Interstellar visitor shaped like giant fire extinguisher

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A newly discovered object from another star system that's passing through ours is shaped like a giant pink fire extinguisher.

That's the word this week from astronomers who have been observing this first-ever confirmed interstellar visitor.

"I'm surprised by the elongated shape — nobody expected that," said astronomer David Jewitt of the University of California, Los Angeles, who led the observation team that reported on the characteristics.

Scientists are certain this asteroid or comet originated outside our solar system. First spotted last month by the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii, it will stick around for another few years before departing our sun's neighborhood.

Jewitt and his international team observed the object for five nights in late October using the Nordic Optical Telescope in the Canary Islands and the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona.

At approximately 100 feet by 100 feet by 600 feet (30 meters by 30 meters by 180 meters), the object has proportions roughly similar to a fire extinguisher — though not nearly as red, Jewitt said Thursday. The slightly red hue — specifically pale pink — and varying brightness are remarkably similar to asteroids in our own solar system, he noted.

Astronomer Jayadev Rajagopal said in an email that it was exciting to point the Arizona telescope at such a tiny object "which, for all we know, has been traveling through the vast emptiness of space for millions of years."

"And then by luck passes close enough for me to be able to see it that night!"

The object is so faint and so fast — it's zooming through the solar system at 40,000 mph (64,000 kph) — it's unlikely amateur astronomers will see it.

In a paper to the Astrophysical Journal Letters, the scientists report that our solar system could be packed with 10,000 such interstellar travelers at any given time. It takes 10 years to cross our solar system, providing plenty of future viewing opportunities, the scientists said.

Trillions of objects from other star systems could have passed our way over the eons, according to Jewitt.

It suggests our solar system ejected its own share of asteroids and comets as the large outer planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune — formed.

Why did it take so long to nail the first interstellar wanderer?

"Space is big and our eyes are weak," Jewitt explained via email.

Anticipating more such discoveries, the International Astronomical Union already has approved a new designation for cosmic interlopers. They get an "I'' for interstellar in their string of letters and numbers. The group also has approved a name for this object: Oumuamua (OH'-moo-ah-moo-ah) which in Hawaiian means a messenger from afar arriving first.

Scientists witness huge cosmic crash, find origins of gold

This illustration provided by the Carnegie Institution for Science depicts the collision of two neutron stars detected on Aug. 17, 2017. The explosion threw matter, light, radiation and gravitational waves into space. The discovery was reported on Monday, Oct. 16, 2017. (Robin Dienel/Carnegie Institution for Science via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was a faint signal, but it told of one of the most violent acts in the universe, and it would soon reveal secrets of the cosmos, including how gold was created.

Astronomers around the world reacted to the signal quickly, focusing telescopes located on every continent and even in orbit to a distant spot in the sky.

What they witnessed in mid-August and revealed Monday was the long-ago collision of two neutron stars — a phenomenon California Institute of Technology's David H. Reitze called "the most spectacular fireworks in the universe."

"When these things collide, all hell breaks loose," he said.

David Reitze of the California Institute of Technology and the executive director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, during an announcement on one of the most violent events in the cosmos that was witnessed completely for the first time in August and tells scientists where gold and other heavy elements come from. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Measurements of the light and other energy emanating from the crash have helped scientists explain how planet-killing gamma ray bursts are born, how fast the universe is expanding, and where heavy elements like platinum and gold come from.

"This is getting everything you wish for," said Syracuse University physics professor Duncan Brown, one of more than 4,000 scientists involved in the blitz of science that the crash kicked off. "This is our fantasy observation."

It started in a galaxy called NGC 4993, seen from Earth in the Hydra constellation. Two neutron stars, collapsed cores of stars so dense that a teaspoon of their matter would weigh 1 billion tons, danced ever faster and closer together until they collided, said Carnegie Institution astronomer Maria Drout.

The crash, called a kilonova, generated a fierce burst of gamma rays and a gravitational wave, a faint ripple in the fabric of space and time, first theorized by Albert Einstein.

"This is like a cosmic atom smasher at a scale far beyond humans would be capable of building," said Andy Howell, a staff scientist at the Las Cumbres Observatory. "We finally now know what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object and it's a kilonova."

The crash happened 130 million years ago, while dinosaurs still roamed on Earth, but the signal didn't arrive on Earth until Aug. 17 after traveling 130 million light-years. A light-year is 5.88 trillion miles.

David Reitze of the California Institute of Technology and the executive director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, during an announcement on one of the most violent events in the cosmos that was witnessed completely for the first time in August and tells scientists where gold and other heavy elements come from. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Signals were picked up within 1.7 seconds of each other, by NASA's Fermi telescope, which detects gamma rays, and gravity wave detectors in Louisiana and Washington state that are a part of the LIGO Laboratory , whose founders won a Nobel Prize earlier this month. A worldwide alert went out to focus telescopes on what became the most well-observed astronomical event in history.

Before August, the only other gravity waves detected by LIGO were generated by colliding black holes. But black holes let no light escape, so astronomers could see nothing.

This time there was plenty to see, measure and analyze: matter, light, and other radiation. The Hubble Space Telescope even got a snapshot of the afterglow.

Finding where the crash happened wasn't easy. Eventually scientists narrowed the location down to 100 galaxies, began a closer search of those, and found it in the ninth galaxy they looked at.

Vicky Kalogera, a gravitational-wave astrophysicist at Northwestern University who contributed to the historic detections of gravitational waves, speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, during an announcement on one of the most violent events in the cosmos that was witnessed completely for the first time in August and tells scientists where gold and other heavy elements come from. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

It is like "the classic challenge of finding a needle in the haystack with the added challenge that the needle is fading away and the haystack is moving," said Marcelle Soares-Santos, an astrophysicist at Brandeis University.

"The completeness of this picture from the beginning to the end is unprecedented," said Columbia University physics professor Szabolcs Marka. "There are many, many extraordinary discoveries within the discovery."

The colliding stars spewed bright blue, super-hot debris that was dense and unstable. Some of it coalesced into heavy elements, like gold, platinum and uranium. Scientists had suspected neutron star collisions had enough power to create heavier elements, but weren't certain until they witnessed it.

"We see the gold being formed," said Syracuse's Brown.

Calculations from a telescope measuring ultraviolet light showed that the combined mass of the heavy elements from this explosion is 1,300 times the mass of Earth. And all that stuff — including lighter elements — was thrown out in all different directions and is now speeding across the universe.

Perhaps one day the material will clump together into planets the way ours was formed, Reitze said — maybe ones with rich veins of precious metals.

"We already knew that iron came from a stellar explosion, the calcium in your bones came from stars and now we know the gold in your wedding ring came from merging neutron stars," said University of California Santa Cruz's Ryan Foley.

The crash also helped explain the origins of one of the most dangerous forces of the cosmos — short gamma ray bursts, focused beams of radiation that could erase life on any planet that happened to get in the way. These bursts shoot out in two different directions perpendicular to where the two neutron stars first crash, Reitze said.

Luckily for us, the beams of gamma rays were not focused on Earth and were generated too far away to be a threat, he said.

