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Cigar-shaped UFO recorded during the Northern Lights over Svalbard Islands
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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 USH
Shape-Shifting Materials are advanced, adaptive materials capable of changing their physical form, embedding sensors and circuits directly into their structure, and even storing energy, all without traditional wiring. Lockheed Martin is at the forefront of developing these futuristic materials, raising questions about the possible extraterrestrial origin of this technology.
In a previous article, we discussed why suppressed exotic technologies are suddenly being disclosed. One company that frequently comes up in this conversation is Lockheed Martin, the American defense and aerospace giant known for pushing the boundaries of aviation and space innovation.
Imagine an aircraft that can grow its own skin, embed sensors into its body, store energy without wires, and even shift its shape mid-flight to adapt to changing conditions. This isn’t science fiction anymore, Lockheed Martin’s cutting-edge research is turning these futuristic concepts into reality.
But where is all this coming from?
The rapid development and creativity behind Lockheed Martin’s projects raise intriguing questions. Whistleblowers like David Grusch have recently alleged that Lockheed Martin has had access to recovered UFO materials for decades. Supporting this, Don Phillips, a former Lockheed engineer, confirmed years ago that exotic materials have been held and studied by the company since at least the 1950s.
This suggests that for over half a century, Lockheed has secretly been engaged in researching and reverse-engineering off-world technologies. It's possible that the breakthroughs we’re seeing today are the result of this hidden legacy. Ben Rich, former head of Lockheed’s Skunk Works division, famously hinted at this when he said, "We now have the technology to take ET home."
One particularly stunning development involves "smart" materials that behave almost like muscles, allowing aircraft structures to morph in real-time. These materials enable a craft to fine-tune its aerodynamics on the fly, adjusting instantly to turbulence, speed shifts, or mission-specific demands.
Lockheed’s innovations go even further. By embedding carbon nanotubes, extremely strong and highly conductive microscopic structure, directly into the material, they have created surfaces that can transfer information and power without traditional wiring. In these next-generation aircraft, the "skin" itself acts as the nervous system, the energy grid, and the sensor network all at once.
You can only imagine the kinds of technologies that have been developed over the years through the reverse engineering of exotic materials and recovered extraterrestrial craft. Yet, governments and space agencies remain tight-lipped about the existence of advanced alien civilizations, who likely introduced these techniques to Earth unintentionally.
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By Space Force
The DoD is offering a path back to service for military personnel who voluntarily separated or left to avoid the COVID-19 vaccination mandate.
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
How can I see the northern lights?
To see the northern lights, you need to be in the right place at the right time.
Auroras are the result of charged particles and magnetism from the Sun called space weather dancing with the Earth’s magnetic field. And they happen far above the clouds. So you need clear skies, good space weather at your latitude and the higher, more polar you can be, the better. You need a lot of patience and some luck is always helpful.
A smartphone can also really help confirm whether you saw a little bit of kind of dim aurora, because cameras are more sensitive than our eyes.
The best months to see aurorae, statistically, are March and September. The best times to be looking are around midnight, but sometimes when the Sun is super active, it can happen any time from sunset to sunrise.
You can also increase your chances by learning more about space weather data and a great place to do that is at the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.
You can also check out my project, Aurorasaurus.org, where we have free alerts that are based on your location and we offer information about how to interpret the data. And you can also report and tell us if you were able to see aurora or not and that helps others.
One last tip is finding a safe, dark sky viewing location with a great view of the northern horizon that’s near you.
[END VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]
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Last Updated Mar 26, 2025 Related Terms
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