Tag: Aliens
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Seemingly strange radio signals from a red dwarf star spark interest at Arecibo
The 1,000-foot radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory played a role in the movie “Contact.” (UPRA Photo) The 1,000-foot-wide radio telescope at Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory will take a closer look at a red dwarf star known as Ross 128 after picking up what one astronomer said were “some very peculiar signals” during a 10-minute…
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‘Life’ horror movie sparks reality check on procedures for studying Mars samples
Rebecca Ferguson plays Miranda North, a planetary protection officer aboard the International Space Station, in the movie “Life.” (Sony Pictures Digital Productions) Spoiler Alert! This article doesn’t reveal any major plot twists, but wait to read it if you’re trying to stay totally in the dark about the plot of the movie “Life.” Let sleeping…
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Project Blue kicks off $1 million crowdfunding campaign to seek out Alpha Centauri’s alien Earths
An artist’s concept shows Project Blue’s telescope monitoring Alpha Centauri. (Credit: Project Blue) How much would you pay to find out whether Alpha Centauri’s twin suns possess blue planets like Earth? Project Blue is hoping it’s at least $10, and maybe thousands of dollars. That’s the point behind the project’s Kickstarter campaign, which aims to raise…
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How aliens and Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell got tangled up in WikiLeaks emails
NASA astronauts Edgar Mitchell (foreground) and Alan Shepard (background) work on the lunar surface during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. (Credit: NASA) WikiLeaks’ purloined emails cover a wide range of issues that were handled by Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, but the farthest-out issues may well have to do with E.T., alien energy…
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A not-so-simple response: Messages beamed to aliens amid debate over perils
The European Space Agency’s Cebreros Station in Spain was due to transmit an 866-second encoded radio message in the direction of Polaris, 434 light-years away. (Credit: ESA) More than 3,000 messages were beamed toward the North Star today by a powerful radio telescope – and although the exercise was largely symbolic, it serves to revive a debate…
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They’re not saying it’s aliens, but signal traced to sunlike star sparks SETI interest
SETI researchers say an intriguing radio spike was detected last year by the RATAN-600 radio telescope. (Credit: SAO RAS) SETI researchers are buzzing about a strong spike in radio signals that seemed to come from the direction of a sunlike star in the constellation Hercules, known as HD 164595. The signal conceivably fits the profile…
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Have any alien civilizations ever existed? Astronomers say the chances are sky-high
Ellie Arroway (played by Jodie Foster) listens for alien signals in the movie “Contact.” (Credit: Warner Bros.) Are we alone? Fifty-five years ago, astronomer Frank Drake came up with an equation that weighed the odds for aliens, and now two astronomers have tweaked the formula to come up with a slightly different spin. Their bottom…
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How to do a reality check on the search for life beyond our solar system
When Earth passes in front of the sun, it blocks a small part of the sun’s light. Potential observers outside our solar system might be able to detect the resulting dimming of the sun and study Earth’s atmosphere. (Credit: Axel Quetz / MPIA / NASA) The past decade has brought about a revolution in astronomers’…
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Why haven’t we found aliens? Here’s the bad news, and the good news
SETI pioneer Jill Tarter pays a visit to the Allen Telescope Array in California, one of the prime sites for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. (Credit: SETI Institute) It’s a question that goes back decades: If other civilizations have arisen beyond Earth over the course of billions of years, why haven’t we heard from them?…
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The return of ‘The X-Files’ brings real-life UFO sleuths out of the shadows
Alien visitation is a big topic for “The X-Files.” (Credit: Fox) UFOs are back in style, thanks in part to the return of “The X-Files” to television this weekend, almost 14 years after the last episode had its original airing. And while Mulder and Scully are delving into new anomalies in prime time, the folks who…