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Friday, March 29, 2024

Science Corner – UFOs and UAPs – what are they not?

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In June, a preliminary assessment on “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” (UAP) was published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The one word in common with Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) is “unidentified.” UFOs surely exist, especially today when anyone can fly drones around. Even before the days of drones there were many objects flying around, some unidentified even by ornithologists.

But they are definitely not spaceships from civilizations on other planets. I am as certain of that as I am certain that you cannot float in air a yard above the ground with no visible (or invisible) means of support. We have extremely well-tested theories that relate space and time (special relativity) and gravitation (general relativity). Here “theory” does not mean “just a theory,” it means an accurate description of how matter can move, with calculations that have agreed with measurements for over 100 years. Your GPS relies on it.

According to relativity, no matter can be accelerated to the speed of light, about 300,000 kilometers (186,000 miles) per second. Relativity tells us how much energy is needed to accelerate a known mass to any given speed, and it would take an infinite amount of energy to get up to the speed of light. That is tested in particle accelerators and works perfectly. Protons in the Large Hadron Collider reach 0.99999999 times the speed of light; more energy would just add more 9’s. So, spaceships cannot go at the speed of light to reach the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, in 4.25 years. What about going at half the speed of light and getting there in 8.5 years? A spaceship just big enough to carry a person would need all the energy generated by all the power stations on Earth for a year; even 1% of light speed is practically impossible.

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is now 14.2 billion miles away and travelling at 38,000 m.p.h., that’s 0.0056% of light speed, after using slingshots by Jupiter and Saturn to gain speed. It would take about 76,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri. There may be alien civilizations in the galaxy, but the chance that they are within even 100 light years is miniscule.

Antimatter rocket fuel? There are no antimatter wells. Shortcuts through giant wormholes in spacetime? Only in fiction.

Can anything go faster than light? Perhaps, in the quantum realm, but not things made of matter like spaceships with alien beings. UFOs must have other explanations.

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Michael Albrow
Michael Albrow
Michael Albrow is a scientist emeritus at Fermilab, Batavia and a member of Naperville Sunrise Rotary. Born in England, Mike lived in Switzerland and Sweden before settling in the U.S. 25 years ago.

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