When US soldiers based in Suffolk saw lights, triangular aircraft and 'non-humans' the MoD 'shut it down'. Now 45 years later they tell their story for first time - and astonishing truth about how close armageddon really was

By DR DAVID CLARKE

Did aliens land outside an American airbase in Suffolk 45 years ago to probe its secret stash of nuclear warheads?

Or is the story a fisherman's tale that just gets bigger every time it is told?

Clearly something unusual happened in the early hours of Boxing Day morning in Rendlesham Forest, near the twin RAF bases of Bentwaters and Woodbridge, that's still being talked about today.

Some claim the latter Nato base was visited by UFOs, leading to a 'meet and greet' with silver-suited aliens and American top military brass that was caught on film.

Others, as the Mail can exclusively reveal, are convinced the Christmas visitors were interested in a secret nuclear missile stockpile, stashed just a few miles from Ipswich, where the good people of Suffolk were obliviously sleeping off their Christmas indulgences.

What everyone agrees on, however, is that the full story has never been disclosed. Until now.

A new feature length documentary, eight years in the making, re-ignited the decades-old Rendlesham Forest UFO mystery when it premiered last week.

Called Capel Green, after a field situated between the RAF Woodbridge airfield and the medieval Butley Priory in Suffolk, where the story is set, it re-creates the action seen through the eyes of a US airman who claims he witnessed it.

As a keen UFOlogist who has closely followed the Rendlesham story for decades, I fear the truth won't be the Close Encounters tale everyone craves, but rather yet another example of the British and American governments using UFO conspiracy stories as a convenient cloak for their nefarious, top-secret activities at the height of the Cold War, as confirmed last month in a bombshell report published by The Wall Street Journal.

Yet, that will be cold comfort for those Suffolk residents, who, in 1980, had no idea how close they were sleeping to the weapons of Armageddon that Christmas night.

The Capel Green film includes interviews with US security police, some of whom have never spoken on camera before, plus a newly recruited US airman, Larry Warren, just 19 at the time, who claims he had a front-row seat to the whole happening.

Larry Warren claims he had a front-row seat to the whole happening at Rendlesham Forest when he was 19

The Capel Green film includes interviews with US security police, some of whom have never spoken on camera before

In the film, he describes how he was told to hand over his rifle and driven in a Jeep to a clearing in the forest that was covered in glowing mist.

It was then, he says, that he saw a 'basketball sized red light in the sky' followed by a 'blinding flash of light'.

It was then he saw a triangular-shaped 'machine, object or craft' on the ground and – most astonishingly of all – three 'non-human beings' emerging from it.

These beings, he said, were then greeted by a tall man he believed was the most senior officer at the Nato complex, US air force wing commander (later brigadier general) Gordon Williams.

According to Warren, footage of this incredible meeting was captured on film, the footage handed to the pilot of a F-15 jet and later flown to the US air force HQ in Germany, never to be seen again.

Which is all very intriguing – and understandably greeted with a huge amount of scepticism.

Wing commander Gordon Williams, it should be noted, has never publicly commented on Rendlesham, but in 2003 described Warren's claims as 'a flight of fancy'.

Whatever happened, the incident wasn't a one-off and UFOs were seen around the base for at least three nights.

On December 28, 1980, the deputy base commander, lieutenant colonel Charles Halt, led a team of airmen into the forest to investigate his colleague's strange report.

As Halt made a running commentary of events on his hand-held tape recorder, his men gasped as they spotted a pulsing red light that resembled a winking eye between the trees.

Later three star-like lights in the sky were seen low in the north and south, hovering until daybreak. Halt claims one of these projected a pencil-thin beam of light into the weapons storage area of nearby RAF Bentwaters 'like it was looking for something'.

In the film, US security policeman Sergeant Steve Longero, who was assigned to protect the nuclear warheads at the Suffolk base, also claims to have seen a beam of light scanning the whole of the weapons storage area.

Charles Halt's memo summarising the Rendlesham sightings was sent to the British Ministry of Defence in January 1981 and became one of the most famous documents in the history of UFOlogy when it was leaked to the media.

As a teenage UFO enthusiast, I clearly recall being gripped by the headline 'UFO LANDS IN SUFFOLK: And that's OFFICIAL' that broke the Rendlesham Forest story in October 1983.

To many UFOlogists, the Rendlesham incident offered the exciting possibility of a 'British Roswell' right on our doorstep.

The News Of The World front page from 1983 reads: 'UFO LANDS IN SUFFOLK: And that's OFFICIAL'

To many UFOlogists, the Rendlesham incident offered the exciting possibility of a 'British Roswell' right on our doorstep

Roswell, as every UFO buff knows, was a mysterious incident in Roswell, New Mexico that happened in 1947, when a downed balloon used to spy on Soviet atomic tests was spun into a story of a captured flying saucer.

For those who wanted to believe, Rendlesham appeared to have everything Roswell had: impressive military witnesses, official documentation and what appeared to be a determined government attempt at a cover-up.

As an investigative journalist seeking answers, I used the precursor to the UK's Freedom of Information Act to persuade the MoD to release their own 150-page file on the case in 2001.

Sadly, I found no smoking gun, although I did find a letter written by the then-defence minister, Michael Heseltine, shortly after the story broke, giving unequivocal assurance 'that there is not a grain of truth in the allegation that there has been a cover-up about alleged UFO sightings'.

But remember, this was the Eighties and the height of the Cold War, where 'truth' could be subjective. The Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan a year earlier and tensions were high in Eastern Europe.

Not so many miles away, at Greenham Common in Berkshire, the first tents were being pitched in a protest camp outside another American airbase, where cruise missiles were being stored.

The protest would go on for the next 19 years and draw worldwide media attention – something the US and UK governments were keen to avoid in Suffolk.

In 2002, I met with RAF squadron leader, Don Moreland, who was the British liaison officer for the two bases at the time. The question of nuclear weapons was dodged deftly.

'The MoD thing was, we don't confirm or deny it. I don't know whether there were nuclear weapons there, and I was the RAF commander,' he told me.

'I could probably guess that there might have been there but they wouldn't tell me.'

But last summer a US intelligence officer-turned UFO whistleblower, Luis Elizondo, claimed in his explosive book, Imminent, that the Rendlesham incident was indeed linked to the secret stockpile of nuclear weapons at nearby RAF Bentwaters – now a Cold War Museum.

He said the 'beam' described by multiple witnesses had 'hovered specifically over an underground bunker' where the stash was held. He said the visit triggered a 'flash override' that gave the US president, Jimmy Carter, direct control of the weapons in the event of a surprise attack.

Many theories have come and gone over the years, the earliest being put forward by astronomer Ian Ridpath who discovered the initial sighting coincided with a bright fireball meteor that appeared to fall into the forest in the early hours of Boxing Day.

Ridpath believes that once the airmen on the patrol became convinced a UFO had landed, they walked into the forest, where they saw the pulsing beam from the Orford Ness lighthouse, about six miles away on the Suffolk coast.

Professor David Clarke has spoken to several key men regarding the mysterious events that took place 45 years ago

Others have come forward to claim the sightings were caused by pranksters: in 2015 I received a letter from an anonymous source claiming to be a 'retired SAS trooper with inside knowledge of Rendlesham' who immediately got my attention.

He claimed the UFOs were created by pyrotechnics rigged up by Special Forces in the forest, in revenge for being caught and roughed up by US security forces during an exercise to test the base defences.

But, however exciting this theory might sound, the date stamp on the letter gave the game away: it was carefully timed to arrive on April 1.

Four decades have passed and the basic story has become ever more complicated and exaggerated, with numerous claims and counter-claims from both believers and sceptics.

Halt's straightforward, if bizarre, account of 'unexplained lights' seen in a forest at Christmas time has been transformed into a complex modern legend involving missing time, conspiracies and messages from time travellers.

Even the most dedicated supporters of the UFO story have struggled to reconcile the ever-changing accounts told by the principal witnesses.

Sergeant Jim Penniston's account of having approached the landed UFO in the forest on Boxing Day and made sketches of it was once regarded as good evidence. But his credibility crumbled when he announced, on the 30th anniversary, that he had received a 'download' of binary code when he touched the object that he wrote down in a notebook. He also claimed to have received a telepathic message from the craft's occupants who'd come from our future to gather genetic material. 'They are time travellers,' he said. 'They are us.'

