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Giant UFO at the bottom of the ocean off coast Peru
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By USH
On January 25, 2025, an Oklahoma City man recorded a baffling UFO that he described as a "plasma-filled jellybean." A concerned neighbor also spotted something unusual in the sky and soon, the entire neighborhood gathered outside, to witness the anomaly.
The mysterious object emitted a glow and moved erratically, mesmerizing onlookers. In his recorded footage, Frederick can be heard narrating the event. "I don’t hear anything, and it's moving unpredictably," he noted. "It looks like a jellybean, but the interior appears to be plasma."
Frederick decided to launch his drone for a closer look, but upon attempting to deploy his drone, he encountered unexplained technical failures. "My controller provides voice notifications," he explained. "It repeatedly announced, ‘unable to take off, electromagnetic interference."
After multiple attempts, he finally got the drone airborne, reaching approximately 1,000 feet beneath the UFO. However, just after capturing three images, the drone’s video function failed, and its battery, despite being fully charged, suddenly drained. "It had a 35-minute flight time," Frederick stated. "But right after taking those three pictures, the controller alerted me: ‘low battery, return to home."
Seeking expert insight, Frederick shared his footage and images with University of Oklahoma physics professor Mukremin Kilic. When asked about the sighting, Kilic remarked, "I don’t know what it is" and suggested the object was likely a drone. However, this theory does not explain why Frederick’s own drone experienced interference, raising further questions about the true nature of the UFO.
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By NASA
“I do evolutionary programming,” said NASA Goddard oceanographer Dr. John Moisan. “I see a lot of possibility in using evolutionary programming to solve many large problems we are trying to solve. How did life start and evolve? Can these processes be used to evolve intelligence or sentience?”Courtesy of John Moisan Name: John Moisan
Formal Job Classification: Research oceanographer
Organization: Ocean Ecology Laboratory, Hydrosphere, Biosphere, Geophysics (HBG), Earth Science Directorate (Code 616) – duty station at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore
What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard? How do you help support Goddard’s mission?
I develop ecosystem models and satellite algorithms to understand how the ocean’s ecology works. My work has evolved over time from when I coded ocean ecosystem models to the present where I now use artificial intelligence to evolve the ocean ecosystem models.
How did you become an oceanographer?
As a child, I watched a TV series called “Sea Hunt,” which involved looking for treasure in the ocean. It inspired me to want to spend my life scuba diving.
I got a Bachelor of Science in marine biology from the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine, and later got a Ph.D. from the Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.
Initially, I just wanted to do marine biology which to me meant doing lots of scuba diving, maybe living on a sailboat. Later, when I was starting my graduate schoolwork, I found a book about mathematical biology and a great professor who helped open my eyes to the world of numerical modeling. I found out that instead of scuba diving, I needed instead to spend my days behind a computer, learning how to craft ideas into equations and then code these into a computer to run simulations on ocean ecosystems.
I put myself through my initial education. I went to school fulltime, but I lived at home and hitchhiked to college on a daily basis. When I started my graduate school, I worked to support myself. I was in school during the normal work week, but from Friday evening through Sunday night, I worked 40 hours at a medical center cleaning and sterilizing the operating room instrument carts. This was during the height of the AIDS epidemic.
What was most exciting about your two field trips to the Antarctic?
In 1987, I joined a six-week research expedition to an Antarctic research station to explore how the ozone hole was impacting phytoplankton. These are single-celled algae that are responsible for making half the oxygen we breathe. Traveling to Antarctica is like visiting another planet. There are more types of blue than I’ve ever seen. It is an amazingly beautiful place to visit, with wild landscapes, glaciers, mountains, sea ice, and a wide range of wildlife. After my first trip I returned home and went back in a few months later as a biologist on a joint Polish–U.S. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) expedition to carry out a biological survey and measure how much fast the phytoplankton was growing in different areas of the Southern Ocean. We used nets to measure the amounts of fish and shrimp and took water samples to measure salinity, the amount of algae and their growth rates. We ate well, for example the Polish cook made up a large batch of smoked ice fish.
What other field work have you done?
While a graduate student, I helped do some benthic work in the Gulf of Maine. This study was focused on understanding the rates of respiration in the muds on the bottom of the ocean and on understanding how much biomass was in the muds. The project lowered a benthic grab device to the bottom where it would push a box core device into the sediments to return it to the surface. This process is sort of like doing a biopsy of the ocean bottom.
What is your goal as a research oceanographer at Goddard?
