Huge, ‘potentially hazardous’asteroid is hurtling towards Earth

Dubbed as 2014 JO25, the space rock has one kilometer in diameter.Even though the massive rock is currently hurtling towards our planet—and is labeled as potentially hazardous by NASA—scientists expect it to pass by our planet safely this time.

NASA astronomers say that ‘2014 JO25’ has been designated as a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) by the Minor Planet Center. PHA’s are asteroids larger than 100meters that can come closer to Earth than 7,495,839km (about 4,658,000 miles), which is equal to 19.5 ‘Lunar distances’.Despite 2014 JO25’s designation as a PHA, projections predict it will pass by Earth at a safe distance of about 1.8 million km (4.57 lunar distances).As explained by NASA, 2014 JO25 was discovered by the Mt. LemmonSurvey in May 2014.  This asteroid will approach within 4.6 lunar distances (0.0118 AU) on 2017 April 19 when it will be among the strongest asteroid radar targets of the year.

According to a NASA statement, theclose encounter set to occur on April 19 will be the closest the asteroid approaches Earth in 400 years, and there are not projected future encounters that are expectedto occur so close for at least 480 years.

However, astronomers warn that another fly-by is expected to occur in 2091 when the massive space rock will approach neighboring planets, Venus and Mercury.Scientists warn that two MASSIVE asteroids,with a diameter of around two kilometers, will approach Earth—‘2003 BD44’ and ‘1999 CU3’—but none of them as close as2014 JO25.

Recently, the US government has proposed a global initiative—called ‘National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy’—to locate over 300,000 Earth-impact risk objects, and prepare for potential collisions that could create an unimaginable catastrophe on Earth.The report says that while a “civilization-ending” smash with space rocks over the next 200 years is unlikely, the risk of “smaller but still catastrophic NEO impacts is real.”“Current estimates of the NEO population predict that over 300,000 objects greater than 40 meters [131ft] in size could be an impact hazard to the Earth and have not yet been detected,” the strategy warns.One of the key goals underpinning the strategy is a desire to build “international support and policies for acknowledging and addressing the potential Earth impact of a NEO.”“Objectives include: coordinating the communication of detected impact threats within the US Government, as well as with other governments, media, and the public… and developing protocols for international interactions regarding NEO impacts outside of the US territory,” the document states.

Scientists say time travel is possible and THIS is how to do it

For countless centuries people have wondered whether or not timetravel is possible. As a result, countless books, studies, and movies have come to life exploring a completely unknown territory.

Throughout the years, as science and physics have advanced, experts have explored the idea of time travel like never before, most of them agreeing upon the conclusion that traveling in time to the past is not realistic, but traveling forward to the future could become a reality.

One of the first scientists on Earth to mention the idea of traveling in time was Albert Einstein who proposed that if one were to travel at the speed of light away from Earth, time would ‘literally slow down’ for the traveler, while people on Earth would continue to experience time at a normal rate.In addition to Einstein, many othershave spoken out about traveling in time.Brian Greene a theoretical physicistand string theorist from Columbia University, said: “You can build a spaceship, go out into space [and travel] near the speed of light, turn around and come back.“Imagine you go out for six months and you turn around and you come back for six months.”The theoretical physicist added: “When you step out of your ship, you’re one year older but Earth has gone through many, many years.“It can have gone through 10,000, 100,000 or a million years depending on how close to the speed of light you traveled.”But perhaps the most important comments regarding time travel come from world-renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking who added to this theory, explaining the feasibility of it.Previously professor Hawking said:It would take six years at full power just to reach these speeds.“After the first two years, it would reach half-light speed and be far outside the solar system.”After another two years, it would be traveling at 90 percent of the speedof light.”“After another two years of full thrust, the ship would reach full speed, 98 percent of the speed of light, and each day on the ship would be a year on Earth.“At such speeds, a trip to the edge of the galaxy would take just 80 years for those on board.”Others agree with Greene and Hawking.Particle physicist Brian Cox has said that time travel is possible but only in one direction. “The central question is, can you build a time machine? The answer is yes, you can go into the future.” Cox explains that traveling in time is basically possible thanks to Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.If the traveler wanted to travel hundreds, or even thousands of years into the future, this could be accomplished if he or she was traveling at an incredibly fast pace, close to the speed of light.However, Cox warned that Coming back from the future or traveling to another point in the past is much less likely.

