PARIS (AFP) - France became the first country to open its files on UFOs Thursday when the national space agency unveiled a website documenting more than 1,600 sightings spanning five decades.
The online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported, catalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to a handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists.
"It is a world first," said Jacques Patenet, the aeronautical engineer who heads the office for the study of "non-identified aerospatial phenomena."
Known as OVNIs in French, UFOs have always generated intense interest along with countless conspiracy theories about secretive government cover-ups of findings deemed too sensitive or alarming for public consumption.
"Cases such as the lady who reported seeing an object that looked like a flying roll of toilet paper" are clearly not worth investigating, said Patenet.
But many others involving multiple sightings -- in at least one case involving thousands of people across France -- and evidence such as burn marks and radar trackings showing flight patterns or accelerations that defy the laws of physics are taken very seriously.
A phalanx of beefy security guards formed a barrier in front of the space agency (CNES) headquarters where the announcement was made, "to screen out uninvited UFOlogists," an official explained.
Of the 1,600 cases registered since 1954, nearly 25 percent are classified as "type D", meaning that "despite good or very good data and credible witnesses, we are confronted with something we can't explain," Patenet said.
On January 8, 1981 outside the town of Trans-en-Provence in southern France, for example, a man working in a field reported hearing a strange whistling sound and seeing a saucer-like object about 2.5 meters (eight feet) in diameter land in his field about 50 meters (yards) away.
A dull-zinc grey, the saucer took off, he told police, almost immediately, leaving burn marks.
Investigators took photos, and then collected and analyzed samples, and to this day no satisfactory explanation has been made.
The nearly 1,000 witness who said they saw flashing lights in the sky on November 5, 1990, by contrast, had simply seen a rocket fragment falling back into earth's atmosphere.
Patenet's answer to questions about evidence of life beyond Earth was sure to inflame the suspicions of those convinced the government is holding back: "We do not have the least proof that extra-terrestrials are behind the unexplained phenomena."
But then he added: "Nor do we have the least proof that they aren't."
The CNES fields between 50 and 100 UFO reports ever year, usually written up by police. Of these, 10 percent are the object of on-site investigations, Patenet said.
Other countries collect data more or less systematically about unidentified flying objects, notably in Britain and in the United States, where information can be requested on a case-by-case basis under the Freedom of Information Act.
"But we decided to do it the other way around and made everything available to the public," Patenet said.
The aim was to make it easier for scientists and other UFO buffs to access the data for research.
The website itself -- which crashed host servers hours after it was unveiled due to heavy traffic -- is extremely well organized and complete, even including scanned copies of police reports.
To visit the website: www.cnes-geipan.fr.
by Marlowe Hood
Friday, March 23, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Mathematicians solve E8 structure
WASHINGTON (AFP) - After four years of intensive collaboration, 18 top mathematicians and computer scientists from the United States and Europe have successfully mapped E8, one of the largest and most complicated structures in mathematics, scientists said late Sunday.
Jeffrey Adams, project leader and mathematics professor at the University of Maryland said E8 was discovered over a century ago, in 1887, and until now, no one thought the structure could ever be understood.
"This groundbreaking achievement is significant both as an advance in basic knowledge, as well as a major advance in the use of large scale computing to solve complicated mathematical problems," Adams said.
He added that the mapping of E8 may well have unforeseen implications in mathematics and physics which won't be evident for years to come.
E8 belongs to so-called Lie groups that were invented by a 19th century Norwegian mathematician, Sophus Lie, to study symmetry.
The theory holds that underlying any symmetrical object, such as a sphere, is a Lie group.
Balls, cylinders or cones are familiar examples of symmetric three-dimensional objects.
However, mathematicians study symmetries in higher dimensions. In fact, E8 itself is 248-dimensional.
Today string theorists search for a theory of the universe by looking at E8 X E8.
The scientists said the magnitude of the E8 calculation invited comparison with the
Human Genome Project.
While the human genome, which contains all the genetic information of a cell, is less than a gigabyte in size, the result of the E8 calculation, which contains all the information about E8, is 60 gigabytes in size, they said.
