NOTE: This article has taken over 8 hours to write and then re-edit several times thanks to Blogger tech problems. Everything should now be in order. I hope.
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Here is one article from Room.eu.com on the event by Kerry Hebden
Its official! Voyager 2 has passed into interstellar space There is no doubt now - evidence presented last year that the Voyager 2 spacecraft had joined its twin in interstellar space, has been confirmed as the first data from the probe as it crossed the barrier is released to the wider astronomical community.
Voyager 2, which launched slightly ahead of Voyager 1 in 1977, observed a sharp decrease in the intensity of low-energy ions and a simultaneous increase in the intensity of cosmic rays, indicating that the craft made the crossing from the outer edge of the heliosphere, called the heliopause into the cold, dense very local interstellar medium (VLISM) on 5 November 2018, at a distance of 119 times the Earth–Sun distance; a measurement referred to as an Astronomical Unit, or au for short.
Its companion, V1, the only other human-made spacecraft to have ventured as far, passed over into interstellar space six years earlier in 2012 at a distance of 121.6 au (18.3 × 109 km).
Voyager 2’s encounter with the boundary has long been anticipated by eager scientists keen to get their hands on data transmitted back by the probe, as although Voyager 1 did send some data back, somewhere en route in 1980 the probe’s plasma instrument was damaged which meant that it couldn’t gather complete data on this breakthrough moment.
Voyager 2, with all of its functionality still intact has been more successful in this regard and has rewarded researchers with a slew of much anticipated information.
So for the past year scientists have been wading through the data comparing and contrasting how the two probes experienced the passing into the relatively unknown; the results of which have been reported in several papers published in Nature Astronomy this week.
First up is the perhaps surprising news that Voyager 2 took just one day to pass through the heliopause states John Richardson at the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research and Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and colleagues in one of the studies.
Not only that says Richardson, but the interstellar medium closest to the boundary is more variable and hotter than expected. Their paper, which presents the first measurements of plasma at and near the heliopause and in the VLISM, shows that the temperature in this region is 30,000–50,000 K, whereas models and observations predicted a VLISM temperature of 15,000–30,000 K.
This higher temperature suggests either more compression of the plasma than predicted or heating by reconnection says Richardson and co-authors.
Before Voyager 1 made the crossing to the other side, the data it sent back gave researchers at the time cause to think that the probe got caught up in two interstellar flux tubes; a kind of magnetic portal known as an interstellar flux transfer event.
This occurs when the magnetic fields from two different objects briefly become connected through a tube-like magnetic structure. A similar process regularly occurs between the Earth and Sun’s magnetic field, so it would be no surprise to find the same thing happening between the Sun’s (magnetic) field and the interstellar field.
Unlike Voyager 1 however, Voyager 2 did not come across this phenomena, reports Edward Stone at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena and co-authors. This was partly due to declining solar activity and the different paths that the two craft took to break through the barrier.
But Voyager 2 did experience a whole raft of other magnetic experiences from discovering a ‘magnetic barrier’ in the heliosheath adjacent to the heliopause as well as a stronger interstellar magnetic field directly beyond it.
“These observations, together with the Voyager 1 observations and existing models, show that the magnetic barrier, the heliopause and the neighbouring very local interstellar medium form a complex interconnected dynamical system,” writes Leonard Bulgara at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and colleagues in another paper submitted to Nature.
These detailed differences are yet to be explained, and may be partially due to temporal changes related to the Sun’s dynamic solar cycle.
It is not just the immediate surroundings which are of interest to scientists, but also what shape the heliopause is too. It is generally expected that the heliopause will be comet-shaped, and could therefore extend for several thousand au in the downwind direction.
If it isn’t and if the interstellar plasma is magnetically dominated, the resulting heliopause should instead be spherical.
Both Voyager spacecraft crossed the heliopause near the nose region (that is, in the approximate direction of interstellar inflow), so there are no direct observations of the downwind tail region.
