predecessor, which was destroyed some 14 billion years ago. Prof Penrose, a researcher from the University of Oxford, is one of the world’s most distinguished theoretical physicists. He claims evidence suggests our universe is just the latest in an infinite series of universes, each emerging phoenix-like from its predecessor in a Big Bang.
Accepted scientific models suggest that our universe and everything inside it, stars, planets, and galaxies, burst into existence literally out of nowhere, thanks to strange and mostly undiscovered laws that govern the sub-atomic world.
The inflation model of the universe’s birth was hailed as a breakthrough when it was first proposed in the 1970s. However, the more we explore the cosmos, and the more we research, the more this theory becomes obsolete.
According to a cyclic model of the cosmos, the answer to what existed before our universe is simple: another one.
Prof. Penrose and colleagues in the US and Poland have been investigating this idea. They believe they’ve finally come across telltale signs of universes that may have existed before ours, and they base their claims on studies of radiation left over from the Big Bang.
First spotted by astronomers in the mid-1960s, this radiation permeates the whole of space in the form of microwaves.
However, studies have shown that this radiation is not spread equally across the cosmos. Astronomers had argued that this inequality of distribution is due to the turbulence that existed when our universe was created.
Prof. Penrose and his team suggest that our cosmic predecessor may have contained supermassive black holes. Over countless millions of years, these black holes would have devoured all mater in the previous cosmos. Countless millions of years after this event, these massive black holes vanished as well, in bursts of so-called Hawking Radiaion.
A link to the paper can be found by clicking here.
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Thanks to the provisions of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, we know that back in the 1970s, the FBI briefly got involved in one of the strangest phenomena out there. I’m talking about cattle mutilations. It’s a lesser known fact, however, that most of the mute material that came the FBI’s way was supplied by a New Mexico-based police officer: Gabe Valdez. So, with that said, let’s have a look at the files and theories of Valdez, himself. As Valdez’s voluminous records showed, from the summer of 1975 to the early fall of 1978, no less than twenty-eight cattle mutilation incidents occurred in Rio Arriba County. One of the most bizarre events occurred in June 1976, as Valdez’s files demonstrate: “Investigations around the area revealed that a suspected aircraft of some type had landed twice, leaving three pod marks positioned in a triangular shape. The diameter of each pod was 14 inches. Emanating from the two landings were smaller triangular shaped tripods 28 inches and 4 inches in diameter. Investigation at the scene showed that these small tripods had followed the cow for approximately 600 feet. Tracks of the cow showed where she had struggled and fallen. The small tripod tracks were all around the cow. Other evidence showed that grass around the tripods, as they followed the cow, had been scorched. Also a yellow oily substance was located in two places under the small tripods. This substance was submitted to the State Police Lab. The Lab was unable to detect the content of the substance.”
(Nick Redfern)
Gabe Valdez and Nick Redfern in Albuquerque, New Mexico
The document from Valdez continued: “A sample of the substance was submitted to a private lab and they were unable to analyze the substance due to the fact that it disappeared or disintegrated. Skin samples were analyzed by the State Police Lab and the Medical Examiner’s Office. It was reported that the skin had been cut with a sharp instrument.” Seventy-two hours later, Valdez liaised with Dr. Howard Burgess, of the New Mexico-based Sandia National Laboratories, with a view to having the area checked for radiation. It was a wise move. The radiation level was double that which could normally be expected. Valdez’s conclusions on this issue: “It is the opinion of this writer that radiation findings are deliberately being left at the scene to confuse investigators.” The case was not over, however. Whatever, or whoever, was responsible for the mutilation made a return visit. Once again, we need to take a look at the official files on the affair. In Valdez’s own, official words: “There was also evidence that the tripod marks had returned and removed the left ear. Tripod marks were found over Mr. Gomez’s tire tracks of his original visit. The left ear was intact when Mr. Gomez first found the cow. The cow had a 3-month-old calf which has not been located since the incident. This appears strange since a small calf normally stays around the mother even though the cow is dead.”
On the matter of whether or not the mutilations were the work of cults or natural predators, Valdez said: “Both have been ruled out due to expertise and preciseness and the cost involved to conduct such a sophisticated and secretive operation. It should also be noted that during the spring of 1974 when a tremendous amount of cattle were lost due to heavy snowfalls, the carcasses had been eaten by predators. These carcasses did not resemble the carcasses of the mutilated cows. Investigation has narrowed down to these theories which involve (1) Experimental use of Vitamin B12 and (2) The testing of the lymph node system. During this investigation an intensive study has been made of (3) What is involved in germ warfare testing, and the possible correlation of these 3 factors (germ warfare testing, use of Vitamin B12, testing of the lymph node system).” A further, very strange, report can be found in Valdez’s files, from 1978:
“This four year old cross Hereford and Black Angus native cow was found lying on left side with rectum, sex organs, tongue, and ears removed. Pinkish blood from [illegible] was visible, and after two days the blood still had not coagulated. Left front and left rear leg were pulled out of their sockets apparently from the weight of the cow which indicates that it was lifted and dropped back to the ground. The ground around and under the cow was soft and showed indentations where the cow had been dropped. 600 yards away from the cow were the 4-inch circular indentations similar to the ones found at the Manuel Gomez ranch on 4-24-78. This cow had been dead approximately [illegible] hours and was too decomposed to extract samples. This is the first in a series of mutilations in which the cows’ legs are broken. Previously the animals had been lifted from the brisket with a strap. These mutilated animals all dehydrate rapidly (in one or two days).”