Marica Branchesi, an astronomer who has been part of the LIGO and Virgo collaborations, talks in Washington, Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, during the announcement about one of the most violent events in the cosmos that was witnessed completely for the first time in August and tells scientists where gold and other heavy elements come from. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Scientists knew that the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang. By using LIGO to measure gravitational waves while watching this event unfold, researchers came up with a new estimate for how fast that is happening, the so-called Hubble Constant. Before this, scientists came up with two slightly different answers using different techniques. The rough figure that came out of this event is between the original two, Reitze said.

The first optical images showed a bright blue dot that was very hot, which was likely the start of the heavy element creation process amid the neutron star debris, Drout said. After a day or two that blue faded, becoming much fainter and redder. And after three weeks it was completely gone, she said.

This almost didn't happen. Eight days after the signal came through, the LIGO gravitational waves were shut down for a year's worth of planned upgrades. A month later the whole area where the crash happened would have been blocked from astronomers' prying eyes by the sun.

Julie McEnery, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, during an announcement about one of the most violent events in the cosmos that was witnessed completely for the first time in August and tells scientists where gold and other heavy elements come from. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Scientists involved with the search for gravitational waves said this was the event they had prepared for over more than 20 years.

The findings are "of spectacular importance," said Penn State physicist Abhay Ashtekar, who wasn't part of the research. "This is really brand new."

Almost all of the discoveries confirmed existing theories, but had not been proven — an encouraging result for theorists who have been trying to explain what is happening in the cosmos, said France Cordova, an astrophysicist who directs the National Science Foundation.

"We so far have been unable to prove Einstein wrong," said Georgia Tech physics professor Laura Cadonati. "But we're going to keep trying."

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears . His work can be found here .

Pence Pledges That US Will Go To Moon, Mars, And Beyond

Vice President Mike Pence speaks in front of NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery at the National Space Council first meeting at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks with Vice President Mike Pence, right, during the National Space Council's first meeting at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Vice President Mike Pence, right, accompanied by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks during the first meeting of the National Space Council at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Vice President Mike Pence delivers opening remarks during the National Space Council's first meeting, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The National Space Council, chaired by Pence, heard testimony from representatives from civil space, commercial space, and national security space industry representatives. (Joel Kowsky/NASA via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seated before the grounded space shuttle Discovery, a constellation of Trump administration officials used soaring rhetoric to vow to send Americans back to the moon and then on to Mars.

After voicing celestial aspirations, top officials moved to what National Intelligence Director Dan Coats called "a dark side" to space policy. Coats, Vice President Mike Pence, other top officials and outside space experts said the United States has to counter and perhaps match potential enemies' ability to target U.S. satellites.

Pence, several cabinet secretaries and White House advisers gathered in the shadow of the shuttle at the Smithsonian Institution's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center to chart a new path in space — government, commercial and military — for the country.

It was the first meeting of the National Space Council, revived after it was disbanded in 1993.

Vice President Mike Pence, right, accompanied by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks during the first meeting of the National Space Council at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

But details, such as how much the new ideas will cost, were scant and outside experts said they've heard grandiose plans before only to see them fizzle instead of launch.

"We will return American astronauts to the moon, not only to leave behind footprints and flags, but to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond," Pence said.

Space industry leaders say they and NASA are building the spaceships to get there. And they're promising that in five years, astronauts could be working around the moon
David Thompson, president of the space company Orbital ATK, said NASA's Orion capsule and super-sized Space Launch System rocket should be ready in a couple years, so flying around the moon and even making a lunar orbiting outpost is within reach. But he said a lunar landing would take longer. Blue Origin rocket company chief executive officer Bob Smith said his firm could have a lunar lander program ready within five years.

No humans have been on the moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972.
Only 12 men have set foot on the moon, all have been Americans.

Vice President Mike Pence delivers opening remarks during the National Space Council's first meeting, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The National Space Council, chaired by Pence, heard testimony from representatives from civil space, commercial space, and national security space industry representatives. (Joel Kowsky/NASA via AP)

"Past presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush proposed returns to the moon and then going on to Mars. Barack Obama rerouted the moon plan to an asteroid as a first-stop with Mars as the goal. All plans had lack of money keeping them from coming true," said space expert Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation. He wasn't part of the council meeting.

"Is it going to happen? Who knows? I feel like I've been disappointed so many times I refuse to get excited," said Roger Launius, a longtime space historian.

And Gwynn Shotwell, president of SpaceX, said her company next year will launch astronauts to the International Space Station, the first American launch of people since 2011.  After the 2003 space shuttle Columbia broke apart on descent, then-president George W. Bush announced the phasing out of the space shuttle program. Eventually, NASA started building new multi-billion dollar ships, the Orion capsule and the SLS mega-rocket.

Pence several times bemoaned a U.S. space program that had fallen behind, asking space executives what they thought.

"America is out-innovating the world in space launch," Shotwell said, noting that her company had launched 13 rockets this year, more than any other nation.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks with Vice President Mike Pence, right, during the National Space Council's first meeting at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

After talking about how "we will blaze new trails into that great frontier" Pence turned the discussion to the dangers of space and how much of the U.S. intelligence system and day-to-day life are dependent on commercial satellites operating safely. And he and others outlined threats to those satellites from potential enemies that could cripple American security and daily life.

Experts worried that satellites could be destroyed and debris in orbit could ruin others. Pence asked if the U.S. should "weaponize" space.

"The choice whether or not to weaponize space is not one that we can make. We can only decide to match and raise our adversaries who are already weaponizing space," former NASA chief Michael Griffin said. "That horse is already out of the barn."

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the country needs to "deter and when necessary defeat adversaries' counter-space efforts...  We may not start it but we will finish it."

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears . His work can be found here .

10 Mind Blowing Space Stories that We Were Never Told in School

Number 10: The Smuggled Sandwich

NASA equips its astronauts with the most sophisticated gear that is intended to keep them safe in space as well as help them perform their jobs comfortably while floating around in zero gravity. Coupled with that, they are also provided with food items that are suitable for space travel and would not damage any on-board equipment that could potentially cause a disaster. It goes without saying that taking ordinary “earth food” with you in a space shuttle while you are hurtling through the atmosphere is greatly discouraged and prohibited by NASA because small things like crumbs can get into tiny crevices in equipment and spark a fire.

However, in one mission, an extremely curious astronaut named John Young was able to smuggle a sandwich in his suit and bring it with him to space, even offering a bite to his co-pilot. The amusement turned to terror when they both realized the destructive potential of the sandwich crumbs floating around in a weightless environment. Fortunately for them, they were able to complete their mission and came home in one piece. Because of this stunt, NASA had to assure the public – and Congress – that they will be tightening their security measures and screening so that no stunt like this can ever be pulled again, placing billions of taxpayer dollars and the lives of the crew at risk.

Number 9: The Flatulence Configuration

In another story, the same astronaut, John Young, went on a mission to the moon in 1972 and have made one of history’s lesser known utterances in outer space.

While having a casual conversation with a team member, Young casually mentions some gassy digestive problems he had been experiencing and, right at that moment, let one rip while he was completely unaware that his suit’s microphone was recording everything. Luckily, the mic was not sensitive enough to record the actual “release” of his flatulence but Young was kind enough to give a colorful description of it along with a few “F” words to accompany his adjectives.

