NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission Gets Launch Date

Article by Paul Rincon                                               February 11, 2021                                               (bbc.com)

• NASA has conformed that in October 2024, it will send the Europa Clipper spacecraft to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa (pictured above), scheduled to arrive there in April 2030. Europa holds an ocean under its frozen outer shell and is regarded as one of the most promising targets in the search for life elsewhere in our solar system.

• During a virtual meeting of NASA’s ‘Outer Planets Assessment Group’ organized by Arizona State University, project scientist Dr. Robert Pappalardo stated: “Europa’s about the size of Earth’s moon, yet we think it contains twice as much water as all of Earth’s oceans.”

• The spacecraft was to have launched on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. But that has now changed to the use of a commercial launch vehicle.

• Interest in Europa as a potential habitat for extra-terrestrial life was given a boost in the 1990s, when NASA’s Galileo spacecraft provided evidence that Europa harbored an ocean of liquid water beneath its outer shell. Europa probably has a rocky core surrounded by around 50 miles of liquid water covered by a shell of water-ice that’s roughly 12 miles thick.

• “At the bottom of the Earth’s oceans are places where water and rock interact, where water seeps down, contacts hot rock and emerges charged with chemical nutrients – reductants,” said Dr. Pappalardo. When these reductants get together with other chemicals called oxidants, they react. These reactions could, “potentially power life at the ocean floor of Europa – even where there is no light to allow for photosynthesis”.

• The Europa Clipper spacecraft will get close enough to analyze chemicals in the frozen water that has welled up to the surface from beneath the ice shell and sample the water plumes spurting out into space from the Jovian moon.

 

A mission to study a moon of Jupiter that could be home to extra-terrestrial life has been given a launch date.

         Dr. Robert Pappalardo

Nasa is sending a spacecraft to the icy world of Europa, which holds an ocean under its frozen outer shell.

Scientists have long regarded the moon as one of the most promising targets in the search for life elsewhere in our Solar System.

The Europa Clipper spacecraft will now launch to the jovian moon in October 2024, arriving in April 2030.

The spacecraft was to have launched on Nasa’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. But the space agency is reported to no longer be considering that launch vehicle.

It will instead lift off on a commercial rocket.

The details were disclosed by the mission’s project scientist, Dr Robert Pappalardo, during a virtual meeting of Nasa’s Outer Planets Assessment Group (Opag).

“We now have clarity on the launch vehicle path and launch date,” Dr Pappalardo, who is based at the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told the meeting.

Interest in the moon as a potential habitat for extra-terrestrial life was given a boost in the 1990s, when Nasa’s Galileo spacecraft provided evidence that Europa harboured an ocean of liquid water beneath its outer shell.

Europa probably has a rocky core surrounded by around 80km (50 miles) of liquid water covered by a shell of water-ice that’s roughly 20km (12 miles) thick.

“Europa’s about the size of Earth’s moon, yet we think it contains twice as much water as all of Earth’s oceans,” Dr Pappalardo said during a virtual talk organised by Arizona State University (ASU) last week.

Discussing the moon’s potential for life, he said: “At the bottom of the Earth’s oceans are places where water and rock interact, where water seeps down, contacts hot rock and emerges charged with chemical nutrients – reductants.”

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Why Has NASA Not Sent Anyone to Mars?

Article by Jess Romeo                                            February 10, 2021                                           (daily.jstor.org)

• In 1969, humans first set foot on the Moon. With each step, the entire universe seemed to open up. Where would NASA and its brave astronauts go next? “At the time of the Moon landing, it was generally expected that the United States would quickly go on to Mars,” writes aerospace engineer and founder of the Mars Society Robert Zubrin.

• As Zubrin relates in The New Atlantis: “Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins recalled thinking ‘perhaps I could help [NASA] plan a Mars mission’. Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man on the Moon, remembered feeling that ‘it wasn’t unreasonable to hope’ he’d be assigned to a Mars-bound crew. Gene Cernan, the twelfth and last man on the Moon, recounted with sadness the time that he finally faced the facts: ‘I’m not going to Mars.’”

• In the half-century following Apollo 11, NASA’s human spaceflight program stagnated. After 1972, no astronaut would stray further than 300 miles from Earth.

• People might blame this lack of human spaceflight on waning public support for the endeavor, lack of funding for NASA, or the fickleness of a democratic government during peacetime. But Zubrin is of a different mind. Historically, Zubrin argues, public support played a relatively small role in the space program in the 1960s. Lack of money is no excuse either. NASA actually has significantly more money today (adjusted for inflation) than it did when it first sent astronauts to the moon.

• As for that democratic “fickleness”, Zubrin points out that “many great things have been accomplished by democratic means during times of peace in the United States, including massive public works like the Erie Canal, the Hoover Dam, and the Interstate Highway System.”

• The real problem is what Zubrin calls a “change in mode of operation.” After Apollo 11, NASA lost sight of its clear, driving purpose. Human spaceflight projects became aimless and slow-moving. NASA has spent hundreds of billions of dollars over the past half-century with very little results. George H.W. Bush’s ‘Space Exploration Initiative’ in 1989 quickly collapsed. Barack Obama’s ‘Journey to Mars’ had no specific deadlines to accomplish anything. And despite establishing Space Force, the Trump administration’s ambitions were vague and Mars was never a top priority.

• Nowadays, Earth’s interaction with the Red Planet begins and ends with robots. But with people like Elon Musk vowing to colonize the Moon by 2026, perhaps the dream is closer than it seems.

• [Editor’s Note]  The facts given in this article point to the causes for the NASA space program’s stagnation over the past fifty years, but not the underlying reason. The reason is that the deep state elite who presided over the creation of vast and competing secret space programs were incredibly greedy. They wanted to keep all of the advanced extraterrestrial technologies, to which they were exposed through their off-planet exploits, only to themselves. So in the 1950s, they set up the “civilian” NASA under the authority of the military industrial complex and invented a “Moon mission” using outdated rocket technology, while they continued to develop their secret space programs using advanced electromagnetic anti-gravity warp drive propulsion technology. Once the deep state put on their Apollo 11 show in 1969 and gave the world a bone to keep them quiet, they came up with other sinister ways to divert the public’s attention over the decades. Deep state agents used any excuse to discredit any real-world space program through the influence of a complicit media (just as they discredited the UFO phenomenon), paving the way for complicit legislators to give space activities the lowest priority. But don’t be fooled. There are millions of people currently residing on the Moon, Mars, and many other celestial bodies within and outside of our solar system.

 

In 1969, humans first set foot on the Moon. With each step, the entire universe seemed to open up. Where would NASA and its

             Elon Musk and Robert Zubrin

brave astronauts go next? As it turns out, nowhere. In the half-century following Apollo 11, NASA’s human spaceflight program stagnated. Even our closest planetary neighbor, Mars, seems like an impossible destination—but this wasn’t always the case.

“At the time of the Moon landing, it was generally expected that the United States would quickly go on to Mars,” writes aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society and advocate for human exploration of Mars. As Zubrin relates in The New Atlantis: “Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins recalled thinking “
‘perhaps I could help them [NASA] plan’ a Mars mission. Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man on the Moon, remembered feeling that ‘it wasn’t unreasonable to hope’ he’d be assigned to a Mars-bound crew. Gene Cernan, the twelfth and last man on the Moon, recounted with sadness the time that he “finally faced the facts: ‘I’m not going to Mars.’”

                        Michael Collins

After 1972, no astronaut would stray further than 300 miles from Earth.

People might blame this lack of human spaceflight on waning public support for the endeavor, lack of funding for NASA, or the

fickleness of a democratic government during peacetime. Zubrin is of a different mind: “Each of these explanations is intuitively plausible,” he argues, “But […] taken together, they amount to a profound misunderstanding of how democratic peoples can do great things.”

Historically, Zubrin argues, public support played a relatively small role in the space program in the 1960s. “An analysis by historian Roger Launius found that […] lunar exploration in general almost never enjoyed majority support in contemporary polls.” Lack of money is no excuse either, Zubrin adds, as NASA actually has significantly more money today (adjusted for inflation) than it did when it first sent astronauts to the moon.

As for that democratic “fickleness,” Zubrin points out that “many great things have been accomplished by democratic means during times of peace in the United States, including massive public works like the Erie Canal, the Hoover Dam, and the Interstate Highway System.”

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Finally! Warp Drives Possible! (more conservative ones at least)

Applied Physics Constructs First Model of Physical Warp Drives - The Cowboy Channel
Press release by scientist Gianni Martire:
” Warp Drives are Now Possible”
The group’s findings have been published in the peer-reviewed journal,
Classical and Quantum Gravity
New York, NY – Scientists at Applied Physics are excited to announce they have
recently constructed the first model of physical warp drives.
Applied Physics is an independent group of scientists, engineers, and inventors that
advise companies and governments on science and technology for both commercial and
humanitarian applications.
In the organization’s most recent news, the team at Applied Physics is announcing the
first model of physical warp drives – something that, until now, has only had a place in
science fiction. The group’s study was conducted in close contact with distinguished
researchers in warp field mechanics, including receiving blessings from the esteemed
Theoretical Physicist Miguel Alcubierre, with findings being published in the peer-reviewed journal, Classical and Quantum Gravity.
“Many people in the field of science are aware of the Alcubierre Drive and believe that
warp drives are unphysical because of the need for negative energy,” says Lund
University Astrophysicist and Scientist at Applied Physics, Alexey Bobrick.
“This, however, is no longer correct; we went in a different direction than NASA and others
and our research has shown there are actually several other classes of warp drives in
general relativity. In particular, we have formulated new classes of warp drive solutions
that do not require negative energy and, thus, become physical.”
“While we still can’t break the speed of light, we don’t need to in order to become an
interstellar species,” says Gianni Martire, Scientist at Applied Physics. “Our warp drive
research has the potential to unite us all.”
Both Bobrick and Martire are happy to provide further details about their work
regarding warp drives to any interested party.
For more information about Applied Physics, please visit https://AppliedPhysics.org
—————————————————————————————————————-

Introducing Physical Warp Drives

Alexey Bobrick, Gianni Martire

The Alcubierre warp drive is an exotic solution in general relativity. It allows for superluminal travel at the cost of enormous amounts of matter with negative mass density. For this reason, the Alcubierre warp drive has been widely considered unphysical. In this study, we develop a model of a general warp drive spacetime in classical relativity that encloses all existing warp drive definitions and allows for new metrics without the most serious issues present in the Alcubierre solution. We present the first general model for subluminal positive-energy, spherically symmetric warp drives; construct superluminal warp-drive solutions which satisfy quantum inequalities; provide optimizations for the Alcubierre metric that decrease the negative energy requirements by two orders of magnitude; and introduce a warp drive spacetime in which space capacity and the rate of time can be chosen in a controlled manner. Conceptually, we demonstrate that any warp drive, including the Alcubierre drive, is a shell of regular or exotic material moving inertially with a certain velocity. Therefore, any warp drive requires propulsion. We show that a class of subluminal, spherically symmetric warp drive spacetimes, at least in principle, can be constructed based on the physical principles known to humanity today.

Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.06824

———————————————————————————————————————–

Watch: “Warp Drive News. Seriously!” (By Sabine Hossenfelder)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VWLjhJBCp0&feature=emb_logo

A previous study that mentions previous improvements such as those by Dr. Harold White from Eagleworks  (NASA)

Click to access BobrickTorino2019.pdf

My Commentary: By using normal positive energy it would be more feasible and acceptable to most current scientists to accept the creation of a warp drive. But it would also be a “slower” drive  (subluminal but, nonetheless, potentially ‘faster’ than current chemical rocketry and other crafts based on the Newtonian action-reaction principle). A step forward to open their minds also to the extraterrestrial/multidimensional presence about which there is much evidence.
I believe that other warp drive methods already exist in the classified world. Some might use negative energy states and potentially or actually superluminal.
But Martire and Bobrick’s theoretical demonstration is a good step forward because until their articles most physicists considered warp drives ‘science fiction” since they were linked to the possibility of using negative energy states widely considered as non-plausible and “non-physical.”
What Martire and Bobrick have apparently demonstrated is that by needing two orders of magnitude less amount of negative energies that requirement can basically be circumvented.
Interestingly, optimized geometries are looking very Ufo-ish.

Incredible Perseverance Rover Mars Landing

Article by Ashley Strickland                                            February 19, 2021                                             (cnn.com)

UPDATED

• On Thursday February 18th, NASA’s Perseverance rover reached Mars’ thin atmosphere. The rover’s ‘jetpack’ lowered the rover on tethers near to the planet’s surface where the rover disengaged from the jetpack and descended by parachute to the ground. Meanwhile, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (which has been orbiting Mars since 2006) flew overhead taking pictures of the descent and landing. The orbiter will relay data from the rover on the ground to the science team back on Earth. The rover and its jetpack were also snapping images along the way.

• While the first images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera on Thursday evening were black and white glimpses showing the rover safely landing on Mars, by Friday color images of the ‘Red Planet’ were being transmitted from the rover itself.

• Perseverance landed about 1.2 miles away from the Jezero Crater river delta, which hosted a lake 3.9 billion years ago. The rover switched over to the software it will use while driving on the Martian surface where it will spend the next two years investigating the crater and delta in search for evidence of ancient life that may have existed when Mars was a more habitable place.

• These first images shared during a NASA press conference were “exhilarating” for the team. A camera on the descent stage of the rover spacecraft captured a unique perspective. “This shot from a camera on my jetpack captures me in midair, just before my wheels touched down,” related the Perseverance rover on its Perseverance Twitter account. “The moment that my team dreamed of for years, now a reality.” “An open horizon, with so much to explore. Can’t wait to get going,” the Perseverance account tweeted. ”Dare mighty things.”

• “The team is overwhelmed with excitement and joy to have successfully landed another rover on the surface of Mars,” said Adam Steltzner, the Perseverance rover’s chief engineer. “When we do such investments, we do them for humanity, and we do them as a gesture of our humanity.” “We can only hope, in our efforts to engineer spacecraft and explore our solar system, that we might be able contribute yet another iconic image to this collection, and I’m happy to say that I’m hopeful that today we can with this.”

• Aaron Stehura, deputy phase lead for entry, descent and landing also reflected on the moment the science team saw the image of the rover from the perspective of the ‘jetpack’ descent stage. “This is something that we’ve never seen before. It was stunning and the team was awestruck. And, you know, there’s just a feeling of victory that we’re able to capture these and share them with the world.” After the successful landing, members of the team celebrated with virtual parties, ice cream and the best night’s sleep they’ve have in a long time.

• “The rover is doing great and is healthy on the surface of Mars and continues to be highly functional and awesome,” said Pauline Hwang, strategic mission manager for the rover. This weekend, the rover will go through some hardware checkouts to make sure everything is working properly, Hwang said. The head, or mast, will unfold and cameras on the mast will capture more images of the rover’s surroundings to provide a panorama, as well as a “selfie” panorama of the rover.

• ‘Ingenuity’, the little helicopter tucked up under the rover, will also go through a checkup before embarking upon a series of test flights over a 30-day period, said Hwang. The Perseverance rover will drive to a predetermined helipad location, lower the helicopter to the ground, roll back away from the helicopter. and record images and video of these historic flights. Ingenuity also carries two cameras and will be able to share its aerial views.

• Katie Stack Morgan, deputy project scientist for the rover has been helping to lead a team of 450 scientists around the world as they prepare to explore the Jezero Crater. Now, they’re ready to study these images and plot out a path for the rover to use as it navigates the intriguing features of the crater. The rover will explore nearby rocks on the crater floor to determine if they are volcanic basalt or sedimentary rocks and investigate the presence of a mineral called olivine that could be an explosive ash deposit, Morgan said.

• Holes present in some the rocks visible in images taken by the rover could suggest either gas that escaped the rocks if they were formed from lava, or fluids that dissolved part of the rock if they’re sedimentary. “Between us and the delta, we have a lot of interesting science to do,” said Morgan. “As soon as we got that color image from the surface of Mars, our chats lit up with the science team saying ‘look over here’ and’ look over here.’ And that’s exactly what we were hoping for… [W]e can’t believe that we’re really doing science now on the surface of Mars.”

 

           Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

After safely landing on the surface of Mars Thursday, NASA’s Perseverance rover has sent back a never-before-seen view: what it

                    Perseverance rover

looks like to land on Mars.

The rover also returned some beautiful postcards of its landing site.

The first image shared during a NASA press conference Friday was “exhilarating” for the team when they received it. It shows the rover nearing the Martian surface during entry, descent and landing. A camera on the descent stage of the spacecraft captured the perspective, something that wasn’t possible on previous missions.

            celebration in control room

“This shot from a camera on my ‘jetpack’ captures me in midair, just before my wheels touched down,” according to a tweet from the Perseverance Twitter account. “The moment that my team dreamed of for years, now a reality. Dare mighty things.”

                    Ingenuity helicopter

Little dust plumes can be seen kicking up from the Martian surface, stirred by the engines landing the rover when it was just 6.5 feet above the surface.

“The team is overwhelmed with excitement and joy to have successfully landed another rover on the surface of Mars,” said Adam Steltzner, the rover’s chief engineer. “When we do such investments, we do them for humanity, and we do them as a gesture of our humanity.”

                Adam Steltzner

Steltzner cited iconic space images from the Apollo mission, like Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the moon, Voyager’s first image of Saturn and the Hubble Space Telescope’s awe-inspiring “Pillars of Creation” photo.

                        Aaron Stehura

“We can only hope, in our efforts to engineer spacecraft and explore our solar system, that we might be able contribute yet another iconic image to this collection, and I’m happy to say that I’m hopeful that today we can with this.”

While the first images returned by the rover Thursday evening were black and white glimpses showing it safely landed on Mars, color images made available Friday show the characteristic red color of the Martian surface.

              Jezero Crater river delta

“An open horizon, with so much to explore. Can’t wait to get going,” the Perseverance account tweeted.

      Katie Stack Morgan

Rocks are also seen scattered across the flat surface of the landing site in Jezero Crater, but they’re small when compared to the large rover wheels.

Rocks spotted by the rover have holes in them — which has the scientists curious to see what would cause them.

Another tweet with the image read, “I love rocks. Look at these right next to my wheel. Are they volcanic or sedimentary? What story do they tell? Can’t wait to find out.”

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera, which flew over the landing site as Perseverance was coming in for a landing, captured an incredible view as the spacecraft’s parachutes opened.

“The Beauty of Flight! HiRISE captured this image of @NASAPersevere on its way to the landing site from over 700 km (435 mi) away!” the HiRISE account tweeted.

4:15 minute summary of the NASA Perseverance Mars landing (‘TODAY’ YouTube)

2:43 minute depiction of the Ingenuity helicopter (‘WKMG News 6 Orlando’ YouTube)

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Mars 2020 Mission to Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Article by Joey Reams and Brian Day                                          January 20, 2021                                      (pasadenanow.com)

• At this moment, the Perseverance Mars rover (pictured above) is hurtling toward Mars, planning to touch down on the Red Planet on February 18th. The landing – part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission – will signify the first planetary mission since Viking with an explicit objective to seek signs of life on another world.

• Ken Williford, the Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s ‘Astrobiogeochemistry Laboratory’ in Pasadena, California, and the deputy project scientist for the Mars mission, said, “Unlike Viking, which was concerned with seeking evidence of living or recently dead organisms, Mars 2020 will explore rocks deposited more than three billion years ago when Mars was broadly habitable and the earliest records of life on Earth were forming.”

• A primary goal of the Perseverance rover will be to drill and store Martian rock samples, which will be retrieved and brought back to Earth in a future mission for study on Earth. If successful, it would be the first time samples from another planet were returned to Earth. “By analyzing those samples, we’re interested in: How did Mars evolve as a planetary system? How do terrestrial planets — that is the ‘rocky’ planet like Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury — like ours form?” Williford said. “We only are able to study rocks from Earth that we carefully select, but we want to expand that field to Mars.”

• Williford says he believes it isn’t a matter of if life will be discovered in space, but when. “I would say that it’s extremely likely in my view…that life is widespread in the universe,” he said. When it comes to the ability to detect the presence of ancient extraterrestrial life, ”I think Mars Sample Return is our best near-term opportunity to potentially make that discovery.”

• “[T]he conditions required to support life are almost certainly very broadly distributed in the universe,” says Williford. “We don’t know how many times life has emerged. I expect it’s many times. Then the question is: Has that ever happened independently in our solar system? [Have]…other locations in our solar system exchanged living organisms and sort of seeded one another?”

 

As the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Perseverance Mars rover (pictured above) hurdles toward the Red Planet ahead of touching

           Ken Williford

down next month as part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, the mission’s deputy project scientist will be sharing his thoughts about the project and what it could mean for the search for life on another world.

