TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
February 5, 2026
NGC 1275 in the Perseus Cluster
Active galaxy NGC 1275 is the central, dominant member of the large and relatively nearby Perseus Cluster of Galaxies. Wild-looking at visible wavelengths, the active galaxy is also a prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission. NGC 1275 accretes matter as entire galaxies fall into it, ultimately feeding a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's core. Narrowband image data used in this sharp telescopic image highlights the resulting galactic debris and filaments of glowing gas, some up to 20,000 light-years long. The filaments persist in NGC 1275, even though the turmoil of galactic collisions should destroy them. What keeps the filaments together? Observations indicate that the structures, pushed out from the galaxy's center by the black hole's activity, are held together by magnetic fields. Also known as Perseus A, NGC 1275 itself spans over 100,000 light years and lies about 230 million light years away.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrV8KXNFb4E
Unique Solar Storm Impact, Big Sunspots | S0 News and frens
Feb.5.2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zYY-fbkFLI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wy95YF3KL8 (Ray's Astrophotography: MAGNETIC POLES 🧲 How Fast Are They Drifting? (What They Don’t Explain))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E17vSKxBy4 (The Real BPEarthWatch: Major Updates Feb 4th 2026)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJt9eSRw7dA (Stefan Burns: The Solar Storm Racing to Earth May Surprise Us…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k97n4uQDXDA (Donsonian Power: WHY THE SUN IS OUT OF CONTROL RIGHT NOW)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9lk1ab_M_w (VideoFromSpace: Orion constellation, a 'planetary parade' and more in Feb. 2026 skywatching)
https://weather.com/science/space/video/space-station-view-of-awesome-auroras
https://www.space.com/live/aurora-forecast-northern-lights-possible-tonight-feb-4
https://x.com/SchumannBotDE/status/2019426105447338103
https://x.com/MrMBB333/status/2019314659170635929
https://x.com/Vincent_Ledvina/status/2019293756231675951
https://www.space.com/stargazing/auroras/photographer-captures-rare-aurora-over-brazil-during-intense-geomagnetic-storm-photo
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/update-x81-strong-flare-region-4366
https://spaceweather.com/
Between that and the World Cup, things may be about to get a lot more exciting.
New map shows weird magnetic anomaly lurking beneath Australia's Northern Territory
February 4, 2026
New mapping in Australia has revealed a strange dent in the magnetic field beneath the country's Northern Territory.
The Australia Magnetic Anomaly, named after its similarity in shape to the country, holds valuable information about Australia's geological history, including how different rock layers formed and acquired their distinctive magnetic properties.
"Magnetic data allows us to see through the ground and understand geological architecture that would otherwise remain completely hidden," project lead Clive Foss, a senior research geoscientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), said in a statement.
A magnetic anomaly is a local variation in Earth's magnetic field caused by the magnetic properties of certain minerals and rocks, such as iron ore deposits, in the crust.
From the moment they form, rocks start to develop magnetic signatures that incorporate information about the direction of Earth's magnetic field at that specific time. This "magnetic memory," known as remanent magnetism, helps scientists reconstruct rocks' past.
However, the magnetic field occasionally flips, and tectonic processes can change rocks' orientation, which muddles the picture. But if scientists can decipher the various clues encrypted in a rock's magnetic signature, they can reconstruct exactly what the rock went through and when.
The Australia Magnetic Anomaly contains structures such as faults, folds and basins that traditional mapping techniques haven't been able to detect, according to the statement.
To explore these hidden layers, Foss and his team used advanced modeling techniques to better visualize magnetic data collected during the Northern Territory Government's 1999 Bonney Well Survey.
For that survey, planes fitted with magnetometers — instruments that measure magnetic fields — flew across the Northern Territory in regular lines separated by about 1,300 feet (400 meters).
Scientists previously tried to map these data, but the maps didn't always render magnetic signals clearly — particularly along the flight lines, according to the statement.
The new modeling has solved this problem. "My colleague, Dr Aaron Davis, created an innovative gridding algorithm which refined the dataset and produced cleaner, more consistent images," Foss said.
"By improving how we process and model these datasets, we can extract more geological information than ever before."
The researchers identified subtle magnetic layers, as well as buried geological boundaries and structures that previous mapping didn't pick up.
The team is still working to interpret these findings, but preliminary results show that the western margin of the Australia Magnetic Anomaly is exposed at the surface in the Northern Territory's Hatches Creek Formation — a geological unit composed of sandstones and volcanic rocks that were deposited between 2.5 billion and 1.6 billion years ago.
Ultimately, mapping the Australia Magnetic Anomaly could lead to important geological discoveries, including opportunities for resource exploration, according to the statement. Companies and Australia's government could benefit from research that creates more detailed maps of mineral deposits.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/geology/new-map-shows-weird-magnetic-anomaly-lurking-beneath-australias-northern-territory
https://www.csiro.au/en/news/All/Articles/2026/January/Australia-magnetic-anomaly
They've been foreshadowing this since 1898, at least.
Serious, we have to be close because of that right there, they have to attempt to pull out of the eternally damning with the biggest hail mary ever.
NASA’s SPHEREx Mission Tracks Brightening of Interstellar Comet
February 4, 2026
NASA’s SPHEREx mission turned its infrared gaze on interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in December 2025, adding to the deep pool of information the agency has gathered on what is only the third such object to be discovered passing through our solar system.
In a new research note, mission scientists describe the detection of organic molecules, such as methanol, cyanide, and methane.
On Earth, organic molecules are the foundation for biological processes but can be created by non-biological processes as well.
The researchers also note a dramatic increase in brightness two months after the icy body had passed its closest distance to the Sun, a phenomenon associated with comets as they vent water, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide into space.
As a comet approaches the Sun after traveling from deep space, its frozen surface heats up and sublimates, which is when ice turns from a solid to a gas without passing through the liquid phase.
These gases can escape into space to form an atmosphere surrounding the comet’s nucleus, known as a coma.
“Comet 3I/ATLAS was full-on erupting into space in December 2025, after its close flyby of the Sun, causing it to significantly brighten.
Even water ice was quickly sublimating into gas in interplanetary space,” said study lead Carey Lisse of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
“And since comets consist of about one-third bulk water ice, it was releasing an abundance of new, carbon-rich material that had remained locked in ice deep below the surface.
We are now seeing the usual range of early solar system materials, including organic molecules, soot, and rock dust, that are typically emitted by a comet.”
Delayed venting
When the comet is closest to the Sun in its orbit, it experiences peak heating, but that’s not necessarily when peak sublimation activity occurs.
Because the Sun’s heat takes time to travel through the outer layers of the comet, ices deep below the surface may not begin sublimating until long after the comet was closest to the Sun. This seems to be the case with comet 3I/ATLAS.
Short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, SPHEREx observed a coma containing huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a little carbon monoxide, and some water in August.
The December observations show a far more active and diverse coma, which is being supplied by erupting subsurface water ice mixed with other ices, organics, and rocky material.
“The comet has spent ages traversing interstellar space, being bombarded by highly energetic cosmic rays, and has likely formed a crust that’s been processed by that radiation,” said Phil Korngut, the mission’s instrument scientist at Caltech in Pasadena, California.
“But now that the Sun’s energy has had time to penetrate deep into the comet, the pristine ices below the surface are warming up and erupting, releasing a cocktail of chemicals that haven’t been exposed to space for billions of years.”