Number 8: The Diamond Denomination

You would think that this next one is all Science Fiction and could have come from the mind of an absolutely imaginative writer. However, the existence of this so-called Diamond Planet has been proven by real scientists who have been observing it with much interest.

Called PSR J1719-1438 b, the planet was said to have once been a star and that the debris it produced after it dies has managed to turn into a dwarf planet. Part of a twin-star, this diamond planet managed to survive after its brother exploded into a supernova. Managing to stabilize far enough from being obliterated, it was able to keep its carbon core that now is a colossal chunk of bling.

A pretty impressive discovery after we have all been told that Pluto has been declassified as a planet, shattering our schoolyard belief that it was.

Number 7: The Multiverse Multiplier

The debate on whether or not there are other universes outside our own is a controversial debate that has kept scientists, physicists, and astronomers on their toes and at each other’s throats for years. On one side, experts believe that there is no scientific and mathematical law that allows the existence of another universe, let alone several more.

However, on the other hand, believers of the theory have countered that neither is there evidence that disproves the theory of a multiverse that’s just waiting to be discovered.

Many have held this belief as mere fantasy and something that only happens in speculative fiction and comic books, the fact of the matter is that until scientific advancements can be made that will allow humans to explore outside the known universe, this debate will not soon be put to bed.

Number 6: The Deletion Dilemma

We are all familiar with the iconic broadcast of the first moon landing. The moment Neil Armstrong took his first step and uttered those words that are now deeply etched in human history, it was a completely new ballgame for science and the entire human civilization.

However, in 2006, a shocking twist to the story came to the public eye when NASA half-heartedly admitted that they have lost track of the recordings of the historic Apollo 11 mission but assured everyone that it was simply buried somewhere in their archives. Later, NASA announced that they have found the tapes pertaining to Apollo 11 but revealed that the recordings were “accidentally” erased.

Luckily for NASA, news agencies such as CBS who managed to record the event were able to supply a decent amount of recordings and footage from the Apollo 11 moon landing. A courtesy that was able to save NASA from disgrace.

Number 5: The Shotgun Syntax

A particularly lesser known story from the Space Race was that the USSR armed their cosmonauts with shotguns while American astronauts were busy smuggling Big Macs into space.

Modifying a TP-82 shotgun, Soviet engineers packed these firearms as they flew into space. The reason for packing some heat in the void of space, however, was not to fend off hostile aliens wanting to board their ship or in case they have to fight off space pirates. The modified shotguns were more for the trip home.

The difference between NASA and Soviet re-entry protocol was that NASA chose a much more practical approach to have their astronauts land in the Pacific region where they will then be picked up. The Soviets, on the other hand, chose the vast landscape of Siberia as their landing point. Unfortunately, when Soviet capsules re-entered the planet’s atmosphere, their capsule would sometimes fly off course and land in a different region that were mostly grizzly bear territory.

Number 4: The Giant Sun Complex

The most difficult part of understanding space is grasping the idea of how large it really is. So far, the only information we know about scale is from mock-ups of the solar system with the sun being the largest body in the universe.

Speaking of scale, let us put the sun as an example. We all know that it is a massive star that the planets revolve around on and it has different effects on each planetary body. However, a recent discovery has been made that the sun, which is 109 times larger than the Earth, is dwarfed by an even bigger star called VY Canis Majoris: a hyper-gigantic star that is, roughly, 1.7 billion – yes, BILLION – miles in diameter.

Also, bigger means brighter and hotter. Simply put, if we were to place this hyper-giant star to replace out own sun, chances are, every single planet and moon within its reach will instantly be obliterated. Fortunately for our solar system, VY Canis Majoris is 4900 lightyears away – a distance that makes it difficult for scientists to study. However, experts predict that in about 100,000 years, this star will explode and die and – probably, take a few systems with it along the way. A literal Death Star.

Number 3: The Problematic Pee Postulation

NASA engineers make sure that before they send someone off to space they have covered all the bases from suits to ships – and one of these bases involve getting rid of human waste while in outer space.

To the layman, the answer may be as simple as cracking open a chute and just let things all and float freely out of the ship. However, the solution is much, much more complicated than that. Engineers have to consider, on top of comfort and hygiene, scenarios that can possibly damage a craft or any part of it during the process of waste elimination.

One example posed an almost catastrophic scenario. In 1984, the crew of the space shuttle Discovery was stunned to discover a large icicle made of urine sticking out of the urinal discharge unit. The way it is done, in layman’s terms, is that astronauts would urinate in receptacles that are then ejected into space rather than spray it freely. Due to the technology at that time, a technical problem occurred and resulted in a bright yellow icicle. While it was hilarious to look at, the astronauts had to find a way to remove the shard of iced pee as it could cause serious problems upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. The solution, after trying different ways to get rid of it, was using the shuttle’s mechanical arm grabbing the icicle and breaking it off.

Number 2: The Dark Matter Mystery

We have somehow heard of this mysterious Dark Matter from science shows and movies. With a name that sounds like it was lifted directly from a Space Opera, it is one of the most mysterious anomalies in space and physics.

Dark Matter occurs when Einstein’s famous equation of E=MC^2 is applied to space. Using the equation, scientists are able to determine just how much matter exists in the universe. Surprisingly, however, scientists have only found 4% of matter and are boggled about where the 96% are.

Some theorists believe that the 96% of missing matter is present but comes in the form of the so-called Dark Matter; a form of matter that exists wherever no visible matter is found.

To this very day, scientists and experts are debating if in fact Dark Matter is a real thing since no conclusive evidence is pointing them in the right direction. What is even more frustrating is that Dark Matter, upholding its namesake, cannot be seen or touched; light and radio waves also pass through it seamlessly.

Since it is a fundamental scientific fact that matter – in this case, Dark or otherwise – cannot be created or destroyed, who knows? Maybe it’s right in front of us, staring at us straight in the face.

Number 1: The White Hole Conjecture

Speaking of Einstein, we know that he became famous for proving the existence of Black Holes and how they behave through mathematics.

However, while we have celebrated his discovery of the existence Black Holes and have discovered – through the advancement of our technology – several of them in space, what is less known is Einstein’s discovery of the existence of “White Holes” through his equations.

As you may come to conclude, White Holes are the complete opposite of their darker counterparts. Where Black Holes devour light and matter, White Holes seem to spit them out as if creating them from nothing. With this uncanny quality of creating matter “out of nothing”, they should be easy to spot but, to this day, at least a trace of it is yet to be found.

What is interesting to note is that if ever one is found in space, it can present answers to questions that science has yet to provide such as the origin of the material that is basically the make-up of galaxies.

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Sources:

http://listverse.com/2009/12/31/top-10-mysteries-of-outer-space/
http://www.cracked.com/article_19479_the-6-most-mind-blowing-things-ever-discovered-in-space.html
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/07/12/5-insane-space-stories-we-were-never-taught-in-history-class-sawn-off-shotguns-for-russian-cosmonauts

7 Government Officials Who Confirmed That Aliens Exist

The question of whether or not there are indeed extraterrestrial life forms has been a hotly-debated issue for a very long time. One side maintains a skeptical standpoint on the subject matter, refusing to believe in alien existence unless government authorities provide definitive proof or positive confirmation. Another side insists that not only do extraterrestrials exist; they have also visited our planet and are perhaps even walking among us today. 