Wreckage from a mysterious, ancient planet spotted orbiting Mars

There are a bunch of asteroids orbiting the red planet commonly referred to as ‘Trojans’, and
now scientists say these mysterious objects may have belonged to an ancient world that was part
of our solar system.
According to a new analysis, the objects orbiting Mars are all made from the same composition
which indicates they fractured from a planet in the distant past, in what was a massive collision.
So far, scientists have discovered 9 Mars Trojans —the largest one of them measures 2km in diameter, while the remaining 8 span between 500 meters and 1.3 kilometers across. Trojan asteroids aren’t a new thing in our solar
system. In fact, astronomers say that these objects have been present since the beginning of
our solar system when planets, moons, comets, and asteroids were distributed in a totally
different way.

In fact, there are between 6,000 and 6,500 trojans in Jupiter’s and Neptune’s orbit. The red planet has nine of them, and the first one
discovered 35 years ago is called Eureka. This object is the largest of all nine trojans orbiting
Mars. To understand the Trojans orbiting Mars, an international group of astronomers used the Very
large Telescope in Chile in order to obtain detailed characteristics or Mars’ Trojan family.

Experts found that the asteroids circling Mars are ALL made of the same material since the
spectrum of sunlight they reflect is similar. Left: The paths traced by the known Martian Trojans around L4 or L5 (crosses) relative to
Mars (red disk) and the Sun (yellow disk). The dotted circle indicates the average Sun-Mars distance. Right: Enlargement of inset (dashed
rectangle) showing the paths of the 8 L5 Trojans: 1998 VF31 (marked as “VF31” – blue), Eureka (red) and the 6 objects identified as family
members (amber). The filled disks indicate the relative sizes of the asteroids. Eureka, the largest
member, is about 2 km across. Credit: Apostolos Christou.
However, scientists found curious details.

According to experts, each of the satellites has a mysterious composition compared to other
objects in our solar system. All of the objects are composed of olivine—a mineral that comes into
existence in larger materials as the are exposed
to extremely high pressure and temperatures.

Experts point out that “Many other families exist
in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter, and even among Jupiter’s Trojans, but none are
made up of such olivine-dominated asteroids”. This is why scientists believe that the Trojans origin Mars were once part of a mini planets
mantle. Mini planets are believed to have developed a crust, a mantle, and core, but have been destroyed in the distant past due to cataclysmic collisions.

CONFIRMED: New, mystery radio signals could be ‘extraterrestrial transmissions’

The discovery of a new set of radio signals confirms that these mysterious ‘Fast Radio Bursts
(FRBs) originate outside our planet and even our galaxy.
One of the greatest mysteries of the universe—for modern scietnists—are the so-called Fast Radio
Bursts. So far, no one has been able to successfully explain what or who in the Universe is transmitting short bursts of radio energy across
the cosmos?

Rare, mysterious radio waves have baffled astronomers since the first time they were detected a decade ago. While no one can say for
certain what these mysterious signals are, there are some who believe the mystery bursts may be
a sign of advanced alien civilizations trying to contact us.
Artist’s impression shows three bright red flashes depicting fast radio bursts far beyond the Milky
Way, appearing in the constellations Puppis and
Hydra. Now, a team of astrophysicists have confirmed
that the mysterious Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), which are intense bursts of radio energy that last
a few milliseconds, originate outside our planet.