Ken Williford, who also serves as Director of the JPL Astrobiogeochemistry Laboratory, is scheduled to host a free online lecture Thursday through the Pasadena Public Library.
The landing of Perseverance at Jezero crater on Feb. 18 will signify “the first planetary mission since Viking with an explicit objective to seek signs of life,” the library said in a written statement. “Unlike Viking, which was concerned with seeking evidence of living or recently dead organisms, Mars 2020 will explore rocks deposited more than three billion years ago when Mars was broadly habitable and the earliest records of life on Earth were forming.”

Among a host of scientific duties, a key goal of the Perseverance rover will be to drill, store and store samples of Martian rock, which will be retrieved and brought back to Earth in a future mission for study on Earth, Williford explained. If successful, it would be the first time samples from another planet were returned to Earth.

“By analyzing those samples, we’re interested in: How did Mars evolve as a planetary system? How do terrestrial planets — that is the Rocky planet like Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury — like ours form?” he said. “We only are able to study rocks from Earth that we carefully select, but we want to expand that field to Mars.”

The larger-scale endeavor, including the return trip, is known as Mars Sample Return, or MSR.

In the decades since astronauts first returned rocks from the Moon for analysis, “They’ve really revolutionized the way we understand the moon, obviously, but also our own planet,” according to Williford.

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Strange Radio Signal Discovered Coming From Jupiter’s Moon

Article by Chris Ciaccia                                         January 12, 2021                                        (foxnews.com)

• In 2018, NASA researchers monitoring the Galileo Probe spacecraft observed extraordinary electromagnetic waves, or “chorus waves,” on Jupiter’s moon, Ganymede. NASA recently published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters that NASA’s Jupiter space probe ‘Juno’ (pictured above) detected a “decametric radio emission” as it traveled over Jupiter’s polar region at a speed of 111,847 mph. The radio emission lasted for only five seconds, but it was enough time to confirm the source.

• “It’s not ET,” says NASA’s Patrick Wiggins. “It’s more of a natural function.” Electrons spiraling in Jupiter’s magnetic field are thought to be the cause of the radio noise. Scientists have known about radio waves on Jupiter since the mid-1950s, but this is the first time the phenomenon has ever been seen emanating from Ganymede.

• The Juno spacecraft launched in 2011and was scheduled to stop functioning in July 2021. But NASA recently extended the duration of the Juno mission around Jupiter to September 2025, if it survives that long. During its mission, Juno has made a number of discoveries and captured remarkable images of the planet and its moons. Juno will continue to observe the gas giant and its rings, and is planned to make close flybys of moons Ganymede, Europa and Io.

• Ganymede, the largest of Jupiter’s moons, has long fascinated astronomers. In 2015, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spotted evidence that Ganymede has an underground ocean. Jupiter’s moon Europa is the sixth-largest moon in the solar system and home to an ocean that “could be habitable,” say researchers.

 

                    Galileo Probe

NASA recently extended the life of two of its planetary discovery missions, including the Juno mission to Jupiter. Now it’s come to light Juno has discovered an FM signal emanating from one of the gas giant’s moons, Ganymede.

                      Patrick Wiggins

The discovery is not an indication of extraterrestrial life, but it is fascinating nonetheless, given it’s the first time it’s been discovered coming from the celestial satellite.
“It’s not E.T.,” Patrick Wiggins, one of NASA’s ambassadors to Utah, said in comments obtained by Fox 8 Cleveland. “It’s more of a natural function.”

The spacecraft, which launched in 2011, happened to be traveling across Jupiter’s polar region at a speed of 111,847 mph when it crossed the radio source, known as a “decametric radio emission,” or simply Wi-Fi. It saw the radio emission for only five seconds, but it was enough time to confirm the source.

                              Europa

According to NASA, the decametric radio waves have frequencies between 10 and 40 MHz, but never above 40 MHz. “Electrons spiraling in Jupiter’s magnetic field are thought to be the cause of the radio noise we hear,” the space agency added.

Scientists have known about radio waves on Jupiter since the mid-1950s, but this is the first time the phenomenon has ever been

                           Ganymede

seen emanating from Ganymede.
The findings were recently published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters.

While notable, this is not the first time scientists have discovered strange occurrences on Ganymede. In 2018, researchers observed “extraordinary” electromagnetic waves, also known as “chorus waves,” thanks to the Galileo Probe spacecraft.

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede has long fascinated astronomers—as it is the largest of the planet’s moons. In 2015, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spotted evidence that Ganymede has an underground ocean.

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A New Frontier in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Article by Adam Frank                                       December 31, 2020                                        (washingtonpost.com)

• On December 18th, ‘Breakthrough Listen’ – a privately funded offshoot of SETI, the ‘Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ – detected a distant “candidate signal” labeled BLC-1, which SETI astronomers would like to think is coming from another intelligent civilization in the galaxy. Of course, these scientists are quick to point out that it is probably not coming from another civilization, but just radio interference from our own planet.

• The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence began more than 60 years ago. Proponents of SETI have long complained that there has never been sufficient funding or telescope time available to make a dent in the effort. In the 1980s and 1990s, Congressional legislators withheld “wasteful” SETI funding, and it has survived since on private funding from millionaires like Yuri Milner who in 2015 pledged $100 million to create Breakthrough Listen.

• Jason Wright and his astronomy colleagues at Penn State have argued that the reason we have not found life elsewhere in the universe is simple: We haven’t really looked. If the galaxy were an ocean, so far astronomers have splashed around in just one hot-tub’s worth of water.

• With Milner’s funding, the Breakthrough Listen project was provided access to telescopes from the Parkes radio dish in Australia and the Green Bank instrument in West Virginia, and resources to explore new search methods and technologies. These include machine-learning initiatives designed to accelerate “classic” SETI research. Artificial intelligence can enable computers to identify those all-important ‘weirdness needles’ in the cosmic signal haystack of data. The next generation of instruments, including the soon-to-be-launched James Webb Space Telescope, should enable SETI astronomers to explore the atmospheres of smaller, Earthlike planets and search for the chemical imprint of an exo-biosphere.

• Meanwhile, the ‘exoplanet revolution’ opened a second frontier in the search for ET. In the mid-1990s, astronomers found the first exoplanet, a Jupiter-size world on a four-day orbit around the star 51 Pegasi. Today, we know that almost every star in the sky hosts a family of worlds. Scientists worldwide are building a census of alien planets, showing which stars have planets and which planets are in the star’s “Goldilocks zone,” where surface temperatures are just right (that is, anywhere between freezing and boiling) for life to form. As a result, astronomers can find out exactly where they should be looking for life and intelligence.

• Astronomers are also gaining the capacity to probe the atmospheres of distant planets for ‘biosignatures’. By interrogating light passing through a far-flung world’s gaseous veil, astronomers can compile its chemical inventory and see what’s in the planet’s atmosphere. Alien astronomers looking at Earth, for example, would see oxygen and methane in our atmosphere — a signature of life’s presence on our planet. Scientists have already explored the atmospheres of a few Jupiter-size exoplanets.

• But why stop at biosignatures? The presence of technology on a planet might be far more detectable than biology. Telescopes on the drawing boards right now might have the capacity to see city lights on distant worlds. In 2019, NASA awarded the first-ever research grant to study atmospheric technosignatures, with two more funded in 2020. All this means that the search for technosignatures is becoming just as plausible and just as important as the search for biosignatures, representing a thrilling new face of SETI, embracing both anomaly-based searches and targeted explorations of exoplanets and their environments.

• The truth about the search for intelligent exo-civilizations is that it’s probably going to take a lot of time and effort. That’s the price you pay for great science. This extraordinary journey — taking us to the shores of alien worlds — is really only just getting started. Something remarkable is happening in the science of life and intelligence beyond Earth. The age of “technosignatures” is dawning.

• [Editor’s Note]  The boys at SETI are dedicated… dedicated, that is, to making sure that the average person remains woefully ignorant of the multitude of intelligent beings and civilizations that permeate our galaxy and universe. Seth Shostak and his accomplices at SETI are simply shills for the deep state. The deep state controls several secret space programs that interact constantly with mostly negative extraterrestrial beings, and have access to their advanced technologies which the deep state wants to maintain for themselves only, in order to preserve their advantage.

But it appears that 2021 will usher in a new level of disclosure of this underlying deep state cabal that has repressed the natural technological and spiritual development of the human species on this Earth since World War II, when the presence of extraterrestrial beings, both benevolent and malevolent, greatly increased in response to our species’ own technological achievements. Suddenly, Earth humans were a more interesting species to scrutinize, and more valuable to exploit. By using human (?) deep state operatives to infiltrate all aspects of government and society, these negative beings orchestrated a false reality which has supported their control agenda for the past seventy years.

We have a unique opportunity now to expose this deep state cabal and the negative extraterrestrial entities that have given this cabal its capacity to control the planet. The time has come to reclaim the planet for our own species, as the benevolent beings and our human cousins of the Galactic Federation have urged us to do. They won’t step in and do it for us. We must save ourselves. It appears that President Trump has declared war on the deep state, and this much anticipated transition has begun.

We are living in the most fantastic period in human history. It is just a shame that more people have not yet awakened to recognize the battle between good and evil that is now unfolding. Once we have overcome our deep state oppressors, the human species will enter a golden age of higher spiritual consciousness and advanced technologies (available to everyone) that will transform our planet as we assume our rightful place among the multitude of space-faring civilizations which deep state operatives, such as SETI and the Washington Post, are desperately trying to prevent.

 

On Dec. 18, the world learned that Breakthrough Listen, a privately funded search for extraterrestrial

                        Jason Wright

intelligence, had found its first official candidate signal. The signal’s existence lit up the Internet. Was BLC-1, as it’s called, finally our moment of contact? Breakthrough Listen scientists, now hard at work on a paper about their findings, were quick to explain that the answer was probably “no”: Given the wealth of human-made radio signal interference out there, BLC-1 will probably turn out to be of human origin.

Their preliminary conclusion, however, does not defuse the excitement of BLC-1. The fact that there’s a candidate at all is cause for celebration. That’s because something remarkable is happening in the science of life and intelligence beyond Earth. The age of “technosignatures” is dawning.

                             Yuri Milner

Many people have the romantic notion that astronomers huddle over their telescopes every night and scan the skies looking for signals from distant, alien civilizations. That, unfortunately, just ain’t happening. Though the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) began more than 60 years ago, there was never sufficient funding or telescope time available to make a dent in the effort. In the 1980s and 1990s, some in Congress cited public SETI funding (as little as it was) as a press-worthy example of wasteful spending. Government support mostly dried up, leaving the field running on fumes. As Jason Wright and colleagues at Penn State have demonstrated, if the sky is an ocean that needs to be searched for life, so far astronomers have splashed around in just one hot-tub’s worth of water. The reason we have not found life elsewhere in the universe is simple: We haven’t really looked.

