The situation for human beings on Mars is dire, and not just because the red planet's atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and the average temperature is -81 degrees.

There's also the issue of the child-trafficking ring operating in secret on the planet 33.9 million miles from earth, according to a guest on the Alex Jones Show.

We actually believe that there is a colony on Mars that is populated by children who were kidnapped and sent into space on a 20-year ride, Robert David Steele said Thursday during a winding, conspiratorial dialogue with Jones about child victims of sex crimes. So that once they get to Mars they have no alternative but to be slaves on the Mars colony.

[Megyn Kelly calls Alex Joness Sandy Hook views revolting but says interviewing him has value]

NASA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

But Guy Webster, a spokesman for Mars exploration at NASA, told the Daily Beast that rumors about live humans on Mars are false.

There are no humans on Mars, he said. There are active rovers on Mars. There was a rumor going around last week that there werent. There are, but there are no humans.

Jones is known for peddling elaborate and debunked conspiracy theories on his radio show, which airs on 118 stations around the country and reaches millions of listeners.The site had 4.5 million unique page views in thepast month and more than 5 million from mid-April to mid-May,according to Quantcast. HisYouTube channelhas more than 2 million subscribers.

Among his most well-known accusations in recent years is that the December 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, in which 20 children and six adults were killed at a school in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax. Jones has claimed that the U.S. government orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and, more recently, promoted the Pizzagate conspiracy, which alleged that Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was linked to a child-sex ring operating from the basement of a suburban Washington D.C. pizzeria.

The theory originated on Reddit, where a user claimed hacked emails belonging to Clinton campaign manager John Podesta revealed evidence of an international child-sex ring. The key, the user alleged, wasreplacing the word pizza with little boy.

From that moment, the conspiracy theory took on a life of its own, culminating in a North Carolina man firing a military-style assault rifle inside the restaurant in December.Edgar Maddison Welch told investigators he was there to save abused children. Instead, he pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges in March and was sentenced to four years in prison last month.

Confronted about his Sandy Hook allegations during a controversial interview with NBC's Megyn Kelly last month, Jones hedged.

I tend to believe that children probably did die there, he told the anchor. But then you look at all the other evidence on the other side. I can see how other people believe that nobody died there.

On Thursdays Infowars broadcast, Steele appeared to connect the kidnapped children being held captive on Mars to pedophile rings who allegedly use children for their youthful body parts and energy.

Pedophilia does not stop with sodomizing children, Steele said. It goes straight into terrorizing them to adrenalize their blood and then murdering them. It also includes murdering them so that they can have their bone marrow harvested as well as body parts.

This is the original growth hormone, Jones said.

Yes, it's an anti-aging thing, Steele replied.

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This bizarre ancient creature mystified Darwin. Now we finally know what it was.

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No, NASA is not hiding kidnapped children on Mars - Washington Post

NASA has released video and simulations of how it would try to save the planet if a "life-threatening asteroid" were on course to collide with the Earth.

The government agency is using 3-D models and one of its most powerful supercomputers in order to produce simulations on a variety of astroid impact scenarios. This allows first responders and other agencies to identify threats and make better decisions should an event occur in the future.

SCIENTISTS 'CAN'T RULE OUT' COLLISION WITH ASTEROID FLYING BY EARTH IN 2029

NASAshowed off the findings on its website.

The work is being done by experts on the Asteroid Threat Assessment Project at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility at Ames Research Center in Californias Silicon Valley. The efforts are in conjunction with NASAs Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

Below is the entire video of the simulation:

The research is shared with a number of different parties, including university scientists, national research labs and different government agencies.

The work follows an asteroid collision in 2013 in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. The blast from the asteroid injured more than 1,200 people and damaged building 58 miles away.

Scientists have recently said they "can't rule out" a collision with asteroid 99942 Apophis, which is slated to come very close to Earth in 2029.

Read the rest here:

NASA just showed off how it would help save the planet from 'possible life-threatening' asteroids - Fox News

An artist's rendering of a deep space gateway that would orbit the moon and provide a launching point for human missions to Mars.

NASA is salvaging technology developed under a canceled asteroid rendezvous and relocation mission for a new initiative to build a lunar orbiting base. The base would eventually serve as a hangar for assembling spacecraft heading to Mars.

The lunar-orbiting outpost, called the Deep Space Gateway, has replaced the Obama administration's Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM)as an interim step in NASAs long-term goal to sendastronauts to Mars. ARM would have sent a robotic spacecraft to an asteroid to grab a large boulder and relocate it into a high lunar orbit for eventual visits by U.S. astronauts.

The controversial ARM program officially died with President Donald Trump's proposed budget request for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. But NASA is salvaging ARM's key technologies, including high-powered solar-electric propulsion, to use for the gateway and other projects, agency officials and other experts said at a hearing for the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology yesterday (June 29). [NASA's Mars Plan May Include Yearlong Mission to the Moon]

"Electric propulsion can offer the ability to move large masses through space with minimum fuel usage," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations. "It has significant advantages over other forms of propulsion, most notably efficiency."

In addition, fuel used in an electric power system is storable, doesn't boil away and can be easily resupplied, Gerstenmaier said.

Dozens of commercial and military satellites, as well as NASA's Dawn science probe to the asteroid belt, use electric propulsion today, but the power generated for their maneuvering thrusters is low, according to the panel of experts who spoke at the hearing. The majority of spacecraft utilize chemical propulsion systems, which add a significant amount of mass for fuel tanks. Electric propulsion systems are far lighter to launch.

NASA is aiming to develop 12.5-kilowatt electric thrusters for the multipurpose Deep Space Gateway, a combination research station, lunar operations base and assembly outpost for Mars-bound spacecraft. That's about 40 percent more powerful that currently available systems, Gerstenmaier said.

"With advanced electric propulsion, we will have the ability to move habitat systems to various orbits around the moon," he said. "We can support crewed science operations from the module in various lunar orbits. The module is not stuck in one place."

Electric propulsion systems in the 50- to 100-kilowatt level may be needed to get crews to Mars faster than is possible with conventional chemical propulsion. This would shorten the amount of time astronauts are exposed to dangerous radiation and the amount of food and other supplies they would need for the trip, according to the panel members.

Electric propulsion has already proven its worth on commercial satellites, culminating in the 2015 launch of the world's first all-electric spacecraft, said Mitchell Walker, chairman of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' Electric Propulsion Technical Committee, who also presented testimony during the hearing.

"The enormous propellant-mass savings achieved with electric propulsion allows two all-electric satellites to launch on one smaller, less expensive launch vehicle," Walker said.

This year, India and China launched their first electrically propelled satellites, and Japan is scheduled to fly its first all-electric spacecraft in 2021, Walker said, adding that Europe and Russia are investing in the technology as well.

