Military UFO Head Resigns After Being Grilled About Whistleblower Claims

Noor Al-Sibai
Wed, November 8, 2023 


Head Out

After getting some intense media grilling about whistleblower reports, the man who headed up the Pentagon's UFO office is stepping down.

As Politico reports, Sean Kirkpatrick is leaving his role as the director of the Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) after less than 18 months on the job and will be replaced by his deputy, Tim Phillips, until the Pentagon can appoint a more permanent director.

Notably, Kirkpatrick's exit from the office came just over a week after a protracted media exchange in which he admitted that claims made by whistleblower David Grusch — whose allegations about widespread alien coverups and the government's possession of reverse-engineered alien technology the AARO head had previously called "insulting" — just might have had some merit after all.

"We're investigating each and every one of [Grusch's claims]," the now-resigned AARO director said during the off-camera Halloween meeting with the press. "We're cross-referencing those. There are some bits of information that are turning out to be things and events that really happened."

"A lot of it is still under review," Kirkpatrick continued, "and we're putting all that together into our historical report."

Earth to Mothership

As Politico points out, Kirkpatrick postponed his planned retirement to take the reins as the first director of the AARO when it was established under its current name and purview in 2022 — and reading between the lines, he may have done so in part because he, like Grusch, believes the truth is out there.

Indeed, while still in his role as the head of the department tasked with coordinating military reports on what the government refers to as "unidentified aerial phenomena" or UAPs, Kirkpatrick teamed up with Harvard's divisive alien hunter Avi Loeb in authoring a paper about a potential "alien mothership."

In an interview with Politico about his resignation, Kirkpatrick said that the paper he authored with Loeb was a draft that wasn't meant to be published, but that he didn't regret his involvement in penning it.

"The best thing that could come out of this job is to prove that there are aliens," he told the magazine. "If we don’t prove it’s aliens, then what we’re finding is evidence of other people doing stuff in our backyard, and that’s not good."

More on government UFO hunters: NASA Releases Name of Its First-Ever "UFO Czar" After Threats

Pentagon UFO boss steps down after explosive admission

Story by Katherine Fidler • METRO UK

Dr Sean Kirkpatrick hopes UAP are aliens (Picture: ABC)© Provided by Metro

The head of the Pentagon’s UFO office is retiring, days after admitting there could be some truth in a whistleblower’s shocking claims that the US government is hiding evidence of aliens.

In an interview with Politico, Dr Sean Kirkpatrick said he had decided to step down after achieving his goals, having postponed retirement to take on the role.

Dr Kirkpatrick has been director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) since it was founded by the Biden administration last year, and in the 18 months since its inception the issue of UFOs has generated much public and political interest.

This reached a fever pitch in the summer after former US intelligence officer David Charles Grusch alleged the government had evidence of ‘intact and partially intact’ alien vehicles.

Speaking during a congressional hearing into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), the official name for UFOs, he went further, adding that people had been ‘harmed or injured’ in an effort to cover up the information.

Dr Kirkpatrick said AARO had attempted to contact Mr Grusch about his claims repeatedly, which the whistleblower denied.

However, speaking during an off-camera meeting with the press on Halloween, the AARO director admitted some of the claims could be true.

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‘We are investigating each and every one of [Grusch’s claims],’ he said. ‘We’re cross-referencing those. There are some bits of information that are turning out to be things and events that really happened.

‘A lot of it is still under review, and we’re putting all that together into our historical report.’

The report is one of the final tasks he will complete before leaving next month. His current deputy, Tim Phillips, will lead AARO until a permanent replacement is found.

Dr Kirkpatrick postponed his retirement to take up the role, during which time AARO launched a website sharing declassified information on UFOs – which now allows troops and government employees to report their own sightings.

He also co-authored a draft paper with Harvard ‘alien hunter’ Professor Avi Loeb, leaked online, which suggested the UAP studied by AARO could be ‘alien probes’ sent to study Earth by a mothership out in the cosmos.



Professor Avi Loeb is renowned for his quest to discover alien life (Picture: Getty/Boston Globe)© Provided by Metro

While he did not give permission for the paper to be published, Dr Kirkpatrick said he did not regret his involvement.

In an interview with Politico, he said ‘the best thing that could come out of this job is to prove that there are aliens’.

‘If we don’t prove it’s aliens, then what we’re finding is evidence of other people doing stuff in our backyard,’ he said. ‘And that’s not good.’

His statement may come as a surprise to many UFO enthusiasts, who have previously labelled Dr Kirkpatrick as a ‘gatekeeper’ of the government’s UFO secrets.