Now, however, the long desert of opportunity may finally be giving way to a new era of growth. In 2015, Internet billionaire Yuri Milner pledged $100 million to create Breakthrough Listen, a next-generation radio-based search for extraterrestrial intelligence. With a single stroke, Milner helped rejuvenate the field: The project provided access to telescopes from the Parkes radio dish in Australia and the Green Bank instrument in West Virginia, and provided resources to explore new search methods and technologies. These include machine-learning initiatives designed to accelerate “classic” SETI research of the kind epitomized by BLC-1. As pioneered by Frank Drake and others (and popularized by the 1997 movie “Contact”), classic SETI searches for signals that are anomalous, as opposed to those originating from natural or human causes. Historically, the challenge has been that SETI observations produce tidal waves of data. But artificial intelligence can enable computers to identify those all-important weirdness needles in the cosmic signal haystack of all that data.

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NASA Scientists Will Send This Robot Dog to Mars

Article by Kristin Houser                                       December 27, 2020                                    (freethink.com)

• So far, NASA has landed four rovers on Mars. But because they’ve all used wheels to move around, they’ve only been able to explore the parts of the planet that are relatively flat. The parts they can’t reach with a wheeled Mars rover, however, are some of the most enticing to explore. More than sixty researchers and engineers from NASA, CalTech, MIT, and other organizations built a robot dog that they think could be the ideal Mars rover for exploring those hard-to-reach areas.

• Mars is riddled with caves and lava tubes. Those underground structures could be the best places to look for evidence of ancient extraterrestrial life. They could also be the key to human life surviving on Mars in the future. Martian colonists might be able to seek shelter underground, avoiding radiation, frigid temperatures, and meteorites that could jeopardize their safety on Mars’ surface.

• Boston Dynamics’ robot dog, “Spot”, became the possible answer. Spot already has an eclectic resume — it’s herded sheep in New Zealand, scouted factories for Ford, and even helped the NYPD during a recent hostage situation. While the robot dog is highly capable, it wasn’t ready for a job as a Mars rover right out of the gate. So the engineers made some modifications, which they presented during the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting on December 14th.

• They gave Spot a new sensor package, including a thermal camera and LiDaR (laser-scanning) sensor, and mounted a new power and computing package to its back. They also equipped the robot dog with AI software to help it learn as it explores, and a communication system it could use to send data from below ground to the surface. They renamed their newly upgraded robot dog “Au-Spot”, and it has already taken first place in a DARPA challenge that required it to navigate courses designed to look like underground urban environments.

• The researchers are currently testing the robot’s ability to navigate obstacle courses and map outdoor locations similar to the subterranean structures of Mars, such as the lava tubes found in Northern California. NASA hasn’t announced any impending plans to send Au-Spot to the Red Planet. But Au-Spot’s behaviors could one day enable revolutionary scientific missions to take place on the Martian surface and subsurface.

 

Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot has an eclectic resume — it’s herded sheep in New Zealand, scouted factories for Ford, and even helped the NYPD during a recent hostage situation.

However, the multi-talented bot’s next job might be the most remarkable yet: exploring Mars for NASA.

Limitations of a Wheeled Mars Rover

NASA has landed four rovers on Mars so far, and because they’ve all used wheels to move around, they’ve only been able to explore the parts of the planet that are relatively flat.

Scientists want to be able to scope out the entire planet, though — and the parts they can’t reach with a wheeled Mars rover are some of the most enticing.

Mars is riddled with caves and lava tubes, and those underground structures could be the best places to look for evidence of ancient extraterrestrial life.

They could also be the key to human life surviving on the Red Planet in the future — Martian colonists might be able to seek shelter underground, avoiding some of the radiation, frigid temperatures, and meteorites that could jeopardize their safety on Mars’ surface.

Now, more than 60 researchers and engineers from NASA, CalTech, MIT, and other organizations have built a Spot robot dog they think could be the ideal Mars rover for exploring those subsurface structures.

The Roving Robot Dog

While Boston Dynamics’ robot dog is already highly capable, it wasn’t exactly ready for a job as a Mars rover right out of the box, so the researchers had to make some modifications, which they presented during the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) annual meeting on December 14.

11:43 minute video of Au-Spot, NASA’s robot dog (‘Thomas Touma’ YouTube)

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Alien Life on Mars Could Help Humans in Space Exploration

Article by Kirill Kurevlev                                 December 27, 2020                                       (sputniknews.com)

• NASA plans to land the Perseverance rover on Mars in February 2021. The agency plans to return US astronauts to the surface of the Moon by the end of 2024, and a manned mission to Mars by the early 2030s. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is determined to land humans on Mars and start a colony by 2026.

• “[M]icrobial life is [what] we’re most likely to find within our solar system,” states NASA’s chief scientist, Dr. James Green. “Intelligent life we may find outside of our solar system…” Dr. Green, believes that the discovery of even microbial life on planets like Mars may allow future astronauts to be genetically engineered into being able to live in the same environments. Dr. Green says that the discovery of life in the Solar System – any life – would completely change the worldview of mankind.

• Studying life that has evolved in an environment completely different from Earth would provide an example of how they’ve developed mechanisms to survive in it. Says Dr. Green, “[I]f we’re able to crack the concept of being able to live and grow using, using new changes in our DNA structure that maybe other life forms have really done, then we can go anywhere in the galaxy we want to, I mean, it just opens up everything!”

 

                     Dr. James Green

For many years of manned missions, scientists have been searching for other planets and moons that could be suitable for human life. However, most of them present very harsh conditions for us. The problem may be solved with a little help from Martians.

American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) chief scientist, Dr. James Green, believes that the discovery of life on other Solar System planets, like Mars, may allow future astronauts to be genetically engineered into being able to live in the same environments, Green said in a podcast of “Gravity Assist”.

According to the scientist, studying life that has evolved in an environment completely different from Earth would provide an example of how they’ve developed mechanisms to survive in it.

“[…] if we’re able to crack that, if we’re able to crack the concept of being able to live and grow using, using new changes in our DNA structure that maybe other life forms have really done, then we can go anywhere in the galaxy we want to, I mean, it just opens up everything!”, the physicist stated.

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NASA is Sending Spiders to Space

Article by Kristen Currie and Eric Henrikson                                       December 21, 2020                                         (krqe.com)

• When it comes to arachnids, NASA scientists noticed that a spider’s web tends to be lopsided with the center slightly displaced towards the upper edge. Also, while resting, spiders tend to point their heads down towards gravity to get to their prey faster.

• NASA wanted to know what a spider would do without gravity. Would the middle of the web be more centered? Would a spider still face down in a zero-gravity environment? So astronauts on the International Space Station did an experiment. They put a few spiders to the test and found that in the absence of gravity, the spider’s webs tended to be more symmetrical and their body position more variable.

• Without gravity, spiders used light as a way to orient themselves. They found that the webs built under lamp light, as opposed to in darkness, were like those build on Earth under the influence of gravity. (see 2:10 minute video on space spiders below)

 

AUSTIN (KXAN) – Have you ever noticed that a spider’s web tends to be lopsided? Often times, the center is slightly displaced towards the upper edge. And while resting, spiders tend to point their heads down – towards gravity – to get to their prey faster.

Well NASA scientists noticed both characteristics and wanted to know – what would a spider do without gravity? Would the middle of the web be more centered? Would a spider still face down in a zero-gravity environment?

After a couple mishaps on board the International Space Station, astronauts put a few spiders to the test. They found that in the absence of gravity, the spider’s webs tended to be more symmetrical and their body position more variable.

The scientists took it a step further observing that without gravity, spiders used light as a way to orient themselves. When comparing darkness to lamplight, they found that the webs built under light were like those build on Earth under the influence of gravity.

2:10 minute video on NASA sending spiders to space (‘KXAN’ YouTube)

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The Black Knight Satellite Conspiracy Theory

Article by Caroline Delbert                          December 16, 2020                           (popularmechanics.com)

• In 1899, Nikola Tesla claimed to have heard an extraterrestrial signal, and exclaimed. “I have a deep conviction that highly intelligent beings exist on Mars.” In 1923, Tesla told a reporter from the Albany Telegram: “I caught signals which I interpreted as meaning 1–2–3–4. I believe the Martians used numbers for communication because numbers are universal.” At the turn of the 20th century, before airplanes, canals were important for worldwide commerce. There was a theory that Mars had canals made by some kind of intelligent species. According to NASA, it follows that Tesla would have assumed that the mystery signals that he was detecting were from a intelligent beings on Mars.

• The late Gordon Cooper, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts in the early 1960s, claimed to have seen a UFO in space. Although NASA would not support him on it, they admitted to spotting something in the sky, and after ruling out the small number of satellites at the time, decided it must be something else. People in the 1960s were paranoid with the Cold War space race and keen to identify anything in the sky. Time magazine mentioned the space object in 1960, This, together with Tesla’s claim, gave rise to the existence of an alien satellite in a polar orbit perpendicular to ordinary equatorial satellite orbits, dubbed the ‘Black Knight’ satellite (pictured above). And a 1970 paper added the “13,000-year-old alien” origin twist.

• According to Vice, declassified documents have revealed that the mystery object was part of the US military’s Cold War ‘CORONA Project’, the world’s first successful space photo-reconnaissance flights to monitor Soviet missile facilities. In 1998, NASA astronauts on the International Space Station saw and photographed the “amorphous black object” in space, noting its dark and curious shape. NASA dismissed it as an errant thermal blanket.

• NASA is satisfied that the object, glimpsed very occasionally, is probably a piece of lost space junk. Believers cite signals dating back to Nikola Tesla of observations of a polar satellite many millennia older than human technology. Scientists have now determined these signals to be naturally occurring by pulsating space objects known as ‘pulsars’.

 

The Conspiracy

The Black Knight is a space object that, believers insist, is both artificially made and approximately 13,000 years old. That’s supposedly it in the NASA photo above. The agency says the object, glimpsed very occasionally and “detected” sometimes over the decades, is probably a piece of space junk lost from a mission. But believers cite history dating back to Nikola Tesla of observations of a polar satellite many millennia older than human technology. Could it come from ancient aliens?

The Origins

Vice reported on the Black Knight in 2015: “In 1899, Nikola Tesla heard from aliens. ‘I have a deep conviction that highly intelligent beings exist on Mars,’ Tesla told a reporter from the Albany Telegram in 1923. ‘I caught signals which I interpreted as meaning 1–2–3–4. I believe the Martians used

                     Gordon Cooper

numbers for communication because numbers are universal.’”

