Defense News: Croatian Army carried out Spike LR Missile live-fire from Patria 8×8

 

Croatian Army carried out Spike LR Missile live-fire from Patria 8×8

The first launch of the October 6 live-fire was carried out under the supervision of instructors from the Polish the Slovenian Armies, and saw the Croatian crew accurately hit the target

by Eyal Boguslavsky, Israel Defense, 30/10/2022 

https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/56189

                         ground launch of Rafael’s Spike LR. Photo: Rafael website

The Croatian Army has carried out  early October the first live-fire trial of a Rafael's Spike LR (long range) anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) installed on the Croatian Army’s Patria CRO 30L (designated BOV in Croatian army).

Militaryleak.com website reported that the first launch of the October 6 live-fire was carried out under the supervision of instructors from the Polish and the Slovenian Armies and saw the Croatian crew accurately hit the target.

                         ground launch of Rafael’s Spike LR. Photo: Rafael website

Besides the long-range Spike ATGM, armament on the UT30 MK2 RCWS (Remote-Control Weapon System) for Croatian army's Patria includes the MK44-ABM variant of the 30mm Bushmaster chain gun plus a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun.

In 2017, it was announced that Croatia had awarded Israeli Elbit System a contract worth $14.9 million to supply the UT30 MK2 with Spike-LR missiles for its fleet of Patria AMV 8x8s originally delivered between 2008 and 2012.

Elbit Systems / Elbit Systems & Rafael Live fire demonstration

The Elbit Systems UT-30 is a dual-axis stabilized unmanned turret designed to turn an Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) into an Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) with no deck penetration. The UT-30 unmanned turret includes a sensor package and a 30mm gun each of them with its own independent stabilization system. The turrets feature very low silhouette, lightweight and a fold-flat capability.

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Scientists Just Discovered an Entirely New Way of Measuring Time

PHYSICS: 31 October 2022, By MIKE MCRAE

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-just-discovered-an-entirely-new-way-of-measuring-time

(in-future/Getty Images)

Marking the passage of time in a world of ticking clocks and swinging pendulums is a simple case of counting the seconds between 'then' and 'now'.

Down at the quantum scale of buzzing electrons, however, 'then' can't always be anticipated. Worse still, 'now' often blurs into a haze of uncertainty. A stopwatch simply isn't going to cut it for some scenarios.

A potential solution could be found in the very shape of the quantum fog itself, according to researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden.

Their experiments on the wave-like nature of something called a Rydberg state have revealed a novel way to measure time that doesn't require a precise starting point.

Rydberg atoms are the over-inflated balloons of the particle kingdom. Puffed-up with lasers instead of air, these atoms contain electrons in extremely high energy states, orbiting far from the nucleus.

Of course, not every pump of a laser needs to puff an atom up to cartoonish proportions. In fact, lasers are routinely used to tickle electrons into higher energy states for a variety of uses.

In some applications, a second laser can be used to monitor the changes in the electron's position, including the passing of time. These 'pump-probe' techniques can be used to measure the speed of certain ultrafast electronics, for instance.

Inducing atoms into Rydberg states is a handy trick for engineers, not least when it comes to designing novel components for quantum computers. Needless to say, physicists have amassed a significant amount of information about the way electrons move about when nudged into a Rydberg state.

Being quantum animals, though, their movements are less like beads sliding about on a tiny abacus, and more like an evening at the roulette table, where every roll and jump of the ball is squeezed into a single game of chance.

The mathematical rule book behind this wild game of Rydberg electron roulette is referred to as a Rydberg wave packet.

Just like actual waves in a pond, having more than one Rydberg wave packet rippling about in a space creates interference, resulting in unique patterns of ripples. Throw enough Rydberg wave packets into the same atomic pond, and those unique patterns will each represent the distinct time it takes for the wave packets to evolve in accordance with one another.

It was these very 'fingerprints' of time that the physicists behind this latest set of experiments set out to test, showing they were consistent and reliable enough to serve as a form of quantum timestamping.

Their research involved measuring the results of laser-excited helium atoms and matching their findings with theoretical predictions to show how their signature results could stand in for a duration of time.

