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Keyword: astronomy

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  • 'The Phenomenon' updates the UFO debate through new Pentagon disclosures

    10/06/2020 1:51:50 PM PDT · by RoosterRedux · 21 replies
    cnn entertainment ^ | Brian Lowry
    The fascination with UFOs is hardly new, but revelations in the last few years have renewed interest in and speculation about the topic. Enter "The Phenomenon," an earnest documentary most notable for the former officials that lend credence to the notion the government knows much more than it has shared, and that the truth, well, is out there. The A-list names include former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has publicly advocated to declassify such information. In April, the Pentagon released videos of "unidentified aerial phenomena," which included Navy pilots "reacting in awe"...
  • Fighter pilot says UFO he chased in 2004 committed 'act of war'

    09/14/2020 3:07:08 PM PDT · by nickcarraway · 34 replies
    A former U.S. Navy fighter pilot spoke this month about what he says was an encounter with a “Tic Tac”-shaped UFO and believes the flying object committed an “act of war.” Retired Cmdr. David Fravor recalled the strange encounter off San Diego 16 years ago in a Sept. 8 podcast with MIT research scientist Lex Fridman. Fravor says he was dispatched to investigate radar anomalies and later described what he saw as "like nothing I've ever seen" – a Tic Tac-shaped object able to turn on a dime and make itself invisible to radar, New Zealand’s TV Channel 3 reported.
  • Navy pilot who witnessed Tic Tac 'UFO' [said it] committed an 'act of war' by jamming their radar

    09/13/2020 2:12:18 PM PDT · by RoosterRedux · 86 replies
    dailymail.co.uk ^ | MARLENE LENTHANG
    A former US Navy pilot is opening up about his infamous alleged UFO sighting off the coast of California in 2004. Commander David Fravor said he witnessed a Tic Tac-shaped object in the sky in November 10, 2004 performing extraordinary aerial maneuvers that he said no modern human technology was capable of. 'This is not like we saw it and it was gone or I saw lights in the sky and it's gone – we watched this thing on a crystal clear day with four trained observers,' Fravor said in a sit-down interview with Russian-American YouTuber and MIT researcher Lex...
  • Pentagon's UFO announcement is 'exciting,' raises 'controversies': expert

    08/17/2020 1:59:47 PM PDT · by RoosterRedux · 37 replies
    foxnews.com ^ | Chris Ciaccia
    The Pentagon's announcement establishing a task force to "detect, analyze and catalog" unidentified aerial phenomena is a welcome addition in the now very public search for UFOs, albeit one with its own controversies, according to one expert. "I support this initiative, which rightly frames the issue in terms of security," Nick Pope, a former employee and UFO investigator for Britain's Ministry of Defense, said in an email to Fox News. "While there'll be debate about exactly what this entails -- mention of unauthorized aircraft making incursions into training ranges sounds relatively mundane -- UAP [unidentified aerial phenomena] is the official...
  • Pentagon launches task force to study UFO sightings

    08/14/2020 9:48:10 PM PDT · by bitt · 52 replies
    The Hill ^ | 8/14/2020 | Tal Axelrod
    The Pentagon announced Friday that it is launching a task force to study unidentified flying objects after reports of sightings from service members. The Pentagon said in a statement that Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist approved the establishment of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force (UAPTF), which will fall under the Navy. “The Department of Defense established the UAPTF to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs," the Pentagon said. "The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national...
  • ‘Not Made on This Earth’? UFO is Trending on Search and Social and Here’s Why: The Pentagon Apparently Has Some

    07/25/2020 2:41:13 PM PDT · by RoosterRedux · 132 replies
    Mediaite.com ^ | Caleb Howe
    The Pentagon’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, a program they made an effort to characterize as no longer active, is not only very much still a government program, it’s a government expense, as outlined by the New York Times earlier this week. But there’s more than just a line item here, explains Popular Mechanics. The acronym/word UFO is trending on Google. In fact, it was the biggest search of the day on Friday. It continues to trend on social media and search into Saturday, and that’s thanks to an explosive quote from astrophysicist and former Pentagon consultant Eric W. Davis....
  • Tucker Bomb — Pentagon set to release classified UFO findings — ‘Off-world vehicles not made on this earth’…

    07/24/2020 5:49:51 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 98 replies
    www.citizenfreepress.com ^ | Kane on July 24, 2020 2:50 am
    Off-world vehicles not made on this earth’ Tucker Carlson: “The Pentagon has been conducting classified hearings on UFOs for more than a decade. We know very little about what they found, but apparently just recovered are off-world vehicles not made on this earth.” New York Times — Published Tonight No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon’s U.F.O. Unit Will Make Some Findings Public Despite Pentagon statements that it disbanded a once-covert program to investigate unidentified flying objects, the effort remains underway — renamed and tucked inside the Office of Naval Intelligence, where officials continue to study mystifying encounters between military pilots and...
  • Pentagon's UFO hunting department was NOT disbanded in 2012 as stated and could now give public reports every six months amid claims it found 'vehicles not made on this earth'

