US President Donald Trump says he will direct US agencies, including the defense department, to “begin the process of identifying and releasing” government files on aliens and extraterrestrial life.

Trump made the declaration in a post on Truth Social, after he accused Barack Obama earlier in the day of revealing classified information when the former president said “aliens are real” on a podcast last week.

“He’s not supposed to be doing that,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding: “He made a big mistake.”

Asked if he also thinks aliens are real, Trump answered: “Well, I don’t know if they’re real or not.”

Former US President Obama told podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen that he thinks aliens are real in an interview released last Saturday.

“They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in Area 51,” Obama said.

“There’s no underground facility unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.”

After the comment made headlines, Obama sought to clarify he thinks it is statistically likely life exists beyond Earth, given the vastness of the universe.

In a follow-up post on Instagram, Obama, who served as US president between 2009-17, clarified: “I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”

Obama’s initial comments were made during a quickfire “lightning” round of questions on the podcast.

There was no indication that Obama relied on classified information when he gave the interview. The BBC has contacted Obama for comment. The Democrat and Trump, a Republican, are longstanding mutual political antagonists.

For his part, Trump said on Thursday on Air Force One that while a lot of people believe in the existence of aliens, he never talks about it, and “doesn’t have an opinion on it”.

Then a few hours later, he posted on Truth Social that “based on the tremendous interest shown” he will seek the release of files “related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters”.

The US has seen renewed public interest in UFOs and extraterrestrial life in recent years, sparked in 2017 by reports about a secret Pentagon programme to probe testimony from pilots and other US military members who had reported seeing strange objects in the sky.

In 2022, Congress held the first hearings on UFOs in 50 years and the Pentagon promised more transparency on the matter – setting up a dedicated office to collect reports of all military UFO encounters.

The following year, a US House of Representatives panel on the topic produced no major bombshells nor confirmation of alien life. In a 2024 report, the Pentagon said there was “no evidence” that the US government had encountered alien life, and that most UFO sightings were just ordinary objects.

The post Trump directs US government to prepare release of files on aliens and UFOs first appeared on Dark Matter News.

Grounded until at least April, NASA’s giant moon rocket is headed back to the hangar this week for more repairs before astronauts climb aboard.

The space agency said Sunday it’s targeting Tuesday for the slow, four-mile (6.4-kilometer) trek across Kennedy Space Center, weather permitting.

NASA had barely finished a repeat fueling test Thursday, to ensure dangerous hydrogen fuel leaks were plugged, when another problem cropped up.

This time, the rocket’s helium system malfunctioned, further delaying astronauts’ first trip to the moon in more than half a century.

Engineers had just tamed the hydrogen leaks and settled on a March 6 launch date — already a month late — when the helium issue arose. The helium flow to the rocket’s upper stage was disrupted; helium is needed to purge the engines and pressurize the fuel tanks.

“Returning to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy is required to determine the cause of the issue and fix it,” NASA said in a statement.

NASA said the quick rollback preps preserve an April launch attempt, but stressed that will depend on how the repairs go. The space agency has only a handful of days any given month to launch the crew of four around the moon and back.

The three Americans and one Canadian assigned to the Artemis II mission remain on standby in Houston. They will become the first people to fly to the moon since NASA’s Apollo program that sent 24 astronauts there from 1968 through 1972.

Published By : Moumita Mukherjee

The post NASA’s Giant Moon Rocket Back To Hangar For More Repairs. Why Is Artemis II Facing Fresh Delays? first appeared on Dark Matter News.

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A mysterious object of unknown origin fell from the sky and crashed just outside of Nevada’s secretive Area 51 military base, and five weeks later, the public is still in the dark.  

The crash was quickly covered up, both literally and figuratively. 8 News Now Chief Investigator George Knapp of Nexstar’s KLAS thinks the official story as told by the military is demonstrably false.

How quickly might the government respond to the crash of an unknown object? What happened back on Sept. 23 on public land outside the boundary of Area 51 is a textbook example of how crash retrievals work, one that locals have become accustom to.

Scanners and computers at Dreamland Resort listen to and record radio traffic inside Area 51 around the clock. On the morning of Sept. 23, Joerg Arnu heard some astonishing news. 

“I had my cup of coffee, and I am listening to Area 51 security, and all of a sudden they got very serious, and locked down the base,” Arnu told KLAS.

