CIA makes shocking statement about mysterious interstellar visitor that upends NASA's comet story

• MORE: The five unsolved mysteries of 2025 that captivated the world 

By CHRIS MELORE, US ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR

A shocking admission by the CIA has just reopened the mystery surrounding 3I/ATLAS, the interstellar object speeding through our solar system.

Although NASA has claimed the object is an ordinary comet, an icy rock with a long tail of gas and dust, intelligence officials have refused to answer whether they investigated the possibility that 3I/ATLAS is an extraterrestrial craft. 

In response to a November 2025 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request regarding the supposed comet, the CIA said it could 'neither deny nor confirm the existence or nonexistence of records' regarding 3I/ATLAS.

The federal government had maintained that the object showed no signs of harboring alien life or that it was an artificially constructed spacecraft since it was detected in July 2025.

However, the CIA still decided to provide what is known as a 'Glomar response.' It's a way for the government to say, 'We're not going to tell you if we have information or not, because even admitting that could reveal sensitive secrets.' 

Harvard professor Avi Loeb has continued to challenge NASA's claims, highlighting that 3I/ATLAS has exhibited at least 12 strange behaviors that scientists have not been able to explain as natural occurrences.

Those anomalies include the object having a bright 'anti-tail' pointing in the opposite direction of a normal comet, course changes that defy the laws of gravity, and a nickel shell, which is a metal typically used by spacecraft to deflect heat.

'That this information is treated as sensitive enough to be classified by the CIA is surprising, given that NASA officials stated decisively at a press conference on November 19, 2025, that 3I/ATLAS is definitely a comet of natural origin,' Loeb said.

Amateur stargazers have taken clear images of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS (Pictured) using common telescopes during its journey through the solar system

The CIA has released a statement neither confirming nor denying any investigations into 3I/ATLAS, complying with a November 2025 FOIA request

As 3I/ATLAS nears Jupiter on March 16, the Harvard physicist said the new revelations by the US intelligence community suggest the government has secretly investigated the possibility that the object is a hostile threat, as he theorized last year. 

The Daily Mail has requested comment from both the CIA and NASA and is awaiting a response.

The FOIA request was submitted by UFO and government conspiracy researcher John Greenewald Jr, who noted in a post on X that he was filing an appeal to get a clearer answer from the CIA.

Greenewald Jr added that he has filed the same request for information regarding 3I/ATLAS with NASA and other US agencies and is still waiting for them to reply.

FOIA requests are part of US law that lets anyone, including citizens, journalists, and researchers, ask government agencies for documents or records on a specific topic.

The agency must give a response, but it can withhold revealing details if the information is classified for national security reasons or falls under certain exemptions.

'Very interesting, apparently CIA [director John] Ratcliffe knows something,' one person on social media alleged. 

The new revelations have come months after NASA completely dismissed the possibility of 3I/ATLAS being extraterrestrial in origin, with space agency administrator Nicky Fox saying they've found nothing 'that would lead us to believe it was anything other than a comet.'

However, NASA's November announcement created more doubt about the object's origins than it solved, as the agency was widely mocked for the blurry images it released of 3I/ATLAS.

Many critics quickly pointed out that amateur astronomers with common telescopes had been taking much clearer photographs of the alleged comet as it approached Earth in December, despite being over 200million miles from the object.

In comparison, NASA Mars orbiters were less than 20million miles away from 3I/ATLAS in early October 2025, but still only returned heavily pixelated images of the visitor, which caused some to claim it was a cover-up.

'NASA officials were encouraged to deliver the likely scientific interpretation, while at the same time, the serious consideration of a black swan event by the CIA was hidden from public view to prevent panic from taking hold for no good reason,' Loeb speculated in a statement published Monday.

A black swan event is a rare, totally unexpected happening that's highly unlikely but could have huge, world-changing consequences for the Earth.

In the case of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, Loeb said if the tiny chance that the object was artificial alien technology turned out to be true, it would be a massive shock with enormous implications for humanity, including proving aliens exist.

The cryptic response from the CIA adds another layer to the eight-decade conspiracy theory UFO believers have had, claiming that the US government has been concealing what it knows about extraterrestrial life.

Just days after Greenewald Jr's FOIA request was submitted in November, the hit documentary 'The Age of Disclosure' was released, interviewing 34 US government, military, and intelligence officials about their knowledge of an alleged UFO cover-up.

Despite the speculation, the US military and federal government have said there has never been any physical proof that UFOs or beings from other planets exist.

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09-01-2026 om 18:34 geschreven door peter  

Psychic's terrifying 2026 prediction comes true just one week into the new year

• MORE: Wild theory claims the world actually ended in 2012

By CHRIS MELORE, US ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR

An award-winning psychic's concerning prediction for 2026 appears to have already come true, as a series of large earthquakes have rattled the globe.

Jill M Jackson, a spiritual teacher and author from Mississippi, had warned of increased earthquakes this year, especially along the US West Coast and in Asia, with 'major water events' being strengthened by the quakes and causing larger floods.

In just the first seven days of 2026, nearly 100 earthquakes greater than 4.5 in magnitude have been recorded worldwide, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

Moreover, 10 large earthquakes over magnitude 5.0 have struck the Pacific Rim in the last two days, impacting Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Russia.

That wave of seismic activity included a major 6.4 magnitude quake that struck the Philippines just after 10pm ET Tuesday night.

Jackson warned Americans to get prepared now, including those living in states such as California, Oregon, and Washington, which could be impacted by several dangerous fault lines sitting along the West Coast.

'There's a lot of changes coming. There's a lot of earth changes coming. I see land shifting... And it's important for us to be in a place of preparation. Pay attention to water and things like that,' she revealed. 

One major earthquake has already struck North America in 2026. A magnitude 6.5 quake rocked southern Mexico on January 2, sending shockwaves all the way to Mexico City and forcing hundreds of residents to evacuate buildings.

The US Geological Survey has recorded 95 earthquakes greater than 4.5 in magnitude since the start of 2026, with most centered along the Pacific Rim

Jill M Jackson (Pictured) issued several predictions for 2026, including an economic downturn in the US that would cost many people their jobs

Jackson, who has been named 'Psychic of the Year' twice, added in a recent interview that Earth would see an 'amplification' in the intensity of earthquakes, including in Japan, Indonesia, and Thailand.

She predicted stronger flooding risks would emerge for islands in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific this year as well.

In November 2025, Jackson accurately predicted the major 7.6 magnitude quake striking off Japan's Aomori Prefecture on December 8, 2025, causing injuries, damage, and tsunami alerts.

Her newest predictions come after a year where Californians were repeatedly rattled by significant tremors along the state's coastline and swarms of minor quakes which lasted for days at a time. 

In November and December, more than 300 earthquakes rattled the same region in California, sparking fears among locals that the infamous 'Big One' could soon strike and devastate the West Coast.

San Ramon in the East Bay was the epicenter of this seismic activity, which sits on top of the Calaveras Fault, an active branch of the notorious San Andreas Fault system.

The Calaveras Fault is capable of producing a magnitude 6.7 earthquake, which would impact millions of people in the San Francisco Bay Area. USGS has previously estimated there is a 72 percent chance of this happening by 2043.

A rupture along the larger, 800-mile-long San Andreas fault would likely cause even more destruction, with the latest simulations of a magnitude 7.8 earthquake striking near Los Angeles predicting 1,800 deaths, 50,000 injuries, and $200 billion in damages, according to the Great California ShakeOut.

The Great California Shakeout predicted that a 7.8-magnitude earthquake could kill 1,800 people and cause $200 billion in damages in Southern California alone

Jackson (Pictured) has said she began seeing spirited at birth and was able to communicate with them since the age of 12

The psychic's forecast for the new year also included a plea for Americans to prepare for significant instability in the US economy, leading to many job losses.

'I do see a lot of polarity... A lot of ups and downs. It's going to feel like a roller coaster. Sadly, I do see a lot more people losing their jobs in 2026,' Jackson predicted during a December 26 interview on the Jeff Mara Podcast.

The psychic also ongoing wars, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict, would continue for several more years with no quick end in sight, although some conflicts like in Venezuela might 'fizzle out' by mid-2026.

While Jackson warned that many Americans could end up unemployed this year, the dramatic turn in the economy would actually benefit these workers, as she claimed the layoffs would force people to leave careers they were not spiritually aligned with.

'I do see a lot of people doing complete 180s and leaving jobs and careers that they have been in for years and years and starting over, starting something new. I also see a lot of new businesses being created, but it feels more local,' Jackson told the podcast.

'Once they go through that, they are going to have an opportunity to go within and realize that they were not on their soul's path anyway.'

Jackson added that these major shifts in the US will cause many to feel a sudden, unexplained urge to move away from homes they've lived in for 10, 15, or even 20 years.

