Ask most people what an asteroid is and they’ll probably say it’s a small space rock which is only dangerous if it hits Earth. Ask a businessperson the same question and they might say it’s a dead space rock full of rare minerals that belong to no one so they’re just waiting to be mined and brought back. Tell that to a NASA scientist working on the OSIRIS-REx mission which is currently orbiting the asteroid Bennu and they might say “Not so fast – this one is mysteriously exploding and firing rocks at us!” Is there some Little Prince on Bennu protecting his stuff? (Who? Google it.)

“No one has ever seen an active asteroid up close like this. It wasn’t that long ago that the conventional wisdom was that asteroids are these dead bodies that didn’t change very much.”

Well, Carl Hergenrother, an astronomer at the University of Arizona and the scientist who proposed Bennu as the target for OSIRIS-REx, doesn’t believe THAT anymore. In a new paper published in the journal Science and reviewed in Wired, Hergenrother tells us that Bennu has been observed regularly exploding tiny pieces of rocks off of its surface – some high enough that they enter temporary orbits around it. This was seen as soon as OSIRIS-REx itself entered orbit around Bennu in December 2018. Since a few other asteroids have been observed doing the same thing, astronomers assumed Bennu was either flinging rocks into space with its centrifugal force or steaming them there as ice particles quickly turned to gas. While that’s the case for other asteroids, neither fit Bennu.

“Our observations classify Bennu as an active asteroid. Active asteroids are commonly identified by major mass loss events observable with telescopes, on scales much greater than we observed at Bennu.”

“Active asteroids” are dead rocks that are still acting alive – space zombies. However, OSIRIS-REx’s close proximity has found that Bennu is not made up like other active asteroids. So, without ice or centrifugal force, why is it exploding rocks off of its surface?

“Plausible mechanisms for the large ejection events include thermal fracturing, volatile release through dehydration of phyllosilicates, and meteoroid impacts.”

Hergenrother and the other astronomers in the study noticed that the explosions generally occurred in what would be considered the late afternoon of a Bennu day. That’s when the surface, which has been baking in a non-atmosphere-blocking sunlight all day reaches the temperature when its rocks fracture. Phyllosilicates are parallel sheets of silicate minerals that are also affected by the extreme heat and facilitate the rocks breaking via shrinkage. Rocks flinging off the surface during other times are probably caused by tiny micrometeoroids hitting the surface of Bennu hard enough to knock other tiny rocks into space, only to have them fall back down and possibly knock more loose, creating a cycle of ever-decreasing spitting events.

Artist’s concept of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft preparing to take a sample from asteroid Bennu.

Image Credit: NASA/Goddard

Whatever is causing Bennu’s rock explosion, it’s not enough to abort the mission whose main purpose is for OSIRIS-REx itself to bang into its surface and extract rock and soil samples, then return then to Earth in 2023. Any further studies of the zombie asteroid effect will have to wait for another future expedition.

One thing is for certain – there’s no Little Prince on Bennu tending to its volcanoes, because there are no volcanoes on Bennu. If OSIRIS-REx spots a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, it’s someone else. (What? Google it.)

Whenever there are strange lights over a part of Arizona, it seems to be mandatory to immediately link them to the Phoenix lights – the famous illuminated UFOs seen be thousands over Phoenix, other cities in Arizona, Nevada, and Sonora, Mexico, on two separate occasions in 1997. Because there were so many witnesses, potential explanations, denials, investigations and media follow-ups, the Phoenix lights live on – often taking some of the luster off of other UFO sightings in the area. That may not happen with the latest one. On December 8, multiple witnesses reported and recorded a lighted orb over Mesa that appeared to be dropping smaller orbs. Officials from government, law enforcement and the military claimed to be just as puzzled as the witnesses. What did they see? Have the Phoenix lights returned?

“It was a cloudy night and had drizzled off and on. Regular planes had been flying by since we can see the flight path for the airport. All of a sudden I saw this bright glowing orange light. I thought it was a planet or a star at first and then I realized ‘oh that’s close and it’s moving towards us. Then ‘boom’ it started dropping what looked like orange fireballs or something that traveled for a few seconds before they faded out and disappeared.”