And to these believers, the only reason that this reality has yet to become public knowledge is that government institutions are deliberately hiding this fact by withholding photographic and documentary evidence and by downgrading the credibility of those who have stepped forward and exposed the truth. The conviction of these believers in the existence of extraterrestrial life is further strengthened by the fact that several government officials have stepped forward and admitted to this closely-guarded secret. 

ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER VIDEO

John Podesta – Former Counselor to President Obama

John Podesta, Former Counselor to President Barack Obama. Podesta is currently the chair and counselor of the Washington D.C.-based think tank Center for American Progress, but in the past, he previously served in the U.S. government as an advisor to President Barack Obama and as a chief of staff of President Bill Clinton. He is also known as a “longtime advocate for government disclosure of UFO files,” having provided his support in some petitions to publicly release documents proving that many UFOs are sightings of actual alien spacecraft. He has even expressed in the past that one of his failings while working for the Obama administration is his neglect in successfully releasing UFO files. He also made Hilary Clinton promise that she would “get to the bottom” of the UFO issue if she became the president.

Edgar Mitchell – Astronaut for NASA

Telegraph

Edgar Mitchell, NASA Astronaut. Edgar Mitchell was an aeronautical engineer and a U.S. Navy officer who also served as an astronaut for NASA during the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, which makes him the sixth person to have walked on the moon. Mitchell is also a believer in the existence of extraterrestrial beings and went so far as to say that there is currently plenty of hard evidence that we are not alone in the universe and that military authority have taken lengths to make sure that they are not revealed to the public. However, to this day, NASA has denied involvements in such cover-ups about alien life on the planet or anywhere else in the galaxy. 

Paul Hellyer– Canadian Minister of Defense

CSGlobe

Paul Hellyer, Former Minister of National Defence of Canada. Paul is a Canadian engineer and politician who is the longest serving member of the Privy Council of Canada and formerly served as the country’s minister of National Defence. Aside from his extensive political career, he is also a firm believer that UFOs are proof that aliens have been visiting our planet frequently, claiming that he had personally seen a UFO at least once in his life. He also urged world governments to unveil hidden alien technology which could be helpful in solving the global problem of climate change. 

Ellen Stofan – NASA Chief Scientist

Openminds.tv

Ellen Stofan, Former NASA Chief Scientist. Ellen Stofan previously served as the chief scientist of NASA but resigned from her position back in December 2016. In 2015, Stofan predicted that humankind would be discovering definitive proof of alien life “within 20 to 30 years.” She also said:

“We know where to look. We know how to look. In most cases, we have the technology, and we’re on a path to implementing it.”

While her statements may be indirect, to some people, it seemed like she knew more about the existence and actual whereabouts of these alien life forms. 

Phil Schneider– Geologist and Engineer for the U.S. Naval Intelligence

Phil Schneider, Geologist, and Engineer for the U.S. Naval Intelligence. Phil Schneider was a geologist and engineer who supposedly served for the United States Government and allegedly helped in the construction of Deep Underground Military Bases in different parts of the country. He emerged in the 1990s with his story that he survived a battle against alien beings back in 1979, and criticized the government for keeping the American citizens in the dark about the truth. Unfortunately, Schneider supposedly committed suicide in 1996, but the mysterious circumstances of his demise led some people to believe that he was eliminated by the government to maintain the secrecy of alien existence. 

Philip Corso– Lieutenant Colonel of the U.S. Army

Openminds.tv

Philip Corso, Former Lieutenant Colonel of the U.S. Army. Philip Corso served as an officer in the United States Army between the 1940s and the 1960s. In 1997, he published a book titled “The Day After Roswell,” in which he detailed his involvement in researching about extraterrestrial technology following the alleged recovery of bodies and wreckage from the famous Roswell UFO incident which took place in 1947. Corso also claimed in his book that the U.S. government had reverse engineered the alien technology they found at the site, which resulted in the technological advances that humanity has achieved in recent years. 

Isaac Koi

Marina Popovich – Retired Soviet Air Force Colonel

Marina Popovich, Retired Colonel of the Soviet Air Force. Marina Popovich is a retired colonel in the Soviet Air Force, and a multiple world record-holder in aviation, making her one of the most renowned Russian pilots in modern history. The esteemed pilot has largely spoken about her experience with UFOs in public lectures as well as in interviews. She also published a book about it back in 2003 titled “UFO Glasnost.” She claimed that there are around 3000 confirmed UFO sightings across the globe and that the KGB and the Soviet Air Force are in possession of UFO fragments from a handful of crash sites across the Soviet territory.

Gordon Cooper – Astronaut for NASA in Project Mercury

The Black Vault

Gordon Cooper, Nasa Astronaut for Project Mercury. Gordon Cooper was an American aerospace engineer who is known to be a member of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury, which was the United States’ first initiative for manned space travel. Cooper was also the first American to sleep in space, having spent 34-hours all alone in space during his orbital mission. In his illustrious career as a pilot, he claimed to have personally experienced a UFO sighting, and he purportedly wrote to the United Nations back in 1978 about his position on this mystery, saying: 

"I do believe UFOs exist and that the truly unexplained ones are from some other technically advanced civilization... I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets, which are obviously a little more advanced than we are here on earth...”

The claims of many of these individuals, all of whom had served in government institutions at some point in their lives, have been ignored by the public mainly because the governing bodies they were once a part of had either denied their allegations or had refused to comment on them. But does that mean there isn’t, at the very least, a grain of truth in what these former government officials have said about the existence of extraterrestrial life forms? Is it so hard to believe that there are creatures out there – possibly far more advanced than we are – who have taken a glimpse or two at our planet and our way of life? And, should aliens do exist, is it so unlikely for the world government to keep this truth from us if most of us are potentially unprepared for such a reality?

Perhaps, the day will soon come when our government authorities will deem us ready to see and hear the truth, and will finally put an end to the mystery of whether extraterrestrial beings do exist and are possibly already among us. 

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Sources:

https://youtu.be/giQ9BF3pVa0
http://listverse.com/2016/08/21/10-government-officials-who-admitted-the-existence-of-aliens/
https://www.trend-chaser.com/politics/weve-got-em-these-government-officials-admitted-aliens-exist/?view-all
http://www.snopes.com/john-podesta-discussed-alien-technology-with-former-nasa-astronaut/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/08/the-long-strange-history-of-john-podestas-space-alien-obsession/?utm_term=.99caf11348ed
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/20/ufo.conference/index.html?eref=rss_
https://www.space.com/29041-alien-life-evidence-by-2025-nasa.html
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/607504-alien-human-battle-of-1979-in-new-mexico-alleged-eye-witness-report/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_J._Corso
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Popovich#Popovich_and_UFOs
http://www.ufoevidence.org/news/article162.htm

Did Ancient Civilizations Possess Knowledge of Time Travel?

source: humansarefree

Time travel has always been a fascinating topic that’s been largely explored in a multitude of written works of science fiction and countless sci-fi films for many, many years. But what’s even more interesting is that tales of time travel go much further back in our history, with some ancient texts that have existed for hundreds or thousands of years mentioning or describing cases of people traveling forward in time. 
 