(Nick Redfern)
Strangers in the Night
As the summer of 1978 progressed, so did the number of reports where elevated radiation readings were found, as Valdez noted in his records: “It is believed that this type of radiation is not harmful to humans, although approximately 7 people who visited the mutilation site complained of nausea and headaches. However, this writer has had no such symptoms after checking approximately 11 mutilations in the past 4 months. Identical mutilations have been taking place all over the Southwest. It is strange that no eye witnesses have come forward or that no accidents [have] occurred. One has to admit that whoever is responsible for the mutilations is very well organized with boundless financing and secrecy. Writer is presently getting equipment through the efforts of Mr. Howard Burgess, Albuquerque, N.M. to detect substances on the cattle which might mark them and be picked up by infra-red rays but not visible to the naked eye.”
A lengthy document, prepared by Forrest S. Putman, the FBI’s Special-Agent-in-Charge at Albuquerque, New Mexico was soon thereafter sent to the FBI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. It read: “Information furnished to this office by Officer Valdez indicates that the animals are being shot with some type of paralyzing drug and the blood is being drawn from the animal after an injection of an anti-coagulant. It appears that in some instances the cattle’s legs have been broken and helicopters without any identifying numbers have reportedly been seen in the vicinity of these mutilations. Officer Valdez theorizes that clamps are being placed on the cow’s legs and they are being lifted by helicopter to some remote area where the mutilations are taking place and then the animal is returned to its original pasture. The mutilations primarily consist of removal of the tongue, the lymph gland, lower lip and the sexual organs of the animal. Much mystery has surrounded these mutilations, but according to witnesses they give the appearance of being very professionally done with a surgical instrument, and according to Valdez, as the years progress, each surgical procedure appears to be more professional.”
Nick Redfern)
As Valdez’s files reveal, he made a connection between the mutes and black helicopters
The documentation continues: “Officer Valdez has advised that in no instance, to his knowledge, are these carcasses ever attacked by predator or scavenger animals, although there are tracks which would indicate that coyotes have been circling the carcass from a distance. Special Agent Putman then informed the Director of the outcome of Valdez’s run-ins with officials. He also advised that he has requested Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory to conduct investigation for him but until just recently has always been advised that the mutilations were done by predatory animals. Officer Valdez stated that just recently he has been told by two assistants at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory that they were able to determine the type of tranquilizer and blood anti-coagulant that have been utilized.” Putnam then demonstrated to headquarters the astonishing scale of the mutilation puzzle:
“Officer Valdez stated that Colorado probably has the most mutilations occurring within their State and that over the past four years approximately 30 have occurred in New Mexico. He stated that of these 330, 15 have occurred on Indian Reservations but he did know that many mutilations have gone unreported which have occurred on the Indian reservations because the Indians, particularly in the Pueblos, are extremely superstitious and will not even allow officers in to investigate in some instances. Officer Valdez stated since the outset of these mutilations there have been an estimated 8,000 animals mutilated which would place the loss at approximately $1,000,000.” Without doubt a huge, and widespread phenomenon – and much of it studied and investigated by Police Officer Gabe Valdez.
To those of a certain age, CHiPS will always be the name of a popular television show of the late 1970s about two motorcycle cops working for the California Highway Patrol (CHP). Today, CHPS still represents a kind of patrol – but one whose range extends far beyond California. Where to? Hint … can Ponch fit in a space suit?
“Until now, the United States space mission extended 22,000 miles above Earth. That was then, this is now. The Air Force Research Laboratory is extending that range by 10 times and the operations area of the United States by 1,000 times, taking our reach to the far side of the Moon into cislunar space.”
Space Force on patrol?
A video released this week by the Air Force Research Laboratory — a scientific research organization operated by the United States Air Force Materiel Command dedicated to providing technological warfighting capabilities to United States air, space, and cyberspace forces – contained a small announcement with big consequences … the Wright Patterson Air Force Base lab will launch a satellite — Cislunar Highway Patrol System (CHPS) — into cislunar space which includes the Moon. That gives CHPS a view of the “far side of the Moon” which is significant since that’s where China’s lunar rover is exploring and where that nation plans to build a Moon base.
“Effectively, this satellite is the beginning of an extension of operations by US Space Command from geostationary space to beyond the Moon.”
Space.com explains that the Air Force Research Laboratory will build the satellite, the US Space Force will operate it and train military personnel on its usage, and the US Space Command will oversee its usage in space. Brian Weeden, director of program planning for the nonprofit Secure World Foundation which works with government and agencies on the peaceful use of outer space, tells Ars Technica he thinks the purpose of the satellite is strictly observational … for now.
“It’s the first step for them to be able to know what’s going on in cislunar space and then identify any potential threats to US activities.”
The current US military focus is on the spot 22,000 miles (35,400 km) above Earth where the all-important geostationary satellites orbit. However, traffic between Earth and the Moon is increasing dramatically among many countries, so CHPS will be placed at 272,000 miles (438,000 km) from Earth. Of course, the video state that the intentions of the Space Force are good.
“The U.S. Space Force will ensure the peaceful development of space, keeping our missions safe and secure in these distant frontiers. The responsible use of space and unfettered access to space domain awareness ensures collision avoidance, on-orbit logistics, communication, navigation and maneuvering, all critical to the United States and allied space commerce, science and exploration.”
