NASA Specialist Says He Was Fired for Belief in Intellignet Design of Universe

Source: CBC

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has landed robotic explorers on the surface of Mars, sent probes to outer planets and operates a worldwide network of antennas that communicates with interplanetary spacecraft.

Its latest mission is defending itself in a workplace lawsuit filed by a former computer specialist who claims he was demoted — and then let go — for promoting his views on intelligent design, the belief that a higher power must have had a hand in creation because life is too complex to have developed through evolution alone.

David Coppedge, who worked as a "team lead" on the Cassini mission exploring Saturn and its many moons, alleges that he was discriminated against because he engaged his co-workers in conversations about intelligent design and handed out DVDs on the idea while at work. Coppedge lost his team lead title in 2009 and was let go last year after 15 years on the mission.

Opening statements are expected to begin Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court after two years of legal wrangling in a case that has generated interest among supporters of intelligent design. The Alliance Defence Fund, a Christian civil rights group, and the Discovery Institute, a proponent of intelligent design, are both supporting Coppedge's case.

"It's part of a pattern. There is basically a war on anyone who dissents from Darwin and we've seen that for several years," said John West, associate director of the Centre for Science and Culture at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. "This is free speech, freedom of conscience 101."

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Man on Moon and Mars landing: Russia Space Plans Unveiled

Source: RT


Russian probes will visit Mars, Jupiter and Venus, while Russian cosmonauts will set foot on the surface of the Moon -- all by 2030. At least according to the plans of the country's space agency.

America’s Secret Space Plane in Orbit for Over a Year and Nobody Knows Why

Source: Daily Mail

The X-37B has been circling the Earth at 17,000mph and was due to land in California in December.

The U.S Air Force’s highly secret unmanned space plane was supposed to stay in space for nine months, but it’s now been there for a year and three days – and no one knows what it’s doing.

The experimental craft has been circling Earth at 17,000 miles per hour and was due to land in California in December.

However the mission of the X-37B orbital test vehicle was extended – for unknown reasons.

The plane resembles a mini space shuttle and is the second to fly in space.

The first one landed last December at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California after more than seven months in orbit.

The 29-foot, solar-powered craft had an original mission of 270 days.

The Air Force said the second mission was to further test the technology but the ultimate purpose has largely remained a mystery.

The vehicle’s systems program director, Lieutenant-colonel Tom McIntyre, told the Los Angeles Times in December: ’We initially planned for a nine-month mission. Keeping the X-37 in orbit will provide us with additional experimentation opportunities and allow us to extract the maximum value out of the mission.’

NASA Lost the Command Codes for the International Space Station

Source: RT

Four dozen high-tech computing devices disappeared from the offices of NASA over a two-year span, including one laptop that contained the code needed to command the International Space Station. 

No big deal, guys!

A laptop with the algorithm used to control the ISS was one of 48 gizmos and gadgets that NASA either reported lost or stolen between April 2009 and April 2011, the agency’s inspector general, Paul Martin, tells the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Although the incidents date back to nearly three years ago, Martin has only now informed Congress of the accidents. They are discussed in a written statement he authored and published this week under the title “NASA Cybersecurity: An Examination of the Agency’s Information Security.”

For the Cliff Notes version, we’ve got you covered. Information security at NASA: not so good. 

Over the course of ten pages, Martin makes mention of what he says are five issues that NASA believes, based on their “extensive audit and investigative work,” make up NASA’s “most serious challenges in the admittedly difficult task of protecting the agency’s information.”

For starters, we suggest putting a damn lock on the safe.

Martin goes on to list those challenges as including a “lack of full awareness of Agency-wide security posture,”“shortcomings in implementing a continuous monitoring approach to IT security” and the “slow pace of encryption.” Also, however, he adds that one “challenge” in particular, is the ability to handle a sophisticated cyber attack. 

Now, what separates a sophisticated cyber attack from a stupid, simple-minded one is something Martin would have to extrapolate on a bit more. But in regards to losing four dozen mobile computing devices — well, keeping a close eye on those things isn’t rocket science. And if it was, you’d expect NASA of all agencies to be able to handle it, wouldn’t you?