Charles Halt went on, after retirement from the US air force, to write a book and has made frequent TV appearances. In 2010 he signed a statement that said he believed the UFOs were 'extraterrestrial in origin and that the security services of both the United States and UK have attempted – both then and now – to subvert the significance of what occurred in Rendlesham forest and RAF Bentwaters by the use of well-practiced methods of disinformation'.

But Halt's superior officer, Colonel Ted Conrad, responded with a scathing account of Halt's credibility when we met in 2016.

The Texan-born former top gun fighter pilot told me, in no uncertain terms: '[Halt] should be ashamed and embarrassed by his allegation that his country and England both conspired to deceive their citizens over this issue. He knows better.'

Colonel Conrad was base commander and said he carried out the only formal investigation of the UFO sightings on behalf of General Williams, his boss and, according to Larry Warren, the man who officially greeted the aliens that night.

But he failed to find any hard evidence and said the MoD decided to 'shut down' the whole incident.

Despite his scepticism, Conrad admitted that something unexplained really did happen that Christmas but claimed the whole saga has taken on a life of its own.

'I don't recognise the details anymore,' he told me. 'It resembles science fiction and I have a low opinion of those telling these stories.'

Then there is Larry Warren, the homesick teenage airman, whose story is the focus of the film Capel Green.

The film's director, Dion M Johnson ,describes him as 'the original military witness and whistleblower' who has 'fought for the truth to be revealed'.

But others have cast doubt upon his credibility, including Peter Robbins, with whom he co-authored a book about the incident, called Left At East Gate, in 1997.

He later publicly disowned Warren, saying 'my former author has taken me for the ride of my life'.

Former MoD UFO desk officer Nick Pope has gone further, describing Warren's story as 'largely fabricated' and 'part-stolen from other witnesses', such as Halt, that he believes are credible.

Astronomer Ian Ridpath says 'on the face of it the Rendlesham story sounds inexplicable, but when broken down into its individual elements it is possible to work out what actually happened.

'As with most UFO cases, it amounts to a series of misidentifications of natural and man-made objects, namely a fireball, the lighthouse and twinkling stars. However, the UFO believers have no interest in solutions.

'For them the case has become a modern myth, and films like Capel Green simply add to that mythology.'

Much like its American cousin Roswell, the Rendlesham story is likely to keep on growing as a snowball does rolling down a hillside, that keeps getting bigger and bigger with every re-telling.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

24-07-2025 om 21:14 geschreven door peter  

Earth has over 6 moons you never knew about, scientists reveal

• READ MORE: Joe Rogan claims ancient Egyptians fled to the moon and the whole timeline of humanity is WRONG

By CHRIS MELORE, ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

If you thought the Earth only had one moon, think again. Researchers have revealed that our planet may actually have an entire collection orbiting us at any given time.

A new study has found that Earth has at least six 'minimoons' in orbit on a regular basis, with most of them being smaller pieces of the actual moon we see in the sky each night.

A team from the US, Italy, Germany, Finland, and Sweden said these tiny satellites are generally around six feet in diameter and were formed by asteroids impacting on the moon's surface.

The collisions essentially kick up a bunch of dust and moon debris, with some of it being large enough to float away and get pulled into the Earth's gravitational field.

The study suggested that these broken moon pieces, known as 'lunar ejecta,' can move into somewhat stable orbits, staying near Earth for years.

Minimoons typically stay in Earth's orbit only for a short time before escaping or, in rare cases, hitting our planet or the moon.

Most of the time, these temporarily bound objects (TBOs) break away from Earth and are pulled into the sun's gravity, where they'll remain indefinitely, while new chunks of the moon are broken off to replace them.

Robert Jedicke, a researcher at the University of Hawaii, said: It's 'kind of like a square dance, where partners change regularly and sometimes leave the dance floor for a while.'

2024 PT5 entered Earth's orbit as a 'minimoon' from September 29 through November 25, 2024

(Stock Image)

'Given that 18 percent of TBOs can also be classified as minimoons, our nominal results suggest that there should be about 6.5 minimoons larger than 1 m diameter in the [Earth-Moon system] at any time,' the researchers wrote in their new report. 

The new study could upend the belief among scientists that these minimoons which quietly circle Earth all come from the solar system's asteroid belt.

A 2018 study suggested most TBOs come from this distant region which sits between Mars and Jupiter.

However, the new findings published in Icarus looked at two recently discovered minimoons, Kamo'oalewa and 2024 PT5, which both appear to have telltale signs of being moon fragments.

Specifically, Kamo'oalewa, discovered in 2016 by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Hawaii, was found to reflect light in a way that closely matches the moon's surface composition.

The large minimoon, which measures between 131 to 328 feet in diameter, also has the same composition of lunar rocks, rich in silicates.

This greatly differs from the typical asteroid, which often contains different minerals and metals than those found on the moon.

Jedicke told Space.com that 2024 PT5, which was discovered entering Earth's orbit on August 7, 2024, has exhibited the same lunar-like characteristics.

Astronomers created a simulation of what they believed 2024 PT5, a so-called minimoon, looked like in space

Last year, 2024 PT5 was dubbed Earth's temporary 'second moon' because of its size and lingering presence so close to our planet.

Astronomers collected data on the supposed asteroid as it circled Earth, which led astronomers to suggest that it may have been a chunk of our moon instead.

The leading theory of lunar formation is called the 'giant impact hypothesis,' which theorizes that the moon is actually an enormous, orbiting hunk of Earth.

According to this theory, our planet collided with a Mars-sized planet roughly four billion years ago, and this triggered an explosion of material from Earth that shot into space and eventually condensed to form the moon.

If the giant impact hypothesis and the analysis of 2024 PT5's origin are correct, that would mean our true moon is the parent of this minimoon, and Earth is its grandparent.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

24-07-2025 om 21:05 geschreven door peter  

How the Moon’s Hidden Protection Shields Against Solar Wind Erosion

By Mark Thompson 

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

22-07-2025 om 21:06 geschreven door peter  

Bestaat er een mysterieuze negende planeet in ons zonnestelsel?

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Bestaat er een mysterieuze negende planeet in ons zonnestelsel?
Nieuw bewijs toont aan dat er mogelijk ver voorbij Pluto een hypothetische planeet is ​​die 'Planeet Negen' of 'Planeet X' wordt genoemd. Astronomen voorspellen dat er mogelijk een grote, nog niet ontdekte planeet met gravitationele interactie zich in de Kuipergordel bevindt. Het bestaan ​​van deze mysterieuze planeet kan de afwijkende banen en gravitationele interacties van enkele dwergplaneten en andere objecten in de Kuipergordel verklaren.

Wil je meer weten? Bekijk dan deze afbeeldingen en informatie!

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Neptunus
Het is bijna 200 jaar geleden dat astronomen op een nieuwe planeet in ons zonnestelsel stuitten. Neptunus werd in slechts één nacht planeten observeren ontdekt, toen Johann Gottfried Galle en zijn student in 1846 een telescoop op de planeet richtten.

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California Institute of Technology
In 2016 verklaarden Konstantin Batygin en Mike Brown, twee astronomen van het California Institute of Technology (Caltech), dat hun onderzoek bewijs levert voor het mogelijke bestaan van een grote planeet in het buitenste zonnestelsel.

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Sterk bewijs
Hoewel de astronomen de planeet niet hebben waargenomen, leveren ze sterk theoretisch bewijs voor zowel het bestaan ​​ervan als relevante informatie over de mogelijke impact ervan.

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Kuipergordel
Dit bewijsmateriaal toont de invloed van de hypothetische planeet op dwergplaneten en kleinere objecten in de Kuipergordel en de mogelijke relatie tussen hen.

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Planeet Negen
De mysterieuze planeet, die ook wel 'Planeet X' (de 'X' staat voor de letter, niet voor het Romeinse cijfer) of 'Planeet Negen' wordt genoemd, is vermoedelijk 1,5 keer zo groot als de aarde en bevindt zich ver voorbij Pluto.

