Tag Archives: outer space

science news

UFOs? Absolutely

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A few of the leading media talking heads have been yapping lately about unidentified flying objects.

Which brings me to this question: Do I believe in UFOs?

You bet I do!

Now, before you think I have flown off the rails, I need to stipulate one important caveat: I do not believe that UFOs are alien beings that have flown to Earth to invade us, to observe us, or to just make us ask dumb questions.

I also want to stipulate that I have seen hundreds of UFOs over my more than seven decades on Earth. I don’t what they are. Hence, they were “unidentified.” However, this speculation from some media types about whether the UFOs might be from some world out there carries as much weight as the discussions about a second gunman in Dealey Plaza the day President Kennedy was murdered … which is to say that I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted all by himself.

This UFO chatter serves only to give some folks something about which to talk. That’s it.

I am not inclined to get into any discussion about whether we’ve been visited by space creatures. It’s just not in my wheelhouse.

However, we need to come up with another name for those things we see that we cannot identify. The term “UFO” takes on an entirely different meaning that it does not deserve.

national news

We are not alone … are we?

I answered one of those online, totally unscientific “polls” that asks if we believe there is extraterrestrial life out there. I said “yes.”

Then I learned that 64 percent of respondents answered the same way. Good. I am not the only one.

Nor are we the only living beings inhabiting the universe. In my view, at least.

I heard the other day that scientists monitoring an orbiting telescope believe they believe they have found evidence of a star way out yonder that has planets orbiting it. I believe they counted possibly eight planets. What they have found, allegedly, is another solar system — similar to ours.

What does it mean?

I haven’t a clue, other than it might affirm what I’ve believed since I was boy, which is that it is a virtual statistical certainty that — given the infinite size of the universe — that there must be some form of life out there that might rival little ol’ Earth’s life forms.

This does not mean any of these beings have called on Earth. I don’t believe in the notion that the government found evidence of ETs landing at Roswell and have covered it up for however long ago it allegedly occurred.

Do I believe the universe contains life other than what was created here on Earth? Sure. Why disbelieve something only because we haven’t seen it for ourselves?

As for whether there is life as “intelligent” as what has evolved on this planet, I am not holding my breath that humankind ever will know with absolute certainty.

It’s a long, long, long way to infinity, folks. Just as it is impossible for us to get there, it’s equally impossible for “them” to get here.

But … they’re out there. I believe it. So should you.

national news

NASA finds another ‘Earth’

Well, how about this bit of news?

NASA announced it has discovered a planet that looks a good bit like Earth, orbiting a star that looks a lot like our sun.

The space agency has been hunting for this kind of scenario for decades. It means — maybe, possibly, potentially — that the planet, known as Keplar 452b, could be hospitable for, um, life … perhaps even as we know it.

That’s the good news.

Here’s the bad news: Keplar 452b is 1,400 light years away. How far is that? Well, a light year is the distance light travels — at 186,000 miles per second — in a single year. So, it’s 1,400 light years out there. That means, quite clearly, that we cannot get there.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/nasa-discovers-earth-like-planet-orbiting-cousin-of-sun/ar-AAdnQPj

Nor, one can assume, can they — if there is a “they” on Keplar 452b — can get here.

Then again, maybe they have come here and we don’t know it.

OK, I get that it’s not likely. Astronomers think the planet is in its rocky stage, which is a precursor supposedly to entering its “greenhouse” phase.

Still, this discovery is quite exciting.

I’ve long thought that the statistical probability is just too great for there not be life somewhere in our universe, given the known numbers of galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets and other orbiting celestial bodies out there.

How many gazillions of them are out there? Too many to discount the probability — let alone the possibility — of life.