Flight & UFOs

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Searching for Signs of Life

by Young Reporter Rori L. Divijak, Dove Mountain CSTEM K–8

Recently, I was able to attend a Zoom meeting with astrobiologist Dr. Graham Lau. Astrobiology is a huge field that includes people who do oceanography, biology, chemistry, astrophysics, geology, and even philosophy. As an astrobiologist, Lau helps search for other life on other planets or moons in our solar system. He also studies the origins of life—meaning he tries to figure out where life started on Earth and if it even did start on Earth.

Currently, Lau is writing a paper about a glacier he is studying on Ellesmere Island in Canada. A large amount of water flows out and over the top of this glacier. As it comes out, a large melt pool of the mineral sulfur forms on top of it. These yellow deposits of sulfur are so large that Lau says, “We can fly over in helicopters and airplanes and look down and see it”. There is another place in the Arctic in which Lau is studying the minerals on the rocks of the environment in order to assist him with looking for life on Mars.

“I am also interested in something called the overview effect,” says Lau. The overview effect is when astronauts go into space and they see our Earth from outside of the atmosphere. This journey shifts their thinking about who they are. Lau is also interested in meditating because meditation shifts a person’s thinking in a way similar to the way that seeing the Earth from space does.

As a child, Lau loved watching Star Wars and Star Trek. He loved the movies so much that he created his own Star Wars LEGOs before there were prepackaged LEGO kits. To create his ‘kits’ he would heat a piece of metal from a model rocket launcher and melt the plastic of his regular LEGO bricks and create items like lightsabers. These movies are part of what got Lau interested in extraterrestrial life because he loved the idea of humans going into space and meeting beings from other planets. When Lau was a teenager, he read a book called “Cosmos” by Carl Sagan. From this book, Lau learned that there were career opportunities for people to search for other life in our solar system, increasing his interest in discovering life in the universe.

Dr. Lau is searching for life on Mars. In its ancient history, Mars could have been a planet on which life not only survived, but thrived because billions of years ago Mars had water on its surface. Venus could be another planet that sustains life because a group of scientists found a molecule called phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere. On Earth, the molecule phosphine is produced through a biological process. A group of scientists suggested that since this molecule was found in the atmosphere of Venus, the atmosphere of Venus may contain life. One of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, has a deep ocean that is six miles beneath the surface which also may have sustained life.

If you would like to learn more about Dr. Lau you can visit NASA’s show hosted by him called “Ask An Astrobiologist” or visit his website with links to many interesting sites including Science-at-Home at https://cosmobiota.com/.

Looking Deeper Into Our Galaxy’s Beginnings

The James Webb Space Telescope is set to launch on Dec. 18. This BEHEMOTH weighs 6,500 kilograms or over 14,300 pounds. The solar powered instrument will make the first part of its journey into space with its gigantic solar array folded. The JWST will leave Earth aboard a rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, on the northeast coast of South America. JWST is an international program led by NASA with its partners the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. When it reaches space, JWST will unfold its sunshield and 18 hexagonal mirrors and start generating its own power. The infrared observatory will be able to see through clouds of cosmic dust. The JWST will extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, according to NASA’s website, because its longer wavelengths will look for the formation of the first galaxies and inside the dust clouds where stars and planets are forming today. The telescope is named for James Webb (Oct. 7, 1906–March 27, 1992) who was the head of NASA during the Apollo program in the 1960s. It will be used by astronomers worldwide.

Look, Up in the Sky…It’s a What?!

Mysterious lights, fast-flying objects, the wreckage of crashed machines, military or government cover-ups. For decades UFOs—unidentified flying objects—have been a fantastic part of our pop culture.

Now a recent report to Congress, including an unclassified version for the public, reveals what our military and even satellites have “seen” lately.

Instead of UFOs, the report calls these flying objects and sightings “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” UAP for short.

In August 2020, our military set up the UAP Task Force to COMPILE the report, which covers sightings mostly by Navy pilots from 2004 through 2021, including what their sensors were able to pick up and record.

Since most of these UAPs happen in or around military areas or places where our military operates, like out at sea, these flying PHENOMENA are being looked at as possible threats to our national security! In some instances caught on the fighter jet sensors and also on sophisticated ship radar, whatever these UAPs are exceed what our known aircraft can do in terms of acceleration, maneuverability and ability to operate underwater. Those are known as USOs—unidentified submerged objects.

According to the report, only one of the 144 cases can be explained—and that was a partially deflated big balloon. All others remain unexplained.

Some of the UAPs appear triangular, oblong (like a Tic Tac candy), round or other distinctive shapes. Obviously, the UAP report that was released this summer is just a starting point. Government officials will continue to look into UAPs and might come up with a specific reporting system to get important facts for future incidents. What do you think? Could some of these UAPs be extraterrestrials? Or could they be drone technology spying on our military or even secret research being developed by our country?