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Vijf tot tien keer grotere massa dan die van de aarde
De massa van de planeet is mogelijk 5 tot 10 keer groter dan die van de aarde en hij zou in een 20 tot 30 keer grotere baan om de zon kunnen draaien dan Neptunus. NASA merkt op dat het Planeet Negen, mocht deze theorie kloppen, 10.000 tot 20.000 aardjaren zou kosten om één keer om de zon te draaien.

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Unieke banen
Astronomen zeggen dat het mogelijke bestaan ​​van deze planeet het gedrag van bepaalde objecten in het buitenste zonnestelsel zou kunnen verklaren, met name de unieke banen van dwergplaneten en ijzige objecten in de Kuipergordel.

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Gerard Kuiper
De Kuipergordel is vernoemd naar de astronoom Gerard Kuiper. Het is een koud gebied dat zich voorbij de baan van Neptunus bevindt en wordt soms de 'derde zone' van het zonnestelsel genoemd.

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IJzige objecten
Astronomen denken dat er naast Pluto nog miljoenen andere ijzige objecten in de Kuipergordel aanwezig zijn, waaronder stoffen als ammoniak en methaan.

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Opgeblazen donut
De Kuipergordel staat bekend als een van de grootste samenstellingen in ons zonnestelsel en wordt over het algemeen beschreven als een opgeblazen donut.

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Rand van de baan van Neptunus
De Kuipergordel begint aan de rand van de baan van Neptunus en strekt zich uit over bijna 1.000 AE (1 AE komt overeen met de afstand van de zon tot de aarde).

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Meer dan 2.000 objecten ontdekt
Hoewel astronomen rond de 2.000 objecten hebben geïdentificeerd in de Kuipergordel, is het waarschijnlijk dat er nog honderdduizenden onontdekte objecten zijn. Deze worden vaak beschouwd als 'overblijfselen' van de vorming van het zonnestelsel.

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Vorming van het zonnestelsel
De theorie over hoe dit tot stand kwam, is dat toen het zonnestelsel zich vormde, Uranus en Neptunus door verschuivingen in de banen van Jupiter en Saturnus gedwongen werden om verder van de zon te bewegen.

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Uranus en Neptunus
Uranus en Neptunus dreven steeds verder weg en passeerden de ijzige overblijfselen nadat alle grote planeten waren gevormd.

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Jupiter
De zwaartekracht van de baan van Neptunus duwde deze objecten in de richting van de zon en grote planeten zoals Jupiter, terwijl Jupiter ze vervolgens uit het zonnestelsel slingerde of naar verre banen bracht.

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Verbrokkelde stukken
De zwaartekracht van Neptunus duwde de resterende objecten de Kuipergordel in, waar ze soms op elkaar botsten en in verbrokkelde stukken uiteenvielen.

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Dwergplaneten en samengeklonterde objecten
Astronomen die de Kuipergordel onderzoeken, merken dat verschillende kleinere planeten en sommige objecten de neiging hebben om in dezelfde banen rond te draaien en daarbij samen te klonteren.

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Theorie over Planeet Negen
Het is de analyse van deze banen, oftewel de gravitationele interacties met een grote planeet, waar astronomen hun theorie over het bestaan ​​van Planeet Negen op baseren.

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Sommige onderzoekers ontkennen het bestaan ​​ervan
Sommige criticasters in de gemeenschap van wetenschappers ontkennen het mogelijke bestaan ​​van Planeet Negen. Zij beweren dat de waargenomen banen slechts te wijten zijn aan de willekeurige verspreiding van objecten langs de Kuipergordel.

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Alle middelen worden ingezet
Wetenschappers proberen wanhopig de planeet te vinden om het bestaan ​​ervan te bevestigen. Met behulp van een speciaal observatorium, krachtige telescopen en burgerprojecten proberen astronomen zoveel mogelijk gegevens te verzamelen om de planeet te lokaliseren.

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Complexe computersimulaties
De huidige theorie is gebaseerd op complexe computersimulaties waarbij rekening wordt gehouden met een aantal voorwaarden. Het model dat het meest aansluit bij het waargenomen gedrag van banen is het model waarin Planeet Negen is opgenomen.

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Vera C. Rubin Observatory
Wetenschappers hopen dat het nieuwe Vera C. Rubin Observatorium in Chili zal bijdragen aan het beantwoorden van een aantal vragen over Planeet Negen en het oplossen van andere kwesties m.b.t. sterrenkunde.

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Gedetailleerde timelapse
Dankzij innovatieve technologie kan het observatorium gedurende tien jaar een uitgebreid en gedetailleerd overzicht van het heelal bieden met behulp van de grootste camera die ooit is gebouwd.

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Verzamelde beelden
De beelden die het observatorium verzamelt, kunnen een gedetailleerder inzicht verschaffen in de verspreiding van objecten langs de Kuipergordel.

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Waarom is het zo moeilijk om de planeet te vinden?
Het lokaliseren van planeten is een behoorlijke uitdaging. Astronomen gebruiken de transitmethode om planeten in andere zonnestelsels te vinden.

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Transitmethode
Astronomen kunnen planeten waarschijnlijk beter vinden door de bewegingen van een ster te observeren. Het computermodel dat wordt gebruikt om Planeet Negen te detecteren, schat de kans dat de planeet bestaat op 99 procent.

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Malena Rice
Malena Rice, universitair docent astronomie aan de Yale-universiteit, stelde dat het vinden van een andere planeet "ons begrip van het zonnestelsel en andere planetenstelsels, en hoe wij in die context passen, volledig zou kunnen veranderen".

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Mysteries van het buitenste zonnestelsel
Kleine zwarte gaten, potentiële buitenaardse werelden, extra dwergplaneten, vulkanische kometen en asteroïden zijn slechts enkele van de mysteries omtrent het buitenste zonnestelsel die astronomen proberen te ontrafelen.

©Shutterstock

De zoektocht gaat door
Terwijl de zoektocht naar Planeet Negen doorgaat, zetten sommige wetenschappers alles in op indirect bewijs voor het bestaan ​​van de planeet, terwijl anderen er zeer kritisch tegenover staan.

Bronnen: (NASA) (AP News) (Live Science) (Yahoo News UK) (Interesting Engineering) (ABC Australia)

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22-07-2025 om 15:31 geschreven door peter  

Apparently Vera Rubin Captured Images Of 3I/ATLAS Before It Was Even Discovered

Sometimes serendipity happens in science. Whether it’s an apple falling from a tree or a melting chocolate bar, some of the world’s greatest discoveries come from happy accidents, even if their stories may be apocryphal. According to a new paper on arXiv, there’s a new story to add to the archives of serendipitous scientific discoveries - Rubin happened to make observations of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS before its official discovery, while the telescope was still in its Science Validation survey, marking the earliest, high resolution images we will likely get of the comet at that time.

According to the paper, Rubin just happened to be pointing at the part of the sky where 3I/ATLAS was located during its Science Validation (SV) phase. It unknowingly took pictures of the object between June 21st (10 days before it was officially discovered) and July 7th. June 21st was even a few days before the telescope officially released its “First Look” images to the public back on June 23rd.

These observations are important because they are the earliest ones done by a high power telescope. Rubin’s 8.4m Simoyi Survey Telescope and 3.2-gigapixel Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) combined to capture the highest resolution images of the comet released to date. Since the images were captured before full commissioning, the data they represented had to be run through customer data pipelines rather than the standard automated ones that will handle the terabytes of data normally created by Rubin every night.

Fraser discusses the new interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS.

There were 49 images included in the study, though some were excluded due to being captured during telescope alignments, blending with other stars, or just being out of focus. Nineteen of the images were captured during intentional SV operations.

Those images show a comet that largely behaved as expected. They provided the highest resolution proof that 3I/ATLAS is, in fact a comet, and shows cometary behavior, like a coma of gas and dust surrounding it. The apparent size of its coma grew about 58% over the observational period as it continued to approach the Sun. Interestingly, it had a sunward pointing tail. According to the paper this can be explained by “anisotropic dust emission”, and has been observed in other comets, though it is relatively rare. Several explanations are offered, including slow ejection of large particles that aren’t pushed back as quickly by the Sun’s radiation pressure or a rotational axis that nearly aligns with its orbital plane.

