Nasa cannot yet explain all of the mysterious sightings that have been spotted in the sky, a major new report has said. A panel assembled by the space agency to examine Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAPs, said that more and better data is required to be able to explain them. :: Follow our live blog on the Nasa report here. Recently, a number of people – primarily military pilots – have said they have spotted unrecognisable objects over the US. While some have been explained as having known natural or human-made causes, some continue to defy explanation. To better understand where those still mysterious phenomena are coming from, the space agency’s panel urged it to come up with “a rigorous, evidence-based, data-driven scientific framework” to better examine and understand them. Some of that can be done by Nasa, it said, and the space agency should play a “prominent role”. But the research must be done across the US government. Nicola Fox, the associate administrator of Nasa’s Science Mission Directorate, says begins the report by saying that UAPs are “one of our planet’s greatest mysteries”. “Observations of objects in our skies that cannot be identified as balloons, aircraft, or natural known phenomena have been spotted worldwide, yet there are limited high-quality observations,” she writes. “The nature of science is to explore the unknown, and data is the language scientists use to discover our universe’s secrets. “Despite numerous accounts and visuals, the absence of consistent, detailed, and curated observations means we do not presently have the body of data needed to make definitive, scientific conclusions about UAP.” Read More Nasa’s UFO study team reveals first ever report: Live updates Information Commissioner urges people to share data to protect at-risk children iPhone 12 is not emitting dangerous radiation, Apple says, amid fears of Europe ban

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A rare planet has been discovered hundreds of light years away, and it could prove key to our understanding of planetary formations out there in the universe. There have been more than 5,300 exoplanets discovered, but few match the description of the newly recorded TOI-733b. Found 245 light-years away, TOI-733b is almost twice the size of Earth and orbits a sun slightly smaller than our Sun. While there are many exoplanets, there are a surprisingly small number which sit between one and a half and two times the radius of the Earth, and it's the size that makes it so interesting to scientists. Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter The research was conducted by a team of astronomers led by Iskra Georgieva of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. It was accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. The team focused on TOI-733b after data on the planet was collected by NASA's telescope TESS. The density of the planet suggests two things – it’s either totally covered in water, or it’s lost its atmosphere altogether. Clues point to the idea of TOI-733b’s atmosphere slowly depleting. That’s due to the proximity of the planet to its star, which it orbits in the space of just 4.9 days. If the atmosphere is being burned away, it means it could soon be transformed into a rock planet. The other possibility points to the planet having lost its hydrogen and helium, while retaining an atmosphere packed with water vapour. "Answering the question of whether TOI-733b has a secondary atmosphere or is an ocean planet boils down to differentiating between a Neptune-like planet that lost its ∼10 per cent of H/He to leave behind a steam atmosphere of heavier volatiles, and one that formed and remained relatively the same throughout its evolution," the research reads. "While being beyond the scope of this paper, finding an answer to this question will have broad implications on our understanding of exoplanets." The team went on to write: "By all accounts TOI-733 b looks to be an interesting planet and holds the potential of being a small but key piece to solving big puzzles in exoplanet science. "With ever increasing in-depth theoretical analyses and the promise of high-precision follow up by present and upcoming facilities, we seem to be well on the way to finding answers to major questions relating to planet formation and evolution." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Earth narrowly avoided an asteroid that flew past last week – and scientists did not spot the object until it had made its visit. The object, named 2023 NT1, was spotted on 15 July by the Atlas observatory in South Africa. Astronomers there say it was up to 60 metres in size. But at that point it had already made the dangerous bit of its journey: two days earlier, it had swept past Earth, at just a quarter of a distance between us and the Moon. At 60,000 miles away, that is a long way from doing any damage, but relatively close for an asteroid. As such, the asteroid didn’t pose any danger to Earth. But it was an important reminder that truly dangerous asteroids could fly towards Earth – and that we might not spot them until they are too late. That is because many asteroids, including 2023 NT1, fly towards us from the Sun. The bright light of our star can make it difficult to see anything else, especially asteroids that are relatively small at the scale of space. The European Space Agency estimates there could be a million asteroids in the same size range of 30 to 100 metres near Earth. And 98.9 per cent of them are still undiscovered, the space agency says. It has said that shows that there needs to be an improvement in the capabilities of humanity to detect such asteroids. Some are already being worked on, such as ESA’s NEOMIR, which will orbit between the Sun and the Earth and is designed to work as an early warning system for asteroids that would otherwise avoid detection, but will not launch until 2030. The asteroid 2023 NT1, at 60 metres across, is among the largest to have come so close to Earth in recent times. At that size, it could have done significant damage: the Chelyabinsk meteoroid that injured 1,500 people and damaged buildings when it fell to Earth in 2013 was only 20 metres across, for instance. From its approach last week, scientists have been able to catalogue and predict the asteroid’s movements. That should make it possible to track and spot it next time it comes close to Earth. Read More Powerful solar flare to disrupt communications, Russians warn What to expect from India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission to Moon’s south pole India launches historic mission to Moon’s south pole

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