This is enough to store 45 days of continuous music in MP3-format. If written out on paper, the answer would cover an area the size of Manhattan.
Jeffrey Adams, project leader and mathematics professor at the University of Maryland said E8 was discovered over a century ago, in 1887, and until now, no one thought the structure could ever be understood.
"This groundbreaking achievement is significant both as an advance in basic knowledge, as well as a major advance in the use of large scale computing to solve complicated mathematical problems," Adams said.
He added that the mapping of E8 may well have unforeseen implications in mathematics and physics which won't be evident for years to come.
E8 belongs to so-called Lie groups that were invented by a 19th century Norwegian mathematician, Sophus Lie, to study symmetry.
The theory holds that underlying any symmetrical object, such as a sphere, is a Lie group.
Balls, cylinders or cones are familiar examples of symmetric three-dimensional objects.
However, mathematicians study symmetries in higher dimensions. In fact, E8 itself is 248-dimensional.
Today string theorists search for a theory of the universe by looking at E8 X E8.
The scientists said the magnitude of the E8 calculation invited comparison with the
Human Genome Project.
While the human genome, which contains all the genetic information of a cell, is less than a gigabyte in size, the result of the E8 calculation, which contains all the information about E8, is 60 gigabytes in size, they said.
This is enough to store 45 days of continuous music in MP3-format. If written out on paper, the answer would cover an area the size of Manhattan.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Giant Pool of Water Ice at Mars' South Pole
Mars is unlikely to sport beachfront property anytime soon, but the planet has enough water ice at its south pole to blanket the entire planet in more than 30 feet of water if everything thawed out.
With a radar technique, astronomers have penetrated for the first time about 2.5 miles (nearly four kilometers) beneath the south pole's frozen surface. The data showed that nearly pure water ice lies beneath.
Discovered in the early 1970s, layered deposits of ice and dust cap the North and South Poles of Mars. Until now, the deposits have been difficult to study closely with existing telescopes and satellites. The current advance comes from a probe of the deposits using an instrument aboard the Mars Express orbiter.
"This is the first time that a ground-penetrating system has ever been used on Mars," said the new radar study's lead author, Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "All the other instruments used to study the surface of Mars in the past really have only been sensitive to what occurs at the very surface."
(NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft also carries instruments designed, among other things, to probe beneath icy polar surfaces.)
Deep probe
Plaut and his colleagues probed the deposits with radar echo sounding, typically used on Earth to study the interiors of glaciers. The instrument, called the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding, or MARSIS, beams radio waves which penetrate the planet's surface and bounce off features having different electrical properties.
The reflected beams revealed that 90 percent or more of the frozen polar material is pure water ice, sprinkled with dust particles. The scientists calculated that the water would form a 36-foot-deep ocean of sorts if spread over the Martian globe.
"It's the best evidence that's been obtained to date for that thickness," said Ken Herkenhoff, a planetary geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz., who studies the Martian polar regions. He was not involved in the current study.
Scientists have long known that Mars' north polar cap is a massive storehouse of water ice, and the current research team says they will use their radar technique to refine past estimates of its thickness and make-up.
Missing water
"These polar ice deposits are by far the largest reservoir of water or water ice that we know of on Mars," Plaut said.
That's a lot of water, but not enough to account for the flowing streams thought to meander along Mars' surface in the past.
"There's evidence that about 10 times or maybe even 100 times that much water has flowed across the surface of Mars to carve the various channels, the outflow valleys and other features we see in the images and topography data," Plaut told SPACE.com.
So where's the rest of the water? One idea is that a subterranean plumbing system once ferried loads of water beneath the Martian surface. Plaut said his team also will search for underground pools with the radar technique.
Underground Plumbing System Discovered on Mars
New View of Ancient Mars Water System
Martian beach
A Martian water-world is unlikely in the near future, but astronomers have solid evidence that billions of years ago water flowed over the Martian surface. And recently, evidence has pointed to a warming trend as Mars emerges from an "ice age."