Consequently, Stamatios M. Krimigis at the Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University and colleagues used another method to try and ascertain the heliopause’s shape.
Using data collected from the Low-Energy Charged Particle (LECP) instrument on Voyager 2, which is nearly identical to that flown on Voyager 1, the team say that observations close to the heliopause show relatively large magnetic field magnitudes. As such these could be sufficiently large to form a spherical and bubble-shaped heliosphere.
More direct observations from the Voyager spacecraft are needed to ascertain the shape and as both Voyagers move further into interstellar space and send back new and unique data this could help settle the debate as to whether Earth is contained in a bubble or not.
Unfortunately, it is going to be at least another 25 years, if not more, before another craft will cross this boundary again and although Voyager 1 has been edging into interstellar space at rate of ~3 au yr–1, neither can continue indefinitely as they will eventually run out of power.
It is unclear when or if a follow-up mission will again reach the distances the Voyager craft have achieved, but plans for an interstellar probe are being looked at by the COSPAR (Committee on Space Research) Panel on Interstellar Research.
You might note a "slight" difference between the science based articles and the popular press and fringe reporting. What the "populars" told us was that our solar system was surrounded by a super-heated firewall -then questions started such as "How could the Voyagers survive the heat encountered?" from there the conspiracy theories started.
Take a look at this tabloid image for the fire wall!
There was talk that the "Firewall is fake -made up by NASA so that it could say aliens can't get here" and if, as I did, you point out the facts then you will be called all sorts of names including "UFO sceptic" -I had written nothing about UFOs!
You cannot ignore the fact that any craft travelling in space will face severe problems from cosmic storms to micro-meteors. I always wondered about space craft travelling faster than light -though this is taken to be impossible so let's say travelling almost at the speed of light. Now the speed of light -"to three significant digits- is :
| kilometres per hour | 1080000000 |
|---|---|
| miles per second | 186000 |
| miles per hour[1] | 671000000 |
| astronomical units per day | 173 |
| parsecs per year | 0.307 |
Now my question is and always has been this: you travel at that speed I can't imagine how you would turn "suddenly". So how do you avoid oncoming asteroids, comets, meteorites, etc? These are not things that you can take into account on a straight line journey from A to B and could even onboard computers help avoid collisions?
Of course, this we can only look at base on our own knowledge since. officially, no human has ever encountered alien life forms before and, therefore, no one has studied alien technological capabilities. One assumes -I know how assumptions can back-fire- that any extraterrestrial, space faring race(s) knows about heliospheres and so on. Which means they should have craft capable of being with anything coming their way while in interstellar space.
I have watched one "theoretical astrophysicist" after another and one astronomer after another stating that "Any alien civilisation a million years older than our own" -does it have to be a million years older? Well others state "hundreds of thousands of year older than our own" to be less excessive. Even some in the debunker groups state that there are "so many stars" that Earth cannot be the only inhabited (by intelligent beings) out there" and that if we were alone that would be "incredibly sad and incredibly mind-blowing".
You cannot put an exact figure out there so we all have to go by estimations and most of those are conservative.
How many galaxies in the known universe?
According to www.physics.org the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. They've counted the galaxies in a particular region, and multiplied this up to estimate the number for the whole universe.
How many stars are there?
Well in March, 2019 it was stated that there are billions in the universe but it is impossible to know how many stars exist, but astronomers estimate that in our Milky Way galaxy alone there are an estimated 300 billion. According to Space.com https://www.space.com/26078-how-many-stars-are-there.html
"In October 2016, an article in Science (based on deep-field images from the Hubble Space Telescope) suggested that there are about 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, or about 10 times more galaxies than previously suggested. In an email with Live Science, lead author Christopher Conselice, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, said there were about 100 million stars in the average galaxy. "
Which makes you ask just how many exo planets have we found in other systems? This list of potentially habitable exoplanets and possible exoplanets is based on estimates of habitability by the Habitable Exoplanets Catalog (HEC), as well as data from the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The HEC is maintained by the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo.
