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Are mind-boggling epic drone battles headed our way?
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By USH
The ongoing mystery surrounding recent drone sightings has become increasingly complex, with conflicting reports making it difficult to draw definitive conclusions. However, a new and intriguing element has emerged alongside these drones sightings: numerous accounts of mysterious orbs, potentially of alien origin, flying at both low and high altitudes.
Reports of mysterious orbs have been increasing in recent weeks. These orbs have been sighted at both high altitudes and closer to urban areas.
Orb sighting over New Jersey on December 17, 2024Watch video UFO Sightings Daily
Pilots have reported encounters to air traffic control. Listen to conversations between pilots and traffic control.
And a passenger aboard United Airlines flight UA2359 from Chicago to Newark recently captured footage of these mysterious orbs. The video, shared online by the user “EasilyAmusedEE” on December 16, 2024, shows objects at altitudes between 40,000 and 50,000 feet—far beyond the capabilities of consumer drones. The footage was reportedly taken using an iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Video plane passenger films unknown orbs.
About the drone sightings: Meanwhile, eyewitness accounts describe these so-called drones as crafts that emit no noise, suggesting advanced technology. Additionally, there are claims that these crafts seem to intentionally draw attention, as they have reportedly interfered with cars (lamps flickering), electronics, streetlights (lamps flickering), and even fully charged batteries, which are said to be instantly drained in their presence.
Video shows among other (drone/orb) sightings, cars lamps flickering, streetlights lamps flickering, fully charged batteries drained.
This surge in Orb sightings raises more questions. Are these orbs extraterrestrial in origin? Could they be deliberately associated with the drone phenomena, or is their timing coincidental? Some suggest the possibility of a false flag operation, hinting at a deeper and potentially misleading agenda by the U.S. government.
Whether these drones and Orbs sightings point to advanced human technology, extraterrestrial activity, or a mix of both, one thing is clear: there is something significant going on.View the full article
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By NASA
Webb Webb News Latest News Latest Images Blog (offsite) Awards X (offsite – login reqd) Instagram (offsite – login reqd) Facebook (offsite- login reqd) Youtube (offsite) Overview About Who is James Webb? Fact Sheet Impacts+Benefits FAQ Science Overview and Goals Early Universe Galaxies Over Time Star Lifecycle Other Worlds Observatory Overview Launch Orbit Mirrors Sunshield Instrument: NIRCam Instrument: MIRI Instrument: NIRSpec Instrument: FGS/NIRISS Optical Telescope Element Backplane Spacecraft Bus Instrument Module Multimedia About Webb Images Images Videos What is Webb Observing? 3d Webb in 3d Solar System Podcasts Webb Image Sonifications Team International Team People Of Webb More For the Media For Scientists For Educators For Fun/Learning 6 Min Read Found: First Actively Forming Galaxy as Lightweight as Young Milky Way
Hundreds of overlapping objects at various distances are spread across this field. At the very center is a tiny galaxy nicknamed Firefly Sparkle that looks like a long, angled, dotted line. Smaller companions are nearby. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Chris Willott (National Research Council Canada), Lamiya Mowla (Wellesley College), Kartheik Iyer (Columbia University) For the first time, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has detected and “weighed” a galaxy that not only existed around 600 million years after the big bang, but is also similar to what our Milky Way galaxy’s mass might have been at the same stage of development. Other galaxies Webb has detected at this time period are significantly more massive. Nicknamed the Firefly Sparkle, this galaxy is gleaming with star clusters — 10 in all — each of which researchers examined in great detail.
Image A: Firefly Sparkle Galaxy and Companions in Galaxy Cluster MACS J1423 (NIRCam Image)
For the first time, astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have identified a galaxy, nicknamed the Firefly Sparkle, that not only is in the process of assembling and forming stars around 600 million years after the big bang, but also weighs about the same as our Milky Way galaxy if we could “wind back the clock” to weigh it as it developed. Two companion galaxies are close by, which may ultimately affect how this galaxy forms and builds mass over billions of years. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Chris Willott (National Research Council Canada), Lamiya Mowla (Wellesley College), Kartheik Iyer (Columbia University) “I didn’t think it would be possible to resolve a galaxy that existed so early in the universe into so many distinct components, let alone find that its mass is similar to our own galaxy’s when it was in the process of forming,” said Lamiya Mowla, co-lead author of the paper and an assistant professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. “There is so much going on inside this tiny galaxy, including so many different phases of star formation.”
Webb was able to image the galaxy in crisp detail for two reasons. One is a benefit of the cosmos: A massive foreground galaxy cluster radically enhanced the distant galaxy’s appearance through a natural effect known as gravitational lensing. And when combined with the telescope’s specialization in high-resolution infrared light, Webb delivered unprecedented new data about the galaxy’s contents.