He learned there had been a large, but totally secret air operation in the middle of the night and that something had gone wrong. Child found unresponsive in pond at Edmond apartment

“‘We just had an asset go down. We had an asset go down,’” Arnu recalled. “This is not Creech security. This is Area 51 security, and they had an asset go down. Then the next thing you hear, UAV, unmanned aircraft, unmanned aircraft with ordnance.”

He picked up details that strict security measures were implemented almost immediately. Not only was Area 51 itself locked down, but within a very short time, so too was a large swath of the Tiikaboo Valley.

It became clear that some kind of craft had crashed, miles outside Area 51’s boundaries, on public land, adjacent to Highway 375, also known as the E.T. Highway.

Arnu jumped in his truck and headed south from his home in Rachel. But while driving on what’s known as Mailbox Road, he ran into an armed patrol. 

“They had guns in front of them, not pointed at me, but very visibly in front of them, and it was clear they meant business,” Arnu said.

He backtracked and headed south on the E.T. Highway to Groom Lake Road, the main entrance to the base. It too was blocked off by sheriff’s deputies and military security. A military helicopter with an attached basket was sitting there, presumably ready to haul out the wreckage of something. A pair of porta-potties suggested the team planned to be there for a while. 

“Almost the entire valley was shut down,” Arnu explained.

At The Little A’le’inn in Rachel, employees were in the dark about a crash, but saw the beefed-up security at closed-off roads and knew something big was unfolding. Crashes are not an everyday occurrence, but locals have seen plenty of them over the decades.

“If this thing would have crashed anywhere in restricted airspace, we wouldn’t have known about it,” Arnu said.

After being turned away from the presumed crash site, Arnu and the aerospace sleuths on his website, DreamlandResort.com, began gathering and sharing bits and pieces of information. The FAA had ordered the closure of airspace over a particular spot in the valley. That was a big clue.

Then, four days after the crash, the security teams vanished. Arnu went back out for a look. The Air Force had used heavy equipment to plow a dirt road across a section of desert. Arnu followed it and found what he thought was the crash site, then shared it online. That’s when things got strange, even by Area 51 standards. 

A second wave of cleanup crews descended on the site, presumably to pick up any remaining debris, but they also used graders to cover the entire area with a thick layer of dirt, making this literally a cover-up.

Creech Air Force Base, which is home to a fleet of Reaper drones and other UAVs, issued a statement explaining that the quote “unmanned aircraft” was one of theirs. The same statement claimed someone had been tampering with the crash site and had scattered assorted pieces from other craft, along with an inert training bomb. The Air Force said the FBI was investigating this alleged tampering at the site.

Arnu was amused but not convinced.

“The only thing that could get that person is for littering on public land.”

“That’s the story. It came from Creech, and now the FBI is investigating,” Knapp said during an interview with Arnu. “You think that’s bogus?”

“That’s absolutely bogus,” Arnu responded. “I think that was designed to make people not go there, discourage people from going there.”

Arnu drove back out and realized the site he had first videotaped was a staging area, not the crash site. Two hundred yards away, the telltale burn marks on Joshua trees indicated this was where the object slammed into the earth.

Both he and another aerospace explorer found pieces of who knows what, debris that came from something other than a drone, seemingly planted to confuse anyone who came looking, but they also found pieces under the dirt that are likely the real thing.

Arnu, who was at the site of a genuine Reaper crash years earlier, said there is no way the Air Force could ever recover every piece of a crashed aircraft, so they added some dirt and sprinkled in some misdirection instead.

“If I was them, I would probably do just that.”

Is there a good guess about what crashed? On the Dreamland Resort website, members, including former military and retired defense contractors, chimed in.

The leading theory is that the drone was one of the latest generations of AI-controlled craft that accompany advanced fighter planes and can act independently to get the job done. 

The post Unknown object crash near Area 51 fuels cover-up claims first appeared on Dark Matter News.

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary. View full profile

The boy who inspired the film and book The Exorcist went on to become an engineer at NASA, working on the Apollo program and patenting technology of his own design that helped space shuttles withstand the extreme heat of takeoff and reentry.

In August 1949, a series of articles told the strange tale of a teenage boy who had a number of paranormal experiences, prompting a call to a priest. According to reports, the boy (named at the time as Roland Doe to protect his identity) and his family began to hear scratching noises from the walls, and saw objects jump to the floor when the boy was around. More disturbingly his bed would apparently shake violently at night.

