new dwarf planet is discovered in our solar system

Well, just as with "forgotten history", when we presented old astronomer reports and theories about Planet X (for "10" before Pluto got demoted from #9) it was all "We KNOW everything. You are being stupid" Now these people are finding they look pretty dumb.

Pluto gets a buddy: A new dwarf planet is discovered in our solar system

•  Author: Sarah Kaplan, The Washington Post
 
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  • • http://www.adn.com/nation-world/2016/10/11/pluto-gets-a-buddy-a-new-dwarf-planet-is-discovered-in-our-solar-system/

An exaggerated color photo shows the varied terrain of Pluto, the most well-known dwarf planet. (NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI)

Out beyond Neptune, past Pluto, through the chaos of the Kuiper belt to a point some 8.5 billion miles from the sun, a new dwarf planet has just joined our solar system.

The Iowa-sized object, which is about half as big as Pluto and twice as distant, was described Tuesday in the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Electronic Circulator. It joins a growing list of dwarf planets known to populate the solar system: Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, Eris and – most famous of all – Pluto. It's suspected there could be at least 100 more.

The "trans-Neptunian object," known for now as 2014 UZ224, was discovered by University of 

Gerdes is part of an international team of scientists working on the Dark Energy Survey – an effort to map the universe and elucidate some of its mysteries, particularly, why the expansion of the universe is accelerating. To do a dark energy survey, you need a dark energy camera, so the DES built a wide-angle camera in Cerro Tololo, Chile, that's capable of snapping images of the whole sky.

A few years ago, Gerdes told NPR, some undergrads were visiting Cerro Tololo, and he wanted to give them a challenge. He handed them one of the camera's maps of the entire galaxy and asked whether they could pinpoint which objects were in our own solar system.

The secret was to identify the ones that moved. Viewed against the vast backdrop of the Milky Way, close-by planets and other bodies appear to move more quickly in relation to everything else. Gerdes figured that the students would trace the objects across the night sky and identify the orbits of some known objects in our solar system.

Instead, the students came to Gerdes with something astronomers hadn't seen before.

It took two years of careful tracking to confirm the discovery and map out 2014 UZ224's orbit. Its exact path is still unclear, because the planet takes more than 1,000 years to complete a single loop of the sun. But it's believed that 2014 UZ224 is the third most-distant object in the solar system.

Gerdes told NPR that it's possible some astronomers might dispute 2014 UZ224's dwarf planet designation. The distant body is pretty small, even for a dwarf planet.

But the term applies for now. Meanwhile, he and his colleagues are on to (literally) bigger things: looking for the mysterious Planet Nine, whose existence was speculated about in the Astronomical Journal earlier this year.

"The hunt is on," he said.

Video Replay: Stunning "loops of fire" on Sun - Incredible Time Lapse Vi...

Ancient Greeks In China 1,500 Years Before Marco Polo

Roman coins in Japan, Chinese remains from Roman Britain, Roman carved head in Mexico...all part of what we've been calling "lost history" for decades.  

http://terryhooper.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/chinese-in-roman-britain-ancient-roman_27.html

But we were dopes. Fantasists -or worse. Now whose laughing?  Greeks in China....

Ancient Greeks may have built China's famous Terracotta Army – 1,500 years before Marco Polo

'We have discovered something more important even than the Terracotta Army,' says Chinese archaeologist

• Ian Johnston Science Correspondent 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/china-terracotta-army-ancient-greek-sculptors-alexander-the-great-marco-polo-a7357606.html

The Terracotta Army discovered in 1974 near Xi’an Getty Images

Ancient Greeks artists could have travelled to China 1,500 years before Marco Polo’s historic trip to the east and helped design the famous Terracotta Army, according to new research.

The startling claim is based on two key pieces of evidence: European DNA discovered at sites in China’s Xinjiang province from the time of the First Emperor in the Third Century BC and the sudden appearance of life-sized statues.

Before this time, depictions of humans in China are thought to have been figurines of up to about 20cm.

But 8,000 extraordinarily life-like terracotta figures were found buried close to the massive tomb of China’s First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who unified the country in 221BC.

The First Emperor's Terracotta Army recruited outside China

The theory – outlined in a documentary, The Greatest Tomb on Earth: Secrets of Ancient China, to be shown on BBC Two on Sunday – is that Shi Huang and Chinese artists may have been influenced by the arrival of Greek statues in central Asia in the century following Alexander the Great, who led an army into India.

But the researchers also speculated that Greek artists could have been present when the soldiers of the Terracotta Army were made.

One of the team, Professor Lukas Nickel, chair of Asian art history at Vienna University, said: “I imagine that a Greek sculptor may have been at the site to train the locals.”

Other evidence of connections to Greece came from a number of exquisite bronze figurines of birds excavated from the tomb site. These were made with a lost wax technique known in Ancient Greece and Egypt.

There was a breakthrough in sculpture particularly in ancient Athens at about the time when the city became a democracy in the 5th century BC.

Previously, human figures have been stiff and stylised representations, but the figures carved on the Parthenon temple were so life-like it appeared the artists had turned stone into flesh.

Their work has rarely been bettered – the techniques used were largely forgotten until they were revived in the Renaissance when artists carved statues in the Ancient Greek style, most notably Michelangelo’s David.

Dr Li Xiuzhen, senior archaeologist at the tomb’s museum, agreed that it appeared Ancient Greece had influenced events in China more than 7,000km.