With the existence of a variety of ancient legends and myths from different parts of the world which seem to be literary interpretations of what could be actual examples of time traveling, some of us just can’t help but ask: Did certain ancient civilizations possess some knowledge of time travel?
 
Well, though we can’t answer this definitively just yet, for now, let us look into some of the ancient texts which mention tales of people who have supposedly defied all laws of logic, space and time. 

1. Story of the Seven Sleepers

source: wikipedia

The story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus is a tale that is quite significant in both the Christian and Islamic tradition. The Christian interpretation of the story goes like this:

During the persecutions overseen by the Roman emperor Decius sometime in 250 AD, seven young men were accused of being worshippers of Christianity. These individuals were given some time to renounce their faith, but instead, they chose to surrender their material possessions by giving them to the poor and retiring to a mountain cave. Inside this cave, the seven young men prayed and eventually fell asleep. When they awoke, they thought they had only slept for a day, but when they wandered into the city to buy food, they were astounded to find buildings with the crosses of Christianity attached to them. And so, they came to the stunning realization that they had not slept for just one night, but for two hundred years, and they had awakened at a time when Christianity had already spread across the vast expanse of the Roman Empire. 

A similar tale about these sleepers can be found in Surah 18 of the Qur’an. Referred to as the story of the Companions of the Cave, it tells almost the same story as the Christian version; only the Qur’an does not provide the exact number of the People of the Cave who had miraculously been transported a couple of centuries into the future.

2. Bible - The Book of Baruch - Disappearance of Jeremiah

Source: ken raggio

There are also several examples of time travel found in the Bible, and one of them is a story about the disappearance of Jeremiah as told in the deuterocanonical Book of Baruch. 
 
In the first part of this book, Jeremiah is told by God that Jerusalem will be destroyed and that he has to bury and protect the vestments of the temple. After that, he is to go into exile with his people until the day comes that God would allow them to return. But before the destruction of Jerusalem, Jeremiah instructed Abimelech, a eunuch, to bring back figs from the orchard of Agrippa. Abimelech, however, ends up falling asleep in the orchard. And when he woke up, he was told by an old man that he had slept miraculously for the last 66 years. 

3. Mahabharata - Story of King Raivata Kakudmi

Source: a brief history of time travel

One of the very first stories that describe time travel can be found in the Hindu epic, Mahabharata – an ancient text which is believed to have been written no later than 400 BCE. This tale in that text follows a king, his daughter, and their quest to find her the most suitable husband. 

Revati was the only daughter of King Raivata Kakudmi, a monarch who ruled the prosperous kingdom of Kusasthali. Because the king thought her daughter was so beautiful and accomplished that no could prove good enough to marry her, Kakudmi took Revati to Brahmaloka, the home of the creator Brahma, to seek the powerful god’s help in finding his previous daughter the perfect suitor. 

When they arrived, Brahma was listening to a musical performance so they had to patiently wait until the performance was completed before Kakudmi could pay his respects and make his request to the god. However, once he did so, Brahma only laughed at the foolishness of the king. The God revealed that during the time they had waited in Brahmaloka, 108 yugas had already passed on Earth, with each yuga representing around 4 million years. 
 
With Kakudmi and Revati completely astonished over how so much time had passed on Earth during their short stay in Brahma’s domain, Brahma had to explain to them that time runs differently in different places of existence, which is interestingly similar to how modern physicists and astronomers conceptualize space-time today.  

4. Buddhist Text - Pali Canon - Heaven of the 30 Devas

buddha's real teachings

Another ancient text that we will be discussing is the Buddhist text of Pali Canon, which, like the previous stories, also mentions the relativity of time. 
 
It is written in this collection of scriptures in the Theravadan Buddhist tradition that in the heaven of the thirty Devas, or the place of the Gods, “time passes at a different pace, and people live much longer.” For example, one hundred years on Earth is equivalent to just a single day passing in the heaven of the Gods. 

5. Japan - Legend of Urashima Taro

source: wikia, ayakashi: ghost guild

Urashima Taro is the protagonist of the legend about a fisherman who rescued a turtle from harm, who turned out to be the daughter of the Emperor of the Sea, Ryujin. To personally thank him and reward him for his actions, Taro was brought to the bottom of the sea to visit the Palace of the Dragon God where she met the Emperor and Princess Otohime.
 
Taro stayed in the underwater palace for three days, but he eventually decided to go back home to his village where his aging mother lived. And so, he asked the princess’s permission to leave, and before he left, she gave him a mysterious box that will supposedly protect him from danger so long as he never opens it. 
 
However, when he reached land, he discovered that 300 years had already passed since he had left the village and traveled to the bottom of the sea. In grief of all that he had lost, he opened the box the princess gave him, which let out a cloud of white smoke. Suddenly, Taro aged rapidly, and from the sea, he heard the voice of the princess reveal that kept inside the special box she gave him was actually his old age. 
 
All the stories and texts I have just mentioned all paint the idea of time travel in the same way that modern science has theorized it today: that time is relative and not absolute; and that the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. And while these myths and legends may just be stories concocted from the brilliant imagination of their writers, they have opened an avenue of discourse that compels us to contemplate what it could mean for humanity if there are those among us who have the means to travel through time as well as the power to modify our history. 

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Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sleepers
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak//publics/pseudepig/ParJer-Eng.html
http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-unexplained-phenomena/time-travel-ancient-mythology-modern-science-001242?nopaging=1
http://the-wanderling.com/mahabharata.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakudmi#Meeting_with_Brahma
https://www.ancient-code.com/time-travel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urashima_Tar%C5%8D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81li_Canon#Sutta_Pitaka
http://www.messagetoeagle.com/did-ancient-civilizations-possess-knowledge-of-time-travel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel

NASA to Disclose Aliens Exist?

When NASA's Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen, recently said “...we are on the verge of making one of the most profound, unprecedented, discoveries in history,” the hacktivist group Anonymous took this out of context, exciting many people with a video claiming NASA will finally disclose the existence of aliens. Dr. Zurbuchen replied to this on Twitter:

"Contrary to some reports, there’s no pending announcement from NASA regarding extraterrestrial life." - @Dr_ThomasZ

So it seems this recent news is not so important as people were led to believe. However, NASA astronauts have actually already been sharing their experiences of UFO's for a long time now. 

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NASA Astronaut Whistle Blowers

The existence of aliens and government cover-ups have been some of the hottest topics on the internet practically since it was created and people all over the world have shared their experiences and thoughts on the matter. While anonymous internet users may not be credible or believable, United States astronauts who actually flew into space and have reports documenting their experiences have some very revealing quotes. 

Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Pilot, the Sixth Astronaut on the Moon, a UFO-ologist and Founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences

"I've changed my position in the last two or three years - the last two years to be precise - to suggest that the evidence is strong enough that we really need to have serious open discussion and release of information that it is quite clear the government and other governments do hold, and that this become a part of our official knowledge... Now, whether it's true or not, it deserves to be handled with a serious investigation. There is too much smoke here not to be fire, and so I personally in the last couple of years have come out - I don't know the answers, but I've come out - and I say, this has gone far enough. If it's real, let's get it out in the open; let's break the deadlock that bureaucracy has on this. There is enough evidence pointing in the direction that clearly there is information being withheld. How far we can go with it, I don't know."

