TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
June 15, 2025
Two Worlds, One Sun
How different does sunset appear from Mars than from Earth? For comparison, two images of our common star were taken at sunset, one from Earth and one from Mars. These images were scaled to have the same angular width and are featured here side-by-side. A quick inspection will reveal that the Sun appears slightly smaller from Mars than from Earth. This makes sense since Mars is 50% further from the Sun than Earth. More striking, perhaps, is that the Martian sunset is noticeably bluer near the Sun than the typically orange colors near the setting Sun from Earth. The reason for the blue hues from Mars is not fully understood, but thought to be related to forward scattering properties of Martian dust. The terrestrial sunset was taken in 2012 March from Marseille, France, while the Martian sunset was captured in 2015 by NASA's robotic Curiosity rover from Gale crater on Mars.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
UFO cover used by government to ‘hide a lot of things,’ former NASA agent says
Published June 15, 2025 6:00am EDT
In an era captivated by unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and government conspiracies, one former NASA official is cutting through the noise and casting doubt on aliens coming to Earth.
Joseph Gutheinz, a retired senior special agent with NASA’s Office of Inspector General and current criminal defense attorney, said it’s time to apply science, not speculation, to the debate.
"Prove it. Honestly, prove it," he said to those who believe in the presence of UFOs on Earth.
"They've been claiming that there have been UFOs since the 1940s. And, you know, Area 51 supposedly houses UFOs," he told Fox News Digital. "Have someone go in, look at Area 51."
Gutheinz said that during his work with the NASA Office of Inspector General, he would regularly get calls from individuals who believed they were abducted, or had a chip in their brain from aliens.
"What I used to tell my students was the possibility of anybody coming from another world to visit us was beyond unlikely," he said.
"And what I would tell the people that would call me up with these tales about being visited by aliens, see a psychiatrist."
Citing astronomical distances and scientific understanding of the solar system, Gutheinz explained the improbability of any extraterrestrial visitors reaching Earth.
"There are up to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way. There are maybe one to two trillion galaxies in the universe.
But the reality is this, the closest solar system is Alpha Centauri. Alpha Centauri A, B, and Proxima Centauri are the closest stars," he said.
"The bottom line is that it's 4.4 light years away, or 25 trillion miles away.
And if somebody started flying to Proxima and Satori, or the other way around, it would take them over 70,000 years to get there," he said. "Nobody is visiting us from another world, likely."
He pointed to moons like Europa, Ganymede, Titan, and Triton as the only plausible places for primitive life in our solar system.
"If there is life on any of those moons, it's possible. Again, it is primitive, it is microorganisms, it's nothing that's going to visit us in a flying saucer."
When asked whether such sightings could be explained as natural or spiritual phenomena, he suggested that it could be government testing.
"If you're seeing something up there, and it's real, it's coming from the Chinese or the Russians or your next-door neighbor flying around with their drone," he said.
Historical military secrecy, Gutheinz suggested, may have played a major role in fostering the UFO myths.
"I believe early on in the 1940s when all these UFO stories started coming up, it was because the military was probably testing some aircraft, and they didn't want the Russians to know about it," he said.
"And so, if the UFO cover worked, and I would not be surprised if there are some people in the military and the government that played along with that in order to conceal our stealth technology, that is really remarkable, and they just don't want to share that with other countries."
"The bottom line is, I think that we use the UFO cover to hide a lot of things."
Fox News Digital has reached out to NASA for comment.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/ufo-cover-used-government-hide-things-former-nasa-agent-says
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/former-nasa-official-has-a-message-for-all-ufo-believers-and-see-a-psychiatrist/articleshow/121862750.cms
NASA, Partners Review Axiom Mission 4 Launch Opportunities
June 14, 2025
NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX are reviewing launch opportunities no earlier than Thursday, June 19, for the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, Axiom Mission 4.
On June 12, NASA and Axiom Space delayed the mission as the agency continued to work with Roscosmos to understand the most recent repair efforts to seal small leaks.
The leaks, located in the aft (back) most segment of the International Space Station’s Zvezda service module, have been monitored by flight controllers for the past few years.
Following the most-recent repair, pressure in the transfer tunnel has been stable. Previously, pressure in this area would have dropped. This could indicate the small leaks have been sealed.
Teams are also considering the stable pressure could be the result of a small amount of air flowing into the transfer tunnel across the hatch seal from the main part of space station.
By changing pressure in the transfer tunnel and monitoring over time, teams are evaluating the condition of the transfer tunnel and the hatch seal between the space station and the back of Zvezda.
It is not uncommon for the agency and its international partners to adjust launches around changes in operations aboard the space station.
Teams are making progress evaluating the transfer tunnel configuration, resulting in an updated launch opportunity for the private astronaut mission.
In addition, SpaceX teams have repaired a liquid oxygen leak identified during post-static fire Falcon 9 rocket inspections. Following the repairs, the company completed a wet dress rehearsal of the Falcon 9.
Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, will command the commercial mission, while ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will serve as pilot.
The two mission specialists are ESA (European Space Agency) project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
The crew will lift off aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on Falcon 9 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2025/06/14/nasa-partners-review-axiom-mission-4-launch-opportunities/
https://www.axiomspace.com/missions/ax4
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=ax-4
Incredible NASA Imaging Shows the Most Traveled “Underwater Highways” on Earth
June 15, 2025
Photos taken from space help us better understand things that happen on land.
They visualize land masses such as mountain ranges, show where different ecosystems meet, and even how the population of cities expand over time.
But have you ever considered that space imaging may also help us understand the Earth’s oceans, too?
Oceans cover about 71% of Earth, while land makes up the remaining 29%.
It’s no secret that much of the world’s oceans are a mystery, but a project from NASA may help us uncover just a bit more of what happens beneath the surface.
An ocean current visualization model created by NASA’s Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECOO) Group plots out the most traveled underwater highways on Earth.
