Distant Quasar Providing Clues to Early-Universe Conditions

VLBA image of the quasar P352–15, at a distance of nearly 13 billion light-years from Earth. Three main components of the object are seen, with two of them showing further substructure. Credit: Momjian, et al.; B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF). Hi-res image

Artist’s conception of distant quasar P352-15, with disk of material orbiting the black hole and jet of fast-moving particles ejected into space. Credit: Robin Dienel, courtesy of Carnegie Institution for Science. Hi-res image

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Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) have made an image revealing tantalizing details of a quasar nearly 13 billion light-years from Earth — an object that may provide important clues about the physical processes at work in the Universe’s first galaxies.

The scientists studied a quasar called PSO J352.4034-15.3373 (P352-15), an unusually bright emitter of radio waves for an object so distant. The extremely sharp radio “vision” of the VLBA showed the object split into three major components, two of which show further subdivision. The components are spread over a distance of only about 5,000 light-years.

Quasars are galaxies with supermassive black holes at their cores — black holes millions or billions of times more massive than the Sun. The powerful gravitational pull of such a black hole draws in nearby material, which forms a rotating disk around the massive object. The rapidly-spinning disk spews jets of particles moving outward at speeds approaching that of light. These energetic “engines” are bright emitters of light and radio waves.

“This is the most detailed image yet of such a bright galaxy at this great distance,” said Emmanuel Momjian, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).

“There is a dearth of known strong radio emitters from the Universe’s youth and this is the brightest radio quasar at that epoch by a factor of 10,” said Eduardo Banados of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Pasadena, California.

“We are seeing P352-15 as it was when the Universe was less than a billion years old, or only about 7 percent of its current age,” said Chris Carilli, of NRAO. “This is near the end of a period when the first stars and galaxies were re-ionizing the neutral hydrogen atoms that pervaded intergalactic space. Further observations may allow us to use this quasar as a background ‘lamp’ to measure the amount of neutral hydrogen remaining at that time,” he added.

The astronomers said the three major components of P352-15 can be explained in one of two ways. One explanation is that they’re seeing the bright core of the quasar, corresponding to the location of the supermassive black hole itself, at one end, and the two other bright spots are parts of a one-sided jet. The other possibility is that their middle object is the core, and the other objects are jets ejected in opposite directions. Because one of the end objects is closest to the position of the quasar as seen with visible-light telescopes, they consider the one-sided jet to be the more likely explanation.

The one-sided jet explanation raises the exciting possibility that astronomers may be able to detect and measure the expansion of the jet by observing P352-15 over several years.

“This quasar may be the most distant object in which we could measure the speed of such a jet,” Momjian said.

If, instead, the middle object is the core, with two oppositely-moving jets, its small size suggests that it may be very young or be embedded in dense gas that is slowing the jets’ expansion.

Planned future observations will tell which scenario is accurate, the scientists said.

“This quasar’s brightness and its great distance make it a unique tool to study the conditions and processes that prevailed in the first galaxies in the Universe,” Carilli said. “We look forward to unraveling more of its mysteries,” he added.

Momjian, Banados, and Carilli worked with Fabian Walter of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany; and Bram Venemans, also of the Max Planck Institute. The astronomers are reporting their findings in the Astrophysical Journal.

The Long Baseline Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

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Media Contact:

Dave Finley, Public Information Officer
(575) 835-7302
dfinley@nrao.edu

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Papers:

in ApJ: Resolving the Powerful Radio-loud Quasar at z ~ 6: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aac76f

In APJ Letters: A Powerful Radio-loud Quasar at the End of Cosmic Reionization: https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aac511

Source: National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)

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Archive link

https://xissufotoday.space/2018/07/distant-quasar-providing-clues-to-early-universe-conditions/

What’s Maykop (or Iran) got to do with it?

I had a go at imitating this qpGraph tree, from the recent Wang et al. preprint on the genetic prehistory of the Caucasus, using the ancient samples that were available to me. I’m very happy with the outcome, because everything makes good sense, more or less. The real populations and singleton individuals, ten in all, are marked in red. The rest of the labels refer to groups inferred from the data.