Is the announcement of CHPS at this time related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine intentional or just a coincidence? Good luck getting a straight answer on that one … especially with Russia’s space agency leaders threatening problems in the ISS and cancelling projects with other agencies.
Ready to give up the bike for a rocket?
While keeping space peaceful seems like a noble cause, humanity hasn’t been able to accomplish that on Earth yet, so perhaps we should read between the lines – or the space objects – and see what this announcement really is … the first step towards putting Ponch, Joe, Bear and Hot Dog on space motorcycles patrolling the Moon and beyond.
News reports have confirmed that the Russian army has captured the Ukrainian port city and region (oblast) of Kherson, where an ancient space ark is claimed to be buried. According to two independent sources, the space ark is buried under Oleshky Sands National Nature Park, which is only 25 km (15 miles) east of Kherson. The space ark is said to be activating and predicted to eventually begin flying into the air.
Kherson is strategically important to the Russian military as it contains a fresh-water canal to the nearby Crimean peninsula, which is the only warm water port of the Russian Navy. Russia’s capture of Kherson is vital for ensuring the long-term viability of its Crimean facilities, but also fulfills a new strategic imperative – to gain access to and control the alleged space ark.
I was first told about the Ukraine space ark by my long-time source JP who currently serves in the US Army and has been on covert missions to two other space arks. One mission was to the Moon, and two others have been to the Bermuda Triangle area of the Atlantic Ocean. All three missions were jointly conducted by the US and China, and the second Atlantic Ocean mission included Russia, which had found its own ark but was not giving the US access.
On February 11, JP gave me coordinates (46°35’19″N 33°03’01″E) to a space ark he was told exists in Ukraine. The coordinates are for the Oleshky Sands, which is the only natural sand desert in Ukraine and has long been a tourist attraction. The origins of the sandy desert have puzzled geologists, and there has been speculation that it is a result of historical overgrazing by sheep.
JP later described what he was told about the Ukrainian space ark in briefings and by others participating in the covert missions to ancient arks being found all over our solar system and on Earth. On February 24, he left me the following voice message describing his new intel about space arks being found in Russia and Ukraine:
Remember I was telling you about the ark? There was Russians surrounding the ship that we were on [in the Atlantic Ocean]. They really wanted information. That’s why they went down to the [Atlantic] ark with us. We gave them the opportunity to come down. We didn’t have no problem, you know, bringing the Russians in and sharing information; because, we know that this was huge, worldwide, huge, you know this is humongous.
So all the world leaders need to know about this. But they did not keep their side of the promise right now, taking us to their ark, but now with this happening in Ukraine —that ark that is over there, I guess they want that information for them. We were about to go to that ark.
Don’t be surprised if it starts activation, Oleshky desert national park, and probably gets to be one of the first ships to go up in the air. Everybody sees. Now that the nations in the world [attention] is … on Ukraine, this is probably going to be one the first ones that’s going to go up, and everybody is going to see it. Everything is going to come to a halt. Everybody is going to be shocked because of this
JP’s revelation that the space ark found in Ukraine is activating and US military authorities were ready to go in to investigate is very telling in terms of why Russia chose to intervene now. Even more astounding is his prediction that the Ukrainian ark will eventually begin flying into the air. Indeed, with the world’s attention currently on Ukraine, a flying space ark will instantaneously become a global event of profound significance.
On February 26, during my “What’s Coming in 2022” webinar, I publicly revealed for the first time what JP had told me about the Ukrainian space ark. I subsequently received important corroborating information from Thor Han Eredyon, a Fleet Commander of the Galactic Federation of Worlds, as relayed through Elena Danaan, a former French archeologist.
Two days after my webinar, Elena relayed to me the following information from Thor Han about Russia’s military intervention into Ukraine and the Deep State’s (DS) involvement with the ark:
This is not an invasion of Ukraine but part of the cleansing operations. The DS was attempting to activate the Ark, which they had found many years ago, buried underneath the sand in the lower southern part of Ukraine. The ark activated, so it was time Putin got his hands on it. There is a second ark in the north of Russia, but Putin already has control of it.
Thor Han’s information corroborated what JP had been told about two space arks found in the region — one in Russia and another in Ukraine. It’s very significant that the Deep State has had a strong influence over Ukraine since 2014 and was attempting to activate the space ark found in a sandy region of southern Ukraine—Oleshky Sands.
On March 1, Thor Han revealed more about the buried Ukraine space ark:
Putin has his hands on the other ark in the north of Russia, and he has been taught by positive extraterrestrials how to use this technology.
It is information without consequence because this ark in north Russia is secured and in good hands, contrarily to the Ukrainian ark, which, through to this day (March 01, 2022) is in the hands of the Earth Alliance, it is still fought for by the DS military based in the south of Ukraine, near the ark “buried in the sand.”
Thor Han’s information corroborates what JP had been told about Russia’s control over a space ark found in its own territory. By March 2, Russia had defeated the Ukrainian military and had gained full control over Kherson, including Oleshky Sands National Nature Park.
Kherson is the first Ukrainian city to fall to the Russian military, which is highly significant given claims of an ancient space ark found in the nearby Oleshky Sands.