Pulling data from buoys, spacecraft, and other instruments, the model almost resembles Vincent van Gogh’s famous impasto style, immortalized in Starry Night.
Besides looking beautiful, this visualization also demonstrates the importance of Earth’s oceans in creating the conditions that allow life to thrive. Ocean currents function as underwater highways and operate on horizontal and vertical axes.
Thanks to this dual flow, ocean currents transport carbon, nutrients, and heat around the planet. In effect, these underwater highways support marine ecosystems and regulate the Earth’s climate.
In an article written for NASA, James Riordon says: “In addition to affecting global weather patterns and temperatures, western boundary currents can drive vertical flows in the oceans known as upwellings.
The flows bring nutrients up from the depths to the surface, where they act as fertilizer for phytoplankton, algae, and aquatic plants.” A prime example of this happens near the Kuroshio Current of Japan.
Upswelling that occurs there supports robust local marine ecosystems, which support Japan’s fishing industry.
The oceanic current patterns connect to essentially form a “conveyor belt,” which distributes heat from the equator towards the poles of the planet. It has a direct effect on regional climates, both near and far.
Take, for example, the Gulf Stream and the United States. This particular current is responsible for moderating temperatures along the U.S.’s Eastern Coast.
It is also important for the climate in Europe and parts of Africa: without it, the winters in the former would be significantly colder, and droughts would be more severe in the latter.
If you’ve watched any of the hurricanes that have recently occurred in the United States, you may notice that sometimes they seem to follow the path of these underwater highways as well.
With climate change and the increasing addition of freshwater from melting polar ice caps, the underwater highway systems are experiencing a slowdown in their current exchange.
Researchers worry that if currents continue to slow, these underwater highways may collapse. Such a breakdown would greatly affect planetary heat distribution, marine ecosystem support, and weather pattern disruption.
As we appreciate the beauty of this ocean visualization model and Earth’s underwater highways, we must remember how delicate these systems that sustain life are, and the consequences we may face if they become altered beyond repair.
While images from space usually show us what happens on land, a new project by NASA dives deeper into the Earth's oceans.
Developed using data from the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECOO) Group, the visualization model examines the planet's current systems.
These “underwater highways” regulate the Earth's temperature, support marine ecosystems, and determine regional climate and weather events.
https://mymodernmet.com/nasa-imaging-underwater-highways/
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/oceans/going-with-the-flow-visualizing-ocean-currents-with-ecco/
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14745
James Webb telescope discovers 'a new kind of climate' on Pluto, unlike anything else in our solar system
June 15, 2025
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have taken a fresh look at the distant edges of our solar system — and found that, once again, Pluto is defying expectations.
When NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto in 2015, it shattered the notion that the dwarf planet was a dormant ball of ice, instead revealing it to be rich with icy plains and jagged mountains.
But one of the biggest surprises floated above it all: a bluish, multi-layered haze blanketing the world's sky, stretching more than 185 miles (300 kilometers) above the surface — far higher and more intricate than scientists had predicted.
Now, nearly a decade later, new data from JWST confirm that Pluto's haze isn't just a visual oddity, it also controls the dwarf planet's climate.
"This is unique in the solar system," Tanguy Bertrand, an astronomer at the Paris Observatory in France who led the analysis, told Live Science. "It's a new kind of climate, let's say."
The findings, described in a study published June 2 in the journal Nature Astronomy, suggest similar dynamics may be at play on other haze-shrouded worlds in our solar system, and even offer clues about our own planet's early climate.
Lifting the haze
Pluto's high-altitude haze is made of complex organic molecules from sunlight-driven reactions of methane and nitrogen. The idea that this haze could control Pluto's climate was first proposed in 2017.
Computer models suggested these particles absorb sunlight during the day and release it back into space as infrared energy at night, cooling the atmosphere much more efficiently than gases alone.
This could also explain why Pluto's upper atmosphere is roughly -333 degrees Fahrenheit (-203 degrees Celsius) — 30 degrees cooler than expected.
For years, however, testing that theory proved difficult. One major challenge was Pluto's large moon, Charon, which orbits the frigid planet so closely that their thermal signals often overlap in telescope data.
"Basically, we couldn't know what part of the signal is due to Charon and what part is due to Pluto's haze," Bertrand said.
The researchers behind the 2017 study predicted that Pluto's haze would make the world unusually bright in mid-infrared wavelengths — a prediction that, at the time, could only be tested with future instruments.
That opportunity arrived in 2022, when JWST's powerful infrared instruments were finally able to separate the two worlds' signals. Sure enough, the faint infrared glow of Pluto's haze matched the predictions.
"In planetary science, it's not common to have a hypothesis confirmed so quickly, within just a few years," Xi Zhang, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz who led the 2017 team, said in a statement. "So we feel pretty lucky and very excited."
These findings also open up the possibility that similar haze-driven climates might exist on other hazy worlds, such as Neptune's moon Triton or Saturn's moon Titan, Bertrand said.
Even Earth's distant past might bear a resemblance, the researchers said. Before oxygen transformed our planet's skies, it's possible that Earth was veiled in a haze of organic particles — a blanket that may have helped stabilize temperatures and foster early life.
"By studying Pluto's haze and chemistry, we might get new insights into the conditions that made early Earth habitable," Zhang said in the statement.
https://www.livescience.com/space/pluto/james-webb-telescope-discovers-a-new-kind-of-climate-on-pluto-unlike-anything-else-in-our-solar-system
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24465.epdf
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-025-02573-z.epdf
India Space Congress starts on June 25: What is it?
Jun 15, 2025 06:29 pm
The fourth edition of the India Space Congress (ISC) will take place in New Delhi from June 25.
The three-day event, organized by the Satcom Industry Association of India, will bring together policymakers, diplomats, as well as industry leaders from around the world.
Delegates from 40 countries, including Italy, Norway, Australia, and Hungary, are expected to attend this year's ISC.