Industry projects show 50 to 75 percent of all future geostationary spacecraft are expected to use electric propulsion, he said.

Irene Klotz can be reached on Twitter at @free_space. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Moon Station Could Use Tech from Scrapped Asteroid Mission, NASA Says - Space.com

Things are getting even more exciting at the NASA facility in eastern Kern County.

An experimental aircraft exclusively propelled by electric power now in development atNASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center has the potential to revolutionize both general and commercial aviation with its quiet design, its virtual zero-carbon output and incredible improvements in efficiency.

The X-57 demonstrator is actually a radical retrofit of an already existing aircraft, said Matt Kamlet, a public affairs specialist at NASA Armstrong.

"The plane will have a long, skinny wing, designed at (NASA) Langley, with 14 electric motors, two on the wingtips and 12 on the leading edge of the wing," Kamlet said.

The X-plane, so designated by the Air Force due to its experimental nature,will use all 14 motors during takeoff and landing. But at cruising altitude, the props on the 12 smaller motors will stop and fold away until they're needed again.

Battery technology has long been a limiting factor for electric-powered aircraft in terms of how much power they can store, said Tom Rigney, project manager for the X-57. But that is changing.

"We're taking advantage of battery technology that is existing now," Rigney told The Californian on Thursday. "The auto industry has taken the development of batteries to a new level."

A 500 percent increase in power efficiency at cruising speed. A lower cost of aircraft operation. Much quieter. Tiny carbon footprint. And more than 300 horsepower to play with, and a targeted speed of 175 mph.

These are assets that Rigney believes will first impact general aviation, including future use by companies like Uber and others.

Later, smaller commercial flights could make use of the technology and eventually hybrid part electric, part conventional airliners may be developed for long-distance commercial aviation.

The concept began back in 2011, Kamlet said. Then in 2015, engineers at Armstrong, located on Edwards Air Force Base, attached an experimental wing to a big rig and drove it at speed on one of Edwards' dry lake beds to test propeller technology and "lift" for what would later be named the X-57.

"There's no wind tunnel at NASA Armstrong," Kamlet said. "We essentially created our own wind tunnel."

At Scaled Composites in nearby Mojave, engineers are integrating electrical systems into the aircraft. Delivery to NASA is expected soon and the first flight test is expected in 2018, Rigney said.

X-planes have historically pushed the boundaries of aeronautics.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden highlighted the agencys first X-plane designation in a decade during a speech last year.

"With the return of piloted X-planes to NASAs research capabilities which is a key part of our 10-year-long New Aviation Horizons initiative the general aviation-sized X-57 will take the first step in opening a new era of aviation," Bolden said.

The first X-plane was the X-1, which in 1947 became the first airplane to fly faster than the speed of sound also at the desert base.

X-57 isn't trying to fly faster. Just better.

Steven Mayer can be reached at 661-395-7353. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @semayerTBC.

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NASA in eastern Kern central to development of revolutionary all-electric aircraft - The Bakersfield Californian

Every year, Siberia is struck by wildfires that destroy great swathes of boreal forest. But climate change has caused wildfire activity in Siberia to increase radically over the past few decades.

The boreal forests in Siberia are burning at extraordinary rates, unheard of in at least 10,000 years, and climate change projections predict even more wildfires to come.

The current wildfires, which started in late June, have already burned roughly 538 square kilometres (133,000 acres) of forest in southern Siberia.

Climate change has been increasing temperatures across the globe, but northernmost regions, like Siberia, are experiencing temperature inclines at twice the rate. Since November, temperatures in southern Siberia have been up 4C (7.2F) from the average. And as the weather turns drier and warmer, the forests in the region become more and more prone to wildfires.

These wildfires are a direct threat to the role of Siberian forests in absorbing carbon emissions.

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

Each year, the Russian forests absorb a net 500 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere.

Last Friday, two NASA satellites captured the destructive and widespread impact of these wildfires on the region.

The images from the Aqua satellite reveal a series of wildfires and towers of smoke, riddled across southern Siberia.

The second satellite, Suomi NPP, measured the air quality in the region and found the aerosol index reached over 19, indicating very dense smoke at high altitudes.

According to NASA Earth Observatory, scientists are also currently investigating three possible pyrocumulus cloud formations in the area, which can alter local climates by lofting ash and particles high into the atmosphere.

But the most devastating impact of these wildfires cannot be seen from a satellite.

Siberian boreal forests play a crucial role in the carbon cycle, making up nearly 10 percent of the planet's land surface and housing more than 30 percent of the carbon on Earth.

That means that when these forests burn, they are releasing vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere. The loss of carbon absorption in combination with the release of carbon, creates a vicious cycle that leads to more global warming and, as a result, more wildfires.

Not to mention, these wildfires can also hasten the melting of Arctic ice, which is already disappearing at alarming rates. This occurs when the fires produce hordes of soot that fall on snow and ice, darkening their surface and causing them to absorb more sunlight.

And it's not just Siberia, either.

Over the past decade, global warming has caused a series of destructive wildfires in Canada and Alaska, too. Last year, a wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alberta became the costliest natural disaster in Canadian history.

And, according to Climate Central research, wildfire season in Alaska is 40 percent longer and large fires twice as common as they were 75 years ago.

Finding a way to stop these wildfires from occurring or from burning out of control will be pivotal in our fight against climate change.

Scientists have their work cut out for them.

See more here:

NASA images capture worst Siberian wildfires in 10,000 years ... - ScienceAlert

A report on Alex Jones InfoWars claiming child sex slaves have been kidnapped and shipped to Mars is untrue, NASA told The Daily Beast on Thursday.

There are no humans on Mars. There are active rovers on Mars. There was a rumor going around last week that there werent. There are, Guy Webster, a spokesperson for Mars exploration at NASA, told The Daily Beast. But there are no humans.

On Thursdays program, the InfoWars host welcomed guest Robert David Steele onto The Alex Jones Show, which airs on 118 radio stations nationwide, to talk about kidnapped children he said have been sent on a two-decade mission to space.

We actually believe that there is a colony on Mars that is populated by children who were kidnapped and sent into space on a 20-year ride, said Steele. So that once they get to Mars they have no alternative but to be slaves on the Mars colony.

Jones echoed Steele, saying clearly they dont want us looking into what is happening because every time probes go over they turn them off.

Look, I know that 90 percent of the NASA missions are secret and Ive been told by high level NASA engineers that you have no idea. There is so much stuff going on, Jones said.

At the beginning of his campaign in December of 2015, President Donald Trump told Alex Jones that your reputation is amazing and I will not let you down in a half-hour interview on InfoWars.

