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nasa

NASA Report States There Is No Evidence That Confirms UFOs Are Extraterrestrial 

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An independent study team from NASA has released a report on UFOs in which they stated that there is no evidence that reported UFO sightings are extraterrestrial. The US Government also now categorizes UFOs as UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena. 

During a press conference, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson discussed how NASA has scientific programs to search for signs of life on Mars and imprints of biology in our atmosphere. He discussed how he hopes the mainstream conversation regarding UAPs and UFOs is centered around science in the future. 

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Chris Impey, a professor of astronomy who has a history of reporting on astrobiology, wrote about the recent report for the publication, The Conversation. 

Impey wrote about how the NASA study team’s report suggests that there’s “little to no evidence to suggest that UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin,” according to astronomer David Spergel. 

Only “a small handful cannot be immediately identified as known human-made or natural phenomena,” out of more than 800 unclassified sightings that have been collected by the Department of Defense. according to the report.

“Many of the recent sightings can be attributed to weather balloons and airborne clutter. Historically, most UFOs are astronomical objects such as meteors, fireballs and the planet Venus. Some sightings represent surveillance operations by foreign powers, which is why the U.S. military considers this a national security issue.”

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“The report does offer recommendations to NASA on how to move these investigations forward,” Impey wrote. 

Data analysis from the report is“hampered by poor sensor calibration, the lack of multiple measurements, the lack of sensor metadata, and the lack of baseline data.” 

Officials described the analysis process like “looking for a needle in a haystack, or separating the wheat from the chaff. [We] needed a consistent and rigorous methodology for characterizing sightings, as a way of homing in on something truly anomalous.”

Spergel said the study team’s goal was “to characterize the hay – or the mundane phenomena – and subtract it to find the needle, or the potentially exciting discovery.

Artificial intelligence can help researchers comb through massive datasets to find rare, anomalous phenomena. AI is already being used this way in many areas of astronomy research,” according to Impey.

European Space Agency Make Plan For First Ariane 6 Launch

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The European Space Agency is planning on returning to space with the first launch of their Ariane 6 spacecraft, which they’ll be target launching in October, and ideally officially launching in 2024.

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moon

Defense Of Advanced Research Projects Agency Exploring Technology For Moon-Based Economy 

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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is embarking on a seven-month study to analyze the infrastructure and baseline technology that would be needed to develop a moon-based economy within the next 10 years. 

Through their lunar architecture study, called LunA-10, DARPA is attempting to establish the framework needed for “rapid scientific and commercial activity on and around the moon,” between 2025 and 2015, according to an Agency statement.

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“A large paradigm shift is coming in the next 10 years for the lunar economy. To get to a turning point faster, LunA-10 uniquely aims to identify solutions that can enable multi-mission lunar systems,” said Michael Nayak, the program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office. 

The “multi-mission systems” that Nayak is referring to could include dual use military and commercial technology, such as a wireless power station that would offer communication and navigation capabilities. Nayak compared DARPA’s role in building the lunar economy to it’s contributions to the creation of the internet. 

“Just like DARPA’s foundational node of ARPANET grew into the sprawling web of the internet, LunA-10 is looking for those connective nodes to support a thriving commercial economy on the moon,” Nayak stated. 

The US and other nations, as well as commercial companies, have been planning missions as a part of their vision for a future economy on the moon. DARPA and the Air Force Research Laboratory have begun a slew of programs in recent years meant to explore satellite sensing and logistics in a lunar environment. 

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The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency announced in May that they’re developing a Lunar Reference Frame that will show a mapping infrastructure to support a GPS-like capability for the moon. 

According to reports, “the DARPA effort is focused on fusing various infrastructure sectors that have technological overlap into hubs that could be built up in the future, as economic activity on and around the moon increases. Those sectors include: transit and mobility; energy; communications; and other revolutionary orbital or surface infrastructure concepts.”

DARPA is not planning on funding any new technology development, transportation, or integration with space vehicles, and instead is forming teams that are made up of companies with expertise in lunar technology. 

The teams will be responsible for identifying enabling capabilities, developing analytical frameworks, and considering logistical and technical challenges for future moon operations. 

DARPA is projecting their study will officially begin in November and go until June 2024. They’re also coordinating with NASA to create a blueprint for scientific exploration on the moon and Mars.

Europe’s New $1.5 Billion Space Telescope Takes First Images And Data Of The Universe

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One month after Europe launched a telescope into space, it has begun taking the first images of our universe and recording data. The European Space Agency is elated to see that their $1.5 billion technological advancement is working well.

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horsehair worm

‘Mind-Controlling’ Parasitic Worms Are Missing 30% of Genes Found in All Other Animals

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Parasitic worms known for their “mind controlling” abilities are missing 30% of genes that are found in all other animals, scientists say. The thread-like worms are notorious for compelling their insect hosts to jump into water and drown.

