Tag: nasa

3I/ATLAS Was Just Spotted by the James Webb Telescope, Confirming an Odd New Discovery About the Strange Interstellar Comet

An unusual interstellar visitor speeding through our solar system was recently spotted by the powerful eye of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The American space agency revealed this week that its premier space observatory had captured new images of the comet, known as 3I/ATLAS, on August 6, 2025, using its Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument.

Since that time, NASA researchers have been studying data collected about the object during Webb’s observations, with the latest insights appearing in a new preprint paper. The latest observations provide further confirmation that 3I/ATLAS is producing a large carbon dioxide-rich cloud of material around the object, commonly referred to as its coma.

Carbon Dioxide in Abundance

The unusual carbon dioxide abundance, previously detected in observations by NASA’s SPHEREx mission, is accompanied by traces of water, carbon monoxide, sulfur compounds, water ice, and an abundance of dust, according to the new findings made possible by Webb.

In the new paper by co-author Martin Cordiner and colleagues, 3I/ATLAS’s unusual ratio of carbon dioxide to water vapor is also noted as having been one of the highest ever measured in a comet. This is significant, as it suggests that 3I/ATLAS is quite distinct from the types of comets that originate within our Solar System.

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Trump moves to shut down NASA missions that measure carbon dioxide and plant health

The Trump administration is moving to shut down two NASA missions that monitor a potent greenhouse gas and plant health, potentially shutting off an important source of data for scientists, policymakers and farmers.

President Donald Trump’s budget request for fiscal year 2026 includes no money for the Orbiting Carbon Observatories, which can precisely show where carbon dioxide is being emitted and absorbed and how well crops are growing.

NASA said in an emailed statement Wednesday that the missions were “beyond their prime mission” and being terminated “to align with the President’s agenda and budget priorities.”

But the missions — a free-flying satellite launched in 2014 and an instrument attached to the International Space Station in 2019 that include technology used in the Hubble Space Telescope — still are more sensitive and accurate than any other systems in the world, operating or planned, and a “national asset” that should be saved, said David Crisp, a retired NASA scientist who led their development.

They helped scientists discover, for example, that the Amazon rain forest emits more carbon dioxide than it absorbs, while boreal forests in Canada, Russia and places where permafrost is melting absorb more than they emit, Crisp said.

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Lockheed Martin offers to rescue Mars mission from budget death

NASA’s beleaguered Mars Sample Return mission may get a reprieve from an unexpected source. Lockheed Martin has proposed a streamlined, lower-cost alternative that could slash the mission’s price tag by more than half.

Facing significant funding cuts across multiple programs, NASA’s ambitious international effort to retrieve Martian samples and return them to Earth is under threat. Already jeopardized by Russia’s withdrawal from the program following its invasion of Ukraine, the mission now faces potential cancellation due to shifting priorities within the current US administration.

Under new agency guidelines, NASA has been ordered to focus more on deep-space crewed missions to the Moon and Mars, along with other endeavors involving cutting-edge technology, while axing projects that have been marked by massive spending without a proportionate scientific return.

One prime candidate for the chop is the Mars Sample Return mission, which is a staggeringly ambitious international program involving many nations that is tasked with using multiple spacecraft to collect samples from the surface of Mars and then return them to Earth for in-depth laboratory analysis.

The mission’s first phase is already underway, with NASA’s Perseverance rover exploring the surface of Mars. As it traverses the dunes and dead river beds that last saw water two billion years ago, it’s been collecting drilling samples that have been sealed in special container tubes left behind on the ground like a paper trail in a cosmic game of Hares & Hounds.

The idea is that a second lander will eventually set down in the vicinity of the first and deploy a second rover that will follow the path blazed by the nuclear-powered Perseverance and collect the tubes. These will be stored in a special sealed container, which will be placed in a small rocket that will be fired into orbit around Mars where it will rendezvous with yet another spacecraft for return to Earth.

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NASA confirms that mysterious object shooting through the solar system is an ‘interstellar visitor’ — and it has a new name

NASA scientists have confirmed that a mysterious object shooting toward us through the solar system is an “interstellar object” — only the third of its kind ever seen. Experts have also given the cosmic interloper an official name, and revealed new information about its origins and trajectory.

News of the extrasolar entity, initially dubbed A11pl3Z, broke on Tuesday (July 1), when NASA and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) both listed it as a confirmed object. It was first discovered in data collected between June 25 and June 29 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), which automatically scans the night sky using telescopes in Hawaii, Chile and South Africa. Multiple telescopes across the world have subsequently spotted the object in observation data that date back to June 14.

The object is traveling toward the sun extremely fast, at around 152,000 mph (245,000 km/h), and observations suggest that it is set on an extremely flat and straight trajectory, unlike anything else in the solar system. This led many experts to speculate that it originated from beyond the sun’s gravitational influence and has enough momentum to shoot straight through our cosmic neighborhood without slowing down.

