Tag: nasa

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.

Keep reading

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.

Keep reading

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.

Keep reading

‘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.”

Keep reading

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. 

Keep reading

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Capsule Docks With ISS To Rescue Stranded Boeing Astronauts

SpaceX delivered four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) early Sunday as part of a NASA crew rotation mission that will bring home two Boeing Starliner astronauts stranded on the ISS for eight months. The lengthy delay occurred because the Biden-Harris regime sought to avoid optically displeasing headlines about Elon Musk rescuing the astronauts before the presidential election last November.

A little more than one day after launching from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on Friday evening, the Crew-10 astronauts’ SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule docked at the ISS early Sunday morning. 

NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov entered the ISS shortly after opening the hatches between the ISS and the Dragon spacecraft around 0035ET.

Keep reading

CBS News Makes It Sound Like Abandoned Astronauts Were On Vacation

Reporting on Elon Musk’s SpaceX mission to rescue the two astronauts stranded on the ISS, CBS News made it sound like they have been on an extended holiday.

This X post linking to a story notes that NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have had a “9 month stay in space.”

Then within the story itself, CBS states “NASA’s next International Space Station crew blasted off Friday, finally clearing the way for Starliner astronauts Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita Williams to be ferried home next week by two other outgoing station crew members, finally closing out an extended space odyssey.”

The pair were not inter-railing around Europe, they were left in space by the Biden administration on purpose after the Boeing Starliner capsule they travelled in was deemed unsafe for return.

They were supposed to be in space eight days, and could have been brought back months ago by Musk, but the Biden administration refused his offer of help, presumably because he had endorsed Trump.

Keep reading

FAA, NASA, NOAA Admit Jets Spray Chemicals That Linger in the Sky, Alter Weather

A newly released document titled “Contrails Research Roadmap 2025,” published by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), NASA, and NOAA, lays out plans for “routine, system-wide contrail management” by 2050.

Now, to be clear, the government isn’t calling these “chemtrails.”

They refer to them as “contrails,” but what they describe in this document is functionally the same thing people like me have been reporting on for years.

Jets spraying substances that linger in the sky, alter the weather, and affect temperature on the Earth—whether intentional or not, this is an admission of widespread atmospheric manipulation, dressed up as a side effect rather than a deliberate operation.

According to the government document itself, there are two types of persistent contrails that can last for hours to days and have significant impacts on the atmosphere:

Persistent Non-Spreading Contrails

These “can remain visible and retain their linear features for hours to days.”

The document explains they “form in ice supersaturated regions of the atmosphere and are likely to be more impactful than short-lived contrails.”

The agencies even admit they are “easily identified from the ground and satellites as being formed from aviation activity.”

Keep reading

NASA’s Stranded Astronauts Confirm Biden Abandoned Them in Space — He Declined Elon Musk’s Rescue Offer For ‘Political Reasons’

NASA’s stranded astronauts have acknowledged that Joe Biden deliberately abandoned them in space for political purposes.

Barry Wilmore and his crewmate Sunita Williams have been stuck on the International Space Station since July last year after their Boeing Starliner ran into technical issues.

At a virtual press conference on Tuesday, Wilmore was asked about Elon Musk’s claim that Joe Biden declined his offer to bring them back on a SpaceX flight several months ago for “political reasons.”

“I can only say that Mr Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual,” Wilmore said.

Wilmore went on to say he and his partner at the “utmost respect” for Musk and Trump.

I can tell you, at the outset, all of us have the utmost respect for Mr. Musk, and obviously respect and admiration for our President of the United States, Donald Trump.

We appreciate them, we appreciate all they do for us, for human spaceflight, for our nation. We’re thankful that they’re in the positions they’re in.

The words they’ve said — politics — I mean, that’s part of life. We understand that, and there’s an important reason why we have a political system, and the political system that we do have.

And we’re behind it 100 percent. We know what we’ve lived up here. We know the ins and outs and the specifics that they may not be privy to.

And I’m sure they have some issues that they’re dealing with, information that they have that we are not privy to.

So when I think about your question, that’s part of life. We are on board with it, we support our nation, we support our nation’s leaders and we’re thankful for them.

During an interview on The Joe Rogan Experience last week, Musk explained how Biden had declined his offer and intentionally “pushed the return date past the inauguration date.”

Keep reading

Heads Are Going to Explode When DOGE Cancels This Boondoggle

Boeing Vice President David Dutcher warned workers on the company’s Space Launch System (SLS) to prepare for layoffs on Friday if NASA finally cancels the rocket providing lift for the Artemis lunar program. The political fallout could make heads explode. 

Eric Burger has the details on Dutcher’s emergency all-hands meeting, but they aren’t all that interesting. What is interesting is what happens when and if a team led by SpaceX founder Elon Musk tries to cancel a multibillion-dollar project led by Boeing.

Artemis is the U.S.-led international effort to establish a sustainable human presence on the moon, but to borrow a New England expression, we “can’t get there from here” on the rocket built for the job —which is where DOGE’s budget-cutting chops come in.

SLS isn’t just a boring and stupid name for an impressively sized rocket; it’s underpowered and too expensive for its intended mission. SLS can’t put enough mass into lunar orbit to account for the Orion space capsule it carries and its four-person crew and their supplies. It doesn’t even carry the landing vehicle.

To make up for SLS’s shortcomings, we’re going to build Lunar Gateway — an international space station in orbit around the moon. The plan is that Orion and its crew will dock at the Gateway and transfer to a SpaceX Human Landing System (HLS, and another boring name) for transit to the lunar surface, where they’ll conduct their mission, and then back to the Gateway for transfer back to Orion for the voyage back to Earth. HLS gets to Lunar Gateway courtesy of a SpaceX Starship.

Did you get all that? There will be a quiz later.

The complexity is only necessary because SLS can’t produce enough lift. Starship, once completed, can produce enough lift, making the Lunar Gateway and all that going back and forth unnecessary.

The Lunar Gateway is expected to cost $5.3 billion just for initial construction (and we both know what happens to those initial estimates; they go nowhere but up) and another billion dollars each year to operate and maintain.

Maybe there’s a case to be made for Artemis to include an orbital substation, but it isn’t Lunar Gateway. 

Keep reading