Billionaire Alien Hunter Will Scan the Cigar-Shaped 'Oumuamua Comet' for Alien Life

Is that an alien probe spying on us or just some random space rock?

That bizarre cigar-shaped asteroid named Oumuamua (Comet C/2017 U1) that flew through our solar system in November is so strange that many people think it may even be an alien spaceship if not an artifact from an alien civilization.

So, astronomers are preparing to scan it before it's beyond our reach. Russian billionaire Yuri Milner is leading a team of scientists to check it for radio signals and transmissions of any kind to see if there's anything of intelligence on board. 

This is a unique opportunity that we mustn't let slip through our fingers because this is the only interstellar object floating through our solar system that we have ever seen. That in itself is intriguing and has a higher probability of containing some evidence of other intelligent life. Of course, we can speculate all day but taking action to analyze it is a quite reasonable thing to do and a no-brainer. 

It can be seen both disappointing and inspiring, however, that it takes a private billionaire to check this for us rather than a governmental space agency like NASA. Are they trying to hide something? Let's find out. 

Despite its irregular elongated shape, the comet's pinkish color and brightness is similar to other objects native to our solar system. Time is ticking and the Oumuamua comet isn't waiting around to pose for selfies as it's flying past us at 1,620 miles per hour. 

Alien-Hunters Unite

Yuri Milner's company called Breakthrough Listen is a $100-million alien-hunting business that will use the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to scan the Oumuamua comet this week. Even though it's getting further away, the Green Bank Telescope can still capture the slightest signal from it, for the time being. 

'The more I study this object, the more unusual it appears, making me wonder whether it might be an artificially made probe which was sent by an alien civilization,' Professor Avi Loeb, the chair of Harvard's astronomy department and one of Milner's advisers on Breakthrough Listen, wrote in the email.

'Researchers working on long-distance space transportation have previously suggested that a cigar or needle shape is the most likely architecture for an interstellar spacecraft since this would minimise friction and damage from interstellar gas and dust,' the research firm said in a statement.

Alien Oumuamua Origins? 

This comet is unlike most comets because it's not orbiting our sun and is flying around at an angle instead of an ellipse. Based on its trajectory path, it appears to be coming from the Lyra constellation, will curve around our sun, and then shoot off never to return. 

Its orbital path suggests it entered our solar system from the direction of the constellation Lyra, looped around the sun, and will never return.

However, some astronomers believe this comet is native to our solar system but its orbit changed when another planet got too close to it.

NASA has suggested before that the Oumuamua comet has just been floating around the Milky Way haphazardly for hundreds of millions of years until is accidentally entered our solar system... Thank goodness for billionaire Milner and those like him who are willing to put their own money on the line to take an honest look at what's happening out there in space. 

What do you think we'll find? 

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Sources:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5167821/Astronomers-scan-alien-comet-Oumuamua-ET-signals.html#ixzz50zHN69TP

Huge BLACK HOLE is the FURTHEST One Ever Found and 800X the Mass of Our Sun

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Astronomers have discovered a super-size black hole harkening back to almost the dawn of creation.

It's the farthest black hole ever found.

A team led by the Carnegie Observatories' Eduardo Banados reported in the journal Nature on Wednesday that the black hole lies in a quasar dating to 690 million years of the Big Bang. That means the light from this quasar has been traveling our way for more than 13 billion years.

Banados said the quasar provides a unique baby picture of the universe when it was just 5 percent of its current age.

It would be like seeing photos of a 50-year-old man when he was 2 1/2 years old, according to Banados.

"This discovery opens up an exciting new window to understand the early universe," he said in an email from Pasadena, California.

Quasars are incredibly bright objects deep in the cosmos, powered by black holes devouring everything around them. That makes them perfect candidates for unraveling the mysteries of the earliest cosmic times.

The black hole in this newest, most distant quasar is 800 million times the mass of our sun.

Much bigger black holes are out there, but none so far away — at least among those found so far. These larger black holes have had more time to grow in the hearts of galaxies since the Big Bang, compared with the young one just observed.

"The new quasar is itself one of the first galaxies, and yet it already harbors a behemoth black hole as massive as others in the present-day universe," co-author Xiaohui Fan of the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory said in a statement.

Around the time of this newest quasar, the universe was emerging from a so-called Dark Ages. Stars and galaxies were first appearing and their radiation ionizing the surrounding hydrogen gas to illuminate the cosmos.

Banados suspects there are more examples like this out there, between 20 and 100.