However, this is still a work in progress, and, if possible, I’d like simplify the model and also get the worst Z score much closer to zero. If anyone wants to help out, the graph file is available HERE. Feel free to post your own versions in the comments, and I’ll run them for you as soon as I can.
Update 31/05/2018: I’ve managed to come up with a new version of my model that not only offers a better statistical fit, but, in my opinion, also a much more sensible solution. For instance, the Eastern Hunter-Gatherer node now shows 73% MA1-related admixture, which, I’d say, makes more sense than the 10% in the previous version. The relevant graph file is available here.

For more details and a discussion about the updated model, including additional trees with Baltic Corded Ware and British Beaker samples, please check out my new thread on the topic at the link below.
What’s Maykop (or Iran) got to do with it? #2
Citation…
Wang et al., The genetic prehistory of the Greater Caucasus, bioRxiv, posted May 16, 2018, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/322347
See also…
Ahead of the pack
On the genetic prehistory of the Greater Caucasus (Wang et al. 2018 preprint)
Another look at the genetic structure of Yamnaya
Late PIE ground zero now obvious; location of PIE homeland still uncertain, but…

Source

https://xissufotoday.space/2018/05/whats-maykop-or-iran-got-to-do-with-it/

What’s Maykop (or Iran) got to do with it? #2

For the past few days I’ve been trying to copy and also improve on the qpGraph tree in the Wang et al. preprint (see here). I’ve managed to come up with a new version of my model that not only offers a better statistical fit, but, in my opinion, also a much more sensible solution. For instance, the Eastern Hunter-Gatherer node now shows 73% MA1-related admixture, which, I’d say, makes more sense than the 10% in the previous version. The relevant graph file is available here.

Samara Yamnaya can be perfectly substituted in this graph by early Corded Ware samples from the Baltic region (CWC_Baltic_early) and a pair of Yamnaya individuals from what is now Ukraine. This is hardly surprising, considering how similar all of these samples are to each other in other analyses, but it’s nice to see nonetheless, because I think it helps to confirm the reliability of my model.

And yes, I have tested all sorts of other Yamnaya-related ancient and present-day populations with this tree. They usually pushed the worst Z score to +/- 3 and well beyond, probably because they weren’t similar enough to Yamnaya. But, perhaps surprisingly, Bell Beakers from Britain produced a decent result (see here).
See also…
Ahead of the pack
On the genetic prehistory of the Greater Caucasus (Wang et al. 2018 preprint)
Another look at the genetic structure of Yamnaya
Late PIE ground zero now obvious; location of PIE homeland still uncertain, but…

Source

https://xissufotoday.space/2018/05/whats-maykop-or-iran-got-to-do-with-it-2/

Yamnaya isn’t from Iran just like R1a isn’t from India

A strange thing sometimes happens in population genetics: highly capable and experienced researches come up with stupid ideas and push them so hard that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, they become accepted as truths. At least for a little while.
It’s obvious now, thanks to full genome sequencing and ancient DNA, that Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a cannot be native to India. It arrived there rather recently from the Eurasian steppe, in all likelihood during the Bronze Age, probably as the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was collapsing or, perhaps, just after it had collapsed.
But for quite a few years this was something of a taboo, even politically incorrect, narrative, and it was vehemently rubbished by many Indians, including Indian scientists, and their western academic sympathizers.
Indeed, a whole series of papers came out, often in high brow scientific journals, claiming that R1a originated in South Asia, and that it spread from there to Europe. This, it was also claimed, was the final nail in the coffin of the so called Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT), because R1a was often described as the “Aryan” haplogroup.
I wasn’t impressed by any of this nonsense. I said so here and elsewhere, to the great annoyance of those who believed, against all reason and logic, that the Indo-Aryans, and even Indo-Europeans, were indigenous to India. Here’s a taste of some of my work on the topic going back to 2013.