Perhaps not as excitingly, 3I/ATLAS doesn’t show any sign of non-gravitational acceleration like 1I/Oumuamua. That’s not to say there won’t eventually be - 1I/Oumuamua’s acceleration was first observed during its perihelion, so astronomers will be watching closely to see if the same effect happens for 3I/ATLAS when it approaches its perihelion in October. However, in an opposite twist of luck, the object itself won’t be visible at that time as it will be blocked by the Sun from September through December.

Fraser discusses the observational power of Vera Rubin and how it could change astronomy forever.

Rubin will lose sight of its slightly beforehand, on August 22nd, when it will move out of the telescope's surveyed area of the sky. Between the final image presented in the paper and that time, the authors expect at least 100 more images of the comet to be captured, many of which will likely be high quality than the earlier sets when the telescope operators didn’t know they had such a valuable and rare object in their field of view. An even more detailed paper is sure to be forthcoming, even if it might not be as much of a surprise.

Learn More:

• C.O. Chandler et al - NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Observations of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1)
• UT - The First Pictures from Vera Rubin are Here!
• UT - Inbound: Astronomers Discover Third Interstellar Object
• UT - Newly-Discovered Interstellar Comet is Billions of Years Older Than the Solar System

22-07-2025 om 14:33 geschreven door peter  

NASA rover discovers out-of-place 'Skull' on Mars, and scientists are baffled

The region, called Port Anson, contains several such rocks that may have been transported from elsewhere, scientists said. Known as "floats," these loose rocks likely traveled vast distances billions of years ago when Mars possessed a warmer, wetter environment with rivers, lakes and potentially even oceans. As the water receded and softer surrounding material eroded over eons, the more resilient rocks remained perched on the Martian soil.

"We've found a few of these dark-toned floats in the Port Anson region," the post noted. "The team is working to better understand where these rocks came from and how they got here."

The mystery of Skull Hill

According to the post, the pits on Skull Hill may have formed in a couple of ways. Small pieces within Skull Hill itself might have become loose and eroded away, leaving the holes. Another possibility is that Martian winds, carrying tiny dust and rock particles, could have acted like sandpaper, slowly wearing away the rock's surface and creating the pits.

The dark tone of Skull Hill and similar rocks could suggest they are meteorites, but recent analysis of their chemical data from Perseverance's SuperCam instrument indicates their composition doesn't match that of a typical meteorite.

Alternatively, these dark rocks could have a volcanic origin. On both Earth and Mars, minerals like olivine, pyroxene and biotite are known to give igneous rocks their dark color. If these rocks are indeed igneous, they might have come from nearby volcanic rock formations that have eroded away, or they could have been blasted out of the ground by an impact crater that excavated deeper volcanic layers.

"Luckily for us, the rover has instruments that can measure the chemical composition of rocks on Mars," according to the post. "Understanding the composition of these darker-toned floats will help the team to interpret the origin of this unique rock."

In the past few months, Perseverance has collected samples of five rocks, analyzed seven others in detail and zapped 83 more with its laser for remote study — the robotic explorer's fastest pace of scientific data collection since landing on Mars four years ago, representatives of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said in another statement.

Mission scientists noted that it often takes months of searching the crater to find a scientifically unique rock worth sampling. On the crater rim, however, Perseverance is encountering new and intriguing rocks at every turn, according to the statement.

"Crater rims — you gotta love 'em," Katie Morgan, Perseverance's project scientist at JPL, said in the statement. "The last four months have been a whirlwind for the science team, and we still feel that Witch Hazel Hill has more to tell us — it has been all we had hoped for and more."

Scientists are keen to get the samples Perseverance has collected back to Earth to determine if life ever existed on Mars. However, NASA's Mars Sample Return mission is facing significant challenges with budget, timelines and technical complexities, leaving its future uncertain.

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{ https://www.livescience.com/space }

21-07-2025 om 21:53 geschreven door peter  

If aliens existed on Mars 3.7 billion years ago, they would have needed umbrellas

{ https://www.livescience.com/space }

21-07-2025 om 21:05 geschreven door peter  

We're within 3 years of reaching a critical climate threshold. Can we reverse course?

The ocean will release this extra heat over the next few decades via evaporation and direct heat transfer regardless of whether we curb emissions, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

This means that even if carbon emissions dropped to zero today, global temperatures would continue to rise for a few decades, with experts predicting an extra 0.5 C (0.9 F) of warming from oceans alone.

However, temperatures would eventually stabilize as heat radiated out to space. And over several thousand years, Earth would dial temperatures back down to preindustrial levels via natural carbon sinks, such as trees and soils absorbing CO₂, according to NOAA.

Why 1.5 C?

Climate scientists see 1.5 C as a critical threshold: Beyond this limit, levels of warming are unsafe for people living in economically developing countries, and particularly in island nations, said Kirsten Zickfeld, a professor of climate science at Simon Fraser University in Canada.

The 1.5 C limit is "an indicator of a state of the climate system where we feel we can still manage the consequences," Zickfeld told Live Science.

A huge amount of additional heat could be baked into the ocean and later released if we exceed 1.5 C, which is another reason why scientists are worried about crossing this threshold.

Speeding past 1.5 C also increases the risk of passing climate tipping points, which are elements of the Earth system that can quickly switch into a dramatically different state. For example, the Greenland Ice Sheet could suddenly tumble into the ocean, and the Amazon rainforest could transform into a dry savanna.

Reversing temperature rise

Although it's best to reduce emissions as quickly as we can, it may still be possible to reverse a temperature rise of 1.5 C or more if we pass that critical threshold. The technology needed isn't quite developed yet, so there is a lot of uncertainty about what is feasible.

If we do start to bring temperatures down again, it would not undo the effects of passing climate tipping points. For example, it would not refreeze ice sheets or cause sea levels to fall after they've already risen. But it would significantly reduce risks for ecosystems that respond more quickly to temperature change, such as permafrost-covered tundras.

Reversing temperature rise requires not just net zero emissions, but net negative emissions, Zickfeld said. Net zero would mean we sequester as much CO₂ via natural carbon sinks and negative emissions technologies as we emit. Negative emissions would require systems that suck carbon out of the atmosphere and then bury it underground — often known as carbon capture and storage.

Net zero may halt warming. But if we want to reverse warming, we must remove more carbon from the atmosphere than we emit, Zickfield said.

Scientists estimate that 0.1 C (0.2 F) of warming is equivalent to 243 billion tons (220 billion metric tons) of CO₂, which is a "massive amount," Zickfeld said. "Let's say if we go to 1.6 C [2.9 F] and we want to drop down to 1.5 C — we need to remove around 220 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide."

Currently, nature-based carbon-removal techniques, such as planting trees, sequester around 2.2 billion tons (2 billion metric tons) of CO₂ each year. "So we need to scale that up by a factor of 100 to drop us down by 0.1 C" in one year, Zickfeld said.

Due to competing demands for land, it is highly unlikely that we could plant enough forests or restore enough peatland to meaningfully reverse temperature change, Zickfeld said.

This means we will definitely need negative emissions technologies, she said. However, most negative emissions technologies are still being tested, so it's difficult to say how effective they would be, Zickfeld said.

These technologies are also extremely expensive and will likely remain so for a long time, Robin Lamboll, a climate researcher at Imperial College London and a co-author of the recent report, told Live Science in an email.

"In practice we will be doing quite well if we find that the rollout of these technologies does any more than bring us to net zero," Lamboll said. There is some uncertainty about how Earth might respond to net zero, and it's possible that the planet might cool at that point. "If we cool at all, we do so very slowly. In a very optimistic case we might go down by 0.3 C [0.5 F] in 50 years," Lamboll said.

There is no requirement under the Paris Agreement for countries to roll out negative emissions technologies. But the goal of the agreement to stay well below 2 C (3.6 F) means that governments may decide to ramp up these technologies once we pass 1.5 C, Lamboll said.

Figures from the recent report indicate that at the current rate of emissions, the remaining carbon budgets to stay below 1.6 C, 1.7 C (3.1 F) and 2 C could be used up within seven, 12 and 25 years, respectively.

