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Origins Uncertain: ‘Skull Hill’ Rock
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By USH
Evidence points to the existence of a massive planet once located between Mars and Jupiter, known to some as Maldek. This ancient world is believed to have had a large moon, complete with oceans, an atmosphere, and possibly even life, orbiting it for millions of years.
Maldek is thought to have once been home to a highly advanced humanoid civilization before meeting a cataclysmic end, likely the result of either internal collapse, through nuclear war, technological abuse, or spiritual decline, or an external force, whether natural or engineered. Its destruction scattered debris across the solar system, forming what we now know as the asteroid belt.
As for its large moon, it was cast adrift and eventually settled into a new orbit around the Sun. Today, we know that moon as Mars.
This theory sheds light on several of Mars’ mysteries: the stark contrast between its two hemispheres, the presence of tidal bulges typically seen in moons, and the unusual nuclear isotopes in its soil, matching those produced by atomic explosions.
For decades, government scientists have suppressed this information. But the truth remains, etched into planetary scars, buried beneath ancient monuments, and encoded in the mathematical patterns of our solar system’s violent past.
Additional: According to some alternative theories, a remnant of Maldek’s civilization escaped the planet’s cataclysmic destruction, seeking refuge on Mars, a world that once pulsed with life and bore a striking resemblance to Earth. For a time, they thrived. But Mars, too, would not remain untouched. Whether through the slow unraveling of its atmosphere or the lingering shadows of interplanetary war, Mars fell into decline. And so, the survivors journeyed again, this time to Earth. Shrouded in mystery, their presence may have shaped early human consciousness, remembered through the ages as ancient gods or sky beings.
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By Space Force
Guardians connected with members of Congress at a special screening of "The U.S. Space Force — America's Invisible Front Line" documentary at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center April 30, 2025.
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By NASA
Did you know some of the brightest sources of light in the sky come from the regions around black holes in the centers of galaxies? It sounds a little contradictory, but it’s true! They may not look bright to our eyes, but satellites have spotted oodles of them across the universe.
One of those satellites is NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Fermi has found thousands of these kinds of galaxies since it launched in 2008, and there are many more out there!
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Watch a cosmic gamma-ray fireworks show in this animation using just a year of data from the Large Area Telescope (LAT) aboard NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Each object’s magenta circle grows as it brightens and shrinks as it dims. The yellow circle represents the Sun following its apparent annual path across the sky. The animation shows a subset of the LAT gamma-ray records available for more than 1,500 objects in a continually updated repository. Over 90% of these sources are a type of galaxy called a blazar, powered by the activity of a supermassive black hole. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center/Daniel Kocevski Black holes are regions of space that have so much gravity that nothing — not light, not particles, nada — can escape. Most galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers, and these black holes are hundreds of thousands to billions of times the mass of our Sun. In active galactic nuclei (also called “AGN” for short, or just “active galaxies”) the central region is stuffed with gas and dust that’s constantly falling toward the black hole. As the gas and dust fall, they start to spin and form a disk. Because of the friction and other forces at work, the spinning disk starts to heat up.
This composite view of the active galaxy Markarian 573 combines X-ray data (blue) from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and radio observations (purple) from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico with a visible light image (gold) from the Hubble Space Telescope. Markarian 573 is an active galaxy that has two cones of emission streaming away from the supermassive black hole at its center. X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/A.Paggi et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA The disk’s heat gets emitted as light, but not just wavelengths of it that we can see with our eyes. We detect light from AGN across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from the more familiar radio and optical waves through to the more exotic X-rays and gamma rays, which we need special telescopes to spot.
In the heart of an active galaxy, matter falling toward a supermassive black hole creates jets of particles traveling near the speed of light as shown in this artist’s concept. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab About one in 10 AGN beam out jets of energetic particles, which are traveling almost as fast as light. Scientists are studying these jets to try to understand how black holes — which pull everything in with their huge amounts of gravity — somehow provide the energy needed to propel the particles in these jets.