SEE

Pentagon UFO boss to step down next month

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for UAP 

A-10s Brandish Intriguing Mix Of Weapons In Middle East

Joseph Trevithick
Wed, November 8, 2023

New pictures show A-10s that recently deployed to the Middle East with interesting ordnance loads.

Though the U.S. Air Force's A-10 Warthog ground attack jets look increasingly to be in the twilight of their careers, they are still being sent to places where they could find themselves in harm's way. Last month, a group of Warthogs touched down in the Middle East as part of a surge in U.S. forces into the region in response to the eruption of the latest Israel-Gaza conflict. Newly released pictures now offer an interesting look at the weapons loadouts on some of these jets as they sit ready to respond to contingencies.

One of the armed A-10s seen in the new pictures. USAF

U.S. Air Forces Central (AFCENT), the service's top command in the Middle East, posted the pictures of the A-10s belonging to the 354th Fighter Squadron loaded with a variety of live ordnance online earlier today. The Pentagon announced the 354th's Warthogs had arrived at an "undisclosed location" in the Middle East on October 12.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RUpWsSdXiE

The new images show four A-10s all with the same basic warload.

Each Warthog has a pair of AIM-9M Sidewinder air-to-air missiles on a twin-rail launcher on the outboard pylon under its left wing. This is something these jets routinely carry for self-defense.

Moving inboard, under the left wing, each one also has a seven-round 70mm rocket pod loaded with what looks to be laser-guided Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) laser-guided rockets with M282 warheads.

The seven-round 70mm rocket pod can be seen here just inboard of the two AIM-9M Sidewinders under the left wing of this A-10. USAF

70mm rockets with the APKWS II guidance kit, which goes between the warhead and the motor, are longer than typical unguided types and protrude from the front of standard pods as a result. The M282 warhead has a very distinctive yellow base color with a red band around the front.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V092M25KeUA

A graphic showing various standard 70mm (2.75-inch) rocket warheads in U.S. military service, including the M282 with its distinctive markings, as well as the APKWS II guidance kit. US Army

The M282 is a specialized penetrating warhead with the ability to punch through some armor and reinforced structures. As such, these rockets would give each A-10 a valuable precision-strike capability for engaging light vehicles, even some armored ones, as well as hostile forces inside buildings or behind other kinds of hard cover. APKWS II is extremely accurate. It can even be used to take out individuals in doorways and windows if the targeting sensor permits such clear imagery.

On the opposite station under the right wing, the A-10s have LITENING advanced targeting pods, as can be seen in the picture below.

USAF

The LITENING pod has electro-optical and infrared full-motion video cameras, as well as a laser designator and laser range finder. It can also determine the specific coordinates of a point on the ground, which can then be programmed into GPS-assisted precision-guided munitions. Altogether, the pod can be used to spot, track, and prosecute targets on the ground, as well as just for general surveillance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCA5xmYeQC8

On the inboard stations under both wings of all of the A-10s are special racks holding four GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs (SDB). These are 250-pound class small glide bombs with GPS-assisted guidance packages and pop-out wings that can hit stationary targets "in excess of 40 nautical miles" away, depending on release altitude and other factors. SDB gives A-10 crews a standoff attack capability. This can drastically improve their survivability and also increase their flexibility in various engagement circumstances.

Some of the Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) on one of the A-10s. USAF

Though the SDB has been in U.S. service for many years now, this is a very recent addition to the A-10's already very diverse arsenal, with the final integration work only wrapping up earlier this year.

An A-10 seen carrying eight SDBs during a test in the United States earlier this year. USAF

The exact SDB variants loaded onto the Warthogs are unclear – the markings near their tails are deliberately blurred out in the pictures – but it is possible that one or more could be GBU-39A/B types. Also known as the Focused Lethality Munition (FLM), this is a version of the SDB specifically designed to help reduce collateral damage. Even standard SDBs offer benefits in this regard over larger precision-guided bombs, while still offering the ability to penetrate inside some types of hardened structures as seen in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfRWh2FTZks

The four armed A-10s from the 354th Fighter Squadron seen in the new pictures all also have a pair of 500-pound class Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) on stations under their fuselage. JDAMs also come in other weight classes, but they are all modular GPS-assisted precision-guided weapons that are constructed using various kinds of standard dumb bombs as their 'warheads.'