In November 2013, astronomers reported, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarfs in the Milky Way, 11 billion of which may be orbiting Sun-like stars.
Which was confirmed again in an article posted by Forbes in which we are told
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billretherford/2017/12/31/billions-of-exoplanets-count-on-it-say-space-scientists/#b5a35434146a
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billretherford/2017/12/31/billions-of-exoplanets-count-on-it-say-space-scientists/#b5a35434146a
As of New Year’s Day 2018, NASA has confirmed the existence of 3,572 exoplanets, with 5,078 more awaiting final verification. But scientists say they've barely begun. And the number of exoworlds they estimate is astounding
"There are hundreds of billions of planets in the Milky Way galaxy," says Jean-Luc Margot, professor and chair of UCLA’s Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences department.
To put that in perspective: imagine counting them all, at the rate of one per second. That task, says Margot, would take "about 3,000 years" to finish.
Most astronomers now say the vast majority of stars have at least a few planets around them.
But what sort of advanced civilisations are out there is all theoretical which is why the Kardashev Scale is used as it is a (theoretical) method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy they are able to use. The measure was proposed by in 1964. The scale has three designated categories and be prepared for a shock:
Type I civilization, which is also called a planetary civilization—can use and store all of the energy available on its planet.
Type II civilization, also called a stellar civilization, can use and control energy at the scale of its stellar system
Type III civilization, also called a galactic civilization, can control energy at the scale of its entire host galaxy
There were additions to this list but these were not by Kardashev though this does not mean that they are any less notable. Science and theories advance and today the once laughable multiverse theory is far more seriously considered.
Type IV civilization, also called a universal civilization, can harness the energy of the observable universe.
Type V civilization, also called a multi-universal civilization,has knowledge of the multiverse.
Here is your shock: humanity is not even close to a Type I civilisation and Physicist and futurist Michio Kaku (Kaku, Michio (2010). "The Physics of Interstellar Travel: To one day, reach the stars") suggested that humans may attain Type I status in 100–200 years, Type II status in a few thousand years, and Type III status in 100,000 to a million years. Guess this is where that "million years ahead of us" quote comes from.
So we can -I'll write it again- assume that any space faring civilisation knows of the risk involved in interstellar travel. We also assume that if they are far more advanced than humans they will know of other civilisations and, if not just for cultural exchanges, then there must be some form of interstellar trade
Why would they bother with a Type 0 civilisation? Everything is theoretical but if a race were a million years more advanced than us then we assume it is well beyond the self destructive phase we are in. If they are not warring it might be that they -I'll stick to that general term- are out to gain knowledge and enrich or broaden their civilisation. If a craft from such a civilisation was just passing by and detected all the "noise" from Earth or detected our satellites since we have, following the launch of the first satellite Sputnik in 1957, sent up around 8,378 -currently there are (known) 4, 994 satellites orbiting Earth. They decide to drop by and take a look and there is not really much here that we assume they are interested in when it comes to materials. However, anthropological studies...
If you have ever seen a true-in-blood-and-bone born archaeologist find some flint at some dig and how they can talk for hours (literally) on what it means you will probably also hear "I'd love to be able to go back and watch the napper (flint tool maker) or pot maker at work!" To be honest most archaeological finds are interesting but, personally, I'd want to know more about the people involved and to see how they went about daily life. We are talking 5-7 thousand years ago. To members of a Type I civilisation such tools and life (if they developed along similar lines to us) it would be millions of years in their past -here are live and kicking primitives. Alien historians and anthropologists might have a fit over the possibility of long term study. Or, they might well shrug and simply say "Why are all the civilisations this bad?"
I do not fall into being a believer in the whole Grey abduction phenomenon as I have explained fully in my books. However, one off encounters tend to be a different matter: these I have also gone into in detail in my books. I really cannot go into those cases here and the books are fully referenced and I suggest anyone with a serious interest read them. But even in these one off encounters -some witnessed by unconnected observers (more of those cases out there than you might think)- there are certain elements such as medical examination of a percipient but these are partially recalled events and the much mentioned amnesia of percipients seems to almost be an attempt to prevent trauma and some are told "it is best if you do not remember".