"If we do pass 1.5 C, 1.6 C is a whole lot better than 1.7 C, and 1.7 C is a whole lot better than 1.8 C [3.2 F]," Mann said in an interview with BBC World News America in June. "At this point, the challenge is to reduce carbon emissions as quickly as we can to avert ever-worse impacts."

It's worth noting that the world is making progress with emission cuts, Mann added in the interview. "Let's recognize that we're starting to turn the corner," he said.

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{ https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth }

21-07-2025 om 20:46 geschreven door peter  

21-07-2025 om 20:26 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

21-07-2025 om 15:47 geschreven door peter  

Multiple staff at Area 51 have reportedly died or suffered from the same deadly disease after being exposed to a 'top secret' project.

Area 51, the highly classified US Air Force facility located in the Nevada desert, has long been linked with controversy and strange goings on, with many aliens and UFO sightings reported close to the base over the years.

Even people on Google Maps think that they've spotted some otherworldly sights close to the facility, with alien technology supposedly kept there if you believe in the conspiracy theories.

Whatever truly happens there, it often remains top secret, and now some US Air Force veterans and security guards are claiming that they were handed a death sentence by the government due to the presence of an invisible killer at the facility.

Former Air Force Sergeant David Crete, who worked at the Nevada Training and Testing Range (NTTR) between 1983 and 1987, said that the left side of his brain was ‘dying’ due to atrophy while speaking at the House Veterans Affairs Committee earlier this year.

David Crete says he has severe health consequences from working in Area 51 (NewsNation)

Area 51 (Satellite image

(c) 2023 Maxar Technologies)

He is lobbying for better support for Area 51 veterans, many of whom have been denied healthcare in the US because none of the surviving veterans can prove they were exposed to radiation near Area 51, as their work there was so 'top secret' there are no records of them ever being there.

Sergeant Crete claims that as many as 490 of his former colleagues have died of severe illnesses including cancer since serving at the former nuclear site, with the radiation risks also seemingly a huge risk to the servicemen's families.

"My wife had three miscarriages. One of the guys that I worked with, his wife had seven," he added.

Area 51 has become linked with conspiracy theories

(Bernard Friel/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

"All four of my children were born with birth defects or significant health problems. It’s not their fault. I’m not saying it’s mine, but I brought it home."

Sergeant Crete claimed that the only acknowledgement of his service came from the late US Senator John McCain, who told him that his unit ‘ended the cold war'.

Air Force technician Mark Ely also worked at the base in the 1980s and is suffering from life-threatening conditions he feels were brought on due to the radiation he was exposed to.

He said: "Upholding the national interest was more important than my own life. It scarred my lungs. I got cysts on my liver. I started having lipomas, tumours inside my body I had to remove. My lining in my bladder was shed."LADbible Group has approached the US Air Force for comment.

• Featured Image Credit: Barry King/WireImage

{ https://www.ladbible.com/news }

21-07-2025 om 14:47 geschreven door peter  

In our daily life, we measure space with yardsticks and time with clocks. This gives us the illusion that space and time are absolute. With that mindset, Isaac Newton, the son of a farmer who stayed at home during a bubonic plague, pondered why apples in his family’s orchard fell straight to the ground and suggested in 1687 that gravity is a force between any two objects.

A century before Newton’s realization, Galileo Galilei concluded that the gravitational acceleration of a body would be independent of its mass, contrary to Aristotle’s assertion that heavy objects fall faster than the lighter ones. Indeed, during the Apollo 15 mission to the Moon in 1971, the astronaut David Scott dropped a feather and a hammer from his hands and the two hit the ground at the same time because of the lack of a lunar atmosphere

Three centuries after Galileo, Albert Einstein came up with the thought experiment that people in a free-falling elevator would have no sense of gravity because their feet would not press against the floor of the elevator, since their feet and the floor are falling at the same rate. This led him to recognize in 1907 that gravity is not a force but rather an acceleration of the reference frame shared by all objects, irrespective of mass or composition – the so-called equivalence principle. If so, Einstein reasoned, gravity must be a distortion of space and time, shared by all objects.

In November 1915, Einstein formulated the equations that describe how spacetime is curved by matter and how the curvature of spacetime dictates the motion of matter. The curvature of a surface can be inferred from the sum of the angles of a triangle on it. Whereas 180 degrees is the sum of the three triangle angles on a flat surface, this is the sum of just the two base angles for a triangle drawn on the surface of a sphere, like the Earth, with the base lying on the equator and the two sides meeting at the north pole.

A simple way to visualize the curvature of spacetime is to consider a two-dimensional analog to the three-dimensional space we inhabit. Consider a bowling bowl resting at the center of a trampoline made of rubber and curving its flexible surface. If we kick a marble at the right speed around the center, it will follow a circle because of the curvature of the trampoline surface. But if we were to remove the bowling bowl and give the marble the same kick, it would move along a straight line on the flat surface. For the same reason, if we were to remove the Sun instantly from the Solar system, the Earth would fly out along a straight line because the local spacetime would become flat.

Now imagine moving the bowling ball back and forth periodically. This would inevitably produce ripples in the rubber surface of the trampoline, propagating out like a wave generated by a stick moved back and forth on the surface of a pond. In the same way, a companion star moving the Sun back and forth, would generate ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves. These waves interact so weakly with matter that they cannot be damped anywhere in the Universe, as I had shown in a recent paper.

In August 2015, a century minus two months after Einstein’s equations were formulated, the LIGO experiment detected the first signal from gravitational waves from the collision of two black holes at the edge of the Universe. This opened a new window for observing the Universe.

By now, seven years and nearly a hundred additional event signals after LIGO’s pioneering discovery, astronomers celebrate a new frontier of gravitational wave astrophysics. On the one hand, our ability to explain all the signals as mergers of black holes or neutron stars is rewarding. But at the same time, the lack of unexpected sources is disappointing.

For example, we could have identified bursts of gravitational waves from topological defects of spacetime, called cosmic strings, which are hypothesized to be generated by symmetry-breaking phase transitions in the early universe.  We could have also detected artificially-produced bursts of gravitational waves, used for communication among advanced technological civilizations.

But perhaps we will find these unusual signals with the future generations of gravitational wave detectors. A novel detection scheme, the Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs), uses pulsars as distributed clocks to detect the passage of a low-frequency gravitational wave from the mergers of massive black holes at the centers of galaxies.

With my former postdoc, Dan D’Orazio, we showed in a recent paper that PTAs could potentially be used as a new method for calibrating cosmological distances and measuring the Hubble expansion rate through gravitational-wave parallax. The principle is familiar. Darwinian survival selected animals with two eyes since they were able to assess the distance of threatening objects by viewing them from two directions.  For the same reason, having an array of pulsars allows us to identify the distance of a cosmological source of gravitational waves.

In an even more recent paper with Hamsa Padmanabhan, we showed that PTAs can unravel the formation history of the first supermassive black holes in the first billion years after the Big Bang. This data will complement the deep images of galaxies during that epoch, obtained by the Webb telescope.

Webb’s images are artificially colored, since the corresponding infrared wavelengths are invisible to the human eye. What we cannot see with our eyes, we detect with infrared sensors, and what we cannot detect through light, we detect through gravitational waves.

The latest advances in our understanding of the cosmos stem from developing technologies that make the invisible more easily detectable. Humanity follows a steady progression towards extending the limits of our biological senses with technological devices that probe our cosmic neighborhood more effectively. Technological extensions of our body make the invisible detectable.

This work is not done.  We still have to find the nature of dark matter and dark energy as well as the nature of singularities, like those in black holes and the Big Bang. Singularities are points where the curvature of spacetime diverges and Einstein’s equations break down.

A brilliant scientist has yet to formulate an extension of Einstein’s equations that incorporates quantum mechanics and explains away the singularity of the Big Bang. Thought experiments might not be sufficient. Here’s hoping that the clues for how to move forward will be encoded in gravitational waves from the early universe, the equivalent of the falling apples in Newton’s orchard.

• Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s – Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011-2020). He chairs the advisory board for the Breakthrough Starshot project, and is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors onScience and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021.

