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NASA’s LRO Finds Photo Op as It Zips Past SKorea’s Danuri Moon Orbiter
APR 05, 2024
NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter), which has been circling and studying the Moon for 15 years, captured several images of Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s Danuri lunar orbiter last month. The two spacecraft, traveling in nearly parallel orbits, zipped past each other in opposite directions between March 5 and 6, 2024.
LRO’s narrow angle camera (one in a suite of cameras known as “LROC”) captured the images featured here during three orbits that happened to be close enough to Danuri’s to grab snapshots.
Due to the fast relative velocities between the two spacecraft (about 7,200 miles, or 1,500 kilometers, per hour), the LRO operations team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, needed exquisite timing in pointing LROC to the right place at the right time to catch a glimpse of Danuri, the Republic of Korea’s first spacecraft at the Moon. Danuri has been in lunar orbit since December 2022. Although LRO’s camera exposure time was very short, only 0.338 milliseconds, Danuri still appears smeared to 10 times its size in the opposite direction of travel because of the relative high travel velocities between the two spacecraft.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/lro/nasas-lro-finds-photo-op-as-it-zips-past-skoreas-danuri-moon-orbiter/
U-M student on mission as NASA 'eclipse ambassador' to educate communities
April 6, 2024
Among the millions of people eagerly awaiting Monday’s total solar eclipse are 700 college students and eclipse enthusiasts across the country who’ve been on a special mission from NASA.
Their mission: to bring eclipse science to underserved communities.
University of Michigan junior Sophia Davis is one of 10 NASA “eclipse ambassadors” in the state. She, along with fellow members of the University of Michigan Student Astronomical Society, will be hitting the road from Ann Arbor to watch the eclipse in Toledo, but in the months leading up to the big event, Davis has devoted her time to “scientific outreach.”
The ambassador program, funded by NASA and led by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, has hosted hundreds of events to teach people about the science behind an eclipse.
Davis spoke with Bridge Michigan about her role as an ambassador and how she has helped educate others in the community.
What is a NASA ‘eclipse ambassador’ and how did you become one?
I majored in astrophysics with a minor in museum studies just because astrophysics is what I want to pursue, but outreach is a component that is very, very, very important to me.
So NASA was looking for people to engage communities on the upcoming eclipses. So, we had one last year in 2023 and then we have this one upcoming on Monday. So essentially, what a NASA eclipse ambassador does is that it's me and a partner. And we host educational outreach events for K-12 students in underserved science communities.
We reached about over 250 people, mostly families with their children, and we taught them about eclipse science, safe solar viewing, and how they can involve themselves and watch the eclipse the most in the most effective way on Monday.
More specifically, we did this through a series of fun tabletop learning activities, everything from how to make your own pinhole projector to learning how the sun makes light to other things like learning about the solar system in general.
Where do you plan to travel for this eclipse?
The amazing board members of SAS have organized a trip for us to go to Toledo, which is one of the cities that's in the path of totality, meaning we are expected to see a 100% total eclipse, so it's gonna be an all-day endeavor for sure …
I know that it is going to be one of the most awe-striking moments of my life. I've never personally witnessed a total solar eclipse. I've only seen a partial solar eclipse, which is so cool on its own, but to see totality, I feel like it's going to be an experience that I will remember truly for the rest of my life.
What are you most looking forward to?
It's not often that you see this many people from this many different science backgrounds, different life backgrounds, all coming together to witness something so rare, at least for you know, this particular viewing in this area, like I am just so happy to be surrounded by a community that is going to be just as excited about this as I am if not more, and to be able to just I don't know witness it with everyone is going to be amazing.
Any advice?
I would say to anyone that is just off of the path of totality, where maybe you're not seeing 100%, if it is within your means, I would say it is 100% within your best interest to make that drive.
Get into a place where you will see 100% of that eclipse. We will not have a total solar eclipse in the contiguous United States until 2044. That’s 20 years from now, and so you can't miss something like this. It is genuinely, I feel, like a once in a lifetime opportunity.
https://www.bridgemi.com/talent-education/u-m-student-mission-nasa-eclipse-ambassador-educate-communities
First Space Force guardians graduate from Army drill sergeant school
Apr 5, 10:35 AM
Two Space Force guardians this week became the first in the newest service branch to receive the distinctive Army drill sergeant hat.
