NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

July 24, 2023

Chemicals Glow as a Meteor Disintegrates

Meteors can be colorful. While the human eye usually cannot discern many colors, cameras often can. Pictured here is a fireball, a disintegrating meteor that was not only one of the brightest the photographer has ever seen, but colorful. The meteor was captured by chance in mid-July with a camera set up on Hochkar Mountain in Austria to photograph the central band of our Milky Way galaxy. The radiant grit, likely cast off by a comet or asteroid long ago, had the misfortune to enter Earth's atmosphere. Colors in meteors usually originate from ionized chemical elements released as the meteor disintegrates, with blue-green typically originating from magnesium, calcium radiating violet, and nickel glowing green. Red, however, typically originates from energized nitrogen and oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere. This bright meteoric fireball was gone in a flash less than a second but it left a wind-blown ionization trail that remained visible for almost a minute.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?

Pioneering NASA 'Hidden Figure' Evelyn Boyd Granville dies at age 99

July 24, 2023

Trailblazing NASA "Hidden Figure" and Black mathematician, Evelyn Boyd Granville, has died at the age of 99.

Granville was one of the first two Black women in the United States to earn a Ph.D in mathematics. Her degree, despite hardships, led to positions working on NASA's early human spaceflight missions and a long career in education.

As shown in the group of Black women featured in the book and 2016 film "Hidden Figures," Granville rose up, despite racial adversity, to contribute significantly to NASA's early human spaceflight missions, including the Mercury and Apollo programs. Her death was publicized in a Washington Post obituary, published July 7.

Granville completed her undergraduate studies at Smith College, in Massachusetts, and earned her doctorate degree at Yale University, in 1949. She continued her postgraduate career at the New York University Institute for Mathematics and eventually took a teaching positing at Fisk University.

She began a position at computing giant IBM in 1956, and was later part of the IBM team contracted by NASA in 1959, during the dawning days of the space race. Granville's job included programming early mainframe computers, and determining equations for tracking orbital trajectories and safe reentries.

She worked on NASA's Project Vanguard satellite and first crewed Mercury launches, and later performed moon landing calculations as technical support for engineers on the Apollo program.

After her time with the space agency, Granville became a mathematics professor at California State University, where she taught students how to teach mathematics, and also wrote textbooks on the matter.

Her career in education continued into the 1980s, when she taught at the University of Texas at Tyler. It was there that she also worked to create math enrichment programs for elementary school age students, according to the Post.

Granville retired to Washington, D.C. in 2010, following the death of her husband, Ed Granville. According to her obituary, Granville died peacefully at her home in Silver Spring, Maryland on June 27.

A funeral service was held July 8 in Washington, D.C.

https://www.space.com/nasa-hidden-figure-evelyn-boyd-granville-mathematician-obituary

Scientists believe an alien spaceship could have crashed into Mars

24 July 2023 BST

Scientists say an alien spaceship crash landing onto Mars can't be ruled out as the cause of strange spikey protrusions found on the planet.

Quick, somebody call Mulder and Scully.

In April, Nasa’s Curiosity Rover photographed what appear to be rows of spikes, plates and wedges protruding from rocks on the bottom of the 154km-long Gale Crater.

Astrobiologist Dr Nathalie Cabrol, of the NASA Ames Research Centre and Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, has been studying Mars for over 20 years and says this is the 'most bizarre' rock she's ever encountered.

A new paper published in the Journal of Astrobiology concludes that the formations might be 'sand spikes', researchers also say 'a fragment from an extraterrestrial or terrestrial spacecraft cannot be discounted with absolute certainty'.

The scientists say there also appear to be wheels, an axle and a debris field alongside the spikes.

Sand spikes form in water-logged sands during massive earthquakes.

Similar spikes to the ones photographed on Mars have been found at the north Alpine basin of south Germany and at Mount Signal in the Imperial Valley of southern California.

“There is no way of proving for certain what the spikes are but the balance of the evidence would suggest ‘sand spikes’ resulting from seismic activity on Mars," Prof Richard Armstrong, of Aston University, Birmingham told The Telegraph.

“I suspect the enigmatic ‘wheels’ are a separate phenomenon.

"Mars images often show strange formations and features which ‘look like’ familiar objects.

“Any debris field on Mars would certainly suffer erosion over time, especially from wind.”

The authors also haven't ruled out that the spikes might be a result of human activity.

"Given that possibly 10 or more craft have crashed upon the surface, coupled with the jettison of equipment associated with landing the rovers, it is possible the spikes and its substrate are human-made and consist of debris that fell onto the surface of Gale Crater," they write in the paper.

“Nevertheless, no debris field is evident and no evidence of any additional debris that may have originated on Earth.