Phoenix

According to The Daily Star, ABC News, The Deseret News and other media sites, Mesa residents Kerri Burnett and Doug Maier were watching planes coming in and out of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (about 14 miles away) at around 9 pm when they saw the first orange orb coming in from the southeast — not the direction of the airport, which is slightly northwest of Mesa. They both recorded the UFO on their cell phones, noting that their neighbors were also outside watching the UFO, which then became UFOs. Maier immediately posted the video on Facebook, and was soon contacted by a reporter from the local ABC affiliate.

“The interviewer informed us of his research, speaking to Luke AFB who confirmed it was nothing from them. He also stopped at a place where he saw an FAA member and showed him the video, and that too was inconclusive.”

The reporter told Burnett that some officials believed they had seen parachute flares. However, Luke Air Force Base – about 40 miles northwest and the most likely source of such flares – denied that speculation. Other news organizations contacting the various authorities – the FAA, the military, etc. – received similar explanations and no further comments. Maier is so convinced the real identity of the objects is something else, he put together a comprehensive video of all of the cell phone recordings, the media reports and further details on the sighting. (Watch the video here.)

Flares

“We put together a compilation of the footage we had from each of our phones, my Facebook Live Footage, and the News Interview. After I go into detail and recap of what was strange in the sky, how it behaved, and the news interview. I am still in shock because I believe whatever that thing was, it wasn’t man-made. Yes, I swore like a sailor but hey I was in shock. My way of dealing with whatever the heck that thing was.

THOSE WERE NO FLARES! The thing was SILENT and it made no sound whatsoever. It had a Lava-Flow like color that I can’t explain. It maneuvered in ways we could only dream of. The way that thing moved and maneuvered around in the sky was IMPOSSIBLE for us. Finally, the object was not as far away as it appeared to be on video. It had the altitude of a Cessna and was below the clouds. It was amazing, confusing, frightening, and unreal all at once.

I don’t care what the aviation experts say or who they work for. I know what I saw, and it wasn’t from this world.”

“I know what I saw, and it wasn’t from this world.” That’s the opening line for the first “Mesa Lights” documentary sure to be produced as this mysterious sighting gains momentum. Being one orb dropping smaller ones — as opposed to a V-shaped group or a series, as the Phoenix lights were – suggests these were something different. But what?

Will Kerri Burnett and Doug Maier ever find out? Will we? We’ll keep tabs on this breaking story.

In a hurry to get somewhere on the other side of the world? In an hour? Then you need to join the Space Force. What … what? That seems to be the advice of a retired United States Air Force general who claims the Space Force already has the technology to build a craft capable of being anywhere on Earth in an hour. If you’re not interested in fast travel, he has some Space Force technology for homebodies too – the newest branch of the armed forces also has the capability to deliver wi-fi and energy from space. Holy Nikola Tesla!

“The technology is on the engineering benches today. But most Americans and most members of Congress have not had time to really look deeply at what is going on here. But I’ve had the benefit of 33 years of studying and making friends with these scientists. This technology can be built today with technology that is not developmental.”

The next generation of one-hour pizza delivery?

Late last month, Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast, commander of the Air Education and Training Command at the San Antonio-Randolph Base in Texas, revealed this and more in a speech entitled “The Urgent Need for a U.S. Space Force” delivered to an audience at Hillsdale College in Washington D.C. Kwast (he retired earlier this year) believes it’s not just advanced technology that will determine who will lead the world in space but also who has the values to protect human rights from exploitation by the market forces, industries, militaries and governments that guard the technology. That responsibility, in Kwast’s mind, belongs to the Space Force.

“The power of space will change world power forever. As a historian, reflecting on the fact that throughout the history of mankind… technology has always changed world power. But the story of rejecting new and holding and clinging to the paradigms of the past is why no civilization has ever lasted forever, and values are trumped by other values when another civilization figures out a way of finding a competitive advantage. The nature of power, you either have it and your values rule or you do not have it and you must submit. We see that play out again and again in history and it’s playing out now.”