Image B: Galaxy Cluster MACS J1423 (NIRCam Image)
In this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, thousands of glimmering galaxies are bound together by their own gravity, making up a massive cluster formally classified as MACS J1423. The largest, bright white oval is a supergiant elliptical galaxy. The galaxy cluster acts like a lens, magnifying and distorting the light of objects that lie well behind it, an effect known as gravitational lensing. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Chris Willott (National Research Council Canada), Lamiya Mowla (Wellesley College), Kartheik Iyer (Columbia University) “Without the benefit of this gravitational lens, we would not be able to resolve this galaxy,” said Kartheik Iyer, co-lead author and NASA Hubble Fellow at Columbia University in New York. “We knew to expect it based on current physics, but it’s surprising that we actually saw it.”
Mowla, who spotted the galaxy in Webb’s image, was drawn to its gleaming star clusters, because objects that sparkle typically indicate they are extremely clumpy and complicated. Since the galaxy looks like a “sparkle” or swarm of lightning bugs on a warm summer night, they named it the Firefly Sparkle galaxy.
Reconstructing the Galaxy’s Appearance
The research team modeled what the galaxy might have looked like if it weren’t stretched and discovered that it resembled an elongated raindrop. Suspended within it are two star clusters toward the top and eight toward the bottom. “Our reconstruction shows that clumps of actively forming stars are surrounded by diffuse light from other unresolved stars,” said Iyer. “This galaxy is literally in the process of assembling.”
Webb’s data shows the Firefly Sparkle galaxy is on the smaller side, falling into the category of a low-mass galaxy. Billions of years will pass before it builds its full heft and a distinct shape. “Most of the other galaxies Webb has shown us aren’t magnified or stretched, and we are not able to see their ‘building blocks’ separately. With Firefly Sparkle, we are witnessing a galaxy being assembled brick by brick,” Mowla said.
Stretched Out and Shining, Ready for Close Analysis
Since the galaxy is warped into a long arc, the researchers easily picked out 10 distinct star clusters, which are emitting the bulk of the galaxy’s light. They are represented here in shades of pink, purple, and blue. Those colors in Webb’s images and its supporting spectra confirmed that star formation didn’t happen all at once in this galaxy, but was staggered in time.
“This galaxy has a diverse population of star clusters, and it is remarkable that we can see them separately at such an early age of the universe,” said Chris Willott from the National Research Council of Canada’s Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre, a co-author and the observation program’s principal investigator. “Each clump of stars is undergoing a different phase of formation or evolution.”
The galaxy’s projected shape shows that its stars haven’t settled into a central bulge or a thin, flattened disk, another piece of evidence that the galaxy is still forming.
Image C: Illustration of the Firefly Sparkle Galaxy in the Early Universe (Artist’s Concept)
This artist concept depicts a reconstruction of what the Firefly Sparkle galaxy looked like about 600 million years after the big bang if it wasn’t stretched and distorted by a natural effect known as gravitational lensing. This illustration is based on images and data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI). Science: Lamiya Mowla (Wellesley College), Guillaume Desprez (Saint Mary’s University) Video: “Firefly Sparkle” Reveals Early Galaxy
‘Glowing’ Companions
Researchers can’t predict how this disorganized galaxy will build up and take shape over billions of years, but there are two galaxies that the team confirmed are “hanging out” within a tight perimeter and may influence how it builds mass over billions of years.
Firefly Sparkle is only 6,500 light-years away from its first companion, and its second companion is separated by 42,000 light-years. For context, the fully formed Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across — all three would fit inside it. Not only are its companions very close, the researchers also think that they are orbiting one another.
Each time one galaxy passes another, gas condenses and cools, allowing new stars to form in clumps, adding to the galaxies’ masses. “It has long been predicted that galaxies in the early universe form through successive interactions and mergers with other tinier galaxies,” said Yoshihisa Asada, a co-author and doctoral student at Kyoto University in Japan. “We might be witnessing this process in action.”
The team’s research relied on data from Webb’s CAnadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS), which includes near-infrared images from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and spectra from the microshutter array aboard NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph). The CANUCS data intentionally covered a field that NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope imaged as part of its Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH) program.
This work has been published on December 11, 2024 in the journal Nature.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
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Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Claire Blome – cblome@stsci.edu, Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
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Last Updated Dec 10, 2024 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A drone is shown flying during a test of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM) technical capability Level 2 (TCL2) at Reno-Stead Airport, Nevada in 2016. During the test, five drones simultaneously crossed paths, separated by different altitudes. Two drones flew beyond visual line of sight and three flew within line-of-sight of their operators. More UTM research followed, and it continues today.NASA / Dominic Hart Package delivery drones are coming to our doorsteps in the future, and NASA wants to make sure that when medication or pizza deliveries take to the skies, they will be safe.
In July, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the first time authorized multiple U.S. companies to fly commercial drones in the same airspace without their operators being able to see them the entire flight. Getting to this important step on the way to expanding U.S. commercial drone usage required considerable research into the concept known as flight that is Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) – and NASA helped lead the way.