The SPHEREx observations also suggest that rocky material is being ejected as 3I/ATLAS’s activity increases. The comet only appears to have a small pear-shaped dust tail, which forms when dust from an active comet gets swept back by solar radiation pressure.
This means that the comet is ejecting large grains and BB-size chunks of material (typically, the material is in the form of dust grains finer than human hair) that are too massive to be pushed far from the vicinity of the comet’s nucleus by the Sun’s radiation pressure.
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/spherex/2026/02/04/nasas-spherex-mission-tracks-brightening-of-interstellar-comet/
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ae3f95
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/3i-atlas-alien-probe-james-webb-telescope-finds-anomalous-methane-interstellar-comet-1776640
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/are-there-ten-trillion-objects-like-3i-atlas-within-the-solar-system-right-now-589a833136eb
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/3i-atlas-update-new-images-capture-interstellar-comet-another-star-system-1776627
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58PltAeqVsE (Avi Loeb: The CIA Classified 3I/ATLAS. NASA Says It’s Natural)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCnNIoEFtEc (Stefan Burns: One 3I/ATLAS Mystery Solved has Unlocked a Much Bigger Mystery of Space…)
https://x.com/NRivelato/status/2019123138907500949
https://x.com/PASPJournal/status/2019074215522300252
other comet stuff
https://www.independent.co.uk/space/comet-maps-when-daylight-c-2026-a1-b2914557.html
https://astro.vanbuitenen.nl/comet/2026A1
NASA's Juno finds that Jupiter isn't as big as previously thought
February 5, 2026
NASA has updated Jupiter’s dimensions using data from its Juno spacecraft, revealing the gas giant is smaller and flatter than long-held estimates suggested.
New measurements at the 1-bar pressure level show an equatorial radius of 44,429 miles (71,488 km) and a polar radius of 41,552 miles (66,842 km). The radii were found to be roughly 2.5 miles (4 km) and 7.5 miles (12 km) smaller, respectively, than figures from nearly 50 years ago.
These precise values, published on February 2, 2026, in a paper titled ‘The size and shape of Jupiter’ in Nature Astronomy, were obtained by analyzing radio signals bent by Jupiter’s exotic atmosphere during 13 Juno flybys since 2016.
Uncertainties dropped to just 0.25 miles (0.4 km) by factoring in powerful zonal winds, which prior methods of determining Jupiter’s dimensions had ignored.
The redefined shape reshapes Jupiter’s interior models, supporting a metal-rich, cooler atmosphere, thereby reconciling gaps between Galileo probe data, Voyager temperatures, and computer models.
Winds above cloud tops are mostly barotropic, shifting little by altitude, which, according to the study, was the feature of the banded storms on the visible surface.
For exoplanet hunters at observatories around the world, Jupiter’s true size will now serve as a new benchmark for models of distant gas giants when they are observed transiting their host star.
Earlier measurements came from NASA’s Voyager mission, which is still operational, and Pioneer probes’ radio occultations in the 1970s, using just six passes with 2.5-mile (4 km) uncertainties and little to no wind considerations.
Those pegged Jupiter as being, in relative terms, slightly larger than it really was. Earlier measurements of the Jovian radius came in at 44,423 miles (71,492 km) at the equator and a radius of 41,541 miles (66,854 km) at the poles.
NASA’s Juno, orbiting Jupiter since 2016, has served as the source of numerous data points for research about Jupiter, employing radio occultations for this breakthrough.
Generally, occultations happen when a bright object like our sun or a star passes behind a smaller body, say, a planet, its atmosphere, its rings, or a moon.
This gives the observer an opportunity to study the characteristics of a planet’s atmospheric contents or its shape and size against the change in the properties of the light passing through.
Astronomers also use these events to determine the angular diameters of stars, detect binary star systems, and determine the precise shapes of asteroids.
For this study, radio occultations were employed, with Juno transmitting signals through Jupiter’s atmosphere toward Earth via SCaN‘s Deep Space Network, the same method used for communications with Artemis II astronauts in deep space, as the gas giant passes between the spacecraft and our own.
This bent the radio waves in ways that helped figure out atmospheric density, temperatures, and the exact boundaries of the planet’s oblate form at specific pressure levels.
This method offers a unique window into otherwise hidden layers, far beyond what previous observations could achieve.
Through these occultations, Juno not only helped refine calculations of Jupiter’s dimensions but also ended up doing a lot more in that time, such as shedding light on intricate polar cyclone clusters in the atmosphere, with all this data streamed back in time to the mission’s operations hub at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Meanwhile, NASA’s Galileo mission, launched in 1989 and arriving at Jupiter in 1995, dropped an atmospheric probe into the Jovian clouds so as to study their composition, while itself providing data for years until 2003.
https://starlust.org/nas-as-juno-finds-that-jupiter-isnt-as-big-as-previously-thought/
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/science-news/2026/02/04/nasas-juno-mission-redefines-size-shape-of-jupiter/
https://www.sci.news/space/jupiter-size-shape-14536.html#google_vignette
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4788-4797: Welcome Back from Conjunction
Feb 04, 2026
Earth planning date: Friday, Jan. 30, 2026
Mars has emerged from its holiday behind the Sun, and we here on Earth have been able to reconnect with Curiosity and get back to work on Mars.
Our first planning day last Friday gave Curiosity a full weekend of activities, which wrapped up with getting us ready for our next drill.
We checked out a broken white rock in the workspace with APXS, MAHLI, and ChemCam’s laser spectrometer and finished up imaging a sandy area we’ve kept an eye on during conjunction to see if we could catch any wind motion, before taking a small drive to our drill location about 2 meters away (about 6 feet).
This location may look familiar — our next drill will be only a few centimeters away from “Nevado Sajama,” which we drilled back in November.
The reason we’ve returned here is to do a rare SAM experiment the instrument’s last container of tetramethylammonium hydroxide (or TMAH, for less of a mouthful).
TMAH is a chemical that we can mix with our sample from Nevado Sajama to help identify any organic molecules.
SAM had only two containers of TMAH (the first of which we used almost six years ago, so we want to be very certain that everything will go well with this experiment.
As a result, we did a rehearsal of the handoff of the sample to SAM in Wednesday’s plan, before we drill this weekend.
The TMAH experiment takes up a lot of Curiosity’s energy, so there isn’t a ton to spare for other science activities. Luckily, we’ve spent a lot of time in this area and have collected plenty of images of our surroundings.
Because of that, we’ve used our little bit of extra time in the second half of the week for environmental observations.
We’re well into the dusty season now, so we’re keeping an eye on dust both near (looking out for dust devils) and far (keeping track of how much dust is in the crater and wider atmosphere).
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/curiosity-blog-sols-4788-4797-welcome-back-from-conjunction/
Crew Studies Health, Earth Photography, and Works Dragon Preps
February 4, 2026
Biomedical research to promote astronaut health and Earth observations to understand the effects of natural catastrophes topped the science schedule aboard the International Space Station on Wednesday.
The Expedition 74 trio is also gearing up for the arrival of the SpaceX Crew-12 mission while continuing lab maintenance for the upkeep of the orbiting lab.
A second day of CIPHER human research operations awaited NASA Flight Engineer Chris Williams as doctors on the ground continuously monitor how an astronaut’s body adapts to weightlessness.