While they may have been better off searching for a source of carbon monoxide, the family followed the far more dubious process of asking a priest to stay the night. The priest – who was said to be skeptical, just like his counterpart in the films – did so, and supposedly witnessed events like the scratching on the walls, plus sheets moving around mysteriously on their own. The priest, to his credit, is reported to have called in the family doctor shortly afterward.

The press picked up on the story, but it wasn’t until later that month that it blew up, when several papers reported that the boy had been “freed” from the “devil’s grip” after 20 to 30 exorcisms by a catholic priest. 

“In all except the last of these, the boy broke into a violent tantrum of screaming, cursing and voicing of Latin phrases – a language he had never studied – whenever the priest reached the climactic point of the ritual,” one article by the Washington Post read, “‘in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, I cast thee (the devil) out’.”

During this round of articles, details became more elaborate and unbelievable, with reports of beds flying around the room before the eventual exorcism. The real story, long after the articles filled with bizarre claims of heightened strength and had inspired the film, is far more mundane – and depressing. 

Roland Doe (whose real name was Ronald Edwin Hunkeler, as revealed by Skeptical Inquirer late last year) grew up as a troubled boy in an extremely religious family. The strange details – the ones which are verifiable, at least – can be explained with ease. One junior priest who was witness to the events explained, for instance, the part about him speaking Latin phrases. 

“Did the boy speak in any languages other than English?” a journalist writing for Strange Magazine who tracked him down asked in 1999.

“Just Latin,” the priest replied.

When asked whether he appeared to understand the Latin he spoke, the priest replied “I think he mimicked us.”

The priest went on to explain that there was no real change to the boy’s voice, and that he had the strength of a normal person. When asked whether the bed really moved across the room, he replied yes, before adding “it was on rollers like any bed, but I was leaning on it when it moved.”

Hunkeler managed to escape infamy thanks to the pseudonym used by newspapers at the time. He went on to live a successful life as a NASA engineer, before his death of a stroke in 2020 at the age of 86. Hunkeler contributed to the Apollo program, which eventually saw humanity set foot on the Moon. He worked at the agency until his retirement in 2001.

In spite of his success and normal life, he never quite shook the feeling that his past would be discovered.

“On Halloween, we always left the house because he figured someone would come to his residence and know where he lived and never let him have peace,” someone who knew him told the New York Post. “He had a terrible life from worry, worry, worry.”

The post Boy Who Inspired “The Exorcist” Became A NASA Engineer On The Apollo Program first appeared on Dark Matter News.

What would you say if you were told that paranormal activity exists? Well, nearly half of Canadians would agree.

What is the paranormal, exactly? It refers to phenomena that science cannot explain and are not part of a major religion in a particular society. In contrast, religious phenomena are part of an established doctrine. For example, in Canada, psychic abilities and Bigfoot or Sasquatch are considered paranormal, while angels and demons are associated with religion.

In the summer of 2025, we launched a survey of Canadian attitudes regarding paranormal beliefs in which participation was confidential. And for the first time  in decades, we have nationally representative data on paranormal beliefs and encounters in Canada.

Although news outlets regularly publish stories about paranormal beliefs on Halloween, the results they discuss are usually based on convenience samples. Ours is the first study in 20 years to use randomly selected people from the Canadian population to ask these questions — meaning the results are representative.

And it turns out that almost one in two Canadians believe in at least one paranormal phenomenon, and one-quarter report encounters with spirits.

We asked about ghostly hauntings, alien visitations, psychic abilities, telekinesis, astrology and other unexplained phenomena. We also asked about cryptids — animals or creatures whose existence has been suggested but not (yet) proven by science — specific to Canada. They include creatures with roots in First Nations folklore like the large serpentine sea monster, the Cadborosaurus, off the B.C. coast and the Ogopogo in Lake Okanagan.

The believers, the skeptics and the in-between

Canada is one of the world’s most secular societies. Here, religion has little impact on the way people act or view the world.

How Canadians think about the paranormal, however, has been mostly unknown. It’s expensive to gather representative data in Canada and few social scientists think it’s important to study belief in the paranormal. The combination of these two factors has meant Canadian paranormal beliefs have gone unexamined for decades.

What we found is that Canadians have embraced the paranormal — to a point.