According to the official website of Swinburne University of Technology (Melbourne, Australia),
which led the study, the signals may even come from beyond our galaxy. FRBs are basically radio emissions that appear
temporary and totally randomly which makes them extremely hard to find, and even harder to
study. There are several theories as to what they might be Some suggest they originate as stars collide,
while others have ventured out saying that they may be messages from our cosmic neighbors.

Professor Matthew Bailes from the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne who
participated in the new research said: “Perhaps the most bizarre explanation for the FRBs is that
they were alien transmissions. ”
Manisha Caleb, an astrophysicist at the Australian National University (Canberra),
explained that “discovering where those bursts come from is the key to understanding what originates them. Only one of the FRBs has been linked to a specific galaxy.”
Using the Molonglo radio telescope, experts from the Australian National University have detected
three new FRBs. Precisely this telescope could help experts solve the mystery surrounding FRBs.
Because of the unique architecture of the Molonglo radio telescope, experts suggests it is an ideal tool to pinpoint FRBs thanks to its
gigantic focal length.

Dr. Chris Flynn from Swinburne University of Technology who also participated in the study
said: “Conventional single dish radio telescopes have difficulty establishing that transmissions
originate beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.” According to an article from Swinburne
University, the Molonglo telescope has a huge collecting area (18,000 square meters) and a
large field of view (eight square degrees on the sky), which makes it excellent for hunting for fast
radio bursts. Ms. Caleb’s project was to develop software to
sift through the 1000 TB of data produced each dayday. Her work paid off with the three new FRB
discoveries.

Dr. Steven Greer reveals different types of Aliens known to to the Government .

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Given the fact that the universe is SOO big, it’s hard to even imagine that life only came into existence –miraculously— on Earth.

To put the possibility of alien life existing elsewhere into perspective, there are approximately 10 billion galaxies in the observable universe. The number of stars in each galaxy may differ, but assuming there is an average of around 100 billion stars per galaxy, it would mean that there are around 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – lots of zeroes yup, and that’s 1 billion trillion— stars in the observable universe.

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This of course, isn’t the entire number but just one segment of the entire picture since we can only observe parts of the universe that are within 13.7 billion light-years of earth.

As noted on SCSB, this is due to the fact that the big bang occurred about 13.7 billion years ago. Thus, w make observations about distant stars by measuring the light that reaches earth and satellites that we have in space.

Light from stars farther than 13.7 billion light-years away has not had time to reach us yet. The universe must be much bigger than the universe that we can observe at this time, therefore there may be many more stars out there.

After realizing how big the universe really is, we turn to the Alien question.

In the past, numerous scientists, military officials, and whistleblowers have come forward speaking about UFOs and alien visitations to Earth.

The debate about Alien life isn’t something new to modern times, as a matter of a fact, since recorded history, people have asked what if somewhere out there is life similar to that on Earth. “To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field of millet, only one grain will grow.” – Metrodorus, Greek philosopher of the fourth century B.C.

One of the most interesting comments regarding extraterrestrial life comes from former Canadian defense minister, Paul Hellyer.

Mr. Hellyer has said that here are more than 82 known alien species who have visited Earth. It is claimed that a wealth of information about these extraterrestrial species is contained in highly-classified documents used as training manuals or guides for military and intelligence personnel. The documents reveal that many of the known species, such as the Alpha-Draconians or Reptilians, have been living on Earth long before the human race.

Comments made by Mr. Heller are backed up by many other scientists, military officials, and whistleblowers.

Franklin Story Musgrave, an American Physician, retired NASA astronaut who worked on the design and development of the Skylab Program and the only astronaut to have flown missions on all five Space Shuttles had very interesting things to say about life elsewhere in the cosmos:

“Statistically it’s a certainty there are hugely advanced civilizations, intelligences, life forms out there. I believe they’re so advanced that they’re even doing interstellar travel. I believe it’s possible that they even came here. It’s logical to presume the universe must have other life in it and by virtue of association that we could be visited at some point.”