Major Gordon Cooper, One of the Original Seven Astronauts Participating in NASA's Project Mercury and the Last American to Fly in Space Alone

"For many years I have lived with a secret, in a secrecy imposed on all specialists in astronautics. I can now reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown to us. And there are thousands of witness reports and a quantity of documents to prove this, but nobody wants to make them public. 

Why? Because authority is afraid that people may think of God knows what kind of horrible invaders. So the password still is: We have to avoid panic by all means."

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NASA Distraction & Cover-Up?

While NASA has been launching project after project over the years in a continual supposed search for extra-terrestrial life on distant planets in other solar systems, they indirectly deny finding any so far, including in our own solar system, or even right here in Earth's atmosphere.

“While we’re excited about the latest findings from NASA’s Kepler space observatory, there’s no pending announcement regarding extraterrestrial life. For years NASA has expressed interest in searching for signs of life beyond Earth. We have a number of science missions that are moving forward with the goal of seeking signs of past and present life on Mars and ocean worlds in the outer solar system. While we do not yet have answers, we will continue to work to address the fundamental question, ‘are we alone?’” - Laurie Cantillo, NASA Lead Communications Specialist

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So why is NASA denying the existence of UFO's and aliens when their own astronauts present contrary eyewitness accounts? Are the expensive interstellar NASA projects really just for gathering information about the nature of the universe and finding distant planets to occupy? Is NASA making secret deals with extra-terrestrial civilizations and using their projects as a front to enable continual development? 

What do you think?

Did Humans Accidentally Create an Artificial Barrier Around Earth?

Last month, NASA’s Van Allen probes (which are designed to study electrons and ions in space) reported that there is actually an artificial barrier surrounding Earth created by none other than human beings.

How was this barrier made? This artificial barrier was the result of low frequency radio communications created by human activity. Very low frequency signals, or VLF, are often emitted by radio telescopes that have the task of contacting submarines in the ocean.  But while most of the signals are sent down into the deep, dark waters, some signals also float into the atmosphere, resulting in something called a VLF bubble that surrounds the earth. The VLF bubble extends all the way to the inner edge of the Van Allen radiation belts, 3 belts that have energetic charged particles held by Earth’s magnetic field. The interaction between the VLF bubble and the radiation belts results in the artificial barrier that we’re talking about.

Two doughnut-shaped regions of high-energy particles make up the Van Allen radiation belts. Credit: NASA

Phil Erickson, one of the scientists involved in the discovery, said: “A number of experiments and observations have figured out that, under the right conditions, radio communications signals in the VLF frequency range can in fact affect the properties of the high-energy radiation environment around the Earth”.

In fact, if the VLF bubble didn’t exist, then we would be much closer to the radiation belt than we currently are. As shown in data from the 1960s, the Van Allen radiation belt was actually much closer to Earth back then than it is right now. This means that the barrier is actually protecting the earth from space radiation. Not only that, scientists also say that this barrier will be able to shield space from other dangers like coronal mass ejections, which are explosions that occur on the sun that may result in geomagnetic storms that can destroy communication satellites and power grids as well as affect the weather in space.

Scientists are now saying that the barrier could also potentially remove excess radiation around earth and are carrying out experiments as we speak. This newfound artificial barrier proves that we, as human beings, not only have a huge impact on the earth, but also in space as well.

Alien Megastructure Star On the Move Again

KIC 8462852, also known as Tabby’s Star

Moving away from man-made barriers and onto the topic of aliens. Yes, it just gets weirder and weirder.

A report today has announced that one of the strangest stars in the universe, the KIC 8462852, also known as Tabby’s Star, has started behaving very strangely again.This star, nicknamed the ‘alien megastructure star’, was originally discovered in 2009 and is located 1,500 light years away from earth between the Cygnus and Lyre constellations of our Milky Way galaxy. The reason why this star is called the ‘alien megastructure star’ is because in late 2015, astronomers led by Tabetha Boyajian (AKA Tabby, the woman the KIC 8462852 is named after) of Yale University discovered that the star was emitting light in very strange patterns.

To give a little background info: stars usually emit light in very slight dips of less than 1 percent every few weeks, days, or months. But to the astronomers’ surprise,  KIC 8462852 was emitting light dips of up to 22 percent! And the strange thing was that the light dips didn’t follow a particular pattern either, which left astronomers and scientists completely baffled. No one had a clue what was going on, and could think of no explanations as to why the star was behaving the way it was. As a result, one scientist offered the possibility that an 'alien megastructure' was messing with the star, which is how it got it’s nickname ‘alien megastructure star’.

According to Jason Wright, Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State, the star started dimming again last Friday, and has already dimmed by 3 percent in the matter of a few days. He immediately tweeted about the phenomenon on Twitter, which caused everyone in the astronomical community to freak out and run for their telescopes.  "As far as I can tell, every telescope that can look at it right now is looking at it right now," says astronomer Matt Muterspaugh from Tennessee State University.

The reason why this second dimming of the KIC  8462852 is so important is because it allows scientists to gather more data about its bizarre dip patterns. During the last dipping in 2015, astronomers were not able to collect enough data to provide reasonable explanations about the strange star’s light patterns. "We were kind of stuck in a spot where we couldn't do anything," Tabetha Boyajian said: "We had all the data we could, and to learn anything more, we needed to catch it in action again."

Some explanations surrounding the star’s bizarreness include comet swarms, the remnants of a devoured planet, or that the star is actually distorted in a way that gives it a bigger radius at the equator than at the poles. Of course, people are even considering the possibility of alien intervention. In fact, this star is one of the few phenomena where no one has even discounted the aliens yet….That’s how weird it is.

Jason Wright even said that: "Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilisation to build." in fact, Wright believes that the star’s irregular light emission is caused by something like the Dyson sphere we see in sci-fi movies, a huge sphere created around a star that surrounds it and absorbs all of the energy output of the star so that lifeforms can live on the star’s surface.

Even someone like Wright, a professional astronomer with a solid background who considers aliens as the LAST possible explanation, believes that alien intervention is a very likely explanation for the star’s weird behavior. Regarding Wright’s theory about the Dyson sphere, Matt Muterspaugh says: "That theory is still a valid one...we would really hate to go to that, because that's a pretty major thing. It'd be awesome of course, but as scientists, we're hoping there's a natural explanation."

So what do you guys think? Do you think aliens actually built a huge Dyson sphere around the KIC  8462852 so that more aliens can live on the star’s surface?

Five Space Mysteries Science Still Can't Solve

It’s not a big secret that the vastness of space is filled with puzzling mysteries.

Mankind has barely gone past our planet’s moon, and only one of our probes – the Voyager 1 – has managed to leave the solar system. A lot of what we have learned about deep space came from falling objects and telescopic views that have been pierced together by the brightest minds in astronomy.