"If you're using a counter, you have to define zero. You start counting at some point," physicist Marta Berholts from the University of Uppsala in Sweden, who led the team, explained to New Scientist.

"The benefit of this is that you don't have to start the clock – you just look at the interference structure and say 'okay, it's been 4 nanoseconds.'"

A guide book of evolving Rydberg wave packets could be used in combination with other forms of pump-probe spectroscopy that measure events on a tiny scale, when now and then are less clear, or simply too inconvenient to measure.

Importantly, none of the fingerprints require a then and now to serve as a starting and stopping point for time. It'd be like measuring an unknown sprinter's race against a number of competitors running at set speeds.

By looking for the signature of interfering Rydberg states amid a sample of pump-probe atoms, technicians could observe a timestamp for events as fleeting as just 1.7 trillionths of a second.

Future quantum watch experiments could replace the helium with other atoms, or even use laser pulse of different energies, to broaden the guide book of timestamps to suit a broader range of conditions.

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Gerald Pollack: Electrically Structured Water | EU2013

29 Oct 2022 Gerald H. Pollack, PhD 

The Thunderbolts Project — a Voice for the Electric Universe

In this re-release of his EU2013 Conference talk, Gerald H. Pollack, PhD, gave this one-hour presentation about the historical research and recent discovery of the electric charge within water on Saturday, January 5, 2013.

We are taught water has three phases: solid, liquid, vapor. In 2003, Dr. Pollack and his laboratory group discovered a fourth phase that occurs next to water-loving surfaces projecting out by up to millions of molecular layers. Subsequent experiments show that this fourth phase is charged—and the water just beyond is oppositely charged—creating a battery that can produce current. Light charges this battery.

Thus, water receives and processes electromagnetic energy drawn from the environment in much the same way as plants. This absorbed energy can be exploited for performing chemical, electrical, or mechanical work.

Rich with implication, we are now able to provide an understanding of how water processes solar and other energies—and describe a simpler explanation of natural phenomena ranging from weather, green energy, and biological phenomena such as the origin of life.

Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington, Jerry Pollack is an international leader in the field of water research. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968.

https://youtu.be/rfxDs1N_-3c

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Space News: Martian meteorite impacts reveal new information about the red planet

 

Martian meteorite impacts reveal new information about the red planet

The new data gathered from Mars's interior provides clues on how the planet formed, and how it has changed over the millenia.

 By JERUSALEM POST STAFF, OCTOBER 27, 2022 

https://www.jpost.com/science/article-720821

 First observation of surface waves on Mars reveals details of planet’s crust.

(photo credit: CHRISTIAN BOHM, DOYEON KIM, MARTIN VAN DRIEL)

A meteorite impact on the planet Mars may have revealed new information regarding the crust of the planet, which is being studied by researchers who work at the Marsquake Service at ETH Zürich in Switzerland.

The researchers were waiting for an event that would generate waves across Mars's surface before the meteorite impacted the planet on December 24 of last year - which produced the surface waves that the researchers needed. Their findings were published in the journal Science on Thursday evening. 

The surface waves on Mars provide more information to researchers about the Martian crust's structure.

The researchers have been using NASA's InSight mission’s seismometer to analyze the planet. The researchers also contacted colleagues that worked with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter probe - which took photos around the time of the meteorite impact that showed a large impact crater of about 3,500 kilometers from InSight

However, using InSight from just 7,500 kilometers away, the meteorite impact was able to be pinpointed by researchers as the source of a second atypical quake.

Cerberus Fossae system in Elysium Planitia near Martian equator. (credit: ESA/DLR/FU BERLIN)

The Martian crust between the impact sites and data gathered by InSight’s seismometer showed that the planet has high density - to which researchers incorrectly hypothesized that Mars had a low density based on three crust layers.

Why is this important?

Researchers say that the new data gathered from Mars's interior provides clues on how the planet forms and changes. This also may offer new insight into the sharp contrasts between Mars's northern and southern hemispheres, the former having flat, volcanic lowlands and the latter being a plateau covered by meteorite craters.

Doyeon Kim, the lead author of the study and a geophysicist and senior research scientist at ETH Zurich, said that "the location was a good match with our estimates for the source of the quake. The seismic waves traveled through the planet's interior during the quake which provides information about Mars's core and mantle.