In the 2016 campaign, Jones amplified the baseless Pizzagate conspiracy theory that Hillary Clintons campaign was running a child sex ring under the basement of a D.C. pizza shop that has no basement. The theory was kicked off by a Reddit user who claimed John Podestas hacked emails show proof of a global child sex ring if one were to replace the word pizza with little boy.

Edgar M. Welch fired shots into that pizza shop after sending a video of one of Jones segments to a friend, according to police.

Jones has since apologized directly to James Alefantis, the owner of Comet Pizza, in a carefully worded letter and statement. He later hired Mike Cernovich, who pushed Pizzagate-related hashtags prior to the election in an effort to make them trend on Twitter, as an InfoWars host. Cernovich was granted a one-day pass to the White House press briefing in May, and Donald Trump Jr. said he would win a Pulitzer in a long gone time of unbiased journalism.

On Thursdays Infowars broadcast, Steele alleged the kidnapped children were not only being kidnapped for space labor, but also murdered for their blood and bone marrow.

"Pedophilia does not stop with sodomizing children, said Steele. It goes straight into terrorizing them to adrenalize their blood and then murdering them. It also includes murdering them so that they can have their bone marrow harvested as well as body parts.

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This is the original growth hormone, said Jones.

When NASAs Webster was asked about the veracity of the one rumor by The Daily Beast on Thursday, he responded, theres only one stupid rumor on the Internet? Now thats news.

The rest is here:

NASA Denies That It's Running a Child Slave Colony on Mars - Daily Beast

An artist's impression of a nuclear power system, consisting of four separate fission reactors, for Mars habitats.

As NASA makes plans to one day send humans to Mars, one of the key technical gaps the agency is working to fill is how to provide enough power on the Red Planets surface for fuel production, habitats and other equipment. One option: small nuclear fission reactors, which work by splitting uranium atoms to generate heat, which is then converted into electric power.

NASAs technology development branch has been funding a project called Kilopower for three years, with the aim of demonstrating the system at the Nevada National Security Site near Las Vegas. Testing is due to start in September and end in January 2018.

The last time NASA tested a fission reactor was during the 1960s' Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power, or SNAP, program, which developed two types of nuclear power systems. The first system radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs taps heat released from the natural decay of a radioactive element, such as plutonium. RTGs have powered dozens of space probes over the years, including the Curiosity rover currently exploring Mars. [Nuclear Generators Power NASA Deep Space Probes (Infographic)]

The second technology developed under SNAP was an atom-splitting fission reactor. SNAP-10A was the first and so far, only U.S. nuclear power plant to operate in space. Launched on April 3, 1965, SNAP-10A operated for 43 days, producing 500 watts of electrical power, before an unrelated equipment failure ended the demonstration. The spacecraft remains in Earth orbit.

Russia has been far more active developing and flying spacecraft powered by small fission reactors, including 30 Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellites, or RORSAT, which flew between 1967 and 1988, and higher-powered TOPAZ systems. TOPAZ is an acronym for Thermionic Experiment with Conversion in Active Zone.

A photograph of the SNAP-8 generator from the Lewis Research Center, part of NASA's Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. Here, engineers exposed the system to shocks and vibrations expected to occur during a launch into space and subsequent maneuvering.

NASA has funded several nuclear power technology efforts in the 50 years since SNAP, but financial, political and technical issues stymied development. Three years ago, the agencys Game Changing Development program backed Kilopower, with the goal of building and testing a small fission reactor by Sept. 30, 2017, the end of the current fiscal year. The project is costing about $15 million.

"It'll be the first time that we operate a fission reactor that could be used in space since [the] 1960s SNAP program," said Lee Mason, who oversees power and energy storage technology development at NASAs Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

The tests in September are designed to validate Kilopowers design and performance. After that, NASA would be ready to proceed with developing a higher-fidelity system for testing on Mars or elsewhere, Mason said.

The test reactor, which is about 6.5 feet tall (1.9 meters), is designed to produce up to 1 kilowatt of electric power, but to keep costs down, the test unit does not include a full array of Stirling engines to convert energy generated by the fission process into heat. Thermal simulators will be used for the balance of the engines to verify the reactors power output, Mason said in an interview with Space.com.

NASAs interest in fission resurfaced after a 2010 study that looked at options for RTG systems.

"At that point, we were trying to find a small fission reactor that could provide similar power output as the radioisotope power systems," Mason said.

NASA engineers figure human expeditions to Mars will require a system capable of generating about 40 kilowatts of power, which is about what is needed for "about eight houses on Earth," according to the agency. Curiositys RTG was designed to supply about 125 watts less energy than what is needed to power a microwave oven though power levels fall as the radioactive plutonium decays. [How Will a Human Mars Base Work? NASA's Vision in Images]

Solar power is another option, but that would restrict power generation to regions that are exposed to enough sunlight to charge batteries. Inside the moons Shackleton Crater, for example a prime candidate for lunar sorties due to its water resources it is completely dark. The sunniest spots on Mars receive only about one-third the amount of sunlight as Earth does.

"If you want to land anywhere, surface fission power is a key strategy for that," Michelle Rucker, an engineer at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston, said during a presentation in December to NASAs Future In-Space Operations working group.

A SNAP 10A spacecraft system being tested inpreparation for launch.

Fission reactors also can continue working in adverse weather conditions, such as Mars ubiquitous dust storms.

"Weve landed some really cool things on Mars and theyve had some pretty remarkable power systems but theyre not going to cut it for human missions," Mason said during last months Humans to Mars Summit in Washington, D.C.

The biggest power requirement for future human expeditions is running the equipment to produce fuel, air and water, plus running the habitat and recharging batteries for rovers and science equipment. NASA envisions sending four or five small fission reactors, each capable of generating about 10 kilowatts of power, to Mars, Mason said at the Humans to Mars Summit.

The units would be launched cold and activated once they reach their destinations.

"Theyre not operating at launch, whereas once you fuel an RTG, its operating, and you have to process the thermal output," Mason said. "The reactors also have a very low radiological inventory at launch less than 5 curies so its benign There are no fission products until the reactor is turned on, and thats when there will be some radiation."

Partners in the Kilopower project include NASAs Glenn Research Center, the Department of Energy, Los Alamos National Lab and the Y12 National Security Complex, which supplies the reactors uranium.

Irene Klotz can be reached on Twitter at @free_space. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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NASA to Test Fission Power for Future Mars Colony - Space.com

After a month of trying, NASA finally launched one of its small sounding rockets from the coast of Virginia, creating a delightful mix of colorful clouds in the upper atmosphere. The vibrant show was no fluke, but the main point of the mission. The rocket, a Terrier-Improved Malemute, was tasked with releasing canisters filled with multi-colored chemical vapors into the sky to create vivid clouds that could be seen from the ground.