Alien anthropologists at work?
But this brings us to another very important aspect: biological contamination. I clearly recall the odd suits the returning Apollo lunar landing crews wore as they went into isolation on their return to Earth. The fear was that they might bring some form of space disease back. We were lucky -no Andromeda Strain!
Is our atmosphere alien friendly? What about all the airborne microbes and dust?
Well, if we look at UFOB (ie a seemingly constructed craft) cases we find that there are a number in which some sort of "force field" surrounds a landed object and this prevents a witness approaching. There are accounts of entities firing beams ahead of a witness approaching their landed craft. The beam does no harm but seems quite clearly a "keep back" warning. On occasion a person continuing top approach an object sees the entities quickly re-enter the craft and take off. There are also a number of cases in which entities clearly give hand signals to keep back.
In some "abduction" cases there appears to be some type of decontamination procedure that takes place before percipients enter a craft or on entering it -and on leaving. Memories being wiped means a lot of this is vaguely reported.
We also have reports of entities seen by UFOBs and they are wearing some form of protective suit.
If you have ever read -or watched a TV/movie version- of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds you will know that the military powers of Earth did not defeat the Martian invaders -Earth germs did. There was once, where the Amazon rainforest is today, many cities, towns and large population areas -some have been found via aerial photography and satellite photos. It has been estimated that during the initial Spanish conquest of the Americas that up to eight million indigenous people died, primarily through the spread of Afro-Eurasian diseases such as smallpox and influenza.
According to the 2015 paper Mortality from contact-related epidemics among indigenous populations in Greater Amazonia by Walker, Sattenspiel and Hill :
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4564847/
"European expansion and contact with indigenous populations led to catastrophic depopulation primarily through the introduction of novel infectious diseases to which native peoples had limited exposure and immunity. In the Amazon Basin such contacts continue to occur with more than 50 isolated indigenous societies likely to make further contacts with the outside world in the near future.
"Ethnohistorical accounts are useful for quantifying trends in the severity and frequency of epidemics through time and may provide insight into the likely demographic consequences of future contacts. Here we compile information for 117 epidemics that affected 59 different indigenous societies in Greater Amazonia and caused over 11,000 deaths between 1875 and 2008, mostly (75%) from measles, influenza, and malaria. Results show that mortality rates from epidemics decline exponentially through time and, independently, with time since peaceful contact. The frequency of documented epidemics also decreases with time since contact. While previous work on virgin soil epidemics generally emphasizes the calamity of contacts, we focus instead on improvements through time.
"The prospects for better survivorship during future contacts are good provided modern health care procedures are implemented immediately."
It needs to be noted that Europeans contracted diseases they had no immunity to so it can be a two-edged sword and for the Amazonian populace it was devastating.
The possibility of an alien disease being spread around the world resulting in the near extinction of humans is something people point to as having not happened. Therefore "aliens were never here!" If we look at the suggested decontamination procedures as well as entities wearing environmental protection suits then it appears if they are here then they are being very careful.
The suggestion that some cases involved encounters with robots (a few on record) or even advanced androids of some kind has been put forward. As has the suggestion of "biologically neutral" clones but this is just pure speculation since for them this might just be normal. Again: no one has ever officially encountered an alien entity so it is all speculation and the shame is really on astronomers and other scientists for not investigating high quality UFOB reports.
It could be that they have completely different immune systems or are not affected by disease. There is the probability -speculation again- that a quick probe of our atmosphere or scan of medical data bases reveals exactly what our environment has to offer and some form of chemical or other immunity inoculation sorts things out for them -if they are hundreds of thousands or a million years in advance of us that should not be a problem.