Williams began his shift collecting his blood samples then processing them in a centrifuge. Next, he photographed the sample tube configurations after the centrifuge activities, then stowed the samples in a science freezer for preservation and later analysis.
Researchers are using the biomedical data collected from this investigation to understand how human health changes before, during, and after a spaceflight —critical knowledge for safeguarding crews on future missions farther from Earth
After lunchtime, Williams called down to Earth for a video conference with the four SpaceX Crew-12 members, who are targeted to launch to the orbital outpost no earlier than Feb. 11. Commander Jessica Meir and Pilot Jack Hathaway, both from NASA, and Mission Specialists Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos called up to the station from NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston for station familiarization activities prior to their arrival the day after launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Afterward, Williams continued his computer training to prepare for his monitoring role as Crew-12 approaches the station aboard the SpaceX Dragon.
Roscosmos Flight Engineer Sergei Mikaev once again pointed a camera out a station window and photographed Earth landmarks to capture areas struck by natural disasters.
Mikaev targeted regions from Portugal to Kazakhstan then downloaded the imagery to a hard drive for return and analysis on Earth. Researchers will study the imagery to understand how the landscape is affected by and adapts to events such as storms, landslides, and earthquakes.
Station Commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov from Roscosmos began his shift setting up video gear to record experiment operations for the Plasma Kristall-4 physics study. N
ext, Kud-Sverchkov replaced a laptop computer, installed a new computer battery, then photographed the completed job inside the Nauka science module.
The two-time space station visitor wrapped up his shift on orbital plumbing and life support maintenance in the orbiting lab’s Roscosmos modules.
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2026/02/04/crew-studies-health-earth-photography-and-works-dragon-preps/
>Super Bowl
>World Cup
The Olympics are squeezed in there too
Milano Cortina 2026
Feb 05, 2026
No Olympic competitions covers more ground than the 50-kilometer cross-country ski races. The grueling event takes more than 2 hours to complete, requiring competitors to ski a distance longer than a marathon.
That's still, however, less than an eighth of the distance between the two official host cities of the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics—Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.
With events spread across more than 22,000 square kilometers (8,500 square miles) and eight cities or towns in northern Italy, these are the most geographically dispersed Games in Olympic history.
The decentralized design was intentional, allowing planners to control costs and make the event more sustainable by using existing venues rather than constructing several expensive new facilities.
More than 90 percent of the venues are existing or temporary facilities, including some refurbished facilities that were used in the 1956 Cortina d’Ampezzo Games.
About 2,900 athletes will compete across 116 events over 19 days in 13 venues in what will be the third time Italy has hosted the Games.
Several of the key event venues are visible in these satellite images of the two largest host cities—Milan and Verona. The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 and 9 captured the images on December 8 and 9, 2025, respectively.
Olympic festivities will kick off officially on February 6 at San Siro Stadium with performances by pop star Mariah Carey, classical singer Andrea Bocelli, classical instrumentalist Lang Lang, and Italian singer-songwriter Laura Pausini.
Built in 1925, San Siro is Italy's largest stadium and the longtime home of renowned football clubs AC Milan and Inter Milan.
Milan will mostly host indoor ice events in several other venues around the city. Ice hockey will be spread across two venues, the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena and the temporary Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena.
The former, located east of the city in the green and residential Santa Giulia district, is the only new permanent venue constructed for the Games.
The latter, in Milano Ice Park, is a temporary transformation of the Fiera Milano Rho exhibition center, a complex of pavilions and a convention center northwest of the city center.
Speed skating and figure skating will be in the Milano Ice Skating Arena, an 11,500-person stadium in Assago, a small town just outside of Milan.
Outside of the Olympics, the multisport facility is used by a skating school and basketball team and as a venue for tennis, squash, swimming, and several other sports.
The February 22 closing ceremonies will take place in Verona, a city of about 250,000 people 150 kilometers east of Milan, in Verona Arena, an ancient Roman amphitheater that was built between the 1st and 3rd centuries.
What was once used for animal hunts and gladiator battles will serve as the backdrop for musicians, dancers, and artists in a ceremony that organizers say will honor the spirit of athletics and Italy’s rich cultural heritage.
The arena, with a seating capacity of about 22,000, is the third-largest surviving amphitheater in Europe and unusually well-preserved.
New events this year will include men's and women's ski mountaineering, skeleton mixed team relay, women's doubles luge, freestyle skiing dual moguls, and women's large hill ski jumping.
The 2026 Olympic mascots are Tina and Milo, a brother-and-sister pair of cheerful, scarf-wearing animated stoats with names inspired by Milan and Cortina.
Stoats, also called ermine, are fierce predators in the weasel family known for reportedly mesmerizing prey with energetic dances and for having fur that changes from dark brown in the summer to white in the winter.
In Italy, stoats typically live in the mountains above 3,500 meters (11,500 feet).
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/milano-cortina-2026/
NASA, University of Texas Expand Research and Workforce Development
Feb 04, 2026
The agreement builds upon decades of collaboration between NASA and the UT System by enabling additional research, teaching resources, and educational engagements that support human spaceflight and grow the pipeline of next-generation talent.
It will leverage Johnson’s unique capabilities as the hub of human spaceflight and the UT System’s assets across its 13 institutions.
“NASA’s Johnson Space Center has a long history of working with colleges and universities to help us achieve our human spaceflight missions,” said Johnson Center Director Vanessa Wyche.
“We are eager to partner with the UT System to collaborate in vital research and technology development initiatives that will enable us to meet our nation’s exploration goals and advance the future of space exploration.”
The agreement also reflects Johnson’s continued evolution through Dare Unite Explore – a set of commitments designed to ensure the center will remain the world leader in human space exploration.
Those commitments include expanding partner access to the center’s world-class facilities and expertise, as well as establishing robust workforce development and recruitment programs.
Wyche and UT System Chancellor John M. Zerwas hosted a ceremonial signing event at Johnson.
During the event, Wyche and Zerwas, along with the center’s leadership team and the UT System executives and faculty, strategized on potential partnership opportunities and next steps for stakeholders.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/johnson/nasa-university-of-texas-expand-research-and-workforce-development/
NASA changes its mind, will allow Artemis astronauts to take iPhones to the Moon
Feb 5, 2026 7:46 AM
The iPhone is going orbital, and this time it will be allowed to hang around for a while.
On Wednesday night, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman revealed that the Crew-12 and Artemis II astronauts will be allowed to bring iPhones and other modern smartphones into orbit and beyond.
“NASA astronauts will soon fly with the latest smartphones, beginning with Crew-12 and Artemis II,” Isaacman wrote on X. “We are giving our crews the tools to capture special moments for their families and share inspiring images and video with the world.”
NASA astronauts have long captured amazing photos from the space station, but having a smartphone on hand will open up a world of video possibilities.
This will likely be especially useful when astronauts are conducting an experiment or looking outside a window and see an interesting, transient phenomenon.
Fighting requirement bloat
However, Isaacman said the decision to allow astronauts to bring iPhones is about more than just capturing cool new photos and videos. It’s part of his effort to challenge long-standing NASA rules and requirements.
“Just as important, we challenged long-standing processes and qualified modern hardware for spaceflight on an expedited timeline,” he wrote.
“That operational urgency will serve NASA well as we pursue the highest-value science and research in orbit and on the lunar surface. This is a small step in the right direction.”