Investment opportunities
What to expect at the event?
The theme of this year's conference is "Pioneering Innovation in Space Tech: India's Journey Towards Global Partnerships."
Anil Prakash, Director General of SIA-India, said that ISC 2025 will be a "matchmaking hub" for institutional investors, many sovereign wealth funds, and private equity firms looking to invest in India's growing space economy.
The sector is projected to reach $44 billion by 2033.
Global partnerships
US-India roundtable discussion planned
A US-India roundtable will be held during the conference, focusing on accelerating innovation and collaboration via emerging opportunities.
The discussions will measure India's progress in extending Earth Observation solutions to the Global South for shared prosperity, further cementing international cooperation.
Subbarao Pavuluri, President of SIA-India, said that these talks would also highlight curated defense sessions as well as India's space contribution to the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC).
https://www.newsbytesapp.com/news/science/india-space-congress-to-be-held-in-new-delhi/story
https://www.indiaspacecongress.com/
Astronomers discover ultrapowerful black hole jet as bright as 10 trillion suns lit by Big Bang's afterglow
June 15, 2025
Astronomers have discovered extraordinarily powerful X-ray jets blasting from two supermassive black holes that are so ancient that the jets shine in the afterglow of the Big Bang.
"They are transforming the first light of the universe into high-energy jets," Jaya Maithil, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told reporters Monday (June 9) at the 246th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Anchorage, Alaska.
Using data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), Maithil and her team found that each jet spans a whopping 300,000 light-years — nearly three times the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy.
Each jet emerges from an actively feeding supermassive black hole, known as a quasar, located about 11.6 billion and 11.7 billion light-years away.
The researchers observed these immense structures as they appeared when the universe was just 3 billion years old, during a period when galaxies and their central black holes were growing at breakneck speed.
"These quasars are like cosmic time capsules," Maithil said. "If we understand them, we can understand how they were impacting the growth of their galaxy and the environment in which they resided."
One of the newfound jets, from a quasar known as J1610+1811, is visible in the Chandra image above. A slender, faint purple line extends from the quasar's brilliant white core toward the upper right, ending in a small, bright blob.
A second, dimmer jet appears to shoot in the opposite direction, downward and to the left. "It's like looking for candlelight in close vicinity to a flashlight that's blazing toward us," Maithil said.
What makes these jets particularly noteworthy is that they remain visible across billions of light-years.
In a paper accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, Maithil and her team suggested that the jets shine in X-rays thanks to interactions with the cosmic microwave background (CMB) — the faint relic radiation from the Big Bang left over after the universe cooled enough for starlight to travel freely for the first time, marking the end of the "cosmic dark ages."
Back when these jets formed, the CMB was far denser than it is today, filling space with a sea of low-energy photons.
As electrons in the jets raced outward at near light speed, they slammed into these CMB photons, boosting them into the X-ray range detectable by Chandra, according to the new study.
This process makes them visible across cosmic gulfs, despite their proximity to the quasars' dazzling cores, the researchers said.
The jet from J1610+1811 clocks in at 92% to 98% light, carrying about half as much energy as all the light emitted by matter spiraling into the black hole — a staggering output equivalent to that from 10 trillion suns, the new study found.
The second quasar, J1405+0415, located 11.7 billion light-years from Earth, features a jet just as powerful. By combining Chandra's X-ray and VLA's radio data, the researchers calculated that particles in the J1405+0415 jet are traveling at 95% to 99% the speed of light.
"We're finding that some black holes may carry a bigger punch at this stage in the universe than we thought," Maithil said in a statement.
https://www.space.com/astronomy/black-holes/astronomers-discover-ultrapowerful-black-hole-jet-as-bright-as-10-trillion-suns-lit-by-big-bangs-afterglow
https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.09676
https://chandra.si.edu/press/25_releases/press_060925.html
China launches new seismo-electromagnetic satellite with European partners
June 14, 2025
HELSINKI — China launched a second collaborative seismo-electromagnetic satellite early Saturday, aimed at detecting electromagnetic precursors to natural disasters such as earthquakes.
A Long March 2D rocket lifted off at 3:56 a.m. Eastern (0756 UTC) June 14 from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.
Launch footage showed insulation tiles falling away from the rocket as it climbed into a clear blue sky above the spaceport, with hypergolic exhaust also visible.
The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced launch success within 40 minutes of liftoff, revealing the mission to be carrying the China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite-2 (CSES-2), also known as Zhangheng-2, named after a Han dynasty polymath.
CSES-2 is based on CSES-1, which launched in 2018 and developed in collaboration with Italy, but also features upgrades in terms of design lifetime and expanded observation capabilities.
A new ionospheric photometer has been added to improve the satellite’s ability to analyze the ionosphere’s layered structure in greater detail.
Like CSES-1, the satellite will look for correlation between earthquakes and electron flux activity in the inner Van Allen belt.
“The satellite has a design life of six years and carries nine payloads, including an electric field detector developed by China and Italy and a high-energy particle detector developed by Italy,” according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
Austria is also involved in the mission, with the Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IWF) providing a scalar magnetometer.
CSES-2 will monitor global electromagnetic fields, ionospheric and atmospheric conditions in near real-time, and detect electromagnetic anomalies linked to geological or human activities, as well as thunderstorm and lightning events.
CSES-2 aims to enhance China’s early warning and risk assessment capabilities, and monitoring of natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and severe storms.
The satellite is intended to operate in a 507-kilometer-altitude sun-synchronous orbit, matching that of CSES-1, but with a phase difference of 180 degrees.
U.S. Space Force space domain awareness cataloged an object associated with the June 14 launch in a closely matching orbit.
CSES-2 is based on a 3-axis-stabilized CAST2000 platform from DFH Satellite Co., Ltd., under the umbrella of CASC.
The new satellite looks to build on the work of the first in the series.