  The ‘CORONA Project’ “bucket satellite”

At the time, there was an influential theory that Mars had canals made by some kind of intelligent species. “The importance of canals for worldwide commerce at that time without a doubt influenced the popular interest in ‘canals’ on Mars,” NASA explains. The zeitgeist coil surely have affected Tesla—a genius by any measure, but still a human being trying to understand the confusing things he might have encountered.

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Unreleased Images From the Apollo Missions They Don’t Want You To See

Article by Arjun Walia                                     December 17, 2020                                  (collective-evolution.com)

• For decades, there has been an official government campaign of ridicule and secrecy when it came to extraterrestrial UFOs. The idea that UFOs could be real and coming from another civilization was considered a crazy “conspiracy theory.” Now, suddenly, mainstream media outlets like the New York Times and CNN are covering the topic in a credible way. Multiple military agencies from around the world, including the US Navy and the Pentagon, admit that mysterious flying objects performing maneuvers that no known aircraft is capable of, are real and that UFO study programs exist within government. They have radar tracking data, pictures, and photos – some of which has been released to the public.

• So why suddenly legitimize a subject that was ridiculed for so many years? What is the government authorities’ true agenda? People have lost trust in the mainstream media. It is apparent that they only treat the subject seriously when there is a threat narrative associated with it. Whenever it is suggested that the ETs may be here for peaceful and benevolent purposes, the story receives the traditional media ridicule.

• Government agencies have spent a lot of effort suppressing photographic evidence of UFOs. Still, officially released pictures of UFOs are abundant and available within the public domain. (see photos below)

• Robert “Bob” Dean, who passed away a few years ago, was a retired US Army Command Sergeant Major who serve for 28 years. In his lectures, spoke of NASA photographic film that the “so-called authorities determined that you did not have a right to see”. Dean claimed that NASA actually erased 40 rolls of film from the Apollo Program – the flight to the Moon, the flight round the Moon, the Moon landings and Moon walks. “Now we’re talking about several thousand individual frames that were taken… (because) they were ‘disruptive,’ ‘socially unacceptable’, ‘politically unacceptable.” Dean’s claims about NASA erasing photos has basically been confirmed by many others, including Dr. Norman Bergrun who worked for Ames Research Laboratory, NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) and Lockheed Martin.

• Many Apollo astronauts, such as Apollo 14’s Dr. Edgar Mitchell, have been outspoken about their experiences and knowledge about the UFO phenomenon. But it is the Apollo astronauts who dutifully deny these claims that seem to get the most attention within the mainstream media.

• The implications of UFO/extraterrestrial contact is huge. Governments full disclosure of UFO/ET evidence – without a hidden agenda – would be a major paradigm shifter. This would have the potential to expand human consciousness to another level, leaving no aspect of humanity untouched.

 

photo taken by Royal Canadian Air Force pilots on August 27, 1946 in Alberta, Canada

Having researched the UFO/extraterrestrial topic for more than 15 years now and having my own unique

‘cigar’ shaped craft taken by NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong

experiences with sightings, I came to realize these objects were indeed real a long time ago. For decades there seems to have been an “official campaign of ridicule and secrecy” (Roscoe Hillenkoetter Ex CIA director), and this was quite evident amongst family, friends and the general population. The idea that these objects could be real and may be from other civilizations not originating on our planet was considered a crazy “conspiracy theory.”

Fast forward to today and we now have mainstream media outlets covering the topic in a credible way, most notably as of late the New York Times and CNN. We have multiple military agencies from around the world, like the U.S. Navy for example and the Pentagon admitting that these objects are real and that programs exist within government, and have existed within government to study them. They’ve relayed to the masses that these objects are real and perform maneuvers that no known aircraft are capable of, some of them defy our understanding of physics and

                        NASA image

aerodynamics. They’ve told the public that they have radar tracking data, pictures, and photos, some of which have been released and are accessible to the public.

                           Bob Dean

But why legitimize a subject that was ridiculed for so many years? Why all of a sudden? It’s no secret that a lot of people have lost trust in the mainstream media. A constant theme when the UFO phenomenon does seem to be covered in a legitimate form is a threat narrative, this is suspicious to UFO researchers like myself given the fact that the majority of these objects and sightings that have been documented over decades don’t seem to present any behaviour that indicates a threat. Curious, intrusive, perhaps, but no threat. When a story from a credible source emerges mentioning some kind of benevolent possibility, the story seems to be heavily ridiculed by mainstream media. Obviously there are a lot of questions that remain unanswered and as of now we can only speculate.

Officially released pictures of UFOs are abundant and available within the public domain. Here, for example, is a photo taken by two Royal Canadian Air Force pilots on August 27th, 1946, in Fort MacLeod, Alberta, Canada.

                 Dr. Norman Bergrun

Then there are photos that aren’t 100 percent verifiable but do come from interesting sources

              Dr. Edgar Mitchell

nonetheless that are always interesting to look at and speculate, like the ones shown in the lecture below by Robert (Bob) Dean. Dean passed away a few years ago. He was a retired US Army Command Sergeant Major (high rank) who serve for 28 years. According to him, as stated in his lecture:

“Ladies and gentlemen, my government, NASA, which many of us in the United States say stands for Never A Straight Answer, proceeded to erase 40 rolls of film of the Apollo Program – the flight to the Moon, the flight round the Moon, the landings on the Moon, the walking guys here and here. They erased, for Christ’s sake, 40 rolls of film of those events. Now we’re talking about several thousand individual frames that were taken that the so-called authorities determined that you did not have a right to see. Oh, they were ‘disruptive,’ socially unacceptable, ‘politically unacceptable.’ I’ve become furious. I’m a retired Command Sergeant Major. I was never famous for having a lot of patience.”

1 hour video of Bob Dean and Arthur Neumann in 2009 (‘Project Camelot’ YouTube)

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NASA Reveals the Companies That Will Collect Moon Resources

Article by Brittany A. Roston                                   December 4, 2020                              (slashgear.com)

• NASA previously revealed intentions to tap commercial companies to collect space resources on behalf of the space agency, starting with Moon rocks. This is a part of NASA’s plan to return humans to the Moon by 2024 and establish a permanent lunar base under the Artemis program. In September, NASA published a solicitation targeted at private companies for proposals on how they could help the space agency acquire space resources.

• NASA wants to use commercial companies in a big way in order to make the missions affordable while boosting innovation and sustainability. Though the space agency largely uses American companies for these programs, it has also sought international support.

• On December 3rd, NASA announced that it will work with ispace Europe of Luxembourg, Masten Space Systems of California, Lunar Outpost of Colorado, and ispace of Japan under this program. The total contracts for the collected materials will amount to $25,001 USD.

• In a statement, NASA acting associate administrator for international and interagency relations, Mike Gold, said: “These awards expand NASA’s innovative use of public-private partnerships to the Moon. We’re excited to join with our commercial and international partners to make Artemis the largest and most diverse global human space exploration coalition in history. Space resources are the fuel that will propel America and all of humanity to the stars.”

 

NASA has announced the private companies it will use to collect ‘extraterrestrial resources.’ The space agency previously revealed intentions to tap commercial enterprises for space resource collection, underscoring its continued work with private businesses to speed up its missions and cut down costs. The arrangement will kick off with these companies collecting lunar regolith.

      NASA’s Mike Gold

Back in September, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that the space agency sought resources from beyond our planet as a ‘key’ part of its sustainable Moon mission goals. Though it is doubtful that NASA will manage to return humans to the Moon by 2024, it will eventually send its astronauts to the lunar surface.

NASA has used commercial companies in a big way as part of its relatively new Artemis program, something Bridenstine had said was a way to make the missions affordable while boosting innovation and sustainability.

Though the space agency largely utilizes American companies for these deals, the space resources ambition is one that has sought international support. At that time, NASA published a solicitation targeted at private companies for proposals on how they could help the space agency acquire space resources.

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Mars Had Water Before Life on Earth

Article by Chris Ciaccia                                      November 11, 2020                                        (foxnews.com)
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• It was previously estimated that water existed on Mars 3.7 billion years ago. Now, a new study published in Science Advances shows that there actually was water on Mars 4.4 billion years ago (before life appeared on Earth).

• Scientists made the determination by examining a meteorite discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2012 called NWA(NorthWest Africa) 7533, which they believe originated on Mars. Levels of oxidation inside the space rock that suggests there was water on Mars long before there was life on Earth.

• “This oxidation could have occurred if there was water present on or in the Martian crust 4.4 billion years ago during an impact that melted part of the crust,” said the study’s co-author and University of Tokyo planetary scientist Takashi Mikouchi. “Our analysis also suggests such an impact would have released a lot of hydrogen, which would have contributed to planetary warming at a time when Mars already had a thick insulating atmosphere of carbon dioxide.”

• In the last few years, scientists have discovered large underground lakes – 6 miles across and a mile deep – at the South Pole of Mars. Researchers in 2020 suggested that the water on Mars once contained the right ingredients to support life.

• NASA’s Perseverance rover is on its way to Mars where it will perform a variety of functions, including looking for evidence of ancient life.

 

                  meteorite NWA 7533

NASA is on its way to figuring out whether Mars contains fossilized evidence of extraterrestrial life, but a new study suggests the Red Planet had water billions of years earlier than previously believed.

The research, published in Science Advances, notes there was water on Mars’ surface 4.4 billion years ago.

        Takashi Mikouchi

The experts looked at meteorite NWA 7533, believed to have originated on Mars, and found levels of oxidation inside the space rock that suggests there was water on Mars long before there was life on Earth.

“This oxidation could have occurred if there was water present on or in the Martian crust 4.4 billion years ago during an impact that melted part of the crust,” study co-author and University of Tokyo planetary scientist Takashi Mikouchi said in a statement. “Our analysis also suggests such an impact would have released a lot of hydrogen, which would have contributed to planetary warming at a time when Mars already had a thick insulating atmosphere of carbon dioxide.”

Previous estimates put the presence of water on Mars at approximately 3.7 billion years ago, roughly 700 million years later than the new study suggests.

Mikouchi, who said this is the first time he has studied NWA 7533 (discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2012), noted that the team’s analysis of it “led … to some exciting conclusions.”

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Half of Sun-Like Stars in Galaxy Could Host a Habitable Planet

Article by Mike Williams                                   November 3, 2020                              (unilad.co.uk)

• A new study claims that the Milky Way galaxy could in fact be home to many other inhabitable planets just like ours, within the ‘habitable zone’ of its star – just the right orbital distance where water has the potential to be stable on a planet’s surface. There are around 200 billion G dwarf stars just like our sun, so the chances of some of these solar systems having a planet like Earth is conceivable.

