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Long Secret Diary Could Offer Insight Into Roswell Incident

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UFO - Deposit Photos

A long-hidden diary belonging to a U.S. intelligence officer has rekindled research into the Roswell Incident, the infamous UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico, that took place more than 70 years ago. When a mysterious object slammed into the desert near the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) in July 1947, Maj. Jesse Marcel, an RAAF intelligence officer, was sent to supervise collection of the debris. A press officer at the RAAF issued a statement on July 8 describing “the crash and recovery of ‘a flying disc,’” which many interpreted as evidence of alien contact. But the next day, another army … Read more

SPACE: Is Dark Matter Really A Bunch of Tiny Black Holes?

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black hole - pixabay

The universe might be full of tiny, ancient black holes. And researchers might be able to prove it. These mini black holes from the beginning of time, or primordial black holes (PBHs), were first dreamed up decades ago. Researchers proposed them as an explanation for dark matter, an unseen substance that exerts a gravitational pull throughout space. Most explanations for dark matter involve hypothetical particles with special properties that help them evade detection. But some researchers think swarms of little black holes moving like clouds through space offer a cleaner explanation. Now, a new study explains where these PBHs might … Read more

Is There Life on Mars in Subglacial Lakes?

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Mars - Pixabay

Venus may harbour life some 50km above its surface, we learned a couple of weeks ago. Now a new paper, published in Nature Astronomy, reveals that the best place for life on Mars might be more than a kilometre below its surface, where an entire network of subglacial lakes has been discovered. Mars was not always so cold and dry as it is now. There are abundant signs that water flowed across its surface in the distant past, but today you’d struggle to find even any crevices that you could call moist. There is nevertheless plenty of water on Mars … Read more

Solar Power Stations in Space?

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solar power station in space - NASA

It sounds like science fiction: giant solar power stations floating in space that beam down enormous amounts of energy to Earth. And for a long time, the concept – first developed by the Russian scientist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, in the 1920s – was mainly an inspiration for writers. A century later, however, scientists are making huge strides in turning the concept into reality. The European Space Agency has realised the potential of these efforts and is now looking to fund such projects, predicting that the first industrial resource we will get from space is “beamed power”. Climate change is the greatest … Read more

SPACE: What If There Was a Second Planet in Earth’s Orbit?

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double earth - pixabay

Earth is the only planet traveling within its nearly circular orbit around the sun. But what if Earth shared its orbit with another planet? One of the most unusual ways in which two planets might “co-orbit,” or share the same zone around their star, are so-called horseshoe orbits. Instead of both worlds moving in a circle around a star, each would move along the edge of their own somewhat horseshoe-shaped track, with these crescents facing each other like two halves of a broken ring. “I think horseshoe orbits are among the most exciting configurations for other Earths,” astrophysicist Sean Raymond … Read more

SPACE: Bizarre Planet Might Have Vaporized Rock for “Air”

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Red Planet - pixabay

Scientists think they have identified a lava world so dramatic that it might boast a thin regional atmosphere of vaporized rock where it is closest to its star. That exoplanet is called K2-141b and was originally discovered in 2017. The world is about half again as big as Earth but orbits so close to its star, which is one class smaller than our own, that it completes several loops each Earth-day with the same surface permanently facing the star. Now, scientists predict those factors mean that two-thirds of the surface of K2-141b is permanently sunlit — so much so that … Read more

STEVE Is Back, And Weirder Than Ever

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Steve streaks

The mysterious, aurora-like phenomenon called STEVE just got a little weirder. If you don’t know STEVE (short for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) by name, you may know it from photos. Unlike the infamous Southern and Northern Lights, which blanket the sky in ethereal green swirls near Earth’s magnetic poles, STEVE appears as a purplish-white ribbon of light that slashes diagonally toward the horizon, stretching hundreds of miles through the atmosphere. It can appear closer to the equator than a typical aurora, and is often accompanied by a “picket fence” of jagged green points dancing beside it. Nobody knows what … Read more

SPACE: Did Mars Steal Our Second Moon?

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asteroid - pixabay

An asteroid trailing after Mars could actually be the stolen twin of our moon. The asteroid in question, called (101429) 1998 VF31, is part of a group of trojan asteroids sharing the orbit of Mars. Trojans are celestial bodies that fall into gravitationally balanced regions of space in the vicinity of other planets, located 60 degrees in front of and behind the planet. Most of the trojan asteroids we know about share Jupiter’s orbit, but other planets have them too, including Mars and Earth too. Full Story From Live Science

FOR WRITERS: Colonizing Mars

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Mars

FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Scott: Let’s go to Mars – writers, how do we get there? What do we do once we reach the red planet? What comes next? Writers: This is a writer chat – you are welcome to share your own book/link, as long as it fits the chat, but please do so as part of a discussion about the topic. Join the chat: FB: http://bit.ly/1MvPABVMeWe: http://bit.ly/2mjg8lf

SPACE: Voyager 2 Says hello

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Voyager 2

There’s never been a radio silence quite like this one. After long months with no way of making contact with Voyager 2, NASA has finally reestablished communications with the record-setting interstellar spacecraft. The breakdown in communications – lasting since March, almost eight months and a whole pandemic ago – wasn’t due to some rogue malfunction, nor any run-in with interstellar space weirdness (although there’s that too). In this instance, it was more a case of routine maintenance. And yet, when you’re one of the farthest-flying spacecraft in history – leaving Earth and even the entire solar system behind you – … Read more