Scientists think variations in Mars' orbit and tilt drive the planet's climate over time, though a few astronomers have speculated about how the Sun's activity could be partly to blame for warming on several planets.
Sun Blamed for Warming of Earth and Other Worlds
In addition to warming from the atmosphere, ice-thawing heat could come from the core of Mars, analogous to the plumes of heat that cause volcanic eruptions on Earth. But evidence from the new radar study suggests the Martian crust is icy cold and rigid.
Mars Madness: A Multimedia Adventure
Top 10 Best Mars Images Ever
Video: A Wet Modern Mars?
Images: Ice on Mars
All About Mars
Original Story: Giant Pool of Water Ice at Mars' South Pole
Visit SPACE.com and explore our huge collection of Space Pictures, Space Videos, Space Image of the Day, Hot Topics, Top 10s, Multimedia, Trivia, Voting and Amazing Images. Follow the latest developments in the search for life in our universe in our SETI: Search for Life section. Join the community, sign up for our free daily email newsletter, listen to our Podcasts, check out our RSS feeds and other Reader Favorites today!
Jeanna BrynerStaff WriterSPACE.com
With a radar technique, astronomers have penetrated for the first time about 2.5 miles (nearly four kilometers) beneath the south pole's frozen surface. The data showed that nearly pure water ice lies beneath.
Discovered in the early 1970s, layered deposits of ice and dust cap the North and South Poles of Mars. Until now, the deposits have been difficult to study closely with existing telescopes and satellites. The current advance comes from a probe of the deposits using an instrument aboard the Mars Express orbiter.
"This is the first time that a ground-penetrating system has ever been used on Mars," said the new radar study's lead author, Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "All the other instruments used to study the surface of Mars in the past really have only been sensitive to what occurs at the very surface."
(NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft also carries instruments designed, among other things, to probe beneath icy polar surfaces.)
Deep probe
Plaut and his colleagues probed the deposits with radar echo sounding, typically used on Earth to study the interiors of glaciers. The instrument, called the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding, or MARSIS, beams radio waves which penetrate the planet's surface and bounce off features having different electrical properties.
The reflected beams revealed that 90 percent or more of the frozen polar material is pure water ice, sprinkled with dust particles. The scientists calculated that the water would form a 36-foot-deep ocean of sorts if spread over the Martian globe.
"It's the best evidence that's been obtained to date for that thickness," said Ken Herkenhoff, a planetary geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz., who studies the Martian polar regions. He was not involved in the current study.
Scientists have long known that Mars' north polar cap is a massive storehouse of water ice, and the current research team says they will use their radar technique to refine past estimates of its thickness and make-up.
Missing water
"These polar ice deposits are by far the largest reservoir of water or water ice that we know of on Mars," Plaut said.
That's a lot of water, but not enough to account for the flowing streams thought to meander along Mars' surface in the past.
"There's evidence that about 10 times or maybe even 100 times that much water has flowed across the surface of Mars to carve the various channels, the outflow valleys and other features we see in the images and topography data," Plaut told SPACE.com.
So where's the rest of the water? One idea is that a subterranean plumbing system once ferried loads of water beneath the Martian surface. Plaut said his team also will search for underground pools with the radar technique.
Underground Plumbing System Discovered on Mars
New View of Ancient Mars Water System
Martian beach
A Martian water-world is unlikely in the near future, but astronomers have solid evidence that billions of years ago water flowed over the Martian surface. And recently, evidence has pointed to a warming trend as Mars emerges from an "ice age."
Scientists think variations in Mars' orbit and tilt drive the planet's climate over time, though a few astronomers have speculated about how the Sun's activity could be partly to blame for warming on several planets.
Sun Blamed for Warming of Earth and Other Worlds
In addition to warming from the atmosphere, ice-thawing heat could come from the core of Mars, analogous to the plumes of heat that cause volcanic eruptions on Earth. But evidence from the new radar study suggests the Martian crust is icy cold and rigid.
Mars Madness: A Multimedia Adventure
Top 10 Best Mars Images Ever
Video: A Wet Modern Mars?