• To illustrate how vast space is, 200 billion stars is only 7% of the Milky Way. Says the study’s co-author, Jeff Coughlin, “This is the first time that all of the pieces have been put together to provide a reliable measurement of the number of potentially habitable planets in the galaxy.” Coughlin is an exoplanet researcher at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California. “We’re one step closer on the long road to finding out if we’re alone in the cosmos.”

• Building upon NASA’s Kelper’s science studies conducted between 2009 and 2018, a 2020 team, led by Steve Bryson of NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, has worked hard to discover more than 2,800 exoplanets to date. Bryson and his crew have also examined the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft’s stellar properties which maps out billions of Milky Way stars.

• With all that data, the researchers have been able to predict the occurrence rates of potentially habitable Earth-sized rocky planets along with a sun-like star of similar temperatures. And the chance of there being other life forms on planets like ours is becoming more and more likely.

• [Editor’s Note]   What a waste to have these scientists spend their sad careers focused on deep state red herrings, just to give the public the impression that they are diligently looking for intelligent extraterrestrial life but cannot find any, when ETs currently reside throughout our solar system and extraterrestrial civilizations permeate the galaxy and the universe. They just don’t want us to know about it.

 

                        Jeff Coughlin

A new study suggests there are plenty more planets just like ours out there, suggesting we aren’t alone after all.

Having barely touched the tip of space exploration, we are still largely unaware of what is out there – let alone what’s beyond the power of any NASA probe, satellite, or telescope at our disposal.

However, recent research claims the Milky Way could in fact be home to many other inhabitable planets

             Steve Bryson

just like ours, when it comes to exploring the sun-like stars that could have small planets within each’s so-called ‘habitable zone’. The breakthrough claims these zones are just the right orbital distance where water has the potential to be stable on a planet’s surface.

The findings give a glimmer of hope to that age old question of whether it’s just us in the universe; reminding us that there are around 200 billion G dwarfs, aka balls of burning gas just like our sun, so the chances of some of them lighting up planets just like Earth is conceivable, Space.com reports.

But, just to illustrate how vast space is, the figure of 200 billion is only 7% of the Milky Way, as co-author of the study, Jeff Coughlin, shared the significant news, saying, ‘This is the first time that all of the pieces have been put together to provide a reliable measurement of the number of potentially habitable planets in the galaxy.’

Coughlin, an exoplanet researcher at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California, also said, ‘This is a key term of the Drake Equation, used to estimate the number of communicable civilizations.’

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NASA Posts Cryptic Tweets Hinting at Extraterrestrial Communication

Article by John Diente                                  October 29, 2020                                   (ibtimes.co.uk)

• On October 28th, NASA’s official Twitter account posted: “PSST… Uh, did anyone hear…that?” Was it related to finding water on the Moon? Was it the discovery of extraterrestrial life? In this 2020 year, we wouldn’t be surprised.

• This was followed by another post from an affiliated Twitter account, NASA Earth, saying: “Hmmm… From here at home we’ve just been hearing a lot of creaks and distant crackling.” The NASA Solar System Twitter account replied: “Did It sound intergalactic, planetary? If it’s loud and pulsating, we blame Jupiter.” The Mars Insight Lander Twitter account continued: “It sounded like something kind of eerie and otherworldly… unlike anything I’ve ever heard…” Finally, a post from Chandra Observatory said: “According to my data and calculations, I am in fact also hearing sounds.”

• No, Earth hasn’t been contacted by chatty aliens. This was NASA’s way of promoting SoundCloud’s curated playlist titled “sinister sounds of the solar system” as a Halloween stunt. The description reads: “You’ve heard the creaks, cracks, and cackling noises of our universe before. Using data from our spacecraft, our scientists gathered NEW sinister sounds from the depths of space in time for Halloween.”

• The Halloween stunt drew mixed reactions from those who were initially deceived by the communication. Some found it an amusing and innovative approach for publicity, while others claim it affects the credibility of future announcements from NASA and its partners.

 

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) made a groundbreaking announcement this week when its top researchers reported the presence of water molecules on the lunar surface. Evidently, with its upcoming Artemis program already projected to bring humans back to Earth’s neighbouring natural satellite by 2024, the excitement is at an all-time high for those involved. With all that attention on the agency, its latest tweet apparently caused both fear and excitement for those who read it.

What prompted the reaction was a Twitter post from NASA’s official account that stated: “PSST… Uh, did anyone hear…that?” Although most did not immediately jump into conclusions, a fair share of people reportedly thought it had something to do with the discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Given all unfortunate events in 2020, many of its followers speculated that it might have been bad news.

It was immediately followed by posts from other official accounts affiliated with the agency. One such message was from NASA Earth which wrote: “Hmmm… From here at home we’ve just been hearing a lot of creaks and distant crackling.” It then started to become clear that the original post was just ruse after its other outlets responded. “Did It sound intergalactic, planetary? If it’s loud and pulsating, we blame Jupiter…,” according to NASA Solar System.

The Mars Insight lander Twitter account continued: “It sounded like something kind of eerie and otherworldly… unlike anything I’ve ever heard…” Finally, a post from Chandra Observatory said: “According to my data and calculations, I am in fact also hearing sounds.” Eventually, SoundCloud’s account shared a link to a curated playlist titled “sinister sounds of the solar system.”

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NASA Craft Lands on Asteroid 200 Million Miles Away

Article by Liz George                                 October 28, 2020                                  (americanmilitarynews.com)

• On October 27th, a NASA probe craft landed on the asteroid ‘Bennu’, located beyond Mars 200 million miles from Earth. A video of the event (see below) shows an arm of the craft making contact with the asteroid to suck up a sample of the extraterrestrial rock to bring back to Earth – a planned part of the ‘Osiris-Rex’ mission.

• Bennu was rockier than researchers anticipated, adding complications to the already precarious landing. Large boulders and rock fields made it difficult to land and the safest spot was still fairly rugged. Still, the Osiris-Rex probe (pictured above) successfully completed its 4-hour descent. “I can’t believe we actually pulled this off,” the NASA mission’s principal investigator Dante Lauretta said. “The spacecraft did everything it was supposed to do.”

• With the camera focused on the spacecraft’s extended sample-collecting arm, viewers could see the arm make contact with the asteroids surface, sending a flurry of dust and particles into the space surrounding it. (see videos below) The asteroid’s surface is a type of sandy dust known as ‘regolith’. During the landing, the arm of the spacecraft shot nitrogen gas at the asteroid, stirring up the rubble in the surrounding space before collecting the regolith sample.

• When Osiris-Rex landed, it crushed the rock beneath it. Lauretta said this could make the collection of a good sample more likely, as the sampling instrument is more likely to collect swirling, crushed rock. “These rocks might be very weak compared to what we’re used to on Earth,” Lauretta said. Meteorites that do land on Earth’s surface must be durable enough to make it through the Earth’s atmosphere. Bennu’s rock may very well be different from the extraterrestrial rock samples NASA has already collected.

• The probe needs at least 2.1 ounces of the regolith before it returns to Earth. If NASA/Lockheed Martin determines that it did not collect enough regolith from Bennu, the spacecraft will give it another try on a backup site from a different part of the asteroid early next year. The rock collected from Bennu could assist scientists in designing a plan to redirect it if its future path includes a potential impact with Earth.

 

                      Dante Lauretta

A NASA spacecraft landed on an asteroid flying through a stretch of space 200 million miles from Earth last Tuesday.

In a video of the maneuver, the spacecraft is seen making six seconds of contact with the asteroid, called

                     asteroid ‘Bennu’

Bennu, in order to suck up a sample of the extraterrestrial rock. NASA released footage on Wednesday that showcased the precarious operation.

Dubbed Osiris-Rex, the mission sought to return the sample of the asteroid back to earth, Business Insider reported. Bennu was rockier than researchers initially thought, however, adding complications to the already precarious landing. Large boulders and rock fields made it difficult to land and the safest spot was still fairly rugged.

image of probe arm gathering rock

Despite the uneven surface on Bennu, the Osiris-Rex probe successfully completed its 4-hour descent.

“Transcendental. I can’t believe we actually pulled this off,” the mission’s principal investigator Dante Lauretta said during NASA’s live broadcast expedition. “The spacecraft did everything it was supposed to do.”

With the camera focused on the spacecraft’s extended sample-collecting arm, viewers could see the arm make contact with the asteroids surface, sending a flurry of dust and particles into the space surrounding it.

The asteroid’s surface rubble is a type of sandy dust known as regolith. During the landing, the arm of the spacecraft shot nitrogen gas at the asteroid, stirring up the rubble in the surrounding space before hopefully collecting a sample of the regolith.

 

59 second video of OSIRIS-REx touching the Bennu asteroid (‘NASA Goddard’ YouTube)

 

2:19 minute ‘OSIRIS-REx’ orbiting a few hundred meters from Bennu asteroid (‘NASA Goddard’ YouTube)

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NASA Commander to be Sworn into US Space Force From the International Space Station

Article by Sandra Erwin                                October 28, 2020                                    (spacenews.com)

• NASA astronaut and US Air Force colonel Michael Hopkins is the commander of an upcoming SpaceX Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Hopkins is also planning to transfer to the US Space Force.

• “If all goes well, we’re looking to swear him into the Space Force from the International Space Station,” said Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, chief of space operations of the US Space Force. Raymond is working with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on the details of a planned transfer ceremony as a way to highlight the decades-long partnership between DoD and NASA.

• NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission is scheduled to launch on November 14th from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The crew of four includes Hopkins, NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission specialist Soichi Noguchi (all 4 pictured above).

• For more than 60 years, men and women from the five military branches have helped fill the ranks of the NASA astronaut corps. Hopkins was selected by NASA to be an astronaut in 2009. Like hundreds of other Air Force airmen, Hopkins is voluntarily transferring to Space Force. He will be the first member of the Space Force to serve in NASA’s astronaut corps.

 

      Michael Hopkins

WASHINGTON — NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins, a U.S. Air Force colonel and the commander of the upcoming SpaceX Crew Dragon mission, is transferring to the U.S. Space Force and is expected to be commissioned aboard the International Space Station.

         the International Space Station

“If all goes well, we’re looking to swear him into the Space Force from the International Space Station,” said Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, chief of space operations of the U.S. Space Force.

Col. Michael “Hopper” Hopkins is the commander of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission scheduled to launch Nov. 14 from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The crew of four includes Hopkins, NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission specialist Soichi Noguchi.