But wait a minute, you say. The Space Force is still a proposal, not an actual branch of the military … right? That’s true … although this week the Democrats in Congress and White House negotiators agreed to authorize the creation of the Space Force in exchange for a policy establishing 12 weeks of paid parental leave for federal workers. Neither has anything to do with the other, but that’s how government works these days. Kwast should be happy to hear the news because he warns that China (it’s always China) is already building its space force. But wait a minute again, you say. Didn’t Kwast say we have advanced technology for ultra-hypersonic travel and Tesla’s dream of wireless energy from space already “on the bench”?

Unfortunately, that’s where he falls back on that old diatribe about China beating us to 5G technology. Why is he worried about 5G when it’s such low tech to flying anywhere in an hour and getting energy from space? It would have been nice if he had given more insights on those and perhaps explained how today’s manufacturers – hungry for new business – and today’s workers – ready for more jobs – can capitalize on this. All we really have are mysterious triangular aircraft sightings and rumors.

While it’s great that people like retired Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast are hinting about this advanced technology, seeing is believing. After all, we’re still waiting for flying cars.

Quantum physicist Deep Prasad previously hinted that he had an encounter with extraterrestrials which is why he became so interested in UFOs and aliens. And just recently he came forward with his story. On Thanksgiving, Prasad posted his experience to Twitter and it is one interesting story to say the least.

It’s a pretty lengthy story (the full transcript can be read here as well as on Prasad’s Twitter account), so I’ll just summarize the most important and highly interesting parts.

He began the post by stating that on February 1^st of this year, around 9:40 a.m., he became paralyzed and witnessed three strange beings that were communicating in a mysterious and incomprehensible language. The words/sentences that he saw were written in a sort of hieroglyphic texts/symbols and the only word Prasad understood was “DNA” – which he read at least three different times.

He noticed that he was no longer in his room and was somewhere he didn’t recognize. One of the beings jumped on top of him and walked towards Prasad’s head. At that point, he felt “the most blissful, euphoric feeling” that he ever had. After experiencing that “oneness” feeling for a few minutes, he was knocked out and lost consciousness, but immediately woke back up.

He experienced “impossible electrical anomalies” wherever he went for approximately two weeks after the encounter. He then went to the SCU conference where he met Lue Elizondo along with other people who shared his interest in UFOs and aliens.

As for his emotional well-being, Prasad claimed to have still felt the feeling of “oneness” for about two weeks after the encounter and had lost any feelings of depression, stress, anxiety and trauma. He said that he was unable to feel fear and had nothing but love for everyone. He also became spiritual after his encounter. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling that way and even considered getting an MRI in order to find out which parts of his brain were “rewired”.

He did, however, begin to have dreams where he was looking at the inside of a UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) and the beings in his dreams communicated with him telepathically. He even saw an unidentified craft only weeks after his experience with the aliens. As a matter of fact, he had a total of four UFO encounters since his experience – two of them he was able to record.

He finished off his story by stating that he was “grateful for the experience” and that he’s thankful for everyone that he has met since his encounter. But wait, there’s more! Prasad drew a picture of what the alien beings looked like (the sketch can be seen here). So, was he really transported to an alien craft where he witnessed extraterrestrials? Like I said, it’s one interesting story to say the least.

In space, no one can hear you scream or cry yourself to sleep at night because you’re lonely … until now. Over the weekend, a SpaceX cargo ship delivered an emotion-sensing AI robot to the International Space Station in a second attempt to provide astronauts with an empathetic companion for long space flights. It also brought a Budweiser barley experiment to test how the malting process – a part of beer brewing – works in space. Is the beer in case the robot doesn’t work … or to help the astronauts really open up to it?

“The overall goal is to really create a true companion. The relationship between an astronaut and CIMON is really important. It’s trying to understand if the astronaut is sad, is he angry, joyful and so on.”

