By Marcia Dunn
NASA held its first public meeting on UFOs Wednesday a year after launching a study into unexplained sightings.
The space agency televised the hourslong hearing featuring an independent panel of experts. The team includes 16 scientists and other experts selected by NASA including retired astronaut Scott Kelly, the first American to spend nearly a year in space.
Several committee members have been subjected to “online abuse” for serving on the team, which detracts from the scientific process, said NASA's Dan Evans, adding that NASA security is dealing with it.
“It’s precisely this rigorous, evidence-based approach that allows one to separate the fact from fiction," Evans said.
The study is a first step in trying to explain mysterious sightings in the sky that NASA calls UAPs, or unidentified aerial phenomena.
The group is looking at what unclassified information is available on the subject and how much more is needed to understand what's going on in the sky, according to astrophysicist David Spergel, the committee's chair who runs the Simons Foundation.
No secret military data are included, such as anything surrounding the suspected spy balloons from China spotted flying over the U.S. earlier this year.
The meeting was held at at NASA headquarters in Washington with the public taking part remotely.
A final report is expected by the end of July.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Mike Whitlatch, vice president of global energy and procurement at UPS, discusses the parcel service's investment in the new trucks burning cleaner fuel.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, October 8th, 2019.
SpaceX, over the weekend, unveiled its new prototype spaceship: Starship. The ship is set to be the most powerful rocket in the world and is the latest development in the company's decades-long pursuit to facilitate interplanetary travel.
The latest tally represents about a 50 percent surge in illnesses and deaths since the CDC last took stock of the damage. As illnesses mount, regulators have stopped short of issuing a ban on vaping, recommending instead vape users abstain from vaping until the cause of the illness is identified.
The idea: force companies to publicly disclose how their valuation would fare should climate change continue versus how they would do should temperature rise be capped at 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels.
The acclaimed Swedish teen climate activist slammed world leaders on Monday at the United Nations' Climate Action Summit in New York, condemning governments across the board for political apathy on the crisis.
‘We can either wait on Mother Nature — or we can give it a shot ourselves.’
New York City’s march was led by renowned Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, who arrived in the U.S. late last month after a two-week journey across the Atlantic in a solar-powered yacht in an effort to draw attention to her cause.
In a resolute response, California said it is set to launch a major legal challenge — one that will surely be lengthy and have broad implications on the way the U.S. confronts the climate crisis and on state's rights.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Monday, September 9, 2019.