Almost half — 44 per cent — believe in at least one paranormal phenomenon. About one-third did not report belief in any paranormal phenomenon but did indicate neutrality about at least one. For example, several respondents did not believe in ghosts, but were on the fence about extraterrestrial visitations.

Only about one-quarter said they did not believe in any of the 10 phenomena we asked about. The percentage of firm non-believers is similar to the 28 per cent figure in the United States and the United Kingdom Belief varied by specific phenomenon. People were most likely to believe in ghostly hauntings.

Overall, it is more common for Canadians to believe in at least one paranormal phenomenon than to not believe in any.

Who is most likely to believe?

Patterns of belief vary somewhat by demographic group.

Women are more likely than men to believe in ghosts and psychics, reflecting how women have a higher probability of being open to phenomena with a spiritual dimension.

People with bachelor’s degrees or higher are less likely to believe in most paranormal phenomena. There are few racial or ethnic differences.

Interestingly, people aged 19-29 are less likely to believe in many paranormal phenomena than those aged 30-44 or 45-64. These findings suggest that young Canadians tend to opt out of any non-scientific belief system, whether religious or paranormal.

Few differences by region or language exist, though francophones are less likely to believe in Sasquatch than anglophones are.

Paranormal experiences in Canada

About one-quarter of Canadians claim to have heard, seen or felt a ghost or spirit. Some experiences were connected to religion, such as feeling the Christian Holy Spirit.

More often, experiences were associated with the death of a loved one and were personally meaningful. As one participant explained: “Soon after my mother’s death, I woke up suddenly and she was standing beside my bed. She smiled at me and faded away. I was comforted.”

Others reported spooky encounters associated with a place. A different participant wrote: “I was managing a motel and saw a ghostly man walking along the upper balcony. I asked the locals, and they said on the property that the motel was on, there was a house that burned down — and he lived in the house!”

Cryptid sightings are less common.

“I was operating a high-clearance sprayer, in a 1,300-acre field. I sat about 10 feet in the air in the cab on this machine,” one participant said. “I came around the corner of a bluff and saw a blurry, bipedal creature. It was furry, had a long snout and long arms, and in an instant turned into a moose. I have no idea to this day what that was.”

What our beliefs reveal

Our goal is not to prove or disprove any experience or belief, but to analyze what they mean for individuals and for Canada.

And to that end, our survey showed us that while many Canadians have replaced or supplemented religious belief with paranormal belief, most trust science. Belief in the paranormal or religion does not mean Canadians reject science, but rather that they believe some phenomena cannot yet be explained by science.

While the paranormal is fun — or creepy — to think about around Halloween, it is also part of the everyday belief system of many Canadians.

The post New research reveals that almost half of Canadians believe in the paranormal — ghosts and all first appeared on Dark Matter News.

Dan Rivera, a 54-year-old paranormal investigator and Army veteran who was on tour in Gettysburg with the Annabelle doll, was found dead in a hotel room on July 13.

The Adams County coroner confirmed to Newsweek that Rivera’s death was a natural, “cardiac-related” event and stated that the Annabelle doll was not present in the room at the time of his passing.

The Context

Online speculation followed Rivera’s unexpected death who was participating in a traveling exhibition featuring the Raggedy Ann doll known as Annabelle—who is thought to be possessed by a demonic entity and inspired the 2013 film The Conjuring.

What To Know

Adams County Coroner Francis Dutrow said in a statement to Newsweek that Rivera’s autopsy results determined his death to be “cardiac-related.”

“Mr. Rivera had a known history of cardiac issues, which were consistent with the
findings,” she said. “It is also confirmed that Annabelle was not present in the room at the time of his passing.”

Dutrow added: “We extend our condolences to Mr. Rivera’s family and loved ones during this difficult time.”

Rivera, the lead investigator at the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR), had been in Pennsylvania for the sold-out “Devils on the Run Tour” with the Annabelle doll. According to KTLA, Annabelle was on display in Adams County from July 11 to 13. The doll is usually housed at the Warrens’ Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut, which was founded by paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren in the 1950s.

What People Are Saying

Harrison Jones, a Pennsylvania-based journalist who attended the tour one day before Rivera’s death, told People he was “kind and very welcoming.”: “Mr. Rivera, along with another of NESPR’s investigators, Wade Kirby, spoke to the group about Annabelle’s history and their experiences working with the doll. Among those discussions, Mr. Rivera spoke about how he had built the case that Annabelle was in himself, and that he had designed many aspects from the perspective of his faith.”