In an interview with Reuters, Matthias Biniok, the lead architect for CIMON 2 – the second generation of the Crew Interactive Mobile Companion — describes the esoteric purpose of the round ball of bot which is supposed to help astronauts forget that they’re out in space all alone … and also forget the original CIMON, launched in 2018 and sent back in 2019 after it got all moody on the crew – at one point saying, “Be nice, please. Don’t you like it here with me?” CIMON also raised concerns about privacy and security because its cameras and microphones were on 24/7 and could not be controlled by the crew.

“The new CIMON has a built-in switch that enables the data streams from all cameras and microphones to be interrupted from the ISS. The astronaut has control over CIMON at all times, which was especially important for us.”

Judith Buchheim, a researcher at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich who helped evaluate the ethics of the experiment, described the improvements made to CIMON-2 to CNN. CIMON-2 has better orientation capabilities – hopefully ending the “Spaceball” nickname for the smiley-faced floating bot. CIMON-2 also has a better self-learning AI brain behind it.

“With the help of the IBM Watson Tone Analyzer from the IBM cloud in Frankfurt, it is now able to evaluate the emotions of the astronauts and respond to the situation in an appropriate way if this is desired by the astronauts, or if its emotional analysis capabilities are being tested as part of an experiment. This allows CIMON-2 to transition from a scientific assistant into an empathetic companion, as required.”

That all sounds promising in a non-HAL kind of way. CIMON-2 isn’t really controlling anything on the ISS – it’s just supposed to respond to astronaut needs of the technical and emotional kind. They’d better hope it doesn’t get moody like its predecessor because CIMON-2 is on a 3-year mission … and this time, the astronauts are brewing adult beverages. Maybe they can loosen CIMON-2 up with a tall cold one.

“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t … is that beer?”

An Iron Age shield that was discovered in Yorkshire, England has been called “the most important British Celtic art object of the millennium”. The shield was found in a “warrior grave” that was unearthed in Pocklington last year at a housing development site called “The Mile”.

The shield was part of an astonishing 'warrior grave' featuring the remains of a Celtic man, weapons, a chariot and two upright pony skeletons

The face of the 30-inch bronze shield (pictures can be seen here) contained swirling and asymmetrical patterns along with a central raised boss. In fact, the swirling pattern was quite common in early Celtic art and the “La Tène” culture that inhabited Europe from approximately 450-1 B.C. Additionally, it had a puncture hole that would have been made by a sword and there was evidence of repair work done to the shield.

The fact that there was a puncture hole from a sword is very interesting, as that type of shield was previously thought to have been more of a ceremonial item than something used in battle. “The shield features a scalloped border. This previously unknown design feature is not comparable to any other Iron Age finds across Europe, adding to its valuable uniqueness,” explained Paula Ware from MAP Archaeological Practice.

The shield when it was first unearthed

Archaeologists unearthing the warrior shield together with the remains of the man

( MAP Archaeological Practice Limited )

She went on to say, “The popular belief is that elaborate metal-faced shields were purely ceremonial, reflecting status, but not used in battle,” adding, “Our investigation challenges this with the evidence of a puncture wound in the shield typical of a sword. Signs of repairs can also be seen, suggesting the shield was not only old but likely to have been well-used.” There was one other similar shield uncovered from the Thames River in 1849 – called the Wandsworth shield – and is currently in the British Museum.

In addition to the shield, other remains found in the grave include two humans, two horses, and sacrificial pigs. In fact, the two horses were positioned in such a way that they appeared as though they were leaping out of the grave, indicating a belief in the afterlife. There was also an upright chariot as well as other artifacts such as a brooch that was made from bronze and red glass.

The shield was discovered lying face down underneath a man’s skeleton. The remains are believed to date back to around 320-174 B.C. The owner of the shield was a man who passed away after the age of 46 and was probably a much respected member of the community because there were six pigs that were buried beside him as sacrificial offerings. He was buried adjacent to a younger man who was injured before his death.

As for what caused the older man’s death, it’s highly likely that he didn’t die in battle but from natural causes associated with old age. “We don’t know how the man died. There are some blunt force traumas but they wouldn’t have killed him,” said Ware.

This Iron Age discovery is certainly a significant find. “The magnitude and preservation of the Pocklington chariot burial has no British parallel, providing a greater insight into the Iron Age epoch,” Ware noted.