According to a tweet last night from KLAS Las Vegas 8 News Now investigative reporter George Knapp, the government shutdown has even affected the workers at Area 51, the top secret Air Force base in Nevada that is rumored to house crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Last night Knapp tweeted: “Govt. shutdown hits Area 51. Flights from LV to Groom Lake are suspended. Top-secret Employees furloughed.”

The flights Knapp is tweeting about are referred to as “Janet Airlines.” These are a fleet of unmarked Boeing 737s managed by government contractor EG&G that fly out of McCarren International airport in Las Vegas to the Area 51 facilities near the Groom Lake dry lakebed in the U.S. military’s Nevada Test and Training Range. These flights shuttle employees at the top secret facilities back and forth from Las Vegas on a daily basis. They are noted for their one red stripe down the fuselage.

Janet flight from Area 51 landing at McCarren International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Credit: Josh Akbar/Airliners.net)

Area 51 made national headlines recently when a CIA document was released that purposefully included the name “Area 51.” Previous CIA documents had redacted the name of the base, blacking out any reference to it or Groom Lake. It was the government’s worse kept secret.

In the 1980’s KLAS had begun reporting on the existence of Area 51. Their efforts eventually led to the base becoming a household name, synonymous with extraterrestrials, men in black, and UFOs. It arguably, and ironically, became both the most well known and most secret U.S. Air Force base.

For now, all we have to go on is the tweet by Knapp. We have requested more information, and will update this page as we get it.

Janet airliners (upper right) seen in satellite image of Area 51. (Credit: Dreamland Resport and GeoEye)

Headline image credit: Christian Scheie Hein/Airliners.net

UPDATE 10/4/2013 2:45 pm PST:

We just received an email from George Knapp. He says that they had observed the regularly scheduled daily flights appear to have stopped. He also says he checked with sources that notified them “current employees were sent home until further notice.” However, no one would go on the record. He also notes, “I’m sure there are some contractors still there at Groom–especially security— but the bulk of whatever they are working on is suspended for now.”

Knapp says that KLAS 8 News Now is planning on airing more details tonight, so those of you in the Las Vegas area be sure to tune in, the rest of us will need to keep an eye on their website for more.

Astronomers have determined that the atmosphere of super-Earth Gliese 1214 b is likely water-rich. However, this
Strange Super-Earth Planet Has ‘Plasma’ Water Atmo …
Artist’s rendition of the relationship between the composition of the atmosphere and transmitted col …
exoplanet is no Earth twin. The high temperature and density of the planet give it an atmosphere that differs dramatically from Earth.

“As the temperature and pressure are so high, water is not in a usual form (vapor, liquid, or solid), but in an ionic or plasma form at the bottom the atmosphere — namely the interior — of Gliese 1214 b,” principle investigator Norio Narita of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan told SPACE.com by email. [The Strangest Alien Planets (Gallery)]

Using two instruments on the Subaru Telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, scientists studied the scattering of light from the planet. Combining their results with previous observations led the astronomers to conclude that the atmosphere contained significant amounts of water.

A wellspring of exotic water

Located 40 light-years from the solar system in the constellation Ophiuchus, the planet orbits its cooler, low-mass M-type star once every 38 hours, 70 times closer than Earth is to the sun.

Its close proximity means that its temperatures reach up to 540 degrees Fahrenheit (280 degrees Celsius). Six times as massive as Earth, Gliese 1214 b is less than three times as wide, falling between the Earth and the solar system’s ice giants Uranus and Neptune in size.

The high temperatures of the planet may affect the hydrogen and carbon chemistry, which could produce a haze in the atmosphere. But determining if the weather is clear or perpetually overcast on Gliese 1214 b would be difficult, as differences in the two atmospheres are small.

“At high pressure and high temperature, the behavior of water is quite different from that on the Earth,” Narita said. “At the bottom of the water-rich atmosphere of Gliese 1214 b, water should be a super-critical fluid.”

Unlike terrestrial planets, the super-Earth doesn’t have a solid surface, making the height of the atmosphere difficult to define. Instead, atmospheric scientists introduce a concept called the scale height, a height determined by changes in the increase or decrease of atmospheric pressure by a set amount. On Earth, the scale height is about 6 miles (10 kilometers), while on Gliese 1214 b it is three times deeper, according to Narita.

“We predict that ionic or plasma water can be seen deep inside the planet,” Narita said. “However, we may not be able to find hot ‘ice’ — high pressure-ices — inside of Gliese 1214 b.”

Originally discovered in by the MEarth Project, which tracks more than 2,000 low-mass stars in search of planets, Gliese 1214 b was confirmed by the European Space Agency’s High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher in Chile.

As a planet travels across the face of its star, or transits, it blocks the star’s light slightly, allowing scientists to determine characteristics about it based on how much the light dims.

Though water is often considered a necessary ingredient for life by scientists, Narita doesn’t think that the super-Earth will be promising due to its close orbit, which lies within the star’s habitable zone, the region where liquid water can exist.

“Although water vapor can exist in the atmosphere, liquid water — namely oceans — would not exist on the surface of this planet,” he said. “So unfortunately, we do not think this planet would be habitable.”

Narita’s team intends to continue studying the planet with spectroscopic observations in the visible wavelength, and anticipates that other astronomers will follow.

With thanks to
Georges Filer
NationalUFO-Center