"The newfound quasar is so luminous and evolved that I would be surprised if this was the first quasar ever formed," Banados said. "The universe is enormous and searching for these very rare objects is like looking for the needle in the haystack."

Only one other quasar has been found in this ultra-distant category, despite extensive scanning. This newest quasar beats that previous record-holder by about 60 million years.

Still on the lookout, astronomers are uncertain how close they'll get to the actual beginning of time, 13.8 billion years ago.

Banados and his team used the Carnegie's Magellan telescopes in Chile, supported by observatories in Hawaii, the American Southwest and the French Alps.

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Sources:

http://www.nature.com/nature

The $10,000 Quadrillion Asteroid of Precious Metals is NASA's Latest Target

What would you do if you found a huge shiny metal-rich planet floating "nearby" in space? Well, NASA is going after it and plans to launch a ship in 2022. 

This huge metallic asteroid was found on March 17, 1852, by an Italian astronomer named Annibale de Gasparis. He named it after the Greek mythological god Psyche who represents the spirit. It's one of the largest asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and is classified as a metallic "M-class" asteroid. Scientists believe 16 Psyche is the core of an ancient planet in the extremely rare state of being completely exposed with no harsh atmosphere impeding exploration. This provides a unique opportunity to examine the inside of a planet to hopefully learn how ones such as ours are formed.

It's Worth How Much?!

Based on remote analysis, scientists have determined it contains iron, nickel, gold, platinum, copper, and other precious metals, making this a huge 156-mile wide untapped "goldmine" just waiting to be harvested. By calculating the mass and current metal prices, Dr. Elkins-Tanton estimates 16 Psyche's iron alone to be worth $10,000 quadrillion!

Well, it's not surprising considering this is the core of a planet. 

The implications of adding this wealth into Earth's commodity markets could actually be catastrophic. The prices of these metals may crash to almost zero and disrupting mining, manufacturing, and governmental industries. 

But that probably won't stop people from jumping on $10,000+ quadrillion jackpot. 

Dr. Elkins-Tanton said: 'Even if we could grab a big metal piece and drag it back here … what would you do? Could you kind of sit on it and hide it and control the global resource — kind of like diamonds are controlled corporately — and protect your market? What if you decided you were going to bring it back and you were just going to solve the metal resource problems of humankind for all time? This is wild speculation obviously.'

Both these educational and economical reasons have convinced NASA to launch a spaceship to claim it. The difficulties of mining the ore in space and transportation back and forth to Earth may be well worth it. 

There and Back Again

NASA originally planned to send a ship there by 2030 but have recently figured out a more efficient way to get there 4 years earlier by 2026, and they're excited about it. The new trajectory avoids an accelerating orbit-swing around Earth and slingshotting near the sun. 

'We challenged the mission design team to explore if an earlier launch date could provide a more efficient trajectory to the asteroid Psyche, and they came through in a big way,' said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. 

'This will enable us to fulfill our science objectives sooner and at a reduced cost.' 

'The biggest advantage is the excellent trajectory, which gets us there about twice as fast and is more cost-effective,' said Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University in Tempe. 

'We are all extremely excited that NASA was able to accommodate this earlier launch date. 

'The world will see this amazing metal world so much sooner.'

The trajectory will still include a Mars gravity assist in 2023.

'The change in plans is a great boost for the team and the mission,' said Psyche Project Manager Henry Stone at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. 

'Our mission design team did a fantastic job coming up with this ideal launch opportunity.'

This more efficient travel route also means it would be easier to return to home base Earth with special deliveries. But the challenges of reusable rockets capable of landing or even parachuting cargo down may keep such precious payloads out of Earth's reach for now. 

Information Extraction

The spacecraft's payload will mainly contain magnetometers, multispectral imagers, and a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer. These will be used to study the protoplanet's origins and verify theories of how planets are born and die. Psyche will be the first metal planet ever explored by humans. Much of our knowledge of planetary evolution comes from studying meteorites. 

Lindy Elkins-Tanton the lead scientist on the Nasa mission and the director of Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration, said: '16 Psyche is the only known object of its kind in the solar system, and this is the only way humans will ever visit a core.

'We learn about inner space by visiting outer space. I figure we're either going to go see something that's really improbable and unique, or something that is completely astonishing.'

This may become a resource-rich base for manufacturing all kinds of equipment and used as a stepping stone for space exploration. And if NASA finds water there, then it could increase the chances of growing a sustainable living population there as well.