One of our favorite quotes comes from Dr Brian O’Leary, a former NASA Astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor:

“There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been monitoring us for a very long time. That their appearance is bizarre from any type of traditional materialistic western point of view. That these visitors use the technologies of consciousness, they use toroids, they use co-rotating magnetic disks for their propulsion systems, which seems to be a common denominator of the UFO phenomenon.”

In addition to the above, a very interesting video about alien life and alien visitations is the one posted below, where Steven Macon Greer –a retired medical doctor and ufologist, founder of the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI) and The Disclosure Project— speaks of the various types of aliens. The interview was made in 2010.

3 Common Space Myths that will make your RETHINK everything you’ve been taught in School.

  

The Earth isn’t round, and the sun isn’t yellow. Regrettably, most of our knowledge about the universe, space, and even planet Earth is today made up of numerous random segments produced in Hollywood movies and science fiction books. Most of the time, these segments are far more reality.

When looking at our solar system and our planet, it would seem undeniable that the Earth is a round sphere, Mercury –the closest planet to the sun— is the hottest planet, and the sun is yellow. However, while these may sound as fool-proof, undeniable facts, they are far away from reality.

Nope, the Earth is not round, technically
One of the most hated, controversial and provocative questions is: whether the Earth is round.
The truth is that it’s true and not at the same time.
How? Well, as it turns out, the shape of our planet is CONSTANTLY changing because of the movement of Earth’s continental plates. This movement is small, and averages around 5 cm in a year.- However, this relatively small movement has a great impact on the appearance of our planet, which is, in fact, one of the most important details when it comes to the questions; is the Earth round. The answer is that our planet is FAR from being perfectly round.
The shape of our planet is anything but similar to the shape of a football, basketball or baseball, and it is more like a irregular potato or oddly shaped pear.
So, instead of calling Earth a globe, a more accurate name that best describes our planet’s shape would be GEOID.Not flat, phew.

The Sun is NOT yellow

Even though every time we look at the sun we see it as a yellow, orange or red sphere depending on the time of the day and the sun’s position in the sky, as it turns out, the sun is in fact WHITE.
As science put it, the color of any light depends mostly on the temperature. For example, surface temperatures of 4,500 degrees celsius, like our sun emit a white color.
So why do we keep painting the sun as a yellow circle? As it turns out, the longer light waves from the yellow/red part of the spectrum pass the atmosphere of the Earth nearly without any loss.However, if one day you find yourself in space, orbiting Earth, take a look at the sun and you will notice that the star we all painted as children as being yellow is in fact WHITE.

The Moon’s Dark side is… a lie

While there are numerous mysteries associated with our moon, the dark side of the moon isn’t a mystery at all. In fact, the idea that the Sun only shines on one side of the moon, leaving  the other side of it in complete darkness is a very widespread mistake.

via GIPHY
The idea of a ‘dark side of the moon’ comes from the fact that the moon faces our planet only with one side, leaving the other side of the moon –the dark side— impossible to observe from the ground.
This is a big mistake though. In fact, the Sun shines over the visible and invisible parts (seen from Earth) of the moon. We only see one side of the moon because the period the moon needs to revolve on its own axis is coincidentally the same with the time it takes to orbit Earth.

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Mind-Blowing: There is a 2 BILLION-Year-Old natural Nuclear Reactor in Africa

Ancient Code The unexplaine

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A worker stands next to a deposit of, among other things, naturally depleted uranium.

Two billion years ago, parts of an African uranium deposit spontaneously underwent nuclear fission. Scientists estimate that this nuclear reactor –whch consists of 16 sites—has been operational for at least 500,000 years in the distant past. Incredibly, compared with this massive nuclear reactor, our modern-day nuclear reactors are not comparable both in design and functionality.

The nuclear reactor consists of 16 sites. As it is noted in Scientific American, “It is truly amazing that more than a dozen natural reactors spontaneously sprang into existence and that they managed to maintain a modest power output for perhaps a few hundred millennia.”