The discovery of a space ark that is activating under Oleshky Sands provides an understanding of why Russia has decided to militarily intervene in the Ukraine civil war that has been ongoing since 2014. Something dramatic must have happened behind the scenes to motivate Russia to intervene in a civil war that was essentially frozen as a result of a lack of progress on implementing the Minsk Agreement signed by Russia, France, Germany, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
While some claim that the Ukrainian army was preparing a lightning military campaign to retake the contested Donetsk and Lugansk administrative regions (Oblasts) of Ukraine, others claim that US-sponsored Biolabs were the real target of the Russian attack. While these are plausible scenarios, neither one adequately explains why Russia conducted a full-scale military intervention from three directions after eight years of sitting on the sidelines.
The discovery of a buried space ark and Russia’s desire to take full control of it offers a more compelling explanation for Russia moving in and taking over Ukrainian territory far from the contested Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
Russia’s rapid takeover of Kherson is powerful circumstantial evidence that supports the revelations of JP and Thor Han/Elena Danaan about an ancient space ark found under the Oleshky Sands National Nature Park, and that this was the decisive factor in Russia’s surprise military intervention into Ukraine.
A podcast version of this article is available on YouTube & Rumble
It was only a matter of time before something paranormal was reported from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the first incident will be hard to top – real or otherwise. At about the time Russian troops entered the Ukrainian city of Kherson, a small number of websites reported that an “ancient space ark” buried near Kherson had been activated and would be flying soon. Ancient space ark?
What exactly IS a space ark?
“Don’t be surprised if it starts activation, Oleshky desert national park, and probably gets to be one of the first ships to go up in the air. Everybody sees. Now that the nations in the world [attention] is … on Ukraine, this is probably going to be one the first ones that’s going to go up, and everybody is going to see it. Everything is going to come to a halt. Everybody is going to be shocked because of this.”
That quote comes from a source known only as JP and was said to have been given to Dr. Michael Salla, the Founder of the Exopolitics Institute and the Exopolitics.org website for news about “key individuals, political institutions and processes associated with extraterrestrial life.” Salla claims the space ark is buried under Oleshky Sands National Nature Park, Ukraine’s national park which is 25 km (15 miles) east of Kherson. The park is highly unusual in that it is a semi-arid, desert-like area covered with low-fertility soil and sand. While open to tourists, the park is highly secured because it’s next to a military training ground. And maybe because of the buried space ark?
“I was first told about the Ukraine space ark by my long-time source JP who currently serves in the US Army and has been on covert missions to two other space arks. One mission was to the Moon, and two others have been to the Bermuda Triangle area of the Atlantic Ocean. All three missions were jointly conducted by the US and China, and the second Atlantic Ocean mission included Russia, which had found its own ark but was not giving the US access.”
Scans for other info on “space arks” come up empty, so we have to rely on Salla’s revelations that these are some sort of ancient space ships found buried – two by the U.S. and China, one by Ukraine and one by Russia. His source JP says experts have activated and flown these space arks, with one going to the Moon! Salla claims he confirmed JP’s story with Thor Han — Thor Han Eredyon is a Galactic Federation pilot who speaks telepathically to former French archeologist and Salla’s friend, Elena Danaan. In January, Danaan relayed that huge space arks have also been discovered on the Moon and Mars as well as in Antarctica. However, the ark of the moment is in Oleshky Park at coordinates (46°35’19″N 33°03’01″E), and Salla says Thor Han relayed why we should be concerned.
“This is not an invasion of Ukraine but part of the cleansing operations. The DS (Deep State) was attempting to activate the Ark, which they had found many years ago, buried underneath the sand in the lower southern part of Ukraine. The ark activated, so it was time Putin got his hands on it. There is a second ark in the north of Russia, but Putin already has control of it. Putin … has been taught by positive extraterrestrials how to use this technology.”
That’s right – according to Salla, JP, Danaan and Thor Han, the purpose of the invasion of Ukraine is so Russia could capture this ancient “space ark.” That, according to Salla, is why Kherson was the first city to be taken over.
Space ark parked?
If you believe in exopolitics, then Michael Salla’s story — like others he has told about extraterrestrials, UFOs, remote viewing, alien telepathy – is probably plausible, if not scary. Is it verifiable? As of this writing, no reports of a “space ark” or giant UFO have been reported near Kherson or anywhere else in Ukraine for that matter. However, if you want to join Salla in connecting dots, many military experts have been puzzled by the fact that Russia has not used its air force in this conflict. Could it be because they only need one – Ukraine’s space ark?
The needle on the old Skeptic Meter is deep in the ‘Are you serious?’ quadrant right now on this story, but we’re willing to smash the meter to smithereens as soon as one photo, radar scan or eyewitness report comes in on a space ark over Ukraine. In the meantime, let’s hope peace comes soon … by any means.
De Amerikaanse satelliet Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter was waarschijnlijk niet in positie om te loeren naar de inslag. De NASA beloofde echter naar de inslagkrater te zullen zoeken, aldus space.com.
De botsing geldt als de eerste niet-intentionele met de maan, niet rekening houdend met sondes die te pletter zijn geslagen in een poging zacht te landen.
Van welke makelij de rakettrap is, vormt onderwerp van debat. Aanvankelijk was sprake van een trap van een Falcon-9 van het Amerikaanse SpaceX, later van een Chinese Lange Mars-3C.
Terwijl Peking dat ontkent en zegt dat die trap teruggekeerd is in de atmosfeer en daar is opgebrand, zegt volgens space.com het US Space Command (dat voorwerpen in de ruimte in de gaten houdt) dat het ding niet naar de aarde is teruggekeerd.
The closest black hole system to the Earth, found about 1,000 light years away, doesn't actually contain a black hole, according to a new study.
