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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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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