Science, Space, Health & Robotics News - Page 308

A student in Teignmouth, Devon saw a gigantic UFO hovering over the ocean -- right from his kitchen window, before it blasted off into the distance.

Matthew Evans lives in a block of units on the top level and when in his kitchen could see the UFO over the horizon, he explains: "I couldn't help but see it. My kitchen window gives a great view of the sea so when it came across the horizon".

Evans added: "It wasn't moving like a plane would. It was moving a lot slower and went up and down for a bit before hovering a good ten seconds. It stayed in one spot long enough for me to pull out my phone and get those snaps. Then it quickly zoomed off at some speed and I couldn't see it anymore".

A declassified Australian report on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) mentions several encounters with alien life that are unexplainable.

The declassified report is located on the National Archives of Australia website and features 58 pages of compelling information on UFO sightings and strange encounters with alien creatures between 1957 and 1971. Page 32 of the report states, "50m from object, witness paralyzed (also birds and cows). Four handsome men with brown skin emerge with translucent helmets." The report also shows the United States has been involved in UFOs and conducting investigations into them since 1947.

Page 7 of the report reads as follows: "The early analyses of UFO reports by USAF Intelligence indicated that real phenomena were being reported which had flight characteristics so far in advance of US aircraft that only an extraterrestrial origin could be envisaged." Additionally, the report lists many cases where extraterrestrials were using paralysis as a way of subduing witnesses.

The space race to get paying tourists to space has officially begun, and according to recent announcements, Richard Branson will beat Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to space.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic are in a race to be the first viable company that can provide space tourism flights. Paying customers will be able to see Earth like they have never seen it before, as well as experience weightlessness for several minutes. Bezos positioned himself to beat other billionaires that are behind competing tourism companies by announcing that he was going to space on July 20, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

However, the Federal Aviation Administration recently gave Virgin Galactic the all-clear to fly passengers on its next test flight. Now, Branson has announced that he will be a passenger on Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity rocketplane when it launches to perform an up-and-down test on July 11. Branson tweeted the following, "I've always been a dreamer. My mum taught me to never give up and to reach for the stars. On July 11, it's time to turn that dream into a reality."

Since the release of US Navy officials' now-viral UFO sighting videos, many Americans have been speculating if alien life truly exists somewhere out there in the deep dark void of space.

The US intelligence report put forward by the Pentagon was highly anticipated to reveal the existence or at least confirm the presence of extraterrestrial life. However, the report did no such thing and more so concentrated on how unidentified aerial phenomena are a national security risk, regardless of their origin. A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center has found that most Americans believe aliens exist, and the viral videos are the proof.

The survey involved 10,417 American adults, and according to the results, approximately 65% of Americans believe that extraterrestrial life exists, and 51% believe the videos released by the US military show proof that intelligent alien life has visited Earth. Additionally, the survey found that 76% of Americans aged between 18 and 29 believe in alien life, compared to 69% of Americans between 30 and 49. Furthermore, 58% of Americans aged between 50 and 64 were believers in alien life.

China has made its mark in the nation's space history as two astronauts conducted the first spacewalk outside of the new space station.

The two Chinese astronauts are Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo, and on Sunday, they both took a "walk" outside of China's new orbital station to set up cameras and other essential equipment. The astronauts used a 50-foot-long robotic arm to orientate the equipment into place, and from the video that was shown by Chinese state TV, we can see that the third astronaut, Nie Haisheng, stayed inside to mind the station.

Liu and Tang were outside of the new station for 7 hours, and in total, the astronauts plan on staying aboard the new station for a total of three months. China launched the first module of the new station on April 29. Following the first module launch was a second launch with the Shenzhou capsule. The capsule arrived on June 17, and inside was all three astronauts, food, and fuel. For more information on China's ambitious plans for space exploration, check out this link here.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is moving closer and closer to finally being able to launch and reveal secrets of the universe.

According to Peter Rumler, the European Space Agency's (ESA) project manager for the JWST, the final mission analysis for the telescope has been conducted, and the telescope has passed. Rumler also says that the analysis confirmed that the telescope was fully compatible with the Ariane 5 rocket from Webb's launch service provider Arianespace.

"We are thrilled to have passed this important step towards the launch of Webb and to have received the green light from Arianespace and NASA", says Rumler. The Ariane 5 rocket will carry Webb out of Earth's atmosphere and disconnect itself from the telescope after it has successfully put in on its four-week journey to the second Lagrange point where it will be stationed. The second Lagrange point is located 932,056 miles away from Earth in the opposite direction to the Sun.

NASA has dropped another incredible image that was snapped with the Hubble Space Telescope, and this time we have an awesome display of the red, white, and blue.

The above image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, and is the open star cluster named NGC 330. This star cluster is around 180,000 light-years away from Earth and is situated in the Small Magellanic Cloud in the constellation Tucana.

As for the stars themselves, they are all roughly the same age, and due to the cluster featuring so many stars, astronomers are using NGC 330 to learn more about how stars form. Astronomers have observed clusters of stars forming differently when compared to stars located anywhere else, a phenomenon that was first discovered using Hubble.

Astronomers have announced that they have detected the very first merger of a black hole and a neutron star.

Due to humans not being able to see the merger happen with our naked eyes, a few videos have been published to show the public what happened visually. Firstly, a neutron star is an extremely dense object that is leftover remnants of a star that has gone supernova. As for a black hole, a black hole is also extremely dense, but they are a region of spacetime.

Black holes have such a strong gravitational pull that not a single thing can escape it - not even light. When a black hole consumes a neutron star, it gives off gravitational waves, which Albert Einstein discovered in 1916. In 2015, researchers in the United States identified the first gravitational waves using the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory when two black holes collided.

What is a white dwarf? Simply put, it's what stars such as our Sun become after they have expelled all of their nuclear energy.

Now, astronomers have located a white dwarf that has seemingly taken the cake for being the smallest yet most massive white dwarf ever observed by astronomers. The study was published in the July 1 issue of the journal Nature, and according to the study's lead author, Ilaria Caiazzo, the Sherman Fairchild Postdoctoral Scholar Research Associate in Theoretical Astrophysics at Caltech, this white dwarf is "packing a mass greater than that of our Sun into a body about the size of our Moon."

This white dwarf, like many other white dwarfs that have been discovered, was once like our Sun. The Sun will swell into what is called Red Giant in 5 billion years, and from there, it will begin to reduce in size and eventually compact down into a white dwarf. Phys.org reports that 97% of all stars become white dwarfs.

New evidence supporting the theory that Mars once had conditions to support life has been published in a study.

An international team of researchers has published a new paper in the journal Nature Astronomy, and according to the paper, the team of researchers found evidence of glauconitic-like clay on Mars. While it may seem boring to everyday people, the discovery of clay is quite a big deal. Glauconite, an iron potassium phyllosilicate mineral, can only form in stable conditions over thousands of years.

Through their analysis, the researchers also found that the temperatures of Mars when the clay formed were between -3 (26 F) to 15 degrees Celsius (59 F). Additionally, the analysis revealed that the pH levels in the water that is believed to be in the Gale Crater were neutral. While all of this evidence points towards the right conditions for Mars to support life billions of years ago, it remains unclear how long that life would have lasted over time. Given that life was even there in the first place.