SCIENCE

Astronomers and professional sky surveys often discover new comets yearly and 2013 offers a spectacular comet experience to the sky viewers. Three long-tailed comets are anticipated to brighten up the skies and become visible to the naked eye.

What is a gigantic jet lightning? Scientists always explain a lot of awesome things. But when they collectively fail to come up with an explanation for something so spectacular, they probably feel frustrated if not challenged or inspired. Case in point, a gigantic jet lighting seen in 2010 in China remains a mystery. But experts continue to find answers because that is what they do, and because people like us wait for answers.

In response to concerns over the growing number of asteroids that fly near Earth, Canada has deployed its Near-Earth Object Surveillance satellite with the main task of scouring the galaxy for space junk and strayed asteroids.

The name Vulcan topped the 21 names submitted in an online poll for suggestions on what to call Pluto's fourth moon. Vulcan got more than 174,000 votes out of the over 450,000 votes cast. The poll ended Feb 25.

After NASA’s Deep Impact space probe captured an image of the comet ISON, astronomers and the curious public are now excitedly talking about the upcoming rare space event. It is currently undetermined how bright the 2013 Comet ISON will shine but it is predicted to be visible during broad daylight.

The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) recounts the reports of witnesses that bravely stepped forward to share their UFO sighting experiences. A Kendall resident reported the UFO sighting at Bristol Township on Saturday night while a Kentucky resident expressed family concern after frequent UFO sightings.

Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has tapped the services of Chinese actress Olivia Mann to protest the brutal and inhuman way of killing animals in China for their fur.

Residents of the Urals region in Russia who were hit by the meteor shower have been converting the disaster into cash by collecting fragments of the meteorite and selling them.

Souvenir hunters would probably find the memorabilia that the family of scientist Francis Crick is putting up on sale at Heritage Auction a good bargain despite the opening bid set at $243,000.

NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft will continue to observe and capture images of the comet C/2012 S1 ISON. The comet will make another remarkable near-Earth approach at an approximated distance of not more than 40 million miles on December 26.

Although no astral object larger than a kilometer is expected to threaten Earth for the next several hundred years that could result in a global disaster, members of the UN Office for Outer Space (UNOOSA) are not taking any chance. They proposed over the weekend for an international warning system that could track asteroids and generate the earliest possible red flags of potential collisions.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States released over the weekend a video of the Sun's solar flare that occurred on July 12, 2012 and the spectacular coronal rain display that followed.

"End of the world 2013" became a hot social media topic after Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation effective Feb. 28. There were talks about the next pope being the last pope according to St Malachy's prophecies. The last pope will "flee Rome" in December and herald Judgment Day, according to Nostradamus. Now a report from the science community is saying the Higgs boson aka the God particle could be linked to the apocalypse.

After the 2013 Russian meteor blast, two Grants Pass residents revealed they witnessed an unidentified flying object hovering over the Southern Oregon night sky. Heather Scherffius and Gregory Soldner recorded the UFO sighting on camera and claimed what they saw was not an asteroid or a meteor.

Barbecue-related activities and cooking in open stoves in public, densely-populated places in China would soon be prohibited to limit the smog but could be a bane to street food hawkers and vendors.

It seems that more and more earthings are getting tired of the planet and want to venture into outer space, which used to be the domain of NASA scientists, American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts. Now, the list is getting longer to include Indians, tourists, miners and even a porn star who goes by the name of Coco Brown.

In California, two scientists are proposing a system project called Directed Energy Solar Targeting of Asteroids and exploRation (DE-STAR) that can possibly reduce asteroids and meteor threats to planet Earth. The timing seems perfect after the Asteroid 2012 DA14 near-Earth flyby and Russia meteor blast that both occurred last February 15, 2013.

If scare minerals found on Earth are called rare earth, what about other minerals in other planets or the moon? Would you call it rare moon or rare jupiter or rare mars? What such resources would be called has not yet been settled since miners, space industrialists and academics are still currently exploring the idea of mining in other planets and the moon. They gathered on Wednesday in Sydney to tackle these possibilities and the logistics involved.

Doomsday prophets will again have a field day forecasting an Apocalypse, following the eruption of Mt. Etna in Italy on Tuesday.

A UFO sighting of three strange lights forming a triangle in the night sky was reported in video format to MUFON from Plano City in Texas. The footage was received a day after an old photo of the sky outside a Wisconsin house was submitted for scrutiny. Take a look at the photos and video to check out what the uploaders may or may have not missed.

The smog pollution that hit China's capital in Beijing, so massive that it even crossed borders over to Japan, has been found to contain cancer causing photochemicals.

A new study by scientists from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington found that the bulk of the popular sweetener Splenda, which is used all over the world, is winding up in the Gulf Stream, the "conveyor belt of water transport" that circulates in the Atlantic Ocean from the coast of North American to Europe, Africa and beyond.

Scientists have collected the debris from the meteor blast that hit Russia on February 15 to examine the nature and composition of the space rock. A debate has now begun on the question if it was a meteor or a comet that caused the unexpected blast in Chelyabinsk.

The 2013 Russia Meteor Blast became a historical event for the affected city of Chelyabinsk. While most people found the meteor blast as a terrifying experience, some Netizens decided to use a humorous approach to tackle the rare space phenomenon with the use of funny memes that immediately spread like wildfire on the internet.

The Centre for Eye Research Australia in Melbourne is experimenting with the use of skin cells from patients with macular degeneration by turning them into stem cells to create new retinal cells.

A 300-million-year-old ancient asteroid impact zone measuring about 200 kilometres was discovered by researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) and University of Queensland. Located at the East Warburton Basin in north-eastern South Australia, the crater is evidence of an asteroid hit on Earth.

China has fired up its first nuclear power plant after the destructive 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis, near Wafangdian in Liaoning province at its northeast portion.

The 2013 Asteroid 2012 DA14 near-Earth flyby and the Russia Meteor Blast both occurred last February 15 but National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientist Don Yeomans confirms the asteroid flyby did not cause the unexpected meteor blast in Chelyabinsk, Russia.

The 2013 Russian meteor shower on Friday will go down in history as the day people saw in real life what could look "good" in Armageddon movies: the threatening trail of smoke in the sky followed by glasses splattering due to a shockwave. Jokes were shouted out on Twitter. One image suggests what really happened was that the fireball trail was caused by the anime Dragon Ball popping out in the real world from popular fiction. But the meteor hit posed a very serious reminder.