Col. Catie Hague, a spokesperson for the chief of space operations, told SpaceNews that the service is working with NASA to schedule a transfer ceremony once Hopkins is on board the International Space Station.

Hopkins, like hundreds of other airmen who are now in the Space Force, is transferring voluntarily. He was selected by NASA to be an astronaut in 2009.

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Could Artificial Intelligence Trick Us Into Believing Aliens Exist?

Article by WION Web Team                                  October 28, 2020                                 (wionews.com)

• Ceres (pictured above) sits in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and had been under the watchful eye of scientists ever since they spotted bright lights on its surface. But NASA’s Dawn mission revealed that it was just sunlight reflecting off of volcanic ice and salt emissions within a crater on Ceres’ surface called the ‘Occator’, that was causing the bright lights. Not aliens.

• In a recent study conducted at University of Cadiz (Spain) and published in the journal Acta Astronautica, a group of people were shown images of the Occator crater. They noted an unusual square shape to its formation. The study then ran the same set of images through an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system which registered the square formation, but also recognized a triangular formation to the crater as well. When human respondents were told about the triangle, they started believing that it was there too, effectively manipulating the information.

• AI is able to detect structures that humans never could. But the study showed that the AI would mistake particular formations on Ceres as non-natural, and therefore evidence of extraterrestrial life. The lesson that the researchers took from the study was a warning of humans trusting AI too much and be fooled when it comes to discovering alien life.

• [Editor’s Note]  This “study” doesn’t pass the sniff test. Who would benefit most from a study that both invalidates a computer’s detection of intelligent extraterrestrial formations on the asteroid Ceres, among other celestial bodies, and warns of the fallibility of artificial intelligence? “Don’t believe the computer; believe what we tell you to believe.” The answer is the deep state elite who want to cover up the fact that the 300 mile diameter Ceres holds large human + colony: not on its surface but within interior caverns. Spacecraft is constantly coming and going from an entrance located at the Occator crater, and the colony is actually run by the Nazi Dark Fleet, according to Tony Rodrigues who spent most of a decade as a slave worker on Ceres in a forced 20 and back program.

 

              Ceres’ Occator crater

Researchers have a new warning. Tread carefully, this one will blow your mind. Banking too much on artificial intelligence as the future of all sentient life? Researchers believe AI could fool us into believing alien life exists.

According to the study conducted at University of Cadiz and published in the journal Acta Astronautica, specifically took into account a particular formation on the planet Ceres, and found that AI could mistake shapes as proof extraterrestrial life. If that wasn’t enough, AI could also deceive humans into falling for its mistake.

Currently, AI is being employed across all industries to generate more accurate results without scope of error. But in the hunt for ET, AI is generally used to spot “technosignatures”, that are indicative of alien life.

Accidental formations could be mistaken as evidence of alien life. Ceres currently sits at the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and had been under the watchful eye of scientists after they spotted bright lights on its surface.

They were disappointed to discover what was causing the bright lights. According to NASA’s Dawn mission, the lights turned out to be a product of volcanic ice and salt emissions.

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There’s More Water on the Moon than Previously Thought

Article by Kate Sheehy                                    October 26, 2020                                      (nypost.com)

• NASA scientists have found more water on the Moon, beyond its frigid poles, in the form of “glass beads’’ about the size of a pencil tip in the soil. Said Paul Hertz, NASA’s astrophysics director, “This discovery that water might be distributed across the lunar surface and not limited’’ to ice at the poles, as the space agency thought, raises the possibility that it could be “accessible as a human resource.”

• Enough water was detected in a cubic meter of sunlit soil to fill a 12-ounce bottle, said Casey Honniball of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Honniball believes the water may have come from a combination of hydrogen molecules in solar rings mixed with oxygen in the Moon’s powdery soil. “We think the water is trapped in these glass beads … which protects and preserves [it].’’

• The discovery was made by a Boeing 747SP jet-turned-space laboratory known as SOFIA, or ‘Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy’. SOFIA, is a data-collecting aircraft that has been examining the Moon since 2018. “[N]ow that we know we can do this, we’re planning more flights to do more observation,’’ SOFIA scientist Naseem Rangwala said.

• In 2018, NASA found water in the form of ice around the Moon’s poles. The water ice formed in permanently shadowed craters where temperatures never go above minus 250 degrees. But the newly discovered ice beads have been found in the soil within sunlit areas. Scientists still have to determine what form the newly discovered water is in, how much of it exists and whether it can be extracted.

• Water on the Moon could be used for everything from drinking, to the extraction of oxygen to breath, to the manufacturing of rocket fuel. With enough water to support a Moon base, man could eventually planet-hop around the galaxy. “It’s far easier to travel when you don’t have to carry everything with you for the entire trip,’’ said Jacob Bleacher, head of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA.

• NASA plans to send the first woman along with a man to the lunar surface in 2020 to prepare for putting humans on Mars in the 2030s. Scientists say they will use SOPHIA to search for potential water on other heavenly bodies, too, such as asteroids.

 

                        Paul Hertz

NASA scientists have found more water on the moon than previously thought — a crucial discovery that

could help greatly fuel deep-space exploration, the agency revealed Monday.

The water — which was discovered for the first time in areas outside the moon’s sunless frigid poles — is possibly trapped in “glass beads’’ about the size of a pencil tip in the soil, scientists said at a press conference.

“This discovery that water might be distributed across the lunar surface and not limited’’ to ice at the poles, as the space agency thought, raises the possibility that it could be “accessible as a human resource,’’ said Paul Hertz, NASA’s astrophysics director.

        Casey Honniball

Enough water was detected in a cubic meter of sunlit soil to fill a 12-ounce bottle, said Casey Honniball of NASA’s

            Naseem Rangwala

Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

She said the water may have come from a combination of hydrogen molecules in solar rings mixed with oxygen in the moon’s powdery soil.
“We think the water is trapped in these glass beads … which protects and preserves [it],’’ Honniball said.

The stunning discovery was made by a Boeing 747SP jet-turned-space laboratory known as SOPHIA (sic), the Sratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy.

The data-collecting spacecraft typically tracks stars — but its operators decided to use it to examine the moon starting in 2018.
“It’s incredible that this discovery came out of what was essentially a test, and now that we know we can do this, we’re planning more flights to do more observation,’’ SOFIA scientist Naseem Rangwala said in a statement.

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Aliens ‘May Have Already Spotted Us!’ Astronomers Announce

Article by Sebastian Kettely                                  October 23, 2020                               (express.co.uk)

• A pair of astronomers associated with the Carl Sagan Institute have published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society a radical proposition that if we have the means to examine distant exoplanets looking for biosignatures that indicate a presence of life, then possible alien civilizations on those distant worlds could have the means to see us too! Indeed, we may have already been spotted!

• Since the first exoplanet was discovered in 1992, astronomers have learned there are more planets out there than the stars dotting our night skies. Missions like NASA’s Kepler and TESS have uncovered thousands of these worlds in hopes we can catch a glimpse of their make up for possible biosignatures, all within the so-called habitable zone where conditions may allow liquid water to exist. These starts containing potentially habitable exoplanets are all found within 300 light-years of Earth, meaning they are close enough for us to scan their potential planets. Conversely, planets within this catalog will also have a direct line of sight to Earth, which implies aliens could be scanning our world for signs of life as well.

• Lisa Kaltenegger, an associate professor at Cornell University and a co-author of the paper, says, “Let’s reverse the viewpoint to that of other stars and ask from which vantage point other observers could find Earth as a transiting planet.” Transiting planets are worlds that pass in front of a star, through the observer’s line of sight. Space telescopes like NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) can see these transits by detecting the dips in brightness they cause. “If observers were out there searching, they would be able to see signs of a biosphere in the atmosphere of our Pale Blue Dot,” referring to Earth.

• “In our search for life in the Universe, we ask a little bit of a different question in this research,” says Kaltenegger. “We ask who could have actually spotted us? Who could have found out that Earth is teeming with life from their vantage point?: They would know that we have liquid water, and the potential for life. “What would they think?”

• [Editor’s Note]   Speculation that another civilization on a distant exoplanet may be at the exact state of technology as we are, and could therefore detect on our Earth what we are able to detect (or not detect) about their planet, passes for ‘science’ these days. Brilliant. It is nothing more than another deep state exercise in futility and a waste of time. These type of SETI studies are only funded so that they can release ‘scientific papers’ to reassure the mind-numbed public that smart people at top universities are studying the extraterrestrial/ UFO subject, but darn it, they just haven’t been able to find any intelligent extraterrestrials out there. (I think the Cornell University’s “Carl Sagan Institute” was a dead give-away. Sagan has been revealed to have been a major deep state disinformation agent during his career.)

 

Scientists hunting for signs of alien life have concentrated on our nearest corner of space, such as Mars and Venus, and planets orbiting stars far beyond our reach. Since the first exoplanet discovery in 1992, astronomers have learned there are more planets out there than the stars dotting our night skies. Missions like NASA’s Kepler and TESS have uncovered thousands of these worlds in hopes we can catch a glimpse of their make up for possible biosignatures – chemistry that could be created by life on the surface.

         Lisa Kaltenegger
      deep state scientist

Now, a pair of astronomers in the US has proposed that if we have the means to see these worlds, potential alien civilisations could have the means to see us.

And if advanced life exists somewhere out there among the stars, chances are we may have already been spotted.

Lisa Kaltenegger, an associate professor and director of Cornell University’s Carl Sagan Insitute, and Joshua Pepper, associate professor of physics at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, have identified 1,004 close stars similar to our Sun.

These stars might be orbited by Earth-like planets within the so-called habitable zone where conditions are ripe for liquid water to exists on the surface.

All of these stars are found within 300 light-years of Earth, meaning they are close enough for us to scan their potential planets for biosignatures.

Planets within this catalogue will also have a direct line of sight to Earth, which implies aliens could be scanning our world for signs of life as well.

Professor Kaltenegger said: “Let’s reverse the viewpoint to that of other stars and ask from which vantage point other observers could find Earth as a transiting planet.”

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Hunting Earthlike Exoplanets

Article by Rick Robinson                                  October 19, 2020                                     (now.northropgrumman.com)

• The search for life on earth-like exoplanets far beyond Earth continues. In the search for extraterrestrial life, water is the Holy Grail, according to Northrop Grumman’s Robert Lockwood, project manager for NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission. Liquid water is so friendly to complex organic chemistry that it’s regarded as the most likely environment for life elsewhere in the universe.

• We know that Mars once had seas and rivers, and liquid water still occasionally flows on its surface. Jupiter’s moon Europa has a smooth, icy surface, beneath which lurks a hidden ocean deeper than any on Earth, scientists believe.