Horsehair worms, of which there are hundreds of species, hatch in water where small water-dwelling predators eventually eat their larvae. Land-dwelling predators, such as crickets and beetles that consume these smaller predators, make the ideal host for the parasite.

After spending months as larvae inside these larger predators, the adult parasites force their hosts to actively seek out and enter bodies of water. Once the insect has drowned, the horsehair worms swim out of the host’s rear orifices to begin their next generation.

The worms resemble spaghetti strings, are only a few inches long, and are found all around the world. Spending most of their lives inside other animals, they have no excretory, respiratory or circulatory systems.

According to a study published Tuesday in the journal Current Biology, horsehair worms, which belong to the phylum Nematomorpha, lost about a third of the genes found in other animals somewhere along their evolutionary history. Genome sequencing of two nematomorph species—the freshwater hairworm Acutogordius australiensis and the marine species Nectonema munidae—led researchers to find the missing genes. Beyond their unique reproductive behavior, very little was known about the worms’ genetics until now.

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Tauana Cunha, a postdoctoral research scientist at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History and lead author of the study, says, “One of the coolest things, maybe the thing that they are most known for, is that they can affect the behavior of their hosts and make them do things that they wouldn’t do otherwise.”

Cunha told CNN that compared with other animals, the worms seemed to be missing a group of around 200 genes.

“There’s a given set of genes that are expected to be found across animal groups. It’s used as a metric for the quality of your genome.”

The genes are known to control the development of cilia—short hairlike structures found at the cellular level, which aid in cellular movement, perform sensing functions, and remove debris and microbes.

The “tail” of a sperm cell is actually just a single, highly specialized cilium. Many microscopic organisms use cilia to swim and catch food. These structures also line our respiratory tract, retinal cells, and the surface of our lungs.

“We set out to sequence their genomes because nothing like them has ever been sequenced before at that level. The goal was to produce those genomes and eventually use them to understand the evolutionary relationships between hairworms and other kinds of animals.”

Horsehair worms seem to be thriving without cilia. “The large majority of the missing genes were exactly the same between the two species; this was just implausible by chance,” says Cunha about the marine and freshwater horsehair worm species studied.

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Biologist Keiichi Kakui, a lecturer in the Department of Biological Sciences at Hokkaido University in Japan, told CNN that the promising new research combines “genome-scale molecular data and detailed morphological observation.”

Kakui was the lead author of a separate study that identified juvenile marine horsehair worms in isopods, a type of deep-sea crustacean. It is unclear how these parasites are able to navigate the ocean without the sensory structures available to most other animals.

“It is hard for me to imagine how this species finds and enters their host in the vast deep sea.”

Scientists had previously identified five species of marine horsehair worms, joining the hundreds of species found in freshwater. Marine horsehair worms, in contrast to their freshwater counterparts, live their entire lives underwater and are not known to manipulate their hosts’ behavior. However, it appears that all species are missing the same genes, which may indicate that both lineages share a common ancestor from which the genetic deficiency was inherited.

Cunha says the new genetic information could also be used to learn about other parasitic organisms known to influence the behaviors of their hosts.

“By doing this comparative analysis across organisms in the future, we might be able to look for similarities. Or maybe these organisms evolved similar behaviors in completely different ways from each other.”

car

FAA Approves First Flying Car Known As ‘Model A’ 

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This week, the company Alef Aeronautics announced that their “Model A” flying car was granted legal permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to test run the vehicle on both the road and the sky. The vehicle will need to run through testing before it can be made available and released to the public.

Alef Aeronautics is the first company to gain the Special Airworthiness Certification from the FAA, the company said in a news release. This specific certification is also given to limit the locations and purpose for the vehicle and where it’s allowed to fly. 

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Before the vehicle can take flight, it also needs to meet the safety standards of the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. Alef CEO Jim Dukhovny stated that the company is “hopeful” that the “certification will be our next step.”

“The historical significance of this cannot be overstated. While there have been pioneers like Terrafugia, Paul Moller, and Henry Ford, this is the first time a vehicle, in the traditional sense (parks and drives like a car, functions like a car, looks like a car), has received permission to fly,”  Dukhovny said to USA TODAY. 

“It’s also important that Alef is the first electric car which received permission to fly. And, last but not least, the ability for vertical takeoff is central to most people’s conception of a ‘flying car.'”

During the “Model A’s” development and testing, Alef is required to report any issues, malfunctions, and/or defects to the US government agency under the Code of Federal Regulation. 

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Model A is also available for preorder, it will be able to hold up to two occupants, will sell for around $300,000, and is 100% electric. In the release, the company also stated the vehicle will be drivable on public roads and has vertical takeoff and landing capabilities. 