Some of the more well-known mysteries involving space have already been resolved by various experts in the field. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that space remains full of wonder and unexplained phenomena. Some of these mysteries may eventually be resolved by means of astronomical observations, but others may never actually be given an accurate answer.

The prestigious journal Science selected several of the most puzzling questions that leading astronomers are still baffled with today. They have enlisted the help of different experts in deciding which mysteries have the staying power of remaining unanswered in the distant future, while also weeding out those questions that might soon be answered in the years to come.

And so, in no particular order, let me tell you about five of the most compelling space mysteries that science has so far been unable to solve.

The Mystery of Dark Energy

It was back in the 1920s when astronomer Edwin Hubble made the stunning discovery that the universe is not in a static state, but is in fact, expanding. This was corroborated and expanded further in 1998, when the Hubble Space Telescope – which incidentally is named after the same iconic astronomer – provided the data from distant supernovas that allowed scientists to reach an even more astounding conclusion that the universe is expanding at a slower rate in the past compared to the rate of its expansion at present.

This earth-shaking discovery threw off many scientists from their balance as they long believed that the gravity of matter would gradually decrease the speed of universe’s expansion. It was even believed that gravity would also be responsible for making the expanse of the universe contract. In order to explain the universe’s accelerated expansion, the widely-debated dark energy was conceptualized. This dark energy is what is believed to be the mysterious force that is expanding the universe at ever-increasing speeds.

Although dark energy is theorized to make up around 73 percent of everything that exists in our universe, it is still unseen and unmeasured by mankind. And though the energy is needed to balance out the mathematics of the universe, it is also likely that we may never get to detect and uncover its true nature.

 The Mystery of Dark Matter

Back in the 60s and the 70s, astronomers came up with the hypothesis that universe contains more mass than what can be perceived physically. Vera Rubin, in particular, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, thoroughly studied and researched the speeds of stars at different locations in various galaxies, and she discovered that there was virtually no difference between the velocities of stars located at the center of a galaxy and those which are found at the farther parts of the same galaxy. These results somehow deviate from basic Newtonian physics, which suggested that stars which are located on the outskirts of a galaxy should orbit more slowly compared to those found at its center.

To explain this unusual phenomenon, astronomers theorized an invisible mass which then came to be known as “dark matter.” Though it cannot be seen, dark matter possesses mass, and its existence is supposedly supported by the gravitational pull that this invisible mass exerts on ordinary matter. This makes dark matter the “glue” which theoretically holds everything in the universe together. Dark matter is believed to make up approximately 23 percent of the universe, and while scientists are still not so sure what dark matter actually is, modern technology may soon allow scientists to detect some of its particles, hopefully in the foreseeable future.

The Mystery Behind the Missing Baryons

Credit: University of Wisconsin- Madison

 Dark energy and dark matter combined makes up roughly 96 percent of the universe, while regular matter only makes up around 5 percent of our cosmos. However, more than 50 percent of the particles of regular matter – referred to as baryons – is said to be missing. These baryons are particles composed of protons and electrons, and according to astronomers, the count of these baryons from the early formation of the universe to its current state has been dropping from some unknown reason, as if they were gradually but inevitably erased from cosmic history.

Tracking down the location of these missing baryons in the universe continues to be an important priority in the scientific field of astronomy, as the discovery of where they are could help scientists and researchers to paint a much clearer picture on how galaxies and other structures in the cosmos evolved as time went by.

The Mystery Behind Supernovas

Do you know how do stars explode? Many of the processes that have something to do with how stars and the solar system are formed are essentially understood by modern science now. What is not clearly known by researchers, however, is what happens in a star in the event that it finally explodes.

In the untimely event that a humungous star completely depletes its fuel and perishes, it triggers a massive explosion referred to as a “supernova.” This spectacular explosion is known to shine very brightly – in fact, much brighter than the glimmer of an entire galaxy. In recent years, significant strides achieved in supercomputing have made it possible for astronomers to research about the stars’ and supernovas’ internal conditions, and to recreate them by designing complex computer models. But even with these advanced technologies that are available for use by the brightest minds of science, many details about what goes on inside a star before its explosion, and how this explosion happens, continue to endure until now as a challenging astronomical puzzle.

The Mystery Behind the Peculiarity of the Solar System

While astronomers and space observatories have preoccupied themselves with discovering new planets which are located in proximity of other stars, some researchers have dedicated their intelligence and their resources in the pursuit of fully understanding the unique characteristics that our solar system possesses.

For example, the four innermost planets found in our solar system – including Earth – while very different from one another, all share the same feature of having rocky outer shells as well as metallic cores. On the other hand, the four outermost planets are immensely distinct from the innermost planets and from each other, with each possessing their own identifiable as well as distinctive characteristics.

And so, in the hopes of finally figuring out how our solar system was formed and how it came to existence, scientists have dedicated much of their time and exerted significant efforts into the study and exploration of the processes involved with planetary formation. Unfortunately, despite their dedication, the exact answer to the mystery of how our solar system came to be has remained elusive, and the answers that have been postulated in an attempt to explain it are not so simple.

According to experts, all existing attempts at cracking the mystery behind the diversity of each planet in our system is clouded by the uncertain nature of random chance. This line of reasoning is supported by the results of computer simulations which demonstrated that that the un-sequenced fusion of planetesimals in planetary system when it was still forming could just as likely have resulted to the formation of three or five terrestrial planets in contrast to the four planets we currently have.

But as the search and study of alien worlds which orbit other stars go beyond the stamp-collection of planets according to their orbit and mass, more insights can potentially be gained from these distant worlds in our effort to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of the planets within our solar system. In learning about these alien worlds, scientists are given a higher number of planetary outcomes to assess when it comes to explaining how the solar system came to be.

The five space mysteries we have listed are not the only existing enigmas about the universe that science has yet to give a full-proof answer to. Other mysteries such as the re-ionization of the universe, the source of cosmic rays, and the reason behind the heat of the sun’s corona, have continued to motivate men and women of science to come up with various theories and hypotheses that could provide the best explanations that would possibly resolve such difficult, cosmic questions. And while there are those who propose ideas to explain these phenomena, there are also those who have dedicated much of themselves to refuting such theories and providing an alternative and more plausible explanation to these mysteries.

For some of these questions, we have gotten – even by just a little bit – somewhat closer to giving the most scientifically verifiable answers that will resolve and put an end to these space mysteries. However, it cannot be denied that many of them are expected by most to remain unsolved in the foreseeable future. And while we may never really know the complete truth behind these mysteries, that does not mean mankind will stop trying to figure them all out. And perhaps that innate human quality instilled in all of us is the most astonishing mystery of them all.

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Sources:

http://www.businessinsider.com/mysterious-space-objects-2016-7/#the-great-attractor-5
http://www.space.com/15942-modern-astronomy-mysteries-baffling-scientists.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2153367/The-space-mysteries-science-CANT-solve--weird-heat-sun-3-4-universe-thats-gone-missing.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160218-dark-energy-matter-universe-gravity-mysteries-space/

The Black Knight Alien Satellite

    This black knight is not at all related to the bat-costumed dark knight that we know all too well. In fact, many people think it’s an alien satellite that has been kept secret by NASA and the government for more than a decade since it was first discovered. Over the decades, there have been many sightings of the strange object, but no one knows why it’s up there floating in space. All reports from US, Russia, And Europe in general say that the satellite is of “unknown origin”. So what is this curious object anyway? When was it discovered? What does it do? What is its purpose? Let’s start from the very beginning.

