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...
07-03-2022
RUSSIA RELEASES BIZARRE VIDEO OF SPACE STATION BREAKING APART
RUSSIA RELEASES BIZARRE VIDEO OF SPACE STATION BREAKING APART
WHAT EXACTLY... ARE THEY SUGGESTING?
RIA NOVOSTI / NASA WATCH / FUTURISM
Break Up
We’re not exactly sure what Russia’s space agency head Dmitry Rogozin is threatening the US with, but he certainly seems to be alluding to… something. A bizarre new video posted by state controlled media RIA Novosti showed the International Space Station breaking apart in an artist rendering after Russian cosmonauts bid adieu.
NASA Watch, a space news blog, tweeted the video with some important context earlier today. It’s accompanied by some kind of ironic classical singing?
“@Rogozin is clearly threatening the ISS program,” the outlet said Saturday, pictured below.
It was only weeks ago that Rogozin threatened to smash the US with debris from a defunct ISS by detaching the Russian segment, which SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responded to with his own company’s logo and a promise to keep the huge craft aloft. This time, it’s not clear if Rogozin is threatening to bring the ISS down into the atmosphere or just remove the Russian portion and fly solo.
Foot Sandwich
This is hardly the first time the chief of Roscosmos, which is essentially the Russian equivalent of NASA, has tossed insults and threats NASA’s way. Rogozin is also quite the colorful character, having taken it personally when SpaceX ended US reliance on Russian spacecraft to reach the ISS. There’s also, you know, that time Russia accidentally spun the ISS around — twice.
Despite the conflict, though, NASA has tried to keep the relationship stable. The organization released a statement after Russia’s ISS threat back in February, according to ScienceAlert.com
“[NASA] continues working with all our international partners, including the State Space Corporation Roscosmos, for the ongoing safe operations of the International Space Station,” the space agency said according to the industry outlet.
Like much of Russia’s ongoing and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, there are more questions than answers about Rogozin’s threat and if he’s even being serious. Another Twitter user and space expert put it perfectly.
“I can’t wait for Twitter to cut off Russian government accounts so we won’t have to suffer through the trolling from @Rogozin (and other bots),” Alan Boyle, creator of space news outlet Cosmic Log, said online under a NASA Watch tweet.
In many respects an empty threat during a full-scale invasion is as worrying as a real one, so perhaps pulling the plug on Rogozin’s accounts really could dampen further escalation.
The James Webb Space Telescope might be grabbing all the headlines right now, but NASA has big plans for another space-based telescope too: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Set to launch in 2027, Roman will survey the sky in the infrared wavelength to learn about big topics in cosmology like dark energy as well as perform a census of exoplanets. Now, NASA has shared more information about the kinds of planets that Roman could find, including the possibility it could take the first image of a Jupiter-like world.
Roman will be armed with a coronagraph instrument which is designed to block out light from very bright objects like stars to allow observation of the planets around them, opening the possibility of directly imaging planets. This is exciting because most exoplanets discovered now are detected indirectly, by looking at the star they orbit. Being able to image an exoplanet directly can give more information, for example about the planet’s atmosphere.
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, named after NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy.NASA
“We will be able to image worlds in visible light using the Roman Coronagraph,” said Rob Zellem, an astronomer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) who is working on Roman, in a statement. “Doing so from space will help us see smaller, older, and colder planets than direct imaging usually reveals, bringing us a giant leap closer to imaging planets like Earth.”
This also opens up more possibilities in the type of planets that could be discovered. Most methods used to detect exoplanets currently find large, young planets which glow brightly, and are typically located far from their host star. These factors make them easier to spot using current methods. But Roman’s coronagraph could spot rocky, Earth-sized planets, perhaps even within the habitable zone of sun-like stars. In addition, it could view planets in the visible light wavelength as opposed to the infrared wavelength more commonly used now.