“The car will be a Low Speed Vehicle, meaning it won’t go faster than about 25 miles per hour on a paved surface. If a driver needs a faster route, they will be able to use the vehicle’s flight capabilities,” according to Alef.

Presales opened up on Friday. Interested customers were able to pay a $150 deposit to get on a waiting list, or $1,500 for a priority spot on the waiting list’s queue. 

The company has been test driving and flying the car’s prototype since 2019. The version that customers could receive has a driving range of 200 miles and a flight range of 110 miles. 

“We’re excited to receive this certification from the FAA. It allows us to move closer to bringing people an environmentally friendly and faster commute, saving individuals and companies hours each week. This is a one small step for planes, one giant step for cars,” said Alef CEO Jim Dukhovny.

The company has stated that they plan to start delivering the vehicles to customers by late 2025.

What Are NASA’s Plans For Exploring Mars?

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NASA has been able to explore the surface of Mars for 20 years now, after the Spirit rover landed on the Red Planet. As the years have progressed, NASA has continued its exploration, utilizing two rovers and five orbiters to collect as much data as possible.

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asteroid

Asteroid Orbiting With Earth, Known As ‘Quasi-Moon,’ Will Be Around For Hundreds Of Years, Scientists Say 

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Astronomers have recently discovered an asteroid that joined Earth’s orbit around the sun. The asteroid has been named 2023 FW13, and is also referred to as a “quasi-moon” or “quasi-satellite” since it orbits the sun in a similar time frame as the Earth does.

However, the asteroid is only “slightly influenced” by Earth’s gravitational pull, according to reports from Earth.com.

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The asteroid itself was initially discovered on March 28th, 2023 by the Pan-STARRS survey telescope, which is located on the top of Haleakalā, a dormant volcano in Maui, Hawaii. Data shows the asteroid is only 50 feet in diameter, and is orbiting about nine million miles away from Earth. 

The Canada-France-Hawaii telescope, the Kitt Peak National Observatory, and the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter soon after confirmed the asteroid’s presence in the Earth’s vicinity. 

The Minor Planet Center officially listed the asteroid at the International Astronomical Union; an organization that is responsible for identifying and designating titles to new planets, moons, and other astronomical objects in our solar system. 

Journalist and astronomer Adrien Coffinet was the first one to classify the asteroid as a “quasi-moon,” after using an orbit simulator developed by Tony Dunn, another astronomer. Coffinet used the model to find that 2023 FW13 travels around the sun the same amount of time the Earth does, while also circling our planet. 

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2023 FW13 has seemingly been joining Earth in its orbit since 100 BCE, and is likely to continue following our planet until 3700. 

“It seems to be the longest quasi-satellite of Earth known to date,” Coffinet said.

“Fortunately, despite hovering relatively close to our planet, this asteroid is unlikely to be on a collision course with the Earth. The good news is, such an orbit doesn’t result in an impacting trajectory ‘out of the blue,’” Harris said.

According to Richard Binzel, an astronomer at MIT, “astronomical objects such as this one could act as stepping stones to Mars, meaning that they could soon be accessed by spacecraft due to their relative low velocity caused by their near-match to the Earth’s orbit. A space mission trying to reach such asteroids makes sense as a way to practice deep-space missions, before committing a crew and hardware to a longer mission to Mars. It’s a shakedown cruise.”

saturn

New Study Reveals Saturn’s Rings Are Much Younger Than The Planet Itself 

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A new study from the University of Colorado at Boulder has found that Saturn’s rings are likely around 400 million years old, which is much younger than the planet of Saturn itself, which is thought to be around 4.5 billion years old. 

The research was published this month in the journal Science Advances, where it states that Saturn’s rings are likely no more than 400 million years old, making the rings significantly younger than Saturn itself, which is around 4.5 billion years old. 

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The study itself was led by physicist Sascha Kempf from the University of Colorado at Boulder. “In a way, we’ve gotten closure on a question that started with James Clerk Maxwell,” said Kempf.

Kempf broke down that the conclusion of their research came after analyzing dust, and tiny grains of rock material which are constantly moving through the entirety of our Earth’s solar system. When there’s influxes of this tiny grain rock material’s presence, it can leave behind a thin layer of dust on the planets, including on the ice that makes up Saturn’s rings. 

“Think about the rings like the carpet in your house. If you have a clean carpet laid out, you just have to wait. Dust will settle on your carpet. The same is true for the rings.”

Kempf and his team of researchers used an instrument known as the Cosmic Dust Analyzer on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft from the years of 2004 to 2017, analyzing the specks of dust around Saturn. Throughout that time, the team collected around 163 grains that originated from beyond the planet’s immediate proximity. 

