Space

Lawmakers may now be paying more attention to UFO sightings, but that doesn't mean they should lead the charge in investigating cases ... according to a Harvard physicist, who says it's time for scientists to take the reins.

Avi Loeb was on "TMZ Live" Friday to discuss the growing threat of UFOs ... especially since a recently-released report from the U.S. Government revealed there had been 500+ UFO reports as of August 2022. And, only 1 was able to be explained from last year.

He believes the government likely doesn't know much about the objects they're observing, and is mostly concerned with national security -- determining if the objects are from another country.

Loeb says it should be in the hands of scientists to collect their own data with instruments they can monitor and take that information to share with the public.

In his own words, if just 1 report is of alien origin it will be the most important discovery humanity has ever made.

NASA likes playing games ... scientists stashed some "Easter eggs" during its just-completed Artemis I moon mission -- embedded secret messages in the spacecraft with meanings behind them.

As it turns out, the agency's Orion capsule -- which was successfully shot around the moon over the past 25 days or so, unmanned -- was plastered with 5 different symbols meant to serve as brain teasers for the general public ... and perhaps alien life too?

These images amounted to either drawn pictures, codes and even music -- which were scattered inside the capsule ... albeit, somewhat discreetly.

First off, NASA stuck a rendering of a red cardinal above the pilot seat's window ... meant to honor former Orion program manager Mark Geyer, who died in 2021 and who loved the St. Louis baseball team. There was also a Morse code depiction inside, spelling out Charlie and representing another ex-Orion program manager, Charlie Lundquist, who died in 2020.

There were also country codes found in Orion -- a nod to the nations that came together to help build it ... including the U.S., Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Another hidden nugget ... the letters "CBAGF," which are said to be the notes to Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon."

Finally, there's some binary code in there too -- shown in black and white blocks -- which translates to the number 18 ... signifying the next Apollo mission that they're hoping to pull off after Apollo 17. Remember, the whole point of this thing is to get astronauts back to the moon by 2025 -- and with Artemis now done, we're one step closer to doing that.

You'd need to know some deep NASA trivia to nail those hidden clues, but there ya go.

Navy football players are going to be looking gooooooooood for their game against Army this year -- the school just revealed it'll be wearing NASA-themed uniforms for the classic rivalry ... and they're awesome!!

The helmets, jerseys, cleats and gloves will feature nods to astronauts -- as the school looks to pay homage to the 54 Naval Academy graduates who went on to become space explorers.

One side of the players' headgear will have a painting of Navy alum Bruce McCandless II, who took the first untethered spacewalk back in 1985. The other side will have NASA's logo on it with a moon in the background.

The jerseys, meanwhile, will be white and red ... with, according to the school, markings that mimic the NASA spacewalk suit.

Players' shoes will be all white, of course, to symbolize astronaut moon boots.

The team got its first look at the kits inside a meeting room on Monday -- and, not surprisingly, the guys LOVED what they saw.

"One small step for man...One giant leap for Navy Football," the team tweeted after unveiling the unis.

NASA's finally heading back to the moon ... its new rocket has finally successfully launched -- and without a hitch -- after months of delays due to a slew of issues.

The Artemis I mission kicked off early Wednesday morning at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL ... beginning a 25-day mission that'll set the company back 4 billion big ones.

The Orion capsule sits on top of the rocket ... and it'll detach and soar about 60 miles above the moon before coming back to Earth. Don't worry, though -- the only passengers on this test flight are mannequins.

As we reported, there's a lot riding on this mission -- it's the first launch of the massive, most powerful rocket ever ... and it could forge a path for astronauts to revisit our moon as early as 2024.

The launch was set to go down at the end of August, but had issues left and right -- including a thunderstorm, lightning bolts striking towers near the rocket, and even a fuel leak.

Elon Musk is officially Twitter's new daddy -- at least according to Elon Musk -- who says he hopes the platform will continue to be a digital town square for years to come.