The NESPR first announced Rivera’s death in a statement posted to Facebook: “It’s with deep sadness that Tony, Wade, and I share the sudden passing of our close friend and partner, Dan Rivera. We are heartbroken and still processing this loss. Dan truly believed in sharing his experiences and educating people on the paranormal. His kindness and passion touched everyone who knew him. Thank you for your support and kind thoughts during this difficult time.”

Ghost Hunters star Jason Hawes addressed Annabelle talks surrounding Rivera’s death in a Facebook post: “Recently the World lost a good man. Dan Rivera was an Army veteran, a father of four, a husband, and someone who truly cared about people.

“What’s even harder to see right now are the posts blaming his death on things like the Annabelle doll and attacking places like Ghostly Images of Gettysburg Tours and other locations for having events. That needs to stop. His family shouldn’t have to read that kind of nonsense while they’re grieving.

“Some people are using his passing to push an agenda for profit, and it’s just disgusting. Dan was a family man, a respected paranormal investigator, and he left this world way too soon.

“Let’s focus on remembering Dan for who he was, not turning his death into some made up bull**** story to get clicks or attention.

“Honor the man. Forget the garbage.”

Ghost Adventures star Zak Bagans shared with Us Weekly: “My thoughts and prayers go out to [Rivera’s] family and friends. I can only speak to my experiences with Annabelle. I did have the opportunity to investigate Annabelle when the owner brought her to my museum in 2017. I got very affected by her and it kind of caused me to touch the doll. The owner didn’t like that too much. It was a demonic infestation and severely affected me, and I was literally in the hospital the next day. It was a two-month-long attachment and one of the worst experiences of my life.”

The post Dan Rivera Cause of Death Revealed first appeared on Dark Matter News.

A Protostar in Orion

HOPS-315 belongs to a cluster of young stars in Orion, an active nursery of stellar birth. Most protostars in this region remain shrouded by dense clouds of gas and dust, but this particular system is positioned at an angle that allows an unobstructed view toward its center.

ALMA’s high-resolution radio wavelength imaging revealed an hourglass-shaped outflow of gas, carved by twin jets launched from the star’s poles. These jets are powerful streams of hot gas, around 3,000 Kelvin, expelled as material accretes onto the protostar. The system’s geometry offers a rare opportunity to peer into the zone where planets begin to form.

JWST Detects Vaporized Rock

While ALMA mapped the large-scale structure of HOPS-315, JWST zoomed in on the region surrounding the star itself. In its infrared spectra, the telescope detected both crystalline silicates–minerals such as forsterite (a magnesium silicate similar to the gemstone peridot)–and a distinct band of silicon monoxide (SiO) gas.

Silicon monoxide forms when solid silicate minerals are heated until they sublime (transition directly from the solid to the gas phase). In this case, Dr. McClure’s team inferred that interstellar dust grains are migrating inward toward the star, reaching temperatures around 1,200 Kelvin. At this threshold, they vaporize into SiO gas, which then cools and recondenses into crystalline minerals – the building blocks of rocky planets.

The Pebble Stage: Seeds of a Planetary System

This process represents what researchers often call t = 0 in solar system formation, the first appearance of solid material that can eventually accrete into larger bodies. As the silicon monoxide gas cools, it produces millimeter- to centimeter-sized mineral pebbles. These solids may collect in dense regions of the disk, known as pebble traps, and collapse into planetesimals—the precursors to asteroids and terrestrial planets.

Dr. McClure explained that similar inclusions found in meteorites on Earth have been dated to define the very beginning of our own Solar System’s formation timeline. The same mechanisms appear to be at work around HOPS-315, offering a direct glimpse of how planetary systems like ours begin.

Clues to Earth’s Origins

Beyond observing a single system, McClure’s team aims to identify more objects like HOPS-315 to compare how mineral compositions vary over time. Variations in the isotopic makeup of these early solids could help explain some of the unresolved questions in planetary science – such as the missing isotopic components needed to match Earth’s precise elemental ratios.

The team hypothesizes that systems like HOPS-315 may produce these “missing” minerals, providing the final ingredients that formed Earth’s crust and mantle.