    Although there are varied opinions, it is generally believed that Nikola Tesla was the one who “discovered” the black knight when he set up a magnifying transmitter at his Colorado Springs facility in 1899 to investigate wireless distribution of electricity. What he didn’t expect were strange signals that were repeated periodically with number and order. They were timed pulses coming as ...1, ...2, ...3, that led him to believe that the signal was coming from an extraterrestrial source. Tesla originally thought that the signals were being sent from Mars, but he later restated that the signal was actually coming from another part of space. It’s not surprising that Tesla associated the signal with alien intervention, because a lot of people believe that Tesla has had contact with aliens. It is believed that he received information from aliens in a number of different cases. For example, once he was trying to find an equation/principle for the AC machine and suddenly, out of nowhere, he got the answer via telepathy or from an unknown source. Apparently he also invented many things for the government that were kept from the public, but that’s another story on it’s own.

    Not long afterward Tesla’s discovery, Guglielmo Marconi, Italian inventor and electrical engineer, was also intercepted by a strange unknown artificial signal. He found that some of his morse code messages were being returned to him, which fascinated and frightened him at the same time.

     Following his discovery in 1927, another man named Jorgen Hals, a civil engineer in Oslo, was using a radio receiver to listen to shortwave transmissions and noticed something very peculiar was happening. His signals were being reflected back to him. He didn’t know what it was, but the echoes were being reflected back to him at strange intervals ranging from 3-15 seconds. These irregularly reflected intervals were later known to be LDES, or Long Delayed Echoes.

    After the occurrence of all of these events that might have been related to alien interaction (especially the LDES),  the press was majorly stirred up. From 1928 to 1930, a experiments were performed that tested the legitimacy of the reflected signals, and it turned out that they were very real indeed. The only problem was that no one had an explanation for the signals’ reflections. As a result, even more experiments were run in France and the UK in the 1930's, but at the end of the day scientists could do nothing but be confused and speechless. Even today, we don’t have an agreed upon explanation for the occurrence and location of these LDES.

    Of course, after the experiments were run, the black knight became an even hotter topic for many news outlets, and the first story of the alien shuttle appeared on May 14th, 1954 when St. Louis Dispatch and The SF Examiner wrote about it, explaining that the U.S had found a strange satellite in space and that it could possibly be a surveillance satellite launched by the Russians.

     Then, on August 23, 1954, another story was released about the Black Knight, this time by the tech mag Aviation Week and Space Technology. They basically told the world that the Pentagon found two satellites orbiting the earth, both of which were natural. The pentagon was furious when they heard about the release of the story because want the satellites to be known by the public. As a result, they lied to the public and told them that the satellites were asteroids (as if anyone would actually believe them). By then the public already knew that something was up, and that either the Russians had managed to put something into orbit or there was something more...supernatural at work.

    A few years later, in March of 1960, another satellite was found orbiting earth. This satellite was a spectacular discovery because it wasn’t like the previously discovered satellites at all. It was a large black object weighing about 15 tons that was in POLAR orbit around earth, which means that it passes over polar regions and has a plane that contains the polar axis. This is amazing because first of all, the US and soviets didn’t even KNOW how to put an object in polar orbit. Second of all, neither country was capable of putting an object that weighs so much into space either. Third of all, the satellite was twice as fast as any known satellite at the time. As a result, the strange polar-orbiting satellites acquired a name: the Black Knight. No one knows for sure the origins of the name, but it’s believed that the name is based on a rocket the British had developed, which was also called Black Knight. After the amazing discovery, astronomers across the country conducted research on the satellite and realized that it had one of the strangest patterns of appearance and disappearance, because it would disappear for long periods of time before reappearing again YEARS later. 

   Robert L. Johnson, director of the Adler Planetarium, said that "‘THE OBJECT ‘DOESN’T EVEN HAVE THE DECENCY TO MAINTAIN A REGULAR SCHEDULE,LIKE ANY OTHER HEAVENLY OR MAN MADE OBJECT...‘WE DON’T KNOW WHEN TO WATCH FOR IT.’" What was it trying to do?

      Stanford space scientist Ronald Bracewell had an explanation for the phenomenon and believed that the satellite was a way for a distant alien civilization to communicate with earth. He said that the aliens might have sent out a probe, or ‘Bracewell probe’ as it’s we now call it, into the universe to look for other planets that seemed promising and contained intelligent lifeforms. He said that the satellite would remain dormant until humans found a way to send signals to it, in which it would send signals back.

     Duncan Lunan, a Scottish science writer was so intrigued by Bracewell’s theory that he decided to test it out for himself. He reexamined the data from the LDE experiments of 1928 and was absolutely and completely baffled. He mapped out the delays from the echos he recorded in 1928, and found that they formed the pattern of the  Boötes constellation, a constellation the in the northern sky. Not only that, Lunan was also able to decode the message that was being conveyed from the LDE Data at a stable point between the orbits of Earth and Moon called L5. the message read:

“  START HERE.OUR HOME IS EPSILON BOOTIS. WHICH IS A DOUBLE STAR. WE LIVE ON THE 6th PLANET OF 7 — CHECK THAT, 6th OF 7 — COUNTING OUTWARDS FROM THE SUN WHICH IS THE LARGER OF THE TWO.OUR 6th PLANET HAS ONE MOON,OUR 4th PLANET HAS THREE,OUR FIRST AND THIRD PLANETS EACH HAVE ONE.OUR PROBE IS IN THE ORBIT OF YOUR MOON THIS UPDATES THE POSITION OF ARCTURUS SHOWN ON OUR MAPS.”

If this doesn’t send chills down your spine, I don’t know what does.

     What’s even more amazing is that, along with the decoded message, Lunan also realized something else. Although he made his discovery in 1972, he realized that the star system he saw from the LDE data was not like the star system he saw in the skies at all. He concluded that if the black knight really was an alien probe, it must have taken ages to reach earth. He was right. By looking back in time, Lunan realized that the map he created matched how Epsilon Bootis looked like the Epsilon Bootis that was in the skies 13,000 years ago. This means that the satellite, possibly sent from a distant alien civilization, could have been orbiting the planet since pre-history.

     By then, Lunan was pretty much convinced that an alien civilization living near the Bootes constellation was trying to contact earth. It’s possible that the the same signal was also intercepted by Tesla and Macroni as well, but we will never know for sure. Sadly, since there wasn’t solid proof regarding the existence of such a supernatural satellite, people started believing the Pentagon’s excuse that the Black Knight was just some “space debris”.

     Thankfully, visual evidence of the satellite was found in 1998 when the crew of the space shuttle Endeavor was able to take high-resolution pictures of the strange black object while they were in space. The old stories of Tesla, LDES, and Lunan’s constellation map once again resurfaced in the minds of people across the country. Until today, we are still not sure what the Black Knight is, what it does, or where it comes from, but we DO know for a fact that it’s no regular satellite.