The CSES-1 satellite detected significant changes in electric and magnetic field oscillations, plasma density and energetic particles that correlate with seismic activity and thunderstorms, according to a paper published in the journal Earthquake Research Advances in January.
Its observations also include potential precursory signals to earthquakes and volcanic activity, such as ionospheric disturbances and plasma anomalies, suggesting that space-based electromagnetic monitoring can support early warning systems.
The mission was China’s 34th orbital launch attempt of 2025, following a June 5 launch of five satellites for the Guowang constellation using a Long March 6A rocket.
https://spacenews.com/china-launches-new-seismo-electromagnetic-satellite-with-european-partners/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277246702400040X
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63jN2VOw8Bg
Russia tests new laser weapons
14 Jun, 2025 20:13
Russia has successfully tested eight anti-aircraft laser systems, the government said on Friday. They were designed specifically to tackle drone threats, the statement added.
The trials were attended by senior Russian officials, including Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov.
The tests were conducted at specialized proving grounds and organized by Russia’s Military-Industrial Commission and Ministry of Industry and Trade.
“During the tests, the accuracy of guidance, range of destruction, reaction speed of the systems to moving air targets, and resistance to various weather conditions were checked,” the Russian government said in its statement.
Eight new weapons, ranging from “compact mobile devices to stationary high-power systems,” were tested during the trials.
The laser weapons faced assorted targets, including small-sized commercial drones and “more complex devices simulating reconnaissance and attack drones,” the Kremlin said.
Footage of the trials shows drones getting shot out of the sky by laser beams and crashing into the ground. The video also features the destroyed targets put on display, with some of the drones appearing to bear distinct burn marks.
All the systems featured at the test performed as advertised by their manufacturers, the statement noted. It also said that the trials proved “the correctness of the chosen direction for the development of integrated defense systems” to protect critical infrastructure facilities from UAVs.
The trials pave the way to mass production of the relevant systems and to scaling the solutions displayed by the manufacturers, it added.
Attempts to create laser-based weaponry, including anti-aircraft systems, have been repeatedly made by many nations.
Most combat laser systems however, never made it past the prototype stage, being plagued by assorted operational and technical issues, including too short a range and dependency on high-output power sources.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine, where cheap mass-produced drones have become a key tool for both battlefield use and long-range strikes, has apparently given a new impetus to the development of laser-based systems.
In recent months, several countries, including Ukraine, India, and Israel, have unveiled new weapons of the type.
https://www.rt.com/russia/619316-russia-new-laser-weapons/
Putin and Trump discuss Iran and Ukraine – Kremlin
14 Jun, 2025 16:17
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump spoke over the phone on Saturday, discussing the attacks between Iran and Israel and the Ukraine conflict, according to the Kremlin.
The call lasted approximately one hour.
The Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov called the conversation “meaningful, frank, and most importantly, very useful.”
Putin condemned Israel’s strikes on Friday, particularly noting that they occurred just before nuclear negotiations between Iran and the US scheduled for June 15, he said.
“Despite such a complicated situation, the Russian and American presidents didn’t rule out a return to the negotiating track on the Iranian nuclear program,” Putin’s aide added.
On Friday, Iran confirmed that Israeli attacks killed Major General Hossein Salami, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Major General Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, along with several nuclear scientists.
In retaliation, Tehran fired dozens of ballistic missiles into Israel, some of which reportedly breached its air defenses.
Putin and Trump also discussed the latest prisoner swaps between Moscow and Kiev. The Russian president also confirmed readiness to continue negotiations with Ukraine “after June 22.”
During the latest round of direct talks in Istanbul on June 2, the two sides agreed to carry out a series of exchanges, focusing primarily on seriously injured, ill, and younger captives.
Russia also unilaterally decided to repatriate the bodies of more than 6,000 fallen Ukrainian troops on humanitarian grounds.
Ushakov also stated that Putin extended birthday wishes to Trump, who turned 79 on Saturday.
“Both presidents expressed their satisfaction with the personal relationships that allow [them] to communicate in a businesslike manner, [and] to seek solutions to pressing issues on the bilateral and international agenda, no matter how complex these issues may be,” Putin’s aide concluded.
https://www.rt.com/russia/619309-putin-trump-discuss-iran-ukraine/
Iran to roll back cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog
15 Jun, 2025 02:44
Tehran will limit its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over what it has called the organization’s “silence” regarding Israeli strikes, according to Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi.
Israeli jets bombed nuclear and military facilities in Iran on Friday morning in what West Jerusalem described as an operation to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran, which denies having a military nuclear program, responded by saying the bombing was tantamount to a declaration of war and launched its own strikes against Israel.
Tehran also suspended nuclear negotiations with the US; the next round had originally been scheduled for Sunday.
“We have decided that, from now on, we will no longer announce the details of our nuclear activities to the Agency in advance.
This is part of a review of the level of our cooperation, which will no longer be the same as before,” Gharibabadi told SNN on Saturday.
“We have always maintained the most transparent peaceful nuclear program, but when the Agency and its Board of Governors remain silent in the face of Israeli aggression or issue resolutions influenced by political pressure, we can no longer maintain the same level of cooperation,” he added.
Without directly blaming Israel, the IAEA released a statement on Friday stressing that attacks on civilian nuclear sites are illegal under international law and called for dialogue.
The international watchdog had previously reported finding uranium traces at locations Iran had not declared as nuclear sites and, on Thursday, formally accused the Islamic Republic of breaching its non-proliferation obligations.
Tehran has rejected the allegations as politically motivated.
https://www.rt.com/news/619337-iran-roll-back-iaea/
Russia delivers remains of over 1,200 troops to Ukraine – sources
15 Jun, 2025 10:25
Moscow has handed over the bodies of another 1,200 fallen Ukrainian troops to Kiev, RT has learned. There have been several exchanges already between the two sides during the week.