Technical Frontiers: JWST and ALMA in Tandem

This study pushes the capabilities of both JWST and ALMA to their limits. ALMA’s millimeter-wave data revealed the cold, large-scale environment of the disk, while JWST’s infrared spectroscopy traced the hotter inner regions near the protostar. Coordinating such observations required global collaboration and meticulous scheduling across multiple time zones and telescope proposal cycles. 

With a central star of about 0.6 solar masses, expected to grow to one solar mass within a million years, HOPS-315 resembles the Sun in its infancy. The discovery demonstrates how JWST and ALMA, together, can reveal not just the chemistry but also the physical mechanisms behind the birth of planets.

Upgrades to ALMA in the next decade may improve its sensitivity to find faint gas lines in its spectra, enabling even sharper views of these dynamic systems. Until then, HOPS-315 stands as one of the most detailed examples of the moment when dust becomes rock, and rock becomes the seed of a planet.

Dr. Steel concludes that observing such systems gives scientists “a snapshot in time” of the processes that shaped our own Solar System. By capturing this formative moment, researchers can trace the steps from vaporized dust to habitable worlds.

Watch the whole SETI Live conversation with Dr. Simon Steel and Dr. Melissa McClure here, and read the paper here.

The post Birth of Planets: JWST Spots Hot Mineral Condensation in a Proto-Stellar System first appeared on Dark Matter News.

What Is Space Weather?

Space weather refers to changes in the environment driven by the Sun, specifically the flow of plasma – ionized gas – and radiation that interacts with a planet’s magnetic field and atmosphere. Unlike Earth’s meteorological weather, space weather is shaped by electromagnetic forces rather than temperature or moisture.

Dr. Robinson explains that the Sun constantly emits a steady stream of charged particles known as the solar wind. Earth’s magnetic field protects the planet from most of this radiation. Still, fluctuations in solar activity, such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) or bursts of high-speed solar wind, can disturb that balance.

At the moment, the Sun is just past solar maximum, the peak of its roughly eleven-year magnetic activity cycle. During this phase, solar storms become more frequent and intense. The timing has coincided with Earth’s autumnal equinox this year, when the planet’s magnetic field aligns more directly with the Sun’s. The result is a “perfect storm” for enhanced space weather effects.

The Role of Coronal Holes

Most space weather events originate in bright, magnetically active regions of the Sun, but the recent storm is unusual – it begins in a coronal hole.

In ultraviolet images captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, coronal holes appear dark because they are slightly cooler than their surroundings. The magnetic field lines in these regions are open, allowing plasma to escape freely into interplanetary space. Dr. Robinson describes this as a “magnetic superhighway” that channels solar wind directly toward Earth.

When the solar wind carries a southward-pointing magnetic field, it interacts efficiently with Earth’s northward magnetic field. This process, called magnetic reconnection, allows solar particles to penetrate Earth’s magnetosphere, generating impressive geomagnetic storms and auroral displays. The recent event produced a particularly strong southward magnetic component, an ideal setup for intense geomagnetic activity.

From the Sun to the Sky

As the solar wind reaches Earth, it disturbs both the planet’s magnetic field and the ionosphere, a layer of charged particles in the upper atmosphere. These disturbances can be detected using magnetometers, instruments that record local changes in magnetic field strength.

In Norway, magnetometer readings during the recent storm showed rapid dips, called substorms, signaling active aurorae overhead. Additional data from the Norwegian Mapping Authority revealed a surge in the ionosphere’s total electron content, confirming that a powerful wave of solar particles had entered the atmosphere.

When these energetic electrons collide with oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere, they excite the atoms and emit photons (light). Green emissions come from oxygen at mid-altitudes, while purple and red hues occur when electrons strike nitrogen deeper in the ionosphere. The stronger the storm, the farther south these aurorae extend, which is why the recent display was visible across much of North America and Europe.

Lessons from the Carrington Event

The conversation also revisits the Carrington Event of 1859—the most powerful geomagnetic storm on record. That event produced aurorae visible near the equator and disrupted telegraph systems worldwide. Electrical currents induced by the storm’s magnetic fluctuations shocked operators and sent messages through disconnected lines.

If a similar event occurred today, it could severely damage our power grids, communication systems, and satellites. Estimates suggest recovery from such a disruption could take years and tens of billions of dollars.