With this information, they were able to initially hypothesize that Saturn’s rings have only been gathering dust for a few hundred million years; much younger than the age of the planets in our solar system. 

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“We know approximately how old the rings are, but it doesn’t solve any of our other problems. We still don’t know how these rings formed in the first place.”

Scientists do know that Saturn has seven rings that are made up of chunks of ice that are mostly the size of the average boulder here on Earth. For most of the 20th century, it was assumed that the rings formed at the same time that Saturn did. However, as time went on researchers became skeptical about their origin, as the rings are much cleaner when compared to the actual planet of Saturn. 

“It’s almost impossible to end up with something so clean,” Kempf said.

The other interesting aspect of Saturn’s rings and their development is that they also might be vanishing. NASA scientists have reported in the past that the ice chunks that make up the rings are slowly melting and raining down on the planet itself. They’ve reported that the rings could even fully disappear within the next 100 million years. 

While we still know little about how these rings initially formed, and why they formed so much later than the planet itself, this new research gives an intriguing new insight into the history of Saturn, and our solar system overall.

parrot

Parrots Taught to Video Call Other Parrots Formed Lasting Friendships, Researchers Say

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Researchers from Northeastern University, the University of Glasgow, and MIT designed a video calling system for parrots to “chat” with other parrots. Over time, the birds developed a preference for certain parrot “friends,” forming strong bonds and repeatedly calling the same birds.

The United States is home to 20 million pet birds, and scientists are trying to find a way to help them connect from afar. The 15 volunteers who completed the experiment were recruited from Parrot Kindergarten—a training platform that helps owners deepen their relationship with their birds and “better meet their needs for mental enrichment and challenge.”

Parrots are highly sociable creatures and flock together in their natural habitats. However, these birds are typically kept as solo pets in households or other forms of captivity. Due to their high intelligence, parrots can become distressed and even pluck their feathers if they are not provided with adequate attention and mental stimulation.

Parrot owners spent the first two weeks of the study training their birds to ring a bell and touch the image of another parrot—displayed on a tablet screen—to initiate a video call. There were a total of 212 video calls placed by parrots. The owners then turned off the calls after five minutes or if their parrots lost interest.

Phase two of the experiment involved an “open call” period during which the participating parrots could call any other parrot in the study at any time. In total, the parrots made 147 calls to other birds, providing over 1,000 hours of footage for researchers to analyze.

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The study’s authors, Rébecca Kleinberger, an assistant professor at Northeastern; Jennifer Cunha, a parrot behaviorist and Northeastern researcher; and Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, an assistant professor at the University of Glasgow, reported that the parrots usually stayed on their calls for the maximum time allowed. The birds also appeared to understand that there was a real “fellow bird” on the other side of the screen.

Some parrots even taught their companions new skills, such as flying, foraging and making different vocalizations. “She came alive during the calls,” one pet parent said about their bird.

Hirskyj-Douglas told the Guardian, “I was quite surprised at the range of different behaviors.”

“Some would sing, some would play around and go upside down, others would want to show another bird their toys.”

They also formed clear preferences. For instance, Cunha’s Goffin’s cockatoo named Ellie became friends with an African Grey parrot named Cookie. “It’s been over a year, and they still talk,” Cunha told Northeastern Global News. They seemed to be making vocalizations that mirror “Hello, I’m here” in parrot-speak.

Ultimately, the birds formed lasting bonds, measured by how frequently a bird chose to call the same bird. The most socially active parrots, who initiated the most calls, also received the most calls, pointing to a “reciprocal dynamic similar to human socialization.”

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Some parrots were even reported to have developed attachments to the human caretakers of their virtual friends.

While it is true that captive parrots will not get the same social stimulation they would in the wild, regular video chats with other birds can help enrich their lives.

Despite the promising results, the authors caution parrot owners against launching impromptu Facetime chats on their birds’ behalf. In the study, experts monitored the parrots they were working with, ending calls at the first sign of stress, aggression, disinterest, or discomfort.

The authors noted that “unmediated interactions could lead to fear [or] even violence and property damage.”

“We were really careful about training the birds’ caregivers thoroughly to ensure that they could offer an appropriate level of support to empower their parrots but also help them avoid any negative experiences. As soon as the birds showed any signs of distraction or discomfort, the calls were stopped.”

Kleinberger noted how parrots were only recently domesticated for a generation or two, unlike dogs, cats, and horses. “We’re not saying you can make them as happy as they would be in the wild,” she says. “We’re trying to serve those who are already [in captivity].”

Speaking about Cookie and Ellie, Hirskyj-Douglas says she found their connection particularly moving.

“It really speaks to how cognitively complex these birds are and how much ability they have to express themselves. It was really beautiful, those two birds, for me.”