The Tesla/SpaceX boss explained his reasons for the $44 billion purchase Thursday, saying, "There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide in our society."

He continues, "In the relentless pursuit of clicks, much of traditional media has fueled and catered to those polarized extremes, as they believe that is what brings in the money, but, in doing so, the opportunity for dialogue is lost."

He says, "That is why I bought Twitter. I didn't do it because it would be easy. I didn't do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love. And I do so with humility, recognizing that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility."

Elon's Twitter bio reflects his new purchase as well, calling himself the "Chief Twit." There's also a video that circulated this week showing the guy roaming about headquarters with moving boxes.

Like we said ... it closes the book on what turned out to be a bitter acquisition -- one that almost didn't happen when Elon threatened to pull out at the last minute. Remember, he said he felt Twitter wasn't giving him enough info on bots and spam accounts ... and that the value of the company might not have been as high as he was willing to pay at first.

In his mind, it gave him every legal reason to walk away -- but Twitter wasn't budging without a fight. The old regime took him to court and was dead set on holding him to the original terms, and as a trial loomed ... Elon blinked first and agreed to go through with it.

There's been a lot of talk about what Elon might aim to change at Twitter now that he's in charge. You'll recall, this all started with his gripes about free speech being severely limited on the platform -- and all signs point to him loosening the rules a bit as far as what's acceptable to tweet ... much to the chagrin of many critics, including current employees.

Speaking of those folks, there've been recent reports claiming that Elon plans to gut at least 75% of Twitter's workforce -- while also bashing a lot of them as left-leaning. There've been protests to push back on this, but at this point ... it's Elon's show, and he calls the shots.

William Shatner called Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space flight a profound experience upon landing back on Earth -- but now, he's saying ... it was actually a huge bummer.

The 'Star Trek' OG has a new book coming out -- titled "Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder" -- and Variety obtained an excerpt this week ... which sheds light on how WS actually felt as he was shooting up into the great beyond above our stratosphere.

Here's the quote everyone's mentioning -- it starts off with Will saying he thought rocketing into space would be a huge catharsis and illuminating ... thanks to Hollywood's portrayals.

Instead, however, Captain Kirk had the exact opposite feeling -- saying, "I discovered that the beauty isn't out there, it's down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound."

There's more ... William says his space flight made him incredibly distraught with sorrow. He says, "It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness." He says the idea of us humans destroying that filled him with dread.

Will adds, "My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral."

Remember, Will was visibly emotional when they touched down ... but as he was trying to relay something to JB, the dude sorta interrupted his thought by popping some champagne.

Later, Will certainly made it seem like it was a positive moment -- calling the Blue Origin flight "profound" and "extraordinary."

Tom Cruise apparently thinks fighter jets are for chumps, because for his next flick he wants to go nose-up into space.

Cruise is in the process of making a deal with Universal Films Entertainment Group with an idea ... shoot a movie on the International Space Station. Of course, that would require Tom and others to be rocketed up there.

The idea's actually been talked about for years, but it was shelved during the pandemic.

Tom's got lots of power these days to make things happen ... 'Top Gun' receipts have gone north of $700M in the domestic box office, and $1.4B on planet earth.

Universal seems to be on board, with Chairman Donna Langley saying, "I think Tom Cruise is taking us to space, he’s taking the world to space," adding, "That’s the plan. We have a great project in development with Tom … Taking a rocket up to the Space Station and shooting."

The general plot is predictable ... a dude on earth is going to space, as Langley says, "to save the day."

Now here's the deal ... not only would Tom be the first actor to shoot a movie in space, but the hope is that he'll also be the first to do a space walk!

Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the smartest guys out there, and he's now weighed in on who he thinks is one of the world's great visionaries ... and he's squarely Team Musk.

We got Neil at the Reagan National Airport Friday, where he compared the Tesla honcho to perhaps the most imaginative person in the history of our country -- Thomas Edison.