This artist’s concept shows two views of the active galaxy TXS 0128+554, located around 500 million light-years away. Left: The galaxy’s central jets appear as they would if we viewed them both at the same angle. The black hole, embedded in a disk of dust and gas, launches a pair of particle jets traveling at nearly the speed of light. Scientists think gamma rays (magenta) detected by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope originate from the base of these jets. As the jets collide with material surrounding the galaxy, they form identical lobes seen at radio wavelengths (orange). The jets experienced two distinct bouts of activity, which created the gap between the lobes and the black hole. Right: The galaxy appears in its actual orientation, with its jets tipped out of our line of sight by about 50 degrees. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Many of the ways we tell one type of AGN from another depend on how they’re oriented from our point of view. With radio galaxies, for example, we see the jets from the side as they’re beaming vast amounts of energy into space. Then there’s blazars, which are a type of AGN that have a jet that is pointed almost directly at Earth, which makes the AGN particularly bright.
Blazar 3C 279’s historic gamma-ray flare in 2015 can be seen in this image from the Large Area Telescope on NASA’s Fermi satellite. During the flare, the blazar outshone the Vela pulsar, usually the brightest object in the gamma-ray sky. NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration Fermi has been searching the sky for gamma ray sources since 2008. More than half of the sources it has found have been blazars. Gamma rays are useful because they can tell us a lot about how particles accelerate and how they interact with their environment.
So why do we care about AGN? We know that some AGN formed early in the history of the universe. With their enormous power, they almost certainly affected how the universe changed over time. By discovering how AGN work, we can understand better how the universe came to be the way it is now.
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Last Updated Apr 30, 2025 Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
This new snapshot from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express deftly captures the two distinct faces of Mars: ridged and rugged versus smooth and unmarked.
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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 3 min read
Sols 4479-4480: What IS That Lumpy, Bumpy Rock?
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of its workspace, including two rocks in front of it with interesting textures, different from anything seen before in the mission. The rover took the image with its Left Navigation Camera on March 12, 2025 — sol 4478, or Martian day 4,478 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 07:00:42 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Ashley Stroupe, Mission Operations Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Wednesday, March 12, 2025
The days are getting shorter and colder for Curiosity as we head into winter. So our rover is sleeping in a bit before waking up to a busy plan. Today I served as the Engineering Uplink Lead, managing the engineering side of the plan to support all the science activities.
We are seeing a lot of rocks with different, interesting textures, so Curiosity’s day begins with a lot of targeted imaging of this interesting area. The two rocks right in front of us (see image above) are different from anything that we have looked at before on the mission, so we are eager to know what they are. We are taking Mastcam images of “Manzana Creek” and “Palo Comado,” two of these interestingly textured rocks, and also of an area named “Vincent Gap,” where the rover disturbed some bedrock and exposed some regolith by driving over it in the prior plan. ChemCam is making a LIBS observation of a target called “Sturtevant Falls,” which is a nodule on the left-hand block in our workspace (on which we are later doing some contact science). ChemCam is also taking a long-distance RMI image in the direction of the potential boxworks formation (large veins), which is an area we will be exploring close-up in the future. There are also a Navcam dust devil movie and suprahorzion movie. Check out this article from November for more information on the boxwork formations.
After a nap, Curiosity wakes up to get in her arm exercise. I do not envy the Arm Rover Planner today (OK, maybe a little bit) in dealing with this very challenging workspace. The rock of interest (the left-hand rock in the above image) has jagged, vertical surfaces and a lot of crazy rough texture. Examining this rock is even more challenging because our primary targets are on the left side of the rock, rather than the side that is facing the rover. We are looking at two different targets, “Stunt Ranch,” which is a nodule on the rock, and “Pacifico Mountain,” which is the left-side face of the rock, with MAHLI and also doing a long APXS integration on Stunt Ranch. After the arm work, Curiosity is tucking herself in for the night by stowing the arm.
The next morning, after again getting to sleep in a bit, Curiosity will make some more targeted observations, starting with another dust-devil survey. ChemCam will make a LIBS observation of “Switzer Falls,” which is a target on the right-hand rock in the workspace (and in the image), an RMI of “Colby Canyon,” a soft sediment deformation, and “Gould,” which is another target on the boxworks formation. Lastly, Mastcam takes a look at “Potrero John,” yet another interestingly textured rock.
Curiosity will then be ready to drive away. Today’s drive is on slightly better terrain that we have been seeing recently, with fewer large and pointy rocks. Though, the mobility rover planners still have to be careful about picking the safest path through. We’re heading about 25 meters (about 82 feet) to another rock target named “Humber Park,” where we hope to do additional contact science. After the drive, we have our standard set of post-drive imaging, a Mastcam solar tau, and then an early-morning Navcam cloud observation.
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Last Updated Mar 14, 2025 Related Terms
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