The discovery is so fascinating that researchers said that “the discovery of the Oklo natural nuclear reactor in Gabon (West Africa) in 1972 was possibly one of the most momentous events in reactor physics since 1942 when Enrico Fermi and his team achieved an artificial self-sustained fission chain reaction.

Whenever we hear the term ‘nuclear reactor’ we think of a structure created artificially. However, that’s not the case here. This nuclear reactor is in fact located in a region of natural uranium within our planet’s crust, located in Okla, Gabon.

As it turns out, Uranium is naturally radioactive, and the conditions that occurred in Okla happened to be PERFECT allowing nuclear reactions to take place.

In fact, Oklo is the ONLY known location for this on the planet and consists of 16 sites at which scientists say ‘self-sustaining’ nuclear fissions occurred around 1.7 billion years ago, averaging around 100 kW of thermal power during that time. The Oklo uranium ore deposits are the only known sites in which natural nuclear reactors existed, but how? Why is it that no other place on Earth has a natural nuclear reactor?

According to reports, the natural nuclear reactor formed when a uranium-rich mineral deposit became inundated with groundwater that acted as a neutron moderator, and a nuclear chain reaction took place. The heat generated from the nuclear fission caused the groundwater to boil away, which slowed or stopped the reaction. After cooling of the mineral deposit, the water returned and the reaction restarted, completing a full cycle every 3-hours. The fission reaction cycles continued for hundreds of thousands of years and ended when the ever decreasing fissile materials no longer could sustain a chain reaction.

This mind-bending discovery was made in 1972 when French scientists took uranium ore from the mine in Gabon to test its uranium content. Uranium ore is composed of three isotopes of uranium, and each one of them contains a different number of neutrons. There is Uranium 238, uranium 234, and uranium 235.

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Uranium 235 is the one which scientists are most interested in because it can sustain nuclear chain reactions.

What is surprising is that a nuclear reaction had occurred in a way that the plutonium, the by-product, was created, and the nuclear reaction itself had been moderated. This is something considered as a “holy grail” of atomic science. The ability to moderate the reaction means that once the reaction was initiated, it was possible to leverage the output power in a controlled way, with the capacity to prevent catastrophic explosions or the release of the energy at a single time.

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They also found that water had been used to moderate the reaction in the same way that modern nuclear reactors cool down using graphite-cadium shafts preventing the reactor from going into critical state and exploding. All of this, “in nature” of course. After all, nature is incredible in every single way.

But, Why is it that these parts of the deposit did not explode and destroy themselves right after nuclear chain reactions began? What mechanism provided the necessary self-regulation? Did these reactors run steadily or in fits and starts?

Researchers in China find a 2,000-year-old sword as sharp as when it was just crafted

The 2,300-year-old sword has taken experts by surprise since despite its antiquity, the sword, and its sheath are in perfect state of conservation. Experts indicate that the sword did not oxidize because the tomb chamber had been sealed.

Chinese archaeologists have discovered in the Henan Province (central-eastern China) a steel sword forged more than 2,300 years ago.

According to the news agency TASS, the sword was discovered during the excavation of a tomb in Xinyang city.

Despite its antiquity, the sword, and its sheath are in perfect state of conservation. In a video published on social networks, it can be observed that the blade of the weapon maintains practically the original sharpening.

After carefully removing the mud-covered sword from the coffin, archaeologists cleaned the sheath before separating the blade from its cover at around 12 pm on December 30.

Liu Yong, the deputy supervisor of the Chengyang Protected District, who witnessed the sword-drawing ceremony said he was extremely impressed by the ancient weapon.

The ancient city of Chengyang is the best preserved and largest city of the ancient kingdom of Chu (770-223 BC). It is located 25km north of Xinyang city in Henan Province. The city is believed to have been established around 2,700 years ago as the barracks of the Chu Kingdom.