Images: Ice on Mars
All About Mars
Original Story: Giant Pool of Water Ice at Mars' South Pole
Visit SPACE.com and explore our huge collection of Space Pictures, Space Videos, Space Image of the Day, Hot Topics, Top 10s, Multimedia, Trivia, Voting and Amazing Images. Follow the latest developments in the search for life in our universe in our SETI: Search for Life section. Join the community, sign up for our free daily email newsletter, listen to our Podcasts, check out our RSS feeds and other Reader Favorites today!
Jeanna BrynerStaff WriterSPACE.com
EU site to offer extreme weather data
VIENNA, Austria - It looks like a color-coded terror alert scale — and meteorologically speaking, that's exactly what it is. With climate change making conditions more unpredictable, national weather services from across the European Union have joined forces to create http://www.meteoalarm.eu — a new Web site providing up-to-the-minute information on "extreme weather" across the continent.
The initiative, managed by Austria's Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, is designed to give Europeans a single source for details on flash floods, severe thunderstorms, gale-force winds, heat waves, blizzards and other violent weather that poses a threat to life or property.
It also issues 24- and 48-hour warnings for heavy fog, extreme cold, forest fires and "coastal events" such as high waves or severe tides.
"In one glance you will be able to see where in Europe the weather might become dangerous," organizers said Saturday in a statement.
The service is similar to the United States' National Weather Service, which posts on its Web site conditions, warnings and forecasts for all 50 states.
Although the European site officially will launch in Madrid, Spain, on March 23 — World Meteorological Day — it is already live on the Web in test form.
Under the new pan-European warning system, white means missing or insufficient data; green means no imminent threat; yellow signifies potentially dangerous weather; orange warns of dangerous conditions; and red means very dangerous, "exceptionally intense" weather.
Pictograms and photographs showing lightning bolts, churning floodwaters and other catastrophic scenes also pop up "to make the general public more conscious or aware" of a particular threat, the organizers said.
Users click on maps to get details on current conditions or forecasts of violent weather for the next day. There are also links to a country's national weather service.
The Network of European Meteorological Services includes 20 countries and covers land stretching from Portugal to Sweden. Not every nation in the region is contributing, but the site hopes to bring others online eventually.
The Web site "pulls together all the warnings from the official national weather services," said Michael Staudinger of the Vienna weather institute.
It seemed to be accurate on Saturday, at least for Vienna, which was buffeted by gale-force winds gusting to 50 mph. The system churned out a yellow high-wind warning for the area and provided details in German and English.
By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer
The initiative, managed by Austria's Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, is designed to give Europeans a single source for details on flash floods, severe thunderstorms, gale-force winds, heat waves, blizzards and other violent weather that poses a threat to life or property.
It also issues 24- and 48-hour warnings for heavy fog, extreme cold, forest fires and "coastal events" such as high waves or severe tides.
"In one glance you will be able to see where in Europe the weather might become dangerous," organizers said Saturday in a statement.
The service is similar to the United States' National Weather Service, which posts on its Web site conditions, warnings and forecasts for all 50 states.
Although the European site officially will launch in Madrid, Spain, on March 23 — World Meteorological Day — it is already live on the Web in test form.
Under the new pan-European warning system, white means missing or insufficient data; green means no imminent threat; yellow signifies potentially dangerous weather; orange warns of dangerous conditions; and red means very dangerous, "exceptionally intense" weather.
Pictograms and photographs showing lightning bolts, churning floodwaters and other catastrophic scenes also pop up "to make the general public more conscious or aware" of a particular threat, the organizers said.
Users click on maps to get details on current conditions or forecasts of violent weather for the next day. There are also links to a country's national weather service.
The Network of European Meteorological Services includes 20 countries and covers land stretching from Portugal to Sweden. Not every nation in the region is contributing, but the site hopes to bring others online eventually.
The Web site "pulls together all the warnings from the official national weather services," said Michael Staudinger of the Vienna weather institute.