A full look at the LJDAM on one of the A-10s. The tail of the other JDAM loaded on this aircraft is just visible to the right. USAF

The noses of the JDAM, in front, and the LJDAM, behind, are visible here. USAF

It is not immediately clear what bombs form the cores of the JDAMs on the Warthogs at the undisclosed location in the Middle East. However, each pair includes a Laser JDAM (LJDAM) variant. LJDAMs have a laser seeker on the nose in addition to the standard guidance package in their tail, and therefore have the ability to engage moving targets, as well as stationary ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwmEA7RIRaQ

Between the SDBs and the JDAMs, each one of these A-10s has a good mix of additional options for engaging enemy vehicles and other forces, including targets inside buildings or out in the open, with precision.

When it comes to the A-10 it would be remiss to not mention its iconic integral 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger cannon, which can fire up to 4,000 rounds per minute, or almost 70 rounds every second. The magazine for this gun, which can hold up to 1,350 rounds, typically contains a mix of different rounds that offer armor-piercing and high-explosive-incendiary efforts. One known mixture is five armor-piercing rounds to every high-explosive-incendiary one. Another is called the “urban mix” and has a 2:1 blend of high-explosive incendiary rounds and training practice shells (which can still do a lot of damage when they smash into a target).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9rmAgHK-4s\u0026t=83s

Not knowing where the 354th Fighter Squadron's Warthogs are currently located, it is hard to say what potential contingencies they might be best positioned to respond to with these loadouts. It is no secret that Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria have been launching an increasing number of rocket, drone, and other indirect fire attacks on American forces in both of those countries, which have already led to dozens of injuries.

The U.S. Air Force has now carried out two rounds of retaliatory airstrikes against Iranian-linked targets in Syria, the second of which came just today. However, all of those strikes have been carried out by fast-moving combat jets like the F-16C Viper and the F-15E Strike Eagle.

A-10s might be better suited to responding to any attempts by Iranian-backed groups to launch more concerted attacks on American forces in the region. Depending on where they are based, the Warthogs could also be used to help respond to maritime threats in the region, especially swarms of small crewed or uncrewed boats. The jet's APKWS would be ideal for engaging those threats. Its gun would be useful, as well.

Whatever the case, the deployment of these A-10s comes as it looks more and more likely that the Air Force will finally retire the type for good by the end of the decade, if not sooner. The service has tried on many occasions to get rid of the Warthogs since they first entered service in the 1970s, something that long ago turned into a major saga. Part of that story includes a highly controversial fly-off against the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter between 2018 and 2019. Details about that comparative testing remain murky even after the recent release of a heavily redacted report, as you can read more about here.

Whatever the case, the A-10s from the 354th Fighter Wing, including the ones we've now seen with their live ordnance loads, are now among various forward-deployed U.S. military assets in the Middle East that could be called upon if the Israel-Gaza conflict expands into a larger regional conflagration.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

NASA powers up Artemis 2 Orion spacecraft ahead of 2024 moon mission

Elizabeth Howell
Wed, November 8, 2023

NASA astronaut Christina Koch, an Artemis 2 mission specialist for the moon mission, tests the side hatch of an Orion spacecraft at Lockheed Martin Space in Denver. The Orion spacecraft set to carry Koch and three others around the moon finished a power-on test at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 6, 2023. .

The next astronaut moon spacecraft felt the power this week.

The Orion spacecraft for Artemis 2, expected to circle the moon with four astronauts on board in 2024, successfully passed its first power-on test on Monday (Nov. 6). It will carry NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and the Canadian Space Agency's Jeremy Hansen, who are undergoing 18 months of training to get ready for the first human moon mission in 52 years.

Powering Orion on was a big moment for the team that meticulously joined the American-made crew module and European Service Module (ESM) for the spacecraft at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in mid-October, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).

"The power-on process is very quick," Dominique Siruguet, ESM assembly integration and verification engineer at ESA, said in a Nov. 6 statement. "It's not so different from connecting all the appliances in your apartment and then switching on the light to make sure it works," When the astronauts use the Orion next year, they will live in the crew module and receive power, water and other supplies from the ESM.

Related: Artemis 2 moon astronaut says crew is ready for ambitious 2024 mission

Orion is undergoing a series of checks to make sure it is ready to carry humans. It has flown twice in space already, during a round-the-Earth test in 2014 and on the Artemis 1 uncrewed moon mission of 2022.

More work on the Artemis 2 Orion will follow in the coming weeks. Another key milestone will be the one- or two-week "closed-loop mission" test that will put the spacecraft through the rigors of its expected mission: Pre-launch, launch on the Space Launch System, separation from the rocket, and then the flight around the moon and back to Earth.