• Currently, TESS’s mission is examining candidate stars within about 300 light-years of Earth — close enough to allow for future follow-up examination of the exoplanets that TESS discovers. What is TESS looking for? In a nutshell, they are looking for “Goldilocks” conditions where planets are roughly earth-sized, big enough to hold an atmosphere, but not so big as to be mostly gas or liquid, like Jupiter or Neptune. Moreover, the planet must orbit within its parent star’s habitable zone, hot enough that oceans don’t freeze, but not so hot that they boil away.

• Lockwood notes that even the most powerful instruments don’t allow astronomers to actually see exoplanets. Instead, astronomers must currently suss out planets by observing indirect effects, like the planet’s bulk blocking part of its parent star, slightly dimming the star’s light — the technique used by the TESS mission.

• This will change next year, when NASA‘s James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to launch into orbit. The JWST will be able to take spectroscopic images (separating light into its individual wavelengths, or spectrum) of the light from the star as it interacts with the planet’s atmosphere. The wavelengths of light will allow astronomers to search for telltale signs of water vapor in a planetary atmosphere. JWST observations will mark a giant step forward in the search for habitable planets beyond Earth.

• The University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo has identified 55 leading exoplanet candidates. One is substantially smaller than Earth, while 20 others are moreo earth-sized. The remaining 34 are classed as “super-Earths” and “mini-Neptunes.”

• ScienceAlert reported the recent discovery of two prime candidates orbiting a dim red dwarf star called Teegarden’s Star. They orbit their parent star every few days, much more frequently than Mercury orbits our Sun (once about every 80 days), but the star is so faint that both planets are still within its habitable zone. And Teegarden’s Star is a mere 12.2 light-years away. If we learn to build space probes capable of approaching the speed of light, a mission to this pair of worlds would take about the same amount of time as other interplanetary NASA missions have taken.

 

The search for life beyond Earth continues within our solar system; the search also extends far beyond the solar system, where we aim to discover earthlike exoplanets.

Water, Water Anywhere

Water is the holy grail in the search for extraterrestrial life, says Northrop Grumman’s Robert Lockwood, project manager for NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission. Liquid water is essential for terrestrial life; it’s so friendly to complex organic chemistry that it’s regarded as the most likely environment for life elsewhere in the universe.

Within the solar system, we know that Mars once had seas and rivers, and liquid water still occasionally flows on its surface. Meanwhile, Jupiter’s moon Europa has a smooth, icy surface, beneath which, scientists believe, lurks a hidden ocean deeper than any on Earth.

Oceans Beyond the Sun

The search for potential life beyond the solar system is in some ways simpler, but it’s incredibly demanding due to the enormous distances involved. Currently, TESS’s mission is examining candidate stars within about 300 light-years of Earth — close enough to allow for future follow-up examination of the exoplanets that TESS discovers.

What are TESS and other extrasolar survey observations — both space-based and ground-based — looking for? In a nutshell, said EarthSky, they are looking for “Goldilocks” conditions, just right. That means planets that are roughly earth-sized, big enough to hold an atmosphere, but not so big as to be mostly gas or liquid, like Jupiter or even Neptune.

Moreover, the planet must orbit in its parent star’s habitable zone, hot enough that any oceans don’t freeze solid, but not sThe search for life beyond Earth continues within our solar system; the search also extends far beyond the solar system, where we aim to discover earthlike exoplanets.

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Texas Company Aims to 3D-Print Buildings on the Moon

Article by Mike Wall                                      October 2, 2020                                   (space.com)

• The Austin-based company ICON, known for 3D-printing houses here on Earth, just launched Project Olympus to develop a space-based construction system to help get a foothold on the Moon and Mars. “From the very founding of ICON, we’ve been thinking about off-world construction,” said ICON CEO Jason Ballard. “I am confident that learning to build on other worlds will also provide the necessary breakthroughs to solve housing challenges we face on this world.”

• Project Olympus recently signed a four-year, $14.55M Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) deal with the U.S. Air Force to expand the capabilities of its 3D-printing tech. NASA is contributing 15% of the SBIR funding.

• NASA’s interest in ICON’s 3D-printing construction tech is tied to the Artemis program for manned lunar exploration and permanent base on the Moon by 2030. Making this happen will require extensive use of lunar resources, including water ice (for life support and rocket fuel) and moon dirt (for building materials). A similar devotion to “living off the land” will likely be necessary for sustained human exploration of Mars.

• ICON will partner with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama to test a variety of processing and printing technologies using simulated lunar soil. “We want to increase the technology readiness level and test systems to prove it would be feasible to develop a large-scale 3D printer that could build infrastructure on the Moon or Mars,” said Corky Clinton, associate director of Marshall’s Science and Technology Office. “The team will use what we learn from the tests with the lunar simulant to design, develop and demonstrate prototype elements for a full-scale additive construction system.”

• ICON is also teaming with two architecture firms on the program – SEArch+ (Space Exploration Architecture) and Denmark-based BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. “To explain the power of architecture, ‘formgiving’ is the Danish word for design, which literally means to give form to that which has not yet been given form,” said Bjarke Ingels, creative director at the BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. “This becomes fundamentally clear when we venture beyond Earth and begin to imagine how we are going to build and live on entirely new worlds.”

• “With ICON, we are pioneering new frontiers – both materially, technologically and environmentally,” Ingels said. “The answers to our challenges on Earth very well might be found on the Moon.”

 

                         Jason Ballard

A Texas company aims to take its innovative homebuilding approach into the final frontier.

Austin-based startup ICON, known for 3D-printing houses here on Earth, just launched Project Olympus,

                 Corky Clinton

an ambitious effort to develop a space-based construction system. The program will eventually help humanity get a foothold on the moon and Mars, if all goes according to plan.

“From the very founding of ICON, we’ve been thinking about off-world construction. It’s a surprisingly natural progression if you are asking about the ways additive construction and 3D printing can create a better future for humanity,” ICON co-founder and CEO Jason Ballard said in a company statement.

“I am confident that learning to build on other worlds will also provide the necessary breakthroughs to solve housing challenges we face on this world,” Ballard said. “These are mutually reinforcing endeavors.”

Project Olympus will get a boost from a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract that ICON recently signed with the U.S. Air Force to expand the capabilities of its 3D-printing tech.

The four-year deal is worth $14.55 million, according to the Austin Business Journal. (You can find the outlet’s story

           Bjarke Ingels

here, but it’s behind a paywall.) NASA is contributing 15% of the SBIR sum, ICON representatives told Space.com.

NASA’s interest in ICON’s tech makes sense. The space agency is working, via its Artemis program of crewed lunar exploration, to establish a long-term human presence on and around the moon by the end of the 2020s. Making this happen will require extensive use of lunar resources, including water ice (for life support and rocket fuel) and moon dirt (for building materials), NASA officials have stressed.

A similar devotion to “living off the land” will likely be necessary for sustained human exploration of Mars, an ambitious goal that Artemis will inform and advance, NASA officials have said.

As part of the newly announced SBIR deal, ICON will partner with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama to test a variety of processing and printing technologies using simulated lunar soil. The research will build upon tech that ICON demonstrated in 2018 during NASA’s 3D Printed Habitat Challenge, company representatives said.

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NASA Needs Your Help in the Search for Alien Life

Article by Becky Ferreira                                  October 2, 2020                                 (vice.com)

• Since the 1990s, scientists have discovered thousands of exoplanets throughout our galaxy contain a dizzying variety of extraterrestrial environments, some of which may host life.

• On September 29th, NASA launched the citizen science project ‘Planet Patrol’ on Zooniverse, inviting volunteers to join the hunt for new exoplanets by examining images snapped by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which has been in orbit around Earth since 2018.
• Veselin Kostov, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and the SETI Institute in California, said the project has already attracted more than 1,600 participants who have collectively delivered 100,000 individual classifications in just three days.

• “Citizen science projects are a great way to engage our built-in, never-ending curiosity about the world we live in,” says Kostov. Planet Patrol can also “promote a sense of a community pursuing the common goal of understanding the universe and our place in it.”

• The TESS satellite is designed to spot exoplanets as they pass in front of the stars they orbit, causing the star’s brightness to fade slightly. If these light dips occur at regular intervals, it’s a good sign that a planet may be present. Once the existence of an exoplanet has been confirmed, scientists can conduct follow-up observations that reveal basic properties of the distant world, including whether it might be habitable. For this reason, exoplanet-hunting is an important component of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

• Scientists use automated software and machine learning to sift through the hundreds of thousands of pictures TESS takes each year. These systems can flag likely exoplanets to a certain extent, but they have trouble recognizing “imposter” false transit events. For instance, binary systems that contain two stars can produce a light dip, or instrument and/or astrophysical noise that distort the TESS images, which automated processing software might accidentally catalog as an exoplanet candidate. “The human eye is very good at quickly and reliably spotting such image distortions,” says Kostov.

• Planet Patrol participants are tasked with evaluating the quality of TESS images used to distinguish between potential false positives and bona-fide planet candidates. It’s the latest of several exoplanet-hunting platforms that have benefitted from the time and dedication of amateur space enthusiasts, such as Planet Hunters and Exoplanet Explorers. Says Kostov, “My hope is that the project sparks a continuous interest in exoplanets in particular and in astrophysics in general.”

 

Since the 1990s, scientists have discovered thousands of exoplanets, which are worlds that orbit stars other than the Sun, revealing that our galaxy

                       Veselin Kostov

contains a dizzying variety of extraterrestrial environments, some of which may host life.

Now, NASA is inviting volunteers to join the hunt for new exoplanets by examining images snapped by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which has been in orbit around Earth since 2018.

On Monday, NASA launched the citizen science project Planet Patrol on Zooniverse, enabling anyone with an internet connection to spot and classify likely exoplanets in TESS’ starry images.

Veselin Kostov, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and the SETI Institute in California, said the project already has more than 1,600 participants who have collectively delivered 100,000 individual classifications in just three days.

“Citizen science projects are a great way to engage our built-in, never-ending curiosity about the world we live in—be it our own planet or a planet a hundred light years away,” said Kostov in an email.

Planet Patrol can also “promote a sense of a community pursuing the common goal of understanding the universe and our place in it,” Kostov added, which is especially welcome at a time when many people are stuck at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

TESS is designed to spot exoplanets as they pass in front of the stars they orbit, which is known as a transit. Transits cause the star’s brightness to fade slightly, and if these light dips occur at regular intervals, it’s a good sign that a planet may be present.

 

1:02 minute NASA “Planet Patrol” video (‘NASA Goddard’ YouTube)

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