“To image Earth-like planets, we’ll need 10,000 times better performance than today’s instruments provide,” said Vanessa Bailey, an astronomer at JPL and the instrument technologist for the Roman Coronagraph. “The Coronagraph Instrument will perform several hundred times better than current instruments, so we will be able to see Jupiter-like planets that are more than 100 million times fainter than their host stars.”
AWKWARD! A NASA ASTRONAUT IS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED TO FLY BACK TO EARTH IN A RUSSIAN SPACECRAFT
AWKWARD! A NASA ASTRONAUT IS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED TO FLY BACK TO EARTH IN A RUSSIAN SPACECRAFT
WHAT WILL THE SMALL TALK BE LIKE?
ROSCOSMOS
Awkward Vibes
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, currently stationed on board the International Space Station, is scheduled to return to Earth in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft — an awkward predicament, given the extraordinarily tense situation between Russia and the United States developing back on the ground.
The international space community has been actively distancing itself from Russia after the country invaded Ukraine, a growing humanitarian crisis of devastating proportions. But for many years, Russia’s Soyuz rockets were the de facto way to send astronauts to and from the ISS, especially since NASA retired the Space Shuttle back in 2011.
That’s started to change over the past few years, with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon shifting the power dynamics by letting NASA send astronauts to the station directly again. But Vande Hei got to the station on a Soyuz last year, meaning it’ll be his trip home as well. Let’s just hope he’s good at small talk.
One Last Time
One possibility to avoid the awkward trip was that Vande Hei could crowd into Axiom Space’s upcoming private Ax-1 mission on its return from the station. But a space reporter asked NASA whether that was being considered and they said “no.”
NASA has repeatedly claimed operations on board the International Space Station are going fine, despite all the tension back on Earth. That sentiment stands in stark contrast with recent comments made by Dmitry Rogozin, head of Russia’s space corporation Roscomos, who appeared to threaten the US last week with the ISS dropping out of orbit uncontrollably.
It’s a precarious situation, given that the ISS is the product of decades of collaboration between the US and Russia. For now, it looks like Vande Hei will have to board a Soyuz rocket to end his astonishingly long 355 day stint on board the orbital outpost.
In all likelihood, though, he’ll be one of the last NASA astronauts to rely on a Soyuz trip — both because of SpaceX’s increasing prowess and because of breaking-point tensions between the US and Russia.
THE BATTERIES OF THE FUTURE COULD EXPLOIT QUANTUM PHYSICS.
BERNDTHALLER/VICTOR TANGERMANN
Quantum Battery
A team of scientists from the universities of Alberta and Toronto have laid out the blueprints for a “quantum battery” that never loses its charge.
To be clear, this battery doesn’t exist yet — but if they figure out how to build it, it could be a revolutionary breakthrough in energy storage.
“The batteries that we are more familiar with — like the lithium-ion battery that powers your smartphone — rely on classical electrochemical principles, whereas quantum batteries rely solely on quantum mechanics,” University of Alberta chemist Gabriel Hanna said in a statement.
Dark State
A paper describing the research was published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C. in July. The battery works by harnessing the power of “excitonic energy” — the state in which an electron absorbs sufficiently charged photons of light.
The researchers found that their resulting battery model should be “highly robust to energy losses,” thanks to the fact that their battery is prepared inside a “dark state” where it cannot exchange energy — by absorbing or releasing photons — with its surroundings.
Large Charge
By breaking down this “dark state” quantum network, the researchers claim the battery could be able to discharge and release energy in the process.
But the team has yet to come up with viable ways of doing so. They will also have to figure out a way to scale the technology for real-world applications as well.
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THE UNIVERSE MAY HAVE A FIFTH DIMENSION, ACCORDING TO NEW RESEARCH
THE UNIVERSE MAY HAVE A FIFTH DIMENSION, ACCORDING TO NEW RESEARCH
A FIFTH DIMENSION COULD FINALLY EXPLAIN THE MYSTERIES OF DARK MATTER.