“This is the first-time seismic surface waves have been observed on a planet other than Earth," he continued. "Not even the Apollo missions to the Moon managed it." Doyeon Kim

Mars Meteor Impact Caused Quake, Revealed Surprise Water Ice

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Astrophysicists make observations consistent with the predictions of an alternative theory of gravity

OCTOBER 26, 2022, by U. of Bonn

https://phys.org/news/2022-10-astrophysicists-alternative-theory-gravity.html

In the star cluster Hyades (top), the number of stars (black) in the front tidal tail is significantly larger than those in the rear. In the computer simulation with MOND (below), a similar picture emerges. 

Credit: University of Bonn

An international team of astrophysicists has made a puzzling discovery while analyzing certain star clusters. The finding challenges Newton's laws of gravity, the researchers write in their publication. Instead, the observations are consistent with the predictions of an alternative theory of gravity. However, this is controversial among experts. The results have now been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

In their work, the researchers investigated open star clusters. These are formed when thousands of stars are born within a short time in a huge gas cloud. As they "ignite," the galactic newcomers blow away the remnants of the gas cloud. In the process, the cluster expands considerably. This creates a loose formation of several dozen to several thousand stars. The weak gravitational forces acting between them hold the cluster together.

"In most cases, open star clusters survive only a few hundred million years before they dissolve," explains Prof. Dr. Pavel Kroupa of the Helmholtz Institute of Radiation and Nuclear Physics at the University of Bonn. In the process, they regularly lose stars, which accumulate in two so-called "tidal tails." One of these tails is pulled behind the cluster as it travels through space. The other, in contrast, takes the lead like a spearhead.

"According to Newton's laws of gravity, it's a matter of chance in which of the tails a lost star ends up," explains Dr. Jan Pflamm-Altenburg of the Helmholtz Institute of Radiation and Nuclear Physics. "So both tails should contain about the same number of stars. However, in our work we were able to prove for the first time that this is not true: In the clusters we studied, the front tail always contains significantly more stars nearby to the cluster than the rear tail."

New method developed for counting stars

Until now, it has been almost impossible to determine from among the millions of stars close to a cluster those that belong to its tails. "To do this, you have to look at the velocity, direction of motion and age of each of these objects," explains Dr. Tereza Jerabkova. The co-author of the paper, who did her doctorate in Kroupa's group, recently moved from the European Space Agency (ESA) to the European Southern Observatory in Garching. She developed a method that allowed her to accurately count the stars in the tails for the first time.

"So far, five open clusters have been investigated near us, including four by us," she says. "When we analyzed all the data, we encountered the contradiction with the current theory. The very precise survey data from ESA's Gaia space mission were indispensable for this."

The observational data, in contrast, fit much better with a theory that goes by the acronym MOND ("MOdified Newtonian Dynamics") among experts. "Put simply, according to MOND, stars can leave a cluster through two different doors," Kroupa explains. "One leads to the rear tidal tail, the other to the front. However, the first is much narrower than the second—so it's less likely that a star will leave the cluster through it. Newton's theory of gravity, on the other hand, predicts that both doors should be the same width."

Star clusters are shorter-lived than Newton's laws predict

The team calculated the stellar distribution expected according to MOND. "The results correspond surprisingly well with the observations," highlights Dr. Ingo Thies, who played a key role in the corresponding simulations. "However, we had to resort to relatively simple computational methods to do this. We currently lack the mathematical tools for more detailed analyses of modified Newtonian dynamics."

Nevertheless, the simulations also coincided with the observations in another respect: They predicted how long open star clusters should typically survive. And this time span is significantly shorter than would be expected according to Newton's laws. "This explains a mystery that has been known for a long time," Kroupa points out. "Namely, star clusters in nearby galaxies seem to be disappearing faster than they should."

However, the MOND theory is not undisputed among experts. Since Newton's laws of gravity would not be valid under certain circumstances, but would have to be modified, this would have far-reaching consequences for other areas of physics as well. "Then again, it solves many of the problems that cosmology faces today," explains Kroupa. The team is now exploring new mathematical methods for even more accurate simulations. They could then be used to find further evidence as to whether the MOND theory is correct or not.