Ocean scientists measure the amount and variability of chlorophyll a, a pigment in algae, in the ocean because it is an analogue to the amount of algae or phytoplankton in the ocean. Chlorophyll a is used to capture solar energy to make sugars, which the algae use for growth. Generally, areas of the ocean that have more chlorophyll are also areas where growth or primary production is higher. So, by estimating how much chlorophyll is in the ocean we can study how these processes are changing with an aim in understanding why. NASA uses the color of the ocean using satellites to estimate chlorophyll a because chlorophyll absorbs sunlight and changes the color of the ocean. Algae have other kinds of pigments, each of which absorbs light at different wavelengths. Because different groups of algae have different levels of pigments, they are like fingerprints that can reveal the type of algae in the water. Some of my research aims at trying to use artificial intelligence and mathematical techniques to create new ways to measure these pigments from space to understand how ocean ecosystems change.
In 2024, NASA plans to launch the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite, which will measure the color of the ocean at many different wavelengths. The data from this satellite can be used with results from my work on genetic programs and inverse modeling to estimate concentrations of different pigments and possibly concentrations of different types of algae in the ocean.
You have been at Goddard over 22 years. What is most memorable to you?
I develop ecosystem models. But ecosystems do not have laws in the same way that physics has laws. Equations need to be created so that the ecosystem models represent what is observed in the real world. Satellites have been a great source for those observations, but without a lot of other types of observations that are collected in the field, the ocean, it is difficult to develop these equations. In my time at NASA, I have only been able to develop models because of the great but often tedious work that ocean scientists around the world have been doing when they go on ocean expeditions to measure various ocean features, be it simple temperature or the more complicated measurements of algal growth rates. My experience with their willingness to collaborate and share data is especially memorable. This experience is also what I enjoyed with numerous scientists at NASA who have always been willing to support new ideas and point me in the right direction. It has made working at NASA a phenomenal experience.
What are the philosophical implications of your work?
The human capacity to think rapidly, to test and change our opinions based on what we learn, is slow compared to that of a computer. Computers can help us adapt more quickly. I can put 1,000 students in a room developing ecosystem model models. But I know that this process of developing ecosystem models is slow when compared what a computer can do using an artificial intelligence approach called genetic programming, it is a much faster way to generate ecosystem model solutions.
Philosophically, there is no real ecosystem model that is the best. Life and ecosystems on Earth change and adapt at rates too fast for any present-day model to resolve, especially considering climate change. The only real ecosystem model is the reality itself. No computer model can perfectly simulate ecosystems. By utilizing the fast adaptability that evolutionary computer modeling techniques provide, simulating and ultimately predicting ecosystems can be improved greatly.
How does your work have implications for scientists in general?
I do evolutionary programming. I see a lot of possibility in using evolutionary programming to solve many large problems we are trying to solve. How did life start and evolve? Can these processes be used to evolve intelligence or sentience?
The artificial intelligence (AI) work answers questions, but you need to identify the questions. This is the greater problem when it comes to working with AI. You cannot answer the question of how to create a sentient life if you do not know how to define it. If I cannot measure life, how can I model it? I do not know how to write that equation. How does life evolve? How did the evolutionary process start? These are big questions I enjoy discussing with friends. It can be as frustrating as contemplating “nothing.”
Who inspires you?
Many of the scientists that I was fortunate to work with at various research institutes, such as Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. These are groups of scientists are open to always willing to share their ideas. These are individuals who enjoy doing science. I will always be indebted to them for their kindness in sharing of ideas and data.
Do you still scuba dive?
Yes, I wish I could dive daily, it is a very calming experience. I’m trying to get my kids to join me.
What else do you do for fun?
My wife and I bike and travel. Our next big bike trip will hopefully be to Shangri-La City in China. I also enjoy sailing and trying to grow tropical plants. But, most of all, I enjoy helping raise my children to be resilient, empathic, and intelligent beings.
What are your words to live by?
Life. So much to see. So little time.
Conversations With Goddard is a collection of question and answer profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage. Conversations With Goddard is a collection of Q&A profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage.
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Last Updated Feb 10, 2025 EditorJessica EvansContactRob Garnerrob.garner@nasa.gov Related Terms
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Cliffs slope into the ocean in San Simeon, California. All along the state’s dynamic coastline, land is inching down and up due to natural and human-caused factors. A bet-ter understanding of this motion can help communities prepare for rising seas.NASA/JPL-Caltech The elevation changes may seem small — amounting to fractions of inches per year — but they can increase or decrease local flood risk, wave exposure, and saltwater intrusion.