Through a poem, he said that even though the loyal general had died, his treasured sword was still glittering.

However, experts are yet to confirm the identity of the owner of the ancient sword.

Furthermore, laboratory results of the tests showed that the ancient sword was forged during the period of the Warring States, which lasted from 475 BC to 221 AD.

This period is considered by scholars as the golden age of Chinese culture and, according to historians, had a significant influence on the development of the Han dynasty.

This led to the development of science and the application of scientific advances in production, which prompted an increase in trade.

However, according to reports, such discoveries certainly aren’t new for the Henan Province.

In April 2016, archaeologists unearthed a number of 3,000-year-old coffins after discovering 22 tombs dating from the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC-1046 BC).

Historians believe the site was a “family burial place,” belonging to “affluent people, possibly aristocrats.”

ASTRONOMY PROF, STUDENT PREDICT EXPLOSION THAT WILL CHANGE THE NIGHT SKY.

Daniel Van Noord '14 and Larry Molnar predict explosion that will change the night sky.

Calvin College professor Larry Molnar and his students along with colleagues from Apache Point Observatory (Karen Kinemuchi) and the University of Wyoming (Henry Kobulnicky) are predicting a change to the night sky that will be visible to the naked eye. At 10:15 a.m. CST on Friday, January 6, a press briefing was held at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center (Austin 5) where Molnar shared how a prediction he made in 2015 of a binary star merging in the near future is progressing from theory to reality.

“It’s a one-in-a-million chance that you can predict an explosion,” Molnar said of his bold prognostication. “It’s never been done before.”

Molnar’s prediction is that a binary star (two stars orbiting each other) he is monitoring will merge and explode in 2022, give or take a year; at which time the star will increase its brightness ten thousand fold, becoming one of the brighter stars in the heavens for a time. The star will be visible as part of the constellation Cygnus, and will add a star to the recognizable Northern Cross star pattern.

Calvin communication arts and sciences professor Sam Smartt is producing a documentary on the nature of the scientific discovery, the development of undergraduate researchers and the power of "small science." Watch the trailer.

A question leads to exploration

Molnar’s exploration into the star known as KIC 9832227 began back in 2013. He was attending an astronomy conference when fellow astronomer Karen Kinemuchi presented her study of the brightness changes of the star, which concluded with a question: Is it pulsing or is it a binary?

Also present at the conference was then Calvin College student Daniel Van Noord ’14, Molnar’s research assistant. He took the question as a personal challenge and made some observations of the star with the Calvin observatory.

“He looked at how the color of the star correlated with brightness and determined it was definitely a binary,” said Molnar. “In fact, he discovered it was actually a contact binary, in which the two stars share a common atmosphere, like two peanuts sharing a single shell.

“From there Dan determined a precise orbital period from Kinemuchi’s Kepler satellite data (just under 11 hours) and was surprised to discover that the period was slightly less than that shown by earlier data” Molnar continued.

This result brought to mind work published by astronomer Romuald Tylenda, who had studied the observational archives to see how another star (V1309 Scorpii) had behaved before it exploded unexpectedly in 2008 and produced a red nova (a type of stellar explosion only recently recognized as distinct from other types). The pre-explosion record showed a contact binary with an orbital period decreasing at an accelerating rate.  For Molnar, this pattern of orbital change was a “Rosetta stone” for interpreting the new data.

Making a bold prediction

Upon observing the period change to continue through 2013 and 2014, Molnar presented orbital timing spanning 15 years at the January 2015 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, making the prediction that KIC 9832227 may be following in the footsteps of V1309 Scorpii.  Before taking the hypothesis too seriously, though, one needed to rule out other, more mundane, interpretations of the period change.

In the two years since that meeting, Molnar and his team have performed two strong observational tests of the alternative interpretations.  First, spectroscopic observations ruled out the presence of a companion star with an orbital period greater than 15 years.  Second, the rate of orbital period decrease of the past two years followed the prediction made in 2015 and now exceeds that shown by other contact binaries.