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Spritacular: NASA's new citizen science project to capture elusive upper atmospheric electrical phenomena on camera

OCTOBER 26, 2022, by NASA

https://phys.org/news/2022-10-spritacular-nasa-citizen-science-capture.html

Red sprites formed above thunderstorms in the southeast Aegean Sea, as captured from the eastern suburbs of Athens, Greece on December 4, 2021. 

Credit: Thanasis Papathanasiou

A flash of lightning, and then—something else. High above the storm, a crimson figure blinks in and out of existence. If you see it, you are a lucky witness of a sprite, one of the least-understood electrical phenomena in Earth's upper atmosphere. But if you catch it on camera, your photo could contribute to a ground-breaking scientific discovery.

NASA's newest citizen science project, Spritacular (pronounced sprite-tacular), leverages the power of crowdsourcing to advance the study of sprites and other Transient Luminous Events, or TLEs. TLEs include a range of electrical phenomena that occur above thunderstorms and produce brief flashes of light. The new citizen science project aims to connect professional scientists with members of the public who would like their camerawork to contribute to scientific studies.

"People capture wonderful images of sprites, but they're shared sporadically over the internet and most of the scientific community is unaware of these captures," said Dr. Burcu Kosar, a space physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and Spritacular principal investigator. "Spritacular will bridge this gap by creating the first crowdsourced database of sprites and other TLEs that is accessible and readily available for scientific research."

Sprites occur at some 50 miles (80 kilometers) altitude, high above thunderstorms. They appear moments after a lightning strike—a sudden reddish flash that can take a range of shapes, often combining diffuse plumes and bright, spiny tendrils. Some sprites tend to dance over the storms, turning on and off one after another. Many questions about how and why they form remain unanswered.



A red sprite (indicated by white arrow) above a thunderstorm was captured by members of Expedition 44 Crew aboard the International Space Station on Aug. 10, 2015. 

Credit: NASA

Eyewitness reports of strange flashes of light above thunderstorms date back hundreds of years, but it wasn't until 1989 that the first such event was caught on camera. Researchers from the University of Minnesota were testing a low-light TV camera for an upcoming rocket flight mission. By sheer accident, their camera captured the very first credible evidence for what we now call sprites.

"It wasn't a very high resolution or fast camera—they just captured two luminous blobs above a nearby thunderstorm," Kosar said. "The whole field was kickstarted because a camera was pointed in the right direction at the right time."

Scientists dubbed these elusive events "sprites," a reference to mythical fairy-like creatures from European folklore. As other kinds of TLEs were discovered, the playful naming convention stuck. Today, scientists study ELVES, Halos, Blue Jets, Gigantic Jets, and more.

Yet we still have far too few observations of sprites and other TLEs, and there is much we don't know. Some of the major outstanding questions include:How often do sprites occur? Why do they take the shapes they do?
What conditions in the upper atmosphere trigger sprite initiation?
How do sprites affect Earth's global electric circuit, and what is their contribution to the energy in Earth's upper atmosphere?
How are sprites connected with gravity waves, which send wind-driven ripples of energy through our upper atmosphere?

Answering these questions could lead to major advances in the science of Earth's upper atmosphere. But to get there, Spritacular needs your help.

Become a Spritacular citizen scientist

The first goal of Spritacular is to build an image database: A collection of observations of sprites and other TLEs that will help answer the questions above.

Many commercially available, digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras are suitable for capturing sprites. The hardest part is knowing when and where to look. By bringing together experienced "sprite-chasers" and providing educational support and resources, Spritacular aims to provide all the guidance you need for a successful capture.

If you believe you have captured a photo of a sprite or other TLEs, you can create an account and then submit your photos and photo details (time and location of the photo) to Spritacular. Accurate time and location details are preferred, but approximate time and location will also be accepted with sufficient detail. To submit a photo, you must be the photographer who captured it.

All submitted photos will be reviewed by scientists. Submitters who collaborate with scientists and whose image leads to a scientific study or discovery will be properly acknowledged or listed as a coauthor on the resulting scientific publication, depending on the level of contribution.