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To be sure, the spacecraft won't be physically tested for all these phases (as the Orion spacecraft has already been certified for them through decades of testing). Instead, technicians will "inject the parameters of the different mission phases into the service module and check that all navigation, propulsion and other subsystems are reacting correctly to maintain the mission course," Siruguet said.

Other tests include making sure the ESM can transfer power from the solar arrays to the crew module, doing redundancy testing, and performing a vacuum altitude chamber test for Orion. Meanwhile, the Artemis 2 rocket boosters are under assembly in a separate area of KSC, and the four crew members continue training on matters such as Earth orbit operations, medical work and (soon) a simulated recovery exercise with NASA and the U.S. Navy, officials with NASA wrote in an Oct. 19 statement.

‘Puzzling’ discovery spotted in new images from NASA mission’s asteroid flyby

Ashley Strickland, CNN

Dinkinesh, a small asteroid that NASA’s Lucy mission visited last week, continues to surprise.

Lucy swung by the space rock, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, on November 1 as part of a test of the spacecraft’s equipment before tackling the mission’s primary goal: surveying the swarms of Trojan asteroids around Jupiter. The flyby of Dinkinesh, which means “marvelous” in the Amharic language of Ethiopia, wasn’t even added to Lucy’s itinerary until January.

But the first views captured by Lucy’s instruments showed there was more to the shadowy asteroid than expected. At first, images suggested that the space rock was part of a binary pair, with a smaller asteroid orbiting Dinkinesh.

The first image taken by the spacecraft during its closest approach revealed the companion, but not the fact that it was a contact binary. - NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOIRLab

However, additional images taken by the spacecraft just after the flyby’s closest approach have now revealed that the smaller asteroid is actually a contact binary — two smaller space rocks that touch each other.

Lucy came within 265 miles (about 425 kilometers) of the asteroid’s surface during its closest approach, which is when the first images were taken. The second batch of images revealing the contact binary, shared by NASA on Tuesday, were taken six minutes later from 1,010 miles (about 1,630 kilometers) away.

“Contact binaries seem to be fairly common in the solar system,” said John Spencer, Lucy deputy project scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, in a statement.

“We haven’t seen many up-close, and we’ve never seen one orbiting another asteroid.
We’d been puzzling over odd variations in Dinkinesh’s brightness that we saw on approach, which gave us a hint that Dinkinesh might have a moon of some sort, but we never suspected anything so bizarre!”
Solving an asteroid enigma

The close approach was primarily designed to help the Lucy spacecraft test its terminal tracking system, which allows the spacecraft to locate the space rock autonomously and keep it within view while flying by at 10,000 miles per hour (4.5 kilometers per second). The system surpassed expectations, which allowed astronomers to make the discovery of Dinkinesh’s unexpected companion.

This graphic shows the Lucy spacecraft's trajectory as it flew by Dinkinesh and when it captured the images revealing the asteroid's surprising companion. - NASA/Goddard/SwRI

“It is puzzling, to say the least,” said Hal Levison, principal investigator for Lucy at the Southwest Research Institute, in a statement. “I would have never expected a system that looks like this. In particular, I don’t understand why the two components of the satellite have similar sizes. This is going to be fun for the scientific community to figure out.”

Data from the flyby is still transmitting from the spacecraft to the mission team.

“It’s truly marvelous when nature surprises us with a new puzzle,” said Tom Statler, Lucy program scientist at NASA, in a statement. “Great science pushes us to ask questions that we never knew we needed to ask.”
Setting a course for the Trojans

Lucy’s next close encounter will be with another main belt asteroid called Donaldjohanson in 2025. And then, the spacecraft will set off to see the Trojans.

The Trojan asteroids, which borrow their name from Greek mythology, orbit the sun in two swarms — one that’s ahead of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, and a second one that lags behind it. Too distant to be seen in detail with telescopes, the asteroids will get their close-up when Lucy reaches the Trojans in 2027.

The mission borrows its name from the Lucy fossil, the remains of an ancient human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia in 1974. The skeleton has helped researchers piece together aspects of human evolution, and NASA Lucy team members hope their mission will achieve a similar feat regarding the history of our solar system.

The asteroids are like fossils themselves, representing the leftover material hanging around after the formation of giant planets in our solar system, including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Strange moon of asteroid Dinkinesh is weirder than thought after NASA probe finds 'contact binary' (photo)

Brett Tingley
Tue, November 7, 2023

Three grey space rocks in the blackness of space. the largest is alone on the left; the smaller two are on the right, touching one another.

