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Wednesday, July 26, 2017

THE UNIVERSE - International Research Team Sheds Light on the Earth’s ‘Twin Planet’

International Research Team Sheds Light on the Earth’s ‘Twin Planet’:

Examples of new types of cloud morphology discovered on the night side of Venus thanks to Venus Express (ESA) and the infrared telescope IRTF (NASA): stationary waves (Venus Express, up-left corner), “net” patterns (IRTF, up-right), mysterious filaments (Venus Express, down-left) and dynamical instabilities (Venus Express, down-right). CREDITS: ESA, NASA, J. Peralta (JAXA) and R. Hueso (UPV/EHU).

A research paper published by Nature Astronomy sheds light on the so far unexplored nightside circulation at the upper cloud level of Venus. Researchers from the Rhenish Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Cologne are part of an international research project which has now presented its preliminary findings. They discovered unexpected patterns of slow motion and abundant stationary waves in Venus’s nighttime sky.

Venus is often referred to as Earth's twin because both planets share a similar size and surface composition. Also, they both have atmospheres with complex weather systems. But that is about where the similarities end: Venus is one the most hostile places in our solar system. Its atmosphere consists of 96.5 percent carbon dioxide, with surface temperatures of constantly about 500 degrees Celsius. Venus is a slowly rotating planet – it needs about 243 terrestrial days to complete one rotation. We would expect its atmosphere to rotate with the same rhythm, but in fact it takes only four days. This phenomenon is called superrotation, and it causes substantial turbulences in the planet’s atmosphere. The scientists do not yet fully understand its origin and motor, but are working on an answer to this puzzle. The many waves in the planet's atmosphere may play an important role.

The preliminary research results were generated by an international collaboration headed by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Experts in space and astronautical science and astrophysics from universities and institutions in Japan, Spain, Italy, and Germany are cooperating in the project. From Germany, the Rhenish Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Cologne and the Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Technical University of Berlin are involved.

The research team analysed data generated by the spacecraft Venus Express to investigate components of Venus’s complex atmosphere, including thermal measurements with regard to horizontal and vertical wave patterns. The data also included first global measurements from the tracking of individual features in thermal emission images at 3.8 and 5.0 µm (micrometer) during 2006–2008 and 2015.

Vertical information in unison with horizontal data help to understand the nature of the observed wave patterns. The vertical information from the VeRa instrument (an atmosphere experiment in Venus Express emits radio waves which the scientists then interpret) could help to identify the observed waves as buoyancy waves. This, in turn, is crucial for the analysis of atmospheric processes.

Dr. Silvia Tellmann is Vice-Director of the Department of Planetary Research at the Rhenish Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Cologne. She is an expert on the structure, dynamics, and circulation of planetary atmospheres and a co-author of the study. ‘We were able to relate the stationary gravity waves found at higher altitudes with the surface elevations of Venus’, she says. ‘Hence, the waves can be explained with wind currents caused by topographical obstacles. We assume that these stationary waves are substantial for the continuity of the superrotation in the atmosphere of Venus.’

Credit: uni-koeln.de

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.

UFO SIGHTINGS PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as "An unidentified flying object; a 'flying saucer'." The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe. The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short." Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include "flying flapjack", "flying disc", "unexplained flying discs", "unidentifiable object", and "flying saucer". The phrase "flying saucer" had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he described the objects' shape as being somewhat disc-like or saucer-like, leading to newspaper accounts of "flying saucers" and "flying discs". In popular usage the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft. and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some investigators prefer to use such terms as unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP) or anomalous phenomena, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).

UFO PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

UFO - Unidentified Flying Object An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extraterrestrial life or government-related conspiracy theories, and have become popular subjects in fiction. While UFOs are often later identified, sometimes identification may not be possible owing to the usually low quality of evidence related to UFO sightings (generally anecdotal evidence and eyewitness accounts). Stories of fantastical celestial apparitions have been told since antiquity, but the term "UFO" (or "UFOB") was officially created in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a "UFOB" was "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and/or "technical aspects" (see Air Force Regulation 200-2). During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as "flying saucers" or "flying discs". The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).