South Asian R1a in the 1000 Genomes Project
Children of the Divine Twins
The Poltavka outlier

Looking back, it’s all a bit rough, but very cool nonetheless. However, I was often accused of being biased, unscientific and even bigoted and racist as a result of offering such commentary and research. Make no mistake, my detractors were seething that I would dare to question what was apparently a scientific reality, and they wanted to shut me up. It was a nasty experience, but it now feels great to be vindicated.
Certainly, nowadays, no objective person who, more or less, knows their stuff would argue that the vast majority of the R1a in India doesn’t ultimately derive from the Pontic-Caspian steppe in Eastern Europe.
But otherwise things haven’t changed all that much since then. For instance, despite a whole heap of ancient DNA data being available from Eastern Europe and West Asia, there’s a widely accepted idea that the Early Bronze Age (EBA) Yamnaya culture formed on the Pontic-Caspian steppe as a result of migrations from what is now Iran.
This is not true. It can’t be true, because it’s contradicted by all of the data. I’ve tried to explain this on several occasions, but generally to no avail.

Yamnaya =/= Eastern Hunter-Gatherers + Iran Chalcolithic
Another look at the genetic structure of Yamnaya
Likely Yamnaya incursion(s) into Northwestern Iran

Thus, the Yamnaya people and culture were indigenous to Eastern Europe, and basically formed as a result of the amalgamation of at least three different populations closely related to Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers (EHG), Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers (CHG), Early European Farmers (EEF) and Western European Hunter-Gatherers (WHG). They did not harbor any significant ancestry from what is now Iran; at least not from within any reasonable time frame.
However, me communicating this fact has resulted in some rather strange and unsavory reactions from a number of individuals who appear to have a big emotional investment in this issue. They become frustrated and even angry when I try to explain to them that there’s no sense in looking for the genetic origins of Yamnaya in Iran, much like the people who argued with me when I tried to reason with them that R1a wasn’t native to India. Here’s an example from a recent blog post (for the full conversation scroll down to the comments here).

Heh, here we go again with the accusations of bias, scientific impropriety and whatnot. Ironically, the poor chap just couldn’t comprehend that he never had an argument to begin with, quite obviously due to his own bias in regards to this topic. Well, at least he didn’t call me a racist.
In a recent preprint, Wang et al. correctly characterized Yamnaya as, by and large, a mixture of populations closely related to EHG, CHG, EEF and WHG (see here), with no obvious input from what is now Iran. Sounds familiar, right?
They also discovered that, during the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age, the Caucasus and nearby steppes were mainly home to three quite distinct populations: 1) Steppe groups, including Eneolithic steppe and Caucasus Yamnaya, 2) Caucasus groups, including Kura-Araxes and Maykop, and 3) Steppe Maykop, which they classified as part of 1. These populations were all separated by clear genetic and cultural borders, with significant and unambiguous mixture from the Caucasus cluster only in a couple of Steppe Maykop outliers and one Yamnaya outlier from what is now Ukraine.
Clearly, this leaves no room for any migrations from what is now Iran to the steppe that would potentially give rise to Yamnaya. In other words, the main genetic ingredients for what was to become Yamnaya were already on the steppe well before Yamnaya, during the Eneolithic, and it’s quite likely that they were indigenous to the region.
However, interestingly, Wang et al. did appear to try to save the link between Yamnaya and Iran by referring to the CHG-related ancestry in Yamnaya as “CHG/Iranian”. I’m not surprised because most of these authors are associated with the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH), which is currently pushing a proposal that the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) homeland was located in what is now Iran and surrounds (see here). So, obviously, they need to somehow show a relationship between Yamnaya and Iran, because Yamnaya and the closely related Corded Ware archaeological complex are generally seen as early Indo-European cultural horizons. Good luck with that.
Actually, let me make it clear once and for all that I couldn’t care less where the very first Indo-European words were uttered. It’s just something that I find interesting. I rather doubt that this was within the borders of present-day Iran, and I explained in some detail why in a post almost two years ago (see here). But if someone manages to prove that the PIE homeland was indeed located partly or wholly within what is now Iran, that’s OK. I won’t be emotionally traumatized as a result.
However, obviously, this will have to be done with the assumption in mind that Yamnaya and Corded Ware became Indo-European-speaking almost purely via an linguistic transmission, with hardly any associated gene flow. It’s possible, I guess. But then there’s almost 200 years of scholarship based on linguistics and archaeological data that generally agrees in favor of the Pontic-Caspian steppe as the PIE homeland.
On a related note, I also couldn’t care less whether the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) reflects what really happened during the Indo-Europeanization of South Asia, or if it’s more appropriate to call it the Aryan Migration Theory (AMT). I’ll accept whatever an objective analysis of all of the relevant data shows when we have enough of it to make an informed decision.
However, currently, I see nothing in the data that would prevent the AIT from being true. To me, the profound impact that the Bronze Age steppe peoples obviously had on South Asia, and especially on the Indo-European-speaking Indian upper castes, suggests that, overall, an invasion-like scenario is quite plausible. But I might be wrong, and so what if I am?
See also…
Ahead of the pack
Late PIE ground zero now obvious; location of PIE homeland still uncertain, but…
Genetic borders are usually linguistic borders too

