Bad news for Loch Ness Monster fans … two Loch Ness Monster experts (I know, skeptics say that’s an oxymoron) are casting doubts on the three sightings this year, including two in just five days, that put 2019 on pace to be a record-breaking year for Nessie views. Is this dispute scientific, paranormal, political or just plain spite? Or could it be soul-searching, as both experts seem to be questioning their own existence?

Lisa Brennan believes she took a photo of the monster's head emerging from the water 

(Image: Deadline News)

“The fact is that well over a thousand honest and sober people have seen monsters in Loch Ness. Yet over 80 years of expeditions have failed to find them. Either we’re fairly bad at what we do or there’s another reason for that. I think it’s fair to say we’d all like there to be a Loch Ness monster. But equally there are people who will see what they want to see.”

It’s tough to find someone who has devoted more of their life to finding the Loch Ness Monster than Adrian Shine. He’s been looking for it since 1973 and is currently the Loch Ness and Morar Project and the possessor of a giant beard long before ZZ Top or David Letterman. In 1987, he organized “Operation Deepscan” which used 24 boats equipped with echosounder sonar to search the entire loch. Needless to say, no monster was found by Operation Deepscan, but Shine has never been deterred in in his search. However, the first three sightings of 2019 don’t float his Loch Ness boat.

There have been over 1,000 sightings of Nessie in Loch Ness

“In fact the huge majority of sightings are caused by the illusions that the loch is capable of creating, precisely because of the monster legends.”

So, what does Adrian think these sightings might be?

“My best guess is that what people are seeing is a fish like a sturgeon, which is very primitive and reptilian in appearance and can grow very big.”

Anyone who’s ever researched the Loch Ness Monster knows the name Steve Feltham. The self-proclaimed Nessie Hunterhas been living in a converted van on the shore of the loch since 1991, searching daily for Nessie and reviewing photos and videos taken by others. He is, or at least was, far more enthusiastic about the existence of the creature than Adrian Shine.

“When I arrived here full-time nearly 30 years ago I was looking for plesiosaurus, those dinosaurs with long necks. But now I’m not looking for dinosaurs, I’ve ruled that out, which is disappointing for me as I’ve had a lifelong fascination with Nessie. There are people out there who are incredibly gullible and believe every picture they see and bit of evidence. The internet has made it very easy for people to upload photos and cause a Nessie sensation with many believing it really is Nessie until proven otherwise. Every day there are many two or three decent interesting photographs, bit of films or pieces of evidence to study, but there are 10 times as many false alarms.”

So, what does cynical Steve think the three sightings of 2019 might be?

“My favourite is the wels catfish, the second-biggest freshwater fish in the world, although we’re no where nearer to saying it is definitely this or that. It doesn’t mean that it will turn out to be a catfish, but it’s my best guess at the moment.”

A sturgeon or a catfish? While Shine and Feltham seem to have resigned themselves to these ideas, they will surely disappoint the businesses dependent on the search for an actual monster. These two legendary Loch Ness Monster experts both hope that the results of the DNA testing of the loch last year, if and when they’re finally released, will solve the myth, or at least push the needle closer to an answer.

Do you?

Is it aliens? Strange lights were seen in the waters off Bangor in County Down, Northern Ireland. In fact, numerous people reported seeing the mysterious lights in the water and a few of them even captured pictures of the strange phenomenon and posted them online.

A woman named Jackie is one of several people who took pictures of the lights, and underneath the Facebook post of her photograph, it said that she walked around trying to figure out what it was since there were no divers or bubbles or anything left on the shore line to indicate that someone was in the water. Apparently, the lights flickered, turning off and on at random times and intervals.

While it’s possible that it could have been divers in the water, nobody has yet to come forward. Mark Piper, who is a local diver, said that he had asked around if anyone was in the water as it’s a very popular location at this time of year, but nobody claimed that it was them.

Eve O’Connor, who also witnessed the unexplained lights, said that they just appeared after a “strange fog” had lifted. “It was like two pinky peach sheens on the water that were concentrated in the middle,” she explained, adding, “There had been a strange on-off fog as soon as we had left for the coastal path. I thought maybe it was the sun breaking through in a strangely specific way.”

• You can see a picture of the mysterious lights by clicking here.

The lights were spotted in the waters off Bangor in County Down, Northern Ireland.

