--- title: Cosmic Discoveries by National-Security Sensors | daily.dev description: Avi Loeb explores three cases where U.S. national security sensors made unexpected cosmic discoveries. First, the Vela satellites designed to detect Soviet... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/cosmic-discoveries-by-national-security-sensors-0dxfah4yt twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Cosmic Discoveries by National-Security Sensors | daily.dev og:description: Avi Loeb explores three cases where U.S. national security sensors made unexpected cosmic discoveries. First, the Vela satellites designed to detect Soviet... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/cosmic-discoveries-by-national-security-sensors-0dxfah4yt og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/0dXFah4YT.png og:image:alt: Cosmic Discoveries by National-Security Sensors og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Cosmic Discoveries by National-Security Sensors **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 9 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Avi Loeb explores three cases where U.S. national security sensors made unexpected cosmic discoveries. First, the Vela satellites designed to detect Soviet nuclear tests instead discovered gamma-ray bursts in 1967, later identified as black hole formation events billions of light-years away. Second, infrared missile-detection satellites from the Defense Support Program and its successor Space-Based Infrared System enabled the detection of interstellar meteors, including one from April 2026 found in NASA's CNEOS fireball catalog. Third, military cameras have captured Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), with recent Pentagon disclosures from 2026 revealing events that remain 40% unexplained, prompting Loeb — as chair of the UAP Science Advisory Council — to investigate whether any represent non-human technology. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [On the Partnership Between the U.S. Government and Science in Figuring Out the Nature of UAP](https://daily.dev/posts/on-the-partnership-between-the-u-s-government-and-science-in-figuring-out-the-nature-of-uap-m2orutgux) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [MIT researcher proposes a way to detect nuclear weapons in space](https://daily.dev/posts/mit-researcher-proposes-a-way-to-detect-nuclear-weapons-in-space-raaghrtwa) · MIT News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#astrophysics](https://daily.dev/tags/astrophysics) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/cosmic-discoveries-by-national-security-sensors-0dxfah4yt) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Cosmic Discoveries by National-Security Sensors","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/cosmic-discoveries-by-national-security-sensors-0dxfah4yt","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/cosmic-discoveries-by-national-security-sensors-0dxfah4yt"},"datePublished":"2026-06-24T02:03:50.153Z","dateModified":"2026-06-24T02:04:44.491Z","description":"Avi Loeb explores three cases where U.S. national security sensors made unexpected cosmic discoveries. 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