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{ https://thedebrief.org/category/astronomy/ }

20-07-2025 om 23:11 geschreven door peter  

Earth's magnetic field is weakening — magnetic crystals from lost civilizations could hold the key to understanding why

Gemini North Sees Brightening Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS in Detail

By David Dickinson 

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

19-07-2025 om 21:00 geschreven door peter  

Story by Stephen Beech - Talker News

Mars Curiosity rover.

(NASA via SWNS)

Large carbon deposits have been found on Mars, suggesting it was once home to alien lifeforms.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover discovered evidence of a carbon cycle below the Red Planet's surface.

The find brings researchers closer to answering the question about whether Mars was ever capable of supporting life.

Scientists are working to understand climate transitions and habitability on ancient Mars as Curiosity explores Gale CraterThe latest findings, published in the journal Science, reveal that data from three of Curiosity’s drill sites had siderite, an iron carbonate material, within sulphate-rich layers of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater.

Study lead author Dr. Ben Tutolo, of the University of Calgary in Canada, said: “The discovery of large carbon deposits in Gale Crater represents both a surprising and important breakthrough in our understanding of the geologic and atmospheric evolution of Mars."

(Photo by Planet Volumes via Unsplash )

Dr. Tutolo, a participating scientist on the NASA Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover team, explained that reaching the strata was a long-term goal of the mission.

He said: “The abundance of highly soluble salts in these rocks and similar deposits mapped over much of Mars has been used as evidence of the ‘great drying' of Mars during its dramatic shift from a warm and wet early Mars to its current, cold and dry state."

• Related video: Mars Mystery: Perseverance Rover Finds an Intriguing, Vanishing Feature in Ancient Rock (Metal Workers)

Sedimentary carbonate has long been predicted to have formed under the carbon dioxide-rich ancient Martian atmosphere, but Dr. Tutolo says identifications had previously been sparse.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover landed on Mars in August 2012, and has since travelled more than 20 miles (34 km) across the planet's surface.

Scientists say the discovery of carbonate suggests that the atmosphere contained enough carbon dioxide to support liquid water existing on the planet’s surface.

As the atmosphere thinned, the carbon dioxide transformed into rock form.

Illustration of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech via SWNS)

NASA says future missions and analysis of other sulphate-rich areas on Mars could confirm the findings and help to better understand the planet’s early history and how it transformed as its atmosphere was lost.

Dr. Tutolo says scientists are ultimately trying to determine whether Mars was ever capable of supporting life, and the latest paper brings them closer to an answer

He said: “It tells us that the planet was habitable and that the models for habitability are correct.

“The broader implications are the planet was habitable up until this time, but then, as the CO2 that had been warming the planet started to precipitate as siderite, it likely impacted Mars’ ability to stay warm.

“The question looking forward is how much of this CO2 from the atmosphere was actually sequestered?

"Was that potentially a reason we began to lose habitability?”

(Photo by NASA via Unsplash )

© Provided by talker

Dr. Tutolo says the latest research tie in with his ongoing work on Earth, trying to turn anthropogenic CO2 into carbonates as a climate change solution.

He said: “Learning about the mechanisms of making these minerals on Mars helps us to better understand how we can do it here.“Studying the collapse of Mars’ warm and wet early days also tells us that habitability is a very fragile thing.”

Dr. Tutolo says it’s clear that small changes in atmospheric CO2 can lead to "huge changes" in the ability of the planet to harbour life.

He added: “The most remarkable thing about Earth is that it’s habitable and it has been for at least four billion years.

“Something happened to Mars that didn’t happen to Earth.”

• The post Deposits found on Mars suggest it was once home to alien lifeforms appeared first on Talker.

 

{  Talker. }

19-07-2025 om 16:26 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious blobs deep inside Earth may fuel deadly volcanic eruptions - with the capability of wiping out life as we know it

• READ MORE: Scientists say Africa is gradually tearing in half

By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE 

Explosive volcanic eruptions don't just damage property and cancel flights.

They can kill hundreds or even thousands of people, burying them under lethal 'pyroclastic' flows. 

Now, scientists in Australia have identified a possible cause of gigantic volcanic eruptions – mysterious 'blobs' about 1,200 miles under our feet. 

Blobs are three-dimensional regions that span the length of continents and stretch 100 times higher than Mount Everest. 

They sit at the bottom of Earth’s rocky mantle above the molten outer core – a place so deep that Earth’s elements are squeezed beyond recognition. 

And they're a starting point for plumes of hot molten rock which flow upwards towards the Earth's surface. 

There they erupt as lava, gases and rock fragments – with the capability of wiping out life as we know it. 

The authors warn that giant, large-scale eruptions can have serious impacts, such as sudden climate change and mass extinction events. 

Giant, large-scale volcanic eruptions can have serious impacts, from mass extinction events to sudden climate change. Pictured, glowing lava from a volcano eruption in Iceland

Earth is made up of three layers - the crust, the mantle and the core, which was later separated into 'inner' and 'outer'. A recent study suggested the existence of an 'innermost core' too 

Volcanic eruptions can intensify global warming by adding greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere. 

Giant volcanoes also triggered events that led to the largest mass dying on Earth, the Permian-Triassic extinction 252 million years ago. 

'These blobs have possibly existed for hundreds of millions of years,' say the researchers from the University of Wollongong near Sydney. 

Earth is made up of three layers – the crust, the mantle and the core, which was recently separated into 'inner' and 'outer'.

According to the team, blobs are at the bottom of Earth’s mantle, about 1,200 miles and 1,800 miles (2,000km and 3,000km) below our feet.

The mantle, the planet's thickest layer, is predominantly a solid rock – but blobs may be different compared with the surrounding mantle rocks. 

Blobs are made of rock just like the rest of the mantle, but they're thought to be hotter and heavier. 

For their study, the team used computer modeling to simulate 'mantle convection' – the movement of material in Earth's mantle powered by heat – over one billion years. 

Connection between the deep mantle and Earth’s surface showing the relationship between Blobs, mantle plumes and giant volcanic eruptions (not drawn to scale)

Blobs, which are some 1,200 miles below Earth’s surface, move over time and are connected to Earth’s surface by 'mantle plumes' that create giant eruptions

Their findings suggest that mantle plumes – columns of hot molten rock in the mantle – rise up from the continent-sized blobs. 

Mantle plumes are shaped a bit like a lollipop sticking upwards – with the 'stick' the plume tail and the 'candy' nearer Earth's surface the plume head. 

The researchers found that locations of volcanic eruption fall either onto (or close to) the location of blobs, as predicted by their models. 

This suggests that blobs – an acronym standing for Big LOwer-mantle Basal Structures – are essentially the deep-Earth origin of volcanic eruptions. 

Typically, deep Earth motions are in the order of 0.4-inch (1 cm) per year, so they only become significant over tens of millions of years. 

Blobs probably shift in a year at roughly the rate at which human hair grows each month, the team say. 

Although they have possibly existed for hundreds of millions of years, it's unclear what causes their movement. 

Mantle plumes rise very slowly from blobs through the mantle because they transport hot solid rock, not melt or lava. 

Cotopaxi, one of the highest active volcano in the world, stands at 19,347 feet (5,897 metres). Historically, its activity started in 1534 when the Spanish conquistadors began to venture into the territories that are now Ecuador

At lower pressures in the uppermost 125 miles (200 km) of Earth’s mantle, the solid rock melts, leading to volcanic eruptions.

'We used statistics to show that the locations of past giant volcanic eruptions are significantly related to the mantle plumes predicted by our models,' explain the authors in a piece for The Conversation. 

'This is encouraging, as it suggests that the simulations predict mantle plumes in places and at times generally consistent with the geologic record.' 

The new findings, published in Communications Earth and Environment, suggest that the deep Earth is even more dynamic than we realised. 

Future research aims to explore the chemical nature of blobs, which might be possible with simulations that track the evolution of their composition. 

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{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

18-07-2025 om 22:03 geschreven door peter  

Every 200,000-300,000 years, Earth's magnetic poles do something extraordinary.

They completely flip, meaning the North pole becomes the South, and vice-versa.

The last full reversal took place approximately 780,000 years ago – leaving some experts to predict another flip is imminent.