So we can -I'll write it again- assume that any space faring civilisation knows of the risk involved in interstellar travel. We also assume that if they are far more advanced than humans they will know of other civilisations and, if not just for cultural exchanges, then there must be some form of interstellar trade
Why would they bother with a Type 0 civilisation? Everything is theoretical but if a race were a million years more advanced than us then we assume it is well beyond the self destructive phase we are in. If they are not warring it might be that they -I'll stick to that general term- are out to gain knowledge and enrich or broaden their civilisation. If a craft from such a civilisation was just passing by and detected all the "noise" from Earth or detected our satellites since we have, following the launch of the first satellite Sputnik in 1957, sent up around 8,378 -currently there are (known) 4, 994 satellites orbiting Earth. They decide to drop by and take a look and there is not really much here that we assume they are interested in when it comes to materials. However, anthropological studies...
If you have ever seen a true-in-blood-and-bone born archaeologist find some flint at some dig and how they can talk for hours (literally) on what it means you will probably also hear "I'd love to be able to go back and watch the napper (flint tool maker) or pot maker at work!" To be honest most archaeological finds are interesting but, personally, I'd want to know more about the people involved and to see how they went about daily life. We are talking 5-7 thousand years ago. To members of a Type I civilisation such tools and life (if they developed along similar lines to us) it would be millions of years in their past -here are live and kicking primitives. Alien historians and anthropologists might have a fit over the possibility of long term study. Or, they might well shrug and simply say "Why are all the civilisations this bad?"
I do not fall into being a believer in the whole Grey abduction phenomenon as I have explained fully in my books. However, one off encounters tend to be a different matter: these I have also gone into in detail in my books. I really cannot go into those cases here and the books are fully referenced and I suggest anyone with a serious interest read them. But even in these one off encounters -some witnessed by unconnected observers (more of those cases out there than you might think)- there are certain elements such as medical examination of a percipient but these are partially recalled events and the much mentioned amnesia of percipients seems to almost be an attempt to prevent trauma and some are told "it is best if you do not remember".
Alien anthropologists at work?
But this brings us to another very important aspect: biological contamination. I clearly recall the odd suits the returning Apollo lunar landing crews wore as they went into isolation on their return to Earth. The fear was that they might bring some form of space disease back. We were lucky -no Andromeda Strain!
Is our atmosphere alien friendly? What about all the airborne microbes and dust?
Well, if we look at UFOB (ie a seemingly constructed craft) cases we find that there are a number in which some sort of "force field" surrounds a landed object and this prevents a witness approaching. There are accounts of entities firing beams ahead of a witness approaching their landed craft. The beam does no harm but seems quite clearly a "keep back" warning. On occasion a person continuing top approach an object sees the entities quickly re-enter the craft and take off. There are also a number of cases in which entities clearly give hand signals to keep back.
In some "abduction" cases there appears to be some type of decontamination procedure that takes place before percipients enter a craft or on entering it -and on leaving. Memories being wiped means a lot of this is vaguely reported.
We also have reports of entities seen by UFOBs and they are wearing some form of protective suit.
If you have ever read -or watched a TV/movie version- of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds you will know that the military powers of Earth did not defeat the Martian invaders -Earth germs did. There was once, where the Amazon rainforest is today, many cities, towns and large population areas -some have been found via aerial photography and satellite photos. It has been estimated that during the initial Spanish conquest of the Americas that up to eight million indigenous people died, primarily through the spread of Afro-Eurasian diseases such as smallpox and influenza.
According to the 2015 paper Mortality from contact-related epidemics among indigenous populations in Greater Amazonia by Walker, Sattenspiel and Hill :
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4564847/
"European expansion and contact with indigenous populations led to catastrophic depopulation primarily through the introduction of novel infectious diseases to which native peoples had limited exposure and immunity. In the Amazon Basin such contacts continue to occur with more than 50 isolated indigenous societies likely to make further contacts with the outside world in the near future.