This activity underscores the importance of missions like the Multi-slit Solar Explorer (MUSE). Planned for launch no earlier than 2027, MUSE will study the Sun’s corona using a 35-slit imaging spectrograph, an instrument that measures light at multiple wavelengths to infer plasma temperature, speed, and turbulence. This data will help scientists better understand and eventually predict significant solar eruptions.

Understanding and Predicting the Unpredictable

Scientists estimate that it takes solar material 14 hours to several days to reach Earth; accurate forecasting remains a challenge. The complex interactions between the Sun’s magnetic field and the interplanetary medium make prediction difficult.

Citizen scientists play a vital role in monitoring these events. Projects like Aurorasaurus collect real-time reports from observers worldwide, helping researchers track the extent and intensity of auroral activity.

As Dr. Robinson notes, space weather is not just a scientific curiosity; it is a dynamic system that connects the Sun, Earth, and human technology in profound ways.

Watch the whole conversation on SETI Live to learn how SETI Institute scientists are decoding the Sun’s magnetic secrets and safeguarding our planet from the next big space storm.

The post Space Weather Alert: Sunspots, Coronal Holes, and Space Storms first appeared on Dark Matter News.

An unexpected visitor from another star system barrelling unannounced through our inner Solar System inevitably sparks great interest, and no shortage of speculation.

The third such interstellar object ever discovered, 3I/ATLAS is no exception.

Despite claims that 3I/ATLAS may be an alien spaceship, a growing body of observations reveals that 3I/ATLAS is a natural comet, not a probe from a distant corner of the Milky Way, and here is the evidence that confirms it.

Observations of 3I/ATLAS, including those from Gemini South, as part of the NOIRLab educational observing program, have revealed a clear coma and tail: telltale features of a true comet.

These are not cosmetic flares or tricks of the light due to problems with the observations.

They’re physical manifestations of volatile materials – gases and water molecules – vaporising under increased heating from the Sun as the comet moves into the inner Solar System.

Comets contain ices such as water, carbon dioxide and ammonia.

As they approach the Sun, these ices sublimate – they turn from solid form into a gas – carrying dust with them and forming the glowing coma and sweeping tail.

Even a glance at its tail distinguishes 3I/ATLAS from an asteroid, which would lack these icy features.

A comet’s natural journey through space

Beyond its appearance, 3I/ATLAS also behaves like a comet, with its trajectory showing no sign of non-gravitational forces.

For example, there’s no thrust, no course changes, just the simple motion governed by 3I/ATLAS’s initial trajectory and the Sun’s gravity.

If this were an artificial probe designed by intelligence like ours, we would expect to see the object clearly, not obscured by a coma of dust and ices, and it would also likely veer much closer to planets.

Instead, 3I/ATLAS is simply coasting through space, reflecting sunlight as it passes by, just as a natural object would.

Chemical fingerprints reveal its composition

3I/ATLAS’s chemistry tells us the same story.

Spectroscopy is an astronomer’s most powerful tool to learn vital information about everything in space, from distant galaxies to the building blocks of planets.

This technique helps further prove that 3I/ATLAS has no links to aliens.

Recent Very Large Telescope (VLT) observations of 3I/ATLAS detected molecules familiar from comets that originated within our Solar System.

While the chemical mix in 3I/ATLAS is slightly different, these variations likely reflect the tantalizing differences in the environment and chemical composition of its home star system compared to ours, not evidence of alien engineering.

A look into another Solar System

These findings tell us that 3I/ATLAS is a natural comet, not an alien probe, and that makes it an invaluable opportunity for science.

It offers a rare glimpse into the chemistry of the outer regions of another star system.

By comparing its composition to our own comets, astronomers can use it to test our models of how the outer regions of star systems form.

So, they can test whether our Solar System is typical or unique among the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy.

If so, it formed around a star born long before our Sun, at a time when fewer generations of stars had lived and died, and as a result, the galaxy was less enriched in heavy elements than it is today.

As a result, we might expect 3I/ATLAS to contain lower amounts of some of the heavier elements found in comets from our own solar system.

By studying this ancient interstellar visitor, we can unlock insights into the early Galaxy and make the most of this rare opportunity, without needing to invoke aliens or other exotic explanations.

Nature’s interstellar surprise

Every observation so far points to 3I/ATLAS being a natural comet, an ancient object from another star, not an alien visitor.