Credit: Pen News

Ireland is no stranger to alleged UFO sightings. Just a few months ago, in November of 2018, several pilots reported seeing an unidentified object in the skies over Ireland. The pilot of the British Airways flight BA94 contacted air traffic controllers to ask them if there were any military exercises in progress off the west coast of Ireland as she witnessed an unidentified flying object moving past the plane. It was confirmed that there weren’t any military exercises going on at that specific time.

Another pilot who was flying a Virgin Airlines aircraft spotted something unexplained that he described as a “meteor or another object making some kind of re-entry,” also adding that there appeared to be “multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory – very bright from where we were.” In addition to those two witnesses, another pilot chimed in by expressing, “Glad I’m not the only one.”

While the alien theory is a popular explanation as to what those lights were, several Brexit jokes were also included as a possible explanation. One person commented by saying, “It’s Theresa May trying to find somewhere useful to put the Irish border after Brexit,” while another claimed that it was probably a “dreadnought class British submarine getting ready for Brexit.”

As someone who writes books, gives lectures, and posts articles here and there, I get a lot of feedback. For the most part, it comes via emails, phone-calls and Facebook messages, from people who want to share their experiences, ask questions, or offer their opinions on the things I have written about. Occasionally, however, I’ll find myself on the receiving end of a communication (or several) from someone claiming an “Insider”-type background. A whistle-blower, in other words.  There have been a few occasions when my path has crossed with those of enigmatic characters whose backgrounds did indeed place them in the world of certain, covert activities – all connected to UFOs, in one way or another. This occurred most graphically when I was researching and writing my books, The Roswell UFO Conspiracy, On the Trail of the Saucer Spies, Body Snatchers in the Desert, and Final Events.

On March 2, 2017, it happened again. In this case, it came in the form of an “Unknown Caller” phone-call in the early afternoon. The elderly man at the other end of the line said that he had read my books Men in Black and Women in Black and wanted to share something relevant. It all revolved, he said, around the Philadelphia Experiment of 1943 and the MIB. This was certainly a new one on me. And I thought I had heard it all! I clearly had not. Like me, he had no time for the teleportation- or time-travel-based scenarios. But, what he did believe (or, rather, claimed to know) was certainly just as controversial. Perhaps, even more so. He said that in the early 1980s he was given the opportunity to read a particular batch of classified U.S. Navy files that told the “real” story of the Philadelphia Experiment. He was extremely cagey on verifiable facts (no surprises there, I have to say…), but maintained that the experiment had a bearing on the aforementioned MIB and Women in Black. I asked: “In what way?”

His reply was that the experiment – the precise nature of which he would not comment on – created what he called “a shift.” It was a shift that allowed those aboard the ship to see certain things that, in a normal state, they, you and I would not be able to see. But, which are supposedly around us all of the time. We’re talking about the MIB, WIB, and even what have become popularly known in recent years as the Shadow People, one-dimensional entities that are considered highly dangerous. So the tale went, the stories of crew-members vanishing, or becoming fused into the metal of the ship itself, were very wide of the mark. They were, I was assured, wildly distorted accounts of the crew seeing not sailors, but encountering MIB, WIB and Shadow People walking through walls, becoming invisible, and then reappearing. It didn’t take long, though, before the “truth” of the matter became a tale of vanishing and reappearing sailors. The man claimed – even more controversially – that this particular event at sea marked the first moment when the U.S. Government became “aware” of the Men in Black phenomenon.

USS Eldridge

The man stressed that he used the word “aware” for a very good reason. He wanted to make it clear that the government’s awareness did not mean they fully understood the nature of the MIB (and related) phenomenon. And, then, he stressed yet again that awareness and understanding should not be confused. Yes, I got it, jeez. Interestingly, he also said that the stories of some of the crew going insane were absolutely true. He explained that this was caused by the strange ability of some of the men to randomly see the MIB, the WIB, and the Shadow People for up to at least several years later. True or not, I could understand why people might well flip their collective lids under such circumstances. Imagine being endlessly faced with ghoulish, pale creatures in black swarming all around you, all the time, and in somewhat ethereal form. And your friends and family are completely oblivious to what’s going on around them. That would surely be enough to send anyone completely off the rails.

Creepiest of all, he said that when the creatures realized they could be seen by the sailors, they would respond by endlessly tormenting them. They would point their bony fingers at the men and grin in manic style. Others would “dance” around them, in wild, crazed fashion, while wailing and howling. It was a definitive bedlam, one from which there was no escape whatsoever. A Danse Macabre, one might say. Minds were lost, destroyed and never recovered. Having listened to all of that, I felt like I needed a drink. Was 3:00 p.m. on a weekday too early for hard liquor mixed with chilled Coca-Cola and ice? No, it was not. Of course, the most logical explanation for all of this is that the source was a nut-job. But, what if he wasn’t…?