Tech Sgt. David Gudgeon and Sgt. Yuji Moore graduated from the U.S. Army Drill Sergeant Academy on Wednesday during a ceremony at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, according to a service release.
The pair’s accomplishment reinforces the Space Force’s place alongside its sister services and will help the service solidify its own training methods.
“This is historic, and I don’t think it’s lost on anybody how we bring the joint force together in order to get after it,” Command Sgt. Maj. Raymond Harris, Army Training and Doctrine Command’s senior enlisted leader, said in the release. “The Army will never fight by itself; the Space Force will never fight by itself. In the entire Department of Defense, we fight in a joint force.”
Aspiring military training instructors with the Air Force and Space Force typically attend a course at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. But now, officials during the ceremony highlighted that the Army’s drill sergeant academy has opened the doors of its demanding institution to both soldiers and other service members to prepare to teach the core tenets of basic training.
Although Gudgeon and Moore, who initially enlisted in the Air Force before transferring to the Space Force, were less accustomed to the traditionally soldier-dominated environment, they said they eventually learned to become comfortable with the uncomfortable.
“For me, this is a pretty foreign environment … not being really familiar with Army tactics or doctrine and things like that,” Moore said in the release. “I had to continuously lean on battle buddies to be like, ‘Hey, what is this?’”
The duo added that they will inevitably take what they learned to others in the Space Force when they arrive back at their assignments.
“I think we’re definitely gonna be bringing in a different flavor to that training environment that they haven’t seen yet,” Gudgeon said in the release.
https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2024/04/05/first-space-force-guardians-graduate-from-army-drill-sergeant-school/
https://www.blueorigin.com/news/new-shepard-ns-25-mission-announcement
New Shepard’s 25th Mission Includes America’s First Black Astronaut Candidate
APR 4, 2024
Blue Origin today revealed the six-person crew flying on its NS-25 mission. The crew includes: Mason Angel, Sylvain Chiron, Kenneth L. Hess, Carol Schaller, Gopi Thotakura, and former Air Force Captain Ed Dwight, who was selected by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 as the nation’s first Black astronaut candidate but was never granted the opportunity to fly to space.
This mission will be the seventh human flight for the New Shepard program and the 25th in its history. To date, the program has flown 31 humans above the Kármán line.
Meet the Crew
Ed Dwight
In 1961, Ed was chosen by President John F. Kennedy to enter training at the Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS), an elite U.S. Air Force flight training program known as a pathway for entering the NASA Astronaut Corps. In 1963, after successfully completing the ARPS program, Ed was recommended by the U.S. Air Force for the NASA Astronaut Corps but ultimately was not among those selected. He entered private life in 1966 and spent a decade as an entrepreneur before dedicating his life’s work to using sculpture as a medium to tell the story of Black history. He’s spent the last five decades creating large-scale monuments of iconic Black figures, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, among many others. His more than 130 public works are installed in museums and public spaces across the U.S. and Canada. Ed was born in 1933 and raised in Kansas City, KS.
Ed’s seat is sponsored by Space for Humanity, a nonprofit changing global perspectives by democratizing access to space for all of humanity, with additional support from the Jaison and Jamie Robinson Foundation.
Mason Angel
Mason is the founder of Industrious Ventures, a venture capital fund supporting early-stage companies that enable or progress new industrial revolutions. Mason is an active member in his family’s foundation and will use this mission to inspire children and advance partnerships with nonprofits focused on STEM in early education. He spends his free time skiing or hiking in the Rocky Mountains and can often be found with his dog Leo, named for low Earth orbit.
Sylvain Chiron
Sylvain is the founder of the Brasserie Mont Blanc, one of the largest craft breweries in France. Sylvain was born in the French Alps and is a lifelong aviator and skier. He earned his pilot’s license at age 16. After spending several summers in Florida taking additional flying lessons and watching Space Shuttle launches, Sylvain entered mandatory service in the French military, where he served as a ski instructor for the French Air Force and NATO pilots. Following the military, he pursued an international MBA at Temple University and moved to Tokyo to study business in Japan. Sylvain and his family are based in Savoy, France, where he’s also involved in philanthropy focused on children’s education and nature preservation.