The challenge of qualifying modern technology for spaceflight is real.
There are a million ways in which the technology can become mired in the approval process, from radiation characterization of chips to battery thermal and vacuum tests, outgassing concerns, vibe testing, and other qualification concerns.
Yes, these requirements exist for a reason. But Isaacman is now telling his team to challenge requirements to ensure they are still needed today. (If you don’t believe this is important, ask any NASA contractor about bloated requirements.)
The arcane approval process has consequences. Before this decision, the newest camera slated to fly on the historic Artemis II mission around the Moon was a 2016 Nikon DSLR, alongside GoPro cameras that were a decade old.
Now, the astronauts will have modern, portable smartphone cameras at their disposal. It should make for some amazing lunar moments.
Back in orbit
Smartphones have flown to orbit before. For example, two iPhone 4s flew on board the final space shuttle mission in 2011, though it’s not clear whether the crew ever touched them.
For the most part, though, astronauts living on board the International Space Station over the last decade have used tablets to connect to the Internet and communicate with family members.
Astronauts flying on private missions, including Isaacman’s Polaris flight and the Axiom missions to the space station, did bring smartphones.
The Axiom astronauts were not supposed to bring their phones from the Dragon spacecraft onto the International Space Station, but Michael Lopez-Alegria may have bent that rule during a spaceflight in 2024.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/nasa-will-finally-allow-astronauts-to-bring-their-iphones-to-space/
https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2019259382962307393
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/house-committee-approves-new-nasa-authorization-bill/
https://nasawatch.com/congress/house-science-committee-passes-nasa-reauthorization-act-of-2026/
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7273?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22hr7273%22%7D&s=2&r=1
House Committee Approves New NASA Authorization Bill
Last Updated: February 4, 2026 9:06 pm ET
The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee unanimously approved a new NASA authorization bill today after adopting a number of amendments.
Overall the bill reemphasizes congressional commitment to U.S. leadership in space, especially the Moon-to-Mars human exploration program. More than three dozen amendments were considered.
Almost all were adopted by voice vote although an amendment to assess challenges with moving space shuttle Discovery to Houston was withdrawn and another to improve NASA’s ability to detect drones entering its airspace was defeated.
House SS&T Committee Chair Brian Babin (R-TX) said the “bipartisan bill—a top priority of mine and one that is especially close to my heart—strengthens our human exploration efforts, supports a growing commercial space economy, and invests in the technologies that will carry us from the Moon to Mars.”
Babin represents the district that includes Johnson Space Center, home to NASA’s astronaut corps and Mission Control.
Calling the bill a bipartisan product of “collaboration, hard work, and a good measure of patience on both sides,” Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) said it recommits NASA “to fulfill its multiple missions in exploration, earth and space science, aeronautics, innovation, education, and inspiration.” Her district includes NASA’s Ames Research Center.
Authorization bills set policy and are important indicators of the level of congressional support for various agency activities, but do not provide any money.
The most recent NASA Authorization bill was enacted in 2022 as part of the CHIPS and Science Act. House SS&T and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee oversee NASA and committee leaders on both sides of the aisle frequently cite the need for new legislation.
The House passed a bill in 2024, but the Senate did not act on it. A Senate bill was introduced last year, but there’s been no action yet.
Babin and Lofgren introduced today’s bill, H.R. 7273, on Friday along with Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC), Chair and Ranking Member respectively of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee.
The committee highlights these provisions:
In the broadest terms, the bill maintains two decades of bipartisan congressional support for NASA’s portfolio of human exploration, science, technology and aeronautics programs.
That might be unremarkable except that the Trump Administration’s budget proposal last year was to significantly curtail everything other than human spaceflight. Congress rejected that in the FY2026 appropriations bill and this legislation is in complete alignment.
One aspect of NASA’s activities that’s changed over the years is the emergence of public-private partnerships where the commercial sector plays a stronger role.
This bill embraces commercial services for everything from earth observation satellite data, to commercial space stations in low Earth orbit to replace the International Space Station, to deep space exploration.
That includes authorizing NASA to procure operational commercial services to take crews and cargo to and from deep space destinations even as it reaffirms support for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft.
SLS and Orion are the foundation for the Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo era. The Artemis II crew could fly around the Moon as soon as next month and will do so aboard SLS/Orion.
So will Artemis III, carrying the first U.S. astronauts to land on the Moon since 1972, a mission currently planned for 2028.
Last year, the Trump Administration sought to replace SLS/Orion with commercial alternatives after Artemis III, but Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) included money and language in the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) to continue SLS/Orion for at least two more flights after that. Many are skeptical commercial launch alternatives like SpaceX’s Starship or Blue Origin’s New Glenn will be ready to send people to the Moon by 2028.
A Babin amendment adopted today endorses commercial services for lunar and Mars operations generally without mentioning a timeframe.
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Dave Cavossa, President of the Commercial Space Federation, praised the committee’s action in an email to SpacePolicyOnline.com: “This is a big step in the right direction for the future of commercial space transportation options for deep space.
Also, very much in line with this Administration’s focus on commercial solutions and competition. This amendment provides NASA with flexibility to procure additional services for moon and mars in the future!”
Among the many other adopted amendments was one (Haridopolos et al) encouraging the “fullest commercial use of space” including by the “growing and enduring presence of private citizens in Earth orbit, in cislunar space, on the surface of the Moon, and beyond.” Haridopolos represents Kennedy Space Center.
Others include one from Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) that directs the NASA Administrator to establish the initial elements of a lunar outpost by December 31, 2030, and a Rep. George Whitesides (D-CA) amendment calling for an engineering analysis of boosting the International Space Station into a higher orbit instead of deorbiting it into the ocean at the end of its lifetime.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) introduced and withdrew an amendment concerning efforts to move the Space Shuttle Discovery to Houston from its current home at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia.
His district is close to Dulles.
A Cruz provision in the OBBBA requires NASA to transfer a space vehicle that has carried astronauts into space to Houston. Although the bill is not specific about what vehicle it must be, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has separate legislation specifying Discovery.
The idea of moving Discovery has sparked concern on many levels, not least of which is cost and possible damage Discovery might endure.
The two Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft once used to transport space shuttles around the country are themselves now in museums. Moving Discovery now likely would require cutting it into pieces.
As required by the OBBBA, in August then-Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy approved the move of a vehicle, but NASA consistently refuses to identify which one it is.
Soon after being confirmed as NASA Administrator in December, Jared Isaacman left open the question as to whether it would be Discovery for exactly those reasons — cost and potential damage. Isaacman noted that with astronauts about to travel to the Moon again, other historic human spaceflight vehicles soon will be available.
Beyer would have amended the OBBBA to require federal officials to “ensure” the transfer doesn’t cause “physical harm, whether intentionally or unintentionally” to the vehicle.
Also, one year before implementing the transfer, NASA would have to inform Congress of the cost and the impact on the vehicle.
He and Babin apparently had discussed the matter prior to the markup.
Addressing Babin, Beyer said he respected Houston’s “desire to have important parts of space history” to display and didn’t want to “stand in the way of Texas getting that kind of treasure,” but the key should be ensuring the integrity of the vehicle “for generations to come.” Babin agreed it would be “tragic if Houston were to receive a vehicle that had been damaged in transit” and said he’s committed to working to find a resolution.