The broader goal of Spritacular is to foster a mutual exchange between observers of TLEs and the scientific community and to inspire citizen scientists all around the world to participate in the investigation of these elusive events. As the Spritacular community and image database grows, Kosar is planning to implement new software tools to automatically cross-reference submissions with databases on lightning and thunderstorms. These tools will allow users to analyze their own images and contribute to the scientific method.

Spritacular is a citizen science project in collaboration with the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. The principal investigator is Dr. Burcu Kosar and co-investigator is Dr. Jia Yue.

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Canada Awards Contract to Logistik Unicorp to Supply Operational Clothing and Footwear to the CAF – A Contract Worth Up To $3.7 billion Over 20 Years

20.10.2022 Canadian Defense Review

http://www.canadiandefencereview.com/news?news/3522

The Minister of National Defence, Anita Anand, announced that Logistik Unicorp based in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, has been awarded a contract to provide operational clothing and footwear to the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). This contract, valued at up to $3.7 billion over 20 years, will support over 3000 jobs in Canada’s clothing, footwear and textile industries.

This investment will deliver approximately 1,222 different items of clothing and footwear worn by CAF members during their deployments, including:

• combat uniforms using Canadian Disruptive Pattern (CADPAT) camouflage,

• badges and insignias,

• footwear including combat boots, arid/hot weather boots, and mukluks,

• winter gear such as parkas, headwear and hand wear,

• soldiers’ personal equipment, such as sleeping bags and day packs.

This contract will deliver supplies for more than 160,000 people, including Regular and Reserve Force members, Canadian Rangers, Junior Rangers, search and rescue technicians, firefighters and Cadets. This contract also contains provisions to enable the ad hoc procurement of equipment required for unexpected deployment operations – such as the immediate supply of Personal Protective Equipment during critical emergencies.

Today’s Operational Clothing and Footwear Consolidated Contract (OCFC2) represents a new approach to supplying the operational gear that the CAF needs to succeed on domestic and international operations. Once the contract is fully implemented, members will be able to order items online and have orders shipped to their door, while also providing the CAF with the ability to continue distributing uniforms directly to units. This new approach will deliver better resource and inventory management for the CAF, improve item availability, and provide better value for taxpayers.

This project will deliver concrete economic benefits to Quebecers and all Canadians. Logistik Unicorp will invest in research and development and skills training in the textile, apparel and footwear sectors, which will generate additional jobs and export opportunities. Logistik Unicorp must also conform to mandatory Canadian content requirements by ensuring that the majority of manufacturing of clothing and footwear items is done in Canada.

The Government of Canada is committed to providing the CAF with the equipment and tools that they need to serve Canada domestically and internationally.

“Today’s investment will support thousands of well-paying jobs for Canadian workers, and deliver modern, cutting-edge equipment for the members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

The Canadian Armed Forces uniform is a source of great pride for Canadians at home and abroad, and this new contract with Logistik Unicorp will ensure that our members have the equipment they need, when they need it to fulfill the duties that we ask of them. I look forward to seeing the results of today’s investment, which is great news for Quebecers and all Canadians.” – The Honourable Anita Anand, Minister of National Defence

“This contract speaks to the Government of Canada’s commitment to obtaining the best possible value for the Government and Canadians through open, fair and transparent procurement processes. It will provide CAF members with the necessary equipment to conduct daily operations anywhere in the world, while also creating economic benefits for Canadians.” – The Honourable Helena Jaczek, Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada

“The members of the Canadian Armed Forces deserve the best uniforms and equipment required to effectively perform their duties. This contract delivers on this promise and provides military members with the needed operational clothing and footwear while also ensuring that the investment will benefit the Canadian apparel, textile and footwear industry and thousands of its workers. Our government couldn’t be prouder to simultaneously support both our troops and the workers at Logistik Unicorp and in its network of suppliers across the country” - The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry

ADDITIONAL INFO

• Currently, operational clothing and footwear items are being procured through multiple individual contracts. By combining the various contracts into one, we will achieve greater efficiency and availability of items the CAF needs and better value for taxpayers.

• This contract is the result of a competitive process and the winning bidder is qualified and capable of delivering a managed clothing solution to the CAF.

• Delivery of items to clothing stores will commence during the second year of the contract, and individual online ordering capability is targeted to be implemented during the third year.