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What do the MOON LANDING and CLIMATE CHANGE have in common? BOTH are FAKE

Get some cheap cameras, some lights with stands, 50 rolls of tin foil and a couple lapel mics and head out to the Badlands of South Dakota with some amateur actors and YOU TOO can film the next “moon” landing. It will be one small step for the elementary science fair, and one even smaller step for mankind.

Take one look at the “Apollo 11” spacecraft, made with sticks, tin foil, cardboard, a couple copper pipes and some old television antennas, and then swear up and down this thing made it 240,000 miles to the moon and back home to earth with 3 guys in it, a land rover, and enough equipment to fill up a storage facility, and you can be 100% sure the moon landing was all faked on a Hollywood set somewhere in Arizona. Great job NASA. Does NASA stand for Never Anything So Absurd?

  1. Rising Skepticism About the Moon Landing
  • Polls indicate growing doubt, especially among younger, more educated individuals (e.g., 73% of Brits aged 25–34 disbelieve it, vs. 38% of those 55+).
  • Russian polls show 57% disbelief, rising to 69% among higher-educated respondents.
  1. Alleged Evidence of Fakery
  • Shadows intersecting at 90° in Apollo photos suggest studio lighting, not sunlight.
  • “Moon rocks” may originate from Antarctic meteorites; some samples were proven fake (e.g., petrified wood gifted to the Netherlands).
  • NASA’s high-resolution photos show anomalies (e.g., inconsistent shadows, overexposure when shooting into the sun).
  1. Suspicious Filmmaking and Footage
  • Filmmakers like Bart Sibrel uncovered edited NASA footage (e.g., repeated takes to fake distance).
  • Experts like Hasselblad engineer Jan Lundberg admitted they couldn’t explain photo inconsistencies.
  • Astronauts’ rehearsals in studios with fabricated “moon dust” raise questions about authenticity.
  1. Historical Context of the Hoax Theory
  • Conspiracy claims gained traction post-internet; pioneers like Bill Kaysing (ex-Rocketdyne) alleged a $30B fraud.
  • Documentaries (What Happened on the Moon?, A Funny Thing Happened…) dissect technical flaws.
  • Compartmentalization (e.g., Manhattan Project secrecy) suggests few needed to know the full truth.

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NASA Satellite Images Reveal Mysterious Blast Site of 1908 Tunguska Event that Scorched Remote Siberia

A fiery explosion tore through the skies over Eastern Siberia on the morning of June 30, 1908, decimating more than 830 square miles of frozen taiga in what remains the largest asteroid-related blast in recorded history. Known as the Tunguska event, today it serves as a stark reminder of potential dangers presented by space objects that cross paths with our planet.

In commemoration of the 1908 incident, June 30 is recognized worldwide as International Asteroid Day, as part of an effort to raise awareness about asteroid hazards and to promote international cooperation in addressing their statistically rare, but still ever-present and potentially deadly reality.

Now, revealed in satellite imagery obtained last summer by NASA’s Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, the blast site as it appears today can be seen to show no direct signs of an impact, or even any damage from the blast which more than a century ago that had been large enough to level a modern city.

Eyewitness descriptions preserved from the time of the Tunguska event are still haunting today, with many reporting observations of the blazing fireball streaking across the sky at an estimated 60,000 miles per hour.

In Kirensk, observers saw a ball of fire descend toward the horizon, followed by deafening crashes and thunderous bangs. One witnessed described seeing the blazing object descending, and after several minutes, hearing “separate deafening crash[es] like peals of thunder” followed by “eight loud bangs like gunshots.”

“As it approached the ground, it took on a flattened shape,” one eyewitness reported, while another described the object as resembling “a flying star with a fiery tail” that “disappeared into the air.”

“I saw the sky in the north open to the ground and fire poured out,” another witness description reads. “The fire was brighter than the sun. We were terrified, but the sky closed again and immediately afterward, bangs like gunshots were heard. We thought stones were falling… I ran with my head down and covered, because I was afraid stones my fall on it.”

Another striking eyewitness report detailed how heat from the blast wave struck him, carrying him off the porch of the local trading station.

“Suddenly in the north … the sky was split in two, and high above the forest the whole northern part of the sky appeared covered with fire,” the witness report reads. “I felt a great heat, as if my shirt had caught fire… At that moment there was a bang in the sky, and a mighty crash… I was thrown twenty feet from the porch and lost consciousness for a moment…. The crash was followed by a noise like stones falling from the sky, or guns firing. The earth trembled…. At the moment when the sky opened, a hot wind, as if from a cannon, blew past the huts from the north.”

Damaging vegetation in the community, the witness also said that “many panes in the windows had been blown out and the iron hasp in the barn door had been broken” following the incident.

