
NASA officials 'baffled' after space cameras catch UFO following ISS - herve76
https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/1245959/NASA-official-space-cameras-UFO-ISS-alien-latest-news
======
roelschroeven
It's probably the Cygnus NG-12 (commercial resupply) which was unberthed from
the ISS on January 31st but is still in orbit close to the ISS until March 2nd
when it will reenter the atmosphere. See
[https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/01/nasa-fcc-approve-
cyg...](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/01/nasa-fcc-approve-cygnus-
ng-12-extension/)

The Express got the video from Scott Waring's Youtube channel ET Data Base.
There are a few informative comments in the noise there, and they point to
Cygnus 11 instead of Cygnus 12 but I don't think that's right: AFAICS Cygnus
11 re-entered in december.

~~~
dtx1
that is a pretty good explanation, especially since nasa having all necessary
data could actually confirm it. I don't understand why it looks like its
shooting "up" at the end of the video but it would explain why the cameras
were tracking it.

edit: it isn't going up, with better footage its obviously just heating up
from reentry

------
fxtentacle
We should replace the clickbait title. At no point did NASA say they were
baffled but instead that was purely some ufo-enthusiast's interpretation of
why they might have zoomed in.

------
anonsivalley652
Stress on the U. Given the extreme unlikeliness of alien visitation, either
it's a classified vehicle or a hoax intended to drum up public interest in
space exploration and more funding for it.

BTW, is there an international equivalent of "air" traffic control for LEO or
for space around ISS?

~~~
thekingofh
Yes, NORAD keeps track of every object above a certain size in orbit. Their
data is essential to keeping spacecraft from hitting each other.

------
_bxg1
Keep in mind that "following ISS" just means "in orbit near it". Given how
many satellites are out there these days (and how easy it's become to put one
up), plus recent efforts like the "space force", it's not at all shocking to
see a satellite that's "unidentified" to civilians.

------
NamTaf
Orbital speed is defined by sqrt(G*M/r). If this 'following' the ISS and at a
lower altitude, it will slowly travel away from it because by definition its
orbital speed is slower. Let's assume it's the Cygnus as pointed out by
another comment, and explain out a possible scenario.

If the two are roughly in line vertically with one another, then a viewer on
the ISS will be looking down at it and will see the clouds and Earth below it.
However, as the object travels away from the ISS due to differing orbital
speeds, it will appear to move 'up' relative to the Earth. Tracing a ray path
between the two objects, it will go from being a line from the ISS, through
the object and into the earth, to a line that at its extreme will be from the
ISS, through the object, and then over the horizon of the atmosphere. Draw
this system on some paper and you'll see what I mean.

From a fixed vantage point on the ISS, that will make the object look like it
'travels up' when in reality it is just traveling away from the ISS due to a
slower orbital speed. If the camera remains facing downwards, it will
naturally track out of the top of the camera frame. Project that onto the
uniform blackness of space and you'll have no visual reference point to see it
travel back down as it disappears away from view.

The green burst could also be explained by a retro-firing of the capsule to
slow it down to re-enter orbit (or shift its orbit closer to earth, as is what
happens if you slow down). This would appear as if it is firing 'down' in the
camera view, when in reality it's firing tangentially to its orbital position,
which as a vector would pass underneath the ISS. Alternatively, it could just
be visual artifacting from either compression, light reflection or any other
number of explanations.

------
hourislate
Perhaps it was the Air Force's X-37B (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37)
)or something from the Black Star Program (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstar_(spacecraft)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstar_\(spacecraft\))
.

A possible stretch, Black Knight Satellite (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Knight_satellite_conspir...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Knight_satellite_conspiracy_theory)
)

------
dtx1
This thing shares some similarities with the navy tic tac ufo. The main
interesting thing is that it seems to change orbit by going up?

I agree the source is terrible and we should get some original footage. Also
Orbital mechanics are weird for the uninitiated. It might look like it goes up
but that must not necessarily be true. It might look like its changing orbit
but that must also not necessarily be true.

X37B might also be a good guess since that should roughly be able to reach
that orbit and move in orbit. It's hard to tell the shape and color from those
videos and the end looks zoomed in. Does anyone know of the unaltered original
footage?

~~~
roelschroeven
Original footage:
[http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/125816356](http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/125816356)

I haven't checked it completely but the video at
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmbBJS89J_0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmbBJS89J_0)
seems to be an unaltered extract from it (if you can stand all the UFO and
conspiracy stuff in that Youtube channel).

~~~
dtx1
thank you that is much more useful. There are parts of it where it very much
looks like the cygnus ng-12 especially against cloud cover. I don't think its
moving upwards at all, its just moving away and slowly reentering while the
camera changes.

Sadly, this seems to be utterly ordinary (well as ordinary as a space station
streaming live video of a resupply to earth can be) but showing nothing beyond
known engineering.

------
chatmasta
It looks like it’s clearly in orbit for 99% of the video. Then at the end
it... appears... to “shoot upwards with a jet of green light.” Is it really
shooting upwards, or could that be an illusion from when an orbiting object
crosses the horizon?

~~~
0xdeadb00f
Or a video glitch? Those green trails remind me of x265 glitches when
streaming on an extremely low bandwidth network.

------
DEADBEEFC0FFEE
Baffled is such a UK tabloid term. Tabloids have always optimised their
headlines for attention, as all newspapers. Clickbait from another time.

------
kingkongjaffa
express.co.uk is a very low quality source of information we should aspire to
seek better sources for HN.

~~~
dang
On HN, we go by article quality, not site quality. Most major media sites are
penalized on HN, but even the bad ones also produce the occasionally
interesting article.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%20%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

~~~
theogravity
Maybe site quality should be a factor - I tried to watch the video and waited
roughly a minute before it failed to load. I thought it was an adblocker
thing, so disabled it.

On page reload, it was adpocalypse, two pop-under windows, one video playing
on the side, and the video still struggling to load with my macbook fans
kicking in. The entire site was essentially a giant ad that I never got to see
the video and re-enabled adblock.

I'm unsure how sites like this are allowed to exist, or how people even
tolerate it.

~~~
dang
Unfortunately sometimes a good article comes along in a frustrating package.
If the article is good enough, it's still better for HN to discuss it. I don't
know if that's the case with this one.