With one exception, all the amendments were either approved by voice vote or withdrawn. The exception was an amendment by Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) that she stressed was requested by NASA.
Stevens is Ranking Member of the committee’s Research and Technology Subcommittee. Her amendment would have enhanced NASA’s ability to detect, identify, monitor and track drones entering airspace around NASA facilities.
In the one instance of partisan divide during the markup, Republicans argued that while the rising number of drone incursions is alarming, Stevens’ amendment was beyond the scope of this bill.
Babin said a coordinated approach is required with other federal agencies. Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-NC) said it was more appropriately a matter for the House Armed Services Committee.
The exchange was genial, but after Babin asked if she would withdraw the amendment, Stevens insisted on a recorded vote noting the amendment was requested by NASA and the vote would signal other committees it is needed.
Her amendment was defeated on a party-line vote: 18 yes, 19 no.
The bill itself was adopted unanimously, 37-0.
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http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-020426a-john-tartaglia-fraggle-rock-nasa-kennedy-interview.html
NASA stage show explores outer outer space with Henson's Fraggles
February 4, 2026
Move over Snoopy… NASA has a new character helping to promote its deep space exploration plans. His name is… Uncle Traveling Matt.
No really, move over.
"Fraggle Rock: A Space-y Adventure" has taken over the same theater the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida previously used for "All Systems Are Go," featuring the comic strip beagle.
The new stage show stars the Jim Henson Company's subterranean Muppets as they discover outer (outer) space for the first time.
"I went back through the canon of the original [1983 HBO] series and then our reboot ['Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock" for Apple TV] and I was like, 'Wait, Uncle Matt never really questioned what's beyond, because he thinks he's done it all.'
He's like, 'Oh, I've explored outer space' — that's what the Fraggles call our world, right? So he's like, 'I've done it,'" said John Tartaglia, the show's director, writer and choreographer, as well as creative supervisor for Fraggle Rock at the Henson Company, in an interview with collectSPACE.
"So for him to have his mind blown that there's something even beyond that, I thought that was such a fun way to push that character's journey forward," said Tartaglia.
To differentiate between the Fraggles' use of "outer space" — the land where the "silly creatures," aka us humans live — and our "outer space," the show refers to the latter as "outer outer space."
(It is not yet clear if that concept will live on beyond the NASA show. "I think it could be," Tartaglia said. "We haven't explored that yet." No pun intended.)
A funny thing happened…
As "Fraggle Rock: A Space-y Adventure" opens, Gobo, Red and their friends are still at home and us "silly creatures" are at Kennedy Space Center.
The trick, said Tartaglia, was finding ways to bridge that gap while staying true to both realities.
"We always want to stay true to the world," said Tartaglia. "You have to justify why the Fraggles are there."
The Doozers offered one way. The show's small, green, industrious creatures are, in their more modern incarnations, technologically adept and have developed DoozerCam, a FaceTime-like video call system that is able of connecting Fraggle Rock with outer space.
As the show opens, the DoozerCam shows the Fraggles in the midst of a familiar scene — the title sequence from the show, complete with their theme song — until they notice the audience of humans watching them.
"NASA, wisely, really wanted people to immediately get into that vibe of Fraggle Rock," Tartaglia told collectSPACE.
"We could have just written a show where it all takes place at Kennedy Space Center, but I think people really want to peek in and see Fraggle Rock, so it just felt like the appropriate, rule-based way to do it that felt right to the world, but also kept Fraggle Rock a cool, distant mystery place that you want to go visit."
But to really bring the Fraggles to Kennedy required a postcard … and a change of scale.
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…on the way to the moon
In the series, Traveling Matt wrote about what he had encountered in outer space through on postcards that he sent to his nephew, Gobo, back at Fraggle Rock.
Gobo would then share his uncle's adventures with his friends, including Red, who particularly loathed them.
In "Fraggle Rock: A Space-y Adventure," it is a postcard with a photo of a "cookie" on it that leads Traveling Matt, Gobo and Red through a "Fraggle hole" to Kennedy Space Center.
It it there that they meet a representative of NASA's Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) division and learn of outer outer space and that the cookie is really the moon.
(Asked why Traveling Matt would not have recognized the moon from his time in outer space, Tartaglia said that perhaps he did see it, but only as a thin crescent and did not equate the two.
Or maybe it was that he was "so forward-driven" that he never bothered to look up.)
As Gobo, Red and Traveling Matt step through the Fraggle hole onto the stage at Kennedy, they are no longer hand-operated puppets but full-body "walk-around" characters. And to remain to scale, that meant up-scaling another character, too.
"When we scaled up the Fraggles to be costume-size, so they could dance and move without being encumbered by being just puppets, we realized that one of the Doozers would have to become puppet size.
That was really fun to do because the real Doozers are six inches tall and they are animatronic. They're teeny, and now they get to have their glory as hand puppets," said Tartaglia, who also voices Gobo for the show and performs as him when in puppet size.
Down at 'Fraggle Rock'
When NASA first got in contact with the Jim Henson Company about bringing the Fraggles to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Tartaglia and his team knew it would be cool.
And once they decided to have Uncle Traveling Matt be the show's central character, the plot came together fairly quickly.
"He's a great character to learn from because he is so oblivious and he thinks he knows everything, and he really doesn't.
So he's a great character to use as a bridge for the audience to be able to learn all these awesome facts and figures about NASA," said Tartaglia.
He and his team also came to appreciate how much "Fraggle Rock" shares with the space agency, its activities and goals.
"We all started talking and realized really quickly that Fraggles and Doozers and the whole message of 'Fraggle Rock' — especially about Uncle Matt — is about exploring new worlds, making discoveries and the whole fragile ecosystem.
All of these different worlds need each other and want to work to learn more about each other. It sounded all very aligned with what NASA does and the whole purpose of space exploration," said Tartaglia.
"So our two worlds that on paper wouldn't seem connected, made a lot of sense to connect," he said.
"Fraggle Rock: A Space-y Adventure" is included with Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex admission. Check the daily schedule upon arrival for showtimes.
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NASA Requesting Input on 32 Critical Space Tech Shortfalls to Guide Upcoming Investments
February 4, 2026
NASA is calling on industry, academia, government partners and the public to help shape the agency’s future technology investments.
The space agency said Tuesday that it is seeking input on 32 identified technology shortfalls, or critical capability gaps. Responses are due Feb. 20.
What Are NASA’s Civil Space Shortfalls?
In NASA’s space technology planning, a shortfall refers to a technology area that still needs further development.
Unlike a gap, where both the current capability and the desired capability are clearly defined, a shortfall simply highlights where current capabilities fall short of what will be required.
For 2026, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate consolidated its technology assessments into a list of 32 shortfalls, each representing a group of functions that must all be developed to meet future exploration, science and other mission needs.
Some of the shortfalls are advanced propulsion for deep-space and planetary missions, autonomous systems and robotics to support space operations, extreme environment materials and components, high-bandwidth space communications systems, and radiation protection and human health technologies.
What Did NASA Identify in Its Previous Shortfall Ranking?
NASA’s current call for feedback builds on its first integrated Civil Space Shortfall Ranking released in July 2024.
The Space Technology Mission Directorate analyzed 187 technology shortfalls across 20 capability areas, drawing on 1,231 responses from NASA centers, government agencies, industry and academia.