Its a launch thats been a long time in the making

Its a launch thats been a long time in the making. Originally scheduled for May 31st, the mission has been continuously pushed back due to poor weather conditions. But at 4:25AM ET this morning, the sounding rocket finally got off the ground from NASAs Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, reaching an altitude of 118 miles. During the flight, which lasted just eight minutes, 10 canisters filled with chemicals called vapor tracers were released and formed the clouds.

Creating these artificial clouds helps researchers more easily track how particles move at super--high altitudes. And thats important when it comes to better understanding Earths ionosphere the upper part of our planets atmosphere that is ionized by solar and cosmic radiation. These ionized gases, which extend out into space, are manipulated by Earths magnetic field. Scientists have made models to predict how the ionosphere moves and changes across the globe, but the best way to prove if those models are correct is to see these particles in action.

These sounding rocket missions are an artful way to do that, and NASA assures everyone that the launches do not pose any threat to human health. The vapor tracers that are released are made of barium, lithium, and trimethylaluminum, the same ingredients you might find in fireworks. And NASAs sounding rockets release a whole lot less of these chemicals than a big fireworks show.

Its no surprise, then, that the result of NASAs mission does look a bit like a firework. And thanks to a new method of releasing the canisters, the clouds could be seen for many miles around, from North Carolina to New York. NASA says it got 2,000 reports of cloud sightings, but dont take the agencys word for it. Check out viewers shots of the vapor tracers on NASAs Wallops Facebook page.

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A small NASA rocket created a burst of colorful clouds in the night sky - The Verge

Ten jet passengers landed with a thud beneath NASA Langley Research Center's storied gantry on Thursday afternoon.

The passengers were crash-test dummies aboard the 5,180-pound cross-section cut from a 68-passenger regional jet, similar to one that might fly out of Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport.

When it dropped, the plane hung at a 5-degree angle hoisted almost 15 feet above a thick dirt mound which sloped downward toward the ground at a 10-degree angle.

The drop was the second in a joint collaborative effort between NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration. Data gathered from the simulated crashes will help inform the development of the next generation of aircraft frames.

"This helps us get data from the crash performance of these smaller aircraft," said Joseph Pellettiere, FAA chief scientist and technical adviser for crash dynamics. "This particular test is kind of a new configuration test, in that we're dropping it onto a sloped berm, when a lot of our previous tests were just on a flat, level, hard surface. ...

"It's going to help define a baseline performance level for this size of aircraft, so when people want to come up with new designs using new material, namely composites, they can kind of run a comparison," to the traditional metal-framed plane tested Thursday, he said.

A large crowd of onlookers, many of whom were student interns savoring a chance to see the gantry in action, crowded along the fence and chanted in unison with the 10-second countdown.

Workers involved in the drop were jokingly taking bets about how the cross-section would perform. Would its tail tip forward as it landed, or would it skid down the dirt path?

Instead, upon impact, the plane, which traveled at about 30 feet per second to the ground, hardly moved beyond where it landed.

Engineers and researchers involved in the drop will spend time now analyzing the information collected Thursday. Tiny black dots on the side of the plane individually placed to ensure a lack of uniformity were captured by special cameras that will, in a way, model the crash. Instruments covered parts of the interior and the dummies themselves to help gather information about what happened upon impact.

Some of the dummies in the first row of five seats visibly bore the brunt of the impact, slouched over in their harnesses. One of the seats appeared to be broken, its passenger slumped over toward the middle aisle.

One dummy in the second row had been configured as if to brace for impact, as flight attendants instruct passengers to do in cases of crashes, in order to obtain different, additional data.

"The fuselage didn't deform as much, or, if at all, very little, compared to other sections of the aircraft," Martin Annett, lead test engineer, said of his first impressions of the crash. "That in turn puts a lot more load into the seats and the dummies."

Solimar Kwa and Alina Creamer, two interns with the contamination control and planetary protection lead, had eagerly peered through the fence as they recorded the drop on their phones.

Some in the crowd had laughed upon impact, the result of a long wait in the hot sun for a short payoff. One equated it to the build-up and hours of preparation for Thanksgiving dinner, only for it to be eaten in a matter of minutes.

But to Kwa and Creamer, witnessing the short drop was an opportunity worth seeing.

"Quite a big buildup for a 'bloop' noise ... (but) it's cool to be part of history, in a way. You think about the past and the future that we're building towards," Kwa said. "We're really lucky to be a part of this."

Hammond can be reached by phone at 757-247-4951.

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NASA, FAA drop crash-test dummies in jet section at NASA Langley - Daily Press

Its the one youve all been waiting for. June 30 is International Asteroid Day.

Scientists, including astrophysicist andQueen guitarist Brian May launched the day in 2014 to raise awareness of the risks of an asteroid colliding with Earth. TheUnited Nations Office for Outer Space Affairsinaugurated it as an official global day of note in December 2016.

To celebrate, NASA willrun a special television program aboutits Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which tracks asteroids and other Near Earth Objects (NEOs). The program will explain the damage that could be caused by an asteroid hitting Earth, and how NASA is prepare to avoid such an eventualityincluding by potentially using a nuclear explosion to vaporize part of the asteroid before impact.

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The program will run at 12 p.m.Eastern Time (ET) on Friday. It is part of a 24-hour Asteroid Day program from Broadcasting Center Europe, which begins at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday. You can watch the stream below:

Asteroids are celestial bodies that orbit the sunlike planets. They are made up of metals and rocky materials. This makes them different from comets, which are partly made from rocky material but have an icy core and includedustand organic compounds. Both are formed out of leftovers from when the solar system was formed some 4.5 billion years ago. Asteroids can have unusual orbits and most of them reside in the asteroid belt, a region located between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.

The date of International Asteroid Day coincides with the biggest asteroid crash believed to have ever occurred in recent history. In 1908, a huge explosion happened in Russias Eastern Siberian Taiga, a sparsely populated region. The incident flattened 770 square miles; scientists have widely attributed it to the explosion of an asteroid or comet before it hit the Earth.

More than 16,000 NEOsasteroids and cometshave been discovered so far; about three-quarters of these are over 50 meters in size, meaning that they may not disintegrate before impact and could produce substantial damage were they to collide with Earth, says Paul Chodas, the manager of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

The chances that there is a large NEO heading for Earth are very small, but the consequences of a collision could be very large, says Chodas. In the worst case, we could have an impact that leads to a global catastrophe, but that would take an asteroid larger than about 1 kilometer [0.6 miles] in size.

Chodas says that NASA has found 90 percent of the objects that could cause a global impact were they to hit Earth, and that the agency had prepared techniques for dealing with a potential collision. These include sending a spacecraft to collide with the asteroid before it gets close enough to cause any damage, or using ion beams to send the asteroid off course.