Tracking and predicting sea level rise involves more than measuring the height of our oceans: Land along coastlines also inches up and down in elevation. Using California as a case study, a NASA-led team has shown how seemingly modest vertical land motion could significantly impact local sea levels in coming decades.
By 2050, sea levels in California are expected to increase between 6 and 14.5 feet (15 and 37 centimeters) higher than year 2000 levels. Melting glaciers and ice sheets, as well as warming ocean water, are primarily driving the rise. As coastal communities develop adaptation strategies, they can also benefit from a better understanding of the land’s role, the team said. The findings are being used in updated guidance for the state.
“In many parts of the world, like the reclaimed ground beneath San Francisco, the land is moving down faster than the sea itself is going up,” said lead author Marin Govorcin, a remote sensing scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
The new study illustrates how vertical land motion can be unpredictable in scale and speed; it results from both human-caused factors such as groundwater pumping and wastewater injection, as well as from natural ones like tectonic activity. The researchers showed how direct satellite observations can improve estimates of vertical land motion and relative sea level rise. Current models, which are based on tide gauge measurements, cannot cover every location and all the dynamic land motion at work within a given region.
Local Changes
Researchers from JPL and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) used satellite radar to track more than a thousand miles of California coast rising and sinking in new detail. They pinpointed hot spots — including cities, beaches, and aquifers — at greater exposure to rising seas now and in coming decades.
To capture localized motion inch by inch from space, the team analyzed radar measurements made by ESA’s (the European Space Agency’s) Sentinel-1 satellites, as well as motion velocity data from ground-based receiving stations in the Global Navigation Satellite System. Researchers compared multiple observations of the same locations made between 2015 to 2023 using a processing technique called interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR).
Scientists mapped land sinking (indicated in blue) in coastal California cities and in parts of the Central Valley due to factors like soil compaction, erosion, and groundwater withdrawal. They also tracked uplift hot spots (shown in red), including in Long Beach, a site of oil and gas production. NASA Earth Observatory Homing in on the San Francisco Bay Area — specifically, San Rafael, Corte Madera, Foster City, and Bay Farm Island — the team found the land subsiding at a steady rate of more than 0.4 inches (10 millimeters) per year due largely to sediment compaction. Accounting for this subsidence in the lowest-lying parts of these areas, local sea levels could rise more than 17 inches (45 centimeters) by 2050. That’s more than double the regional estimate of 7.4 inches (19 centimeters) based solely on tide gauge projections.
Not all coastal locations in California are sinking. The researchers mapped uplift hot spots of several millimeters per year in the Santa Barbara groundwater basin, which has been steadily replenishing since 2018. They also observed uplift in Long Beach, where fluid extraction and injection occur with oil and gas production.
The scientists further calculated how human-induced drivers of local land motion increase uncertainties in the sea level projections by up to 15 inches (40 centimeters) in parts of Los Angeles and San Diego counties. Reliable projections in these areas are challenging because the unpredictable nature of human activities, such as hydrocarbon production and groundwater extraction, necessitating ongoing monitoring of land motion.
Fluctuating Aquifers, Slow-Moving Landslides
In the middle of California, in the fast-sinking parts of the Central Valley (subsiding as much as 8 inches, or 20 centimeters, per year), land motion is influenced by groundwater withdrawal. Periods of drought and precipitation can alternately draw down or inflate underground aquifers. Such fluctuations were also observed over aquifers in Santa Clara in the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Ana in Orange County, and Chula Vista in San Diego County.
Along rugged coastal terrain like the Big Sur mountains below San Francisco and Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles, the team pinpointed local zones of downward motion associated with slow-moving landslides. In Northern California they also found sinking trends at marshlands and lagoons around San Francisco and Monterey bays, and in Sonoma County’s Russian River estuary. Erosion in these areas likely played a key factor.
Scientists, decision-makers, and the public can monitor these and other changes occurring via the JPL-led OPERA (Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis) project. The OPERA project details land surface elevational changes across North America, shedding light on dynamic processes including subsidence, tectonics, and landslides.
The OPERA project will leverage additional state-of-the-art InSAR data from the upcoming NISAR (NASA-Indian Space Research Organization Synthetic Aperture Radar) mission, expected to launch within the coming months.