Russia: Our Space Program is Being Sabotaged

Source: Giza Death Star
Dr. Joseph Farrell

Russia has, of course, long been a space program powerhouse. Sergei Korolev and his team racked up an impressive lists of “firsts” in the early days of the Cold War and the space race: Russia was the first to orbit a man-made satellite, the Sputnik, Russia was the first to orbit living creatures, and later, a man, and successfully return him to Earth. Russia was the first to put a woman into space. Russian probes stretched out across the heavens to the Moon, to Venus, to Mars. And Russia has maintained, to this day, a reliable stable of “workhorses” of  heavy-lift launch vehicles, and continues – along with the European Space Agency – to be laying the careful steps of manned space missions to the Moon and eventually Mars.

But recent events – such as the recent failure of a Russian Mars probe – have set that country’s space program back. Make no mistake, as President Dmitri Medvedev said a few weeks ago, Russia intends to maintain a vigorous manned and unmanned presence in space as part of its national interest. So setbacks or no, budgetary problems or no, Russia, unlike its short-sighted American counterpart, intends to stay in space.

All that said, the head of Russia’s space program recently suggested that the string of failures that has affected that nation’s space posture might not be entirely accidental:
Russia hints at foul play in its space failures

I hope you caught the implications of those first few lines:

“Roskosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin told the Izvestia daily he could not understand why several launches went awry at precisely the moment the spacecraft were traveling through areas invisible to Russian radar.

“‘It is unclear why our setbacks often occur when the vessels are traveling through what for Russia is the ‘dark’ side of the Earth — in areas where we do not see the craft and do not receive its telemetry readings,’ he said.

“‘I do not want to blame anyone, but today there are some very powerful countermeasures that can be used against spacecraft whose use we cannot exclude,’ Popovkin told the daily.”

Now on the face of it, this seems to me to begging a few questions. First, the idea that there is a “dark side” of the Earth blind to Russia seems on the face of it to be absurd. Russia, like the USA, has laced the globe with a network of spy satellites, and it is inconceivable that the Russian government would not have a similar network of communications satellites simply for defense purposes if nothing else. The idea that Russia would have a space program where its manned and unmanned probes are not able to receive telemetry readings is equally absurd. And Mr. Popovkin is not a stupid man. He knows this.

Experts Say Gingrich Moon Base Dreams not Lunacy

Source: Sci-Tech Today

At a recent debate in Florida, Newt Gingrich promised that "by the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the moon." Sound far out? Actually, the idea of returning to the moon and building an outpost there is not new. Until three years ago, it was U.S. policy and billions of dollars were spent on that idea.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich wants to create a lunar colony that he says could become a U.S. state. There's his grand research plan to figure out what makes the human brain tick. And he's warned about electromagnetic pulse attacks leaving America without electricity. 

To some people, these ideas sound like science fiction. But mostly they are not. 

Several science policy experts say the former House speaker's ideas are based in mainstream science. But somehow, Gingrich manages to make them sound way out there, taking them first a small step and then a giant leap further than where other politicians have gone. 

Gingrich's promise that "by the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the moon" got amped up in a recent debate in Florida, which lost thousands of jobs with the end of the space shuttle program. By then, the lunar base had become a colony and even a potential state, and his moon ideas were ridiculed by rival Mitt Romney. 

Returning to the moon and building an outpost there is not new. Until three years ago, it was U.S. policy and billions of dollars were spent on that idea.

Staying on the moon dates at least to 1969, when a government committee recommended that NASA first build a winged, reusable space shuttle followed by a space station and then a moon outpost. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush proposed going to the moon and staying there. 

Foreign Sabotage Suspected in Phobos-Grunt Meltdown

Source: The Register
Brid-Aine Parnell

Russian space chief doesn't want to point any fingers, but...

The head of the Russian space agency has hinted that foreign sabotage might be to blame for the malfunction of the country's Martian space probe, Phobos-Grunt.

Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin told Russian newspaper Izvestia (in Russian, translation by Google Translate) that he had no complete explanation for the frequent failures of the agency's space projects, but he suggested Russia might not be entirely to blame.