When it was discovered in 2020, two scenarios were proposed for the discovery of the unusual HR 6819 system, one with, and one without a black hole.
The idea of a black hole just 1,000 light years away, within our stellar neighbourhood, hit the headlines at the time of the discovery and was presented as the main finding - with the other scenario not being widely reported.
However, a new study, by researchers from KU Leuven in Belgium, took new measurements of the system, to see which scenario was most likely to be true.
They pointed the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope (ESO, VLT), and the VLT Interferometer at the star system, as this instrument can provide decisive data required to distinguish between the two explanations.
All the evidence pointed to a 'vampire' star system, finding two stars in a very close orbit, with one ripping material from the other.
There was no evidence of a distant orbiting star, as would be required by the black hole theory.
The closest black hole system to the Earth, found about 1,000 light years away, doesn't actually contain a black hole, according to a new study
VAMPIRE STAR SYSTEM: ONE STAR FEASTS ON ANOTHER
A Vampire Star is an object that is in close proximity to a larger star, sucking mass and energy from its companion.
Over time, the Vampire will take so much matter that its victim will be turned into a white dwarf, or trigger a supernova explosion, destroying both.
They are also known as Symbiotic Binaries, as they usually come in pairs.
The Vampire of the pair usually starts off as the smaller, and by the end will be turned into the larger of the two.
If it sucks enough matter from its companion, it can turn into a blue star, then known as a blue straggler.
This is because it has the appearance of being a young star, when in reality it isn't - and is likely an older star.
If its victim turns into a white dwarf, it can get its revenge by sucking hydrogen back from the vampire.
Thomas Rivinius, a Chile-based ESO astronomer and lead author on the original black hole paper, was not surprised by the astronomy community's reception.
'Not only is it normal, but it should be that results are scrutinised,' he said, adding that it was 'even more so' important for results that 'make the headlines'.
Rivinius and his colleagues were convinced that the best explanation for the data they had was that HR 6819 was a triple system, with one star orbiting a black hole every 40 days and a second star in a much wider orbit.
But a study led by Julia Bodensteiner, then a PhD student at KU Leuven, Belgium, proposed a different explanation for the same data.
She suggested that HR 6819 could also be a system with only two stars.
Each of the stars would be found in a very close 40-day orbit, with no black hole at all.
This alternative scenario would require one of the stars to be 'stripped', meaning that, at an earlier time, it had lost a large fraction of its mass to the other star.
'We had reached the limit of the existing data, so we had to turn to a different observational strategy to decide between the two scenarios proposed by the two teams,' says KU Leuven researcher Abigail Frost, who led the new study
The researchers turned to the Very Large Telescope, and in particular the Interferometer on the VLT, known as the VLTAI, to gather detailed observations.
'The VLTI was the only facility that would give us the decisive data we needed to distinguish between the two explanations,' says Dietrich Baade, author on both the original HR 6819 study and the new paper.
Working together, the new team worked with Baade and colleagues, so they only needed to request time on the VLT once.
'The scenarios we were looking for were rather clear, very different and easily distinguishable with the right instrument,' says Rivinius.
Wide field view of the area where this system is present. The idea of a black hole just 1,000 light years away, within our stellar neighbourhood, hit the headlines at the time of the discovery and was presented as the main finding
BLACK HOLES HAVE A GRAVITATIONAL PULL SO STRONG NOT EVEN LIGHT CAN ESCAPE
Black holes are so dense and their gravitational pull is so strong that no form of radiation can escape them - not even light.
They act as intense sources of gravity which hoover up dust and gas around them. Their intense gravitational pull is thought to be what stars in galaxies orbit around.
How they are formed is still poorly understood. Astronomers believe they may form when a large cloud of gas up to 100,000 times bigger than the sun, collapses into a black hole.
Many of these black hole seeds then merge to form much larger supermassive black holes, which are found at the centre of every known massive galaxy.
Alternatively, a supermassive black hole seed could come from a giant star, about 100 times the sun's mass, that ultimately forms into a black hole after it runs out of fuel and collapses.
When these giant stars die, they also go 'supernova', a huge explosion that expels the matter from the outer layers of the star into deep space.
'We agreed that there were two sources of light in the system, so the question was whether they orbit each other closely, as in the stripped-star scenario, or are far apart from each other, as in the black hole scenario.'
They used the GRAVITY and MUSE instruments on the VLT to study the star system, and pin down the distance each star is from its partners, finding no evidence of a bright companion star in a wide orbit - as the black hole model predicted.
They also found two bright objects in a close orbit, as suggested by the 'vampire' star model.
'MUSE confirmed that there was no bright companion in a wider orbit, while GRAVITY's high spatial resolution was able to resolve two bright sources separated by only one-third of the distance between the Earth and the Sun,' said Frost.
'These data proved to be the final piece of the puzzle, and allowed us to conclude that HR 6819 is a binary system with no black hole.'
Bodensteiner said the best interpretation is that they caught this binary system in a moment shortly after one of the stars sucked the atmosphere off its companion.
'This is a common phenomenon in close binary systems, sometimes referred to as "stellar vampirism" in the press,' he explained.
'While the donor star was stripped of some of its material, the recipient star began to spin more rapidly.'
Catching this sort of 'post-interaction phase' of a binary star system is difficult, as this point in the life of the two stars is very short.
'This makes our findings for HR 6819 very exciting, as it presents a perfect candidate to study how this vampirism affects the evolution of massive stars, and in turn the formation of their associated phenomena including gravitational waves and violent supernova explosions,' said Frost.