• This contract also incentivizes the contractor to include Indigenous businesses as part of its supply chain.

• The Industrial and Technological Benefits (ITB) Policy, was applied to the OCFC2 request for proposal requirements to leverage economic benefits for Canada equal to the value of the logistics services component of the contract. As a result, the contract will ensure long-term, sustainable support for the Canadian apparel, textile and footwear sectors.

• Logistik Unicorp has experience in ensuring that Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus) considerations are incorporated. Procured items will meet the requirements of the diverse CAF population with a faster turnaround time.

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Shahed-131: Putin outfoxes West with smaller suicide drone; Zelensky stunned | Key Details

Hindustan Times Oct. 25, 2022
https://youtu.be/BmPaNIT3DyM

Russia unleashing successive waves of the Iranian-made Shahed drones over Ukraine. 

With drones, Russia is hitting targets, crushing morale & draining Ukraine's war chest. 

Putin now using the Iranian Shahed-131, a drone smaller than the feared Shahed-136. 

The first detailed look at the Iranian Shahed-131, renamed Geran-1 by the Russian Forces. The Iranian Shahed-131 drone has a different engine than the commonly-seen Shahed-136. 

The Iranian Shahed-131 unmanned aerial vehicle has a smaller payload, size & range.

https://youtu.be/BmPaNIT3DyM

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Astronomers just found 1 million new galaxies, previously unknown to astronomy, in just 300 hours

September 13, 2022 

http://amazingastronomy.thespaceacademy.org/2022/09/astronomers-just-found-1-million-new.html

(Pic added by CC from google search)

In under 300 hours, the world-renowned CSIRO telescope in Australia surveyed the whole southern sky in amazing detail and record time, discovering 3 million previously unseen galaxies.

The feat, announced on December 1 by Australia's national science organisation CSIRO, has swiftly made headlines throughout the world for developing a new atlas of the universe.

According to the researchers, as many as 1 million of these distant galaxies may be previously unknown to astronomy, and this is likely just the beginning. Because of the success of this first study, CSIRO scientists are already planning additional in-depth observations in the future years.

Previous telescopic all-sky surveys of the galaxy took years and tens of thousands of photographs to complete.

The telescope, known as the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), is a cluster of 36 radio dish antennae stretched out over 4,000 square metres in the Western Outback that work together to stitch together high-resolution images to create panoramic views of the universe.

According to CSIRO, the final 903 photos used to generate the new atlas are made up of 70 billion pixels totaling 26 terabytes of data, which is different than the resolution of your iPhone. This massive load, which began as 13.5 "exabytes," was processed by the Pawsey Supercomputing Center's "Galaxy" supercomputer.

“ASKAP is applying the very latest in science and technology to age-old questions about the mysteries of the Universe and equipping astronomers around the world with new breakthroughs to solve their challenges,” says CSIRO Chief Executive Dr. Larry Marshall.

3 million new galaxies is a lot of ground to cover, so ASKAP is probably only getting started.

“This census of the Universe will be used by astronomers around the world to explore the unknown and study everything from star formation to how galaxies and their supermassive black holes evolve and interact,” lead author and CSIRO astronomer Dr. David McConnell said in a statement.

He went on to say that tens of millions of galaxies could be discovered in the future with this new telescope/supercomputer combo.

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Michael Armstrong: Big Bang NEVER Made Sense | Thunderbolts

ThunderboltsProject

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKOu-g5_e4E

Any religious comments in this post (near the end) are out of bounds in discussion CC

In the beginning, a long time ago, and far, far away there was nothing, which manifested a singularity, which exploded, and over billions of years produced not only our vast material universe, but also life and the entire spectrum of the non-material or spiritual realm. So goes the Big Bang Theory encapsulated in one long sentence.

There is NO such thing as 'nothing'—never was and never could be—because you cannot get something from nothing. We are all familiar with the concept of 'nothing', so the average mind SHOULD BE able to realize that you cannot start creation with it.

