Alien News

A pair of system dynamicists from MIT explored whether asteroid mining could collapse the platinum group metal (PGM) market, which is vital for modern industry. AstroForge, a startup in California, aims to mine PGMs from metallic asteroids, using small, agile probes that cost only a few million dollars each to launch. The company's approach involves latching onto asteroids with magnets, vaporizing their crust with high-powered lasers, and refining PGMs onboard. According to their model, the first phase of asteroid mining could see a "space gold rush," with prices for PGMs initially held artificially high due to limited supply. This would drive private investment and expand production capacity, leading to industry profits skyrocketing to eight times current levels. However, over the next 15 years, the global supply of PGMs will exceed terrestrial amounts, causing prices to drop by over 75%. This would make high-cost terrestrial mines obsolete, but would benefit the world by making PGMs cheaper and more accessible, supporting the transition to a "green economy."

A giant tentacled UFO was spotted over Alaska. · The sighting remains unexplained, with only God and the government knowing.

Donald Trump reports seeing a UFO that was three times faster than a fighter jet.

The ESA's Euclid Space Telescope has released its first huge batch of data. It's all part of the telescope's mission to study dark energy and dark matter. The telescope is busy creating the largest ever 3D map of the Universe with its huge 600 megapixel camera, and new images give us some highlights.

If we want big things in space, we'll have to build and assemble them there. Rocket fairings are not large enough to accommodate the large things we want to have in space. Not only that, but the stubborn rocket equation refuses to bend itself to our desires.

Carl Sagan and Frank Drake were pivotal to the development of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI), as exemplified by the Pioneer Plaques and Voyager Golden Records.

As the major powers and the private companies go full tilt with their plans to develop infrastructure and extract resources on the moon, the questions around environmental protection, international regulation and who benefits all come into play. Vilnius University Institute of International Relations and Political Science (VU IIRPS) professor Florian Rabitz, together with Xiao-Shan Yap from Utrecht University, explores these concerns in their research article, "Don't Fly Me to the Moon: A Moratorium on Lunar Industrialization," published in the journal Global Environmental Politics.

Researchers compared the samples from asteroid Bennu with the Murchison meteorite and measured the amino acid β-alanine in both. Using new techniques, they were able to measure not only their isotopic compositions, but isotopic differences between individual atoms in the same molecule. The results show that some of the same pre-cursors to life formed in different conditions and positions in the protoplanetary disk.

A distant planet seemingly vanished while astronomers were watching—and new research is providing clues that could help solve the mystery.

Finding ways to tweak space missions to rescue data or extend observations is a fascinating process. We’ve seen no shortage of such efforts, from the heroic retrieval of Europa data after the failure of the Galileo mission’s high-grain antenna to the stabilization and ‘rebirth’ of the Kepler space telescope through deft handling of its gyroscopic […]

I spoke to a former national security official is someone who was deeply involved in efforts to get to the bottom of claims about the "Legacy Program," but is not part of the cast of former officials whose names are publicly associated with the issue. The person is not part of th...

If people ever think about cleaning up space debris, they typically think of something equivalent to a giant garbage truck in the sky, collecting lost astronaut tools and dead satellites then hauling them back down to Earth to be deposited in a landfill. But dealing with space debris doesn’t work that way, and a new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv from Dr. Slava Turyshev of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who we typically cover for his work on the Solar Gravitational Lens idea, makes a good argument as to why.

The short answer is...not many. This rotating cube video on X has been making the rounds. It got me curious so I searched through the NUFORC database. I found at least 27 reports that specifically mentioned a rotating or spinning cube,18 of them from the last six years. Cubes in...

Astrophysical jets are enormously powerful and energetic phenomena. Black holes launch them from their poles and they can extend enormous distances into space, disrupting star formation in adjacent regions. Astrophysicists want to be able to forecast when they're launched so they can understand theire extreme physics better. New research is making progress in understanding when they are triggered.

This week, NASA and NOAA scientists revealed that the Antarctic ozone hole has expanded to one of its largest sizes in nearly half a century.

A gallery of gravitational lenses captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope showcases the diversity of this cosmic phenomenon and lays the groundwork for follow-up observations by the new Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

On July 1, 2023, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Euclid space telescope into space. Its mission: to create the largest and most detailed map of the universe ever made.