“We now have evidence that close contact existed between the First Emperor’s China and the West before the formal opening of the Silk Road,” the expert said.

“This is far earlier than we formerly thought.

“We now think the Terracotta Army, the acrobats and the bronze sculptures found on site have been inspired by ancient Greek sculptures and art.”

And Professor Zhang Weixing, lead archaeologist at the tomb site, said: “The archaeological work undertaken here recently is more important than anything in the last 40 years.

“By systematically examining the First Emperor’s main tomb and subsidiary burials we have discovered something more important even than the Terracotta Army.”

The mitochondrial DNA samples revealed Europeans had settled down in China and died there during the time of the First Emperor and even before then.

Hamish Mykura, of the National Geographic Channel, which made the documentary with the BBC, said: “The scope of these archaeological finds and what they mean for world history are astonishing.

“The new revelation that two of the world’s ancient super powers may have been in contact is a vital reminder today of the need for intercultural communication on a global scale.”

And BBC presenter Dan Snow said: “I hope audiences will find the new evidence as astonishing and thought-provoking as I did.

“It is extraordinary to think that history as we know it is changeable.”

Brian Cox -ALL Alien Life Is Dead....but his ego survives!

Desperate for more publicity because he stamps his foot but never gets enough, he has now made the most ridiculous and unscientific statement I've heard -particularly from him.

We are finding that water as well as other things life requires to exist are NOT as rare as we thought. The number of habitable zone planets detected has increased fantastically. 

But, oh no, Cox KNOWS far more than scientists and astronomers who have spent decades longer than he (and he is NOT involved in SETI or CETI but a Physicist which mainly involves theorizing on what others have done) -in some cases 5 or 6 decades.

He is a stroppy, not very likable personality who spends more time making TV and radio programmes and promoting self than actually rolling up his sleeves and doing real work. 

I once thought he had promise but...we all make mistakes.

Why are we not getting to contact "lots" of alien civilizations? Deep breath.

There has never, since Humankind evolved, been a period during which there was no war. Up to this point in time Humankind has killed BILLIONS of its own race because of greed, religion or because "it was fun". Add to that the countless billions of other forms of life -animal and plant, the way the Earth has been poisoned and ripped up -again for profit and greed. It has never stopped. It never will because after many millenia...it's on a roll. Humanity brings species it has been killing for no reason back from the edge of extinction just to hunt and kill again.

Watching and listening to our broadcasts, communications and even distant monitoring, any alien civilization would, at best, Quarantine Earth. You do not want Humanity spreading out further than this solar system.

For a script I once had to do one of those Star Trek "Humanity has so much promise and good" type speeches. In the Star Trek universe humanity is still fighting. Pointless speech. The one I wrote was: "Earth is a lovely planet. Exterminate Humanity but leave everything else."

This is why I keep stating that we need to look at every alleged UFO landing because somewhere (away from all the "Greys" fantasy) there may be one or two genuine accounts and that is hands-on Search for Extra Terrestrial life.

One day, a newspaper headline will read: "Mr Brian Cox Farts". It'll be far more honest.

Brian Cox SHOCK CLAIM: We haven’t met aliens because they’re DEAD – and humans are NEXT

BRIAN Cox has claimed aliens have not made contact with us because the most advanced civilisations kill themselves off – and we will too.

By SEAN MARTIN

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/719863/Brian-Cox-aliens-DEAD-wonders-of-the-universe

The star of TV’s Wonders of the Universe believes eventually every civilisation kills themselves off, which is why no beings are yet to make a dominant impact on the universe.

Professor Cox was basing his argument around the Fermi Paradox which questions why humans are yet to make contact with aliens.

In 1950, physicist Enrico Fermi – the creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor – came up with a paradox which says due to the age and size of the universe there is bound to be a civilisation much more advanced than ours, but why haven’t they contacted us? 

The solution, many scientists argue, is once a civilisation reaches a certain size, it eventually kills itself off, either through war with advanced weapons or natural disaster.

GETTY

Brian Cox says that aliens have killed themselves off

Mr Cox elaborated on this theory, claiming that it is the reason why we have not seen any strong evidence for extra-terrestrials.

He told the Sunday Times: “One solution to the Fermi paradox is that it is not possible to run a world that has the power to destroy itself and that needs global collaborative solutions to prevent that.

“It may be that the growth of science and engineering inevitably outstrips the development of political expertise, leading to disaster.”

The former keyboard player for the 90’s band D:Ream then warned: "We could be approaching that position.”

However, other scientists disagree with the Fermi Paradox and believe that Earth was the first planet in the entire universe to host complex life, according to a recent study.

GETTY

Are we alone in the universe?

The universe has been around for roughly 13.8 billion years and modern-day humans have existed for 200,000 years – just 0.00145 per cent of all time.

While this may lead some to the conclusion we were late to the party, a group of esteemed researchers claim we could actually be well ahead of the curve and that advanced civilisations may not emerge for another trillion years.

Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and lead author, said: “If you ask, ‘When is life most likely to emerge?’ you might naively say, ‘Now’.

ARE ALIENS REAL OR ARE WE ALONE IN OUR UNIVERSE?

“But we find that the chance of life  grows much higher in the distant future.”

The research says that any form of life became possible around 30 million years after the Big Bang, and scientists predict existence will continue to thrive for another 10 trillion years until all the stars in the Universe have extinguished.