Editorial: Three connections we have to Mars newsadvance.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newsadvance.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Here are three connections we have to that mission beyond âyour tax dollars at work.â
First, when the rover was making its dramatic landing on Mars â scientists call the act of landing a spacecraft there âseven minutes of terrorâ â those signals were relayed through the Green Bank Radio Astronomy Observatory just up the road from us in Green Bank, West Virginia. The staff there knew the rover had landed safely even before those with NASA did.
Second, the woman that viewers heard narrating the landing was flight controller Swati Mohan, who is in charge of guidance and controls for the Perseverance mission. She grew up in Fairfax County and credits one of her high school teachers with getting her interested in engineering. Two decades and a doctorate later, sheâs landing a machine on Mars.
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An Astronomer Who Believes in Aliens Explains Why He s Not Convinced by UFO Sightings
CHRIS IMPEY, THE CONVERSATION
9 JANUARY 2021
If intelligent aliens visit the Earth, it would be one of the most profound events in human history.
Surveys show that nearly half of Americans believe that aliens have visited the Earth, either in the ancient past or recently. That percentage has been increasing. Belief in alien visitation is greater than belief that Bigfoot is a real creature, but less than belief that places can be haunted by spirits.
Scientists dismiss these beliefs as not representing real physical phenomena. They don t deny the existence of intelligent aliens. But they set a high bar for proof that we ve been visited by creatures from another star system. As Carl Sagan said, Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.