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Kenneth L. Hess
Ken is a software engineer and entrepreneur who shaped today's technology-based family history industry when he developed the Family Tree Maker product line in the 1990s. The company was acquired by Ancestry.com in 2003. In 2001, Ken gave back by founding Science Buddies, a K-12 nonprofit created to level the playing field and improve STEM literacy by inspiring students through free, personalized, hands-on projects in all areas of science, including space exploration. Science Buddies has reached one-quarter billion users. Ken’s lifelong passion for space exploration is in his DNA, with numerous early American pioneers in his mother’s lineage and many engineers and technicians in his father’s.
Carol Schaller
Carol is a retired CPA. In 2017, her doctor told her she would likely go blind. She has since traveled to 25 countries around the world, visited Mount Everest Base Camp, trekked to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest of Uganda to see mountain gorillas, visited the South Pole, and camped in a tent in the desolate Antarctic plain at -20 degrees. Seeing Earth’s thin layer of atmosphere in the blackness of space will fulfill a lifelong dream. Carol and her husband of 40 years live on a farm in Lumberville, PA, with a view of the stars, two cows, 100 chickens, a dog, and a dancing parrot.
Gopi Thotakura
Gopi is a pilot and aviator who learned how to fly before he could drive. He’s co-founder of Preserve Life Corp, a global center for holistic wellness and applied health located near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. In addition to flying jets commercially, Gopi pilots bush, aerobatic, and seaplanes, as well as gliders and hot air balloons, and has served as an international medical jet pilot. A lifelong traveler, his most recent adventure took him to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Gopi is a graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Each astronaut will carry a postcard to space on behalf of Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future. This program gives students access to space on Blue Origin’s rockets, including an all-digital method to create and send postcards, which can be found here. The Club’s mission is to inspire and mobilize future generations to pursue careers in STEAM for the benefit of Earth.
From an environmental standpoint, nearly 99% of New Shepard’s dry mass is reused, including the booster, capsule, engine, landing gear, and parachutes. New Shepard’s engine is fueled by highly efficient liquid oxygen and hydrogen. During flight, the only byproduct is water vapor with no carbon emissions.
The flight date will be announced soon.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/alien-fever-dreams-fuel-peruvian-grave-robbings/ar-BB1lb3x1
Alien fever dreams fuel Peruvian grave robbings
April 6, 2024
NAZCA, Peru (Reuters) - Leandro Rivera says he chanced upon the cave in Peru's remote Nazca region that contained hundreds of pre-Hispanic artifacts – including human bodies with elongated heads and what appeared to be only three fingers on each hand.
The plateau is famous for the Nazca lines, incisions on the desert floor forming birds and other animals visible from the air. The ancient geoglyphs have long intrigued anthropologists and exert a powerful fascination over some believers in extraterrestrials.
Nazca is also known for salt flats that dehydrate and preserve human and animal remains, making it the site of important archeological finds that have deepened modern understanding of ancient cultures – and attracted grave robbers.
Rivera was convicted in 2022 of assault on public monuments for unearthing the artifacts. He received a four-year suspended sentence and was fined about 20,000 Peruvian soles ($5,190), short of the maximum penalty of an eight-year prison term.
His haul was thrust into the spotlight last year when two of the mummies ended up in Mexico as the centerpiece of congressional hearings on UFOs and extraterrestrial life. Mexican journalist Jaime Maussan presented the bodies as a sign of life beyond Earth – a claim dismissed by scientists.
In an interview with Reuters, Rivera said he removed as many as 200 sets of remains from the cave, and some bodies had been smuggled out of Peru to France, Spain and Russia.
The presentation of bodies in Mexico – as well as Rivera's claims to have dozens more – have prompted some experts to ask whether Peru is losing the battle to stop the plunder of its archaeological sites to feed a lucrative black market for mummies and other pre-Hispanic artifacts.
"Peru has done a lot of work to try and control this trade," said Christopher Heaney, a Latin American history professor at Penn State University and author of a book on Peruvian mummies. "But this implies that these claims for government success need to be re-examined a bit if objects like (the bodies in Mexico) can leave the country."
Peru's Culture Ministry did not respond to questions about the effectiveness of its efforts to control trafficking.
Reuters was granted rare access to the ministry's anti-smuggling unit at Lima's international airport and spoke to four government officials who said stricter penalties, more resources and better coordination were needed to fight the looting.
The news agency was unable to verify independently key details of Rivera's account. The public prosecutor's office of the culture ministry said in a statement to Reuters that its investigation into Rivera yielded just two altered bodies and two partial sets of bones.