The highest-ranked needs included technologies to operate through lunar light, high-power energy generation for lunar and Mars surface missions, and high-performance onboard computing.
https://www.executivegov.com/articles/nasa-32-civil-space-technology-shortfalls
Conspiracy theory resurfaces over what NASA discovered on the Moon 57 years ago as Artemis II faces fresh delay
15:40 5 Feb 2026 GMT
Moon conspiracy theories are resurfacing after NASA's Artemis II Mission was announced to be delayed a second time.
With the Artemis II launch soon approaching, anticipation has been building for what will be the first crewed journey beyond low Earth orbit and the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Carrying NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and the Canadian Space Agency's Jeremy Hansen, the four-man crew is preparing for a 10-day fly around the Moon and back.
However, things haven't gone according to plan.
Poor weather initially forced NASA to postpone the critical wet dress rehearsal for the Space Launch System from its 29 January window, pushing the launch back to 8 February.
However, during the most recent rehearsal of the SLS (Space Launch System), engineers detected hydrogen leaks at the launch pad.
The team also reportedly ran into audio communication issues and discovered that the cold weather was interfering with some of their cameras.
In response, NASA has announced that the earliest possible launch date for Artemis II has been pushed back to March.
But the series of delays of NASA's first Moon mission in over 50 years has triggered a series of conspiracy theories.
AJ Gentile, who hosts the podcast The Why Files, brought up claims of a mysterious radio transmission from the Apollo 11 mission that allegedly mentioned the crew reporting sightings of extraterrestrial beings observing their arrival.
According to the story, as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin approached the Moon, they switched to a private medical frequency during a radio blackout.
During this time - where NASA claims no official records exist - Armstrong and Aldrin allegedly reported to mission control that they witnessed beings 'parked' in a crater.
"The story is they switch over to the medical channel and said, 'They're here. They're on the crater, and they can see us,'" Gentile explained during an appearance on The Tucker Carlson Show on Monday (2 February).
Despite the tales circulating for 57 years, there is no verified evidence that the Apollo 11 crew ever used the backup radio channel, nor has the US government or Pentagon declared any proof of UFOs or extraterrestrial beings.
To add to the mystery, Gentile also pointed out that former CIA psychics and respected astronauts have also suggested NASA has been hiding something on the Moon since missions ended in 1972.
He cited the late Ingo Swann, a renowned 'remote viewer', who claimed during a 1975 psychic session to have seen towers, structures and human-like aliens on the Moon's far side.
"Two of them pointed in my direction," he wrote in his book Penetration: The Question of Extraterrestrial and Human Telepathy. "How could they do that… unless… they have some kind of high psychic perceptions, too?"
Later on in the podcast, Gentile added that Apollo 14 Edgar Mitchell also publicly stated his belief that UFOs were real.
"Every astronaut has seen strange things in space. Edgar Mitchell is on record as saying UFOs are real. This is the sixth man to walk on the moon.
This is not a kook. This is an American hero. So something's clearly going on up there," Gentile declared during the podcast.
When asked whether he thought the original Moon landing was staged, Gentile said he believed it was genuine.
However, he admitted feeling uneasy about the questions, given how many official records from that historic mission have inexplicably vanished over the years.
https://www.uniladtech.com/science/space/conspiracy-theory-resurfaces-nasa-moon-discovery-187437-20260205
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EAYlgYB2ko (Tucker Carlson and The Why Files: Giants, Pyramids, the CIA’s Psychic Spies and The Ancient Civilizations More Advanced Than Ours)
FCC Authorizes Logos Space to Deploy 3,960-Satellite Mega-Constellation for Enterprise Connectivity
February 5, 2026
On February 5, 2026, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officially granted Logos Space Services, Inc. the authority to construct, launch, and operate a major new non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite system.
The approval clears the path for the company to deploy a constellation of 3,960 broadband satellites, a significant move that signals the government’s continued commitment to expanding domestic satellite infrastructure and fostering competition in the low Earth orbit (LEO) sector.
A Specialized Network for the “EW Era”
Founded by former Google executive Milo Medin and veteran technologist Rama Akella, Logos Space is positioning itself as a secure alternative to consumer-focused networks like Starlink.
The constellation is specifically “purpose-built” for enterprise and government users who require high-performance connectivity that can withstand the rigors of modern electronic warfare (EW).
Advanced Spectrum Usage: Unlike traditional commercial networks, Logos will operate in high-frequency V and E spectrum bands (alongside Ka and Q/V bands). These higher frequencies allow for very narrow beams that are inherently more difficult to jam or intercept.
Coherent Optical Crosslinks: The satellites are equipped with advanced optical links, enabling high-speed data transfer between spacecraft. This reduces the need for ground-based “transit” through terrestrial fiber, creating a more resilient and lower-latency global network.
Dual-Use Capabilities: The system is designed for both commercial multi-gigabit business services and mission-critical government communications, such as supporting Navy vessels on the high seas or connecting remote industrial data centers.
Phased Deployment and Market Impact
The FCC-approved plan outlines a three-phase rollout strategy. The initial phase involves the launch of 1,092 satellites, which will provide sufficient capacity for Logos to begin serving its first tier of enterprise customers globally.
Subsequent phases will scale the constellation to its full 3,960-satellite capacity, operating at altitudes between 860 km and 925 km.
The entry of Logos Space into the market is backed by Thomas Tull’s U.S. Innovative Technology (USIT) fund, reflecting a broader trend of private capital flowing into “sovereign-commercial” space ventures.
By securing this license, Logos joins a small group of high-capacity LEO operators—including SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Leo—aiming to provide ubiquitous global broadband.
However, by focusing strictly on the MPLS and Ethernet connectivity needs of the enterprise market, Logos aims to fill a gap for “fiber-like performance” without the security vulnerabilities of the public internet.
Strategic Regulatory Environment
The approval comes amid a period of intense regulatory activity at the FCC.
Under Chairman Brendan Carr, the agency has moved toward a more streamlined “assembly line” approach for licensing mega-constellations, aiming to reduce backlogs and maintain U.S. leadership in space technology.
The FCC’s decision on the Logos application followed extensive technical reviews to ensure the new constellation would not cause harmful interference to existing satellite systems or pose an undue risk of orbital debris.
https://news.satnews.com/2026/02/05/fcc-authorizes-logos-space-to-deploy-3960-satellite-mega-constellation-for-enterprise-connectivity/
https://interestingengineering.com/space/astronauts-witnessed-unexplained-strange-events
10 times astronauts witnessed unexplained and strange events during space missions
Feb 05, 2026 06:29 AM EST
Space has long been a matter of great curiosity and perplexity for humans.
Astronauts are trained to observe with eagle-eyed precision, yet their accounts of experiences in space are often packed with scientifically intriguing, fascinating, and often controversial phenomena.
When patterns are observed, the space events always have subjects for a long debate. That being said, here are some of the most uncanny and weird sightings that have puzzled the astronauts who have witnessed them.
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Mercury-Atlas 9
During Mercury-Atlas 9, Gordon Cooper reportedly observed a greenish glowing object that seemed to approach his capsule with purposeful movement.
The story frames this as different from passive orbital debris because it appeared to draw closer “as though pursuing” the spacecraft.
What distinguished this report was corroboration. The tracking station at Muchea, near Perth, Australia, located at a considerable distance from Cooper’s spacecraft, allegedly detected the same fast-moving object on radar, converging on the capsule.