Asteroid Dinkinesh continues to surprise us.

On Nov. 1, NASA's Lucy spacecraft zoomed past this space rock, marking the first of several asteroid encounters the probe is designed to make. Lucy's goal is to ultimately explore a set of asteroids near Jupiter, known as the Trojans, which are thought to hold clues about the earliest days of our solar system; these objects may be able to shed light on the origins of life on Earth. But, on the way to those Trojans, Lucy has a couple of stops — including Dinkinesh, which sits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

On Nov. 2, project scientists with the Lucy mission announced the first flyby came with a surprise: Dinkinesh, or 'Dinky,' appears to be not one asteroid, but two. Lucy was able to observe that Dinkinesh is a binary system, meaning there is a small natural satellite in orbit around it.

And today (Nov. 7), scientists announced another surprise.

In a NASA statement, the Lucy team writes that Dinky's smaller satellite is itself a type of binary system known as a "contact binary," meaning the two smaller objects are in contact with one another. This means Dinky isn't made up of one, or two, but rather three components.

"It is puzzling, to say the least," the Southwest Research Institute's Hal Levison, principal investigator for Lucy, said in the statement. "I would have never expected a system that looks like this. In particular, I don't understand why the two components of the satellite have similar sizes. This is going to be fun for the scientific community to figure out."

Related: Surprise! Asteroid 'Dinky' is actually a double space rock, NASA's Lucy probe reveals (photo)

Lucy spotted the third rock in this asteroid system six minutes after snapping the images that initially revealed Dinkinesh wasn't alone. In that time, the probe had traveled 960 miles (1,545 km) from the point at which it discovered the first satellite.

Contact binary systems seem to be fairly common throughout our solar system, but scientists hadn't seen one orbiting another asteroid prior to Dinkinesh, Lucy's deputy project scientist John Spencer said in the statement. "We'd been puzzling over odd variations in Dinkinesh's brightness that we saw on approach, which gave us a hint that Dinkinesh might have a moon of some sort, but we never suspected anything so bizarre!"

two grey rocks tumble in space

— Meet Dinkinesh: Asteroid targeted by NASA's Lucy spacecraft gets a marvelous name

Again, however, Dinkinesh and its two satellites are only the first of many asteroids Lucy will visit during its planned 12-year mission that began in Oct. 2021, when it launched from Kennedy Space Center atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

After leaving Dinky, the probe will head back to Earth for a gravity assist maneuver in December 2024. This assist is expected to slingshot the probe back out to the main asteroid belt, where it will study the asteroid Donaldjohanson in 2025.

From there, Lucy will move on to its main goal: The Trojan asteroids.

The spacecraft will become the first mission to visit these early solar system relics, and if all goes according to plan, Lucy will visit eight different Trojan asteroids between 2027 and 2033. Possibly, the spacecraft will uncover more space rock surprises along the way.

"It's truly marvelous when nature surprises us with a new puzzle," Tom Statler, Lucy program scientist from NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in the statement. "Great science pushes us to ask questions that we never knew we needed to ask."

Another Lucy Bonus: Asteroid's Surprise Moon Is Actually Two Rocks Stuck Together

Passant Rabie
Tue, November 7, 2023

The first look at the Dinkinesh asteroid revealed a surprise: The small space rock had its own moon. Now as the Lucy spacecraft downlinked more images of its first target, it showed not one but two tiny asteroids orbiting around Dinkinesh.

NASA’s Lucy mission made a close flyby of the Dinkinesh asteroid on November 1, capturing data about the rocky object in the main asteroid belt. As it turns out, this small little guy was hiding a big secret: a tiny moon. But that’s not the only surprise; Dinkinesh is no ordinary binary system—it hosts a satellite that’s a contact binary consisting of two smaller objects in direct contact, NASA announced on Tuesday. The surprise space rocks are the first contact binary orbiting asteroid to ever be observed.

At its closest approach, Lucy captured its first set of images when it was around 265 miles (425 kilometers) away from the asteroid. Six minutes later, the spacecraft captured its second set of images when it was at a distance of 1,010 miles (1,630 km) from the asteroid.

“It is puzzling, to say the least,” Hal Levison, principal investigator for Lucy at the Southwest Research Institute, said in a statement. “I would have never expected a system that looks like this. In particular, I don’t understand why the two components of the satellite have similar sizes. This is going to be fun for the scientific community to figure out.”