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Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5148821/The-10-000-quadrillion-asteroid-revealed.html#ixzz50UoAUNlL 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Psyche

NASA Nails Test on Voyager Spacecraft, 13 Billion Miles Away

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA has nailed an engine test on a spacecraft 13 billion miles away.

Last week, ground controllers sent commands to fire backup thrusters on Voyager 1, our most distant spacecraft. The thrusters had been idle for 37 years, since Voyager 1 flew past Saturn.

To NASA's delight, the four dormant thrusters came alive. It took more than 19 hours — the one-way travel time for signals — for controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to get the good news.

Engineers wanted to see if these alternate thrusters could point Voyager 1's antenna toward Earth, a job normally handled by a different set that's now degrading. The thrusters will take over pointing operations next month. The switch could extend Voyager 1's life by two to three years.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is the only spacecraft traveling through interstellar space, the region beyond our solar system. Voyager 2 is close on its heels — nearly 11 billion miles from Earth. The thruster test worked so well that NASA expects to try it on Voyager 2. That won't happen anytime soon, though, because Voyager 2's original thrusters are still working fine.

The Voyager flight team dug up old records and studied the original software before tackling the test. As each milestone in the test was achieved, the excitement level grew, said propulsion engineer Todd Barber.

"The mood was one of relief, joy and incredulity after witnessing these well-rested thrusters pick up the baton as if no time had passed at all," he said in a statement.

The twin Voyagers provided stunning close-up views of Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 also offered shots of Uranus and Neptune.

UAE is Preparing to Colonize Mars, See their "Mars 2117" City 360 Virtual Tour

• The United Arab Emirates' Mars 2117 project's target is a Mars City in 100 years
• Best futuristic colony model with 3D VR experience
• 7-minute flythrough tour outside and inside with lively residents

 

Mars 2117 Strategy

The United Arab Emirates government released an immersive 360° 3D 8K virtual reality experience of their vision of a colony on Mars. It's complete with flying vehicles, A.I. robots, and glass domed cities. 

Their goal is to build the first Mars colony by the year 2047 and this vision is a look at what life could be like after 70 years of development. 

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United Government of Mars?

An interesting thing to note is their view of Mars having its own planetary government called the "United Government of Mars." We can suppose this would be independent of any of Earth's governments and we can speculate how different it might actually be considering all the new opportunities and unique circumstances. 

But would this Mars Government be friendly to all Earth nations? Many concerns and questions immediately spring to mind. Perhaps an international war may break out here on Earth as nations compete to be the first to stake a claim in the New New World. 

"City of Wisdom" 3D Virtual Tour

Buckle-up for a tour through the Mars City of Wisdom!

There are 600,000 people living here fed with indoor gardens. The UAE team seems to have thought through civic engineering by providing housing, schools, laboratories, gathering areas, and even a mining operation outodoors. It seems there's some sort of artificial intelligent management systems interconnecting the spacesuits, vehicles, robots, and access points. 

“The landing of people on other planets has been a longtime dream for humans. Our aim is that the UAE will spearhead international efforts to make this dream a reality.”

— Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai

History of Missions to Mars

Since 1965, only four entities have successfully made it to Mars:

1. NASA
2. Soviet Union
3. European Space Agency
4. Indian Space Research Organization

There are some who believe the United States has advanced technology with the capability to instantly transport to Mars using "jump rooms," according to Andrew D. Basiago. Supposedly, there was a "Project Pegasus" that sent humans to Mars with a very interesting story of what they found over there. 

Anyway, officially, NASA has done better than everyone else getting to Mars with a 70% chance of success. 15/21 since the 1960's. Averaging all international organizations, Earth has a 50% success rate of landing on Mars. China and Japan failed but India made it.

So the 2020 United Arab Emirates' planned mission would be the first one by a Muslim country. They plan to orbit an unmanned probe around Mars by the year 2021 to mark their country's 50th anniversary. It will scan the planet for sources of water where it would be the best place to support human life.

Such plans for UAE's Martian city were first announced at the World Government Summit to 138 governments.

Mars City Beta on Earth

Meanwhile, the UAE is developing an Earth-based Mars colony beta test to work out the bugs before building their actual city up there later. Dubai announced in September the construction of a $135 million "Mars Science City" spanning 1.9 million square feet. This will be the largest space simulation city ever built. 

The first inhabitants are researchers on a one-year mission to test out the sustainability of all the life support systems. They invest a lot of time in growing food, water recycling, and off-grid energy generation and storage. 

