Scientists Try to Get Serious about Studying UFOs. Good Luck with That

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February 09, 2023

This week, we're talking about new ways to tackle old problems. Not that long ago, if you wanted to document something strange seen in the sky, there were few options besides scribbling down your impressions, contacting local authorities, and perhaps (with considerable luck and skill) snapping a too-blurry photograph. Today, you can do all that—and much more—with a wave of your smartphone. Our lead story discusses how the resulting torrents of data, much of it crowdsourced, may soon transform the scientific study of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP)—more colloquially known as UFOs. Keeping with our theme, our other featured stories this week cover problem-solving with unprecedentedly powerful "exascale" supercomputers, and how shaking a steel ball-filled container can create an entirely new form of ice that may exist in the depths of Europa, Titan, Enceladus and other frozen moons of the outer solar system. Enjoy!

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics

Extraterrestrial Life Scientists Try to Get Serious about Studying UFOs. Good Luck with That New dedicated observatories and crowdsourced smartphone apps will study strange sightings in the sky. But questionable data quality and a lack of shared research standards remain key challenges By Leonard David

Computing New Exascale Supercomputer Can Do a Quintillion Calculations a Second New "exascale" supercomputers will bring breakthroughs in science. But the technology also exists to study nuclear weapons By Sarah Scoles

Materials Science Scientists Made A New Kind Of Ice That Might Exist On Distant Moons The 'amorphous' solid is denser and could be water 'frozen in time' By Jonathan O'Callaghan,Nature magazine

Sponsor Content Provided by Battelle Climate Resilience: Impactful Innovation is Needed Today What's most needed right now are outcome-driven, scientific approaches committed to delivering breakthrough technologies and capabilities—ones that leverage the fundamental knowledge of the past and apply it in new mission-driven methods that reach beyond what is possible today.

Defense Chinese Spy Balloon Has Unexpected Maneuverability An expert explains why it's so odd that the suspected Chinese spy balloon can change course By Sophie Bushwick

Climate Change Inside the Race to Find Earth's Oldest Ice A global race is on to drill for the oldest known layers of Antarctic ice so researchers can peer back in time to a warmer climate to better understand the planet's hotter future By Christian Elliott

Particle Physics 'Unbelievable' Spinning Particles Probe Nature's Most Mysterious Force The strong force holds our atoms together. Scientists may have observed its small-scale fluctuations for the first time By Allison Parshall

Quantum Physics Poem: 'A Quantum Cento' Science in meter and verse By Lorraine Schein

Artificial Intelligence Coming Soon to Your Podcast Feed: Science, Quickly A new era in Scientific American audio history is about to drop starting next week—get ready for a science variety show guaranteed to quench your curiosity in under 10 minutes. By Jeffery DelViscio,Tulika Bose | 04:10

QUOTE OF THE DAY "A million blurry images are worthless, compared to a single high-resolution video that resolves an object as it maneuvers... The only way to advance our knowledge on the nature of [Unidentified Aerial Phenomena] is through the assembly of high-quality data from instruments that are fully calibrated and yield reproducible results." Astrophysicist Avi Loeb, on the need for high-quality data on UAP

FROM THE ARCHIVE NASA's UFO Study Isn't Really Looking for Space Aliens A new investigation of unidentified aerial phenomena could have bigger impacts on atmospheric science than on astrobiology By Sarah Scoles | August 2022

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