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09-01-2026 om 18:24 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers spot record-breaking asteroid the size of seven football pitches - and it could be nudged towards Earth

• READ MORE:  NASA finds essential sugars on ancient asteroid Bennu

By XANTHA LEATHAM, EXECUTIVE SCIENCE EDITOR

Out in the depths of space, somewhere in between Mars and Jupiter, is a newly discovered asteroid that’s breaking records.

Astronomers have spotted a celestial rock the size of seven football pitches that is spinning faster than they’ve ever seen before.

The asteroid, named 2025 MN45, is 710 metres in diameter and completes a full rotation every 1.88 minutes.

The fact that it spins so rapidly has baffled experts, who say it must consist of solid rock in order to maintain its shape.

‘Clearly, this asteroid must be made of material that has very high strength in order to keep it in one piece as it spins so rapidly,’ Sarah Greenstreet, who leads the Rubin Observatory’s Solar System Science Collaboration’s Near-Earth Objects and Interstellar Objects working group, said.

‘We calculate that it would need a cohesive strength similar to that of solid rock.

‘This is somewhat surprising since most asteroids are believed to be what we call “rubble pile” asteroids, which means they are made of many, many small pieces of rock and debris that coalesced under gravity during Solar System formation or subsequent collisions.’

While it is currently out in the asteroid belt, hundreds of millions of kilometres away, asteroids and comets have previously been ‘nudged’ into Earth’s neighbourhood by the gravity of nearby planets.

This artist’s illustration depicts 2025 MN45 — the fastest-rotating asteroid with a diameter over 500 meters that scientists have ever found

The lightcurve of the asteroid - the y-axis shows the asteroid’s brightness, and the x-axis shows its phase, or where it is in its rotation

The sighting forms part of a much larger discovery, as scientists have detected 1,900 new asteroids cruising about our Solar System that have never been seen before.

Within this flurry are 19 super and ultra-fast rotating asteroids – with 2025 MN45 taking the new record for the fastest-spinning asteroid with a diameter over 500 meters that astronomers have found.

For their study, researchers collected data over the course of about 10 hours across seven nights in April and May of last year.

They used the Rubin Observatory’s LSST Camera – the largest digital camera in the world – to capture the night sky.

‘Discoveries like this exceptionally fast-rotating asteroid are a direct result of the observatory's unique capability to provide high-resolution, time-domain astronomical data, pushing the boundaries of what was previously observable,’ Regina Rameika, from the US Department of Energy, said.

As asteroids orbit the Sun, they also rotate at a wide range of speeds, the researchers explained.

These spin rates not only offer clues about the conditions of their formation billions of years ago but also tell us about their internal composition and evolution over their lifetimes.

In particular, an asteroid spinning quickly may have been sped up by a past collision with another asteroid, suggesting that it could be a fragment of an originally larger object.

Most asteroids can be found orbiting our Sun between Mars and Jupiter within the main asteroid belt

An illustration of the main asteroid belt, orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, where asteroid 2025 MN45 can be found

This image, one of the first released by Rubin Observatory, exposes a Universe teeming with stars and galaxies — transforming seemingly empty, inky-black pockets of space into glittering tapestries for the first time

‘Fast rotation also requires an asteroid to have enough internal strength to not fly apart into many smaller pieces, called fragmentation,’ the team said in a release.

‘Most asteroids are ‘rubble piles’, which means they are made of many smaller pieces of rock held together by gravity, and thus have limits based on their densities as to how fast they can spin without breaking apart.

‘For objects in the main asteroid belt, the fast-rotation limit to avoid being fragmented is 2.2 hours; asteroids spinning faster than this must be structurally strong to remain intact.

‘The faster an asteroid spins above this limit, and the larger its size, the stronger the material it must be made from.’

Within the main asteroid belt are space rocks ranging in size from 530km (329 miles) to just 10 metres (33 feet) in diameter.

‘Sometimes, asteroids and comets are nudged into Earth’s neighbourhood by the gravity of nearby planets,’ NASA says.

However, they explained that it is ‘highly unlikely’ an asteroid large enough to cause widespread damage will impact Earth for the next 100 years or more.

The new findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

09-01-2026 om 18:09 geschreven door peter  

Hidden threat from secret military base discovered lurking deep below Greenland's ice sheet

By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

Scientists are sounding urgent alarms over a hidden Cold War threat buried deep beneath Greenland's rapidly melting ice sheet. 

A long-abandoned US military base known as Camp Century was recently rediscovered under the ice after a NASA pilot conducting airborne radar tests captured images of its underground remains. 

The base, built in secret during the Cold War, lies about 118 feet below the surface and spreads across an area roughly 0.7 miles long and 0.3 miles wide. 

Once described as a self-contained underground town, Camp Century housed a hospital, theater, church and shop, and was powered by a small nuclear reactor. 

As Greenland's ice melts at accelerating rates, scientists have warned that hazardous waste left behind at the site could eventually be released into the environment. 

That waste includes chemical pollutants, biological sewage, diesel fuel, and radioactive material once thought to be safely sealed in ice forever. 

Researchers now say that assumption was deeply flawed. 'What climate change did was press the gas pedal to the floor,' said James White, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Camp Century was constructed in the late 1950s with the knowledge of both the US and Danish governments under the 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement. 

NASA scientists captured an image of an abandoned US military base that has been hiding under ice in the

Camp Century was constructed in the late 1950s with the knowledge of both the US and Danish governments under the 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement

Danish officials participated in planning and environmental monitoring, and historical reports indicate Denmark approved the disposal of some radioactive waste directly into the ice. 

At the time, scientists and military planners believed Greenland's ice sheet would permanently entomb any contamination.

'That idea, that waste could be buried forever under ice, is unrealistic,' White said. 

'The question is whether it's going to come out in hundreds of years, thousands of years, or tens of thousands of years. Climate change just means it's going to happen much faster than anyone expected.'

The environmental risk posed by Camp Century has taken on new urgency as geopolitical tensions in the Arctic intensify. 

President Donald Trump renewed calls this week for US control of Greenland, citing national security concerns as Russian and Chinese activity in the region grows. 'It's so strategic,' Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday. 

'Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.'

But scientists said the buried base represents a very different kind of security threat, one tied not to military rivals, but to pollution unleashed by a warming climate.

Once described as a self-contained underground town, Camp Century housed a hospital, theater, church and shop, and was powered by a small nuclear reactor

Pictured are US soldiers climbing up to an escape hatch to enter Camp Century

A team of international researchers led by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder estimated that Camp Century contains roughly 9,200 tons of physical waste, including abandoned buildings, tunnels, and rail infrastructure. 

The site also holds about 200,000 liters of diesel fuel and significant amounts of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, toxic chemicals once widely used in paints and electrical equipment.

PCBs are especially concerning because they do not break down easily and are linked to cancer, immune system damage, and developmental problems. 

The Arctic's cold climate has trapped these chemicals for decades, effectively turning the region into a global storage site for pollution released elsewhere. 

As ice melts, however, scientists warned that glaciers could become a new source of toxic contamination.

Most former Arctic military sites have undergone cleanup efforts, but Camp Century is one of only five abandoned ice-sheet bases near Thule Air Base that have never been remediated, according to the 2016 study by the CIRES research team. 

Camp Century is a US military base built in 1959 that consists of a network of 21 tunnels but just below the surface of the ice sheet ice 

Pictured is the entrance to the base before it was decommissioned in 1967

At similar sites, PCB concentrations in some paints exceeded five percent by weight.

In addition to chemical and biological waste, Camp Century also contains radioactive material from the nuclear reactor's coolant system. 

When it was buried in the early 1960s, the waste had a radioactivity of about 1.2 billion becquerels, roughly equivalent to the radiation used in a single medical scan. 

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•  I'm a doomsday prepper... It's only a matter of time before society is crippled, and this is how I'm getting ready 

While small compared to major nuclear accidents, researchers cautioned that its presence adds another layer of risk if containment fails.

The base's tunnel system twists and branches beneath the ice, making it difficult to fully map. 

Airborne radar has detected strong reflections that align with known tunnel locations, but scientists say the technology cannot yet identify all buried waste. 

Diesel fuel, stored in underground tanks, may still be liquid today, though researchers believe the tanks may have ruptured.

Models suggest that ice flow and snow accumulation could bury solid waste as deep as 220 feet and liquid waste around 305 feet by 2090. 

While that means contamination may not surface for decades, scientists stressed that burial does not equal safety.

Camp Century was constructed in the late 1950s with the knowledge of both the US and Danish governments under the 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement.

Beyond the environmental risks, Camp Century has become a source of political and legal uncertainty. 

Responsibility for the cleanup remains disputed between the US, Denmark, and Greenland. 

While the waste was left behind by the US, the original 1951 treaty did not account for climate change or Greenland's growing self-governance.

The agreement states that US property in Greenland may be removed or disposed of after consultation with Danish authorities. 

But it remains unclear whether Denmark was fully consulted during Camp Century's decommissioning, raising questions about whether the abandoned waste is still legally US property.