“The UAE is a great country with vision and understanding of the challenges we face and the rapid changes our world is experiencing.

We believe in the potential of space exploration, and in collaborating with global partners and leaders in order to harness the findings of this research and movement that seeks to meet people’s needs and improve quality of life on Earth.”

— Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai

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Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5131955/Incredible-360-VR-footage-UAE-Martian-colony.html

https://futurism.com/4-mars-2117-project-the-uae-joins-the-race-for-the-red-planet/

Astronomers Discover New Earth-Size World Where 1 Year = 10 days!

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Astronomers have discovered a close new world about the size of Earth, where a year lasts just under 10 days.

At a distance of 11 light-years, Ross 128 b is the second-closest planet to be detected yet outside our solar system with surface temperatures potentially similar to ours.

Ross 128 b is very near its star, thus the short orbit. But it doesn't get broiled because the red dwarf star is cool. The star is also quiet, meaning no radiation flare-ups. That's encouraging news for seekers of extraterrestrial life. The planet is believed to border the so-called habitable zone.

A team led by the University of Grenoble Alps' Xavier Bonfils made the discovery using La Silla Observatory in Chile. The findings were reported Wednesday.

NASA's exoplanet count stands at 3,550.
 

20 years of changing seasons on Earth packed into 2½ minutes

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA captured 20 years of changing seasons in a striking new global map of the home planet.

The data visualization, released this week, shows Earth's fluctuations as seen from space.

The polar ice caps and snow cover are shown ebbing and flowing with the seasons. The varying ocean shades of blue, green, red and purple depict the abundance — or lack — of undersea life.

"It's like watching the Earth breathe. It's really remarkable," said NASA oceanographer Jeremy Werdell, who took part in the project.

Two decades — from September 1997 to this past September — are crunched into 2 ½ minutes of viewing.

Werdell finds the imagery mesmerizing.

"It's like all of my senses are being transported into space, and then you can compress time and rewind it, and just continually watch this kind of visualization," he said Friday.

Werdell said the visualization shows spring coming earlier and autumn lasting longer in the Northern Hemisphere. Also noticeable to him is the Arctic ice caps receding over time — and, though less obvious, the Antarctic, too.

On the sea side, Werdell was struck by "this hugely productive bloom of biology" that exploded in the Pacific along the equator from 1997 to 1998 — when a water-warming El Nino merged into cooling La Nina. This algae bloom is evident by a line of bright green.

In considerably smaller Lake Erie, more and more contaminating algae blooms are apparent — appearing red and yellow.

All this data can provide resources for policymakers as well as commercial fishermen and many others, according to Werdell.

Programmer Alex Kekesi of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland said it took three months to complete the visualization, using satellite imagery.

Just like our Earth, the visualization will continually change, officials said, as computer systems improve, new remote-sensing satellites are launched and more observations are made.

Click below to watch NASA video:

NASA Releases Spooky SPACE SOUNDS of Planets and Stars

Jupiter's Massive Beats

NASA's Juno spacecraft went into Jupiter's massive magnetic field on June 24, 2016 and recorded the experience. Scientists converted the radio waves into sound waves. Listen to NASA's "Sounds of Space" with lightning on Jupiter and starlight percussion heard on a galactic journey through space. The plasma waves sound similar to ocean waves crashing on our planet's shores. Other particles hitting the instruments sound like strange crackles, whorls and snarls.

Sounds of Saturn

Saturn seems to produce the most sound of any planet in our solar system, most likely caused by its massive rings and many moons. As these planetary objects float in their repeating pattern, their gravitational pulls create rhythmes that can then be converted into musical harmony.

'Wherever there is resonance there is music, and no other place in the solar system is more packed with resonances than Saturn,' said astrophysicist Matt Russo, a postdoctoral researcher at the CITA in the Faculty of Arts and Science at U of T.

NASA's SoundCloud playlist also includes sounds of Saturn's moons and rings that astrophysicists converted into music. Before the Cassini probe observing Saturn crashed into the gaseous planet, completing it's 7-year mission, it also discovered some new faint rings of Saturn that added to the unusual sounds emanating from the planet. For some reason, NASA was expecting the gap between the rings and the planet would have lots of dust and debris but, to their surprise, Cassini only encountered a few particles as it crossed the gap and nothing larger than what we find in smoke (about 1 micron across).

In honor to the historic Cassini mission, Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) researchers composed two pieces of music based on Saturn's moons and rings.

