Explore Business Standard
The US is concealing a longstanding programme that retrieves and reverse engineers unidentified flying objects, a former Air Force intelligence officer testified Wednesday to Congress. The Pentagon has denied his claims. Retired Maj. David Grusch's highly anticipated testimony before a House Oversight subcommittee was Congress' latest foray into the world of UAPs or unidentified aerial phenomena," which is the official term the US government uses instead of UFOs. While the study of mysterious aircraft or objects often evokes talk of aliens and little green men, Democrats and Republicans in recent years have pushed for more research as a national security matter due to concerns that sightings observed by pilots may be tied to US adversaries. Grusch said he was asked in 2019 by the head of a government task force on UAPs to identify all highly classified programs relating to the task force's mission. At the time, Grusch was detailed to the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency
One-third of the planets orbiting the most common stars across the Milky Way galaxy may hold onto liquid water and possibly harbour life, according to a study based on latest telescope data. The most common stars in our galaxy are considerably smaller and cooler, sporting just half the mass of the Sun at most. Billions of planets orbit these common dwarf stars. The analysis, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that two-thirds of the planets around these ubiquitous small stars could be roasted by tidal extremes, sterilising them. However, that leaves one-third of the planetshundreds of millions across the galaxythat could be in a goldilocks orbit close enough, and gentle enough, to be possibly habitable. "I think this result is really important for the next decade of exoplanet research, because eyes are shifting towards this population of stars," said Sheila Sagear, a doctoral student at the University of Florida (UF) in the US. "These st