“Given its small size and that there are no known human-made analogs and no logical explanation as to what purpose these spikes may serve, it does not seem likely these specimens are the remnants of craft or equipment that fell into Gale Crater.

"One can only speculate about extraterrestrial origin."

https://www.ladbible.com/news/world-news/ufo-hunter-weird-spaceship-ross-coulthart-445984-20230716

Unravelling the mystery of ‘Britain’s Roswell’: UFO expert reveals his controversial new theory on the Suffolk forest where 17 mysterious sightings were reported 43 years ago

08:27 EDT, 23 July 2023

• Ex-cop Gary Heseltine claims the UFO mystery may have occurred over six days

• Rendlesham Forest is central to one of the most mysterious UFO sightings ever

Dubbed 'Britain's Roswell', the Rendlesham Forest mystery has captivated UFO enthusiasts ever since it took place 42 years ago.

On three separate nights over Christmas, military personnel were convinced they had seen strange flashing lights near to a Royal Airforce base in Suffolk.

Numerous theories have emerged regarding what they saw that night, including pranks, a distant lighthouse and even time travel.

But former detective Gary Heseltine claims to have uncovered new information about the incident that brings everything we thought we knew into question.

Controversially, he believes the mind-boggling 1980 event may have taken place over five or six nights, having tracked 17 different sightings.

'In simple terms, the Rendlesham case is very different from most other UFO cases because it's not one event, it's a series of events over consecutive nights,' Heseltine told MailOnline.

For a long time it was believed there were only two events on two nights. Then over time more details came out, and we were pretty happy that it was three events over three nights.

'As a former detective, when I re-investigated this, I did it in a chronological way as best I could to break down the incidents and the different people involved.

'And, in the conclusion of my book, there were 17 different timed events involving numerous personnel over what is likely to be now a five to six day period.

'New information came to me that dates the first incident to be the 23rd of December - nobody had ever heard of that.'

Back in 1980, military personnel claimed to see lights hovering in the sky and descending into the woodland on three separate nights just before New Year.

While they were allegedly convinced these shapes were alien spacecraft, it has since been brushed off as a scaremongering prank played on the US air force by Britain's Special Air Service (SAS).

At the time, the SAS were said to have regularly tested the US security by probing the nearby perimeters of RAF Woodbridge, which allegedly stored nuclear warheads at the time of the Cold War.

On one occasion, the Brits were allegedly subjected to a brutal interrogation and beaten up by US security before being released 18 hours later after authorities intervened.

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>>19232394

However, Heseltine claims there was more to this incident than what has been made public, suggesting that it all started with airman Steve Wagner on December 23.

Just before Christmas Eve, it's said that Wagner investigated a strange incident near the East Gate of RAF Woodbridge as something had reportedly 'come down' amongst the trees.

Alongside two others, Wagner reportedly went out to investigate and in Heseltine's book 'Non Human' it's claimed they found something quite unexpected.

'The airman Steve Wagner says what they came across were depressions in an equilateral triangle in this little clearing near the trees,' Heseltine told MailOnline.

'What he said was really significant because the depressions were all the same size and shape - they were approximately 5ft wide.

'So the 23rd of December - if the day is accurate - and he said "I'm pretty certain it was before Christmas", it's a lot bigger than what happened on the night of Christmas night into Boxing Day - so hugely significant.'

As 42 years have now passed, Heseltine has largely relied on the corroboration of witness accounts to evidence these claims.

Alongside Wagner, the former detective has also investigated a number of other key witnesses including Jim Penniston, Ed Cabansag, Larry Warren and Sergeant Adrian Bustinza.

He now claims that three separate unexplained events also took place on December 27, six on December 28 and one on December 29.

One of his boldest claims regards US Lieutenant Bonnie Tamplin, who allegedly encountered an 'unknown object' near the site while driving.

This reportedly caused her to crash into a ditch, having lost complete control of her car.

The former detective even claims she was relieved from her duties after the incident and returned to the US in distress.

Heseltine's claims come just as the US Senate is expecting to consider a bipartisan measure regarding UFO sightings.

The 64-page UFO Disclosure Bill seeks to make all information relating to 'unidentified anomalous phenomena' (UAPs) public.

Heseltine believes that legislation such as this will help boost the legitimacy of extraterrestrial sightings at a time when they are often disregarded as bogus.

He thinks there is a chance that the UK may one day follow suit in its own legislation.

'In my lifetime I've never seen this level of build up to something that appears to be genuinely happening,' he added.

'There is such an excitement building that we might get official confirmation that we are dealing with a non-human intelligence.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12323293/Unravelling-mystery-Britains-Roswell-UFO-expert-uncovers-NEW-evidence-suggest-17-different-sightings-strange-lights-Suffolk-forest-42-years-ago.html

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>>19232294

A few more images of it