Aliens? via Sputniknews: Just days ahead of an extra-planetary rendezvous, a NASA spacecraft has detected something very strange about its intended target. Only a week before its expected meeting with Kuiper Belt object (KBO) Ultima Thule on New Year's Day, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has not been able to detect the predictable and consistent variations in reflectivity — or 'light curve' in the jargon of astronomers — that accompany all celestial objects in orbit near a bright star. "It's really a puzzle," agreed Alan Stern, NASA's New Horizons principal investigator, cited by Gizmodo. "I call this Ultima's first puzzle," Stern remarked, adding, "why does it have such a tiny light curve that we can't even detect it?" Stern and his team expressed confidence that images retrieved from the close flyby would reveal the source of the mystery and observed the excitement following the outbound spacecraft's journey to the stars. "I expect the detailed flyby images coming soon to give us