Tag Archive for venus

Russia’s Mysterious Space Program

from E.T. Updates

By   /   June 5, 2012

You are looking at an actual photograph from the surface of the planet Venus. Though obtained from a NASA web page, this is not a NASA photo. It is a Soviet era photo. Try as you may, you cannot find such a photo made by a NASA spacecraft. Why? Because NASA has never made a successful landing on Venus with a craft capable of taking photos and transmitting them back to Earth. They did make an accidental landing of a probe (Pioneer Venus 1). It was accidental because the Pioneer Venus 1 dropped off 4 probes that were not designed to survive all the way down to the surface—but one did. The others were destroyed by the immense heat and pressure of the atmosphere. So, NASA accidentally dropped something on Venus, but the Russians actually landed there.

Not only did the Russians successfully land on Venus, they did it 10 times! And that, my friends, is a gigantic mystery. . . . Read Complete Report

NASA Urges Vigilance For Weird Fireballs

from Discovery New

Fri Feb 24, 2012 07:00 AM ET
Content provided by SPACE.com Staff

Slow-moving meteors during February are a well-known phenomenon but astronomers are mystified as to where they come from.

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THE GIST

  • The strange deep-diving, slow-moving fireballs started falling on Feb. 1.
  • They range in size from basketballs to buses and some are thought to have dropped meteorites.
  • Astronomers know the objects originate in the asteroid belt, but little else is know

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A strange breed of fireball is streaking through the skies this month, and NASA is urging folks on the ground to take notice.

February’s fireballs — a term that describes meteors that appear brighter in the sky than Venus — aren’t more numerous than normal, but their appearance and trajectory are odd, experts say.

“These fireballs are particularly slow and penetrating,” meteor expert Peter Brown, a physics professor at the University of Western Ontario, said in a statement. “They hit the top of the atmosphere moving slower than 15 kilometers per second (33,500 mph), decelerate rapidly and make it to within 50 kilometers (31 miles) of Earth’s surface.” . . . Read Complete report