Natural Philosopher Michael Armstrong explains why the Big Bang doesn't make sense, and also deconstructs Scientism—the dogmatic religion in pursuit of scientific knowledge—except for any significant new truth that challenges its status quo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKOu-g5_e4E

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Pilot Shares Videos Of Strange UFO Sightings In Skies Over The US

By Today

From skies over Missouri to above the Pacific Ocean, commercial airline pilots have recently captured videos that depict unidentified aerial phenomena across the U.S. NBC’s Gadi Schwartz reports for TODAY on the possible otherworldly sightings.

https://youtu.be/iT9BtWCBbic

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HOMESPACE NEWS Gravitational Lenses: Spyglasses Into the Universe

By ESA/HUBBLE OCTOBER 21, 2022

https://scitechdaily.com/gravitational-lenses-spyglasses-into-the-universe/

This illustration depicts a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, which is used by astronomers to study very distant and very faint galaxies. Note that the scale has been greatly exaggerated in this diagram. In reality, the distant galaxy is much further away and much smaller.

Lensing clusters are clusters of elliptical galaxies whose gravity is so strong that they bend the light from the galaxies behind them. This produces distorted, and often multiple images of the background galaxy. But despite this distortion, gravitational lenses allow for greatly improved observations as gravity bends the light’s path towards Hubble, amplifying the light and making otherwise invisible objects observable.

Credit: NASA, ESA & L. Calçada

Light does not always travel in straight lines. As Einstein predicted in his Theory of General Relativity, massive objects will deform the fabric of space itself. When light passes one of these massive objects, such as a cluster of galaxies, its path is changed slightly.

This effect, called gravitational lensing, is only visible in rare cases and only the best telescopes can observe the related phenomena.

Gravitational lenses produce different shaped images depending on the shape of the lensing body. If the lens is spherical then the image appears as an Einstein ring (in other words as a ring of light) (top); if the lens is elongated then the image is an Einstein cross (it appears split into four distinct images) (middle), and if the lens is a galaxy cluster, like Abell 2218, then arcs and arclets (banana-shaped images) of light are formed (bottom).

 Credit: European Space Agency

Hubble’s sensitivity and high resolution allow it to see faint and distant gravitational lenses that cannot be detected with ground-based telescopes whose images are blurred by the Earth’s atmosphere. The gravitational lensing results in multiple images of the original galaxy each with a characteristically distorted banana-like shape or even into rings.

The giant galaxy cluster in the center of this image contains so much dark matter mass that its gravity bends the light of more distant objects. This means that for very distant galaxies in the background, the cluster’s gravitational field acts as a sort of magnifying glass, bending and concentrating the distant object’s light towards Hubble. These gravitational lenses are one tool astronomers can use to extend Hubble’s vision beyond what it would normally be capable of observing. This way some of the very first galaxies in the Universe can be studied by astronomers. The lensing effect can also be used to determine the distribution of matter — both ordinary and dark matter — within the cluster. 

Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Richard (CRAL) and J.-P. Kneib (LAM), Acknowledgment: Marc Postman (STScI)

Hubble was the first telescope to resolve details within these multiple banana-shaped arcs. Thanks to its sharp vision, it can reveal the shape and internal structure of the lensed background galaxies directly. In this way one can easily match the different arcs coming from the same background object — be it a galaxy or even a supernova — by eye.

Gravitational lensing can be used to ‘weigh’ clusters because the amount of lensing depends on the total mass of the cluster. This has substantially improved our understanding of the distribution of the ‘hidden’ dark matter in galaxy clusters and hence in the Universe as a whole. The effect of gravitational lensing also allowed a first step towards revealing the mystery of the dark energy.

As gravitational lenses function as magnification glasses it is possible to use them to study distant galaxies from the early Universe, which otherwise would be impossibly faint to see due to their great distance from Earth.

The article on the composition of the Universe has more details on Hubble’s work on dark matter.

“When we first observed the galaxy cluster Abell 2218 with Hubble in 1995 we mainly aimed at studying the cluster and its galaxies. But we got a surprise. The images showed dozens and dozens of gravitationally lensed arcs. When we showed these ultrasharp images to our colleagues they could immediately see the importance of using gravitational lensing as a cosmological tool.”

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Earth is spinning faster than normal, and we just had our shortest day in recent history

By Sarah Do Couto Global News, Posted August 4, 2022

https://globalnews.ca/news/9034594/earth-spinning-faster-speed-shortened-day/

(pic from google search CC)

If it feels like you’re losing time in the day, you may be right.


