Free Republic

Mass Extinctions - A Threat from Outer Space or Our Own Planet's Detox? University scientists suggest extraterrestrial theories are flawed and that more down to earth factors could have accounted for past mass extinctions Earth history has been punctuated by several mass extinctions rapidly wiping out nearly all life forms on our planet. What causes these catastrophic events? Are they really due to meteorite impacts? Current research suggests that the cause may come from within our own planet – the eruption of vast amounts of lava that brings a cocktail of gases from deep inside the Earth and vents them...

Scientists are over the moon at the W.M. Keck Observatory and the California Institute of Technology over a new discovery of a satellite orbiting the Solar System's 10th planet (2003 UB313). The newly discovered moon orbits the farthest object ever seen in the Solar System. The existence of the moon will help astronomers resolve the question of whether 2003 UB313, temporarily nicknamed "Xena," is more massive than Pluto and hence the 10th planet. A paper describing the discovery was submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters on October 3, 2005. "We were surprised because this is a completely different type of...

The late Carl Sagan once asked this question, “What does it mean for a civilization to be a million years old? We have had radio telescopes and spaceships for a few decades; our technical civilization is a few hundred years old... an advanced civilization millions of years old is as much beyond us as we are beyond a bush baby or a macaque.” Although any conjecture about such advanced civilizations is a matter of sheer speculation, one can still use the laws of physics to place upper and lower limits on these civilizations. In particular, now that the laws of...

I once thought that worrying about what we should broadcast to extraterrestrials made as much sense as fretting over the small talk I’d venture with King Carl XVI Gustaf if I won the Nobel Prize. I reckoned there was no need to dwell on the problem, as it was both hypothetical and irrelevant.

BOISE - UFOs are showing a keen interest in our nuclear weapons facilities, says investigator Robert Hastings, who has spent countless hours analyzing documents dealing with UFO sightings at nuclear missile launch sites and research labs in the United States over the past several decades. "You have reference to these objects hovering, racing away at blinding speed," he told Idaho 2 News. "There is no evidence we have an aircraft that can do that or anyone else on earth." Hastings, who has devoted countless hours researching UFOs and the U.S. government's reaction to them, was in Boise for a lecture...

LAKELAND, FLA. - Urban legends are supposed to be legends and that's all. But if you ask Jennifer Ward about the Florida skunk ape, she will tell you it stepped out of the mists of myth and into reality. "I never thought anything like that was out there before," Ward, 30, said recently. "But I know there is now." Ward's encounter with the hairy creature came in August, about a week after Hurricane Charley, along a rural stretch of road as she was driving home from a friend's house. Her daughters were asleep in the back seat and it was...

Scientists Find Another Huge Mini-World in Outer Solar System The most distant object ever seen orbiting the Sun is nearly as large as Pluto, expanding astronomers notions of how the solar system formed and what resides in its outskirts. The round world is currently three times farther away than Pluto from the Sun, a distance that expands even further on its 10,000-year orbit. It sits in a part of the solar system that some astronomers had thought empty. It is redder and brighter than anything astronomers have seen in the outer solar system, and scientists don't know why. The object...

The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered the first planet outside the solar system known to have oxygen and carbon in its atmosphere, scientists said Monday. The findings showed that scientists can identify gases in the atmosphere of planets lightyears away from Earth, which could eventually allow researchers to find a planet with an atmosphere that could sustain life. The planet, nicknamed Osiris and known as HD 209458b, is a gas giant 150 lightyears from Earth. It orbits a star similar to the sun, the scientists said. The findings of the team of scientists, led by Alfred Vidal-Madjar of the Astrophysics...

It came from outer space and we don't care, say museums Giles Tremlett in Madrid Saturday January 24, 2004 The Guardian (UK) A home was yesterday being sought for two fragments of rock from outer space which fell to earth in Spain two weeks ago and which museums there have turned down. The meteor fragments were found by a Spanish journalist, Abel Tarilonte, after a flaming ball of rock was seen shooting across the skies of northern and central Spain. Villagers in the mountains of northern Spain reported hearing and feeling explosions after the bright white fireball passed overhead on...

Space Rights Proposal To Be Launched At Lunar Conference Waikoloa Beach - Nov 17, 2003 From Sunday November 16 through to Nov 22, the International Lunar Conference 2003 is being held in Hawaii with the stated purpose of getting us back to the Moon. Many countries and space agencies are sending large delegations, and among the gueats speakers are Moon astronauts John Young and Harrison Schmitt. John Young, still working at NASA, has gained much attention for his statement that "Single-planet Species do Not Last". The conference is also expected to see the launch of a new proposal aimed...