Just three years ago, Russia witnessed the threat of asteroids: An object of approximately 20 meters entered Earths atmosphere near the town of Chelyabinsk, burning up and creating a light brighter than the Sun. The object was technically a meteorthe name given to small rocks, or meteoroids, when they enter Earths atmosphere and burn upand caused more than 1,500 indirect injuries, mostly from flying glass as the meteor shattered windows.

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Asteroid Day: Watch NASA Live Broadcast on How it is Defending Earth From a Space Collision - Newsweek

Enlarge / Sen. Richard Shelby, (R-Ala.) speaks during a Senate Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing in 2016.

NASA

As part of the annual US budget process, the NASA administrator meets with the appropriations subcommittees in the Senate and House to discuss the president's budget request. Under the new president, NASA doesn't yet have an administrator, so acting administrator Robert Lightfoot is making the rounds. On Thursday morning he met with the Senate's Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies.

Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) chairs this committee, which writes the budget for NASA and therefore wields extraordinary power over the nation's civil space activities.During Thursday's hearing, Shelby renewed his longstanding concerns about the space agency's commercial crew programthe NASA-funded efforts by Boeing and SpaceX to develop capsules and rockets to carry US astronauts to the International Space Station.

The agency had hoped for an operational capability by the end of 2017, but now that is likely to slip into early or mid-2019. Shelby asked about rising costs and delays. "What assurance can you give this committee that there will be no more cost increases or delays?" Shelby said, querying Lightfoot. "Can you do that?"

To his credit, Lightfoot, a former director of Marshall,gently corrected Shelby. "I think it's a fixed price contract; I don't expect any more cost increases," he said. "There may be delays, though, just with the sheer nature of what they're trying to do, and what we're trying to accomplish."

The key phrase here is "fixed price" contract. Unless it changes the design requirements, NASA won't pay Boeing or SpaceX more for commercial crew, because the contracts are "fixed." The companiestherefore have a strong incentive to deliver a finished product as soon as possible.

By contrast, NASA has a traditional cost-plus contract with Boeing to build the core stage of the Space Launch System rocketand with other heritage contractors for the engines and solid-rocket boosters. This means that if there are delays, NASA simply pays additional costs to the aerospace companies. And there have been delays. When Congress wrote the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, it called for an "operational" rocket by the end of 2016. Now, anuncrewed test flight launch of the SLS rocket has been delayed at least three years, to 2019. With a budget that now exceeds $2 billion annually, those delays havetherefore cost NASA about $6 billion.

Nevertheless, onThursday Shelby argued that the SLS rocket needs more money, not less, from the administration in the fiscal year 2018 budget. This is consistent with his past beliefs, as Shelby strongly supports the rocket being designed and tested in his home state at Marshall Space Flight Center. For example, in fiscal year 2017, the Senate budget increasedfunding by $840 million for the SLS rocket, a substantial 60-percent bumpabove the president's request.

The fact that both SpaceX and Blue Origin have made significant strides toward lowering launch costs in the last year has not changed his position. As at the outset of the hearing, Sen. Shelby scorned those who believe NASA should move to fixed price contracts for transportation in spacethat is, buy rockets and spacecraft directly from commercial providers.

"Theres growing sentiment that NASA should change the way it does business," he said, "that it should be a buyer of commercial transportation services." But that's not Sen. Shelby's sentiment: "While risk is inherent in anything NASA chooses to undertake, there's no replacement for proper analysis and reasonable precaution when lives and resources of the nation are at stake."

In other words, NASA alone can do deep space.

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Senator complains about cost increases in NASA's fixed price contracts - Ars Technica

Atlas, Daphnis and Pan are shown to scale with each other.

With so many odd-shaped moons, it can feel like Saturn's weird satellites all kind of blur together. NASA released a montage on Wednesday that helps to put three of those moons into perspective by highlighting the differences in their sizes and shapes.

The pictures of the moons -- Atlas, Daphnis and Pan -- all come from the Cassini spacecraft and were taken on different dates this year. The combined image shows the moons to scale, so you can see how Atlas and Pan are roughly the same size, while Daphnis nearly disappears at just 5 miles (8 kilometers) across.

Observers have noted that Atlas looks a lot like a classic UFO and Pan resembles a celestial ravioli. With a little imagination, Daphnis looks like a wrinkled bean.

Tiny Daphnis has an interesting relationship with Saturn's rings. Its gravitational influence creates wave-like formations at the edge of the dark-ring gap where it orbits. Pan is also busy, carving out what's known as the Encke Gap, a dark path within the rings. Atlas orbits just outside of Saturn's bright A ring, the first ring discovered by astronomers on Earth.

Cassini, which launched in 1997, is currently in the middle of the grand finale phase of its mission. It will end its life with a scheduled plunge into Saturn's atmosphere in September.

20

Relive Cassini's most spectacular Saturn images

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NASA puts Saturn's weirdest moons into perspective - CNET

A House bill offers nearly $19.9 billion for NASA in fiscal year 2018, almost $800 million more than the administration's request.

WASHINGTON House appropriators introduced a spending bill June 28 that would increase NASAs budget by nearly $800 million above the administrations request, with particular support for the agencys exploration and education programs.

The bill, to be marked up by the commerce, justice and science (CJS) subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee June 29, would provide $19.872 billion for NASA, $780 million more than in the administrations request released May 23. It would also be $218 million above what the agency received in the fiscal year 2017 omnibus appropriations bill enacted earlier in May.

NASA has also earned the highest level of funding in the history of the agency, Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) said in a statement accompanying the release of the draft bill. For too many years, NASA has been overloaded with too many missions and not enough funding. This bill guarantees NASA receives the funding they need to lift Americas space program above the glory days of Apollo.

NASAs exploration account receives the largest increase in the House bill: a $616 million increase over the request to $4.55 billion. The bill would fund the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System at the same levels as in the 2017 omnibus bill, rather than the lower levels in the budget proposal. It increases funding for ground systems and exploration research and development above both the request and the 2017 omnibus bill.

The bill would also restore much of NASAs education program, which the administration proposed closing in its 2018 budget request, offering $37.3 million in closeout costs. The bill offers $90 million for education, $10 million below the 2017 level. The bill specifically funds two programs in that office, Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program, that would have been shut down in the budget request.

Plans to end those education programs faced bipartisan opposition when the CJS subcommittee held a hearing on NASAs budget proposal June 8. Im concerned about, in your budget, your cuts to the Office of Education, said Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), a former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee who is now a member of the CJS subcommittee. I cant understand why you would want to cut that.