"Today there is no clarity, why the propulsion unit onboard Phobos-Grunt failed to start," he said.

"It is also unclear, why our satellites often have failures at the time when they fly out of range [of Russian mission control] where we don't see the vehicle and do not receive telemetry from it. I don’t want to make any accusations, but today there is powerful equipment to influence spacecrafts, and the possibility of their use should not be ruled out,” he added.

X-37B Spaceplane 'Spying On China'

Source: BBC

X-37B – American military spaceplane

Mission: Described as a re-usable testbed for new sensors and other space technologies

• Length: 9m (29ft); Wingspan: 4.5m (14ft); Height: 3m (9.5ft); Mass: 5t (11,000lb)
• Origins: Started as a Nasa project in 1999 before being handed to the military in 2006
• Flight history: First vehicle launched in April, 2010, and landed eight months later
• Cost: The budget line for the X-37B programme continues to be classified information

America’s classified X-37B spaceplane is probably spying on China, according to a report in Spaceflight magazine.

The unpiloted vehicle was launched into orbit by the US Air Force in March last year and has yet to return to Earth.

The Pentagon has steadfastly refused to discuss its mission but amateur space trackers have noted how its path around the globe is nearly identical to China’s spacelab, Tiangong-1.

There is wide speculation that the X-37B is eavesdropping on the laboratory.

“Space-to-space surveillance is a whole new ball game made possible by a finessed group of sensors and sensor suites, which we think the X-37B may be using to maintain a close watch on China’s nascent space station,” said Spaceflight editor Dr David Baker.

The X-37B, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), looks like a mini space shuttle and can glide back down through the atmosphere to land on a runway, just like Nasa’s re-usable manned spaceplane used to do before its retirement last July.

Built by Boeing, the Air Force’s robotic craft is about 9m long and has a payload bay volume similar to that of a small van. But what goes in the payload bay, the USAF will not discuss.

The current mission was launched on an Atlas rocket and put into a low orbit, a little over 300km up, with an inclination of 42.79 degrees with respect to the equator – an unusual profile for a US military mission which would normally go into an orbit that circles the poles.

The X-37B’s flight has since been followed from the ground by a dedicated group of optical tracking specialists in the US and Europe, intrigued by what the vehicle may be doing.

These individuals have watched how closely its orbit matches that of Tiangong.

The spacelab, which China expects to man with astronauts in 2012, was launched in September with an inclination of 42.78 degrees, and to a very similar altitude as the OTV.

 ”The parallels with X-37B are clear,” Dr Baker says in Spaceflight, the long established magazine of the British Interplanetary Society.

China Prepares for Lift-off With Mission to Land on the Moon

Source: The Independent
Clifford Coonan

China has released plans for a five-year space programme, including building a space station and manned missions.

Its ambitions reflect those of the US more than 40 decades ago, and have similar goals. Just as the US space programme came at a time of major economic expansion, so China's drive comes as it grows in economic power and global influence.

Details of the programme include building space labs and manned spaceships, launching high-tech satellites and space freighters as well as deep-space exploration.

"China will work together with the international community to maintain a peaceful and clean outer space and endeavour to make new contributions to the lofty cause of promoting world peace and development," a government white paper called China's Space Activities in 2011, says.

The US has barred China's participation in the 16-country International Space Programme because it is concerned about military espionage.

China is now looking to other partners to help meet its ultimate goal – putting a Chinese taikonaut, or astronaut, on the moon.

It is thought Beijing is keeping in close contact with their Russian counterparts on the Yinghuo-1 Mars orbiter.

Satellites play a big part in China's space plans. It will build a space infrastructure composed of Earth observation satellites, communications and broadcasting satellites, as well as navigation and positioning satellites.

It plans to complete 100 launch missions and send 100 satellites into space over the next five years.

Beijing is keen to ease fears that China is planning to expand its presence in space for military reasons. The white paper specifically states that it opposes any kind of arms race in space.

"The Chinese government has made the space industry an important part of the nation's overall development strategy and adhered to the exploration and utilisation of outer space for peaceful purposes," the paper says.