    07/24/2020 12:31:51 AM PDT · by knighthawk · 51 replies
    UK Daily Mail ^ | July 24 2020 | FRANCES MULRANEY
    The Pentagon's once secret department that hunts and investigates UFOs has continued to operate over the past decade despite previous claims it was disbanded. The Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force has been tucked away inside the Office of Naval Intelligence, and is now being called on to reveal at least some of its findings to the public every six months, according to the New York Times. Information on mysterious encounters with unidentified aerial objects has formerly only been discussed in classified briefings, and Pentagon officials are still not at liberty to discuss the program, which deals with classified matters.
  • I Believe In UFO's.

    06/30/2020 7:50:50 AM PDT · by JAG 5000 · 77 replies
    JAG 5000
    This piece below is 100% fun lunacy. If you are not in the mood to read an absurd pointless piece, then read no further . . . ___________ "There is good solid evidence for the reality of UFO's", say some people. My reply to them is this: ____________ I believe in UFO's. Just yesterday my wife and I were out in the back yard when an Unidentified Flying Object landed on our patio table as we were relaxing sipping tea. Good Lands! I exclaimed, what can that be? My wife immediately recognized it as a UFO. I noticed that it...
  • Why Luther?

    10/31/2020 5:28:58 AM PDT · by Gamecock · 149 replies
    Ligonier ^ | 10/30/2020 | Gene Edward Veith
    istory is the account of vast social movements and cultural changes. To be sure, individuals play their part. But they are usually understood to be products of their times. The Reformation, though, whose five-hundredth anniversary we observe this year and whose impact on not only the church but the world has been monumental, was largely precipitated by one man: Martin Luther. Yes, vast social movements and cultural changes were at work in sixteenth-century Europe. But Luther caused many of them, such as the educational explosion that would lead to universal literacy, the rise of the middle class, and eventually democratic...
  • SpaceX Crew Dragon: Elon Musk decries 'stranger than fiction' problem

    10/30/2020 12:45:32 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 27 replies
    Inverse ^ | 10/30/2020 | Mike Brown
    The capsule is scheduled to send up four astronauts no earlier than 7:49 p.m. Eastern time on November — a mission dubbed "Crew-1." It will be the first non-test, crewed mission since the successful crewed test flight in May 2020. But ahead of the big launch, SpaceX vice president Hans Koenigsmann explained in a NASA briefing this week that a problem with a "nail polish"-like substance discovered during a previous launch threatened to derail the grand plans. The problem already caused NASA to delay the Crew-1 flight earlier this month. The problem dramatically came to light during the GPS-III SV04...
  • Bizarre new planet is largest known rocky world, 40 times as massive as Earth

    10/31/2020 12:01:44 AM PDT · by LibWhacker · 44 replies
    National Geographic ^ | 7/1/2020 | Nadia Drake
    The bulky object—possibly the core of a failed gas giant—challenges what astronomers think about how planets form. About 730 light-years away, not far on the scale of our galaxy, an utterly bizarre planet orbits a sun-like star. Big, dense, and tightly tethered to its home star, the planet is unlike anything astronomers have yet seen—either in our own solar system or afar. The roasted world known as TOI-849b is the most massive rocky planet ever observed, with as much as 40 Earths’ worth of material crammed inside. Perplexingly, TOI-849b’s tremendous bulk suggests that it should be a giant, gassy world...
  • Asteroid size of 747 set to fly past Earth on Halloween

    10/30/2020 8:30:17 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 29 replies
    Fox News ^ | 10/29/2020 | By Chris Ciaccia |
    The massive space rock, known as 2020 UX3, is estimated to have a diameter between 88 and 196 feet, according to NASA's Center for Near Earth Studies (CNEOS). For comparison purposes, the wingspan of a 747 is 225 feet long. It will come within 3.2 million miles of Earth, traveling at roughly 36,000 miles per hour. Its size and its proximity to Earth make it a near-Earth object (NEO). NASA unveiled a 20-page plan in 2018 that details the steps the U.S. should take to be better prepared for NEOs, such as asteroids and comets that come within 30 million...
  • The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End