This independent confirmation added significant credibility to an account that might otherwise be dismissed as pilot fatigue or visual illusion.
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The Gemini 4 cylindrical object: The Tadpole photos
Astronaut Jim McDivitt spotted a white cylindrical object with a pole-like extension whilst on Gemini 4, likening it to a beer can with a pencil. He attempted to film it, but the resulting images looked like “tadpoles” due to their blurry appearance.
A few years later, McDevitt revealed the object could have been reflections from bolts in the spacecraft windows. However, this explanation appears inconsistent with his original detailed description of the object’s characteristics and apparent movement.
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Apollo 10 space music
Apollo 10 astronauts revealed hearing strange whooping and whistling sounds while traversing the Moon’s far side.
They described it as “weird music” during a period of radio silence with Earth. The recording captures their uncertainty and even their worry that nobody would believe them.
On further investigation, NASA confirmed it was radio interference: VHF systems in the Command Module and Lunar Module created beat frequencies that produced warbling tones.
It also notes similar sounds on other lunar missions and points out that the disorientation came from not immediately identifying the source in such an alien sensory context.
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Apollo 11 light following the spacecraft
Buzz Aldrin witnessed a light that appeared to move alongside the Apollo 11 spacecraft on the way to the moon. In his later clarification, quoted here, he pointed to plausible spacecraft-related sources, such as a separated rocket component or panels that moved away during operations, and explicitly concluded it was not an alien.
No official source has ever verified these spectacular claims, and they are widely recognized as a hoax perpetrated by Binder. NASA has never released any such communications, and there is no credible evidence that they exist.
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Apollo 17
NASA biomedical engineer Joanne Donaldson claimed that astronaut Ron Evans said, “No, I got company,” when asked whether he was lonely in lunar orbit.
The narrative includes allegations that NASA cut a public feed and instructed staff to treat it as an anomaly to be kept secret.
Donaldson also claimed Evans described a cigar-shaped object around 40-45 feet long and expressed doubt that it was Russian hardware.
The account stresses that this remains unverified, with no astronaut confirmation or official records presented here. This has made it a clear example of how compelling stories can persist without independent corroboration.
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Space Snakes
Story Musgrave reported seeing elongated, white, snake-like objects outside the shuttle on two missions, describing them as 6-8 feet long and moving with intention.
The repetition across separate flights in the account appears consistent; however, the official explanation states that he likely saw debris, such as non-critical rubber seals reflecting sunlight.
The account notes Musgrave hasn’t backtracked on his testimony, highlighting the frequent gap between an observer’s lived certainty and the plausibility of mundane causes.
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The dog-bone object
NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy reported seeing an unidentified object drifting near the International Space Station and recorded it in his phone before notifying Mission Control.
The sighting was briefly noted in NASA’s station status updates and drew media interest at the time.
Russian flight controllers later said the object was an antenna cover that had come loose from the Zvezda service module during maintenance.
Although an initial inventory check caused some confusion, the object’s slow tumbling motion matched the expected behavior of small debris moving in orbit.
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Cosmic ray flashes: Light shows in the void
Astronauts across Apollo missions and the ISS have witnessed strange flashes of light appear in the darkness, ones that can be felt even with the eyes closed. Astronauts described them as darting flares with varying brightness and color.
The explanation given is that high-energy cosmic rays strike the retina and visual system, and the brain interprets the impact as light.
Even with that mechanism understood, the experience still feels eerie because it happens in complete darkness and with no familiar external source.
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Chinese astronaut knocking sounds
China’s first astronaut, Yang Liwei, reported hearing knocking sounds during Shenzhou 5, describing them as like striking an iron bucket with a wooden hammer.
He investigated visually and found nothing, and the strangeness was heightened by the expectation that sound should not behave normally in a spaceflight context.
The account says similar knocking sounds were heard on later missions in 2005 and 2008, suggesting a valid cause rather than any malfunction.
Experts proposed different theories, such as thermal expansion and contraction or pressure changes, that could have caused the issue.
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The Gemini 7 “Bogey”
Astronauts James Lovell and Frank Borman reported “bogeys” during their Gemini 7 mission. Transcripts showed Lovell insisting they had “several… actual sightings.”
The exchange is notable because Lovell explicitly distinguished the known booster from other objects they perceived separately.
The incident was later attributed to booster-associated debris, with Borman affirming it was not a UFO.
The text adds an illustrative media note: Borman offered to clarify on a TV program but was declined, showing how entertainment incentives can preserve mystery even after a mundane resolution.
Conclusion
Across these cases, it is clear how elite observers end up disoriented by an environment that lies oodles of miles away from Earth.
Astronauts report what they genuinely perceive in the moment, and later investigation often reframes those perceptions into technical causes, debris dynamics, or signal interference.
Some events become clearer with better data, while others remain contested due to limited verification capabilities. In the end, space is such an unusual environment that what’s normal there can feel mysterious, even to experts.
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https://phys.org/news/2026-02-sea-space-tide-microplastic-pollution.html
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.analchem.5c05604
https://allatra.org/press-release/nanoplastics-growing-threat-human-health-and-climate-stability-high-level-conference-european-parliament
https://allatra.org/nanoplastics-threat-to-life
From sea to space: Turning the tide on microplastic pollution with satellite technology
February 4, 2026
What do microplastics, water color, and satellites have in common?
Dr. Karl Kaiser, professor of marine and coastal environmental science in the College of Marine Sciences and Maritime Studies at Texas A&M University at Galveston is exploring an innovative idea: using satellites to spot microplastics in the ocean.
How? By studying how tiny plastic particles change the way light reflects off the water—and how that changes the color we see from space.
If this connection works, it could give scientists a powerful new tool to track microplastic pollution across the globe without ever leaving orbit.
Why tiny plastics are a big problem
Microplastics are small pieces of debris that shed from larger pieces of manufactured plastic due to chemicals or natural weathering.
The minuscule size of microplastics also means they can build up in the tissue of living organisms, are easily ingested, and are distributed across vast distances via water currents.
"With microplastics, you're in a size range that's similar to bacteria and red blood cells; they appear to have very different characteristics than larger plastic pieces," Kaiser said.
"Their size makes them extremely difficult to filter and measure, especially in a dynamic ocean environment."
Galveston Bay holds the highest concentration of microplastics in the United States. Why? It's home to one of the largest plastic manufacturing hubs in the country—and the impact is visible in the water.
Linking sediments, light and satellites
This issue is especially important for Kaiser, who conducts research in the bay. He examines how the higher sediment count in surface water correlates to higher microplastic concentration.
From there, the suspended sediment determines what light is reflected by surface water, which is measured using spectroscopy.
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Spectroscopy quantitatively measures how matter interacts with light; by identifying which specific wavelengths are absorbed or reflected, scientists can determine the composition of water-suspended sediments on a large scale.
While spectroscopy is famously used to determine the makeup of distant stars and planets, Dr. Kaiser has high hopes for its applications thanks to a new generation of optical sensors in satellite imagery.
"Optical properties of surface water are shaped by what's in the water.
That determines how much light, provided from sunlight, is reflected—and that's what satellite imagery measures," he explained. "The reflected light is basically indicative of ingredients in the water."
The task of matching missing wavelengths of light to what's present in surface water will be done by an algorithm meticulously trained by Kaiser himself.