In the next five years, the country plans to launch spacecraft that will make a soft landing on the moon.

They will then rove and survey to implement stage two of lunar exploration, before beginning the third-stage project of gathering samples of the moon's surface matter and getting those samples back to Earth.

New World Next Year - 2011/2012

Source: Corbett Report and Media Monarchy


Welcome to http://NewWorldNextWeek.com - the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:

Unidentified Fallen Object Found In African Country of Namibia

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

A large metallic ball has fallen out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia, prompting baffled authorities to contact NASA and the European space agency.

The hollow ball with a circumference of 1.1 metres was found near a village in the north of the country some 750km from the capital, Windhoek, according to police forensics director Paul Ludik.

Locals had heard several small explosions a few days beforehand, he said.

With a diameter of 35cm, the ball has a rough surface and appears to consist of "two halves welded together".

It was made of a "metal alloy known to man" and weighed six kilograms, said Ludik.

It was found 18 metres from its landing spot, a hole 33 centimetres deep and 3.8 metres wide.

Several such balls have dropped in southern Africa, Australia and Latin America in the past 20 years, authorities found in an internet search.

The sphere was discovered mid-November, but authorities first did tests before announcing the find.

Police deputy inspector-general Vilho Hifindaka concluded the sphere did not pose any danger.

"It is not an explosive device, but rather hollow, but we had to investigate all this first," he said.

NASA To Annouce Alien Planet Discoveries

Source: The Daily Galaxy

Counting Kepler and the other ground- and space-based planet searches underway, scientists have discovered a total of more than 700 confirmed alien planets. They're still on the hunt for a Twin Earth in the habitable zone --roughly the right size and temperature to host life. Tuesday's press conference will begin at 1 p.m. EST and will be webcast on NASA's website. Speakers will include:

Nick Gautier, Kepler project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Francois Fressin, the lead scientist on the new discovery, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.

David Charbonneau, professor of astronomy at Harvard University, Linda Elkins-Tanton, director of the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington.

The public can listen in on the alien planet announcement using NASA's News Audio website.

The $600 million Kepler mission is slated to run until at least November 2012, though its science team is hoping for an extension of the mission until 2016 or so.

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.

The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.

The Milky Way's Two Billion Earthlike Planets: An Update

Source: The Daily Galaxy

"Aliens could have been pointing their antennas at Earth for 4.6 billion years, without picking up a signal. Maybe the inhabitants [of a Twin Earth] are at the level of the classical Romans ... or maybe trilobites. We need to check out hundreds of thousands of Earthlike worlds."

Dimitar Sasselov -- Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

NASA announced that Kepler has uncovered 1,094 more potential planets, twice the number it previously had been tracking, including more than 500 planets found to orbit stars beyond our solar system. IThe newly discovered Kepler 22-B is the smallest and the best positioned to have liquid water on its surface – among the ingredients necessary for life on Earth. It is 2.4 times the size of the Earth, putting it in a class known as “super-Earths”.

“We have now got good planet confirmation with Kepler-22B,” said Bill Borucki, Kepler principal investigator at NASA Ames Research Center. “We are certain that it is in the habitable zone and if it has a surface, it ought to have a nice temperature,” he said.

Our Milky Way galaxy may be home to at least two billion Earthlike planets, a new study based on initial data from from NASA's Kepler space telescope says -- a number that is actually far lower than many scientists anticipated, which could make it hard to find twin "Earths" in our galaxy.

Based on what Kepler's found so far, the study authors think that up to 2.7 percent of all sunlike stars in the Milky Way host so-called Earth analogs. Kepler will collect transit data for a minimum of three and a half years, allowing for a more complete planetary census at a later date.

"There are about a hundred billion sunlike stars within the Milky Way," said Joe Catanzarite, a scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). "Two percent of those might have Earth analogs, so you have two billion Earth analog planets in the galaxy," he added. "Then you start thinking about other galaxies. There are something like 50 billion, and if each one has two billion Earthlike planets, it's mind boggling."

