What Is NASA?
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is a governmental organization responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research in the United States. NASA was founded in 1958.
What Do We Mean By UFO?
Any apparent aerial phenomena that cannot be quickly recognized or explained is referred to as an unidentified flying object (UFO). Most UFOs are recognized as known objects or atmospheric phenomena after inquiry, however a small number remain unexplained.
NASA has joined the search for extraterrestrial craft.
The space agency unveiled a new research on Thursday that would enlist the help of prominent scientists to investigate unexplained aerial occurrences, a topic that has long piqued the public’s interest and has lately received high-level congressional attention.
The research will begin early this autumn and run about nine months, with the goal of discovering existing data, determining how to collect additional data in the future, and analyzing the findings to help NASA advance scientific understanding.
“NASA has answered the call to solve some of the most intriguing riddles we know of throughout the decades, and this is no different,” Daniel Evans, the NASA scientist in charge of the study, told reporters over the phone.
While NASA’s robots and rovers scan the solar system for ancient microbial fossils and astronomers search for “technosignatures” on faraway worlds for hints of intelligent civilizations, this is the first time the agency will look into strange events in Earth’s skies.
NASA is ideally positioned to not just debunk UFOs and enhance scientific knowledge, but also to develop measures to reduce the phenomenon, which is a crucial element of the agency’s mandate to protect aviation safety, according to NASA’s chief scientist, Thomas Zurbuchen.
The news comes at a time when UFO research, which was formerly viewed as a fringe area, is garnering increasing mainstream attention.
Last month, Congress convened a public hearing on UFOs, and a US intelligence assessment released last year listed 144 encounters as unexplainable. It didn’t rule out the possibility of an extraterrestrial origin.
Although NASA’s research would be separate from the Pentagon’s Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, the space agency said in a statement that it “has coordinated broadly throughout the government over how to utilize the instruments of science.”
The scientific community is currently finding it difficult to form conclusions due to a scarcity of UFO sightings.
As a result, according to astronomer David Spergel, who will head the research, the group’s first duty will be to determine the scope of data available from consumers, government, organizations, and businesses.
NASA’s primary objective is to increase credibility in this field of study.
“Among our navy aviators and aviation community, there is a lot of stigma connected with UAP,” Evans said.
“One of the things we aim to achieve tangentially as part of this project, simply by talking about it in the open, is to help eliminate some of the stigma connected with it, and that will clearly result in more access to data, more reports, and more sightings,” she says.