The transfer reportedly happened in line with agreements reached during talks in Istanbul earlier this month, sources told RT on Sunday.
The sources added that Kiev had not returned any Russian troop remains in the latest exchange.
During the negotiations in Türkiye on June 2, delegations from Moscow and Kiev agreed to carry out a series of prisoner swaps, focusing primarily on seriously injured, ill, and younger POWs.
Russia also unilaterally decided to repatriate the bodies of more than 6,000 slain Ukrainian troops on humanitarian grounds.
POW swaps between the sides have taken place on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, with neither Moscow nor Kiev officially disclosing the number of prisoners they handed over and received.
Russia initially tried to return the remains over the previous weekend, but Ukraine’s representatives failed to show up at the exchange point on the border between Belarus and Ukraine.
Kiev later claimed that it had not agreed on the date of the transfer and accused Moscow of “using humanitarian issues for information purposes.”
The handover eventually began mid-week, with Ukraine receiving 1,212 bodies from Russia on Wednesday and 1,200 more on Friday.
According to Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who serves as Moscow’s chief negotiator in talks with Kiev, Ukraine has so far returned the bodies 27 slain Russian servicemen.
https://www.rt.com/russia/619361-fallen-troops-kiev-moscow/
Shahed Drone Factory in Russia Reportedly Struck - Fires, Airport Shutdowns Follow
June 15, 2025, 4:47 pm
Three attack drones were launched toward a base housing U.S. forces in Iraq as the Iranian regime carried out ballistic missile and UAV attacks on Israel, two American officials confirmed to the Associated Press on Saturday.
The drones heading for Al-Asad Airbase in Anbar province were intercepted, according to a U.S. military official and a second U.S. official, who both spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to brief the press.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the AP.
The leader of the Iraq-based Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia Kata’ib Hezbollah, Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, threatened on Sunday to intervene in the Israel-Iran conflict.
Al-Hamidawi said the militia was closely monitoring the actions of Israel and the United States, and if Washington intervenes in the Jewish state’s war with Iran, it would attack American interests and bases in the Middle East “without hesitation.”
However, the terrorist leader in his statement claimed that the Islamic Republic does not need any help to deter Jerusalem and that it has the capabilities to “bury [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s nose in the dirt” and to “rein in the tyranny of this usurping entity.”
Kata’ib Hezbollah also urged the “closing of the embassy of the greatest evil,” a reference to the United States legation in Baghdad, and “expelling the American occupation forces from the country, as they pose the clearest and gravest threat to Iraq’s security and the stability of the region.”
The United States in 2009 designated Kata’ib Hezbollah (“The Battalions of the Party of God”), which is a separate and distinct organization from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, as a foreign terrorist group due to its incessant attacks on U.S. diplomatic and military personnel in Iraq and Syria.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/54559
Mixing up my headlines again
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Drone attack on US airbase in Iraq intercepted
June 15, 2025
https://www.jns.org/drone-attack-on-us-airbase-in-iraq-intercepted/
Shahed Drone Factory in Russia Reportedly Struck - Fires, Airport Shutdowns Follow
June 15, 2025, 4:47 pm
Smoke was seen rising over Yelabuga city in Russia’s Tatarstan Republic on Sunday, June 15, amid drone attacks that reportedly targeted a Shahed drone manufacturing plant.
Local Telegram channels, including Astra, suggested the Alabuga plant, known for producing Shahed drones, may have been struck. Multiple videos posted on social media show smoke billowing from areas allegedly near the facility.
“An air threat regime was declared in the region at 06:30. According to locals, drones were spotted in Chistopol and Yelabuga,” Russian media reported.
Flights were temporarily restricted at three Russian airports on Sunday morning – Izhevsk, Kazan, and Nizhnekamsk.
Izhevsk and Kazan are in Tatarstan, while Nizhnekamsk is the capital of the Udmurtia Republic. The drones themselves were also captured on video during the attack.
According to the Baza Telegram channel, one person was killed and 13 were injured.
The head of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, indirectly confirmed the strike, saying a drone had hit an “automobile plant” and naming the same casualty figures, although no official statement about a drone attack was issued.
“During the interception of a UAV, debris fell on the checkpoint building of the automobile plant in the Yelabuga district. As a result, one worker was killed, and 13 people were injured,” Minnikhanov wrote on his Telegram.
He said that one of the injured was in serious condition, while the others received necessary medical care. A fire also broke out at the plant but was quickly extinguished.
The Alabuga facility, built in 2023 in the Alabuga special economic zone, is widely reported to produce Shahed attack drones. Alabuga is the largest industrial special economic zone in Russia, located near Yelabuga, Naberezhnye Chelny, and Nizhnekamsk.
It spans nearly 4,000 hectares and is controlled by the Ministry of Land and Property Relations of the Republic of Tatarstan.
As of 2019, Alabuga accounted for over half of the total revenue, a third of tax contributions, and nearly 40% of private investment among all special economic zones in Russia.
This is not the first time Yelabuga has come under drone attack. The first reported strike occurred in April 2024 and was attributed to Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR). Additional drone strikes hit the city in April and May this year.
Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, previously stated that in 2024, Russia produced over 6,000 Shahed drones and thousands of decoy UAVs at Alabuga.
The production target this year is reportedly set at 8,000-10,000 combat drones and 15,000 decoy drones.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/54559
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyqry9dkz8o
'Floodgates' opened on prison drones
June 14, 2025
A former prison officer at a high-security jail where a member of staff was recently stabbed by an inmate, has said the "floodgates" have been opened on the use of drones to smuggle in weapons and drugs.
A 25-year-old prison officer was stabbed at Long Martin on 30 May and had to undergo emergency surgery. At the time, a source told the BBC the knife used was "not a prison-made weapon".
A former officer at Long Lartin, who we are calling Adam, said the problem had got worse in recent years, with drones coming in "left, right, and centre".