Source

https://xissufotoday.space/2018/06/yamnaya-isnt-from-iran-just-like-r1a-isnt-from-india/

HiPOD (9 July 2018): Not All Who Wander Will Be on Earth – 257…

HiPOD (9 July 2018): Not All Who Wander Will Be on Earth

   – 257 km above the surface, less than 5 km across.

NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

https://xissufotoday.space/2018/07/hipod-9-july-2018-not-all-who-wander-will-be-on-earth-257/

West Kennet Stone Avenue, nr Avebury, Wiltshire, 27.6.18.

West Kennet Stone Avenue, nr Avebury, Wiltshire, 27.6.18.

Source link

https://xissufotoday.space/2018/07/west-kennet-stone-avenue-nr-avebury-wiltshire-27-6-18/

West Kennet Long Barrow, Wiltshire, 27.6.18.

West Kennet Long Barrow, Wiltshire, 27.6.18.

Source link

https://xissufotoday.space/2018/07/west-kennet-long-barrow-wiltshire-27-6-18/

West Kennet Long Barrow Interior and Facade, Wiltshire, 27.6.18.

West Kennet Long Barrow Interior and Facade, Wiltshire, 27.6.18.

Source link

https://xissufotoday.space/2018/07/west-kennet-long-barrow-interior-and-facade-wiltshire-27-6-18/

Ancient Thracian settlement found on Bulgaria’s St Thomas Island

The remains of an ancient Thracian settlement from the early Iron Age have been found by archaeologists on St Thomas Island, about 15km south of Sozopol on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, the National History Museum announced.

Credit: historymuseum.org

The National History Museum team of archaeologists, led by Professor Ivan Hristov, also found Thracian cult pilts and established the locations of the remains of a Roman settlement from the fifth to sixth centuries and a small mediaeval monastery that existed in the 12th to 16th centuries.

The findings were made during the first stage of an archaeological study of the sites on the island, which is about 0.012 square kilometres in size and is part of Bulgaria’s Ropotamo Nature Reserve. The island is 0.2 nautical miles south of Humata Foreland in Arkutino Bay.

The island takes its name from a chapel dedicated to Saint Thomas that once existed on it. It has another name, Snake Island, from the grey water snakes that are plentiful in the waters surrounding it.

The results of the excavations will enrich the database of the rich cultural heritage of the reserve and will be the basis for their preservation and protection, the museum’s statement said.

With funding from Bulgaria’s Ministry of Culture, the archaeological studies in the area of Arkutino near Sozopol will continue underwater, where Professor Hristov’s team will examine a reef believed to have been dry land at the time of antiquity.

Source: The Sofia Globe [July 04, 2018]

TANN

Archive

https://xissufotoday.space/2018/07/ancient-thracian-settlement-found-on-bulgarias-st-thomas-island/

What does global climate have to do with erosion rates?

For the last several decades, Geoscientists have been intrigued by a potential link between erosion rates at the Earth’s surface and changes in global climate. What was the cause and what the effect remained unclear. However, a new study now calls into question the link itself. A team of researchers from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, the University Potsdam, University of Grenoble, and University of Edinburgh re-examined 30 locations with reported accelerated erosion after the onset of glacial-interglacial cycles a few million years ago. In nearly all of the locations, the proposed link between erosion and global climate could not be confirmed. Their study appears in the journal Nature.