NASAs science account would get an increase of $147 million from the request to $5.859 billion. The bill does not include funding levels for the various divisions within the account, although the statement accompanying the bill notes that it targets funding to planetary science and astrophysics to ensure the continuation of critical research and development programs, while reducing funding for lower-priority research.

The bill text does specify that NASA spend $495 million of the science budget on both Europa orbiter and lander missions, launching in 2022 and 2024 respectively. Culberson has been a strong proponent of Europa exploration. The administration had requested $425 million, exclusively for the Europa Clipper orbiter mission and not for a follow-on lander.

The bill, after the June 29 markup, will likely be taken up by the full committee after the July 4 recess. The Senate has yet to introduce its version of the bill. The CJS subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the administrations budget request for NASA on June 29, with NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot testifying.

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House spending bill would boost NASA funding - SpaceNews

It's no place for a honeymoon, but these lava-fall views are still gorgeous.

Ah, Niagara Falls, a grandiose natural phenomenon of rushing water. You won't find anything quite like it on the dry surface of Mars, but the Red Planet has a landmark that bears a resemblance to the famous falls.

NASA posted an image today from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and titled it "The Niagara Falls of Mars." There's no bubbling river here, but there are the remnants of what was once a great lava flow.

NASA says the image "shows one of the many examples from Mars where lava (when it was molten) behaved in a similar fashion to liquid water."

What you're looking at is the north rim of a crater nearly 19 miles (30 kilometers) in diameter. Nasa notes, "a lava flow coming from the north-northeast surrounded the crater rim, and rose to such levels that it breached the crater rim at four locations to produce spectacular multi-level lava falls."

As epic as all this looks now, it would have been totally mind-blowing in the long-distant past while the lava was actually flowing and creating these spectacular formations. For another view, check out this 3D image that makes it feel like you're visting in person.

NASA's MRO launched in 2005 and has sent back quite a few fascinating views of Mars, including recent looks at theCuriosity rover and a mysterious deep pit.

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26 weird objects seen on Mars, explained (pictures)

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NASA orbiter snaps the 'Niagara Falls of Mars' - CNET

By Robert Avery, ravery@hcnonline.com

Deer Park's 14-year-old All-Stars and NASA-Orange hold their post-game meeting, following the 12-2 Directors Tournament championship game setback by Deer Park.

Deer Park's 14-year-old All-Stars and NASA-Orange hold their post-game meeting, following the 12-2 Directors Tournament championship game setback by Deer Park.

Deer Park 14s fall hard to NASA-Orange in Directors title game

CLEAR LAKE - Just when it looked like Deer Park baseball teams could little wrong in the month of June, winning a Class 6A state title and all, an all-star team from the NASA Pony program, reminded us that there's plenty of sharks still in the water.

The NASA-Orange Pony 14-year-old All-Stars delivered a strong message Tuesday night, essentially saying they're the best around this summer as they downed the Deer Park All-Stars 12-2 in the Directors Tournament championship game at Mark Ulmer Field in Bay Area Park.

One night after scoring 16 runs against the League City All-Stars to clinch their spot in the title game, two NASA-Orange pitchers stifled Deer Park's attack on two hits. Jacob Martinez and Henry Hill combined for the two-hitter, singles by Jayden Miller and Tanner Phillips.

NASA-Orange roughed up three Deer Park hurlers for nine hits and runs in every inning of the shortened contest that was stopped in the fifth by the mercy rule. They delivered the knockout punch with a five-run fourth.

Leading the way offensively was Christian Whitehead, who had a perfect night at the plate, going 4-fof-4 and Logan Moore, who crushed a two-run homer in the third frame to stake his teammates to a 5-0 lead.

"Pitching and defense. Hands down, I think we've got more depth than most of the other teams. We've got probably three (pitchers) that hit in the mid-80s, so it makes it a little harder for the other teams to catch up to," said NASA-Orange manager Scooter Moore.

Hill, in his final two innings of work, only allowed one ball to leave the infield and that was caught by the center fielder. Otherwise, he struck out three and hit a batter.

As for the home run, Moore isn't a big fan of the long ball, even if it comes from your own son.

"The thing about home runs, and that's why we had a couple of strikeouts tonight, is they all want to hit home runs. A home run is an accident. It's a mistake. Hitting the ball with power is his job. The home run was a mistake. I'm proud of him for that, I just wish they'd all get in the rhythm of basehits. They score runs. Pop-ups are outs. Too many get underneath the ball, trying for the home run," Moore said.

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Deer Park 14s fall hard to NASA-Orange in Directors title game - Chron.com

A video claiming it had the scoop on forthcoming NASA news about alien life went viral. NASA quickly debunked that claim.

For a while online this week, the word was that hacker collective Anonymous may have uncovered an imminent announcement from NASA about the discovery of alien life in the universe. The whole thing was a massive YouTube and tabloid click-bait fail that went so viral it forced NASA's head of science to set the record straight.

"Contrary to some reports, there's no pending announcement from NASA regarding extraterrestrial life," Robert Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, wrote Monday.

Over the weekend I saw a link to a shoddy video on Anonymous Global's YouTube channel beginning to circulate online. I gave it a watch but didn't give any thought to writing about it because it was a pretty clear play for views, like so many other spammy videos about alien conspiracies and countless fake (or at least poorly researched and reported) news stories we've seen.

The video, which features a voice-over along with some images of old UFO footage and a person in a Guy Fawkes mask that has come to symbolize Anonymous, doesn't even present any real evidence of a new alien conspiracy.

Instead, it takes quotes from Zurbuchen's public testimony to a congressional committee earlier this year completely out of context and insinuates that NASA has the goods on alien life and will soon rock our world with the announcement.

"We are on the verge of making one of the most profound, unprecedented discoveries in history," the video quotes Zurbuchen.

Zurbuchen was speaking about the long term, as in the next several years or few decades, but that's not the sense you get from the video.

Despite all this, which is very easy to sort out by spending a few minutes watching the testimony online, or any of Zurbuchen's public statements over the past several months, a number of media outlets ran with headlines suggesting Anonymous may have uncovered NASA's big alien secret and the whole thing went viral. So much so, that Zurbuchen himself made the rare move of debunking it on Twitter.

It's true NASA talks about the potential for alien life in the universe quite frequently. Most of the astronomers and scientists I've spoken with about it at the space agency and elsewhere believe we'll find solid evidence of life beyond Earth in the next decade or two or three.

In fact, it seems like every other month NASA or some other group of astronomers is holding another press conference about the latest discovery involving an exoplanet that could be habitable, or the building blocks of life floating around in the outer system and even promising finds next door on Mars.

NASA and others usually take a moment during these occasions (or when summoned to testify before Congress) to say something about how we're inching ever closer to the inevitable day when an announcement will be made about the possible discovery of an actual alien life-form.