This chart shows the location of HR 6819 in the constellation of Telescopium. This map shows most of the stars visible to the unaided eye under good conditions and the system itself is marked with a red circle
The newly formed Leuven-ESO joint team now plans to monitor HR 6819 more closely using the VLTI's GRAVITY instrument.
The researchers will conduct a joint study of the system over time, to better understand its evolution, constrain its properties, and use that knowledge to learn more about other binary systems.
They're also optimistic that they could find a black hole in our stellar neighbourhood at some point in the future.
'Stellar-mass black holes remain very elusive owing to their nature,' says Rivinius. 'But order-of-magnitude estimates suggest there are tens to hundreds of millions of black holes in the Milky Way alone,' Baade adds.
THE VERY LARGE TELESCOPE IS A POWERFUL GROUND-BASED INSTRUMENT IN CHILE
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) built the most powerful telescope ever made in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.
It is called the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and is widely regarded as one of the most advanced optical instruments ever made.
It consists of four telescopes, whose main mirrors measures 27 feet (8.2 metres) in diameter.
There are also four movable six feet (1.8 metre) diameter auxiliary telescopes.
The large telescopes are called Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun.
The European Southern observatory (ESO) built the most powerful telescope ever made in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and called it the Very Large Telescope (VLT).
The first of the Unit Telescopes, 'Antu', went into routine scientific operations on April 1, 1999.
The telescopes can work together to form a giant 'interferometer'.
This interferometer allows images to be filtered for any unnecessary obscuring objects and, as a result, astronomers can see details up to 25 times finer than with the individual telescopes.
It has been involved in spotting the first image of an extrasolar planet as well as tracking individual stars moving around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.
It also observed the afterglow of the furthest known Gamma Ray Burst.
It Turns out, the “Closest Black Hole” System Doesn’t Contain a Black Hole At All
It Turns out, the “Closest Black Hole” System Doesn’t Contain a Black Hole At All
One thousand light-years away is pretty close for a black hole. When researchers discovered a black hole at that distance in 2019, it caught the attention of other astronomers and other interested people. It was the first black hole-hosting stellar system to be seen with the naked eye.
But new research shows that it isn’t there.
The black hole got quite a bit of press when scientists published the paper presenting their discovery. It didn’t interact with the matter around it as other stellar-mass black holes do. Astronomers usually discover black holes as they draw material towards themselves, heat it, and release x-rays. But this one didn’t; it’s a non-accreting black hole, and astronomers discovered it through gravitational interactions with its two close neighbours. It was called a quiet black hole, and at the time, astronomers thought there must be many more of them and that the discovery was the tip of the iceberg.
“There must be hundreds of millions of black holes out there, but we know about only very few. Knowing what to look for should put us in a better position to find them,” said Thomas Rivinius, the lead author of the 2019 study.
But a new study by some of the same authors dug deeper into the hole and found that it’s not there. Something else better explains the data; Something called “stellar vampirism.” A more massive star draws matter away from a smaller companion in stellar vampirism, essentially feeding on a less massive donor star.
The system in question is called HR 6819. The 2019 paper announced a three-star system with a non-accreting black hole and two stellar companions. Researchers were looking for double-star systems when they found HR 6819. The closest star’s orbit was affected by the hole’s presence, they thought at the time. They learned the black hole’s mass by figuring out the closest star’s orbit. “An invisible object with a mass at least four times that of the Sun can only be a black hole,” concluded lead author Rivinius at the time.
This artist’s impression from 2019 shows the orbits of the objects in the HR 6819 triple system. At that time, astronomers thought the system was made up of an inner binary with one star (orbit in blue) and a newly discovered black hole (orbit in red), as well as a third object, another star, in a wider orbit (also in blue). Image Credit: ESO/L. Calçada
The 2020 study was based on spectroscopy of the system with different instruments in different studies over a few years. Data from the ESA’s Gaia mission also played a role. The lack of x-rays from the black hole was an issue, but the 2019 study said the lack of x-rays was expected based on the system’s architecture.
“HR 6819 is a hierarchical triple star with a non-accreting BH in the inner binary,” the authors said in the conclusion of their 2019 paper. But something else they wrote foreshadows the new study showing that there is no black hole: “The detection was facilitated by the incompatibility of the spectral sequences with a simple binary.” It turns out they were correct when they said the spectral sequences were incompatible with a simple binary, but their conclusion was incorrect.
HR 6819’s spectral absorption lines are at the heart of the matter. HR 6819’s spectrum contained many different absorption lines: bright and dark, broad and narrow, moving and static.
The broad lines come from a Be star, a type of star behaving quite strangely. They’re giant blue stars that are hotter and more massive than the Sun. “Be stars actually rotate so rapidly that they almost fall apart,” Rivinius explained. “They are no longer spherical but somewhat flattened, and around their equator, they form a gaseous disc ejected from the star itself.” This hot gas around the star creates bright emission lines, clearly visible in the spectrum of HR 6819.
This is a simplified schematic of HR 6819’s spectral lines. Image Credit: ESO/J. C. Munoz-Mateos, D. Catricheo
But there was a second set of spectral lines that were much narrower and more indicative of a different type of star called a B star. B stars are also massive blue stars, but they don’t spin as rapidly as Be stars. There was something odd about the lines from this B star: they moved back and forth every 40 days.