Moving from theory to reality

“Bottom line is we really think our merging star hypothesis should be taken seriously right now and we should be using the next few years to study this intensely so that if it does blow up we will know what led to that explosion,” said Molnar.

To that end, Molnar and colleagues will be observing KIC 9832227 in the next year over the full range of wavelengths: using the Very Large Array, the Infrared Telescope Facility, and the XMM-Newton spacecraft to study the star’s radio, infrared and X-ray emission, respectively.

“If Larry’s prediction is correct, his project will demonstrate for the first time that astronomers can catch certain binary stars in the act of dying, and that they can track the last few years of a stellar death spiral up to the point of final, dramatic explosion,” said Matt Walhout, dean for research and scholarship at Calvin College.

Watching in wonder

“The project is significant not only because of the scientific results, but also because it is likely to capture the imagination of people on the street,” said Walhout. “If the prediction is correct, then for the first time in history, parents will be able to point to a dark spot in the sky and say, ‘Watch, kids, there’s a star hiding in there, but soon it’s going to light up.’”

Molnar says that this is the beginning of a story that will unfold over the next several years, and people of all levels can participate.

“The orbital timing can be checked by amateur astronomers,” said Molnar. “It’s amazing the equipment amateur astronomers have these days. They can measure the brightness variations with time of this 12^th magnitude star as it eclipses and see for themselves if it is continuing on the schedule we are predicting or not.”

See an earlier iteration of this story, which includes video and photos.

Russia jams USA satellites!!!

Credit: DARPA

In the heat of battle, the United States military coordinates air and ground movements using a global communications network of satellite links, encrypted wireless networks and old-fashioned radios. But what happens if over-the-air transmissions are jammed or hacked by enemy operatives? Take it underwater, of course.

DARPA, the research and development arm of the Department of Defense, is in the testing phase of a deep ocean, fiber-optic network that would restore tactical communications if conventional satellites and radio frequencies are knocked offline.

Code-named TUNA (Tactical Undersea Network Architectures), the backup communications system would consist of a network of radio buoys strung together by hair-thin fiber-optic cables floating hundreds of feet below the ocean surface.

Building a "plan B" for mission-critical communication underseas presents some serious engineering challenges. DARPA works with U.S. universities and private industry to dream up the novel technologies that power future military operations such as this. For TUNA to work, engineers needed to develop super-thin fiber-optic cables that were tough enough to last 30 days in rough seas, and also self-powered buoys to keep the ad-hoc radio network online.

RELATED: DARPA Develops Implant to 'Plug' Brain into Supercomputers

Stepping up to the buoy challenge was a team of engineers from the Applied Physics Lab (APL) at the University of Washington, one of DARPA's official University Affiliated Research Centers. In less than a year, they sketched up and built out a bat-winged prototype that generates its own energy from passing waves.

Called WEBS (Wave Energy Buoy that Self-deploys), the system can be dropped into the ocean by airplane or boat. It works by capturing the kinetic energy of ocean swells and converting them to electricity using onboard generators. A "heave plate" floating 60 meters below stabilizes the central tube of the buoy while two floating wings move up and down with the waves.

"As opposed to typical wave energy conversion devices, which are anchored to the seafloor and generate large amounts of power for sustaining onshore needs, this is all about having energy available in an offshore environment," said Andrew Stewart, principal engineer at APL, in a promotional video. Given the system's tactical military applications, Stewart couldn't comment further.

For the second phase of the TUNA project, DARPA has set aside $20 million in funding to build and test a working prototype of the seaborne communications network. The end-to-end system would not only need dozens of self-powered radio buoys, but thousands of meters of next-generation fiber-optic cable still in development.

The floating TUNA network is designed to be temporary, filling the gap until normal tactical communication links are restored. Still, DARPA haschallenged the research community to come up with fast fixes in case a hair-thin strand of underwater cable is severed.