Evelyn Centurion, head of cultural heritage recovery for the ministry, said the government is working on a task force with police, the attorney general, the foreign ministry and other departments to toughen penalties for looting cultural artifacts.
"The looting has not stopped," Centurion said in an interview. "We need greater collaboration from local governments and local authorities to prevent these illicit acts."
Archaeological materials including human remains command high prices on a black market controlled by well-organized criminal groups, experts said.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, trafficking in cultural goods has exploded around the world, according to UNESCO and the World Customs Organization(WCO).
Antiquities stores that had previously relied on in-person shopping turned to online sales to survive.
Black-market sellers took advantage of the greater privacy online or resorted to encrypted channels.
The shift to an online black market also allowed buyers to actively seek out illegal goods, rather than wait for invitations to elite in-person events, as the trade was typically run pre-pandemic, a WCO official told Reuters.
And tomb raiders went online to share information about how to locate and raid vulnerable sites.
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"Social networks have become spaces for the sale of works of art and antiques of illegal origin, and unfortunately this traffic has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Enrique Lopez-Hurtado, who was until recently the coordinator of the culture sector of UNESCO Peru.
The sheer volume of online sales - and the demands of pandemic safety protocols - presented challenges for customs officials inspecting shipments and trying to intercept illegal goods, the WCO official said.
Reduced staffing put cultural sites in isolated areas, especially those previously guarded by local communities, at greater risk of looting.
Guido Lombardi, a medical doctor and anthropologist at the Peruvian University of Cayetano Heredia who specializes in mummy studies said he has received anonymous texts on WhatsApp offering looted objects for sale including terracotta figurines that are hundreds of years old.
Flavio Estrada, an archaeologist at the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences in Lima who assisted in the 2017 investigation of Rivera, said smuggling networks also market fakes, constructed out of animal bones and paper mache.
In some cases, alien enthusiasts exploit a lack of understanding of cranial remodeling, a documented social practice in Pre-Colombian times that involved binding a child's head to manipulate the shape, Lombardi said.
"There were no people who were born like this, as some of the theorists of 'ancestral aliens' also try to make us believe," he said. "There's a whole contemporary mythology around this topic, and that generates a market."
While cranial modification was a practice in some of Peru's ancient cultures, Estrada said it is likely that grave robbers altered the Nazca remains to make it look like they had only three fingers on their hands in a bid to appeal to those who subscribe to the notion of extraterrestrials.
Near the ancient carved lines in Nazca there is little evidence of protection beyond a few government signs indicating cultural territory.
But on the road between Nazca and Lima, plenty of billboards feature flying saucers and a friendly cartoon alien pops up along the highway advertising "Helados Ovni," or UFO ice cream.
CHANGING ATTITUDES
In recent years, there has been a global change in attitudes towards displaying the remains of indigenous people. Reputable museums have begun to repatriate bodies to their countries of origin.
But there is still demand for remains and other artifacts from private collectors in the United States and Europe looking for status symbols and alien enthusiasts, ten experts interviewed by Reuters said.
The WCO official also cited a social media market for buying skeletons and scalps, which has been growing in popularity over the last ten years.
Stopping looted items from leaving Peru is challenging. Peru shares borders with five countries and has 27 border crossings.
At Lima's international airport, experts from Peru's culture ministry monitor security checkpoints for suspected cultural material picked up by x-ray scanners.
Officials seize between four and 10 items a year, compared to 200 a month in 2008, said Rolando Mallaupoma an archeology analyst in the recovery unit of the culture ministry.
Mallaupoma attributes the decline to the ministry's work educating vendors in tourist areas on how to identify authentic culture goods.
The vast majority of incidents at the airport involve tourists, he said.
"In most cases what they are going to say is that they didn't know, and there will not be any criminal action," Mallaupoma said. The item will be confiscated and turned over to the ministry.
Ignacio Higueras, deputy minister of foreign affairs, told Reuters it is difficult to account for stolen cultural materials once they leave Peru.
Repatriating smuggled remains requires extensive diplomacy as well as documentation to prove their origin and cultural significance, Centurion from Peru's culture ministry said.
In February 2022, DHL workers intercepted a U.S-bound shipment of a human skull camouflaged using resin and eyeglasses at Lima's international airport, and police intercepted a mummy on its way to Bolivia in the backpack of a motorcycle carrier in February 2023.