ZOLTAN TASI VIA UNSPLASH / FUTURISM
5D Everything
A team of German and Spanish scientists says they’ve found a “natural explanation” for dark matter and other unresolved scientific mysteries — but their work depends on the existence of a new theoretical subatomic particle and an entire fifth dimension of the universe.
The new particle, a yet-undiscovered type of fermion, would be able to traverse this new dimension and bind dark matter to the luminous matter that makes up everything in the universe we can see or touch, Motherboard reports, in a way that doesn’t contradict any of the other models we have on how dark matter behaves. It’s seems a bit far-fetched — physicists creating new rules for the universe in order to explain their own theory — but if it pans out, it could vastly improve our understanding of the cosmos.
“Unique Window”
The scientists explained to Motherboard that this new particle would likely be similar to and interact with the Higgs Boson, but that it would be too heavy to detect with the current generation of particle accelerators and colliders.
But assuming the particle and the fifth dimension it navigates both exist, it “represents a unique window” into dark matter, according to the team’s paper, published in The European Physical Journal C last month.
“If this heavy particle exists, it would necessarily connect the visible matter that we know and that we have studied in detail with the constituents of the dark matter, assuming that dark matter is composed out of fundamental fermions, which live in the extra dimension,” a member of the team told Motherboard.
Now What
In lieu of a tangible way to prove that this mysterious particle or the fifth dimension exists, the researchers told Motherboard they hope that other scientists keep their model in mind as they continue to study particle physics and cosmology.
“This could also eventually lead to an interesting cosmological history of the universe and might lead to the production of gravitational waves,” the team told Motherboard. “This is an interesting line of research, which we plan to follow in the months ahead.”
Researchers and scientists spoke to The Daily Beast this week to express horror at Musk’s goal of connecting human brains to computers. Ultimately, at the heart of their trepidation is the infusion of Big Tech into the human mind.
“I don’t think there is sufficient public discourse on what the big picture implications of this kind of technology becoming available are,” Dr. Karola Kreitmair, assistant professor of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, told the website.
“I worry that there’s this uncomfortable marriage between a company that is for-profit,” she added.
Indeed, the ethics surrounding technology such as the Neuralink is uncharted territory. As such, many are concerned about how these products — ostensibly meant to help those with disabilities — can ultimately be exploited for profit.
“If the ultimate goal is to use the acquired brain data for other devices, or use these devices for other things — say, to drive cars, to drive Teslas — then there might be a much, much bigger market,” Dr. L. Syd Johnson, associate professor at the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University, told the Daily Beast.
“But then all those human research subjects — people with genuine needs — are being exploited and used in risky research for someone else’s commercial gain,” she continued.
Kreitmair echoed the sentiment. While she believes that the technology could be “life-changing” for paralyzed people, she told the Daily Beast that its potential for consumer uses “raises such a slew of ethical concerns.”
Some experts are also worried that Musk is nothing but a carnival barker who’ll say anything and stop at nothing to make a buck — which, well, fair. He’s been known to make lofty promises before only to grossly underdeliver before. Who’s to say Neuralink won’t be the same?
“With these companies and owners of companies, they’re kind of showmen,” Dr. Laura Cabrera, a neuroethics researcher at Penn State, told the Beast. “They’ll make these hyperbolic claims, and I think that’s dangerous, because I think people sometimes believe it blindly.”
She later added, “I’m always cautious about what [Elon Musk] says.”
This is one of the best close ups of a white reflective structure that I have ever found. I have found about ten of such quality...each unique, each white, reflective and if the sunlight hit it, it would be impossible to photograph. The half of the crater wall its touching...is not stone, but metallic grey structures. Different structures have different environments and uses. The white structures are a upper class, higher ranking area. The grey metallic structures are the lower level grunt area of manual labor. Its not the only structure I have found in this photo...its only one of dozens.