It seemed to be accurate on Saturday, at least for Vienna, which was buffeted by gale-force winds gusting to 50 mph. The system churned out a yellow high-wind warning for the area and provided details in German and English.
By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Scientists study Earth's missing crust
SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Canary Islands - British scientists have embarked on a mission to study a huge area on the Atlantic seabed where the Earth's crust is mysteriously missing and instead is covered with dark green rock from deep inside the planet.
The 12-member expedition to take an unprecedented peek at Earth's mantle left the Canary Islands on Monday with a new high-tech vessel and a robotic device named Toby that will dig up rock samples at the site and film what it sees.
The main site — there is at least one other in roughly the same area and a third is suspected — is about three miles below the surface of the Atlantic and located about 2,000 nautical miles southwest of the Canaries.
It is part of a globe-spanning ridge of undersea volcanos, the kind of structure that forms when Atlantic tectonic plates separate and lava surges upward to fill the gap in the Earth's crust.
But that apparently did not happen this time. Where there should be a four-mile-thick layer of crust, there is instead that much mantle — the very dense, dark green rock that makes up the deep inner layer of the Earth.
Scientists have seen chunks of mantle that have been spewed up with lava, but never such a large, exposed stretch.
"It is like a window into the interior of the Earth," Bramley Murton, a geophysicist who is taking part in the six-week mission, said Tuesday from the research ship RRS James Cook as it headed to the site, still five days away.
This exposed layer is irregularly shaped, about 30 miles long and perhaps that distance or more at its widest. It was detected about five years ago with sonar from a surface vessel.
There are two main theories as to what happened, Murton said: A fault ripped away huge chunks of crust, or in an area of crust-forming volcanoes, this area was mysteriously devoid of that outer material, Murton said.
Roger Searle of Durham University, one of the lead researchers, said the study aims to provide insight on everything from the chemistry of oceans to the mechanisms of how the Earth behaves under so much water.
The robotic device will land on the exposed mantle, deploy a drill, and dig into the rock to bring back samples.
The project is being financed by Britain's National Environment Research Council and the Department of trade and Industry's Large Scientific Facilities Fund.
By JUAN MANUEL PARDELLAS, Associated Press Writer
The 12-member expedition to take an unprecedented peek at Earth's mantle left the Canary Islands on Monday with a new high-tech vessel and a robotic device named Toby that will dig up rock samples at the site and film what it sees.
The main site — there is at least one other in roughly the same area and a third is suspected — is about three miles below the surface of the Atlantic and located about 2,000 nautical miles southwest of the Canaries.
It is part of a globe-spanning ridge of undersea volcanos, the kind of structure that forms when Atlantic tectonic plates separate and lava surges upward to fill the gap in the Earth's crust.
But that apparently did not happen this time. Where there should be a four-mile-thick layer of crust, there is instead that much mantle — the very dense, dark green rock that makes up the deep inner layer of the Earth.
Scientists have seen chunks of mantle that have been spewed up with lava, but never such a large, exposed stretch.
"It is like a window into the interior of the Earth," Bramley Murton, a geophysicist who is taking part in the six-week mission, said Tuesday from the research ship RRS James Cook as it headed to the site, still five days away.
This exposed layer is irregularly shaped, about 30 miles long and perhaps that distance or more at its widest. It was detected about five years ago with sonar from a surface vessel.
There are two main theories as to what happened, Murton said: A fault ripped away huge chunks of crust, or in an area of crust-forming volcanoes, this area was mysteriously devoid of that outer material, Murton said.
Roger Searle of Durham University, one of the lead researchers, said the study aims to provide insight on everything from the chemistry of oceans to the mechanisms of how the Earth behaves under so much water.
The robotic device will land on the exposed mantle, deploy a drill, and dig into the rock to bring back samples.
The project is being financed by Britain's National Environment Research Council and the Department of trade and Industry's Large Scientific Facilities Fund.
By JUAN MANUEL PARDELLAS, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, March 04, 2007
World watches 1st total lunar eclipse in 3 years
LONDON - The moon darkened, reddened, and turned shades of gray and orange Saturday night during the first total lunar eclipse in nearly three years, thrilling stargazers and astronomers around the world.