The story is not quite over. Part-2 will soon follow…

Part-1 of this article began as follows: “As someone who writes books, gives lectures, and posts articles here and there, I get a lot of feedback. For the most part, it comes via emails, phone-calls and Facebook messages, from people who want to share their experiences, ask questions, or offer their opinions on the things I have written about. Occasionally, however, I’ll find myself on the receiving end of a communication (or several) from someone claiming an “Insider”-type background. A whistle-blower, in other words.  There have been a few occasions when my path has crossed with those of enigmatic characters whose backgrounds did indeed place them in the world of certain, covert activities – all connected to UFOs, in one way or another. This occurred most graphically when I was researching and writing my books, The Roswell UFO Conspiracy, On the Trail of the Saucer Spies, Body Snatchers in the Desert, and Final Events. On March 2, 2017, it happened again. In this case, it came in the form of an “Unknown Caller” phone-call in the early afternoon. The elderly man at the other end of the line said that he had read my books Men in Blackand Women in Black and wanted to share something relevant. It all revolved, he said, around the Philadelphia Experiment of 1943 and the MIB.”

There the extract from part-1 of this article ends. Now, it’s time for part-2. As interesting as this almost crazed story admittedly was, I quite naturally asked the man for something to back up his extraordinary claims. He told me to keep a look out for something that would be arriving in a couple of days. The phone then clicked. He had hung up. I thought: how can something be coming to my apartment when he didn’t even have my address? Two days later, on March 4, 2017 I found out. Apparently, he, or someone associated with him, did have my address. Around noon, I went down to get the mail. As I opened my apartment door, I saw a yellow envelope sitting on my “Welcome” mat.

What was particularly odd about the envelope was its complete lack of stamps or address: the entire envelope was blank. It wasn’t even sealed; the flap had just been pushed inside the envelope. I looked around, but didn’t see any unfamiliar faces wandering around. That was not surprising: it could only have been placed there some time after I last returned to the apartment, which was around 10:00 p.m. on the previous night, after I had helped a friend haul a new recliner into his second-floor apartment, one block down from mine. Logically, though, I figured it was probably delivered in the early hours of the morning, when there would have been hardly anyone awake or in a position to see the person who made the stealthy delivery.

So, I took the envelope inside and sat down on the couch. I opened it and could see what looked like an old book. That’s exactly what it was. I took it out. What I was holding in my hands was an original, 1950 edition of a book published by the Bureau of Ships, U.S. Navy Department. Its title was Microwave Techniques. It had been prepared by the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On the “Acknowledgments” page, it said: “Microwave Techniques is a Bureau of Ships edition of the report T-13, Microwave Technique as of May 1943, issued by the Radiation Laboratory.” It was signed “D.H. Clark, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy, Chief, Bureau of Ships.” Interestingly, Rear Admiral Clark was the Commander of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Why is that of interest? Well, because in the legend, the “teleported” ship turned up at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. And although I don’t buy into the wild tales of teleportation (or of time-travel, too), it was clear to me that someone was trying very hard to make a point.

When, back in the 1980s and the early-to-mid-1990s, I used the Freedom of Information Act to a significant degree, I was used to receiving government-, military-, and intelligence-based documents through the mail. But, this was very different: via FOIA you would always get photocopied material. And, of course, it would be delivered in conventional fashion. On this occasion, though, I was the recipient of an original military document. Plus, it wasn’t delivered by the mail, by UPS, or FedEx. On this occasion, someone had climbed the stairs to my apartment and had very quietly placed it right outside of my door (in the dead of night, I concluded), knowing that I would soon find it. Also, there was the not insignificant fact that the “Acknowledgments” section of the Microwave Techniquesdocument referenced 1943 – the year of the Philadelphia Experiment. The report didn’t mention the legendary experiment, but there was no doubt in my mind that it came from the old man on the phone two days earlier. Or, at the very least, from an associate of his.

After perusing the book for an hour or so, I went outside and scanned the apartment blocks. Everything was as normal as it ever was. Or, rather, it seemed to be. Beneath the veneer of normality, though, I detected a sense of something else. Of dark machinations and of an unclear, masked agenda.