Mind you ... Neil doesn't co-sign on every one of Elon's ideas. In fact, he thinks some are pie in the sky, but he says Elon dreams big, and that's when big things are bound to happen.

Tyson also has words for the place we call home ... AKA a "f***ed up" planet. He does, however, think there's a ray of hope with NASA's recent mission crashing into an asteroid.

Neil grouses ... if only dinosaurs had a little vision, they might be alive today.

NASA is over the moon about the success of its DART mission ... something the director of the whole operation sees as the beginning of a new era for humankind.

Dr. Lori Glaze, the Director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, joined "TMZ Live" to talk about DART -- an explosive dry run, if you will, at protecting Earth by crashing spacecrafts into potentially dangerous asteroids.

Dr. Glaze says her whole team was really confident the spacecraft would hit its target, but seeing it all up close -- in high definition, no less -- was an experience like no other.

You gotta see the excitement over just how much they were able to make out on the asteroid's surface!

As we told you, NASA successfully carried out its $325M DART mission Monday evening during a live broadcast.

To put the achievement in perspective ... Dr. Glaze says the football stadium-sized asteroid was about 6 million miles away, and the spacecraft was comparable to a vending machine -- and they absolutely nailed it.

Going forward, she says the hope is they've discovered a way to deflect any future asteroids that might cross paths with our planet. Dr. Glaze says they're already taking measurements to see how effective the DART mission really was.

An out-of-this-world fit David Bowie rocked in a classic music vid is going up for auction ... alongside other unique props and costumes that are sewn into the fabric of music history.

A massive music memorabilia auction is set to go down in a couple of months, held by Propstore Auction ... and one of the major Tom highlights, if you will, is Bowie's spacesuit from his 1980 video for "Ashes to Ashes."

The ultra-rare suit is estimated to make up to $92K during the auction, but that number looks awfully small compared to the $1.7 million the entire auction is expected to earn.

Also going up on the block ... a custom silver sparkle Gibson Les Paul Florentine guitar used by Oasis' Noel Gallagher -- a sleek instrument that could go for $578K.

In the perfect timing department, Propstore will offer a Rihanna-worn top from her 2016 "Work" music video. TMZ just broke the story ... RiRi will be headlining the Super Bowl Halftime show in February.

And, for the army of Spice Girls fans, there will be a pair of signed boots Mel B wore during a tour.

Asteroids, you have a problem ... humans!!!

NASA just successfully tested a new way to defend Earth from potentially dangerous asteroids ... by crashing a spacecraft into a floating space rock.

The space agency carried out its $325 million DART mission Monday in the final frontier, with a space probe purposefully colliding with an asteroid to send it in a different direction.

The mission was broadcast live across the globe, there were cameras on the front of the probe as it crashed into the asteroid, and mission control went bonkers when the probe successfully made impact, redirecting the asteroid.

NASA's DART probe -- an acronym for Double Asteroid Redirection Test -- is being tested to see just how much a spacecraft can alter an asteroid's trajectory simply by crashing into the darn thing. Only humans could dream this up.

The test of the futuristic planetary defense technology was carried out on a harmless asteroid, Dimorphos, some 6.8 million miles from Earth.

Meanwhile, at mission control, Bill Nye was watching in real-time.

Elon Musk isn't just tooting his own horn when he says he doesn't need to keep his technology top secret to succeed, he's actually making a totally "gangsta" business move ... according to Daymond John.

The "Shark Tank" star was on TMZ Live Friday explaining why Elon's unwritten rule of not patenting Tesla and SpaceX innovations is paying off for him ... and others. First off, Daymond says patents can slow down companies, and often it's all about speed when it comes to getting a good product to market to beat out the competition.

As we've reported, Elon dropped his "no patent" bombshell while on "Jay Leno's Garage" this week -- explaining he's not the least bit afraid of going head-to-head with other companies or inventors.

In fact, DJ points out Elon's said he won't sue anyone who wants to use Tesla technology in good faith, so he's walking the walk ... allowing others to build off his ideas and create better tech to advance society.

