Take me to your leader

NASA’s Voyager 1 space probe launched in 1977 was sent to study the outer solar system and intersteller space.  And it’s still operating after almost 45 years, sending information back to Earth. Although it’s operating normally, the telemetry data Voyager is sending from interstellar space isn’t making sense. Anyone else remember “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” from 1979? In the movie, the USS Enterprise intercepts an alien cloud of energy heading toward Earth. The cloud releases a probe that takes over the starship’s navigator who explains that it was sent by V’Ger to find “the Creator.” SPOILER: It turns out V’Ger was originally Voyager 6 returning to Earth. Coincidence?

‘Star Wars’ ship designer dies

The man who designed the iconic “Star Wars” X-wing and Y-wing Starfighters, TIE fighter and Death Star died Saturday at his home in Colorado. Colin Cantwell was 90. Besides “Star Wars,” he worked on a number of iconic films, including “2001: A Space Odyssey” in 1968, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” in 1977 and 1983’s “WarGames.”

8,000-year-old skull fragment found in Minnesota River

Kayakers on the Minnesota River last September found what turned out to be a skull fragment that once belonged to a young man who lived sometime around 5500 to 6000 B.C. Carbon dating results by a forensic anthropologist of the Archaeology Laboratory at Augustana University in South Dakota completed this past Tuesday verified the antiquity of the find. It’s likely the individual was Native American and the fragment will be turned over to Native American tribes in the state.