Life Possible on 'Large Parts' of Mars: Study

Source: PhysOrg
Amy Coopes

Australian scientists who modeled conditions on Mars to examine how much of the red planet was habitable said that “large regions” could sustain life.

Charley Lineweaver’s team, from the Australian National University, compared models of temperature and pressure conditions on Earth with those on Mars to estimate how much of the distant planet was liveable for Earth-like organisms.

While just one percent of Earth’s volume — from core to upper atmosphere – was occupied by life, Lineweaver said their world-first modelling showed three percent of Mars was habitable, though most of it was underground.

“What we tried to do, simply, was take almost all of the information we could and put it together and say ‘is the big picture consistent with there being life on Mars?’,” the astrobiologist told AFP on Monday.

“And the simple answer is yes… There are large regions of Mars that are compatible with terrestrial life.”Where previous studies had taken a “piecemeal” approach by examining particular sites on Mars for signs of life, Lineweaver said his research was a “comprehensive compilation” of the entire planet using decades of data.

Frozen water has been found at the poles on Mars and the ANU study examined how much of the planet could sustain water “that could be habitable by Earth-like standards by Earth-like microbes“.

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Cosmic Sabotage? Phobos-Grunt Probe Mysteriously Disabled

Source: Activist Post
Andrew W. Griffin

We have been watching the drama involving the ailing Russian Phobos-Grunt (a.k.a Fobos-Grunt or “Phobos-soil") spacecraft with great interest, as the probe appears to be stranded in Earth orbit, likely to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up, perhaps as soon as next month.

In fact, latest reports on the $170 million Phobos-Grunt craft suggest that Russian scientists "have given up on any hope of regaining even minimal control" over the probe and that it is likely breaking apart, if reports from the U.S. Army Strategic Command, as reported today in The Moscow Times, are accurate.

Launched on Nov. 9 (11/9/11) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Phobos-Grunt was designed to take a trip to the potato-shaped Martian moon of Phobos where it would take samples of its soil and return to Earth in 2014. It would have been the first spacecraft On board was China’s first Mars probe, Yinghuo-1. It was rocketed into low-Earth orbit and two thrusters that would have sent it on its way to Phobos failed to operate.

And now that it is expected to crash back to Earth, there is concern about the highly toxic hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide onboard. But it is simply expected to burn up before hitting Earth. 

So what caused the Phobos-Grunt to fail? It’s not really clear. Speculation, conspiracy theories and more have been offered up. After all, it is Phobos that had former NASA astronaut and Moon landing hero Buzz Aldrin publicly talking about the mysteries of Phobos, one of Mars's two moons, the other being Deimos.

Said Aldrin on C-SPAN in July 2009: “…(V)isit the moon of Mars. There's a monolith there - a very unusual structure on this little potato-shaped object (Phobos) that goes around Mars once every seven hours.When people find out about that they are going to say, ‘Who put that there? Who put that there?’ Well, uh, the universe put it there, or if you choose, God put it there.”

Many Astrophysicists claim Phobos is artificial

And photos do seem to show an unusual structure on the surface of the curious little moonlet.

Meanwhile, the Russians are extremely upset about this latest failure and are looking for someone to blame. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, according to the British news site The Week, “has threatened severe punishment for anyone found responsible for the failure of the … Phobos-Grunt.”

Medvedev was quoted in a Nov. 26, 2011 Reuters report that the Phobos-Grunt failure and another recent disaster involving a cargo ship, taking food and fuel to the International Space Station, are embarrassing to Russia’s space program, Roscosmos, and that if it was sabotaged somehow or simply put together in a sloppy or careless way, they will pay for what they have done.

Medvedev said: “I am not suggesting putting them up against the wall like under Josef Vissarionovich (Stalin), but seriously punish either financially or, if the fault is obvious, it could be a disciplinary or even criminal punishment.”

Russian news network, RT, offered a report titled “Did U.S. ‘climate weapon’ knock-out Russian probe?”

An interesting idea. It quotes General-Lieutenant Nikolay Rodionov who suggests that the HAARP station in Alaska – officially reported to “study … the ionosphere and its use for communication” – gave off “powerful electromagnetic radiation” and may have “affected the control system of the interplanetary probe.”