Now, researchers have created a terrifying soundscape to represent the chaos of this event. 

Using paleomagnetic data – the record of Earth's ancient magnetic field preserved in rocks – from around the globe, scientists have constructed a model of the magnetic field before, during and after this historic reversal.

They also created a musical piece – a 'soundscape' – to represent the haunting sounds of the flip, called the Matuyama-Brunhes reversal.

The team, from the Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany, used three violins and three cellos to create a 'disharmonic cacophony' that mirrors the complex dynamics of a flip.

The clip starts off as melodic and makes for pleasant listening as it represents the poles while stable. However, it sounds more erratic and eerie as the magnetic fields begin to flux and change. 

Researchers have created a terrifying soundscape to represent the chaos of this event. The left part of the animation represents the magnetic field is a relatively stable state, however, the right represents it in a total state of flux, with the poles completely scrambled

Earth is surrounded by a system of magnetic fields called the magnetosphere. This shields our home planet from harmful solar and cosmic particle radiation, but it can change shape in response to incoming space weather from the Sun. Pictured: an artist's impression

Earth's magnetic field is generated by the roiling liquid metals deep beneath the crust.

It extends from the Earth's interior into space, acting like a protective shield by diverting harmful charged particles from the Sun away from our planet.

A flip doesn't happen overnight but takes place gradually, over centuries to thousands of years.

If a magnetic flip were to happen again, some experts claim it could render parts of Earth 'uninhabitable' by knocking out power grids.

Communication systems could be seriously disrupted, and compasses would point south – meaning Greenland would be in the southern hemisphere and Antarctica in the North.

While it sounds terrifying, and would leave life on our planet exposed to higher amounts of solar radiation, it's unlikely to cause catastrophic events or mass extinctions.

Last year, researchers also transformed readings of an epic upheaval of Earth's magnetic field that took place some 41,000 years ago.

The Laschamp event saw our planet's magnetic North and South poles weaken, with the magnetic field tilting on its axis.

During a pole reversal, Earth's magnetic North and South poles swap locations. While that may sound like a big deal, pole reversals are common in Earth's geologic history. Pictured: an artist's impression of Earth with its magnetosphere

The soundscape was captured using data from a constellation of European Space Agency satellites.

Researchers mapped the movement of Earth's magnetic field lines during the event and produced a stereo sound version using natural noises including wood creaking and rocks falling. 

The noises in the video represent a time when the Earth's magnetic field was at just five per cent of its current strength.

While the Earth's magnetic field did return to normal – over the course of around 2,000 years – its strength has decreased again by 10 per cent over the past 180 years, experts have found.

However, a mysterious area in the South Atlantic has emerged where the geomagnetic field strength is decreasing even more rapidly.

The area is called the South Atlantic Anomaly and has seen satellites malfunctioning over it several times due to exposure to highly charged particles from the sun.

This has led to speculation that Earth is heading towards a magnetic pole flip.

However, some experts have provide reassurance that the poles aren't going to flip anytime soon.

A comparison between the present day geomagnetic field (top) and a potential ancient analogue at 600 BCE (bottom)

Researchers previously pieced together data on Earth's geomagnetic field strength stretching back 9,000 years and say there's no evidence a reversal is on the cards. 

Read More

• Climate change has shifted Earth's POLES: Faster ice melting under global warming is causing the magnetic north and south poles to drift around the surface of our planet  

'We have mapped changes in the Earth's magnetic field over the past 9,000 years, and anomalies like the one in the South Atlantic are probably recurring phenomena linked to corresponding variations in the strength of the Earth's magnetic field', said Andreas Nilsson, a geologist at Lund University.

The team analysed burnt archaeological artefacts, volcanic samples and sediment drill cores – all of which carry information about Earth's magnetic field.

Reassuringly, the team's model suggests that the South Atlantic Anomaly will recover of its own accord and is unlikely to trigger the reversal that some have anticipated.

'Based on similarities with the recreated anomalies, we predict that the South Atlantic Anomaly will probably disappear within the next 300 years, and that Earth is not heading towards a polarity reversal', Mr Nilsson said.

WHAT COULD HAPPEN TO EARTH IF ITS POLES FLIPPED?

The Earth’s magnetic field is in a permanent state of change. 

Magnetic north drifts around and every few hundred thousand years the polarity flips so a compass would point south instead of north. 

The strength of the magnetic field also constantly changes and currently it is showing signs of significant weakening. 

Life has existed on the Earth for billions of years, during which there have been many reversals. 

There is no obvious correlation between animal extinctions and those reversals. Likewise, reversal patterns do not have any correlation with human development and evolution.

It appears that some animals, such as whales and some birds use Earth's magnetic field for migration and direction finding.

Since geomagnetic reversal takes a number of thousands of years, they could well adapt to the changing magnetic environment or develop different methods of navigation.

Radiation at ground level would increase, however, with some estimates suggesting that overall exposure to cosmic radiation would double causing more deaths from cancer. ‘But only slightly,’ said Professor Richard Holme.

‘And much less than lying on the beach in Florida for a day. So if it happened, the protection method would probably be to wear a big floppy hat.’

The movement of the Earth's magnetic poles are shown in this animation at 10-year intervals from 1970 to 2020. The red and blue lines sjpw the difference between magnetic north and true north depending on where you are standing. On the green line, a compass would point to true north. Credit: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

Electric grid collapse from severe solar storms is a major risk. As the magnetic field continues to weaken, scientists are highlighting the importance off-the grid energy systems using renewable energy sources to protect the Earth against a black out. 

'The very highly charged particles can have a deleterious effect on the satellites and astronauts,' added Dr Mona Kessel, a Magnetosphere discipline scientist at Nasa.

In one area, there is evidence that a flip is already occurring. ‘The increasing strength of the South Atlantic anomaly, an area of weak field over Brazil, is already a problem,’ said Professor Richard Holme. 

The Earth's climate could also change. A recent Danish study has found that the earth's weather has been significantly affected by the planet's magnetic field.

They claimed that fluctuations in the number of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere directly alter the amount of cloud covering the planet.

Henrik Svensmark, a weather scientist at the Danish National Space Centre who led the team behind the research, believes that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

18-07-2025 om 21:33 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious new world has just been discovered in our solar system

• READ MORE:  Scientists 'found' alien life on distant planet... and now we may know what it looks like

By CHRIS MELORE, ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Astronomers have discovered a new world circling the outer edges of our solar system.

Researchers using the Subaru Telescope, located in Hawaii, spotted a small, distant object called 2023 KQ14 far beyond Pluto. They've given it the nickname Ammonite.

2023 KQ14 is a rare type of object called a 'sednoid,' a small, icy body in the outer solar system, similar to the icy rocks floating in the Kuiper Belt or dwarf planets like Pluto.

So far, there are only four known objects like it in our solar system. 2023 KQ14 is about 71 times farther from the sun than Earth is.

This object follows a unique, stretched-out orbit that has stayed stable for about 4.5 billion years.

Scientists found that 2023 KQ14's orbit was similar to the other sednoids in the solar system for billions of years, but that has mysteriously changed over time, suggesting the outer solar system is a more complex space than we thought.

This discovery also makes the possible existence of 'Planet Nine' less likely, as 2023 KQ14's orbit doesn't quite fit with where scientists believe that world would be.

Dr Yukun Huang from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan said: 'It is possible that a planet once existed in the solar system but was later ejected, causing the unusual orbits we see today.'

Researchers using the Subaru Telescope, located in Hawaii, spotted a small, distant object far beyond Pluto and have named it 2023 KQ14 

Planetary scientist Fumi Yoshida added that Ammonite was found in a region of space far beyond the influence of Neptune's gravity

'The presence of objects with elongated orbits and large perihelion distances in this area implies that something extraordinary occurred during the ancient era when 2023 KQ14 formed,' Yoshida explained in a statement.

Scientists are calling Ammonite a cosmic 'fossil' from the beginnings of the solar system.

The discovery was part of the Formation of the Outer Solar System: An Icy Legacy (FOSSIL) survey project.

The project's name itself reflected the goal of finding objects like Ammonite that act as 'icy fossils,' preserving information about the outer solar system's formation and evolution.