Training algorithms to read the ocean
"The algorithm that will tie remote ocean color reflectance data to what's in the water—or a specific ingredient in the water—has to be calibrated first," he said.
"You must measure incoming and outgoing light, and you must measure the sediment concentration in the water at that time. That is the primary connection."
Kaiser is confident that there is a relationship between suspended sediment and microplastics. Where other sediment is being carried by ocean currents, microplastics should track as well.
Once that relationship is rigorously tested, it will be possible to determine microplastic concentration through indirect correlation with surface water properties seen in satellite imagery, all calculated by Kaiser's trained algorithm.
"The tools already exist to identify suspended sediment load from satellite data," he explained. "They just haven't been used for it yet."
What this could unlock for the future
The ability to measure microplastics via satellite imagery would instantly unlock libraries of valuable data archived in satellite photo records, including microplastic migration in hundreds of photos taken over 10 years.
"The cool thing would be that we could go back through time to learn a lot about pollution loads very quickly," he said. "We could use it as a forecasting tool to inform aquaculturists where to put their ponds and cages to avoid contamination."
According to Kaiser, measuring microplastics is only the beginning. "If everything works out, we could then measure microplastics, forever chemicals, MPAs, and PCBs."
If successful, Kaiser and his research partners plan to present the pollution data found through satellite imagery to state and federal agencies to bring more attention to how widespread microplastics are and to strengthen legislation that helps solve the problem.
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https://www.rt.com/news/631925-epstein-ukraine-lab-cloning/
Epstein and Ukraine: A match made in hell
3 Feb, 2026 19:17
Human trafficking, animal abuse, and scientific experiments that pushed the boundaries of humanity itself: Jeffrey Epstein had grand ambitions, and where better to pursue them than Ukraine? A wild west where everyone has a price, and citizens are little more than lab rats.
Within days of Epstein’s 2019 arrest for sex trafficking, media reports began to shed light on the financier’s bizarre scientific ventures. Epstein, the New York Times reported, would gather the world’s leading scientists at his Manhattan apartment, or fly them to his private island to discuss his visions of “seeding the human race with his DNA,” cryogenically freezing his head and penis for future research, and in one unhinged conversation, “bankrolling efforts to identify a mysterious particle that might trigger the feeling that someone is watching you.”
At the time, these Bond villain schemes were portrayed as just twisted fantasies. However, Epstein was already involved in a human cloning initiative taking shape in Ukraine, far from the prying eyes of US regulators.
Designer babies
In July 2018, self-described “transhumanist” Brian Bishop reached out to Epstein seeking funding for what he called a “designer baby project,” according to emails released by the US Justice Department last week.
Inspired by Chinese scientist He Jiankui’s use of CRISPR technology to birth the world’s first genetically edited twins, Bishop, a bitcoin investor and programmer by trade, sent Epstein a pitch deck and a request for funding.
Epstein said that he had “no issue with funding” the project, as long as he could do so in secret. “The problem is only if I am seen to lead,” he told Bishop.
Over several follow-up emails in 2018, Bishop explained that he was seeking “$1.7m/year for up to five years + $1m for lab setup,” and that he was “proceeding with more mouse testing at my Ukraine lab,” including surgeries and microinjections.
Bishop’s technique involved injecting altered genes into a male parent’s testes, but Epstein favored implanting an embryo into the mother. “I like implant embryo, wait 9 months, great ending,” he replied.
Epstein noted that he “can’t do anything where US rules apply.” Bishop answered that they could avoid scrutiny through “partnerships with overseas clinics.”
The Ukrainian lab
Bishop’s “mouse testing” took place at the Institute of Gerontology at Ukraine’s Academy of Medical Sciences in Kiev. Although the lab was not named in the latest emails, the MIT Technology Review took a virtual tour of the facility in early 2019.
The magazine described seeing “a flayed-open mouse lying on the microscope stage, as well as a close-up of trace dyes being injected into its testicles.”
The MIT article did not mention Epstein, but revealed that the pitch deck Bishop had sent envisioned experiments on human “volunteers” once the first transgenic mouse had been created.
“Outcome: First human with transgenic sperm, and we begin taking pre-orders,” it reportedly read.
None of the experiments had succeeded in creating “transgenic mouse pups,” but lab worker Dmitry Krasnienkov told MIT that he was willing to keep trying as long as Bishop kept paying him.
A pedophile’s playground
For men like Epstein, Ukraine was a potentially lucrative nexus of poverty, corruption, and amorality.
Epstein’s interest in the country developed long before Bishop’s mouse experiments, with passports of several Ukrainian women found on his estate after his death, and multiple emails suggesting he trafficked Ukrainian girls to wealthy clients.
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In one 2013 exchange, a man purported to be Emirati tycoon Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem described two girls arriving at his property.
“Big disappointment, the Moldavian is not as attractive as the picture while the Ukrainian is very beautiful,” he complained to Epstein.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Sulayem was a regular visitor to Epstein’s apartment between 2011 and 2014.
Ukraine was a “a hotbed of child pornography and sexual abuse,” the Kiev Post reported in 2009.
“Most reported cases of pedophilia never get investigated, let alone prosecuted,” the paper wrote, describing how “every third Ukrainian prostitute is a girl between 12 and 17,” child pornography is sold at street markets, and sexual services can be bought for “candy or food.”
The full extent of Epstein’s involvement in Ukraine is unclear, but the full range of illicit services available to the rich in Ukraine stretch far beyond child pornography and prostitution.
Organ harvesting and virus factories
Ukraine has been known as a hotbed of organ harvesting since the earliest days of its post-Soviet decline, and featured prominently in a 2008 OSCE report on “Trafficking in human beings for the purpose of organ removal.”
The trade reportedly exploded after the Maidan coup of 2014, with Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claiming in 2023 that the organs of dead Ukrainian soldiers – such as hearts, kidneys and livers – have been appearing on ‘dark net’ marketplaces, with prices starting at €5,000.
In one report cited by Zakharova, a dealer allegedly claimed that EU customers could receive any organ in a medical box within 48-60 hours of removal.
Transplantation is exempted from value-added-tax in Ukraine, and in 2021 Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky signed a law removing the need to notarize the written consent or authenticate the signature of a living donor to give up their organs.
Ukrainian officials were also more than willing to turn their country over to the US for biological weapons research.
Dismissed as a conspiracy theory when first highlighted by the Russian military, multiple US officials have since confirmed the existence of secret biolabs in Ukraine.
“We have biolabs in Ukraine because we’re developing bioweapons,” US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Tucker Carlson in 2024.
Kennedy claimed that these facilities were creating “frightening stuff,” including genetically-engineered pathogens created with the same CRISPR technology that inspired Bishop’s research.
Former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who played a leading role in orchestrating the Maidan coup, confirmed under oath in 2022 that the US operates “biological research facilities” in Ukraine.
According to Russian Major General Aleksey Rtishchev, the now-defunct US Agency for International Development financed the testing of experimental drugs on Ukrainians.
In this murky world, Epstein smelled opportunity. Writing to banking executive Ariane de Rothschild in 2014, he said that the post-Maidan “upheaval” in Ukraine would “provide many opportunities, many.”
Epstein met Zelensky in February 2019, a month before Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine. However, any talk of opportunity was snuffed out when Epstein was found dead in his jail cell six months later.
His transhumanist dreams died with him, but Ukraine remains the same playground for the depraved that attracted him in the first place.
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