Scientists are rightfully excited about this and feel it could come relatively soon because a number of pieces of next-generation hardware like the James Webb Space Telescope will come online over the next couple of years. They'll provide powerful new tools to finally, hopefully, spot signs of an actual E.T., even if it's just some kind of alien microbes.

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Best places in space to search for alien life

But it hasn't happened yet. No reputable astronomer or scientist has claimed to have discovered alien life. When NASA and others indicate that we're getting closer, it's because we certainly are. And yes, it's also in the best interest of Zurbuchen and his colleagues around the world to increase public interest and excitement about finding alien life to help ensure continued funding for the projects that could make it a reality, like the James Webb Space Telescope.

As for Anonymous, keep in mind it's not really a centralized organization and pretty much anyone can choose to affiliate with the brand, which is what the YouTuber who posted the video seems to have done. The channel description even emphasizes that "technically everyone and anyone is Anonymous."

Then again, if that's true, it means the aliens are Anonymous too, right? So maybe whoever created the video really did have some out-of-this-world sourcing. For now, I'm still taking NASA at its word.

Technically Literate:Original works of short fiction with unique perspectives on tech, exclusively on CNET.

Crowd Control:A crowdsourced science fiction novel written by CNET readers.

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NASA fact-checks Anonymous on alien-life claims - CNET

Illustration of NASAs planned Low Boom Flight Demonstration aircraft as outlined during the projects preliminary design review.Photo courtesy of NASA / Lockheed Martin

NASA has achieved a significant milestone in its effort to make supersonic passenger jet travel over land a real possibility by completing the preliminary design review of its Quiet Supersonic Transport, or QueSST, aircraft design. QueSST is the initial design stage of NASAs planned Low Boom Flight Demonstration experimental airplane, otherwise known as an X-plane.

Senior experts and engineers from across the agency and lead contractor Lockheed Martin concluded Friday that the QueSST design is capable of fulfilling the piloted, single-engineaircraft'smission objectives, which are to fly at supersonic speeds, but create a soft thump instead of the disruptive sonic boom associated with supersonic flight today. The X-plane will be flown over communities to collect data necessary for regulators to enable supersonic flight over land in the U.S.and elsewhere in the world.

NASA partnered with Lockheed Martin in February 2016 for the preliminary design. Last month, a scale model of the design completed testing in the 8-foot-by 6-foot supersonic wind tunnel at NASAs Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

"Managing a project like this is all about moving from one milestone to the next, said David Richwine, manager for the preliminary design effort under NASAs Commercial Supersonic Technology Project. Our strong partnership with Lockheed Martin helped get us to this point. Were now one step closer to building an actual X-plane.

After the success of completing the design review, NASAs project team can start the process of soliciting proposals later this year and of awarding a contract early next year to build the X-plane. The acquisition for the contract will be fully open and competitive, with the QueSST preliminary design data being made available to qualified bidders. Flight testing could begin as early as 2021.

Over the next few months, NASA will work with Lockheed on finalizing the preliminary design effort. This includes a static inlet performance test and a low-speed wind tunnel test at NASAs Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

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Supersonic Passenger Jet Travel Closer to Reality With NASA Milestone - Aviation Today

Siberian wildfire season is off and running with multiple blazes searing the boreal forest and tundra. Its the latest example of the vast shifts happening to the forests that cover Siberia and the rest of the northern tier of the world as climate change alters the landscape.

Those forests are burning at a rate unheard of in at least 10,000 years due largely to rising temperatures. They contain vast reserves of carbon stored in trees and soil and when they burn, they send that carbon into the atmosphere. That creates a dangerous cycle of more severe wildfires and ever rising temperatures.

A satellite image captured on June 23, 2017 shows the extent of wildfires burning across Siberia. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

The current constellation of conflagrations had burned through roughly 133,000 acres to the west of Lake Baikal in southern Siberia as of last week. Strong winds have sent smoke spiraling hundreds of miles northeast, impacting air quality across the region.

NASAs satellites captured the scene on Friday from a few different vantage points. The Aqua satellite captured the extent of the thick plumes of smoke and fires dotting the region while the Suomi NPP satellite was able to analyze the air quality. Both show the stunning breadth of impacts wildfires can have. The Suomi NPP measurements in particular show that the aerosol index a measure of air quality hit 19, a mark that denotes very dense smoke.

According to NASA Earth Observatory, scientists are also investigating signs that the fires were burning so intensely, they altered the local weather. Theres evidence pyrocumulus clouds formed, a phenomenon that occurs when wildfires burn so hot that they cause localized convection that eventually forms clouds.

The region where fires are burning has been a hot spot on the global temperature map. Since November, temperatures have been up to 7F above average with some months far exceeding that mark. Climate change has been driving up temperatures around the world, but the northern tier of the planet has seen temperatures rise twice as fast.

Temperatures in Siberia were up 7.2F above normal from November 2016-April 2017. Credit:NASA

The extra heat has caused a string of severe wildfire seasons not just in Siberia, but in other stretches of the boreal forest that also covers Canada and Alaska. Last year, a massive blaze overran Fort McMurray, Alberta and became the costliest natural disaster in Canadian history. The year prior, Alaska had an explosive early start to its wildfire season. This is the third year in a row massive fires have lit up Siberia.

These individual events are part of a new reality that the boreal forest is burning at a rate unprecedented in modern history. Large fires in Alaska are twice as common as they were 75 years ago, according to Climate Centrals own research. That same report found that Alaskan wildfire season is 40 percent longer as well. Similar changes have been observed in Canada as well.

Climate change is expected to continue driving conditions that make destructive fires more common in boreal forests. That will reshape some of the most unique ecosystems on earth and the climate system itself. Boreal forests store about 30 percent of the worlds carbon. When they burn, they put that carbon in the atmosphere, increasing the impacts of climate change and creating a vicious cycle that will likely lead to more fires.

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These NASA Images Show Siberia Burning Up - Climate Central

In this video posted online, a YouTuber claiming to represent the hackers collective Anonymous said NASA will soon announce the discovery of "extraterrestrial life." (Anonymous/YouTube)

The headlines sound thrilling. One might say theybait a click.

ANONYMOUS SAYS NASA HAS EVIDENCE OF ALIEN LIFE. DOES IT? Newsweek

The world's biggest hacking group thinks NASAis about to announce alien life. the Independent

Maybe you know of Anonymous as a band of socially enlightened hackers: liberatorsof knowledgefrom elites whowant to hideit from the public. You certainly know what NASA is.

So you click.

