NASA has announced it will begin a study of UFOs – a subject that has long fascinated the public – as part of a new push towards high-risk, high-impact science.

The United States space agency said on Thursday that an independent team would examine unidentified flying objects or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) with a focus on identifying available data, how to gather more data, and how NASA can analyse the findings to advance scientific understanding of the sightings.

NASA’s science mission chief, Thomas Zurbuchen, acknowledged the traditional scientific community may see NASA as “kind of selling out” by venturing into the controversial topic, but he strongly disagrees.

“We are not shying away from reputational risk,” Zurbuchen said during a National Academy of Sciences webcast. “Our strong belief is that the biggest challenge of these phenomena is that it’s a data-poor field.”

While NASA probes and rovers scour the solar system for the fossils of ancient microbes, and its astronomers look for so-called “technosignatures” on distant planets for signs of intelligent civilisations, this is the first time the agency will investigate unexplained phenomena in Earth’s skies.

more at aljazeera.com