Dinkinesh, which roughly translates to “marvelous” in Amharic, is around 0.5 miles (790 meters) at its widest. The small asteroid was added to the mission’s itinerary in January as a way to test the spacecraft’s terminal tracking system, which is used for precise imaging during its high speed encounters with the asteroids.

Although it was only meant to be a test of its systems, Lucy’s brief encounter with Dinkinesh is the gift that keeps on giving. The spacecraft itself has moved on already, and is currently headed back toward Earth for a gravity assist in December 2024 that will propel it back towards the main asteroid belt for a close flyby of asteroid Donaldjohanson in 2025.

After its two early targets, the mission will begin its tour of the Trojan asteroids, a group of space rocks that lead and follow Jupiter in its orbit around the Sun. Lucy will reach the Trojan asteroids in 2027, visiting Eurybates and its binary partner Queta, followed by Polymele and its binary partner, Leucus, Orus, and the binary pair Patroclus and Menoetius.

The mission team still has plenty of time to downlink the remaining data and images from Lucy’s first asteroid encounter, which have led to uncovering more mysteries than they had initially anticipated. “It’s truly marvelous when nature surprises us with a new puzzle,” Tom Statler, Lucy program scientist from NASA, said in a statement. “Great science pushes us to ask questions that we never knew we needed to ask.”


Nasa gets ‘puzzling’ data back from Lucy spacecraft exploring distant object

Andrew Griffin
Wed, November 8, 2023 

The space agency’s Lucy Spacecraft left Earth in 2021, with the aim of studying “Jupiter trojans”, a set of asteroids that fly around the Sun along Jupiter’s orbit and remain largely mysterious. Recently, scientists decided to send it to visit another small object on its way, largely as a test of the systems on the spacecraft that let it track asteroids for its mission.

When Lucy arrived at that object – a main belt asteroid named Dinkinesh – it found a surprise, however. Images taken of the asteroid showed that it had a satellite, which flies around the asteroid like a tiny moon of its own.

Now, further examination of those images show that the satellite is not one but two objects. Those objects make up a “contact binary”, or two smaller objects that are touching each other as they fly through space.

The unexpected discovery explains some of the strange data that scientists had received as they approached Lucy. But it opens up more confusion about the whole system, which one called “bizarre”.

“Contact binaries seem to be fairly common in the solar system,” said John Spencer, Lucy deputy project scientist, in a statement. “We haven’t seen many up-close, and we’ve never seen one orbiting another asteroid.

“We’d been puzzling over odd variations in Dinkinesh’s brightness that we saw on approach, which gave us a hint that Dinkinesh might have a moon of some sort, but we never suspected anything so bizarre!”

The flyby of Dinkinesh was only intended as a test of the spacecraft’s systems but has now posed new possible research for scientists.

“It’s truly marvelous when nature surprises us with a new puzzle,” said Tom Statler, Lucy program scientist from NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Great science pushes us to ask questions that we never knew we needed to ask.”

“It is puzzling, to say the least,” said Hal Levison, principal investigator for Lucy, also from Southwest Research Institute. “I would have never expected a system that looks like this. In particular, I don’t understand why the two components of the satellite have similar sizes. This is going to be fun for the scientific community to figure out.”

The scientists were only able to confirm the nature of the system with the multiple images that were sent back by Lucy in the wake of its encounter with Dinkinesh. Nasa is working now to get the rest of the data from the spacecraft, which might include yet more surprises.

Lucy itself will continue flying through space on a journey that is due to take 12 years. Lucy is actually heading back to Earth, which it will use for a gravity assist to propel it onto the next part of its journey, back through the main asteroid belt and onto the Trojan asteroids.

Star-filled Euclid images spur mission to probe 'dark universe'

Tue, November 7, 2023 

First images taken by Euclid telescope


By Tim Hepher

PARIS (Reuters) - European astronomers on Tuesday released the first images from the newly launched Euclid space telescope, designed to unlock the secrets of dark matter and dark energy - hidden forces thought to make up 95% of the universe.

The European Space Agency, which leads the six-year mission with NASA as a partner, said the images were the sharpest of their kind, showcasing the telescope's ability to monitor billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light years away.

The images spanned four areas of the relatively nearby universe, including 1,000 galaxies belonging to the massive Perseus cluster just 240 million light years away, and more than 100,000 galaxies spread out in the background, ESA said.

Scientists believe vast, seemingly organised structures such as Perseus could only have formed if dark matter exists.

"We think we understand only 5% of the universe: that's the matter that we can see," ESA's science director Carole Mundell told Reuters.