The Earth’s shadow took over six hours to crawl across the moon’s surface, eating it into a crescent shape before engulfing it completely in a spectacle at least partly visible on every continent.
About a dozen amateur astronomers braved the cold and mud outside the Croydon Observatory in southeast London to watch the start of the eclipse.
“It’s starting to go!” said Alex Gikas, 8, a Cub Scout who was studying for his astronomy badge. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. I’m really excited.”
By the time greatest eclipse, shortly after 5:44 p.m. EST, the light of the full moon was replaced by near-total obscurity.
“It was really very dark,” said Paul Harper, Chairman of the Croydon Astronomical Society, who estimated that moon had lost over four-fifths of its luminosity. “It was quite a nice one.”
Lunar eclipses occur when Earth passes between the sun and the moon, an uncommon event because the moon spends most of its time either above or below the plane of Earth’s orbit.
Sunlight still reaches the moon during total eclipses, but it is refracted through Earth’s atmosphere, bathing the moon in an eerie crimson light.
Mike Ealay, a 60-year-old architect who wandered over to the observatory to watch the eclipse, said the red color of the moon made it look like a close-up version of Mars.
“I think it’s quite exciting. It’s like having the red planet on your doorstep,” he said.
Despite cloudy conditions over much of Europe, a variety of Webcasts carried the event live, and astronomers urged the public not to miss out on the spectacle.
“It’s not an event that has any scientific value, but it’s something everybody can enjoy,” said Robert Massey, of Britain’s Royal Astronomical Society.
The moon’s red blush faded as it began moving out of Earth’s shadow just after 8 p.m. EST. The eclipse ended a little more than hour later.
Residents of east Asia saw the eclipse cut short by moonset, while those in the eastern parts of North and South America had the moon already partially or totally eclipsed by the time it rose over the horizon in the evening.
While eastern Australia, Alaska and New Zealand missed Saturday’s show, they will have front row seats to the next total lunar eclipse, on Aug. 28.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The Earth’s shadow took over six hours to crawl across the moon’s surface, eating it into a crescent shape before engulfing it completely in a spectacle at least partly visible on every continent.
About a dozen amateur astronomers braved the cold and mud outside the Croydon Observatory in southeast London to watch the start of the eclipse.
“It’s starting to go!” said Alex Gikas, 8, a Cub Scout who was studying for his astronomy badge. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. I’m really excited.”
By the time greatest eclipse, shortly after 5:44 p.m. EST, the light of the full moon was replaced by near-total obscurity.
“It was really very dark,” said Paul Harper, Chairman of the Croydon Astronomical Society, who estimated that moon had lost over four-fifths of its luminosity. “It was quite a nice one.”
Lunar eclipses occur when Earth passes between the sun and the moon, an uncommon event because the moon spends most of its time either above or below the plane of Earth’s orbit.
Sunlight still reaches the moon during total eclipses, but it is refracted through Earth’s atmosphere, bathing the moon in an eerie crimson light.
Mike Ealay, a 60-year-old architect who wandered over to the observatory to watch the eclipse, said the red color of the moon made it look like a close-up version of Mars.
“I think it’s quite exciting. It’s like having the red planet on your doorstep,” he said.
Despite cloudy conditions over much of Europe, a variety of Webcasts carried the event live, and astronomers urged the public not to miss out on the spectacle.
“It’s not an event that has any scientific value, but it’s something everybody can enjoy,” said Robert Massey, of Britain’s Royal Astronomical Society.
The moon’s red blush faded as it began moving out of Earth’s shadow just after 8 p.m. EST. The eclipse ended a little more than hour later.
Residents of east Asia saw the eclipse cut short by moonset, while those in the eastern parts of North and South America had the moon already partially or totally eclipsed by the time it rose over the horizon in the evening.
While eastern Australia, Alaska and New Zealand missed Saturday’s show, they will have front row seats to the next total lunar eclipse, on Aug. 28.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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