It reminds us that every interstellar comet offers a valuable window into another corner of the galaxy.

Written by: Mark Morris, Astronomer

The post No, our Solar System’s interstellar visitor is not ‘aliens’. Here’s the science to prove it first appeared on Dark Matter News.

At a Glance

• Event: Astronomers observed AT 2024tvd, a tidal disruption event (TDE) — a rare cosmic outburst that occurs when a supermassive black hole rips apart a passing star.
• Discovery: This TDE is the fastest-evolving of its kind and occurred off-center in its host galaxy, revealing a hidden, wandering black hole about 2,600 light-years from the galaxy’s core.
• Collaboration: The study was led by astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, with contributions from radio observatories worldwide, including the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array (ATA).
• ATA’s Role: The ATA provided precise, time-sensitive radio measurements that helped astronomers track the event’s rapid rise and fall in brightness — demonstrating the array’s growing importance in time-domain astronomy, the study of fast-changing cosmic phenomena.
• Scientific Impact: The results offer new insight into how supermassive black holes behave outside galaxy centers and how they can remain hidden until a violent event exposes them.
• Modeling Results: Detailed analysis, incorporating ATA data, reveals that the disrupted star triggered two powerful outflows of material — a first for such an off-nuclear TDE.

Radio observations with the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) have, as part of an international observing campaign, helped discover an unprecedented burst of radio activity from a tidal disruption event (TDE). TDEs happen when an unfortunate star wanders too close to a supermassive black hole (SMBH) and is ripped apart by its strong gravitational forces. These events light up the cosmos across all wavelengths, from visible and X-ray light to radio waves.

This particular TDE, named AT 2024tvd, stands out from others. It evolved at record-breaking speed, but also took place off-center, away from the nucleus of its galaxy.

“Tidal disruption events are usually found at the hearts of galaxies whereas AT 2024tvd was caused by an off-center black hole, the first time this has been unambiguously seen,” said Dr. Joe Bright, Radio Astronomy Researcher, University of Oxford. “It’s possible that the unprecedented rapid radio evolution is the result of its unusual position in the galaxy.”

The discovery, led by principal investigators Dr. Itai Sfaradi and Dr. Raffaella Margutti of the University of California, Berkeley, and including astronomers from the SETI Institute, represents a breakthrough in understanding how massive black holes can hide in unexpected places throughout the universe.

Most galaxies, including our Milky Way, are thought to have a SMBH at their center. These cosmic monsters pull in surrounding material and launch giant jets of material that shape how galaxies evolve. Not all SMBHs are easy to find; they can remain quiet and only become detectable when something dramatic occurs nearby. TDEs offer a way to probe the properties of SMBHs and the regions surrounding them, as well as to discover black holes in unusual locations.

Radio observations of AT 2024tvd reveal that its host galaxy hosts two SMBH: one at its expected location at its center, and a hidden SMBH offset by 2,600 light-years, which is likely the remnant of an ancient merger of two galaxies. When this off-center black hole shredded an unlucky star, it produced two rapid and powerful bursts of radio emission, offering scientists an unprecedented look at how black holes behave outside galactic centers.

“What makes this discovery even more remarkable is that it reveals a massive black hole that would otherwise be invisible to us,” said Dr. Raffaella Margutti, “The only reason we can detect this wandering black hole is because it happened to tear apart a star and produce these incredibly bright radio signals.”

“The ATA played an important role in this discovery, providing precise and time-sensitive radio measurements that helped astronomers to track the event’s radio brightness as it rose and faded over time,” said Dr. Sofia Sheikh, Technosignature Research Scientist at the SETI Institute. “The ATA’s ability to monitor changing signals from space — quickly, flexibly, and over a broad range of frequencies — made it uniquely suited to capturing the fast-evolving nature of AT 2024tvd.”

In addition to providing insight into black hole populations, radio observations of AT 2024tvd provide compelling clues into the fate of the disrupted star. Detailed modeling of the radio evolution, including observations from the ATA, reveals that this cataclysmic event launched two outflows, the first of which likely contained remnants of the shredded star.

By contributing to this research, the ATA has demonstrated its growing importance in time-domain astronomy, the study of rapidly changing cosmic phenomena, including TDEs, fast radio bursts, and supernovae.

The post Allen Telescope Array Helps Uncover Hidden Black Hole Tearing Apart a Star first appeared on Dark Matter News.