U-shaped glacially carved Veneon Valley in the Western Alps [Credit: Taylor Schildgen]

The basic ideas sound convincing: Faster erosion rates can lead to faster silicate weathering and efficient burial of organic carbon in sedimentary basins, both of which can induce global cooling by removing CO2 from the atmosphere. On the other hand, a global increase in erosion rates over the last several million years was associated with glacial-interglacial cycles. This was proposed on the basis of accelerated worldwide sedimentation rates in the oceans. Glaciers scraping off landscapes and subsequent warmings that lead to meltwater transporting sediment into the sea are plausible causes for increased sediment-accumulation rates.

Yet, other studies have indicated that global erosion rates may have remained steady over this time period, and that the apparent increased sediment-accumulation rates are due to the irregularities in how sediments are deposited in space and time, and because older deposits are more likely to be lost by erosion compared to younger deposits.”

More recently, a global compilation of thermochronology data, which tracks the cooling history of rocks as they move toward the surface, has been used to infer a nearly two-fold erosion-rate increase from mountainous landscapes over the last several million years. So the link between glacial-interglacial cycles and faster erosion seemed to be confirmed – until a team of researchers from the GFZ, led by Taylor Schildgen, and from the Universities of Potsdam, Grenoble, and Edinburgh re-examined the 30 locations with reported accelerated erosion based on thermochronology.

Their analysis shows that in 23 of these locations, the reported increases are a result of what they term a “spatial correlation bias”; i.e., combining data with disparate cooling histories, a process that converts spatial variations in erosion rates into temporal increases. In most cases, the disparate cooling histories result because data points were combined across major tectonic boundaries (faults). In four other locations, the increases can be explained by accelerated tectonic deformation (i.e., faster mountain-building processes), rather than climatic changes.

Together, these 27 erroneous out of 30 proposed links between faster erosion and climate can be explained by neglecting the local context of the data in the earlier analysis, a dangerous potential pitfall in big-data analysis. In only three cases, climatically induced accelerations are recorded, driven by localized glacial-valley incision.

The team’s findings suggest that thermochronology data currently have insufficient resolution to assess if climate change over the last several millions years affected erosion rates on a global scale. They conclude that currently, no data provide clear support for the hypothesized link between faster erosion and global cooling. Nonetheless, a synthesis of local findings that include location-specific information may help to further investigate drivers of global cooling and erosion rates.

Source: GFZ GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Helmholtz Centre [July 05, 2018]

TANN

Archive

https://xissufotoday.space/2018/07/what-does-global-climate-have-to-do-with-erosion-rates/

Древняя Русь в Историческом музее в Москве …

Древняя Русь в Историческом музее в Москве
Древняя Русь в Историческом музее в Москве
http://reports.travel.ru/letters/2016/02/251665.html?cc=ru

https://xissufotoday.space/2017/05/%d0%b4%d1%80%d0%b5%d0%b2%d0%bd%d1%8f%d1%8f-%d1%80%d1%83%d1%81%d1%8c-%d0%b2-%d0%b8%d1%81%d1%82%d0%be%d1%80%d0%b8%d1%87%d0%b5%d1%81%d0%ba%d0%be%d0%bc-%d0%bc%d1%83%d0%b7%d0%b5%d0%b5-%d0%b2-%d0%bc%d0%be/

Древняя библиотека сокровищ Западная Африка

Древняя библиотека скрытая в пустыне Сахара на протяжении 9 веков,

стала сокровищницей самых редких книг и манускриптов.

 

В библиотеке хранится около 6000 книг,

некоторые из них оставались неприкасаемыми на протяжении 9 веков и сохранились на полках в сухом климате Сахары.

Библиотека расположена в древнем городе Шингетти (араб. شنقيط‎, фр. Chinguetti)

Город в Мавритании, административный центр департамента Шингетти в области Адрар.

Расположен в 70 км к востоку от города Атар, на высоте 308 м над уровнем моря.