Researchers said Camp Century may represent one of the first real examples of climate change triggering an international dispute over long-forgotten pollution, a preview of conflicts likely to emerge worldwide as rising seas and melting ice expose hazardous waste once thought safely buried.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

09-01-2026 om 17:37 geschreven door peter  

NASA has just revealed that the crew of the International Space Station was being evacuated for the first time in history after one of the astronauts suffered a medical emergency.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said in a press conference Thursday that Crew-11 would not continue its mission until its scheduled return date in February, and that the steps for their safe return would be worked out over the next 48 hours.

'I've come to the decision that it's in the best interest of our astronauts to return Crew-11 ahead of their planned departure,' Isaacman revealed.

The announcement came less than a day after NASA cancelled a Thursday spacewalk due to the medical issue, with officials saying they were 'erring on the side of caution for the crew member'.

Crew-11 includes four astronauts: NASA's Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.

The group was recently joined by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who arrived at the station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in November 2025.

Isaacman said that Williams will remain on the station with the Soyuz crew to maintain America's presence in space.

While the astronaut who suffered the medical issue was not revealed, NASA's chief medical officer Dr James Polk said the astronaut was not in any immediate danger and they were being cared for by their fellow crewmates until their return.

Crew-11 before launching to the ISS. Pictured (L to R): Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui, and NASA's Zena Cardman

NASA cancelled a planned spacewalk on Thursday involving the crew of the International Space Station (Pictured) over an unspecified medical issue involving one of the astronauts

Dr Polk added that the medical issue the astronaut suffered had nothing to do with the upcoming spacewalk or any other operations on board the station.

'It's mostly having a medical issue in the difficult areas of microgravity,' Polk explained without going into specific medical details. 

NASA officials noted that no special precautions would need to be taken to keep the ailing astronaut safe until their return and called their condition 'stable' until the evacuation plan is finalized. 

NASA has never had to bring an astronaut home for medical reasons, but an evacuation plan has been built into every ISS mission, with crew return vehicles kept on standby.

'We are looking for the correct opportunity to use our existing landing sites,' Isaacman said when asked if NASA would be making an emergency landing to get Crew-11 home faster.

'I´m proud of the swift effort across the agency thus far to ensure the safety of our astronauts,' the NASA chief added. 

The NASA administrator did note that the space agency did consider this a 'serious medical condition' which forced officials to conclude that the first ever evacuation was necessary.

However, Dr Polk stressed that the astronaut was not in immediate danger which would force NASA to consider rushing the evacuation into an unsafe flight window.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman (Left) and NASA chief medical officer Dr James Polk (Center) revealed on Thursday that Crew-11 would be returning as soon as possible 

JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui (center) was helping NASA astronaut Zena Cardman (left) and Mike Fincke prepare for the spacewalk before it was postponed 

'The crew member is absolutely stable, so I don't foresee massive changes to the timeline or their activities,' Polk said.

Crew-11 arrived at the ISS on August 1, 2025, meaning their return date had been scheduled for late February.

The four astronauts were supposed to leave after Crew-12 arrived on a SpaceX Dragon capsule no earlier than February 15.

Isaacman said that any decision to potentially move up the launch of Crew-12 would not impact the upcoming Artemis II mission planned for February 2026.

He called the two launches 'totally separate campaigns,' meaning there should be no issue in launching Artemis on time. Artemis II will be the first manned spaceflight to orbit the moon since 1972.

Meanwhile, the ISS is required to have astronauts aboard at all times, as they are essential to carry out maintenance, repairs, operate complex experiments, manage life support and perform spacewalks, tasks that automation cannot fully handle, ensuring constant human oversight for safety and scientific output.

Until now, there had never been a crew evacuated ahead of their scheduled departure time from the ISS, however, two spacewalks were recently cancelled because of various health issues among the astronauts.

A mission was cancelled in 2021 when Mark Vande Hei experienced a pinched nerve and was unable to travel outside the ISS.

Another spacewalk in 2024 was called off at the last minute because an astronaut experienced 'spacesuit discomfort'.

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09-01-2026 om 17:22 geschreven door peter  

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/tech/ }

09-01-2026 om 17:07 geschreven door peter  

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09-01-2026 om 16:51 geschreven door peter  

Story by Tibi Puiu

 

Scientists have discovered a mysterious hole on the surface of Mars, and they have no idea what lies inside it.

This pit, located in the Arsia Mons region — one of Mars’ giant volcanoes — could potentially be a skylight leading to a vast network of lava tubes.

Lava tubes are natural caverns formed by flowing lava. Here on Earth, they provide shelter for many life forms, and on Mars, they could offer human explorers much-needed protection from the harsh Martian environment.

So, is this hole the key to unlocking a potential Martian habitat?

A Mysterious Martian Pit — Leading to Where?

There’s no shortage of environmental hazards out to kill any astronaut bold enough to dare set foot on Mars. With Mars having only 0.7% of Earth’s sea-level pressure, humans would have to don a full pressure suit or live inside a specialized chamber. Without these precautions, oxygen wouldn’t circulate in the bloodstream, with potentially fatal consequences.

Radiation, however, remains the primary concern. Although Mars is farther from the Sun than Earth, the absence of a magnetic field and its thin atmosphere mean it’s exposed to much higher radiation levels than Earth. The Mars Odyssey probe has shown radiation levels on Mars are at least 2.5 times higher than what astronauts face on the International Space Station. Furthermore, besides regular exposure to cosmic rays and solar wind, it receives occasional, lethal radiation blasts due to solar flares.

The Photos NASA Sent To Aliens

Any attempt to colonize the Red Planet will require measures to ensure radiation exposure is kept to a minimum. Some of the proposed ideas thus far involve habitats built directly into the ground or even above-ground habitats using inflatable modules encased in ceramics.

However, a promising alternative lies in Mars’ natural landscape. The planet is scattered with deep pits, caves, and lava tube structures that can act as a shield against radiation.

Collapsed sections of these tubes, called skylights, could provide access to these subterranean refuges. This is what scientists believe this newly identified pit could be. It was recently imaged by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The Nature of Martian Pits

Two images of the pit in Arsia Mons. The one on the left was taken a couple of years ago. The one on the right is more recent and shows a side wall, which may mean the hole is not an entrance to a lava tube or cave.

(NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)© ZME Science

The newly examined pit measures only a few meters across and resides in the Tharsis region — a vast volcanic plain, thousands of kilometers across and elevated about 10 km above the planet’s mean elevation. This area was once very volcanically active, so scientists’ best guess is that the pit is a skylight to a lava tube.

However, that’s not the only option. In another image, you can see an illuminated sidewall, indicating it might just be a cylindrical pit. This raises the possibility that the hole may simply be a pit crater, similar to those found in Hawaii.

These craters form when cracks in volcanic rock widen and collapse, offering no access to underground chambers. In Hawaii, pit craters range from 6 to 186 meters deep and 8 to 1140 meters wide. The Arsia Mons pit is about 178 meters deep, Universe Today reports.

Lessons from the Moon

So, the big question now is: does this hole on Mars lead to a larger underground cavern? We don’t have a straight answer yet. But with time, scientists might be able to study and understand Martian pits as well as they do those on the Moon.

We understand lunar lava pits and tubes much better than those on Mars. Some lunar tubes are thermally stable and have boulder-covered floors. There are even plans for robots to explore these lunar caves, potentially housing astronauts in inflatable habitats.

Mars, with its weaker gravity, should support even larger lava tubes. This would provide extremely valuable shelter on a very unforgiving planet. Perhaps this is not all that different from how the first human explorers made bases in caves as they traveled across uncharted territory, colonizing the world.

However, unlike the Moon, we lack conclusive evidence of their existence on Mars. This intriguing pit on Arsia Mons is part of an ongoing search for Martian lava tubes. Future robotic missions designed to explore these potential underground worlds will be crucial in unlocking the secrets they hold.

Renewed Interest and New Discoveries

In November 2024, a breakthrough study on Earth provided some supporting evidence that Martian caves could act as time capsules. Researchers exploring lava tubes in Lanzarote, Spain, found that the tubes shielded minerals and organic compounds from weathering, effectively preserving “biosignatures” of past microbial life. This confirms that if life ever existed on Mars, a lava tube would be the most likely place to find its fossilized remains, protected from the harsh radiation on the surface.

Meanwhile, the region hosting the pit, Arsia Mons, received a stunning visual update in May 2025.

Arsia Mons, an ancient Martian volcano, was captured before dawn on May 2, 2025, by NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter while the spacecraft was studying the Red Planet’s atmosphere, which appears here as a greenish haze.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU© ZME Science

NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter captured a rare panorama showing the volcano’s summit poking through a vast blanket of morning clouds. This image highlighted the extreme altitude of the Tharsis region (where the pit is located), reminding us that any habitat here would need to contend with not just radiation, but unique atmospheric weather patterns distinct from the rest of the planet.

But there could be other, even more interesting caves.