And what you get, if you follow the articles to theamateur YouTube channel that is their source, is video of a man in a Guy Fawkes mask Anonymous Global, he calls himself reading out old quotes from NASA spokespeoplein a spooky, synthesized voice.

Theman in the anarchist mask quotes a NASA science director's testimony from a congressional hearing in April, all totally public: We are on the verge of making one of the most profound, unprecedented discoveries in history.

Thatquote taken out of context and adorned with Anonymous Global's wild conspiracy theorizing became the basis for millions of views and countless news articles, forcing the science director in question and NASA officialsto explicitly deny the claims of a shoddily produced YouTube video this week.

Theres no pending announcement regarding extraterrestrial life, a NASA spokesmanwrote to The Washington Post, in case you were still in doubt.

Anonymous Gobal's video doesn't show Thomas Zurbuchen's actualtestimony, in which the directortalked uprecent discoveries ofplanets around distant suns and organic chemicals on Saturn's moon but caveated that we haven't found definitivesigns of life just yet.

[The surprising places where Americans are running into UFOs, mapped]

Later in his12-minute video, between monetized ads, Anonymous Global runs out of quotes and just sits therein front ofrandom UFO footage, talking about analien protocol.

Well this was a whole lot of nothing, says one commenteramong the million-plus people who clicked.

Not to mention all the people who clicked onone of the many, many news headlines that played along withthe YouTuber's bait and switch.

Anonymous says NASAis on the verge of announcing the existence of extraterrestrial life, writes the Independent, citing a YouTube account affiliated with the hacking group.

In this instance, eventhe YouTuber calling himself Anonymous Global was more accuratethan the news. Anonymous is NOT a group or an organization, he notes, correctly, in a disclaimeron his channel.

[Mysterious light blazes across California sky, sparking confusion, excitement and fears of alien invasion]

As the New Yorker once wrote, Anonymous isnot an organization of hackers or anything else, but rather a shape-shifting subculture of anti-establishment Internet users.

It's an open-access brand, essentially, andanyone canclaim allegiance to it.

In the case of Anonymous Global, his YouTube history reveals that he started making videos about the flight simulator X-Plane, until a year ago, when he fully embraced the Anonymous brand.

Preceding hisviral aliens video fromlast week: Anonymous 10 Greatest Conspiracy Theories and Anonymous Some Thoughts on Christmas 2016.

But never mind.

HUMANS are about to discover alien life, NASAbelieves according to the latest video from hacktivist group Anonymous,says the Sun.

And it's not just theBritish tabloids which before breathlessly reporting on the Anonymous aliens video, werespotted lending credence tothe Breatharian movement, made up of people who claimthey don't needfood.

[If anything happens to me, investigate, UFO hunter texted mother. Days later, he was dead.]

Newsweek picked up the story, too, with that ALL-CAPS question headline: ANONYMOUS SAYS NASA HAS EVIDENCE OF ALIEN LIFE. DOES IT?

You have to read more than 200wordsinto the article to find out the answer: No, it does not.

Even Sputnik News, which is run by the Russian government and named after a satellitethat symbolizes itsspacerivalry with NASA,flirted with the notionthat U.S. government scientistsmight have beaten their Russian rivals to the biggest discovery in history.

Once you click through, though, theRussians quickly dispelsuch nonsense.

Just about anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the dark Web can grab themselves a few minutes in the online limelight by releasing an announcement and crediting the story as being from Anonymous, Sputnik writes.

We all want the same outcome, certainly, but we'll stick with the peer-reviewed science, thanks.

Or sometimes just calling the agency a YouTuber claims to speak for can help.

While were excited about the latest findings from NASAs Kepler space observatory, theres no pending announcement regarding extraterrestrial life, a spokesman for the agency wrote to The Post on Monday.

For years NASA has expressed interest in searching for signs of life beyond Earth. We have a number of science missions that are moving forward with the goal of seeking signs of past and present life on Mars and ocean worlds in the outer solar system. While we do not yet have answers, we will continue to work to address the fundamental question, Are we alone?

So there it is. For themoment, the only confirmed intelligent life in the universe is human more intelligent some weeks than others.

This article has been updated with NASA's comments and the science director's rebuttal.

NASA's Thomas Zurbuchen testified before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology on the advances in the search for life on April 26. (House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology)

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No, NASA didn't find life on Saturn's moon. But deep sea life on Earth is pretty alien.

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A ridiculous YouTube video claiming we found aliens kept making the news, so NASA debunked it - Washington Post

The preliminary design for NASAs Low Boom Flight Demonstration aircraft has been cleared for takeoff. (NASA / Lockheed Martin Illustration)

NASA says its cleared a significant milestone on the path to reviving supersonic passenger jet travel in the U.S. with the completion of the preliminary design review for its low-boom experimental airplane.

The Low-Boom Flight Demonstration X-plane, or LBFD, is designed to create a soft thump rather than the loud sonic boom typically associated with supersonic airplanes. The boom is what led federal authorities to ban supersonic passenger flight over land in 1973.

The initial design stage for the LBFD is known as Quiet Supersonic Technology, or QueSST. NASAs plan, drawn up with Lockheed Martin as the lead contractor, calls for transforming QueSST into the LBFD and flying the plane over communities to collect the data that regulators would need to ease the ban.

Last Fridays preliminary design review was a key step in the process: Experts and engineers from NASA and Lockheed Martin checked the plans drawn up earlier in the year and determined that the QueSST design would be capable of fulfilling the planes mission objectives.

Managing a project like this is all about moving from one milestone to the next, David Richwine, manager for the design effort under NASAs Commercial Supersonic Technology Project, said in a news release. Our strong partnership with Lockheed Martin helped get us to this point. Were now one step closer to building an actual X-plane.

Other steps have been taken as well: Last month, a scale model of the design wrapped up testing in an 8-by-6-foot supersonic wind tunnel at NASAs Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. And at last weeks Paris Air Show, NASA and Honeywell announced the completion of a two-year study to test an avionics system that could help the LBFDs pilots minimize the impact of sonic thumps.

Now that the preliminary design has been approved, NASA and Lockheed Martin will fine-tune the design, based on the results of further performance tests and wind tunnel tests. Then NASA will solicit proposals for building the piloted, single-engine plane. Although Lockheed Martin has been the lead contractor for the early design phase, the follow-on contract will be awarded in an open competition.

The schedule calls for the contractor to be selected early next year, with flight tests beginning as early as 2021.

Meanwhile, commercial ventures such as Boom Aerospace,Spike Aerospace and Aerion are moving ahead with their own plans to test supersonic planes. At the Paris Air Show, Boom announced that it had 76 orders for supersonic planes from five airlines, and that it planned to fly a demonstrator aircraft late next year.

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NASA gives OK for design of super-quiet supersonic experimental airplane - GeekWire