I also found that most the structures were blurred out using a special digital program. Lucky for us, back in 2014 that tech was poorly made and now outdated. Had they used todays software programs...I would have found nothing of interest. Times change, how they edit changes, but one thing never changes...NASA is lying to us all!
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan
Below is a spaceship that is miles long. It was blurred out 70% but I restored some of it. Its huge and its old.
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Sky Hunting Group Comes Together To Call UFO To Them! California March 5, 2022, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Sky Hunting Group Comes Together To Call UFO To Them! California March 5, 2022, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 5, 2022 Location of sighting: California, USA
I love it when a group of like minded UFO hunters come together! This is just such an event. I California some sky watchers came together in hopes that united they may see something. And they did, but what they didn't know is that this type of UFO...white cloud orb, is telepathic. The orb can read your thoughts, desires, feelings...from a long ways away. If it feels that its been seen...then if the thoughts from those people are kind, it will come closer. The thing they failed to do was to unite in meditation asking the orb to come closer, that they are all brothers and sisters...humans and aliens are the same. We are all united though energy that connects all life throughout the universe. Such positiveness brings them closer. The combined group...had a more powerful telepathic message, making the UFO curious of the humans who were not scared of it.
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan
Eyewitness states
They were in the sky with everyone looking up at them when I was arriving to park an all day long we kept seeing left an right. Was a very active day. oh very special, such a good feeling when we see them! Beautiful day always looking, weather nice here in California today also.
Huge UFO Over Florida On Door Cam, March 1, 2022, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Huge UFO Over Florida On Door Cam, March 1, 2022, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting:March 1, 2022
Location of sighting: The Villages, Sumter County, Florida, USA
This is one huge UFO! I mean its just amazing at how huge it really is. However this Ringcam caught its full size and compared to the normal size tree below it...its a big UFO.
Now at first I thought no...hole in the clouds...but then I remembered the 80 page MUFON report about the O'Hare Airport UFO. Many witnesses and employees of the airport saw this disk over the area...and caused air traffic to be alerted and stopped. The UFO left shooting up at an angle through the clouds at incredible speed...leaving a hole cut through the cloud that remained in the cloud ceiling for 15 minutes. So...the lesson from O'Hare is that UFOs make holes in clouds.
Guys Ringcam Catches Bigfoot Outside His House! Feb 2022, Video, UFO Sighting News
Guys Ringcam Catches Bigfoot Outside His House! Feb 2022, Video, UFO Sighting News
Date of sighting: Feb 12, 2022, 4:30AM
Location of sighting: Sumter, Florida, USA
A persons Ringcam caught something odd in the early hours of the morning, at 4:30AM. The eyewitness claims he caught the legendary Bigfoot also known as Sasquatch. The Florida areas do have a lot of strange creatures in its swamps and Bigfoot sightings have occurred there a few times. I have long believed that Bigfoot was just an alien species that landed its UFO on Earth to walk through our beautiful forests and mountains. I really think this is the famous Bigfoot. And it seems to frequent this area, since the eyewitness has posted about 7 short Ringcam videos of this creature. This is undeniable proof that not only does Bigfoot exist...but he exists in Florida!
Some Kind of Lightning Shooting from the Sky': Ukrainians Tell Stories of Divine Intervention
Some Kind of Lightning Shooting from the Sky': Ukrainians Tell Stories of Divine Intervention
Are Ukrainians receiving some heavenly help in the fight against their Russian invaders?
Stories of divine intervention are being told, including a pillar of fire at night and confused Russian troops.
In this week’s episode of CBN News The Global Lane, CBN Ukraine Director Kostyantine Lytvynenko explains that although his fellow countrymen are showing incredible strength and resiliency in the war with Russia, they’re also experiencing some divine intervention.
Lytvynenko said one man shared with him a story of his son who’s serving in the Ukrainian army. He said the man told him on one dark night, the soldiers were holding their positions and discovered there were a lot of Russian Federation tanks and other mobile units coming directly at them. It appeared the soldiers would have trouble defending themselves.