For BVLOS flights to become routine, trusted automation technology needs to be built into drone and airspace systems, since pilots or air traffic controllers won’t be able to see all the drones operating at once. To address these challenges, NASA developed several key technologies, most notably Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), which allows for digital sharing of each drone user’s planned flight details.
“NASA’s pioneering work on UTM, in collaboration with the FAA and industry, set the stage for safe and scalable small drone flights below 400 feet,” said Parimal Kopardekar, NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility mission integration manager. “This technology is now adopted globally as the key to enabling Beyond Visual Line of Sight drone operations.”
With UTM, each drone user can have the same situational awareness of the airspace where drones are flying. This foundation of technology development, led by NASA’s UTM project, allows drones to fly BVLOS today with special FAA approval.
Drones can fly BVLOS today at the FAA test site and at some other selected areas with pre-approval from the FAA based on the risks. However, the FAA is working on new regulation to allow BVLOS operations to occur without exemptions and waivers in the future.
The NASA UTM team invented a new way to handle the airspace — a style of air traffic management where multiple parties, from government to commercial industry, work together to provide services. These include flight planning, strategic deconfliction before flights take off, communication, surveillance and other focus areas needed for a safe flight.
This technology is now being used by the FAA in approved parts of the Dallas area, allowing commercial drone companies to deliver packages using the NASA- originated UTM research. UTM allows for strategic coordination among operators so each company can monitor their own drone flight to ensure that each drone is where it should be along the planned flight path. Test sites like Dallas help the FAA identify requirements needed to safely enable small drone operations nationwide.
NASA is also working to ensure that public safety drones have priority when operating in the same airspace with commercial drones. In another BVLOS effort, NASA is using drones to test technology that could be used on air taxis. Each of these efforts brings us one step closer to seeing supplies or packages routinely delivered by drone around the U.S.
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Learn more about how drone package delivery works in this FAA video.FAA Facebook logo @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es Instagram logo @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es Linkedin logo @NASA Explore More
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As the launch of the Sentinel-1C satellite approaches, we reflect on some of the many ways the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission has given us remarkable radar insights into our planet over the years.
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
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A 3D simulation showing the evolution of turbulent flows in the upper layers of the Sun. The more saturated and bright reds represent the most vigorous upward or downward twisting motions. Clear areas represent areas where there is only relatively slow up-flows, with very little twisting.NASA/Irina Kitiashvili and Timothy A. Sandstrom NASA supercomputers are shedding light on what causes some of the Sun’s most complex behaviors. Using data from the suite of active Sun-watching spacecraft currently observing the star at the heart of our solar system, researchers can explore solar dynamics like never before.
The animation shows the strength of the turbulent motions of the Sun’s inner layers as materials twist into its atmosphere, resembling a roiling pot of boiling water or a flurry of schooling fish sending material bubbling up to the surface or diving it further down below.
“Our simulations use what we call a realistic approach, which means we include as much as we know to-date about solar plasma to reproduce different phenomena observed with NASA space missions,” said Irina Kitiashvili, a scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley who helped lead the study.
Using modern computational capabilities, the team was able, for the first time to reproduce the fine structures of the subsurface layer observed with NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
“Right now, we don’t have the computational capabilities to create realistic global models of the entire Sun due to the complexity,” said Kitiashvili. “Therefore, we create models of smaller areas or layers, which can show us structures of the solar surface and atmosphere – like shock waves or tornado-like features measuring only a few miles in size; that’s much finer detail than any one spacecraft can resolve.”
Scientists seek to better understand the Sun and what phenomena drive the patterns of its activity. The connection and interactions between the Sun and Earth drive the seasons, ocean currents, weather, climate, radiation belts, auroras and many other phenomena. Space weather predictions are critical for exploration of space, supporting the spacecraft and astronauts of NASA’s Artemis campaign. Surveying this space environment is a vital part of understanding and mitigating astronaut exposure to space radiation and keeping our spacecraft and instruments safe.
This has been a big year for our special star, studded with events like the annular eclipse, a total eclipse, and the Sun reaching its solar maximum period. In December 2024, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission – which is helping researchers to understand space weather right at the source – will make its closest-ever approach to the Sun and beat its own record of being the closest human-made object to reach the Sun.
The Sun keeps surprising us. We are looking forward to seeing what kind of exciting events will be organized by the Sun."
Irina Kitiashvili
NASA Scientist
“The Sun keeps surprising us,” said Kitiashvili. “We are looking forward to seeing what kind of exciting events will be organized by the Sun.”
These simulations were run on the Pleaides supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility at NASA Ames over several weeks of runtime, generating terabytes of data.
NASA is showcasing 29 of the agency’s computational achievements at SC24, the international supercomputing conference, Nov. 17-22, 2023, in Atlanta, Georgia. For more technical information, visit:
https://www.nas.nasa.gov/sc24
For news media: Members of the news media interested in covering this topic should reach out to the NASA Ames newsroom.
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