News Media Contacts
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov
Written by Sally Younger
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Last Updated Feb 10, 2025 Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
The European Space Agency's XMM-Newton has detected rapidly fluctuating X-rays coming from the very edge of a supermassive black hole in the heart of a nearby galaxy. The results paint a fascinating picture that defies how we thought matter falls into such black holes, and points to a potential source of gravitational waves that ESA’s future mission, LISA, could see.
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Danah Tommalieh, commercial pilot and engineer at Reliable Robotics, inputs a flight plan at the control center in Mountain View, California, ahead of remotely operating a Cessna 208 aircraft at Hollister municipal airport in Hollister, California.NASA/Don Richey NASA recently began a series of flight tests with partners to answer an important aviation question: What will it take to integrate remotely piloted or autonomous planes carrying large packages and cargo safely into the U.S. airspace? Researchers tested new technologies in Hollister, California, that are helping to investigate what tools and capabilities are needed to make these kinds of flights routine.
The commercial industry continues to make advancements in autonomous aircraft systems aimed at making it possible for remotely operated aircraft to fly over communities – transforming the way we will transport people and goods. As the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) develops standards for this new type of air transportation, NASA is working to ensure these uncrewed flights are safe by creating the required technological tools and infrastructure. These solutions could be scaled to support many different remotely piloted aircraft – including air taxis and package delivery drones – in a shared airspace with traditional crewed aircraft.
“Remotely piloted aircraft systems could eventually deliver cargo and people to rural areas with limited access to commercial transportation and delivery services,” said Shivanjli Sharma, aerospace engineer at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. “We’re aiming to create a healthy ecosystem of many different kinds of remotely piloted operations. They will fly in a shared airspace to provide communities with better access to goods and services, like medical supply deliveries and more efficient transportation.”
During a flight test in November, Reliable Robotics, a company developing an autonomous flight system, remotely flew its Cessna 208 Caravan aircraft through pre-approved flight paths in Hollister, California.
Although a safety pilot was aboard, a Reliable Robotics remote pilot directed the flight from their control center in Mountain View, more than 50 miles away.
Cockpit of Reliable Robotics’ Cessna 208 aircraft outfitted with autonomous technology for remotely-piloted operations.NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete Congressional staffers from the United States House and Senate’s California delegation joined NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, Carol Caroll, Ames Aeronautics Director, Huy Tran, and other Ames leadership at Reliable Robotics Headquarters to view the live remote flight.
Researchers evaluated a Collins Aerospace ground-based surveillance system’s ability to detect nearby air traffic and provide the remote pilot with information in order to stay safely separated from other aircraft in the future.
Initial analysis shows the ground-based radar actively surveilled the airspace during the aircraft’s taxi, takeoff, and landing. The data was transmitted from the radar system to the remote pilot at Reliable Robotics. In the future, this capability could help ensure aircraft remain safely separated across all phases of fight.
A Reliable Robotics’ modified Cessna 208 aircraft flies near Hollister Airport. A Reliable Robotics pilot operated the aircraft remotely from the control center in Mountain View.NASA/Brandon Torres Naverrete While current FAA operating rules require pilots to physically see and avoid other aircraft from inside the cockpit, routine remotely piloted aircraft will require a suite of integrated technologies to avoid hazards and coordinate with other aircraft in the airspace.
A radar system for ground-based surveillance offers one method for detecting other traffic in the airspace and at the airport, providing one part of the capability to ensure pilots can avoid collision and accomplish their desired missions. Data analysis from this testing will help researchers understand if ground-based surveillance radar can be used to satisfy FAA safety rules for remotely piloted flights.
NASA will provide analysis and reports of this flight test to the FAA and standards bodies.
“This is an exciting time for the remotely piloted aviation community,” Sharma said. “Among other benefits, remote operations could provide better access to healthcare, bolster natural disaster response efforts, and offer more sustainable and effective transportation to both rural and urban communities. We’re thrilled to provide valuable data to the industry and the FAA to help make remote operations a reality in the near future.”
Over the next year, NASA will work with additional aviation partners on test flights and simulations to test weather services, communications systems, and other autonomous capabilities for remotely piloted flights. NASA researchers will analyze data from these tests to provide a comprehensive report to the FAA and the community on what minimum technologies and capabilities are needed to enable and scale remotely piloted operations.
This flight test data analysis is led out of NASA Ames under the agency’s Air Traffic Management Exploration project. This effort supports the agency’s Advanced Air Mobility mission research, ensuring the United States stays at the forefront of aviation innovation.
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Last Updated Jan 07, 2025 Related Terms
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