The son picked up his phone and called his father.
Trending
Ex-CIA Officer’s Alien-UFO Encounter: Says ‘There’s A Whole Other Reality That Surrounds Us’
“He said, ‘Dad, you have to pray right now. We’re in a situation,’” Lytvynenko said.
So the father called other members of their church and asked them to start praying. Later, the son called his father back.
“He said, ‘There’s some miracle that happened. It looked like an attack (on the Russians) from a spaceship. There was some kind of lightning shooting from the sky,’” Lytvynenko told CBN News. “And sparks were spreading everywhere.”
In the morning, they (the Ukrainian troops) discovered the Russian tanks and other mobile units had been destroyed.
“All of those soldiers thought maybe it was done by some kind of a weapon we didn’t know about,” Lytvynenko said. “It was just God’s intervention.”
Lytvynenko also relayed another incident he heard from a friend.
He said the friend told him, “‘We were praying that they (the Russians) would start resisting each other. That the enemy would resist the enemy.’”
Lytvynenko explained that there were several incidents like this in the Bible.
“Another part of the Russian army, they occupied one little town. And they removed flags from the town’s government buildings and they attached those flags to their tanks,” he said. “And they started to drive. Eventually, in the evening they met the first group of the (Russian) tanks.”
Lytvynenko said both groups of tanks were confused and thought they were looking at the enemy.
“They started shooting into each other,” he said.
CBN News asked Lytvynenko how should people pray for his family, other CBN workers there, and the people of Ukraine.
“Please pray that we could hear God in this time,” he said. “The most deficit thing in our country now is the peace in our hearts. That our God, who is the Prince of Peace would grant the peace in our hearts. And in that, this condition of peace, we could see the ways how we can build the kingdom in the times of war. That we could be the light, and the warmth and the love, and the hand of God to other people who are in need.”
“Pray that we would be active members of the body of Christ at this time,” Lytvynenko added. “That we would not just sit and be afraid and fear for our lives. That we would be productive in building the kingdom.”
HACKERS CLAIM THEY’VE SEIZED CONTROL OF RUSSIAN SPY SATELLITES
HACKERS CLAIM THEY’VE SEIZED CONTROL OF RUSSIAN SPY SATELLITES
ANONYMOUS IS CLAIMING THAT RUSSIA HAS "NO MORE CONTROL OVER THEIR OWN SPY SATELLITES."
GETTY IMAGES/FUTURISM
Satellite Location
Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s outspoken head of its space agency, denied recent reports that hackers had already seized control of the nation’s satellites.
A group affiliated with the hacker group Anonymous tweeted on Tuesday that it had “shut down the control center” of Roscomos, which meant the country had “no more control over their own spy satellites.”
According to Rogozin, though, that’s total nonsense.
“The information of these scammers and petty swindlers is not true,” he said, as quoted by Russian news service Interfax. “All our space activity control centers are operating normally.”
Proxy War
But as he is wont to do, Rogozin took the opportunity to threaten Russia’s adversaries.
“Offlining the satellites of any country is actually a casus belli, a cause for war,” he added, according to Reuters.
The alleged hack comes as chaos grips Ukraine, with Russian forces are leaving cities in ruins using powerful explosives.
That kind of aggression isn’t sitting well with the international space community. Both NASA and the European Space Agency have actively distanced themselves from Russia’s space efforts, and Rogozin in particular has a way of painting a target on his own back.
Adding to the drama, Rogozin waded into the controversy around satellite company OneWeb, which is still planning to launch 36 of its satellites, part of a greater effort to build out a satellite-based internet network, from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is run by Roscosmos.
But Rogozin says he wants a guarantee that the satellites won’t be used against Russia, and says he’s ready to pull the plug on the mission if OneWeb fails to provide that guarantee.
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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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