In late 2025, when scientists identified a potential new class of caves in the Hebrus Valles region. Unlike the volcanic tubes of Arsia Mons, these new candidates appear to be “karstic”—caves formed by the dissolution of bedrock by water. If confirmed, these wouldn’t just be shelters; they would be remnants of ancient aquifers, making them the ultimate “holy grail” for both human habitation and the search for alien life.

This article was originally published in 31 May, 2024, and has been reedited to include additional information.

This story originally appeared on ZME Science. Want to get smarter every day? Subscribe to our newsletter and stay ahead with the latest science news.

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09-01-2026 om 16:36 geschreven door peter  

Story by Jarrod Saunders

©Provided by: Lifestyle Fortress

Does An Ancient Letter From Flavius Josephus Reveal That Jesus Was Real?
Some people swear Jesus never existed. That he is just a fairytale or just a clever early-Christian marketing pitch that got out of hand. It’s a spicy claim, and if you only stick to “the Bible says so,” you’ll end up in a shouting match with someone who thinks every ancient text comes with a hidden agenda.

Here’s the part that tends to surprise people: you don’t need to start with the New Testament at all. You can start with a Jewish historian who didn’t write sermons, didn’t join a church, and still dropped Jesus into his history books.Flavius Josephus reveals that Jesus was a real person and that he did exist.

©Image Credit: Amazon Prime Video

The “zero evidence” line falls apart
When someone says there’s “zero evidence” for Jesus outside the Bible, what they’re really saying is, “I haven’t seen anything that looks like a modern blog.” Ancient history doesn’t work that way. You don’t get bylines or headshots from 30 AD. You sift through surviving texts, check motives, and notice who mentions Jesus without preaching. Roman and Jewish writers did exactly that. They were people referencing a real man tied to real events.

©Image Credit: History

Flavius Josephus lived close to the action and the time of Jesus
Josephus was born around 37 or 38 AD in Jerusalem, which puts him one generation away from people who remembered Jesus. By his twenties, Flavius Josephus had priestly credentials, political instincts, and a front-row seat to the Jewish revolt that exploded in 66 AD. He surrendered, switched patrons, and kept writing. In his mid-50s, around 93 AD, he finishedAntiquities of the Jews.

©Image Credit: Jan Caspar Phillips, Portrait of Flavius Josephus, 1736–75, Engraving

Josephus did not write his history as Christian propaganda
By AD 71, Josephus had settled in Rome under the watchful eye of Vespasian, writing for Romans who cared about power, order, and what happens when leadership fails. Josephus drops names as cultural markers, not praise. When he does, you’re seeing what people accepted as public knowledge, even stuff they didn’t like admitting.

©Image Credit: Wikipedia

Josephus mentions Jesus
The strongest Josephan reference sits in Antiquities Book 20, Chapter 9, 1, where Josephus talks about the high priest Ananus assembling the Sanhedrin and condemning James. He identifies the James in question as “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James”.

Josephus doesn’t preach. He doesn’t stop to convince you that Jesus existed. He uses Jesus as a label to clarify which James he means, since “James” and “Jesus” were common names.

©Image Credit: History

The James story also shows how power worked in Jerusalem around AD 62
Josephus places James’ death in the political gap after Porcius Festus died and while Lucceius Albinus traveled to take over, which lets Ananus act before Rome clamps down. Josephus says Ananus “assembled the sanhedrin of judges” and pushed through executions by stoning. People complained. They contacted the king. They even intercepted Albinus to say Ananus had no right to call the council without Roman consent.

King Agrippa removed Ananus after about three months and replaced him with Jesus, the son of Damneus.

©Image Credit: History

The Testimonium Flavianum
Josephus also mentions Jesus in Antiquities Book 18 in the passage people call the Testimonium Flavianum. The version preserved in Greek manuscripts includes lines that sound like a Christian confession of faith, including language that treats Jesus as the Messiah and hints at resurrection claims.

Most scholars don’t buy that Josephus, a Jew writing for Romans, suddenly started talking like he became a Christian. Instead, many accept a simpler idea: Josephus likely wrote something about Jesus, and later Christian copyists “touched up” parts of it over time. Or maybe they didn’t and he suddenly decided to join the faith.

©Image Credit: Salvation Poem Project

Even if you strip away the praise, Josephus still talks about Jesus
Once you strip out the lines that sound like worship, the remaining shape looks like something Josephus would write: Jesus as a teacher, a known figure, executed under Pontius Pilate, followed by a movement that kept going. Scholars disagree about the exact wording, because we don’t own Josephus’ original draft.

James D. G. Dunn’s reconstruction captures the kind of plain tone many scholars expect, and it flows into the later James reference in Book 20 without forcing Josephus to confess faith. You don’t need a perfect sentence-by-sentence recovery to see the bigger point. Even a modest reference from Josephus lands outside Christian storytelling.

©Image Credit: History

The manuscript trail explains why people fight over wording
We don’t have surviving manuscripts of Josephus from the first century. The oldest known Greek manuscript that contains the Testimonium comes from the eleventh century, the Ambrosianus 370 (F 128) in Milan. That gap invites debate, because Christian monks copied the texts that survived.

Still, you don’t need to panic and throw everything out. Josephus exists in about 120 Greek manuscripts, with dozens predating the fourteenth century, plus roughly 170 Latin translations, some reaching back to the sixth century. Scholars compare these traditions to catch copyist fingerprints, confirm names, and spot odd insertions.

©Image Credit: Newmarket Films

A non-Christian author (Flavius Josephus) talks about Jesus
Josephus won’t hand you a modern lab report for miracles or resurrection. Ancient history won’t work that way. Josephus does give you something more basic and more useful: an independent, non-Christian author tying early Christian leadership to a historical Jesus.

So if someone tells you Jesus was invented by a group of fishermen and tax collectors, you can now respond with the truth. Jesus existed. History says so. And here’s all the proof you need.

RELATED: Was Jesus Just A Celebrity?

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{ Lifestyle Fortress }

09-01-2026 om 16:11 geschreven door peter  

Jupiter's moon Europa lacks the undersea activity needed to support life, study suggests

by Chris Woolston, Washington University  }in St. Louis

The giant planet Jupiter has nearly 100 known moons, yet none have captured the interest and imagination of astronomers and space scientists quite like Europa, an ice-shrouded world that is thought to possess a vast ocean of liquid salt water. For decades, scientists have wondered whether that ocean could harbor the right conditions for life, placing Europa near the top of the list of solar system bodies to explore.

Europa's geology and tidal forces explained

For Byrne, a planetary scientist, Europa's appeal extends well beyond the question of life. "I'm really interested to know what that seafloor looks like," he said. "For all of the talk about the ocean itself, there has been little discussion about the seafloor."

Without a submarine, Byrne and co-authors had to combine known facts about Europa with inferences drawn from the geology of Earth and other bodies, including our own moon.

The ice shell on Europa is thought to be 15 to 25 km thick, and the ocean covers the entire moon to a depth of up to 100 km. Even though Europa is slightly smaller than our own moon, it likely holds much more water than Earth.

Beneath that ice and water lies a rocky core analogous to Earth's. While Earth's core still burns hot, Byrne and co-authors calculated that any heat from Europa's core would have escaped billions of years ago.

The team also calculated the gravitational forces from Jupiter, a pull that can be strong enough to keep a moon geologically alive. On its innermost large moon, Io, Jupiter's gravity roils tides and heats the rocks beneath the icy surface. Io, in fact, is the most volcanically active body in the solar system.

The tides on Io are especially violent because the moon has an erratic orbit that periodically takes it closer to Jupiter, but Europa's orbit is relatively stable and distant, lessening the chance for substantial tidal forces, Byrne explained.

"Europa likely has some tidal heating, which is why it's not completely frozen," Byrne said. "And it may have had a lot more heating in the distant past. But we don't see any volcanoes shooting out of the ice today like we see on Io, and our calculations suggest that the tides aren't strong enough to drive any sort of significant geologic activity at the seafloor."

Future missions and scientific curiosity

Europa's quiet seafloor geology doesn't provide much support for any contemporary life beneath the ice, Byrne said. "The energy just doesn't seem to be there to support life, at least today."

Byrne is still excited about future chances to explore Europa, especially the Europa Clipper spacecraft that will fly by the moon in the spring of 2031. That mission—conceived and championed in part by Bill McKinnon, the Clark Way Harrison Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences and interim director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences—will take close-up pictures of Europa's surface and provide more precise measurements of its ice cap and ocean.

"Those measurements should answer a lot of questions and give us more certainty," Byrne said.

Even if, eventually, modern Europa is found to be lifeless, Byrne won't be disappointed.

"I'm not upset if we don't find life on this particular moon," he said. "I'm confident that there is life out there somewhere, even if it's 100 light-years away. That's why we explore—to see what's out there."

• Provided by Washington University in St. Louis 

• Europa clipper captures Uranus with star tracker camera

{ https://phys.org/ }

09-01-2026 om 15:29 geschreven door peter  

British military ‘wanted to acquire UFO technology to protect Brits’

Luke Alsford

The British military thought there was ‘basis in fact’ to UFO sightings and wanted to get their hands on the ‘extraterrestrial’ technology, previously secret files show.

Confidential memos from the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) within the Ministry of Defence warned that ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’ (UAP) were a ‘potential threat’ to the UK in the 1990s.

The documents – now in the National Archives in Kew – also reveal how Britain’s most well-known UFO sighting at Rendlesham Forest was ‘confirmed’ by US military personnel.

One internal correspondence from March 4, 1997 reads: ‘Logic would indicate that if significant numbers are reporting seeing strange objects in the sky then there may be a basis in fact.

‘It could be argued that UAPs pose a potential threat to the defence of the realm since we have no idea what they are!’

Intelligence officers appeared particularly concerned about the reports of large, silent, low-flying black triangles which came out of Belgium in their thousands between November 1989 and April 1990.

The reports sparked calls for Britain to try get hold of the technology.

The document noted: ‘A supplementary issue is the possibility of technology acquisition.

‘UAPs do not appear to use conventional reaction propulsion.

‘The Belgian deltas (confirmed by the country’s MoD) hovered for long periods and accelerated quickly to supersonic speeds, outrunning F-16s.

‘If this represents real technology perhaps it should be acquired.’

Another briefing letter, marked ‘Secret UK Eyes B’, acknowledged that the British military did not have the ‘reported technology’.

It added: ‘No matter the origin, the determination of the technology, and possible acquisition, is a matter for Defence Intelligence Staff [DIS].’

The correspondence added that ‘some reports described objects in terms of manoeuvre, speed and shape which lie beyond our engineering knowledge and that which could be reasonably expected from hostile powers.’

The file also stressed that most UFO reports were tenuous, with only a small number that could not be explained immediately.

The documents jokingly dismissed the possibility of alien life as part of fringe conspiracy theories.

The file reads: ‘Mention of UAPs is guaranteed to generate mirth and Little Green Men jokes, possibly because of the fringe element of “crazies”.’

Rendlesham Forest UFO sightings ‘confirmed’

A separate file from the British Military sheds new light on the Rendlesham Forest incident.

Dating back to December 1980, members of the US Air Force stationed at RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk, England, reported seeing unexplained lights and a craft in the forest.

Witnesses, including high-ranking officers, described seeing a glowing, metallic, triangular object hovering and emitting strange beams of light.

The document says that the Rendlesham Forest ‘landing’ was ‘confirmed by the US unit commander and others’.

It adds: ‘In both [Rendlesham Forest and Belgian] cases the UAP apparently did not use any conventional propulsion system and could hover as well as move at considerable speed.

‘The French have always had an interest in this topic … and I am aware that there is an informal intelligence grouping in the US.’

The sighting has fuelled decades of speculation and conspiracy theories ranging from alien encounters to secret military tests.

One UFO expert, Philip Mantle, told Metro he is convinced something happened over those fateful nights in 1980 – but doesn’t necessarily think aliens were involved.

The former Director of Investigations for the British UFO Research Association speculated that soldiers could have come into contact with ‘strange plasma’ that caused ‘electromagnetic effects’.

The previously secret file also claimed to have a ‘Moscow report’ that suggested ‘two military scientists are responsible for UFOs’.

 { https://metro.co.uk/news/ }

09-01-2026 om 15:09 geschreven door peter  

08-01-2026 om 18:20 geschreven door peter  

Belgisch UFO-meldpunt kreeg in 2025 fors meer meldingen!

Geschreven door: Frederick Delaere

{ https://www.spacepage.be/ }

08-01-2026 om 18:04 geschreven door peter  

Today, the same bizarre treatise first obtained by Baresch in the seventeenth century is known throughout the world as the Voynich Manuscript, and despite the efforts of many since Baresch’s time who have sought to decode it, the document still refuses to give up its secrets. After more than a century of scrutiny, no one has convincingly explained who wrote it, what it says, or even whether its text carries any real meaning at all.

However, new research may finally offer scholars a fresh perspective on this confounding mystery. According to a recent peer-reviewed study, while the mystery of the Voynich Manuscript endures, a new theory strengthens the possibility that the text in a document often referred to as “the most mysterious book in the world” may have once served as a cipher system.

The hypothesis, detailed by researcher and science journalist Michael A. Greshko in the journal Cryptologia, indicates that the famous manuscript bears qualities that seemingly match the technological capabilities of scholars in the Middle Ages, potentially helping to reframe questions about the manuscript that have long perplexed researchers.

The Enduring Enigma of the Voynich Manuscript

Over the years, a range of theories has emerged as to what the purpose behind the Voynich Manuscript may be. One involves the notion that the manuscript could represent glossolalia—the purported phenomenon of speaking unknown languages, generally within the context of religious worship—or even more simply, purely unintelligible words that might have served as part of some form of fraudulent medieval operation.

Other theories hold that the Voynich Manuscript may represent an artificial language which does nonetheless conveys some sort of meaning, or that the language in the manuscript may be a legitimate unknown earlier language that its unknown author attempted to document.

However, another possibility involves the possible use of a cipher—one which may incorporate elements of a well-known language such as Italian, German, or even a “dead” language like Latin that is still widely known.

A portion of the famous Voynich Manuscript, which conveys information related to the healing properties of bathing in medicinal springs. The complete information conveyed in this portion of the text, as with the broader manuscript, remains undeciphered

(Image Credit: Public Domain).

For Greshko, the notion of the Voynich Manuscript as a ciphertext seemed the most appealing, since this approach offers potential avenues toward unraveling its more unusual properties with languages that would have been in use and potentially known to its prospective author(s) in the 15th century. Ultimately, Greshko’s efforts toward unraveling the mysteries of the Voynich Manuscript (VMS) culminated in a fundamental question.

“Is it possible to make a substitution cipher—the most advanced type of cipher available in early 15th-century Europe—that can often create VMS-like ciphertext?” Greshko asks in his recent Cryptologia paper.

Finding answers to this query led Greshko to the development of a method his study calls the “Naibbe cipher,” named after a medieval Italian card game. As opposed to trying to decode the manuscript outright, as has been attempted countless times in the past, Greshko’s cipher works in reverse by transforming ordinary Latin or Italian text into strings of glyph-like symbols resembling the manuscript’s unique language, known to scholars as “Voynichese.”

The system outlined by Greshko employs the substitution of short letter fragments with structured lookup tables, and then, going beyond the use of text alone, introduces elements of randomness with the use of objects that were widely available in 15th-century Europe, such as dice and playing cards.

Intriguingly, the resulting use of the Naibbe cipher produces outputs that Greshko says mirror several of the Voynich Manuscript’s idiosyncrasies, such as patterns in symbol frequency, similarities to typical word lengths that appear in the original text, and positional behaviors that can be associated with certain glyphs in the manuscript.

Additionally, Greshko’s method appears to preserve partial traces of the underlying language, albeit through the recurrence of micro-sequences, and even though no single glyph can be cleanly mapped onto any specific plaintext letters.

Cipher Hypothesis Remains Viable

For Greshko, all this taken together strengthens the case for the cipher hypothesis, and strongly points to the use of a sophisticated method that would have significantly exceeded conventional substitution ciphers of the period.

Still, Greshko says alternatives cannot be ruled out, such as the notion that the manuscript actually could represent some kind of unknown language—whether that be a language that is now lost to history, which the author of the Voynich manuscript sought to preserve, or possibly some form of invented writing system that might have served a unique purpose.

Greshko also concedes that “in its current form, the Naibbe cipher fails in several major ways,” adding that due to its current limitations, “the Naibbe cipher invites future analysis to address whether and how modifications to the cipher’s general structure can achieve a more complete replication of VMS properties.”

Nonetheless, what Greshko’s work fundamentally succeeds in demonstrating is that a hand-executable cipher—one the likes of which could have been achieved centuries ago when the Voynich Manuscript is believed to have been produced—can indeed reproduce many of its statistical traits. This potentially important work helps to refine questions that will no doubt benefit future efforts toward unraveling “the world’s most mysterious book” by helping to narrow the range of plausible explanations.

Further, the new study provides a clearer framework for understanding how such a baffling text might have been constructed, and why it continues to defy simple explanation more than 500 years after it was written.

Greshko’s paper, “The Naibbe cipher: a substitution cipher that encrypts Latin and Italian as Voynich Manuscript-like ciphertext,” appeared in Cryptologia on November 26, 2025.

• Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

06-01-2026 om 23:06 geschreven door peter  

Story by Cassian Holt

 

Scientists spot a massive object quietly shadowing Earth’s orbit

Far from the bright glare of the Moon, a much smaller companion has been quietly keeping pace with Earth, looping around the Sun in a complex dance that only looks like a shared orbit from our vantage point. Astronomers now recognize this object, designated 2025 PN7, as a quasi-moon, a tiny asteroid that appears to shadow our planet without being truly captured by its gravity. The discovery turns a routine scan of the sky into a reminder that even in our own celestial backyard, there are still neighbors we are only just meeting.

Despite the headline-friendly idea of a “massive” new world, the reality is more subtle and scientifically richer: 2025 PN7 is physically small but dynamically significant, a compact body whose path reveals how Earth interacts with the swarm of rocks that share its orbital neighborhood. In practical terms, this is a miniature object with outsized importance for understanding near-Earth space, planetary defense, and even the long-term story of how material moves through the inner Solar System.

Meet 2025 PN7, Earth’s tiny quasi-moon

The object at the center of this story is not a second Moon in any familiar sense, but a modest asteroid that happens to move in step with Earth around the Sun. Cataloged as 2025 PN7, it follows a path that keeps it relatively close to our planet over long stretches of time, so from certain perspectives it seems to hover near us like a faint, offbeat satellite. Astronomers classify such bodies as quasi-moons or quasi-satellites, a label that reflects their gravitational independence from Earth even as they trace a similar yearly journe

What makes 2025 PN7 stand out is not its bulk but its delicacy: observations indicate it measures just 19 units across, a scale that places it firmly in the “tiny companion” category rather than anything approaching a true second Moon. That compact size, combined with its subtle motion against the background stars, explains why it could orbit in this configuration for a long time before anyone noticed, and why its discovery has prompted a fresh look at how many other small neighbors might be sharing Earth’s path around the Sun.

How a “surprise sidekick” was finally spotted

Finding something as small as 2025 PN7 requires both patient sky coverage and sensitive detectors, and in this case the breakthrough came from a survey instrument built precisely for that task. The asteroid was discovered on July 30, 2025 by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope at Haleakalā Observatory in Hawaii, a facility designed to sweep large swaths of the sky for moving points of light that betray the presence of near-Earth objects. That combination of wide-field imaging and repeated exposures allowed astronomers to pick out the faint track of this new body against the static star field.

In social media posts describing the find, researchers likened the object to a “surprise sidekick,” emphasizing that such a small body, only 19 units across, had been quietly accompanying Earth without drawing attention to itself. The discovery at Pan on the summit of Haleakalā Observatory in Hawaii underscores how modern survey programs can reveal companions that would have been invisible to earlier generations of telescopes, even though they share our planet’s orbital neighborhood.

What makes a quasi-moon different from a real Moon

Although 2025 PN7 is already being described as a quasi-moon, that label can be misleading if it is taken to mean Earth has acquired a second natural satellite in the same sense as the familiar Moon. A true moon is gravitationally bound to its planet and orbits that planet directly, tracing a closed path around it while both bodies circle the Sun. In contrast, a quasi-moon like 2025 PN7 orbits the Sun, not Earth, and only appears to loop around our planet because its orbital period and shape are closely matched to ours.

The distinction becomes clearer when compared with other known quasi-satellites, such as (469219) Kamoʻoalewa (2016 HO3), which is described as a quasi-satellite of Earth that, in certain frames of reference, appears to orbit our planet even though it is really circling the Sun. Studies of Kamo have even suggested it may be a fragment of the Moon blasted into space, highlighting how quasi-moons can be both dynamically intriguing and compositionally revealing. By placing 2025 PN7 in this context, astronomers can use its motion to probe the subtle gravitational interplay between Earth, the Moon, and the swarm of near-Earth asteroids.

A companion hiding in plain sight for decades

Orbital reconstructions indicate that 2025 PN7 has likely been accompanying Earth for a long time, its path shaped by the same solar gravity that governs our own orbit. Astronomers analyzing its trajectory have concluded that this asteroid has been shadowing Earth for decades, maintaining a configuration that keeps it relatively close to our planet without ever becoming a conventional satellite. That long-term stability is part of what makes the object so scientifically valuable, since it offers a natural experiment in how small bodies can share a planet’s orbital space over extended periods.

Reports on the discovery emphasize that Astronomers now see 2025 PN7 as an asteroid that has been moving with Earth for decades, effectively hiding in plain sight because of its tiny size and the complexity of its apparent motion in the sky. The fact that such a long-standing companion could go unnoticed until now underscores both the limitations of past surveys and the growing power of new instruments to map the near-Earth environment in far greater detail.

Earth’s “New Cosmic Companion” and what it tells us

Beyond the orbital mechanics, 2025 PN7 has quickly taken on a more evocative identity as Earth’s New Cosmic Companion, a phrase that captures both its proximity and its novelty. Descriptions of the find frame it as The Story of Quasi Moon 2025 PN7, a narrative that situates this small body within a broader effort to catalog the subtle, often surprising structures that share our planet’s path around the Sun. By treating it as a character in that story, scientists and communicators alike are highlighting how even a 19-unit-wide rock can reshape our sense of the Solar System’s architecture.

Analyses of Earth and its New Cosmic Companion emphasize that quasi-moons like 2025 PN7 remind us that space is full of surprises, particularly in the near-Earth region where gravitational resonances can trap small bodies in unusual configurations. The Story of Quasi Moon 2025 PN7 is therefore not just about a single asteroid, but about the dynamic processes that populate our orbital neighborhood with temporary companions, some of which may eventually escape or collide with other objects as their paths evolve.

How surveys and interstellar visitors sharpen our view

The detection of 2025 PN7 is part of a larger revolution in how astronomers scan the sky, driven by systematic survey programs that repeatedly image wide fields to catch anything that moves. One example is the ATLAS project, which has already demonstrated its power by identifying Comet 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar object discovered by a NASA-funded survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile. That discovery relied on a survey strategy that flags unusual trajectories, and the same philosophy underpins the work of facilities like Pan-STARRS1 that are now revealing quasi-moons and other subtle companions.

According to Comet 3I/ATLAS facts, the object was identified through a survey approach that can pick out faint, fast-moving bodies, including those on paths that indicate an origin outside the Solar System. That same survey mindset has also led astronomers to spot other strange visitors, such as the interstellar object discussed in a Jul video that describes something unusual moving through our Solar System and heading our way. By refining these techniques, researchers are better equipped to notice both dramatic interstellar interlopers and quiet, long-term companions like 2025 PN7.

From Oumuamua to 3I/ATLAS: context for small, strange objects

The excitement around 2025 PN7 also reflects a broader fascination with small, hard-to-classify objects that challenge our expectations about what orbits the Sun. Earlier interstellar visitors such as ʻOumuamua showed that not every passing body fits neatly into the categories of comet or asteroid, and subsequent detections have reinforced that lesson. In one widely discussed case, NASA confirmed that a mysterious object shooting through the Solar System was an interstellar visitor and even assigned it a new name, underscoring how quickly such discoveries can reshape scientific debates.

Reports on that event note that NASA experts concluded the object was not bound to the Sun in the long term, marking it as a traveler from beyond our planetary system. A similar story has unfolded with Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, which passed Earth and is now leaving the Solar System, headed out again after its brief visit. Coverage of Interstellar 3I/ATLAS highlights how even a relatively small body can carry crucial information about conditions in distant star systems, just as a quasi-moon like 2025 PN7 can illuminate the fine structure of our own orbital environment.

Why a tiny quasi-moon matters for planetary defense

On a practical level, the discovery of 2025 PN7 feeds directly into the growing field of planetary defense, which depends on a detailed inventory of near-Earth objects and their trajectories. Even though this particular asteroid is only 19 units across and poses no known threat, its detection proves that such small bodies can share Earth’s orbit for decades without being cataloged, a gap that matters when assessing impact risks. By refining the techniques that revealed this quasi-moon, astronomers improve their chances of spotting more hazardous objects of similar size or slightly larger before they come too close.

The broader survey ecosystem that caught 2025 PN7 is also responsible for identifying other unusual bodies, including the interstellar object highlighted in a An interstellar object video that describes something strange moving through our Solar System. Each of these detections, whether a fleeting visitor like 3I/ATLAS or a long-term companion like 2025 PN7, adds to a statistical picture of how many small objects cross Earth’s path and how their orbits evolve. In that sense, a tiny quasi-moon is not just a curiosity, but a data point that helps refine models used to protect the planet from future impacts.

The quiet revolution in mapping Earth’s orbital neighborhood

Stepping back, 2025 PN7 is part of a quiet revolution in how thoroughly we map the space around Earth, a process driven by better detectors, smarter software, and coordinated survey strategies. Where earlier generations of astronomers might have focused on bright planets and comets, today’s instruments are tuned to pick out faint, fast-moving specks that reveal a rich population of near-Earth asteroids, quasi-moons, and other transient companions. Each new detection, from Kamoʻoalewa to 3I/ATLAS to 2025 PN7, fills in another piece of a complex gravitational puzzle.

As I see it, the real story behind Earth’s so-called “second moon” is not about size or spectacle, but about the precision with which we can now track even a 19-unit-wide rock as it quietly shadows our orbit. The work that identified 2025 PN7, building on survey methods refined in projects like ATLAS and on analyses that recognized quasi-satellites such as Kamoʻoalewa, shows how far observational astronomy has come in just a few decades. It also hints at how many more subtle companions may still be waiting in the data, small in scale but large in what they can teach us about the constantly shifting architecture of our Solar System.

{ Morning Overview }

06-01-2026 om 22:46 geschreven door peter  

As Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro heads to a New York court to face drug charges, the first images of a top-secret US drone sent to capture him have emerged. 

Footage shared online captured a US Air Force RQ-170 Sentinel coming in for a landing at sunrise at a Puerto Rico base after the January 3 raid.

Reports suggested that at least one RQ-170 Sentinel took part in the overnight operation to arrest the Venezuelan president and his wife, who the US has said it does not recognize as the legitimate leader of the South American nation.

Although the Sentinels have reportedly been in service for the last 20 years, the Air Force has only acknowledged their existence since December 2009, when it supported missions in Afghanistan.

During the operation, the drone or drones were operating overhead in Venezuelan airspace, particularly around Caracas, though exact paths haven't been detailed due to their top-secret nature. 

Unnamed government officials said the CIA quietly deployed stealth drones over Venezuela for months, using them to track President Maduro’s movements and build an intimate picture of his daily routines ahead of the operation, the New York Times reported. 

While the location of the footage is unconfirmed, the airfield could be Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station in Puerto Rico, which shuttered in 2004.

Images posted online by Air Force Southern appeared to show unit patches worn by military personnel, indicating the RQ-170 Sentinel may have been operating in Latin America since December. 

The RQ-170 Sentinel has been in service in the US Air Force since around 2007, and it is believed to have been flying over Caracas during the strike on Venezuela

Military analysts suggested the RQ-170’s likely contribution was long-term, covert monitoring of Maduro’s compound.

They compared it to the weeks of silent intelligence collection that preceded the 2011 operation against Osama bin Laden, when US forces depended on continuous surveillance of a single, high-value location. 

The clips captured the growl of the jet engines and blinking lights on the rear fuselage as the drone soared over the US territory. 

Along with the RQ-170 Sentinels, over 150 aircraft took part in Maduro's arrest, launching from multiple bases in the region.

The drone was designed by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works division exactly for this type of mission, providing surveillance of high-value targets inside hostile territory and support for special operations teams like Delta Force, who captured Maduro.

According to The War Zone, there are only about 20 to 30 RQ-170 drones in service, operating from bases like Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

The 432nd Wing, headquartered at Creech AFB, is the Air Force's primary wing for remotely piloted drones and is believed to be the main operator of the RQ-170.

Creech is also less than 100 miles from the Area 51 base in Nevada, which has become notorious for its development and testing of top-secret aircraft for decades.

The unmanned aircraft is believed to have advanced sensors for mapping and tracking moving targets, infrared cameras to provide nighttime video, and high-tech intelligence tools for intercepting enemy communications. 

US forces struck Fuerte Tiuna on Saturday, capturing Nicolas Maduro and his wife without suffering casualties

About 20 to 30 RQ-170 Sentinels are believed to be in use by the Air Force, providing surveillance and tracking targets during military operations

Read More

EXCLUSIVE

•  Caracas' revenge: How Venezuela can quickly strike back against America in 'Hail Mary' attack 

At the same time, military technology experts believe US cyberwarfare units also played a role in the attack, sending the entire target area into a blackout as the raid began.

Part of the strike appeared to have included a massive power outage around Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela's largest military complex in Caracas.

DigitalWarfare.com's James Knight told the Daily Mail before the military operation that US cyber forces had been mapping out targets to strike digitally in Venezuela and other hostile nations for years.

That process included meticulously making sure civilian facilities, such as hospitals, did not lose power if American forces hacked into the country's electrical grid.

As Knight assessed in December, the US appeared to focus its efforts on Venezuela's military C2 networks - the communication systems for the country's troops.

US Air Force Gen. Dan 'Razin' Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: 'As the force began to approach Caracas, the Joint Air Component began dismantling and disabling the air defense systems in Venezuela, employing weapons to ensure the safe passage of the helicopters into the target area.'

'The goal of our air component is, was, and always will be to protect the helicopters and the ground force and get them to the target and get them home.'

President Trump appeared to confirm that US cyber units blacked out the area during Operation Absolute Resolve, saying: 'It was dark, the lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have, it was dark, and it was deadly.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

06-01-2026 om 22:31 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Bible reveals timeline for humanity's final 'day' before divine judgment

• READ MORE: Mysterious Dead Sea Scrolls code finally cracked revealing 2,000-year-old biblical writings

By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

A centuries-old Bible chronology suggests we are living in a pivotal year, as humanity enters an era of divine judgment, renewal or reset. 

A video shared on Instagram by Kaylah Hodgins focuses on timelines found in a Bible published in 1818, which contains the Old and New Testaments along with the Apocrypha, a collection of ancient biblical-era writings long debated over whether they belong in Scripture.

According to the Bible, the world began in 4004 BC. It lists 3,974 years from Adam to Christ, plus another 1,815 years from Christ's birth to the Bible's publication year.

Combined, these figures total 5,789 years from Creation to the early 19th century. 

Hodgins then extended the count to include the years since the Bible was printed, arriving at roughly 6,000 years, a milestone some interpret as signaling the close of humanity's current age.

In certain Jewish and Christian traditions, history is seen as following a seven-part structure modeled on the seven days of Creation. 

In this framework, the world experiences six 'days,' or 6,000 years, of human labor and turmoil, followed by a seventh 'day' of rest, often associated with a messianic or millennial reign. 

Reaching the end of the sixth 'day' is considered a major turning point, marking the close of humanity's current era and the start of a new, divinely guided phase. 

A video, shared on Instagram by Kaylah Hodgins, focuses on timelines found in a Bible published in 1818, which contains the Old and New Testaments along with the Apocrypha, a collection of ancient biblical-era writings long debated over whether they belong in Scripture

According to the Bible, the world began in 4004 BC

The theory does not predict a sudden destruction of the planet, supporters have said, but rather a dramatic transition. 

Some described it as the end of an age of human dominance.

Others have framed it more vaguely, suggesting major global upheaval, moral reckoning, or spiritual transformation rather than a single catastrophic event.

Biblical scholars, however, have urged caution when interpreting the timeline.

Most emphasized that the Creation date printed in old Bibles reflects one historical interpretation, not a universally accepted doctrine. 

The date of Creation was developed by James Ussher, a 17th-century Irish Archbishop and renowned biblical scholar famous for his Ussher chronology, a detailed calculation placing the Bible's creation of the world in 4004 BC.

By carefully adding the lifespans of biblical figures, the ages of patriarchs, and key events such as the Flood, Ussher determined that Creation occurred in 4004 BC,  even assigning a specific day, October 23, for when the first “day” of the world began. 

Centuries later, Bibles published in the 18th and 19th centuries, including the 1818 edition featured in the viral video, included chronological tables derived from Ussher’s work. 

It lists 3,974 years from Adam to Christ, plus another 1,815 years from Christ's birth to the Bible's publication year. Combined, these figures total 5,789 years from Creation to the early 19th century

These tables were often placed at the front of the Bible and gave readers a year-by-year account of biblical history, from Creation to the Bible’s publication date. 

Modern theology generally treats Ussher’s chronology as symbolic rather than literal, and scientific evidence places Earth’s age at roughly 4.5 billion years. 

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Many churches also reject date-based end-times speculation, warning that such calculations have repeatedly failed throughout history. 

The viral video has sparked discussion not just among believers but also among historians and social media users curious about the intersection of faith, numerology, and history. 

Many commenters are sharing screenshots of old Bibles, debating whether other editions give slightly different totals, or questioning the significance of the 6,000-year framework altogether. 

Some see it as a reminder of humanity’s smallness in the span of time, while others treat it as a symbolic countdown that lends urgency to moral or spiritual reflection.

While the Bible itself does not explicitly state that reaching 6,000 years marks the end of human history, apocalyptic interpretations of Ussher’s timeline have persisted for centuries. 

The seventh “day” of rest, derived from the Creation story, is often imagined as a thousand years of renewal, justice, or divine rule. 

For many, the milestone is less about literal prophecy and more about the cultural and spiritual resonance of imagining the world at the edge of a new age.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

06-01-2026 om 22:11 geschreven door peter  

‘A window into the dark universe’: Astronomers spot an unexpected ‘ghostly object’ in the depths of space

• READ MORE: Scientists say dark energy may end our universe in a 'Big Crunch' 

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

Scientists have discovered a new type of astronomical object, calling the strange entity a 'window into the dark universe'.

The object known as Cloud-9 is a completely starless, gas-rich cloud of dark matter located 14 million light-years from Earth.

The cloud's core is a vast, compact sphere of neutral hydrogen, about 4,900 light-years across.

That is more than 1,000 times greater than the distance between Earth and the nearest star, Proxima Centauri.

However, despite containing abundant stellar fuel, astronomers have now used the Hubble Space Telescope to confirm that Cloud-9 contains no stars whatsoever.

Scientists say that makes the cloud a building block of a galaxy that never quite formed, left over as a relic from the early universe.

Co-author Dr Andrew Fox, of the European Space Agency and the Space Telescope Science Institute, told the Daily Mail: 'You can think of it as a failed galaxy.

'A ghostly object that didn’t quite have enough mass to become self-gravitating and cross the threshold into star formation.'

Scientists have discovered a new type of astronomical object, a cloud of dark matter and hydrogen gas that contains no stars. Pictured: Magenta shows radio data from the gas cloud, and the dotted circle shows the peak of radio emissions

Cloud-9 is a previously theoretical type of object known as a Reionization-Limited H I Cloud, or 'RELHIC'.

What makes RELHICs unusual is that they are largely made up of dark matter, the invisible substance which makes up around 26 per cent of the universe's mass.

Although scientists can't directly observe dark matter, including the matter inside Cloud-9, they can tell that something with mass must be there because of the effects of gravity.

'The main piece of evidence for dark matter in this cloud is its size,' says Dr Fox,

'A cloud this size needs a source of gravity to hold it together. There are no stars to provide this gravity, and the neutral hydrogen gas does not contain enough mass, so dark matter must be the culprit. Without it, the cloud would simply fall apart.'

By looking at the radiation emitted by gases in the cloud, scientists estimate that the mass of hydrogen within is about one million times that of the sun.

However, for the cloud not to drift apart, Dr Fox and his colleagues estimate that it must contain around five billion solar masses of dark matter.

This discovery is extremely exciting for astronomers because RELHICs like Cloud-9 offer a snapshot into an exceptionally early moment in the universe's history.

Scientists say that the strange object (pictured), dubbed Cloud-9 and located 14 million light-years from Earth, is a failed galaxy that didn't have enough mass to produce stars 

Dr Fox says: 'Theories of galaxy formation predicted that there is a minimum threshold of dark matter required to ignite star formation and turn a dark cloud into a luminous galaxy.

'With Cloud-9, we have an example of an object just below this threshold, containing no stars.'

Although some scientists had thought that RELHICs might exist, they have proven exceptionally hard to find.

If the cloud were much larger, the gases would collapse into stars and form a galaxy; much smaller, and it would have fallen apart and blown away.

Co-author Dr Alejandro Benitez  Llambay, of the Milano-Bicocca University in Milan, told Daily Mail: 'Cloud-9 is a rare "middle ground" survivor.'

'According to our models, fewer than 10 per cent of halos in this mass range remain in such a pristine state, making Cloud-9 a "missing link" in our understanding of how galaxies are born.'

Likewise, since these objects don't contain any stars, RELHICs barely give off any of their own radiation and are exceptionally difficult to detect.

Cloud-9 was first spotted three years ago by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in Guizhou, China.

If the cloud had more mass, the gases would have collapsed into stars and formed a galaxy like its neighbour, the M94 spiral galaxy (pictured). Cloud-9 had just enough mass to stay together, but not so much that it formed stars 

However, it is only now that researchers have been able to use the Hubble Telescope to confirm that it contains no stars, making it very likely to be a RELHIC.

Lead author Dr Gagandeep Anand, of the Space Telescope Science Institute, says: 'Before we used Hubble, you could argue that this is a faint dwarf galaxy that we could not see with ground-based telescopes. They just didn't go deep enough in sensitivity to uncover stars.

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'In science, we usually learn more from the failures than from the successes. In this case, seeing no stars is what proves the theory right. It tells us that we have found in the local universe a primordial building block of a galaxy that hasn't formed.'

The discovery of Cloud-9, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, also makes it likely that there are more RELHICs out there, even in our local neighbourhood.

China's FAST telescope is particularly good at spotting these kinds of dark gas clouds, so researchers hope to discover more in the future.

Dr Fox adds: 'There absolutely should be more RELHICs out there, and we are looking for more candidates. We need more cases to know whether Cloud-9 is an oddball with unusual properties, or alternatively, is fairly typical.'

Dark matter: The mysterious substance that makes up 85% of the universe that scientists cannot confirm

Dark matter is a hypothetical substance said to make up roughly 85 per cent of the universe.

The enigmatic material is invisible because it does not reflect light, and has never been directly observed by scientists.

Astronomers know it to be out there because of its gravitational effects on known matter.

The European Space Agency says: 'Shine a torch in a completely dark room, and you will see only what the torch illuminates.

Dark matter is a hypothetical substance said to make up roughly 27 per cent of the universe. It is thought to be the gravitational 'glue' that holds the galaxies together

(artist's impression)

'That does not mean that the room around you does not exist.

'Similarly we know dark matter exists but have never observed it directly.'

The material is thought to be the gravitational 'glue' that holds the galaxies together.

Calculations show that many galaxies would be torn apart instead of rotating if they weren't held together by a large amount of dark matter.

Just five per cent the observable universe consists of known matter such as atoms and subatomic particles.

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06-01-2026 om 21:58 geschreven door peter  

This is the moment deep sea explorers captured an incredibly elusive creature on camera – the giant phantom jellyfish.

Eerie footage shows the rare animal, which has only been filmed around a dozen times, gently pulsing and swirling its way through the water off the coast of Argentina.

It was captured on film by scientists at the Schmidt Ocean Institute, whose remotely operated vehicle (ROV) was on its descent to explore the Colorado-Rawson submarine canyon wall.

At 253 metres (830 feet) down, they came across the enormous ghostly jellyfish, which was first discovered in 1899.

It boasts arms that can reach more than 10 metres (33 feet) long and a main body that measures over a metre (3.3 feet) wide.

It lives anywhere from surface level to 21,900ft deep, but mostly sticks to an area called the twilight zone which is too deep for most light to reach.

In the clip, the jellyfish is lit up by the ROV's lights and appears to be swimming downwards, slowly pulsing as small fish swim around it.

Most impressive are its four long ‘mouth arms’, which scientists believe are used to grab and trap prey, trailing up above it.

Eerie footage shows the rare animal, which has only een filmed around a dozen times, gently pulsing and swirling its way through the water off the coast of Argentina

According to the scientists, giant phantom jellyfish appear to live in all oceans except for the Arctic.

It is assumed they feed on plankton and small fishes, but very little is known about how the jellyfish survives.

It has only been documented around 100 times since it was first discovered, and is thought to be one of the largest invertebrate predators in the deep sea ecosystem.

Two previous sightings of it in the Gulf of Mexico suggest the species might hunt by clinging to subsea structures.

This means its arms would be freed up to trap food, but that sort of behaviour has never been directly witnessed.

Before underwater robots were invented, experts used trawling nets to study deep sea creatures such as this species of jellyfish, known as Stygiomedusa gigantea.

However, when one is captured and brought to the surface, researchers said its silky-looking frame turns to 'gelatinous goo'.

That makes underwater robots the best way to observe the species and learn more about how it survives.

At 253 metres (830 feet) down, they came across the enormous ghostly jellyfish, which was first discovered in 1899

In the clip, the jellyfish appears to be swimming downwards, slowly pulsing as small fish swim around it

While the first specimen was collected 127 years ago, it took 60 years to recognise it as a new species.

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A separate research organisation – the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) – say their ROVs have logged ‘thousands of dives’ deep into the ocean, but have only seen the spectacular species nine times.

‘MBARI’s observations of Stygiomedusa gigantea have helped illuminate its ecological role in the ocean’s depths,’ they write on their website.

‘During an expedition to the Gulf of California, MBARI’s ROV Tiburon recorded a fish - the pelagic brotula - alongside a giant phantom jelly. Researchers watched the brotula hover above the bell of its host and swim in and out of the jelly’s voluminous oral arms.

‘The wide-open waters of the midnight zone offer little shelter, so many creatures find refuge in the gelatinous animals that are abundant in this environment.’

What is the giant phantom jellyfish?

Stygiomedusa gigantea is a type of giant deep sea jellyfish that is rarely seen but believed to be widespread throughout the world.

It is thought to be one of the largest invertebrate predators in the deep sea ecosystem.

The jellyfish has an umbrella-shaped bell that can be up to a 3.3ft (1 metre) wide.

It also has four 'paddle-like' arms up to 32ft (10m) long, which, as scientists believe may be used to trap prey because they lack stinging tentacles.

Giant Stygiomedusa have been observed and filmed off the Pacific coast of the United States by and by deepwater robots off the coast of Japan and in the Gulf of Mexico.

The reddish purple coloured creature lives anywhere from surface level to 21,900 feet, but mostly sticks to an area called the twilight zone, which is too deep for most light to reach.

It is assumed they feed on plankton and small fishes, but very little is known about how the jellyfish survives.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

06-01-2026 om 21:40 geschreven door peter  

Will AI ever be more creative than humans?

{ https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics }

05-01-2026 om 23:08 geschreven door peter