"The rest of the universe we call dark because it doesn't produce light in the normal electromagnetic spectrum. But we know its effect because we see the effect on visible matter."

Tell-tale signs of the hidden force exerted by dark matter include galaxies rotating more quickly than scientists would expect from the amount of visible matter that can be detected.

Its influence is also implicated in pulling together some of the most massive structures in the universe, like clusters of galaxies, Mundell said in an interview.

Dark energy is even more enigmatic.

Its hypothetical existence was established only in the 1990s by studying exploding stars called supernovas, resulting in a 2011 Nobel prize shared between three U.S.-born scientists.

Thanks in part to observations from the earlier Hubble Space Telescope, they concluded that the universe was not only expanding but that the pace of expansion was accelerating - a stunning discovery attributed to the new concept of dark energy.

3D COSMIC MAP

After initial commissioning and technical teething problems, including stray light and guidance issues, Euclid will now start piecing together a 3D map encompassing about a third of the sky to detect tiny variations attributable to the dark universe.

By gaining new insights into dark energy and matter, scientists hope to better grasp the formation and distribution of galaxies across the so-called cosmic web of the universe.

"The purpose of the Euclid mission is really to start to probe that dark sector of the universe in ways that we've been unable to presently with current ground and space missions," said Mundell, a leading academic and former UK science envoy.

"The Perseus cluster really typifies this huge conglomeration of mass. We think there's lots of dark matter in that cluster and pulling these galaxies together," she added.

The release of the images in Darmstadt, Germany, coincided with the second of two days of European space talks in Spain dominated by Europe's continued dependency on foreign launches.

The Euclid spacecraft was due to be launched on Russia's Soyuz rocket but those plans were scrapped amid a breakdown of relations following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine last year.

With Europe's own Ariane 6 rocket delayed, Euclid was launched from Florida by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in July.

Although the mission is designed to last six years, ESA hopes Euclid has another six months of propellant to keep it in solar orbit some 1.5 million km (930,000 miles) away from Earth at "Lagrange Point Two", or L2 - a position of gravitational stability that is also home to NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

Other images released by ESA included an irregular galaxy thought to resemble building blocks of the universe and a spiral formation known as the "Hidden Galaxy": a lookalike of our home galaxy usually obscured by light and dust within the Milky Way.

"You'll also see lots of background galaxies there as well, which is phenomenal. I think I spotted a new one there last night," Mundell told Reuters.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Alex Richardson)


First full-colour images of universe captured by Euclid telescope revealed

Nina Massey, PA Science Correspondent
Tue, November 7, 2023 

The first full-colour images of the universe captured by the space telescope Euclid have been released by the European Space Agency (ESA).

The five glittering pictures show galaxies and stars near and far, helping to uncover some of the universe’s hidden secrets.


Euclid’s view of the Perseus cluster of galaxies (ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/Nasa)

The images released on Tuesday include one of the Perseus cluster of galaxies which shows 1,000 galaxies belonging to the cluster, and more than 100,000 additional galaxies further away in the background.

Many of these faint galaxies were previously unseen, and some of them are so far that their light has taken 10 billion years to reach us.

Another image captures the spiral galaxy IC 342, nicknamed the Hidden Galaxy, because it is difficult to observe as it lies behind the busy disc of our Milky Way, and so dust, gas and stars obscure our view.


Euclid’s view of globular cluster NGC 6397 (ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/Nasa)

One of the new pictures is of globular cluster NGC 6397 – the second-closest globular cluster to Earth, located about 7,800 light-years away.

Globular clusters are collections of hundreds of thousands of stars held together by gravity.

These faint stars tell us about the history of the Milky Way and where dark matter is located.


Euclid’s view of irregular galaxy NGC 6822 (ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/Nasa)

To create a 3D map of the universe, Euclid will observe the light from galaxies out to 10 billion light-years.

The first irregular dwarf galaxy that Euclid observed is called NGC 6822 and is located just 1.6 million light-years from Earth.

And the fifth image shows a panoramic and detailed view of the Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33 and part of the constellation Orion.


Euclid’s view of the Horsehead Nebula (ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/Nasa)

Scientists hope to find many dim and previously unseen Jupiter-mass planets in their celestial infancy, as well as young brown dwarfs and baby stars, in this new observation.

Professor Carole Mundell, ESA director of science, said: “Dark matter pulls galaxies together and causes them to spin more rapidly than visible matter alone can account for; dark energy is driving the accelerated expansion of the universe.