And this is where the black hole conclusion enters the story. For those lines to move back and forth like this, the B star had to be orbiting something. The unusual spectral sequences they observed in HR 6819 were incompatible with a simple binary. They couldn’t see a third star in the system, so the team concluded that there was a black hole at least four times more massive than the Sun was in the system.
There’s a third study involved in this narrative. Julia Bodensteiner, then a Ph.D. student at KU Leuven, Belgium, led that study published in 2020. In that study, the authors wrote that “We re-investigate the properties of HR 6819 to search for a possibly simpler alternative explanation for HR 6819, which does not invoke the presence of a triple system with a BH in the inner binary.”
“Our analysis suggests that HR 6819 is a binary system containing a stripped star and a Be star…” they wrote in their conclusion. “This work shows that the HR 6819 system can be explained without invoking the presence of a stellar-mass BH.” Other follow-up studies on HR 6819 also questioned the existence of the black hole.
When the studies doubting the existence of a black hole came out, it made Rivinius a little nervous. Could he and his team have gotten it wrong? “There were several papers,” remembers Rivinius, “and for some of them, I thought they proposed very viable hypotheses. When I realized that the no-black-hole scenario was indeed a viable hypothesis, at least as likely as ours, I started to sweat a little.”
Bodensteiner’s study had the same spectral lines as Rivinius’s, but they reached different conclusions. “Basically, the difference in our analysis is which of the spectral lines we used to study the motion of the Be star,” explained Bodensteiner. “Depending on which lines you use, you either get a significant result showing the Be star is moving back and forth or not.”
That’s where things stood until this new study was published. “We had reached the limit of the existing data, so we had to turn to a different observational strategy to decide between the two scenarios proposed by the two teams,” says KU Leuven researcher Abigail Frost, who led the new study published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
This schematic illustration shows the observations and competing scenarios for HR 6819. Sizes and distances are not to scale. Top: original scenario, with a giant B star orbiting a black hole and a rapidly-spinning Be star further away. Bottom: alternative scenario without a black hole, with a stripped B star that is less massive than the Be one. Note that the spectral lines of the Be star do wobble very slightly (not shown here). Credit: ESO/J. C. Munoz-Mateos, D. Catricheo
Researchers needed new data to solve the mystery, and they knew what facility could gather it. They knew there were two light sources in the system; the question was how closely they orbit each other. The two teams worked together to obtain new, sharper data of HR 6819 using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). “The VLTI was the only facility that would give us the decisive data we needed to distinguish between the two explanations,” says Dietrich Baade, author on both the original HR 6819 study and the new Astronomy & Astrophysics paper. Since it made no sense to ask for the same observation twice, the two teams joined forces, which allowed them to pool their resources and knowledge to find the true nature of this system.
“The scenarios we were looking for were rather clear, very different and easily distinguishable with the right instrument,” says Rivinius. “We agreed that there were two sources of light in the system, so the question was whether they orbit each other closely, as in the stripped-star scenario, or are far apart from each other, as in the black hole scenario.”
“MUSE confirmed that there was no bright companion in a wider orbit, while GRAVITY’s high spatial resolution was able to resolve two bright sources separated by only one-third of the distance between the Earth and the Sun,” says Frost. “These data proved to be the final piece of the puzzle and allowed us to conclude that HR 6819 is a binary system with no black hole.”
The image on the left shows MUSE observations of HR 6819. If the black hole scenario were correct, there should be a second star somewhere over the white circle. The image on the right represents GRAVITY observations. As predicted by the no-black-hole-scenario, the two stars are at close separation. Credit: Frost et al.
While discovering a black hole only 1,000 light-years away is now no longer a thing, HR 6819 is still an exciting place. It’s a case of stellar vampirism, where a giant star is stripping away the atmosphere of a smaller star. That arrangement isn’t rare in binary systems, but it’s still interesting.
The researchers were fortunate to observe the system right after the vampire star had sucked away the donor star’s atmosphere.
“Our best interpretation so far is that we caught this binary system in a moment shortly after one of the stars had sucked the atmosphere off its companion star. This is a common phenomenon in close binary systems, sometimes referred to as “stellar vampirism” in the press,” explains Bodensteiner, now a fellow at ESO in Germany and an author on the new study. “While the donor star was stripped of some of its material, the recipient star began to spin more rapidly.”
“Catching such a post-interaction phase is extremely difficult as it is so short,” adds Frost. “This makes our findings for HR 6819 very exciting, as it presents a perfect candidate to study how this vampirism affects the evolution of massive stars, and in turn the formation of their associated phenomena including gravitational waves and violent supernova explosions.”
New research using data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope and Very Large Telescope Interferometer has revealed that HR 6819, previously believed to be a triple system with a black hole, is a system of two stars with no black hole.
“Therefore, we conclude that HR 6819 is a binary system and reject the presence of a BH on a short-period orbit in this system. HR 6819, therefore, constitutes a perfect source for investigating the origin of Be stars and their possible formation through a binary channel,” the authors of the new study write.
It would’ve been a great scientific opportunity if there had been a quiet black hole in the system. While that opportunity is gone, an equally compelling opportunity is replacing it.
“Personally, I would have wanted my interpretation to be correct,” said Rivinius. “But I have to admit that this interpretation is the far more interesting option.”
According to Frost, the lead author of the new paper, “It was really a win-win situation: either way, we find something pretty cool. On the one hand, we confirm the existence of the nearest stellar-mass black hole to Earth. Or on the other hand, we find this really exciting and difficult to capture evolutionary stage of a massive binary stellar system.”