'I would be happy if the FOSSIL team could make many more discoveries like this one and help draw a complete picture of the history of the solar system,' Yoshida said.

Until now, astronomers had been focused on proving the existence of the fabled Planet Nine (or Planet X as NASA calls it), a mysterious ninth planet believed to be hiding far beyond Pluto at the edge of the solar system.

A recent study had whittled a list of 13 candidates down to just one potential object slowly moving around our sun approximately 46.5 billion to 65.1 billion miles away.

2023 KQ14 is a rare type of object called a 'sednoid,' a small, icy body in the outer solar system. So far, there are only four known objects like it in our solar system

Beyond Neptune is a region of the solar system called the Kuiper Belt, where Pluto and other ice fragments sit. All 4 sednoids sit in this region as well

To put that in perspective, that hypothetical planet would be almost 20 times farther away from the sun than Pluto is.

However, the Japanese team’s discovery of Ammonite (2023 KQ14) challenges the Planet Nine theory, as its unique orbit suggests that Planet Nine, if it exists, would need to be even farther from the sun than previously thought.

This has led the researchers who discovered Ammonite to hypothesize that a mystery planet (possibly Planet Nine) was somehow thrown out of its orbit around the sun long ago.

Scientists had been using the Planet Nine theory to explain some of the unsolved mysteries still surrounding our tiny corner of the Milky Way galaxy.

In a breakdown of Planet Nine, NASA said: 'It could also make our solar system seem a little more 'normal.'

'Surveys of planets around other stars in our galaxy have found the most common types to be 'super Earths' and their cousins — bigger than Earth, but smaller than Neptune,' NASA researchers continued.

'Yet none of this kind exist in our solar system. Planet Nine would help fill that gap.'

If astronomers had found a giant planet at the rim of the solar system, it could explain why objects in the Kuiper Belt are tilted by about 20 degrees with respect to the plane the planets sit on as they orbit the sun.

Planet Nine's gravity would be pulling on these objects over long periods of time, tilting their orbits so the entire ice belt would be out of line with the planets.

The existence of Planet Nine and its strong gravity would also explain why all these comets and tiny dwarf planets like Pluto all cluster together and move in the same direction without floating away.

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18-07-2025 om 21:11 geschreven door peter  

Is Yellowstone's supervolcano on the brink of erupting? Scientists discover a new HOLE in one of the park's basins

• READ MORE: Scientists warn hundreds of dormant volcanoes could soon erupt

By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE 

Scientists have just discovered a new hole in a basin in Yellowstone National Park - raising fears the supervolcano could be on the brink of erupting.  

The unsettling 13-foot gap is located at Norris Geyser Basin – one of the hottest, oldest and most dynamic of Yellowstone's thermal areas. 

Experts at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) say it formed over several months, starting at around Christmas 2024. 

Despite being a channel of bubbling volcanic activity, a photo from the government agency shows the cavity as a serene pool. 

With its unusually light blue water and brilliant white sand, the scene looks like it was captured on a faraway planet. 

The discovery comes just four months after the USCS discovered a newly opened volcanic vent in Yellowstone, spewing steam into the air.

Yellowstone is one of the world's largest active volcanoes - and if it erupted, it would cover up to two-thirds of the US with ash.

Entire states could become uninhabitable as toxic air sweeps through it, grounding thousands of flights and forcing millions to leave their homes. 

The new thermal pool at Yellowstone National Park (pictured) likely formed in a series of mildly explosive events between late December 2024 and early February 2025. The rocks and white material (silica mud) surrounding the pool were probably ejected as the feature formed

The new thermal feature, discovered by geologists on April 10 but only revealed this week, is a 'blue water spring' – a natural exit point producing exceptionally pure, clear water. 

The water is relatively warm (about 43°C/109°F), light blue in colour and reaches about one foot (30cm) below the rim of the pool. 

In terms of the cause of its creation, the experts point to a 'hydrothermal explosion' – an eruption of such force that boiling water, mud and surrounding rocks are broken and flung through the air.

Satellite imagery suggests it happened as a series of mildly explosive events between late December 2024 and early February 2025 prior to discovery. 

The imagery shows there was no feature present in the spot on December 19, but by January 6, a small depression had formed there.

Another image from February 13 shows the fully formed water pool, overall indicating that it did not form in a single major explosive event. 

Rocks and pure white geothermal mud made of silica surrounding the pool were probably ejected during 'multiple small events'. 

In contrast, other hydrothermal features at Yellowstone have formed during 'brief and violent episodes of change'. 

This satellite imagery dated February 15 shows the new fully-formed thermal pool at Norris Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park. There is no indication of the pool in images from October 19 and December 19, 2024, but a small depression is visible in a January 6 image

The new hole in the ground is at Norris Geyser Basin (pictured), the hottest, oldest and most dynamic of Yellowstone's thermal areas

When we think of volcanoes we tend to think of striking cone-shaped features that rise high into the sky, but Yellowstone volcano is largely underground. 

Yellowstone volcano blew catastrophically 630,000 years ago and many fear it's getting ready for another eruption, but fortunately, the new hole doesn't necessarily indicate it is in any immediate danger of doing so. 

Dr Craig Magee, geologist at the University of Leeds, stressed that Yellowstone has a 'long history of hydrothermal activity'. 

'There are lots of small earthquakes and subtle changes in ground elevation regularly recorded there,' he told MailOnline. 

'All these tell-tale signs, and others, indicate Yellowstone has an active magmatic and hydrothermal system beneath it.

'But the occurrence of one event, like this single hydrothermal explosion, is unlikely to represent increasing volcanic activity or a move closer to eruption; it is just a symptom.' 

According to the academic, if Yellowstone had 'swarms' of hydrothermal explosions, plus increasing seismic activity and ground movement, it could suggest increased activity level. 

However, volcanoes do not work in predictable ways and their eruptions do not follow predictable patterns or schedules. 

This relief map shows the location of the new thermal feature - formed sometime during late December 2024 to early February 2025 - marked by an orange star

Hydrothermal explosions are caused by pressure changes that result from the transition of liquid water to steam, but even scientists know 'relatively little' about them, according to Dr Magee. 

'In Yellowstone, hydrothermal explosions are one of the main hazards the numerous tourists who visit may come across,' he told MailOnline. 

The unusually light blue water in this one 'could be very salty or even acidic', so visitors wouldn't want to fall in, he added.

Despite its potency, Yellowstone National Park's famous volcanic activity draws about 4 million tourists per year from around the world.

One of the park's most famous geothermal features, the Old Faithful geyser, spews jets of boiling water every 44-125 minutes. 

According to a recent study, Yellowstone's magma chamber is just 2.3 miles (3.8km) or about 12,500 feet below Earth's surface. 

This marginal distance is about the same as between Buckingham Palace and St Paul's Cathedral in London, but the study authors also did not consider an eruption to be imminent. 

COULD AN ERUPTION AT THE YELLOWSTONE SUPERVOLCANO BE PREVENTED?

Recent research found a small magma chamber, known as the upper-crustal magma reservoir, beneath the surface

Nasa believes drilling up to six miles (10km) down into the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park to pump in water at high pressure could cool it.

Despite the fact that the mission would cost $3.46 billion (£2.63 billion), Nasa considers it 'the most viable solution.' 

Using the heat as a resource also poses an opportunity to pay for plan - it could be used to create a geothermal plant, which generates electric power at extremely competitive prices of around $0.10 (£0.08) per kWh.

But this method of subduing a supervolcano has the potential to backfire and trigger the supervolcanic eruption Nasa is trying to prevent.

'Drilling into the top of the magma chamber 'would be very risky;' however, carefully drilling from the lower sides could work. 

This USGS graphic shows how a 'super eruption' of the molten lava under Yellowstone National Park would spread ash across the United States

Even besides the potential devastating risks, the plan to cool Yellowstone with drilling is not simple.

Doing so would be an excruciatingly slow process that one happen at the rate of one metre a year, meaning it would take tens of thousands of years to cool it completely. 

And still, there wouldn't be a guarantee it would be successful for at least hundreds or possibly thousands of years. 

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18-07-2025 om 20:50 geschreven door peter