Памятник всемирного наследия ЮНЕСКО.

 

Изначально в городе было десятки библиотек,

но 1950-е, когда поселенцы избегали засухи и снова покинули город,

 то прихватили большую часть книг с собой.

Теперь в городе не более 10 библиотек.

Это такое хранилище в неприступной пустыне.

Изначально населенный пункт в этом месте был основан в 777 году и к XI веку стал торговым центром конфедерации берберских племён, известной как Санхаджи, которая впоследствии вошла в союза Альморавидов.

В середине XIII века город возродился как ксар (укреплённое поселение) на транс сахарских торговых путях. Так как город был первым остановочным пунктом паломников, направлявшихся из Магриба в Мекку, то он стал святым городом, в нём были основаны школы, где учеников учили риторике, астрономии, математике, медицине и правоведению. В течение многих веков Мавритания была известна в арабском мире как «земля Шингетти», а сам город в Западной Африке иногда называли «седьмым святым городом ислама».

 

 

Тут есть магазинчик и телефон  😊😊

https://xissufotoday.space/2017/01/blog-post_4-12/

Древний некрополь жрецов с 40 саркофагами...

В Египте в районе Туна эль-Джабаль к югу от Каира археологи обнаружили крупный некрополь, состоящий из 8 гробниц и 40 саркофагов. Об этом сообщил министр по делам древности Египта Халеда аль-Аннани.

При этом в этом некрополе людей хоронили в разные периоды древнеегипетской истории – от Позднего царства до эпохи Птолемеев. Все захороненные – жрецы и чиновники. Помимо захоронений в гробнице нашли разные артефакты, в том числе погребальные статуэтки и драгоценности.

Данная уникальная находка стала одним из крупнейших археологических открытий в Египте за последние годы. В районе Туна эль-Джабаль археологам предстоит работать еще пять лет.

Источник link

https://xissufotoday.space/2018/02/%d0%b4%d1%80%d0%b5%d0%b2%d0%bd%d0%b8%d0%b9-%d0%bd%d0%b5%d0%ba%d1%80%d0%be%d0%bf%d0%be%d0%bb%d1%8c-%d0%b6%d1%80%d0%b5%d1%86%d0%be%d0%b2-%d1%81-40-%d1%81%d0%b0%d1%80%d0%ba%d0%be%d1%84%d0%b0%d0%b3%d0%b0/

Древний клад 15 веков пролежал под ногами у...

Клад лежал всего в нескольких сантиметрах под землей.

Археологи насчитали около 115 бронзовых монет под развалинами дома в древнегреческом Коринфе, пролежавшие в земле около 1,5 тысячи лет. Клад датируется 600-м годом нашей эры. Археологи из Университета Калифорнии, проводившие раскопки, относят самую старинную монету ко времени Константина Багрянородного (306 — 337 года).

 

Но скорей всего, деньги были зарыты в правление императора Анастасия Нечестивого, правившего с 491 по 518 год. Самая большая загадка для ученых, не когда был спрятан клад, а почему до сих пор он не был найден. Монеты находились всего в нескольких сантиметрах от поверхности земли.

Коринфскую гавань несколько раз разрушала стихия, но жители восстанавливали город из руин. Однако самое разрушительное бедствие, произошедшее 1500 лет назад, заставило жителей покинуть город. Именно поэтому владелец, вероятно, не вернулся за деньгами.

Неподалеку от зарытых сокровищ археологи обнаружили остатки римской базилики, предположительно, правительственного здания. Оно было построено в конце первого века, а значит, относится ко времени основания колонии Юлием Цезарем.

Источник link

https://xissufotoday.space/2018/05/%d0%b4%d1%80%d0%b5%d0%b2%d0%bd%d0%b8%d0%b9-%d0%ba%d0%bb%d0%b0%d0%b4-15-%d0%b2%d0%b5%d0%ba%d0%be%d0%b2-%d0%bf%d1%80%d0%be%d0%bb%d0%b5%d0%b6%d0%b0%d0%bb-%d0%bf%d0%be%d0%b4-%d0%bd%d0%be%d0%b3%d0%b0%d0%bc/