It seems that whenever strange, unexplainable, loud sounds – horns, booms, shrieks, etc. – occur in the sky, HAARP is usually blamed. When mysterious clouds – trails, saucers, pillars, etc. – occur, HAARP, with its reputation for alleged weather control experiments, is blamed again. While HAARP’s involvement in these types of events has never been conclusively determined, Slovakia may have a case for pushing the investigations to continue since it seems to be a hotbed (testing ground?) for both strange sounds and odd clouds. Another sound event occurred this week and many are demanding answers before it’s too late. Or is it already? (See the video here.)

“Something very strange is going on in recent years in the atmosphere on the planet.”

If anyone should know about these strange atmospheric events, it’s Martin Mikuaš, who runs a YouTube channel where he posts videos of these eerie sounds and unusual cloud formations – along with other odd stuff – and, perhaps as a result of the sheer number he’s found, likes to point his finger towards Alaska at the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program or HAARP. To his credit, Mikuaš also gives an alternative explanation for this particular sound over Slovakia.

HAARP

“With frequent observations of these sounds, I noticed that this mysterious sound can be heard before or after the bigger earthquake in the world. It probably has a connection from the shifting of the lithospheric plates.”

Hmm. Mikuaš posted the video on March 1, 2019, and there have been no earthquakes in Slovakia in the past 30 days. However, there was one in 2015, the same year Mikuaš uploaded videos of what appears to the untrained ear to be the same sounds (see it here.). Videos of the sound were uploaded by other people in 2016 and they show strange cloud formations as well. On his channel, Mikuaš also uploads videos of strange clouds (here’s one from 2018) and UFOs over Slovakia (Here’s one from 2017).

Castle in Slovakia

Are these strange sounds, clouds and UFOs over Slovakia because Martin Mikuaš lives there and is either quick with his cellphone or has a network of spotters? Hard to say. Is he a hoaxer, as some commenters suggest? That’s certainly possible, but his collection of videos is pretty large and varied. Is Slovakia ground zero for HAARP testing or some other types of atmospheric or weather experimentation? Well, Eastern European countries have been used for strange, unusual and deadly experiments before.

One thing is certain … Martin Mikuaš is listening. Is anyone listening to him?

A recent proposal made by the Interior Department could potentially make it more difficult to request and obtain public records, in a move some transparency advocates are calling a potential violation of the Freedom of Information Act.

In response to the proposed changes, a group of congressional leaders penned a letter to David Bernhardt, Acting Interior Secretary, arguing that the move could undermine efforts toward more transparency in government.

A portion of the letter reads, “The proposed rule appears to restrict public access to DOI’s records and delay the processing of FOIA requests in violation of the letter and spirit of FOIA. Rather than clarifying DOI’s FOIA process, the proposed rule would make the process more confusing and potentially expose it to politicization and unnecessary litigation.”

David Paulides, author of a number of books on people who have vanished in National Parks, Tweeted about the proposed changes.

“For 9 yrs I’ve explained how the DOI demanded $1.4 mil for a list of missing people from our parks,” Paulides wrote. “They have abused, ignored and now want to change the FOIA.”

“The National Park Service is not what the public perceives and is fed via advertising,” Paulides said. In his books, Paulides has discussed the exorbitant fees the National Park Service requested from him in the past, in response to a request for details on people who have vanished on U.S. federal land.

FOIA laws have traditionally provided civilians access to information pertaining to a wide variety of different areas of government. In January, one notable release via FOIA by the Defense Intelligence Agency revealed new details about the Pentagon’s UFO tracking program, the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program.

This is not the first such change in policy in recent years. Beginning on March 1, 2017, the FBI changed its FOIA policies, stating the agency would no longer accept Freedom of Information Act Requests via email. The decision was met with derision by transparency advocates, who argued that this placed limitations on the public’s ability to request and access information that can be lawfully obtained from government agencies.

Prior to 2017, the FBI cited requests numbering greater than 951 pages “complex,” and anything between 50 and 950 “medium” processing track. This was changed in 2017, with requests involving more than 50 pages now being labeled “complex.”

Elizabeth Hempowicz with the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) was quoted by The Daily Caller at the time of the decision, saying “It’s hard to see this move by the FBI as anything other than an attempt to make it more difficult for the public to access information about the agency, as is our legal right under the Freedom of Information Act.”