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Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5025911/NASA-releases-compilation-spooky-sounds-space.html#ixzz4yLOryIw3 

Former NASA Astronaut: UFO's Are Real!

Apollo 14 Astronauts, (F–R) Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell stand on a lunar module mock-up in 1970. Edgar Mitchell told a UK radio that UFOs are real and that governments have been keeping it a secret. (NASA/Getty Images)

By James Burke

A veteran of the Apollo 14 mission has said that UFOs visit earth and have made contact with mankind. 

Dr. Edgar Mitchell, who in 1971 became the sixth man to walk on the moon, told British radio station Kerrang! on Thursday, July 24 that, “We have been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomenon is real, though it has been covered up by our governments for a very long time.”

“There’s more nonsense out there about [UFO's] than there is real knowledge, but it is a real phenomenon—it has been well covered up by all of our governments for the last 60 years or so but slowly it has leaked out—and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it.” 

In the interview, Dr. Mitchell referred to the infamous Roswell incident of 1947 where it is believed by some that the U.S. Government covered up the crash and subsequent salvage of an alien craft.

“I have been deeply involved in certain committees and certain research programmes with very credible scientists and intelligence people that do know the real inside story and I am not hesitant to talk about it,” he said.  

“There is quite a bit of contact going on—I can’t tell you because I don’t know all the extent of it, I don’t know all the inside details because that isn’t really my main interest—but we do know we have been visited, that the Roswell crash was real, and a number of other contacts have been real and ongoing…” 

The main incidents, he said, have been taking place since World War Two. 

Dr Mitchell said that public awareness of it is increasing and that there are fewer efforts by governments to cover up incidents or create misinformation.

“I think we are heading towards a major disclosure on this and serious organisations are heading in that direction,” he said.

He stated that well over 70 percent of the U.S. public believed as fact the visitation to earth by UFOs and that people on the inside who know of this information now feel less threatened in speaking out about what they know.  

And what do these extraterrestrials look like?

“You have seen some of the pictures—well, the pictures that I know of, some of them are these little people that look strange to us … from what I know from my contacts who have had contact that is pretty accurate,” he said.

Dr Mitchell is not the only former astronaut to come forward about UFOs.

Colonel Gordon Cooper, an astronaut in Project Mercury—the first U.S. manned-space effort, is on record saying he witnessed a formation of metallic saucer-shaped UFOs at high altitude over central Europe in 1951.

Seven years later Colonel Cooper had another experience when he oversaw the processing of film footage taken of a UFO saucer which landed on a dry lake bed in California. He said footage was sent to Washington and nothing of it was heard of again.

According to The Independent, Colonel Cooper gave testimony at a U.N. hearing on UFOs in 1978.

Russia named as likely source of Europe radioactivity spike

By ANGELA CHARLTON, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — An apparent accident at a Russian facility is suspected of causing a recent spike in radioactivity in the air over much of Europe, according to a report by France's nuclear safety agency.

The Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety says the release of the isotope Ruthenium-106 posed no health or environmental risks to European countries. It said the "plausible zone of release" was between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains, and suggested random checks on food imports from the region as a precaution.

In a report released Thursday based on monitoring in multiple European countries, IRSN said the Ruthenium appeared to come from an accident in late September involving nuclear fuel or the production of radioactive material. The French agency said the Ruthenium didn't appear to come from an accident in a nuclear reactor because that would have released other elements.

Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection said last week that elevated levels of Ruthenium were reported in Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and France since Sept. 29, but posed no threat to public health.

After reports of a Ruthenium-106 leak from a plant in the southern Urals first appeared, Russia's state-controlled Rosatom corporation said in a statement last month that it hadn't come from its facilities.

"The claim that the contamination had a Russian origin is unfounded," it said.

The French report says the radioactivity peaked in late September and early October and affected a "majority of European countries" but is no longer detected in the atmosphere over Europe. However it said if such an accident had happened in France, authorities would set up a perimeter around the accident site to monitor health, safety and food quality.

Ruthenium-106 is used for radiation therapy to treat eye tumors, and sometimes as a source of energy to power satellites.

The French agency also said Ruthenium releases could come from the re-entry of a satellite into the Earth's atmosphere, but that the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that no satellites powered by Ruthenium re-entered the atmosphere during the time period.

France, which has an extensive nuclear energy industry, has reported a series of low-level

nuclear incidents recently but none involving Ruthenium or threats to public health.

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Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed.