DNA discovery on Shroud of Turin corroborates biblical account of Jesus's resurrection

• READ MORE: Noah's Ark resting place '100% confirmed' after 4,300 years as astonishing 'man-made' structure is detected buried deep underground

By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

The burial cloth believed to have wrapped the body of Jesus following the crucifixion is one of the most studied and fiercely debated artifacts in history.

Known as the Shroud of Turin, the 14-foot-long linen bears an image of a man embedded in the fibers.

While radiocarbon dating in the 1980s pointed to a medieval origin, some researchers have argued that other evidence on the linen tells a different story.

A recent analysis of fibers removed from the cloth produced results that appear to align the mysterious relic with its biblical origins. 

A team of Italian researchers analyzed linen fibers removed from different areas of the Shroud during a 1978 investigation using next-generation sequencing that can search millions of genetic fragments at once.

They detected a rare human genetic lineage found mainly in the Near East, particularly among the Druze people of the Holy Land, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The scientists also discovered salt-loving microorganisms associated with highly saline environments, raising the possibility that the cloth was once preserved or stored near saltwater.

The study, which has been peer-reviewed, was recently reported by Vatican News, which stated: 'These findings seem to confirm a sojourn of the Shroud in the Middle East and in a saline environment, such as near the Dead Sea, adding another piece to the mosaic of scientific evidence supporting the Shroud’s authenticity.'

The relic is believed to be the burial cloth that wrapped Jesus after he died on the cross and is said to bear his image left after the resurrection. The Shroud is housed inside the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy

However, the researchers stressed that the DNA cannot prove the cloth covered Jesus or determine whether it is medieval or 2,000 years old. 

The first public appearance of the Shroud was documented in Lirey, France, in the 1350s, when a knight named Geoffroi de Charny put it on display. How he acquired the cloth is unknown.

The new study, published in Scientific Reports on July 9, 2026, builds on the team’s 2015 DNA analysis of particles and fibers collected from the Shroud in 1978.

This time, researchers used more advanced sequencing technology to examine a separate collection of 12 samples taken during the same investigation but not included in the 2015 study.

The research, led by Dr Gianni Barcaccia, professor of genetics and genomics at the University of Padua in Italy, aimed to uncover biological clues about the mysterious relic’s long and complicated journey.

The 2015 study analyzed particles collected from the Shroud in 1978 and threads associated with its 1988 radiocarbon testing, uncovering DNA from at least 19 plant species and mitochondrial lineages attributed to at least 14 people.

Researchers reported that 55.6 percent of the human DNA sequences corresponded to Near Eastern lineages and 38.7 percent to Indian lineages, although the material could have accumulated through centuries of handling.

Those figures describe the proportion of classified DNA sequences, not the percentage of people who handled the cloth or the ancestry of the Shroud itself.

The new study analyzed samples of the cloth that was previously taken in a 1978 investigation. This allowed them to use advanced technology for a new DNA analysis  

Above are samples taken from the Shroud in 1988 to determine the age. The pieces were removed from the edges of the cloth

The 2026 analysis revealed extensive modern contamination alongside skin microbes, fungi, salt-loving microorganisms, plants, animals and Mediterranean coral.

A maternal DNA lineage frequently found among Ashkenazi Jews was dominant in three Shroud samples. However, the same genetic signature belonged to Professor Pierluigi Baima Bollone, who collected the samples in 1978.

Read More

EXCLUSIVE

• Shroud of Turin discovery places burial cloth at time of Jesus' death 

The researchers therefore concluded that much of this DNA probably came from Bollone, or a close relative, while the samples were being handled, rather than from the man originally wrapped in the cloth.

The team also detected three other maternal lineages, including H1b, which is common in Europe, and H2a2, which may appear because it is used as a standard genetic reference.

The rare H33 lineage was also identified. It is found today in Near Eastern groups, especially among the Druze, an Arabic-speaking ethno-religious minority living in the Holy Land, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

‘The Druze population shares a common genetic ancestry with Jews and Cypriots, and has historically intermingled with other Levantine populations, including Palestinians and Syrians,’ the team wrote.

H2a2 and H33 had already been detected in the 2015 research, so their presence was not an entirely new discovery.

The 2026 researchers were also unable to reconstruct with confidence the minor South Asian maternal lineages reported in the 2015 samples.

The samples contained an unusually large number of slightly different mitochondrial DNA variants scattered throughout the genetic material.

The mixture showed that numerous people touched or otherwise came into contact with the Shroud, making it extremely difficult to identify DNA belonging to the person originally wrapped in the cloth.

Evidence of repeated handling was also found in the form of common skin bacteria, including Cutibacterium and Staphylococcus.

Researcher detected a rare human genetic lineage found mainly in the Near East, particularly among the Druze people of the Holy Land, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria

Salt-loving microorganisms known as archaea suggested that the material encountered highly saline conditions, possibly during storage or when the flax was processed in brackish or salty water.

However, researchers also found Debaryomyces hansenii, a fungus commonly found in cheese and extremely salty water, along with other fungi. This makes it difficult to determine exactly where or how the microorganisms reached the Shroud.

Because the samples contained very little usable human DNA, researchers broadened their search to include all biological material, such as bacteria, fungi, plants, animals, viruses and salt-loving microorganisms.

Researchers linked some of the biological material to broad regions including the Near East, Europe, Asia, the Mediterranean and the Americas.

The team, however, could not identify specific countries or determine when the traces reached the Shroud.

The wider biological evidence, however, complicated claims that the Shroud originated in first-century Judea.

Researchers detected Mediterranean coral, domesticated animals and crops originating across Europe, Asia and the Americas. 

The strongest plant signal came from carrots resembling European varieties developed during the 1400s and 1500s, while maize, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes and peanuts reached Europe only after Columbus.

The findings suggested that much of the biological material accumulated during later centuries. 

No plant was exclusive to the Levant, and researchers noted an absence of flora typical of the Middle East.

Protein testing found no ancient biological material, while radiocarbon dating of two loose threads reflected documented repairs rather than the age of the original cloth.

The researchers ultimately concluded that the evidence cannot establish whether the Shroud was created in medieval Europe or dates back approximately 2,000 years, and does not prove its connection to Jesus.

{ https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/index.html }

New UFO Files Release | Shocking Videos and Mixed Reactions

A fresh line of UFO videos has sparked buzz across forums, revealing strong visual evidence that's hard to brush off. Amid skepticism, the latest updates are available on a newly organized archive platform. Users express excitement and concerns, raising questions about the authenticity of claims and the nature of these sightings.

Major Releases Draw Attention

The recent UFO video drop is generating considerable controversy. Claims about sightings range from the unexplainable to the downright bizarre. "Where are the clear pics?" one commenter lamented, hinting at general discontent over the lack of visible proof to back the reports.

Users Challenge the Nature of UFOs

The commentary reflects a growing frustration about the changing portrayal of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). "What happened to classic UFOs?" questioned a user, pointing out that many recent reports focus on orbs and tictacs instead of the traditional saucers and triangular shapes.

Another user summed up the sentiment with, "Great! Wake me up when there's better data." Their apprehension suggests that many are looking for substantial evidence rather than vague representations and theories.

Distrust in Authenticity

Amid the excitement, skepticism remains rampant. Some users theorized that these releases are tactics to divert attention from more pressing issues like geopolitical events. One pointedly remarked, "Time to distract the public from Putin joining the Iran war." This comment underscores the distrust some people harbor regarding governmental transparency on UFOs.

The Quest for Physical Evidence

Many individuals are left wondering why alleged UFO encounters are now often more ethereal than tangible. One user’s comment about energy beings highlights a broader concern over how UFOs are portrayed today.

"When are we going to actually see one of the aliens?"

Key Takeaways

• ⚠️ Mixed reactions dominate: skepticism, curiosity, and disappointment across forums.

• ⭐ Users demand concrete evidence, reflecting a shift in the narrative around UFOs.

• 🔍 Some believe the claims coincide with significant global political events, stirring distrust.

As the discourse continues, it remains to be seen how the community will respond to the latest UFO releases and their implications for the ongoing exploration of the unknown.

Glancing into the Future of UFO Discourse

As discussions around the recent UFO files unfold, there’s a high likelihood that skepticism will either intensify or lead to more vocal demands for verifiable evidence. Experts estimate about 70% of people engaging in forums may require substantial proof, which could push authorities to either expedite the release of tangible information or risk further distrust. With global political tensions rising and a possible increase in similar sightings, the next few months may see a surge in both reports and public criticism surrounding government transparency. If the trend continues, we might witness a resurgence in independent investigations into these phenomena, reflecting a significant shift in the public's appetite for clarity.

Reflecting on Historic Hurdles

Interestingly, this situation reminds us of the early days of space exploration in the mid-20th century. At that time, many dismissed the rocket launches as mere government exaggerations, and the public's thirst for evidence pushed scientists and engineers to innovate rapidly. Just as early space missions were met with a blend of curiosity and skepticism, today's UFO reports could fuel a new wave of investigation and innovation. This historical precedent may encourage skeptics to reconsider their stance, similar to how the skepticism surrounding space travel eventually led to a renaissance in science and technology—a relevant reminder of how public perception can drive progress in understanding the unknown.

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{ https://mysterylores.com/  }

Image: ChatGPT

The Search For Alien Technology Has A Measurement Problem – Analysis

By Burak Oktenli

Key Takeaways:

• Bigger AI models can rank, classify, and search at huge scale, but they cannot invent evidence an instrument never recorded. When two explanations produce the same data, no larger model can honestly tell them apart—the limit is identifiability, not compute.
• Radio SETI, including Breakthrough Listen and the blc1 Proxima Centauri candidate later traced to terrestrial interference, shows the gap between finding a candidate and proving its origin. The next step is a new measurement—another site, antenna, geometry, epoch, or diagnostic—not another terabyte of the same ambiguous data.
• Scientific AI should keep detection strength, calibration validity, tested alternatives, and independent follow-up separate instead of collapsing them into one confidence score. Automate ranking and triage; do not let a model promote its own score into a stronger claim without new evidence.
• Bigger models can rank, classify, and search at extraordinary scale. They still cannot manufacture evidence that an instrument never captured.

The most dangerous promise in scientific artificial intelligence is not that machines will make mistakes. It is that they will make certainty out of missing information. As AI systems become better at finding patterns in enormous datasets, the temptation is to assume that a sufficiently powerful model can extract a correct answer from almost any measurement. That is false. Sometimes the obstacle is not computation, model capacity, or training data. Sometimes the decisive information was never measured in the first place.

Radio searches for extraterrestrial technology offer an unusually clear example. Modern programs such as Breakthrough Listen scan vast frequency ranges for narrowband, drifting signals that could be consistent with engineered transmitters. The field has also embraced machine learning. A deep-learning search of 820 nearby stars showed that learned representations can surface candidate signals that conventional filters may miss. That is exactly the sort of task at which AI can excel: ranking, triage, anomaly discovery, and the compression of an impossible search space into a manageable set of things worth examining.

But candidate discovery is not origin discovery. The distinction became vivid in the investigation of blc1, a narrowband signal detected in observations of Proxima Centauri. Its morphology was interesting enough to demand serious follow-up. The eventual analysis traced it to terrestrial radio-frequency interference. The lesson was not that unusual signals are unimportant. It was that a detection statistic is only the beginning of an evidentiary chain.

This point becomes sharper when we ask a simple question: what if two competing explanations generate exactly the same data for the algorithm? Suppose one hypothesis is a target-associated signal and another is a terrestrial interferer that, by chance or geometry, appears only during the same on-target scans. If both produce the same frequency-time track, the same amplitude pattern, and the same scan-by-scan observations, then the two hypotheses induce the same probability distribution over the data given to the model. In that case, no classifier can separate them honestly. Not a larger transformer. Not a deeper neural network. Not a quantum computer. The distinction is absent from the measurement.

That is an identifiability limit, and it changes how we should think about scientific AI. When two hypotheses are observationally equivalent, the next advance must come from experimental design rather than model design. We need a new measurement that causes the hypotheses to predict different outcomes: a simultaneous reference antenna, an independent observing site, a changed pointing geometry, an instrument diagnostic, a different epoch, or some other source of conditionally independent evidence. Another terabyte of the same ambiguous data does not solve the problem.

The same principle appears in more ordinary ways. Reference observations, for example, are often used to reject interference. That can work extremely well when the nuisance really is common to both target and reference scans. But the protection has a cost. If a genuine source leaks into an off-target observation through sidelobes or pointing geometry, a subtraction rule can subtract part of the signal we wanted to preserve, while a hard veto can discard it altogether. A method that looks safer on one axis may quietly become less sensitive on another.

Calibration creates a second trap. A threshold calibrated under one noise model does not retain its meaning after the residual environment changes. In a synthetic stress test I developed for radio technosignature decision rules, thresholds calibrated to an approximately one-percent cadence-level exceedance rate under independent Gaussian residuals produced trigger fractions above fifty percent after a simple time-correlation structure was introduced. Nothing about the threshold number itself warned that its interpretation had collapsed. The problem was not that the detector suddenly became stupid. The statistical conditions supporting the threshold no longer held.

This is why the most important question for scientific AI may not be, “How accurate is the model?” It may be, “Under what measurement conditions does this output still mean what we say it means?” That is a different discipline. It requires separating detection strength from calibration validity, separating a candidate ranking from an origin claim, and recording which alternative explanations have actually been tested.

Engineering already has language for this. NASA’s current standard for models and simulations treats credibility, validation, verification, uncertainty, and acceptance criteria as explicit parts of model use. Scientific AI needs the same instinct. A model should not inherit authority merely because it is sophisticated. Its output should carry the conditions under which it was calibrated, the data it actually observed, the alternatives it cannot distinguish, and the tests still required before escalation.

That discipline matters far beyond SETI. In medical imaging, two diseases can look similar under one modality and diverge only after another test. In climate science, a model can fit the historical record while remaining underdetermined about causal mechanisms. In intelligence analysis, multiple adversary explanations can remain consistent with the same observable behavior. In autonomous systems, a sensor-fusion stack can assign high confidence to a state estimate even when its sensors share a common-mode failure. In each case, more computation can sharpen the inference conditional on the evidence. It cannot supply the missing discriminator.

This should change how we evaluate AI progress in science. Benchmark culture often rewards the highest score on a fixed dataset. But the scientifically important question is often what happens when the assumptions behind that dataset fail. A robust benchmark should therefore include conditions designed to break the method: distribution shifts, correlated residuals, missing reference observations, leakage between supposedly independent channels, nuisance classes that mimic the positive class, and deliberately matched cases in which successful discrimination would reveal data leakage rather than intelligence.

The technosignature community already has many of the ingredients. Tools such as setigen support synthetic signal generation and injection. Published work has explored machine-learning direction-of-origin filtering, while the “cosmic haystack” formalism reminds us that excellent sensitivity within one narrow test family does not imply comprehensive coverage of the wider search space. The broader NASA technosignatures workshop report likewise framed technosignature research as a field in which new instruments, new surveys, new algorithms, and new theory all matter. The missing piece is not another declaration that AI will accelerate discovery. It is a stronger contract between what an algorithm outputs and what the measurement actually warrants.

Such a contract would be simple in principle. A candidate record should keep at least four things separate: the strength of the detected feature; whether the current data remain inside the calibration regime; which conventional or instrumental alternatives have been tested; and what independent observation, if any, supports a stronger interpretation. A fifth field can carry follow-up priority, but that is a resource-allocation decision, not a probability of origin. Collapsing all of these into one confidence score creates an audit problem: after the fact, nobody can tell which assumption carried the claim forward.

The same asymmetry should govern automation. AI can reasonably automate low-level transitions: ingest data, flag anomalies, compare a statistic with a frozen threshold, rank candidates, and request additional observations. But an automated system should not be allowed to convert its own score into a stronger scientific claim without new evidence. Promotion should require a named test or an independent measurement. Demotion, by contrast, should be easy. If a calibration assumption later fails, the system should be able to return every affected candidate to an earlier evidentiary state while preserving the record of what was previously believed and why.

This is not an argument against AI in science. It is an argument for using AI where it is strongest. Machines are extraordinarily good at searching spaces too large for humans, identifying weak structure, prioritizing scarce attention, and proposing where to look next. Those capabilities could transform astronomy and many other sciences. But scientific authority should attach to evidence, not to model scale.

The phrase “AI for discovery” therefore needs one amendment. AI can accelerate the path to discovery. It can expose patterns that deserve investigation. It can help design the next observation. It can tell us that our current measurement is inconsistent with the assumptions under which our old threshold was calibrated. What it cannot do is infer a distinction that the experiment never encoded.

That boundary is not a limitation to be embarrassed about. It is a design instruction. When the model cannot know, the answer is not always a bigger model. Sometimes the answer is a better instrument, a second sensor, a new control, an independent site, a different observing geometry, or a more honest statement of uncertainty. The future of scientific AI will depend as much on improving what we measure as on improving what we compute.

If the evidence is not in the measurement, intelligence cannot conjure it into existence.

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{ https://www.eurasiareview.com/ }

By Taylor Penley - Fox News

A UAP whistleblower is making an extraordinary claim about what the U.S. government is keeping behind closed doors, saying the government is in possession of recovered craft.

"Does the government have craft that have been recovered? Yes they do," Dylan Borland said on the "Hang Out with Sean Hannity" podcast.

Borland made the assertion in the latest episode of the show, where he joined television host Ben Hansen to discuss what whistleblowers say they know about the government's handling of UAP and allegedly recovered craft.

• UFO WHISTLEBLOWER CLAIMS BILLIONS IN SECRET SPENDING HIDDEN FROM CONGRESS

UAP whistleblower Dylan Borland, left, sits down for an exclusive interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, right, on the "Hang Out with Sean Hannity" podcast.

(Hang Out With Sean Hannity/Screengrab)

Hannity pressed Borland directly on whether he knew "for a fact" that the government possessed such craft, and whether restrictions surrounding his work would allow him to answer the question publicly.

He responded: "Yes."

His claim comes after a group of UAP whistleblowers called on President Donald Trump to waive nondisclosure agreements they say prevent them from fully disclosing what they know to the American public.

• MARCO RUBIO ADDRESSES UAP GOVERNMENT COVER-UP ALLEGATIONS, SAYS TRUMP WOULD GIVE A SPEECH IF ADMIN KNEW MORE

During the conversation, Hannity also pointed to individuals he had spoken with previously who said they had knowledge of recovered craft. He asked Borland whether he knew people who had made similar assertions.

"Probably, yes," Borland responded.

Hannity also discussed claims from individuals who say they faced intimidation, workplace harassment and threats after coming forward with UAP-related information. Borland appeared to affirm those accounts during the interview.

Hannity has held previous podcast discussions about UAPs, including one conversation with Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and Luis Elizondo about alleged Pentagon UAP cover-ups, exotic materials, destroyed pilot data and more.

"Hang Out with Sean Hannity" fans can watch or listen to Hannity's full conversation with Borland and Hansen on iHeartRadio, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever they get their podcasts.

{ https://www.foxnews.com/ }

The Moon has an extremely weak magnetic field. However, the question of whether our satellite has always been this defenseless has long sparked heated debate among astrophysicists. Some scientists argued that billions of years ago the Moon had its own planetary dynamo, while others claimed that the evidence for this theory was insufficient.

The Moon is defenseless against space because of the absence of a magnetic field. Photo: Unsplash

Fresh observations of the far side of our cosmic neighbor, published in the journal Science Advances, have helped bring an unexpected resolution to this debate.

The Coincidence of Three Anomalies in Dewar Crater

While analyzing archival lunar observations, scientists discovered a huge, strongly magnetized structure in the region of Dewar crater. The object, about 60 km wide, consists of solidified magma that rose from deep within the Moon approximately 4.2 billion years ago.

Dewar crater, photographed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. Source: Wikimedia Commons

This area is also known for bright, swirling patterns on the surface. Researchers Xi Yang and Anna Mittelholz of ETH Zurich note that Dewar crater represents a unique case where a magnetic anomaly, a gravitational anomaly, and a characteristic surface pattern all coincide at the same location.

The far side of the Moon. Image:  Space Engine

Using a combined mathematical model, the scientists calculated that the Moon’s early magnetic field would have needed to be about 11 μT to produce such a structure. For comparison, Earth’s present-day magnetic field is about 50 μT.

A New Approach Instead of Apollo Samples

The previous hypothesis of a lunar dynamo was based on rock samples brought back by astronauts from the Apollo missions, but later re-evaluations of these materials confused the scientific community because of conflicting results. The new method, which combines orbital gravity and magnetic data, made it possible to place precise constraints on the characteristics of the planetary dynamo without the need for landing and collecting soil samples. In addition, the location of Dewar crater completely rules out the possibility that the magnetic anomaly was temporarily produced by a powerful asteroid impact.

A lunar swirl photographed on the near side of the Moon. Source: NASA

Understanding the Moon’s magnetic history provides an important example of how relatively small celestial bodies can maintain — or lose — their own dynamos. And although the discovery does not eliminate absolutely all discrepancies with the Apollo sample data, the scientific debate is now shifting from the question “Did a magnetic field exist?” to “How exactly did it work?”

Earlier, we reported on how the Moon’s magnetic field may once have been stronger than Earth’s.

• Based on materials from Phys
• Posted in News, Science

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/articles-en/ }

The European Space Agency is expanding the use of artificial intelligence in its work. The agency has agreed on a strategic partnership with the French company Mistral, one of Europe’s leading developers of language models. Neural networks will assist engineers, analyze satellite images, and accelerate mission preparation. At the same time, the computing infrastructure is expected to remain within Europe.

Artificial intelligence in the space industry. Artist’s illustration. Source: ESA

Signing in Paris

The letter of intent was signed in Paris on September 16 by ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher and Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch. The agency announced the agreement on September 23 in an official ESA release.

Such a document is not yet a contract. It establishes a framework within which the parties will look for joint projects. The release does not specify amounts or timelines. However, the steady move toward broader use of artificial intelligence in the space industry is becoming increasingly clear. The company is expected to provide artificial intelligence models, cloud infrastructure, and technical expertise, while ESA will contribute its own engineering, scientific, and operational tasks.

Why Space Needs Neural Networks

According to Josef Aschbacher, artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming one of the core technologies of the space industry, and the agency is already testing it in operational and research projects. The document identifies several areas of application. These include processing Earth observation images, engineering analysis, mission design, and specialist training.

Routine operations will be handed over to algorithms, which will also make it easier to search for the necessary knowledge. The release emphasizes that final technical decisions will continue to be made by people.

The agency already has experience with onboard neural networks. In September 2020, the Φsat-1 satellite was launched into orbit, where software onboard directly filtered out images obscured by clouds. This type of selection reduces the amount of data that must be transmitted to Earth, since clouds cover about two-thirds of the planet’s surface at any given time.

Data Will Remain in Europe

The parties will separately examine how to deploy language models on European infrastructure. Among the requirements listed in the release are security, resilience, traceability, auditability, and protection of sensitive information. Arthur Mensch promised to transform the agency’s observation archives into services for the space industry while maintaining the highest standards of control and sovereignty.

The issue of sovereignty also has a legal dimension. The U.S. CLOUD Act of 2018 allows U.S. authorities to demand information from American providers even when their servers are located outside the country. For ESA mission documentation, such dependence creates a risk, so the agency needs a provider operating under European jurisdiction.

Mistral was founded in Paris in 2023. Within just a few years, it has become one of the most prominent competitors to American developers in this field.

Cooperation Is Already Underway

The new agreement builds on work that the agency and the company are already carrying out together. One of these projects, the Orbit assistant, helps employees with engineering tasks and works with the agency’s restricted data without transmitting it outside.

The second tool, the Earth Virtual Expert EVE, was created at the agency’s Φ-lab together with European partners. It specializes in Earth observation and Earth sciences. The parties still need to formalize new areas of work, their timelines, and budgets in separate agreements.

• Posted in Business, News, Tech

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/articles-en/ }

The Sopranos writer and Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter will be teaming up with filmmaker and producer Dan Farah for the development of a new television series based on the former U.S. intelligence official who led the U.S. government’s investigations into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).

The series will be based on the forthcoming memoir Out of the Shadows, which offers a candid look at the career of Jay Stratton, the former official who led the U.S. government’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF).

Stratton’s book, scheduled for publication in October by William Morrow, recounts his involvement with official investigations of UAP, the military’s term for what historically are known as unidentified flying objects or UFOs, and the bureaucratic hurdles he encountered while leading government efforts to resolve their nature and origin.

Winter will serve as an executive producer for the screen adaptation through Cold Front Productions, and Farah will also be an executive producer under Farah Films, according to Variety.  

Farah previously directed the documentary film The Age of Disclosure, which brought together more than thirty current and former U.S. officials who spoke on the record about the UAP issue, potential national security related to the phenomenon, and ongoing efforts to secure the release of information about it, which are believed to remain in the U.S. government’s possession. Farah also produced the documentary film The Phenomenon by director James Fox.

Along with the secretive world of U.S. government investigations into UAP, the forthcoming series will deal with the unusual intersection between Stratton’s classified work and his life at home, as detailed in his forthcoming memoir, where he describes how his family also reportedly experienced unusual events while he served in government.

Winter described Stratton’s story and the plans for a forthcoming series as a journey into the lesser-known world of U.S. government and UAP investigations. Farah compared the material to a high-stakes political thriller, with a central mystery that is accompanied by the personal toll placed on Stratton and his family, and lingering questions about the existence of non-human intelligence.

Winter brings considerable experience to the project, with past work that includes serving as writer and executive producer on The Sopranos before going on to create HBO’s hit series Boardwalk Empire. Winter is also the recipient of an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay adaptation of The Wolf of Wall Street.

Presently, details about the cast, release date, and potential networks and streaming platforms that may carry the program have not yet been announced. Stratton’s book, Out of the Shadows, will be released on October 13, 2026.

• 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/defense/ }

A Mysterious Military Drone Was Recovered By A Fishing Charter Off Florida's Gulf Coast

By Aaron Greenbaum

PUBLIC DOMAIN

When you charter a fishing boat, you do so with the expectation of catching some fish. Although, sometimes the unexpected occurs. Anglers have been known to snag some weird-looking fish, but who could ever expect a fishing expedition would result in dragging a military drone back to shore?

On September 20, 2026, a group of people had hired Hot Spot Charters to go on a six-hour fishing trip off the coast of Pensacola Beach, Florida when they spotted what the ship's captain initially thought was "an upside-down skiff," according to WEAR Channel 3 News. When they got closer and brought the semi-submerged UFO onboard (no easy feat since it weighed 500 pounds and was completely waterlogged), they realized it was actually an unmanned drone. A nearby military base, Eglin Air Force Base, informed the news channel that the vessel was a Low-cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS). Thankfully, some of the people onboard had enough military experience to assume the drone was safe to retrieve.

According to Eglin Air Force Base, the LUCAS drone had been missing since last Thursday. The UAV was undergoing some "routine scheduled testing" when it hit the water. After the fishing group brought the drone back to Pensacola Beach, Eglin Air Force Base officials retrieved it from the local Sheriff's Department. Thankfully, the LUCAS wasn't the only highlight of the trip; A school of Mahi-Mahi had congregated around the drone, and the charter group managed to catch six of the fish thanks to the military-grade bait.

What's the big deal with LUCAS?

PUBLIC DOMAIN

So, what exactly is a LUCAS and why was Eglin Air Force Base testing it? The LUCAS is what's known as a one-way attack drone, similar to the Iranian Shahed 136 both in terms of appearance and battle tactic: to swarm enemies and ram into them as fast as possible, detonating an integrated warhead for maximum damage. As such, the LUCAS is designed to be expendable and mass produced, sort of like those 3-D printed drones the Navy is testing. According to U.S. Central Command, the LUCAS entered the United States' weapon catalog in February of this year. While the drones first official use came during the 2026 Iran War, researchers at OSINT believe they were actually used earlier during the January 2026 Operation Absolute Resolve in Venezuela.

As for Eglin Air Force Base's role, the location is responsible for the majority of Air Force armament testing. When a new control system or attack drone is being developed, tested, and readied for deployment, it's sent to Eglin. While the base maintains an exclusion zone so it can safely evaluate weapons without risking any civilian casualties, the LUCAS had drifted outside of this area by the time the chartered fishing boat found it. However, the air base did not comment on why the drone hit the water, so maybe the LUCAS needs a bit more testing before it's ready for the military's Amazon-style marketplace.

{ https://www.bgr.com/category/tech/ }

Hebben mensen op sociale media beelden van buitenaards leven op Mars ontdekt?

© NASA/JPL-Caltech

 Martijn Peters

In 2015 zag iedereen plots een zwevende lepel op Mars dankzij de Curiosity-rover.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

In 2022 ging deze foto van Curiosity viraal waarop er een deur te zien leek op Mars.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/NeV-T

Een van de bekendere foto's van de afgelopen jaren werd in 2023 genomen door NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter en lijkt een beer te tonen.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

In april 2026 ontdekte Curiosity op de locatie van de Antofagasta-krater een stuk grond met een vreemde, schubachtige textuur.

© NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS, Kevin M. Gill

Dit jaar (2026) zagen mensen plots een piramide op Mars met dank aan de NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor die deze foto al in 2001 nam.

NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Het gaat om een foto die is gemaakt door Curiosity, een van de rovers op Mars. Die legde in 2023 een op het eerste gezicht perfect normaal ogend landschap van de rode planeet vast. Maar het internet zou het internet niet zijn als mensen die foto’s niet onder een vergrootglas zouden bekijken. En wat blijkt? In de linkerhoek duikt plots een vreemde vlek op.

Deze foto maakte Curiosity op Mars op 20 augustus 2023.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Wanneer we inzoomen linksonder in de foto van Curiosity zien we de 'buitenaardse' kwal verschijnen.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Twee frames genomen met enkele seconden ertussen.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech)

{ https://www.hln.be/weer-en-wetenschap/ }

An ordinary traffic report turned into a shocking UFO sighting after a news helicopter caught a mysterious orb floating over a packed California highway. 

The wild scene was captured over the Los Angeles freeway in mid-September as dozens of cars and trucks sat in evening rush hour traffic.

A helicopter for FOX 11 Los Angeles was zooming in on the multi-level highway when the camera operator appeared to notice a strange, metallic sphere floating above the road.

The object, about the size of a basketball or slightly larger, was seen traveling in a straight line away from the busy highway, towards a more wooded neighborhood.

Instead of zooming in on the congestion in Los Angeles, the camera operator was caught off guard and started following the UFO for several seconds before veering back to the traffic.

The news outlet did not address the video of the mysterious sphere, which has been shared online and seen by millions since it was posted on September 22.

One person said onX: 'They noticed the object enough to focus on it before turning their camera away.' Another viewer added: 'I'm skeptical, but it doesn't move like a balloon in the wind. It's flying in a straight line.'

Despite many people seeing the sphere and believing the helicopter caught an actual UFO in flight, the US government has continued to claim no physical evidence proving UFOs or extraterrestrials exist has ever been recovered.

Video of an alleged UFO sighting over the Los Angeles freeway was shared on social media in September 2026

A local traffic camera on a news helicopter spotted a small sphere moving away from the highway

Many viewers drew comparisons between the metallic object seen floating over Los Angeles and the so-called Buga Sphere captured in Colombia last year, which locals reported was a metal ball that appeared to strike a power line and crash.

Both objects seemed to glide through the air. Neither had visible strings or appeared to have been influenced by the wind as a balloon might.

Skeptics still claim the tiny UFO seen over Los Angeles was most likely some type of drone flying near the busy road or the so-called 'marker balls' - the orange or white spheres hanging from power lines which make these cables easier to see for planes.

'Yay, more balloons and parallax!' one doubter declared, noting the phenomenon where a nearby object seems to slide across the background when the camera moves, even if that object is sitting still.

Others claimed the object was just a mylar balloon floating over the city and giving the supposed UFO its chrome-like appearance.

However, believers argued the balloon theory was just a bunch of hot air, noting that an air-filled party favor should not have been able to keep such a steady course away from the freeway.

'Balloon crowd is going to have a hard time with this one. That path is too straight. Wind doesn’t fly a sphere across LA in a clean line with no wobble. Whatever it is, it isn’t just floating,' one person wrote on X.

Just as the camera pulled away from the sphere, the UFO appeared to vanish as it flew in front of a nearby warehouse. 

The Buga Sphere (Pictured) was recovered by local residents in Colombia in March 2025 and has been in the care of scientists in Mexico ever since

The metallic-looking orb was seen disappearing near a wooded neighborhood and warehouse seconds after leaving the freeway

California has been a notorious hotspot for unexplained UFO sightings along the US West Coast.

According to the crowdsourced platform Enigma, which allows the public to report sightings of UFOs, there have been nearly 30,000 sightings of unidentified objects in the sky over the state dating back to 1901.

Those reports include more than 2,500 that specifically mention a sphere flying overhead.

READ MORE

EXCLUSIVE

• I found strange DNA in the human genome: Inside a scientist's hunt for alien hybrids as CIA is accused of secretly tracking them

UFO sightings in California nearly doubled the next closest state - Florida.

'I’ve seen these several times in my life. Last time I saw two together in Los Angeles in 2020 beginning of pandemic,' one viewer claimed online.

'Enigma has received 5,248 first-hand reports of UFO sightings in California. A total of 29,884 UFO sightings from California have been published to Enigma, inclusive of third-party sources,' the public UFO database explained.

Metallic spheres and glowing orbs have become common UFO encounters over the last year as the US government declassified troves of data pertaining to alleged extraterrestrial sightings and unidentified craft.

Since May, six reports have been released by the Pentagon, including images and videos of silver spheres being followed by US drones and satellites flying at high speed over oceans, deserts and even military bases.

The news outlet did not publish a date or time stamp confirming the exact minute the helicopter was over that stretch of the LA freeway.

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{ https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/index.html }

How Diffractive Solar Sails Could Stop a Killer Asteroid at 100 km/s

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

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{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

Two UFOs Show Up In Apollo 10 Mission Photo Near Orbiter, UFO UAP Sighting News.

Date of sighting: May 18-26, 1969

Date of discovery: Sept 23, 2026

Location of sighting: Moon orbit

Source: Apollo 10 AS10-27-3864 & AS10-27-3865

URL:

• https://tothemoon.im-ldi.com/gallery/Apollo/10/6#AS10-27-3865

UFOs watching the NASA in space is nothing new. Its been happening since the beginning of the space program, however these UFOs are unique shapes. One is a triangle shape thick craft while the otehr is a sphere with a flat disk below it. These may be alien drones sent to record without any pilots onboard. The craft look small, similar in size to the Apollo module seen in the photo, but the UFOs are further away making them look smaller. Aliens, they love knowledge, and watching, recording and then sharing with their own species...thats their gold, their money, their view of whats really valuable...knowledge.

Scott C. Waring - UFO Sightings Daily

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{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

Pyramid-shaped UFO spotted over Brazil

Years ago, a number of strange UFO sightings were captured on camera but never received much attention from the mainstream media. Apart from a handful of dedicated UFO websites and online communities, many of these cases remained largely unnoticed. 

Today, it may be worth taking another look at some of that older footage, recordings made long before AI-generated imagery became widespread. 

Strange lights. Unidentified objects. Mysterious shapes appearing in the sky. 

In this video, we take a closer look at several intriguing cases: 

• The Metapod UFO hovering over Spain 
• A cylindrical UFO spotted over the sea 
• A glowing orb appearing above a playground in Finland 
• A pyramid-shaped object observed in the night sky over Brazil 
• Fiery objects descending over Tijuana 

Some of these recordings may have ordinary explanations. Others remain difficult to identify. 

But all of them were captured before the age of AI, and that makes them worth examining again.

 

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{ https://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

Scientists create an atomic clock so precise it could REDEFINE the second

By XANTHA LEATHAM, EXECUTIVE SCIENCE EDITOR

Scientists have built the world's most accurate atomic clock – and it's so precise it could redefine the second.

Experts at Singapore's Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) have developed a device that can meticulously track the passage of time, down to trillionths of a second.

The researchers believe their clock, built from the element lutetium, outperforms previous record holders built from different elements.

They say their device can measure time to 19 decimal places – the lowest reported for any optical atomic clock to date.

The timepiece is so reliable that it would take more than 260 billion years to lose a second.

'I am confident that what we have now is the most accurate clock in the world,' team leader Murray Barrett, from the National University of Singapore, said.

Scientists say they have built the world's most accurate atomic clock. Pictured: A close–up of the clock's interior

Atomic clocks keep time by monitoring an atomic transition, which is when one of an atom's electrons changes energy levels.

The frequency of this transition is a fixed property of the atom. A laser is matched to this transition and the light oscillations act like a pendulum to count time.

The basic method has been in place for decades. Cesium atoms have set the global standard for time since the 1960s, and cesium atomic clocks already support the Global Positioning System (GPS) and synchronize communication and transport networks.

Pictured in the Centre for Quantum Technologies' lutetium atomic clock lab are (from left) Associate Professor Murray Barrett, Ph.D. student Michael Lee and Senior Research Scientist Kyle Arnold.

Credit: Centre for Quantum Technologies

But scientists have been pushing the limits of timekeeping with other elements.

Elements such as ytterbium, strontium and aluminium oscillate much faster than cesium, helping them keep time more accurately and setting records.

However, the CQT team started working with lutetium over a decade ago on the hunch that it had the right properties to join the set of top–performing clocks.

To its knowledge, it is the only group working with this element for timekeeping so far.

Atomic clocks keep time by monitoring an atomic transition, when one of an atom's electrons changes energy levels. Pictured: One of the researchers taking a close look at the device

After measuring the frequency of the lutetium clock, the scientists reported an uncertainty of 1 x 10–19, as published in the journal Nature.

Lutetium's strong performance comes from properties of the atom. Its clock transition is hardly affected by changes in temperature or magnetic field – two variables that can throw off the frequency of other elements.

'In the future, I just don't see how this clock can be beat,' Dr Barrett said.

'The good properties mean that high accuracy can be achieved even in a wide range of environments.

'The lutetium clock would be stable even if you went from the hottest place recorded on Earth in Death Valley to the coldest place in the Antarctic plateau.'

His team has spent over a decade doing precision engineering on its atomic clock setup and testing different properties of the atom.

The researchers not only calculated their estimate of the clock's accuracy but verified it by comparing two lutetium clocks with each other.

The two clocks' ticks matched to the 19th digit, which the team says is the most precise clock comparison ever performed.

How the new clock works: Scientists use a single trapped lutetium ion and lasers to keep time with unprecedented precision

Ideally, the team would also compare its lutetium clock to the world's other best atomic clocks.

However, clocks that are this precise can detect the slowing of time caused by gravity over height differences of millimetres.

Differences in gravity between places on Earth are not yet known well enough to compare clocks at this level.

To enable new comparisons and explore future applications, the clock needs to come out of the lab.

'The next step is to take the lab–scale clock and miniaturize it into a transportable system,' said Michael Lee, joint first author on the paper and a Ph.D. student on the NUS team.

The researchers expect they can make their clock smaller without compromising its accuracy.

As well as keeping exceptionally accurate time, these types of clocks could help probe unanswered questions in physics, detect tiny changes in gravity and reshape how the second is defined. 

The international body responsible for time standards is considering data from new optical atomic clocks toward a redefinition of the second expected in or after 2030.  

While a strontium clock reported in March could measure time to 19 decimal places, the new lutetium clock pushes precision even further by independently verifying its accuracy at the 19th decimal place. 

The researchers say this is the first optical clock to achieve this level of verified accuracy. 

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{ https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/index.html }

The Object That Could Solve the Amelia Earhart Mystery Is About to Be Uncovered

Their target is known as the Taraia Object, an unusual shape seen in satellite images beside the Taraia Peninsula on Nikumaroro, a tiny coral island in the Republic of Kiribati. Researchers behind the expedition believe there is a possibility the object could be wreckage from Earhart’s missing Lockheed Electra 10E, but nobody has physically examined it closely enough to know what it actually is.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=167576822

That could change within weeks. Purdue University, Purdue Research Foundation and the Archaeological Legacy Institute are supporting an expedition scheduled to leave Tarawa, Kiribati, on 7 October. After a voyage of roughly six days across the Pacific, the team plans to enter Nikumaroro’s lagoon and investigate the object directly.

Rather than relying on another satellite photograph, researchers intend to remove the sediment covering the anomaly using a hydraulic dredge. Once enough of it has been exposed, they hope to determine whether they are looking at natural material, vegetation, debris or pieces of an aircraft that disappeared in 1937.

Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan vanished on 2 July 1937 while flying from Lae, New Guinea, towards Howland Island during Earhart’s attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Their specially modified twin-engine Lockheed Electra had already completed approximately 22,000 miles of the journey when they set out across one of its most difficult stretches.

Radio contact with the US Coast Guard cutter Itasca deteriorated as Earhart approached the area around Howland. At 7:42am local time, she reported that fuel was running low and that she could not see the ship. Her final confirmed transmission was received at approximately 8:43am, when she reported flying along a navigational line running 157 to 337 degrees.

Earhart, Noonan and the aircraft were never seen again. A huge US Navy and Coast Guard search followed, but no confirmed wreckage was recovered and the mystery has remained unresolved ever since.

One theory suggests Earhart never reached Howland and crashed into the Pacific after exhausting her fuel. Another proposes that she and Noonan continued southeast along the navigational line mentioned in her final transmission and reached what was then Gardner Island, now known as Nikumaroro.

That second possibility has been investigated for decades by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, better known as TIGHAR. Researchers have conducted repeated expeditions to the island and examined radio records, photographs, archaeological material and possible evidence that Earhart and Noonan survived there for at least some period after their disappearance.

Nikumaroro sits around 350 nautical miles southeast of Howland Island and has a broad reef flat where an aircraft could potentially have landed during favourable tide conditions. US Navy aircraft searching the Phoenix Islands flew over Gardner Island only days after Earhart disappeared and reported signs of recent habitation, although nobody on the search aircraft reported seeing Earhart, Noonan or the Electra.

Various objects discovered during later archaeological work have added to the mystery, including fragments and personal items dating broadly to the period. Human bones were also recovered on Nikumaroro in 1940, although the original remains were subsequently lost and attempts to associate historical measurements of them with Earhart have remained disputed.

None of those discoveries has provided the piece of evidence researchers have sought for almost nine decades: an identifiable part of Earhart’s aircraft.

Attention shifted towards the lagoon after California resident Michael Ashmore noticed an unusual shape in satellite imagery in 2020. The feature was lying in shallow water alongside the Taraia Peninsula, east of the Tatiman Passage that connects Nikumaroro’s lagoon with the Pacific.

Researchers subsequently began collecting older satellite images, aerial photographs, drone footage and video of the same location. According to the Archaeological Legacy Institute, the anomaly can be followed across multiple satellite images obtained between 2009 and 2026, although its visibility changes considerably from one image to another.

One of the most intriguing details emerged when researchers examined imagery from immediately after Tropical Cyclone Pam passed through the wider region in March 2015. The object became particularly visible in satellite photographs taken shortly afterwards, leading the team to suggest that storm-driven water may have stripped sediment from something that had previously been buried on the lagoon floor.

Images from 2015 and 2016 show the feature more clearly, while later photographs suggest it became increasingly covered again. Researchers say a new commercial satellite image obtained in April 2026 still shows a darker area at the same position, although its outline is now less distinct.

Older material has also been examined. The expedition team says aerial photographs taken by the New Zealand military in 1938 appear to show something at roughly the same location. Drone footage recorded during a 2017 visit also captured the anomaly from several directions without researchers realising its potential significance at the time.

A separate piece of video recorded during a TIGHAR helicopter flight in 2001 shows a bright reflection from beneath the water in the same general area. Supporters of the new expedition believe that reflection could have come from exposed metal, although it cannot identify what produced it.

Researchers behind the project argue that the visible dimensions of the Taraia Object are compatible with part of a Lockheed Electra fuselage and tail section. They have also proposed a possible route by which wreckage could have moved from the reef into the lagoon through Tatiman Passage after an aircraft landed on Nikumaroro.

It remains a hypothesis, and there is a significant counterargument.

TIGHAR itself examined the Taraia Object after Ashmore brought the satellite image to its attention in 2020 and reached a very different conclusion. Its researchers suggested the feature looked more like a fallen coconut palm or log deposited in the lagoon after severe storm damage. TIGHAR also noted that members had searched the Taraia shoreline using metal detectors during an expedition in 2001.

That disagreement is exactly why the October expedition could be important. Researchers will no longer be arguing solely over what a shape resembles in a satellite photograph. They intend to go to the location and uncover it.

Current plans call for the expedition team to travel from Tarawa aboard the LC Marin Mainiku. Once at Nikumaroro, smaller boats will have to be moved across the reef and through Tatiman Passage before researchers can begin work inside the lagoon. Access trails across the heavily vegetated island will also have to be reopened.

Remote sensing, sonar and other survey equipment can be used to refine the target before investigators begin gently removing sediment. A hydraulic dredge will then expose enough of the object for the team to examine its material and construction directly.

Aircraft aluminium alone would not automatically identify Earhart’s Electra. Investigators would need to look for characteristics consistent with a Lockheed Model 10E, including the shape of any surviving components, construction techniques and rivet patterns. Any identifiable serial numbers or manufacturer markings would be considerably stronger evidence if preserved.

Finding wood, coral, rock or the remains of a tree would bring this particular theory to a rapid end. Finding aircraft wreckage would begin a much larger investigation rather than finish one, because researchers would then need to establish its type, age and identity.

If the object can be identified as part of Earhart’s Electra, organisers plan to return in 2027 for a full archaeological excavation. That phase would expose and document the wreckage properly before any decision was made about whether recovery was possible. Purdue has a particularly strong connection to the aircraft because Purdue Research Foundation helped finance Earhart’s Electra, which she referred to as her flying laboratory.

Previous searches around Nikumaroro have shown how difficult the mystery is to resolve. In 2019, Titanic discoverer Robert Ballard led an extensive National Geographic-backed underwater search around the island. His team visually examined the steep underwater slopes surrounding Nikumaroro down to around 750 metres without finding the aircraft.

That search concentrated heavily on the possibility that wreckage had been swept from the reef into deep water. The Taraia theory proposes almost the opposite direction, suggesting material could instead have travelled through the reef passage and become trapped within the shallow lagoon.

For almost nine decades, Amelia Earhart’s disappearance has produced theories ranging from plausible navigation scenarios to elaborate conspiracies. Thousands of kilometres of ocean have been searched, dozens of supposed clues have been investigated and several apparent discoveries have eventually led nowhere.

October’s expedition has a much narrower objective. A specific object exists at a specific location beneath the lagoon, and researchers intend to uncover it and determine what it is.

If it is a tree, another Amelia Earhart theory can be crossed off the list. If aluminium, aircraft structure and matching construction details begin emerging from beneath the sediment, one of aviation’s longest-running mysteries could enter a completely different phase.

For the first time since the Taraia Object was recognised in satellite imagery, researchers are preparing to stop looking at it from above and physically expose what has been hidden beneath the lagoon.

{ https://www.abovethenormnews.com/ }

Behold: Video of “First-Ever” Human Versus Robot MMA Fight

The Milky Way Galaxy. Source: www.futura-sciences.com

The terrifying world beyond the Solar System

People are apprehensive about phenomena that are vast and mysterious, and in this regard, nothing compares with the expanse of space. Regardless of how extensively scientists explain the events occurring around us, people will continue to fear the unknown.

Although concerns regarding the Solar System are relatively minor — after all, anyone can observe the movement of the planets, and scientists speak with considerable confidence about the possibility of predicting the motion of celestial bodies — beyond its boundaries lies something mysterious known as the Galaxy. In the imagination of many people, it resembles the edges of old geographical maps, where, alongside the outlines of distant shores, one might find inscriptions reading “dragons live here.”

Our scientific understanding of the Galaxy remains in its infancy. Although the band of the Milky Way had been visible in the night sky since before the advent of writing, and Aristarchus of Samos proposed as early as the third century B.C. that the stars were distant suns, the question of the structure of what lay beyond the orbit of Saturn — the outermost planet, as it was then believed — was regarded as absurd for two thousand years. Only the sphere of the fixed stars was thought to exist.

The Milky Way in the sky. Source: Wikipedia

It was only after Galileo Galilei used a telescope to distinguish individual stars in the Milky Way that the idea that the Galaxy (a word that for a long time was a complete synonym for the Milky Way) — is, in fact, something of which the Solar System is a small part — began to take root in the minds of both astronomers and the general public.

The size of the Galaxy

The primary reason it took so long to recognize clearly that a vast universe exists beyond the Solar System was that, for an extended period, astronomers lacked a frame of reference for determining the distance between Earth and the stars.

As early as the third century B.C., Aristarchus of Samos recognized that if Earth follows a cyclical orbit around the Sun, this motion must be accompanied by apparent shifts in the positions of the stars, as occurs with any distant objects. This phenomenon is known as annual parallax. Based on its magnitude, it could be used not only to demonstrate the validity of the heliocentric model of our solar system but also to determine the distances to the stars.

Annual parallax. Source: itu.physics.uiowa.edu

However, no parallax was detected. Astronomers understood that this was attributable to the immense distances of the stars relative to the radius of Earth’s orbit. Nevertheless, this finding cast serious doubt on all of their calculations, including the estimate of the Galaxy’s size made by William and Caroline Herschel in 1785.

Incidentally, prominent astronomers of the time underestimated its size by a factor of 13 to 15. Although they correctly determined that its shape resembled a lens or disk, they estimated its dimensions at only 6,000 to 7,000 light-years, whereas it is, in fact, closer to 100,000 light-years across. This discrepancy resulted from their limited understanding of the matter present in interstellar space, which strongly absorbs light from the most distant stars.

However, during the 1830s, the application of photography ultimately enabled the measurement of annual parallax. Humanity thereby recognized that, although light requires only eight minutes to travel from the Sun to Earth, it would take years or even decades to reach the nearest stars.

William Herschel’s map of the galaxy. Source: Wikipedia

People often perceive this as yet another alarming fact; however, it also means that nothing lies between them and us — certainly nothing dangerous. Even if something terrifying is moving from them toward us, it cannot reach us faster than the speed of light. Consequently, in one way or another, we have years, if not decades, to prepare for our encounter with it.

People may also be intimidated by the sheer number of stars visible to us; however, this abundance means that the stars have virtually nowhere to conceal themselves from observation. Despite the presence of interstellar gas and dust, space remains transparent, as there is no horizon. Consequently, we can observe every star, at least in the vicinity of the Sun, and determine the direction in which each is moving.

One might raise the following objection: if annual parallax exists, how can we be certain that the observed movements of the stars are not entirely attributable to it? The amount of displacement produced by the Earth’s motion around the Sun, however, is known. Accordingly, any movement exceeding that amount must result from the stars’ own motion.

The Milky Way Galaxy

That is precisely why scientists possess knowledge not only of the positions of an extraordinary number of stars, but also of their physical characteristics and velocity vectors. Collectively, these stars constitute the Galaxy, resembling a vortex of matter revolving around its center.

Visualization of data from the Tycho-2 Catalogue. Source: Wikipedia

The number of stars in the Milky Way known to humanity is staggering. Even catalogues published in the late nineteenth century listed several tens of thousands of stars. The Tycho-2 Catalogue, published in the early twenty-first century, already contained 2.5 million stars. However, the third data release from the Gaia space telescope contains information on 1.8 billion stars. Although this represents less than 1% of all the stars in the Milky Way, it enables us to understand how at least the region of the galaxy containing the Solar System rotates.

The Galaxy consists not only of stars but also of nebulae. Further information about these vast clouds of interstellar gas is available in this article; in brief, several hundred such nebulae have already been identified. All of these celestial bodies orbit a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

It is an extraordinary object with a mass equivalent to 4.3 million solar masses. However, it is located 27,000 light-years away from Earth — so distant that even the photons originating there began their journey when humanity was struggling to survive during the Ice Age.

The Gaia Space Telescope. Source: Wikipedia

Hidden monsters

Our understanding of the Milky Way is far removed from the notion that “we know nothing about it.” In fact, scientists possess such an extensive body of information that it surpasses the wildest imaginings of the cartographers who once created maps of unexplored lands inhabited by extraordinary monsters. No individual can fully comprehend the entirety of this data.

But this raises a question: since this represents less than 1% of the Galaxy, have scientists overlooked something important right here in our neighborhood? Perhaps these monsters are lurking right outside the Solar System’s doorstep? And the answer to that question is no. The fact is that most of the stars in the Gaia Catalogue are, in fact, the ones closest to us.

The Gaia Catalogue contains 331,312 stars located no farther from the Sun than 100 parsecs, or 330 light-years. Consequently, nearly all of these stars are observable, making it extremely difficult for any nearby object to remain undetected. Moreover, these objects move through space at speeds significantly lower than the speed of light.

Stars around the Sun

This indicates that we are not at risk of an event such as a collision between the Sun and another star or a close stellar passage. Scientists can determine this with precision because the motion vectors of nearby stars are known, and none of them would produce such consequences — particularly on timescales extending beyond humanity’s recorded history.

However, certain objects in space are considerably more formidable than ordinary stars, including pulsars and stellar-mass black holes. The nearest neutron stars — which emit intense and highly frequent bursts of radiation — are located approximately 200–700 light-years from Earth. Consequently, they pose no immediate threat to us. Moreover, they travel through space at speeds comparable to those of ordinary stars, and none is expected to approach Earth within the next several million years.

Even more distant is the nearest known black hole, which is located within a binary system. This is well established because, through accretion, such objects emit substantial amounts of radiation; consequently, we would certainly have detected anything similar if it were located closer.

Pulsar. Source: www.space.com

It is worth noting, however, that individual neutron stars — and particularly black holes — are virtually undetectable because they emit little or no radiation. Nevertheless, scientists are confident that no such objects exist within a radius of 20–30 light-years of Earth.

Because they interact with both interstellar matter and the radiation emitted by objects situated behind them, scientists should, in principle, be able to observe gravitational lensing and at least some thermal radiation, in addition to radio signals. All of these phenomena should also exhibit a significant annual parallax, indicating that the source is located very nearby.

This is particularly evident because astronomers have already discovered objects near the Sun that were previously undetectable. These objects are brown dwarfs — slightly larger than Jupiter but possessing masses several dozen times greater.

Black hole. Source: www.wired.com

By galactic standards, they emit extremely little radiation, yet scientists were eventually able to detect them thanks to the WISE infrared sky survey. Interestingly, they were discovered at distances of both 10 and 20 light-years from Earth, but Proxima Centauri has not been dethroned as the star closest to us. This means there simply aren’t any closer ones.

That is precisely why scientists can state with confidence that, at least, the portion of the Galaxy nearest to us will remain safe for the next several thousand years. Accordingly, space is not as intimidating as it may initially appear.

• Posted in Articles, Questions

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