According to an AP report, the changes for 2019 proposed by the Interior would affect “wording authorizing staff to reject records requests they deem ‘unreasonably burdensome’ and impose monthly limits on the number of FOIA requests that can be filed by an individual. The proposal would also replace the phrase “time limit” in the agency’s FOIA regulations with the term ‘time frame,’ a subtle change critics worry might allow staff to treat FOIA’s legally required time limits as mere guidelines.”

The proposed changes are similar to the FBI’s policy shift in 2017, in that both appear to be aimed at limiting large numbers of requests that can be filed with ease through digital mediums like email. There are reasons why it can be assumed such changes may be deemed necessary by certain government agencies; particularly those like the FBI that receive a large volume of FOIA requests, which often may be pertaining to information for which the agency keeps no records.

However, transparency advocates (which includes the bipartisan group in Washington whose letter recently opposed the changes) argue that this moves government institutions further away from accountability and measures which allow openness and disclosure of information to the public.

Lauren Easton, a spokesperson for the Associated Press, said in January that the proposal “would greatly infringe upon the public’s right to know and understand the inner workings of its government,” and the news agency “condemns such restraint of public information and any move by a government agency to undermine transparency.” They are one of several media outlets currently opposing the measure.

Alex Hinson, a spokesman for the Interior, argues to the contrary, saying recently in a public statement that the agency believes “these changes will result in a more transparent, equitable, and accountable FOIA program.”

It remains unclear how placing restrictions on the amounts and methods by which individuals may request information would promote transparency.

We all know the world of men will end someday. It could be tomorrow or it could be thousands of years from now – either way, it’s pretty clear by now that our time on Earth is limited. Will a man-made catastrophe like nuclear or biological warfare, climate change, or resource depletion bring about our demise, or will natural disasters, an astronomical impact event, or the evolution of a new superbug wipe out humanity?

Let’s not fool ourselves. We all know the machines will soon crush our collective skull under their cold, metal feet.

Whatever the cause is, the histories of our planet and its life show us that all things must pass. Humanity is ultimately just a blip on the unimaginably long life of the spaceship we call Earth, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and preserve our knowledge and civilizations for future beings or intelligent machines to learn from. With that in mind, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit called the Arch Mission Foundation has set out to create a “civilization backup” which would outlive humanity in the event of a species-wide catastrophe. The first version of this backup was sent to the moon last week.

The “Lunar Library,” as the civilization backup is known, consists of 30 million pages of information etched onto tiny metallic discs packed into a container the size of a DVD and is being hailed as “the first library on another celestial body.” The disc was carried aboard the privately-funded Israeli Beresheet spacecraft which was launched towards the moon aboard a SpaceX rocket on February 22nd. The archive is meant to be an encyclopedia of human knowledge, containing over 200 gigabytes of information such as the entire English-language version of Wikipedia, thousands of works of literature, nonfiction, and textbooks, and a “Rosetta Stone” consisting of 5,000 human languages and the means to translate between them.

A SpaceX Falcon launching from Vandenberg AFB in 2017.

The Arch Mission Foundation says their Lunar Library is intended to preserve the best parts of humanity to ensure any future humans don’t make the same mistakes we do (here’s a hint: don’t build artificial intelligence). “One of the primary evolutionary challenges that we face is amnesia about our past mistakes, and the lack of active countermeasures to repeating them,” an Arch Mission Foundation spokesperson told NBC news. “For the survival of our species, we need to find ways to raise our awareness of what worked and didn’t work, and we need to ensure it is shared with the people of the future.”

Nearly exactly a year ago, the Arch Mission Foundation sent a similar payload aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Do they know something we don’t, or is this merely a group of simultaneously pessimistic and optimistic well-wishers?

Time will tell. It’s too bad we won’t be here to see if future civilizations can avoid the same mistakes we’ve made.

A decades-long scientific mystery may have finally been solved. Some Antarctic icebergs are an odd emerald green color instead of the normal blue tinge and scientists have suggested a new theory as to why they look that way.

Ice absorbs more red light than blue light and that’s why they appear as a blue color. While most of them look blue or white while they are in the seawater, many people over the years have seen these oddly colored icebergs. Even sailors and explorers from the early 1900s have reported witnessing strange colored green icebergs around Antarctica.

A green iceberg floats in the Wendell Sea in 1985. Green icebergs’ unusual color has long perplexed researchers.