Elon Musk is one cocky motherf***er -- because he's so confident he can stay ahead of the pack, he doesn't even bother to protect his innovations.

Elon appeared on CNBC's "Jay Leno's Garage" Wednesday night where the 2 guys tooled around Elon's Texas-based SpaceX Starbase facility and chatted it up.

At one point Jay asked if SpaceX had a patent on the materials he used to construct spaceships. Elon's response ... "I don't care about patents. Patents are for the weak."

Translation ... Elon's fine with competitors playing catchup with his creations, because he's betting on himself that he'll come up with something even better before they do.

Elon believes patents are just a buzzkill ... "They don't actually help advance things, they just stop others from following you."

Musk has followed his mantra in other ventures, including Tesla. Back in 2014, he sent a memo to Tesla staff, shunning patents and saying Tesla innovations are there "to attract and motivate the world's most talented engineers."

He had some choice words about getting such legal protection .. "[Patents] serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors."

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is giving the younger generation something they've probably never seen before -- an extremely detailed look at Neptune and its rings, which hasn't been captured this clearly in over 3 decades.

NASA released the high-res snapshot of the ice giant Wednesday ... showing off a crisp view of the planet's multiple rings -- and even its faint dust bands, too.

Some of the rings haven't been spotted since Voyager 2 first observed Neptune in 1989. Shining bright above the planet is Triton, one of Neptune's 14 known moons.

Heidi Hammel, a Neptune system expert and scientist for Webb, says this isn't just breaking ground for the visual of the rings -- "this is the first time we've seen them in infrared."

In fact, the infrared cameras are the exact reason why the planet isn't coming up blue in the pics -- looking a little different to die-hard fans of our Solar System's 8th planet.

This telescope is no joke -- as we reported, it's been giving us great looks at our universe and beyond this year. NASA showed off its capabilities in true form in July, giving everyone a clear view of the Southern Ring planetary nebula (NGC 3132) and its two stars.

We also got a look at 5 galaxies known as Stephan’s Quintet, which NASA describes as colliding galaxies that are "pulling and stretching each other in a gravitational dance."

The U.S. Space Force has released its official song ... and folks online certainly don't appear to be warming up to the new jam.

The military branch unveiled its official tune Tuesday during an Air, Space and Cyber Conference in Maryland titled "Semper Supra", which means "Always Above" in Latin.

One social media user wrote, "Wtf is this? Might as well use the #StarWars theme song! What a joke! #spaceforce". Another guy criticized its "night and day" lyrics saying ... "there is no night or day in outer space..."

FYI, the Space Force was born in 2019, so it was only a matter of time before it adopted an official song like every other military branch.

Of course, this isn't the first time the Space Force raised some eyebrows. You'll recall, it got a lot of backlash in 2020 when the force dropped its camo uniforms. And folks pointed out the fact that it might not be the best idea, when trying to fly under the radar in space.

NASA's groundbreaking rocket launch was scrubbed Monday after a slew of mechanical and weather-related issues.

So much is riding on the massive Artemis 1 mission ... it's the first launch of the massive, most powerful rocket ever ... it's an unmanned flight that will circle the moon and forge a path for astronauts to revisit the astronomical body in 2024 or 2025.

The flight was postponed due to an offshore thunderstorm, but then a fuel leak and other problems dogged mission control at the Kennedy Space Center.

There have been problems with the rollup to the launch all weekend ... 5 lightning bolts struck towers near the rocket, although the rocket was never hit or affected.

The endgame is to build and send up a space station near the moon, where astronauts can live and regularly visit the satellite planet. Eventually, the space station will be a stopping off point for missions to Mars.

The first set of astronauts to visit space will include the first woman ever to step foot on the moon.

Monday's mission had 2 mannequins in the Orion capsule -- Helga and Zohar -- which contained fake female organs ... designed to test the effects of space radiation on women.