Scientists claim that on June 29, 2022, the Earth spun faster than normal, making it the shortest day recorded since the 1960s.

The average day is 24 hours long (or exactly 86,400 seconds). According to CBS, who spoke to Leonid Zotov, a scientist at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute of Lomonosov Moscow State University, June 29 was 1.59 millisecond shorter.

Zotov and a team of scientists recently published a study outlining possible hypotheses for Earth’s new accelerated rotation.

They reported that the Earth has been turning faster since 2016. According to the Guardian, 2020 had 28 of the shortest days recorded in the last 50 years. (Not every day, however, is shorter than 24 hours.)

The increased rotational speed came as a surprise to scientists who, as Zotov and his peers wrote in the study, previously believed the Earth had been decelerating over the past centuries.

Scientists have not been able to say for certain what is causing the increased speed, though Zotov and other scientists will present their research and theories at the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society conference this month.

Zotov told CBS he believes the Earth’s tides may play a factor in why the planet is spinning faster.

According to Forbes (who also spoke to Zotov), a decay in the “Chandler Wobble” may be what is causing the change in acceleration. The Chandler Wobble involves the movement of geographical poles across the surface of the globe, as Earth is a living, moving planet.

(The normal amplitude of the Chandler wobble is about three to four metres at Earth’s surface, but from 2017 to 2020 it disappeared, according to numerous scientific reports.)

“Polar motion is caused by geophysical processes in the Earth systems, in particular currents in the ocean, winds in the atmosphere, internal processes inside the Earth,” Zotov told Forbes. He told the outlet he believes “something is happening inside the Earth to the core and mantle.”

Whatever is happening to Earth’s core and mantle is what is decaying the Chandler Wobble and causing Earth’s acceleration, Zotov claims.

There are also other factors potentially at play, including natural weather occurrences. NASA has previously claimed that changes in atmospheric pressure and strong winds (like that of the El Niño years) can slow the speed of Earth’s rotation. Alternatively, events like earthquakes can speed up rotation.

This is not the first time the length of Earth’s days has changed. Scientists believe that more than 1.4 billion years ago, days on Earth were less than 19 hours long.

Still, despite there being no concrete answer for Earth’s rising speed, scientists and various professionals around the world are now disputing the best method to cope with the time shift.

Zotov said if Earth continues to rotate faster, atomic time — the universal way time is measured on Earth — may need to change.

One such proposal is to introduce a negative leap second. First proposed in the 1970s, a negative leap second would see one second removed from clocks to maintain Coordinated Universal Time (CUT). Leap seconds are usually implemented either on the last day of June or the last day of December.

While a negative leap second has never been used, there have been, in total, 27 positive leap seconds (one second added to clocks) implemented about every year and a half (on average), according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Some engineers strongly oppose the use of negative leap seconds, claiming it could cause widespread technological issues.

Meta, the tech giant that owns Facebook, shared a blog post by engineers Oleg Obleukhov and Ahmad Byagowi in July, insisting that leap seconds should be a thing of the past. They claim in the blog post that leap seconds mainly benefit “scientists and astronomers as it allows them to observe celestial bodies using UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) for most purposes.”

Obleukhov and Byagowi wrote that a negative leap second could cause IT programs to crash and may corrupt data on an international level, as seen in simulations the company claims to have run.

“Introducing new leap seconds is a risky practice that does more harm than good, and we believe it is time to introduce new technologies to replace it,” they continued.

The Meta-affiliated engineers believe the melting and refreezing of ice caps on the world’s tallest mountains may be a factor in Earth’s increased rotational speed.

“This phenomenon can be simply visualized by thinking about a spinning figure skater, who manages angular velocity by controlling their arms and hands,” they wrote. “As they spread their arms the angular velocity decreases, preserving the skater’s momentum. As soon as the skater tucks their arms back in the angular velocity increases.”

All in all, scientists, engineers and other time and Earth science-related professionals are now arguing whether time should continue to be defined by the movement of the planet.

What’s to be done about the increased speed of Earth, then? Only time can tell.

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