“Euclid will for the first time allow cosmologists to study these competing dark mysteries together.

“Euclid will make a leap in our understanding of the cosmos as a whole, and these exquisite Euclid images show that the mission is ready to help answer one of the greatest mysteries of modern physics.”

Rene Laureijs, the ESA’s Euclid project scientist, said: “We have never seen astronomical images like this before, containing so much detail.

“They are even more beautiful and sharp than we could have hoped for, showing us many previously unseen features in well-known areas of the nearby universe.

“Now we are ready to observe billions of galaxies, and study their evolution over cosmic time.”

Euclid was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida on July 1.

Named after the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, the two-tonne probe made its way towards an area in space known as the second Lagrange point, where the gravitational forces of Earth and the sun are roughly equal – creating a stable location for the spacecraft.

The UK has contributed £37 million towards the £850 million mission, with scientists playing key roles in designing and building the probe and leading on one of the two scientific instruments on board.

Dr Caroline Harper, head of space science at the UK Space Agency, said: “These first colour images showcase Euclid’s enormous potential, giving us incredibly sharp images of galaxies and stars, and helping us understand more about the impacts of dark matter and dark energy on the universe.

“The UK has played an important role in the mission, leading on the development of the visible imager (VIS) instrument and on key elements of the data processing pipeline, funded by the UK Space Agency.

“And this is just the start – UK researchers will be using Euclid data for many years to come to make significant new scientific discoveries about the composition and evolution of the cosmos.”

JWST Reveals Crab Nebula in Never-Before-Seen Detail
Cassidy Ward
Wed, November 8, 2023 


A century from now, the crew of SYFY's The Ark (streaming now on Peacock) extends the human passion for exploration to the stars. For the first time, a crewed spacecraft begins a journey to another star system and the planet Proxima centauri b, 4.2 light-years away. In the real world, perhaps we’ll actually be capable of that in a hundred years, but for now we’re limited to a pretty small territory around our own planet.

Still, the desire to explore persists, and we satisfy ourselves with building machines to go where we can’t go and see what we can’t see. Recently, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captured new images of the famed crab nebula, giving us new insight into the evolution of a vast stellar explosion in our own galaxy.

JWST Image Gives New View of Old Friend, the Crab Nebula

The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant, the leftover debris surrounding a pulsar, all that remains of a dead star. It’s located in the constellation Taurus at a distance of roughly 6,500 light-years. The nebula itself is expanding at an average rate of 1,500 kilometers per second and deep inside, a pulsar only 28 - 30 kilometers across is whipping around more than 30 times per second.

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The Crab Nebula

JWST's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) capture detailed image of the Crab Nebula Photo: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, T. Temim (Princeton University)

It was first recorded as a temporary star by 11th Century Chinese astronomers in the year 1054. Despite being one of the most studied and beloved astronomical objects, JWST’s cutting edge instruments are providing details previously hidden from us. Using JWST’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), astronomers have been able to more accurately see what the nebula is made of.

“Webb’s sensitivity and spatial resolution allow us to accurately determine the composition of the ejected material, particularly the content of iron and nickel, which may reveal what type of explosion produced the Crab Nebula,” said Lea Temim, a Stanford University astronomer who led the study, in a statement.

When compared with a historical image from the Hubble Space Telescope, the new image looks familiar enough that the nebula is recognizable at a glance. But a deeper look reveals unique details in both images. JWST’s infrared instruments highlight gaseous filaments at the nebula’s exterior as well as the structure and dispersal of dust grains in the interior. There is also significant synchrotron radiation, created as the pulsar’s intense electromagnetic field charges nearby particles like a supercollider. That radiation is visualized as milky white smoke throughout the nebula’s interior.

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Side by side comparison of Hubble and JWST images of the Crab Nebula.

Side by side comparison of Hubble and JWST images of the Crab Nebula. Photo: Hubble Image: NASA, ESA, J. Hester, A. Loll (Arizona State University); Webb Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, T. Temim (Princeton University).

The nebula’s composition can also be seen in the image coloration. Ionized sulfur is represented in red and orange, ionized iron in blue, and dust grains in yellow, white, or green. Taken together with the Hubble images and observations from other telescopes around the world and in orbit, astronomers are peeling back layers to reveal more information about cosmic objects new and old.

By the time we manage to build our first interstellar ships, there’s no telling how the view of our favorite cosmic haunts (the Crab Nebula included) will have evolved. But we can’t wait to see it.

25 Gorgeous nebula photos that capture the beauty of the universe