In response, the government said it had "inherited a prison system in crisis - overcrowded, with drugs and violence rife", but was addressing the problems.
"We are gripping the situation and clamping down on illicit items through X-ray body scanners and restricted fly zones for drones, " a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said.
Adam said the extent of drone use had initially come as a surprise.
"We knew it could happen in city prisons without high funding, like Hewell and Birmingham, but not in high-security prisons," he said. "But the floodgates have opened."
"We used to smell a bit of weed at night time - you'd identify the cell and put that person in for a drug test.
"But it got so bad, you could be walking up the corridors to the wings and it could stink of weed."
The former prison officer said inmates would make their own weapons "out of anything", including melting down razor blades or sharpening tooth brushes.
But he said these makeshift weapons were not as dangerous as the knives that were being flown in.
A spokesperson for the Prison Officers' Association (POA) told the BBC it had warned governments for some time "about the dangers posed by the use of drones to deliver contraband such as drugs, mobile phones, weapons into jails".
"This is unquestionably increasing the risks to staff, and destabilising prisons," they added. "Without action, it is only a matter of time until a firearm is delivered to a prison by drone."
In a 2023 report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons, after an unannounced visit of Long Lartin in December 2022, an inspector said: "The prison had good defences against the ingress of drugs through drones or throwovers."
However, by January 2025, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, called for "urgent action" to tackle drones at HMP Long Lartin and HMP Manchester following inspections in September and October 2024.
The 2025 Long Lartin report said: The risks are clear for a jail that has, in effect, ceded the airspace above it to serious organised crime."
Fifty per cent of Long Lartin inmates who responded to a survey by the inspectorate also said it was easy to get drugs and alcohol, which the report said "was an astonishing rate for a Category A prison".
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Attacks on staff
The 25-year-old prison officer who was attacked in May is now recovering at home after having emergency surgery, according to a social media post made by his girlfriend.
Adam, who knows the victim, told the BBC: "He's a good kid - keen and enthusiastic. He's not an idiot, he's not mean and nasty." However, the attack on him is not an isolated incident.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request sent by the BBC to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) revealed Long Lartin had 35 incidents over the past five years in which officers missed at least a week of work either following a physical assault or through an injury sustained while restraining an inmate.
In 2022 alone, 13 incidents had to be reported by the prison to the HSE.
This included an officer suffering burns after a prisoner threw boiling water over them, while another received an inch-deep puncture wound to the neck after visiting a prisoner's cell.
In another case, an officer was "choked out of consciousness" by a prisoner after responding to an emergency bell.
On one occasion, Adam said a senior governor had her jaw broken by an inmate.
Nine attacks took place in 2024, including an officer being knocked out after being punched in the head and kicked by a prisoner while supervising his move to a workshop.
Adam mentioned a number of factors to the BBC that he believed were making the environment more dangerous to staff.
He said a full lockdown search of the jail had not been performed since the Covid pandemic, and that inmates could hide weapons in places guards would be unable to find during basic checks due to screwdrivers being flown into the prison - making it easier to hide contraband in furniture.
Adam also claimed there were no thorough searches conducted after drones would be seen over the prison.
When attacks did happen, Adam said there were rarely significant consequences.
He said staff had "very little faith" in the official adjudication process, intended to deal with such incidents involving inmates.
'The job's not worth it'
Adam said the situation at Long Lartin had got "worse and worse" over the years, with staff not feeling safe at work.
He told the BBC that one governor even said "prisons aren't a place where you're supposed to feel safe" and that they would be surprised if staff at work felt safe.
This response was made in reply to concerns about proposals to have just one uniformed officer in workshops with inmates, led by civilians.
"More and more experienced staff are saying the job's not worth it," Adam said. The MOJ told the BBC: "We take the safety and wellbeing of staff extremely seriously.
"To further protect our hardworking staff, front-line prison officers working in the highest risk areas will be given protective body armour to keep them safe from harm."
They also said the prison service was working with police to deter illegal drone use around prisons, and that they were investing targeted countermeasures such as improvements to windows, netting and grilles, to stop drones from successfully delivering cargo such as drugs and weapons.
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https://www.twz.com/air/massive-chinese-stealth-flying-wing-emerges-at-secretive-base
https://www.twz.com/this-is-what-lockheeds-stealth-bomber-would-have-looked-like
Massive Stealth Flying Wing Emerges At Secretive Chinese Base
Updated Jun 14, 2025 7:06 PM EDT
In an exclusive development regarding China’s rapidly accelerating next-generation air combat programs, we have just gotten our first glimpse of a very large, low-observable, flying-wing, long-endurance unmanned aircraft.
The image of the previously unseen aircraft sitting outside of an already intriguing hangar complex at an airfield notorious for advanced air combat programs comes to us from the Planet Labs archive.
The image was taken on May 14th, 2025, and just appeared in the database.
The photo shows China’s secretive test base near Malan in Xinjiang province, which is known to be on the leading edge of the country’s unmanned aircraft development efforts.
Specifically, the craft was parked outside of a sprawling new facility that was built very recently to the east of the base, connected to it by a very long taxiway leading to a security gate.
Construction of the installation began just over two years ago. The high-security site is very densely populated with hangars of various sizes.
These include estimated (based on early construction satellite images) 70-meter, 50-meter, 20-meter, and 15-meter bays. The craft in question is sitting outside one of the largest bays.
The low-slung large hangars are reminiscent of the shelters for U.S. B-2 bombers at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri or infrastructure we see at the U.S. Air Force’s Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, associated with flying-wing aircraft.
The smaller bays at Malan are a bit more of a puzzle.
It wasn’t previously apparent what this facility was intended to do, but now it seems clearer that it may be a testing base for China’s next generation air combat ecosystem, which would include aircraft of multiple sizes — from the H-20 stealth bomber, to large stealthy flying wing drones, the the tri-engined J-36, to the J-XDS fighter, and of course, smaller tactical drones. It could also be a new test center specifically for next generation unmanned capabilities that will work with these programs.