AGU/JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH: OCEANS/KIPFSTUHL ET AL 1992

While green icebergs have captured the curiosity of scientists for several decades, glaciologists conducted new studies which lead them to believe that iron oxides that’s in rock dust from Antarctica’s mainland is what’s turning the icebergs a green color. Australian researchers found huge amounts of iron in East Antarctica’s Amery Ice Shelf and that’s how the theory got started.

Iceberg in Antarctica

Interestingly, iron is a very important nutrient for phytoplankton which is a microscopic plant that’s at the base of the marine food chain. While iron is very limited in quite a few areas of the ocean, if this new discovery of iron in some icebergs proves to be true, it would be an extremely important benefit for marine life.

According to Stephen Warren, who is a glaciologist at the University of Washington, “It’s like taking a package to the post office. The iceberg can deliver this iron out into the ocean far away, and then melt and deliver it to the phytoplankton that can use it as a nutrient,” adding, We always thought green icebergs were just an exotic curiosity, but now we think they may actually be important.”

Icebergs break off of glaciers and ice shelves that extend out into the sea. Normal glacier ice is created when several layers of snow build up and eventually harden up, meaning that it has air pockets that light reflects off of. However, some icebergs in Antarctica contain a layer of marine ice which is water from the ocean that has frozen to the bottom of an overhanging ice shelf. Since marine ice doesn’t have any air pockets that reflect light, it is darker and much clearer than glacier ice. When Warren and his colleagues studied the green icebergs, they noticed that the green areas were in fact made up of marine ice instead of glacier ice.

Iceberg in Antarctica

Iron oxides that are found in soil, common rust, and rocks typically have warm, earthy colors such as yellow, orange, brown, and red. That’s why Warren was thinking that the iron oxides in the marine ice were turning the blue ice into a green color.

When glaciers move over bedrock, the rocks end up grinding into a very fine powder called glacier flour that ends up going into the ocean. The pieces of rock dust could then become part of the marine ice if it gets trapped under an ice shelf.

Warren, along with iron researchers from Australia are now planning to sample different colored icebergs in order to find out exactly how much iron they contain as well as how much light they reflect. If their theory is proven, that would be a huge discovery in regards to the study of icebergs, especially since iron is such an important and beneficial nutrient to marine life.

Click here to see more pictures of icebergs, including a green one.

Seawater sometimes freezes to the underside of ice shelves, creating a layer of what’s called marine ice.

Credit: AGU.

A partly-capsized iceberg embedded in sea ice. The clear, light blue ice is made of marine ice. The boundary between the glacier ice and marine ice (originally horizontal) is now tilted about 60 degrees.

Credit: Collin Roesler.

With new and advanced space technology, humans tend to feel more protected and not as scared if an asteroid was to ever threaten Earth. That’s because we believe that advanced technology allows us to be able to smash an asteroid into tiny pieces in order to protect our planet. However, new research indicates that blowing up an asteroid may not be as easy as we once thought.

In the early 2000s, a team of researchers conducted an experiment where they created a computer model of a simulated asteroid with a diameter of around one kilometer smashing head-first into a target asteroid with a diameter of 25 kilometers with a five kilometer per second impact velocity. Their results showed that the asteroid would have been totally destroyed.

However, newly conducted research by a new team suggests that after an asteroid is hit, its gravity would be so powerful that it would be able pull the destroyed pieces back together. After the impact, millions of cracks would form, pieces would fly off, and a crater would appear on the asteroid. After studying the cracks and predicting how they would multiply and move throughout the asteroid, they found that the entire body would not have broken up. They instead noticed that it had a huge damaged core that had such a powerful gravitation pull that the broken pieces would have been pulled back in. This means that the asteroid would need to be hit with a much stronger force than previously thought.

Charles El Mir, who is a doctoral graduate at Johns Hopkins University, explained in a statement, “It may sound like science fiction but a great deal of research considers asteroid collisions.” He went on to say, “For example, if there’s an asteroid coming at Earth, are we better off breaking it into small pieces, or nudging it to go a different direction? And if the latter, how much force should we hit it with to move it away without causing it to break? These are actual questions under consideration.”

While scientists don’t have much information about the interior structure of asteroids, they once believed that the bigger it was, the easier it would be to destroy, but they now think differently. “We used to believe that the larger the object, the more easily it would break, because bigger objects are more likely to have flaws,” El Mir explained, “Our findings, however, show that asteroids are stronger than we used to think and require more energy to be completely shattered.”

A top defensive idea has always been to knock an incoming asteroid off course or obliterate it.

Picture: NASA/JPL-CaltechSource:Supplied