Peruvian culture ministry officials are also looking into how the bodies displayed by Maussan wound up in Mexico and what role Rivera played in getting them there.
Another four sets of remains Rivera claims to have recovered ended up at the San Luis Gonzaga National University of Ica, about two hours from the Nazca Lines, according to university professors and Centurion.
A group of researchers at the university has been in a four-year standoff with the culture ministry over access to the bodies.
Anthropologist Roger Zuniga said the researchers have refused to hand over the bodies because they are trying to determine their origin.
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Creepy mystery of Russia's 'ghost radio station' – death switch theories to alien spies
13:00, 6 APR 2024
The chilling mystery of who's behind Russia's "ghost" radio station has rumbled on for decades.
Aptly nicknamed "The Buzzer," the bizarre transmissions from UVB-76 have been broadcasting from somewhere inside the country since 1982 - and still noone knows why. One popular theory is that it works as a "death switch" which would launch an automatic nuclear strike if Russia was targeted.
Other conspiracy theorists blame military spies and even aliens. Anyone in the world can tune in simply by turning their radio to the frequency 4625 kHz. The strange 24/7 buzzing is occasionally interrupted by Russian words and numbers.
Many suspect they were military communications during the Cold War, which was characterised by radio signals and cryptic codes.
However the frequencies of the transmission increased following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
On March 18, 2014, less than 24 hours after Crimea voted to join the Russian Federation, a voice read out: “T-E-R-R-A-K-O-T-A. Mikhail Dimitri Zhenya Boris [MDZhB, the callsign of the station]. Mikhail Dmitri Zhenya Boris. 81 26 T-E-R-R-A-K-O-T-A.”
Internet sleuths were fascinated when a woman’s voice appeared out of nowhere on February 12, 2014.
In what is believed to have been a mistake, she began by stating: “Hallo Vulcan”.
During their phone conversation, an operator said: “Ok, Masha, I’m standing by here for a while, and what was that channel number in Vulcan classification?”
The Kremlin has never spoken out about the buzzing sounds but civilian investigators claimed they traced the transmission to a site near the town of Povarovo, close to Moscow.
The mystery deepened when in 2010 the buzzer’s broadcast appeared to move to Pskov near the border with Estonia.
Urban explorers claimed to have found the site in Pskov.
They spoke of a creepy abandoned military base which had a radio log that confirmed the operation of a transmitter at 4625 kHz.
In recent years The Buzzer now appears to broadcast from two completely different locations.
And according to a blog post, you can even view these two locations on Google Maps.
One, under the co-ordinates 60°18'40.1"N 30°16'40.5"E, is located in the district of Leningrad Oblast, around 30 miles from St Petersburg.
This site reported to be part of the 60th communication hub which serves the west military district.
A second broadcasting location has been identified on Google Maps as the 69th Communication Hub at Naro Fominsk.
Pictures online show radio towers and antennas at the complex, under the co-ordinates 55°25'35"N 36°42'33"E.
To this day the buzzer transmissions still continue but they did stop at one point in 2010.
Professor David Stupples, an expert in signals intelligence from City University, London, said: “There is absolutely no information about this signal.”
Radio monitor Ary Boender from Holland, who runs the website Numbers Oddities, told MailOnline: “Some say that it is an old Soviet Dead Man’s Switch that triggers a nuclear attack on the west when it stops buzzing.
“Others say that it is a homing beacon for UFOs, or a mind control device with which the Russians can program your mind.
‘When the buzzer stopped buzzing on September 1, 2010 many of the conspiracy fans thought that it was the end of the world.
“But no nuclear attack followed nor did the UFOs land.”
In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter) Creepy Knowledge posted: "It’s so enigmatic, it’s as if it was designed with conspiracy theorists in mind. Today the station has an online following numbering in the tens of thousands…It joins two similar mystery stations, 'The Pip' and the 'Squeaky Wheel.' As their fans readily admit themselves, they have absolutely no idea what they are listening to."
The post added: "There’s no shortage of theories to explain what the Buzzer might be for – ranging from keeping in touch with submarines to communing with aliens. One such idea is that it’s acting as a “Dead Hand” signal; in the event Russia is hit by a nuclear attack, the drone will stop and automatically trigger a retaliation. No questions asked, just total nuclear obliteration on both sides."
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/creepy-mystery-russias-ghost-radio-32492641