The U.S. Air Force is developing its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) and Long-Range Strike (LRS) family of systems in a similar manner.
This would perfectly explain the puzzling variety of bay sizes for such a compact base and its high-security nature. Still, this is just a guess based on the very small amount of visual evidence available.
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The newly emerged aircraft itself appears impressive. It is a large flying wing that has a span of roughly 52 meters, or about 170 feet. The B-2 Spirit is 172 feet wide, for comparison, and the B-21 is a bit smaller.
The best explanation is that this is a very large, high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) stealthy drone — similar to the supposed U.S. RQ-180 — but this would be the biggest we have ever seen.
China is developing a number of flying-wing type designs of various sizes, including large HALE drones, but nothing at this scale, at least that we know about.
It is also worth mentioning that the aircraft seen in the new imagery has a close resemblance to one that was spotted passing over the Philippines in 2021.
The planform is similar to that of the B-21, with the wingtips appearing to be clipped at an angle, similar to it and the B-2. While there is a white area that appears to give the left wing a sharper tip, that is not the case as proven by the shadows below it.
The sweep looks less than a B-2 or B-21, pointing to endurance at altitude as a significant design driver. There also appears to be a center barrel or domed section. This is customary on flying-wing designs.
It can house a cockpit and additional internal volume for a manned aircraft or even the intake and the engines for an unmanned ones. Beyond line-of-sight communications systems are also usually installed here.
The length from the nose to tail is roughly 46-feet, making it a more svelte design than the B-21, for instance.
No cockpit is visible, nor features like inlets, unless they are at the leading edge of the center dome structure, but the resolution really limits making out those kinds of details.
Finally, and most interestingly, there appears to be a small set of angled vertical tails, at least as indicated by the shadows and what seem like vertical extensions on its upper management. This is not a conclusive feature.
It could be something else causing this optical property, but it’s worth noting that small vertical tails on large flying wing concepts are not unheard of.
It is very challenging to impart stability of this kind of large flying-wing design, and small tails would greatly assist in this. You can read all about this here.
What is critical to state here is that the emergence of this aircraft is very unlikely to be an accident. China is fully aware that commercial satellites are passing over at any given time, and they could keep hidden any program they wanted.
Mistakes could happen, but, taken at face value, it’s far more likely China was ready for this aircraft to be seen by satellites.
It’s also possible that they could use exactly this knowledge for information warfare purposes, rolling out a mockup or decoy in order to confuse foreign intelligence units, which are watching this facility far more closely and with much better resolution than what a publicly accessible commercial satellite service can provide. These factors are always worth remembering. Still, the fact is that this facility also looks built for such a machine, at least in part.
So there you have it. This is likely our first clear look at China’s largest and most capable HALE drone — the existence of which could be highly problematic when it comes to enabling targeting of American ships and other assets, as well as installations, deep in the Pacific, for instance.
This is the third major revelation we have had just in the last seven months when it comes to China’s rapidly evolving next-generation air combat capabilities, and it probably won’t be the last for 2025.
Author’s note: This piece was edited shortly after publishing to remove the possibility that this could be the H-20 bomber, albeit we stated it was far less likely than a HALE unmanned aircraft. Upon further examination, we think it’s worth removing that possibility from the text.
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Drone, K-9 help find suspect hiding in retention pond: Westlake Police Blotter
Jun. 14, 2025, 4:21 p.m.
WESTLAKE, Ohio – While investigating a suspicious car in the parking lot of the WestSpring Inn on June 6 at 4:30 a.m., officers questioned a man driving around the parking lot who said he was staying at the hotel.
After the man stepped away from the officers, ostensibly to purchase a soft drink, the officers learned the Lake County Sheriff’s Office wanted him on a charge of possessing a stolen vehicle.
A hotel clerk told the officers that the suspect had run across the street into a wooded area adjacent to I-90. Officers, assisted by a drone and a North Ridgeville police dog, searched for the man.
He was found partially submerged in a retention pond and arrested. Westlake officials charged the 34-year-old Cleveland man with failure to comply and resisting arrest.
https://www.cleveland.com/community/2025/06/drone-k-9-help-find-suspect-hiding-in-retention-pond-westlake-police-blotter.html
Investigation may reveal why there are so many more UFO sightings in US compared to anywhere else
14:07 15 Jun 2025 GMT+1
The ongoing question about why there's been so many apparent 'alien sightings' in America may have finally been answered.
I'm sure we can all agree that America loves an alien-related conspiracy theory, with there being hundreds of UFO sightings in the country over the years.
In fact, data shows that the US is one country with the most UFO sightings in the world. According to the National UFO Reporting Center, there have been over 105,000 reported sightings and encounters of UFOs in the United States since 1947, MITechNews reports.
In 2025 alone, there's already been a 36 sightings, says World Population Review, but coming up top this year so far is actually the UK with a reported 59 sightings.
With the numerous UFO sightings in the US in mind, scientist Sean Kirkpatrick was tasked with heading an investigation into 'unidentified anomalous phenomena' and thus the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was born in 2022.
As part of their examination, AARO had to collect data on sightings and assess whether they could be explained by earthly technology, The Wall Street Journal explained in a new report.
Of the hundreds of reported sightings, as probably expected, AARO linked a lot of incidents to balloons, birds, and drones cluttering the skies. In regards to pilot accounts, the so-called 'orbs' seen by them were put down as being 'reflections of the sun from Starlink satellites'.
AARO were also tasked with reviewing the historical records going all the way back to 1945 in regards to former military personnel's claims that Washington supposedly operated a secret program to harvest alien technology.
Kirkpatrick and his teamed interviewed a former Air Force officer who was allegedly told about 'a secret alien project' some decades earlier — a project so secret that he was told at the time that if he shared such information about it, he'd be jailed or even executed.