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Top ex-NASA official claims he saw footage of large, white flying saucer marked with Air Force logo: report

A retired NASA flight surgeon said he saw footage of a 20-foot-wide flying saucer emblazoned with the US Air Force logo performing deft maneuvers in a military hangar more than 30 years ago, according to a report.

Dr. Gregory Rogers, former NASA Chief Flight Surgeon and Air Force Major, came forth with his testimony on the 1992 event after a recent uptick in whistleblowers in the military community on the secretive projects investigating, recovering — and perhaps crafting — anomalous flying objects, according to the Daily Mail.

“I know exactly what I saw that day, and it was in no fashion a conventional flying vehicle,” Rogers, 68, told the Mail.

The space doc relayed that he was stationed at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 1992, conducting an inspection when an Air Force major approached him in a hallway and offered to show him something that would “knock his socks off,” according to the report.

Rogers was then taken into a room, where the major shut the blinds and locked the door before pulling up CCTV footage that showed a white flying saucer purportedly owned and operated by the US Air Force utilizing unknown engineering, he said.

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NASA shamed into firing top DEI executive after trying to ‘hide’ her

The chief DEI officer at NASA‘s jet propulsion lab was fired after her title was changed to hide her from Donald Trump‘s war on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. 

Trump and ‘First Buddy’ Elon Musk have been happy warriors against DEI, working to rid the federal government of what they call unfair practices.

Neela Rajendra had run the lab’s central diversity office, at one point arguing that having deadlines for work projects undermine inclusion, according to The Washington Free Beacon.

However, amid a series of 900 job cuts due to budgeting issues made in 2024, the diversity office was cut but Rajendra was mysteriously kept on. 

She’d had all references to DEI washed from from her title but reportedly kept many of the same job duties as ‘head of employee success.’Expand article logo  Continue reading

In early March, Rajendra was still in charge of the lab’s ‘Black Excellence Strategic Team.’ 

However, earlier this week in response to reports she was being protected from Trump administration DEI cuts, the lab parted ways with Rajendra. 

‘Neela Rajendra is no longer working at [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory]. We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization. We wish her the very best,’ lab director Laurie Leshin wrote in an all-staff email on Thursday.

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‘Impossible’ Device Physicists Said Wouldn’t Work Just Generated Electricity from the Earth’s Rotation

Scientists from Princeton University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have invented a device that seemingly generates electricity from the Earth’s rotation.

Although generally accepted theories show that generating electricity from a uniform field like Earth’s magnetic field is impossible, the team believes they have found a “loophole” that allows their device to generate tiny but measurable amounts of electricity.

If independent reviews can confirm the team’s work, they say the next steps to building a practical energy-generating device would involve miniaturization and scaling efforts, as proposed in a new paper detailing their current efforts.

Device That Generates Electricity from the Earth’s Rotation Joins Alternative Energy Revolution

The research joins a list of promising new approaches to generating electricity, ranging from “extreme enzymes” or other living organisms to “smart” windows and triboelectric-driven “rain panels” that generate electricity from raindrops.

Other efforts include generating electricity from radio waves, sweat, advanced metamaterials, and ocean waves, including an effort to produce energy from waves at the grid scale. One particularly novel concept uses the classic “drinking bird” toy to generate power with each dip of its beak.

In an email to The Debrief, Princeton University Professor Christopher Chyba noted that his previous work with study co-author and co-inventor, JPL’s Dr. Kevin Hand, was designed to explore the possible electromagnetic heating of astrophysical objects. That theoretical work, Chyba explained, was not intended to have any practical application.

“Curiosity-driven basic research is often what later leads to practical applications,” the professor said. “A lot of basic research initially seems disconnected from our daily lives—but it’s a key component underlying American science and technology.”

However, Chyba explained that as those theoretical studies progressed, the work “led us to begin asking questions that we then realized could be investigated in the laboratory.”

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NASA says Trump is responsible for stranded astronaut saga ending: ‘It would not have happened’

NASA is crediting President Donald Trump for spearheading the mission to bring back its stranded astronauts.

Bethany Stevens, a spokeswoman for the agency, spoke glowingly about the new administration’s role.

‘It would not have happened without President Trump’s intervention,’ she told Fox News Digital, adding that it was a ‘huge win for the Trump administration.’

The extended space mission entered the political spotlight in January, when Trump said he told Elon Musk to ‘go get’ the astronauts who had been ‘virtually abandoned’ by the Biden administration. 

Musk echoed this statement, and in February, the two of them doubled down on their claims by blaming the astronauts’ delayed return on ‘political reasons.’ 

Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore were only supposed to be on the ISS for eight days, but ended up staying for more than nine months due to technical issues with their spacecraft, Boeing’s Starliner.

Williams and Wilmore finally returned to Earth on March 18, splashing down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida inside the SpaceX Crew-9 Dragon capsule.

Once the two astronauts were on the ground, NASA officials praised the Trump administration for the success and timing of their return. 

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