NASA Confirms It's First Planet In Habitable Zone of Sun-Like Star

Source: NASA

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.

The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.

Previous research hinted at the existence of near-Earth-size planets in habitable zones, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Two other small planets orbiting stars smaller and cooler than our sun recently were confirmed on the very edges of the habitable zone, with orbits more closely resembling those of Venus and Mars.

"This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Kepler's results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA's science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe."

China Adds a Spyglass in Space, Hints at More to Come

Source: WSJ
Matt Durnin

Matt Durnin is a Beijing-based researcher at the World Security Institute’s China Program and associate editor of the policy journal China Security. He specializes in China’s defense modernization and space programs.

China launched two satellites Wednesday as part of a decade-long rapid expansion of earth-monitoring capabilities that also buttress the country’s growing military prowess.

Yaogan-12, the primary cargo of the launch, is the twelfth model in a series of “remote sensing” satellites that many analysts believe are tasked with gathering military intelligence. China, which has never acknowledged a defense-related launch, claims that the satellite will be used for “scientific experiments, land survey, crop yield assessment, and disaster monitoring.”

Piggybacking on the ride was Tianxun-1, a 35-kg micro-satellite with a low-resolution camera. A 2010 paper in China Science and Technology Review described the satellite’s design as “low-observable,” suggesting it may be a test bed for basic stealth technology that could make small satellites even harder to track from the ground.

Since China’s controversial shoot-down of one of its weather satellites in early 2007, the U.S. defense community has churned with speculation about Beijing’s military intentions in space.

World's Most Powerful Laser to Tear Apart the Vacuum of Space

Source: The Telegraph
Richard Gray
  

A laser powerful enough to tear apart the fabric of space could be built in Britain as part major new scientific project that aims to answer some of the most fundamental questions about our universe. 

Due to follow in the footsteps of the Large Hadron Collider, the latest "big science" experiment being proposed by physicists will see the world's most powerful laser being constructed.

Capable of producing a beam of light so intense that it would be equivalent to the power received by the Earth from the sun focused onto a speck smaller than a tip of a pin, scientists claim it could allow them boil the very fabric of space – the vacuum. 

Contrary to popular belief, a vacuum is not devoid of material but in fact fizzles with tiny mysterious particles that pop in and out of existence, but at speeds so fast that no one has been able to prove they exist. 

The Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Facility would produce a laser so intense that scientists say it would allow them to reveal these particles for the first time by pulling this vacuum "fabric" apart.

They also believe it could even allow them to prove whether extra-dimensions exist.

NASA Sting Targets Grandma for Moonrock

Source: Politico
MJ Lee

A 74-year-old grandmother who was the target of a NASA sting operation to uncover a piece of lunar dust said the incident was so frightening that she lost control of her bladder and was left with bruises from rough handling by federal agents.

In an Associated Press exclusive, Joanna Davis said the moon rock – which the wire says is smaller than a grain of rice – was given to her husband by Neil Armstrong in the 1970s, and she was trying to sell the item to take care of her sick son.

NASA Attempts to Decipher Mystery Organic Molecules in Distant Galaxies

Source: The Daily Galaxy

A team of NASA and European scientists recorded the "fingerprints" of mystery molecules this summer in two distant galaxies, Andromeda and the Triangulum. Astronomers can count on one hand the number of galaxies examined so far for such fingerprints, which are thought to belong to large organic molecules (molecules that have at least 20 atoms or more), says the team's leader, Martin Cordiner of NASA's Goddard Center for Astrobiology. This is quite small compared to, say, a protein, but huge compared to a molecule of carbon monoxide, a very common molecule in space.

Figuring out exactly which molecules are leaving these clues, known as "diffuse interstellar bands" (DIBs), is a puzzle that initially seemed straightforward but has gone unsolved for nearly a hundred years. The answer is expected to help explain how stars, planets and life form, so settling the matter is as important to astronomers who specialize in chemistry and biology as determining the nature of dark matter is to the specialists in physics.