Such sentiments were allegedly echoed to other Air Forces officers, who didn't even tell their own spouses about the apparent secret project.
But Kirkpatrick and his team have since come to the conclusion that this was some kind of strange prank that was played on new Air Force commanders, which has played a part in fueling the rumours about UFO sightings in the US, possibly explaining why the country has so many more 'sightings' compared to other parts of the world.
The WSJ explained: "For decades, certain new commanders of the Air Force’s most classified programs, as part of their induction briefings, would be handed a piece of paper with a photo of what looked like a flying saucer.
The craft was described as an antigravity maneuvering vehicle. "The officers were told that the program they were joining, dubbed Yankee Blue, was part of an effort to reverse-engineer the technology on the craft.
They were told never to mention it again. Many never learned it was fake."
As well as for what's been described as 'hazing' purposes, these false stories about aliens were also said to be concocted 'to create a smokescreen for real secret-weapons programs'.
More of the AARO’s findings on the matter are expected to be included in a second volume of the Defense Department's Historical Record Report later this year.
https://www.unilad.com/news/us-news/investigation-pentagon-ufo-sightings-america-593275-20250614
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/why-are-alien-visits-and-ufo-sightings-highest-in-america-explosive-truth-revealed-in-new-report/articleshow/121863705.cms
https://www.aaro.mil/UAP-Cases/UAP-Reporting-Trends/
https://x.com/DOD_AARO
AARO, can you start adding timestamps to your articles and stuff?
Seems silly to not have it.
That'd be great, thanks.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14802637/flying-saucer-Sahara-Desert-discovered.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kphsg3wsc2w
Mysterious 'flying saucer' in the Sahara Desert is discovered on Google Maps – as baffled viewers suggest it could be a crashed UFO
Updated: 03:58 EDT, 15 June 2025
From a mysterious 'doorway' in the Antarctic to hidden symbols in the Gobi Desert, Google Maps has revealed some weird and wonderful secrets over the years.
But this latest discovery might be one of the strangest yet.
Keen-eyed internet sleuths have spotted what seems to be a 'flying saucer' buried in the Sahara Desert.
According to some baffled viewers, the unusual structure could be a crashed UFO that has been buried for thousands of years.
The mysterious object is located near the tiny town of Bordj Omar Driss, Algeria, deep within the Sahara Desert.
UFO hunter Scott Waring, who made the strange discovery, told MailOnline: 'It's likely the UFO has been there for tens of thousands of years, predating recorded human history.
'I also want to note, that the CIA and other organizations will have people try to label any discoveries of UFOs on Google Earth Map as something else in order to manipulate and deceive the public from knowing the truth.'
Unfortunately for these alien hunters, experts say there is a much simpler explanation.
The odd structure was spotted on Google Maps at the coordinates 28°8'45.15'N 6°48'20.85'E.
In a video sharing his findings, Mr Waring claims that the 'UFO' is buried 34.4 feet (10.5m) according to Google Earth Pro's elevation measuring tools.
Mr Waring told MailOnline that, at the Sahara's sediment accumulation rate of 0.5 mm per year, the 'UFO' must have landed 21,000 years ago to be buried so deeply.
He also points to the fact that the structure isn't present in early satellite images of the site, suggesting that it must have been 'excavated' recently.
On social media, Mr Waring's surprising comments have found widespread support, as commenters rushed to share their excitement.
One enthusiastic commenter wrote: 'I would love to know the whole story but this definitely looks like a crash site or something considering it popped up on the map out of nowhere.'
'I wonder whether some bodies have been found… This is so weird,' added another.
While one conspiratorially minded commenter wrote: 'Take screen shots everyone, cause you know Google is going to make this disappear.'
Adding fuel to the flames of speculation, Mr Waring adds: 'The UFO seems to have been torn open around the lower center dome. Possibly to enter the craft in order to loot it before government officials get hold of it.'
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However, the real explanation for this strange site is much more mundane.
Nick Pope, former UFO investigator for the Ministry of Defence, told MailOnline: 'With the recent expansion in the capabilities of AI, it's increasingly difficult to ensure that images haven't been faked, or doctored.
'But even assuming the picture is genuine and not altered in any way, it's impossible to tell much from the image alone.
'There's no context, and applying the principle of Occam's Razor - that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one - this is more likely to be a circular building or structure of some sort than a crashed alien spacecraft.'
And, thanks to the work of some online investigators, we actually know exactly what kind of building this is.
The 'mysterious' structure is actually just the foundation for an onshore wind turbine.
Before the tower is added, these huge reinforced concrete structures are dug deep into the ground which would explain why the structure appears to be below the surface.
With a classic 'flying saucer' shape of a round body and central dome, it is easy to see how someone might mistake these structures for a UFO.
But looking at aerial photographs of known wind turbines you can see that this Saharan structure is almost certainly the base of another wind turbine.
In other satellite images of the location, this similarity is even clearer.
Likewise, as UFO analyst and sceptic Mick West points out, there is another foundation just to the southwest where the tower of the wind turbine has already started construction.
Algeria, where these were found, is currently undergoing a major investment in wind power, with the government aiming to produce 27 per cent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2035.
The country also has some of the world's greatest potential for wind power with consistent wind speeds of up to eight metres per second in many regions.
This makes it a lot more likely that there would be a wind turbine under construction than a secret, ancient UFO hidden beneath the desert.
Unfortunately, UFO investigators say wild claims like these actually interfere with their search for extraterrestrial life.
UFO researcher Philip Mantle, told MailOnline: 'The vast majority of UFO sighting reports including photos and video end up having a rational explanation.
'Then there is an amount that just doesn't have enough info to reach a conclusion.
'This leaves only a very small minority that may be left for serious examination.
'Photos like this are not to be taken seriously and rank alongside stories that Elvis is still alive and he lives with Lord Lucan.'
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