    10/30/2020 3:38:08 AM PDT · by Candor7 · 37 replies
    Quanta Magazine ^ | 29 October 2020 | George Musser
    ......................................And that led to a remarkable twist in the story. Because the radiation is highly entangled with the black hole it came from, the quantum computer, too, becomes highly entangled with the hole. Within the simulation, the entanglement translates into a geometric link between the simulated black hole and the original. Put simply, the two are connected by a wormhole. “There’s the physical black hole and then there’s the simulated one in the quantum computer, and there can be a replica wormhole connecting those,” said Douglas Stanford, a theoretical physicist at Stanford and a member of the West Coast team....
  • Cometary Activity Spotted on Distant Centaur

    10/29/2020 5:34:55 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 23 replies
    Sci-News ^ | 10/29/2020
    Centaurs are minor planets thought to have originated in the outer region of our Solar System known as the Kuiper Belt. Active centaurs enigmatically display prominent comet-like features such as comae or tails even though they orbit in the gas giant region where it is too cold for water to readily sublimate. Only 18 active centaurs have been identified since 1927 and, consequently, the underlying activity mechanisms are still poorly understood. 2014 OG392 orbits between 10 and 15 AU (astronomical units) where its equilibrium temperature would be around minus 213 degrees Celsius (minus 351 degrees Fahrenheit). Chandler and colleagues initially...
  • Rogue Planet About the Size of Earth Discovered in the Milky Way

    10/29/2020 11:07:11 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 39 replies
    https://scitechdaily.com ^ | By University of Warsaw October 29, 2020
    An artist’s impression of a gravitational microlensing event by a free-floating planet. Credit: Jan Skowron / Astronomical Observatory, University of Warsaw ============================================================================= Our Galaxy may be teeming with rogue planets, gravitationally unbound to any star. An international team of scientists, led by Polish astronomers, has announced the discovery of the smallest Earth-sized free-floating planet found to date. Over four thousand extrasolar planets have been discovered to date. Although many of the known exoplanets do not resemble those in our solar system, they have one thing in common — they all orbit a star. However, theories of planet formation and evolution...
  • Asteroid Apophis Could Still Hit Earth in 2068, New Measurements Suggest

    10/28/2020 6:09:01 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 50 replies
    Gizmodo ^ | 27 Oct, 2020 | George Dvorsky
    Only a small handful of objects are known to pose a serious threat to Earth, and the gigantic asteroid Apophis is one of them. Scientists are now re-evaluating its potential to strike our planet in 48 years, owing to improved observations of the problematic asteroid. Observations made earlier this year from the Subaru Telescope in Hawai’i are providing astronomers with a better sense of how the Yarkovsky effect is influencing the orbital path of asteroid 99942 Apophis. This effect is like a built-in propulsion system for asteroids, in which trace amounts of leaking radiation can alter an object’s momentum in...
  • New nuclear engine concept could help realize 3-month trips to Mars

    10/27/2020 5:25:11 PM PDT · by Roman_War_Criminal · 27 replies
    new atlas ^ | 10/25/20 | David Szondy
    Seattle-based Ultra Safe Nuclear Technologies (USNC-Tech) has developed a concept for a new Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) engine and delivered it to NASA. Claimed to be safer and more reliable than previous NTP designs and with far greater efficiency than a chemical rocket, the concept could help realize the goal of using nuclear propulsion to revolutionize deep space travel, reducing Earth-Mars travel time to just three months. Because chemical rockets are already near their theoretical limits and electric space propulsion systems have such low thrust, rocket engineers continue to seek ways to build more efficient, more powerful engines using some...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Venusian Volcano Imagined

    10/27/2020 3:35:08 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 21 replies
    APOD.NASA.gov ^ | 27 Oct, 2020 | Illustration Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Peter Rubin
    Explanation: What would an erupting volcano on Venus look like? Evidence of currently active volcanoes on Venus was announced earlier this year with the unexplained warmth of regions thought to contain only ancient volcanoes. Although large scale images of Venus have been taken with radar, thick sulfuric acid clouds would inhibit the taking of optical light vistas. Nevertheless, an artist's reconstruction of a Venusian volcano erupting is featured. Volcanoes could play an important role in a life cycle on Venus as they could push chemical foods into the cooler upper atmosphere where hungry microbes might float. Pictured, the plume from...
  • Extreme 'Black Widow' Star Identified as Source of Mystery Gamma Radiation

    10/27/2020 2:11:13 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 16 replies
    Science Alert ^ | 27 Oct, 2020 | MICHELLE STARR
    For more than two decades, astronomers have been systematically tracing mystery sources of high-energy gamma rays to their sources. One, however, remained stubborn - the brightest unidentified source of gamma rays in the Milky Way. It seemed to be coming from a binary system 2,740 light-years away, but only one of the stars could be found. Now, astronomers have solved the mystery and pinned down that second star by searching gamma-ray data obtained between 2008 and 2018. Together, the two stars constitute one of the weirdest binary systems we've ever seen. "The binary star system and the neutron star at...