"Ethnohistorical accounts are useful for quantifying trends in the severity and frequency of epidemics through time and may provide insight into the likely demographic consequences of future contacts. Here we compile information for 117 epidemics that affected 59 different indigenous societies in Greater Amazonia and caused over 11,000 deaths between 1875 and 2008, mostly (75%) from measles, influenza, and malaria. Results show that mortality rates from epidemics decline exponentially through time and, independently, with time since peaceful contact. The frequency of documented epidemics also decreases with time since contact. While previous work on virgin soil epidemics generally emphasizes the calamity of contacts, we focus instead on improvements through time.
"The prospects for better survivorship during future contacts are good provided modern health care procedures are implemented immediately."
It needs to be noted that Europeans contracted diseases they had no immunity to so it can be a two-edged sword and for the Amazonian populace it was devastating.
The possibility of an alien disease being spread around the world resulting in the near extinction of humans is something people point to as having not happened. Therefore "aliens were never here!" If we look at the suggested decontamination procedures as well as entities wearing environmental protection suits then it appears if they are here then they are being very careful.
The suggestion that some cases involved encounters with robots (a few on record) or even advanced androids of some kind has been put forward. As has the suggestion of "biologically neutral" clones but this is just pure speculation since for them this might just be normal. Again: no one has ever officially encountered an alien entity so it is all speculation and the shame is really on astronomers and other scientists for not investigating high quality UFOB reports.
It could be that they have completely different immune systems or are not affected by disease. There is the probability -speculation again- that a quick probe of our atmosphere or scan of medical data bases reveals exactly what our environment has to offer and some form of chemical or other immunity inoculation sorts things out for them -if they are hundreds of thousands or a million years in advance of us that should not be a problem.
Too many of these "They cannot be here because--" lines are given out by people in astronomy or involved in SETI (Search of Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) people who are looking at galaxies far, far away. This "They have to be like us" line is very old and stale and shows a closed mind. There is a very real fear amongst these people that aliens will find us. I have heard more than a few alleged scientists stating that "There is nothing we can do about the Voyager plate -it's out there now!"
The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form who may find them. They give Earth's location which is why there are some panicky folk out there...unless you are Prof. Brian Cox who is so blinkered that his ego will not allow for intelligent life anywhere in the universe: he believes all aliens "would have been like humans" and destroyed their civilisations in wars centuries ago: we are all there is in the universe. That's a pretty dumb-ass alleged scientist.
Attack and destroy us. Enslave us. Use us as a food source (no doubt shipped back home in crates marked "Soylent Green"). These fears are so ingrained that the mantra "It's never aliens!" is quite common amongst scientists and I even offered two copies of my book UFO Contact to assess the data...neither bothered responding after that offer!
A multi-billionaire can put his sports car into space on a whim so why not (we are talking Elon Musk in case you never guessed) send out a series of small probes to wander freely in space and scan for signals or broadcast messages? Musk has the capability (SpaceX Starlink) to do so.
We really have no conferences for sensible discussion of UFOs, UFOB and entity cases in which astronomers and others can put forward ideas or ask questions. The ostrich may well not bury its head in the sand when it sees oncoming threats but astronomers and scientists certainly do when UFOs are mentioned.
Attack and destroy us. Enslave us. Use us as a food source (no doubt shipped back home in crates marked "Soylent Green"). These fears are so ingrained that the mantra "It's never aliens!" is quite common amongst scientists and I even offered two copies of my book UFO Contact to assess the data...neither bothered responding after that offer!
A multi-billionaire can put his sports car into space on a whim so why not (we are talking Elon Musk in case you never guessed) send out a series of small probes to wander freely in space and scan for signals or broadcast messages? Musk has the capability (SpaceX Starlink) to do so.
We really have no conferences for sensible discussion of UFOs, UFOB and entity cases in which astronomers and others can put forward ideas or ask questions. The ostrich may well not bury its head in the sand when it sees oncoming threats but astronomers and scientists certainly do when UFOs are mentioned.
