Because it’s Friday and because it’s the opening night for “X-Files, I Want to Believe” (which didn’t get very good reviews unfortunately), I thought it would be appropriate to post a link to this story entitled “Apollo Astronaut Says Gov. Is Covering Up UFOs.”  Yup – that’s right. Apollo 14 veteran, Edgar Mitchell, believes the U.S. government has been covering up the truth about UFOs for more than 50 years. The ironic thing is – if these comments were being made by your average Joe, no one would care.. but because this is coming from a man who made a mark on history by spending nine hours and 17 minutes walking on the moon, it’s certainly raising eyebrows.

According to Mitchell, the “deception began after the alleged alien landing in Roswell, N.M., in 1947. Mitchell states “Unfortunately, you the press show no interest whatsoever. The giggle factor has been too high. But the science behind it and the research behind it, among the people I know, is accepted. It’s real,”

Now whether I believe him or not – it certainly does not matter. I think it’s important for us to continue exploring.. to wonder what is both here on Earth and what is out there.. and to be open about what we find. It’s also important to consider.. that perhaps… just perhaps.. we are not alone out there and that we’re not as important as we think we are.

[Check it out]

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If you or your kids are into astronomy, then you’ll definitely want to check out the new public beta of Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope web application. WorldWide Telescope stitches images together from a variety of sources including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Spitzer Space Telescope and others. Users can even choose which telescope they want to look through! The application itself utilizes Microsoft’s Visual Experience Engine which provides “seamless panning and zooming around the heavens with rich image environments.” 

I took the application for a spin and I must say, it’s a pretty nifty app. I loved the Guided Tours section of the application which as the name implies provides a guided visual learning experience of the heavens above. Perhaps the best part is simply taking the application for a spin on your own. Pan across the sky, zoom in on a section of space and discover what’s there.

Also – make sure to check out Ars Technica’s first look at the WorldWide Telescope application here on their website. They had this to say:

The greatly expanded catalog of objects to look at, along with the guided tours, makes the WorldWide Telescope much more along the lines of what I was looking for in a Google Earth/Virtual Earth equivalent of the entire universe. Kudos to Microsoft Research for a compelling product.

[Check it out]

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Know anyone really into astronomy? You might want to show them Living World’s 3D model of our very own Milky Way Galaxy. Yes.. this is our very own galaxy “suspended” in a glass cube. Around 80,000 stars were etched using a laser based off of three-dimensional data collected by Japan’s National Astronomical Observatory.

The cube measures 12 cm square and is available for 80,000 Yen. Very cool stuff if you ask me.. and certain to raise eyebrows if it’s sitting on your desk.

[Check it out via DVICE.com]

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NASA successfully launched their latest Mars bound probe – the Phoenix Mars lander. Phoenix will be the first probe to touch down using thrusters since the Viking 1 and 2 missions over 30 years ago. The Phoenix lander’s mission is to determine whether the icy ground near the planet’s north pole could have ever supported life.

Phoenix blasted off this morning from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, on a Delta II rocket at 5:26am EST. If all goes well, Phoenix will land on Mars in May of 2008. Phoenix will use a 2 meter long robotic arm to collect and analyze soils samples. Scientists expect to find water ice buried just a few centimeters beneath the surface.

Read more about this mission at the New Scientist.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: NASA, Phoenix, Mars