The pair of research teams have combined into one joint Leuwen/ESO team. They intend to study HR 6819 over time to understand how these systems evolve, their characteristics, and how binary systems work in general.
“In future work, further monitoring of the system with GRAVITY will be crucial,” the authors write. GRAVITY is an interferometric instrument at the ESO’s VLT. It’s a powerful instrument that lets astronomers observe tiny details in faint objects. The research team says that GRAVITY will help them better constrain HR 6189’s orbit, distances, and masses.
The four Unit Telescopes that make up the ESO’s Very Large Telescope, at the Paranal ObservatoryImage: By ESO/H.H.Heyer [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
“Together with higher-resolution spectroscopy, abundances of both stars could be derived,” they conclude. “With this information, HR 6819 would constitute a cornerstone object for comparing binary evolution models.”
Thanks to Observations, a Potentially Dangerous Asteroid was Found to be Harmless
Thanks to Observations, a Potentially Dangerous Asteroid was Found to be Harmless
Earlier this year, the discovery of a potentially hazardous asteroid took astronomers on a roller coaster ride.
On January 6, 2022, astronomers at the Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona discovered an asteroid roughly 70-meters (230 ft) across. Based on their initial observations, it appeared this object — called ‘2022 AE1’ – could potentially hit Earth on its next pass, on July 4, 2023.
Since any uncertainties in an asteroid’s orbit are highest in the hours just after its discovery, astronomers at several different observatories scrambled to make follow-up observations – which usually rule out any future impacts.
However, based on the first seven nights of observations, the chance of impact appeared to increase. Asteroid 2022 AE1 was flagged for a potential future impact by the Asteroid Orbit Determination (AstOD), an automated system astronomers around the world use to assess the asteroid risk. Furthermore, the asteroid was given one of the highest rankings on the Palermo Scale, a ranking which astronomers use to categories and prioritize impact risks. Both ESA and NASA published the information on their Near Earth Object (NEO) information portal websites, allowing anyone — such as interested amateur astronomers — to take a look.
The 60-inch telescope on Mount Lemmon is one of three telescopes used in the Catalina Sky Survey.Credit: University of Arizona.
Even more worry-inducing was the following week, where no observations could be made because the full Moon blocked out any views of this asteroid from Earth.
But thankfully, when the asteroid was able to be tracked again, the accumulating data on the asteroid’s path revealed the chance of impact was dramatically decreasing over time. It has since been confirmed that 2022 AE1 will not impact Earth any time in the foreseeable future.
“In my almost ten years at ESA I’ve never seen such a risky object,” said Marco Micheli, astronomer at ESA’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre (NEOCC). “It was a thrill to track 2022 AE1 and refine its trajectory until we had enough data to say for certain, this asteroid will not strike.”
So, exactly how were astronomers able to rule out a threat that initially seemed so certain?
The very first observation of an asteroid is just one data point, a single dot of light in the sky. At this point, it’s not clear what it is or where it’s going. Micheli explained that a second observation is needed to reveal an object in motion, and at least three are needed to determine an orbit – where it is going and how fast it is moving. Further observations refine the orbit a little more, reducing uncertainties until astronomers can be sure of where it won’t go: primarily to Earth.
To help make these determinations, astronomers use computer simulations to calculate the future orbital path of the asteroid, and input randomly chosen initial positions and velocities that fall within the margin of error of the observations so far. By creating a large number of simulations, astronomers can calculate the probability that any particular path will actually hit Earth. For example, if one million different possible orbits are simulated and just one of those leads to an impact, that means the odds of the asteroid hitting Earth are a million to one.
The global network of telescopes that search the skies for potentially hazardous asteroids and comets, which provides a near real-time assessment of any incoming risks. Credit: ESA
What usually happens is that with more observations and more data, the hazard zone narrows and the corridor of the asteroid’s future path moves away from Earth, dropping the risk percentage. And with the network of observatories around the world that are focused on planetary defense – i.e., searching the skies for incoming asteroids and comets – multiple observations and quickly rule out any space rocks that aren’t a threat.
In the case of 2022 AE1, observations after the Moon didn’t interfere provided the data needed to show that the risk level had showed the risk level With one single observation, the risk level crashed – getting close to zero – and with that, the team moved on.
“The data was clear, confirmed the next morning by our counterparts at NASA – asteroid 2022 AE1 poses no impact risk,” said Laura Faggioli, near-Earth object dynamicist in the NEOCC who computed the orbit of 2022 AE1 throughout the observation period. “Had 2022 AE1’s path remained uncertain we would have used any means possible to keep watching it with the biggest telescopes we have. As it was removed from our risk list, we didn’t need to follow it anymore – time to move onto the next.”
ESA said some keen observers will continue to monitor the asteroid, confirming the projections, we now know that in early July 2023, asteroid 2022 AE1 will fly by Earth at a distance of about ten million kilometres (+/- one million km) – more than 20 times the distance of the Moon.
So, although the odds of any one particular asteroid ever impacting Earth are quite low, it is still likely that one day our planet will be hit by an asteroid or experience a large airburst event like the Chelyabinsk meteor in 2013. At the current calculated rate of impacts, astronomers expect about one large asteroid to impact Earth every 100 million years or so. For that reason, both professional and amateur astronomers continue to scan the skies.
Lead image caption: Asteroid 2022 AE1 observed with the Calar Alto Schmidt telescope in Spain on the evening of 19 January 2022. Credit: ESA
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