UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

The mummified remains of a fetus that was either stillborn or died shortly after birth.

Discovered in Chile’s Atacama Desert in 2003, this tiny, 6-inch-long mummy, with its pointed head and atypical number of ribs, stoked theories that aliens have visited Earth. Scientists have had genetic proof that the remains are human since 2013, and a new genetic analysis reveals that mutations in genes related to growth might explain the mummy’s atypical bones.

The results, which have been making headlines, are a reminder that the truth may well be out there — but it isn’t aliens. A series of discoveries this past year make it clear that, sadly, it never is.

1. SAD BUT TRUE

Scientists have struggled to explain why this mummy, known as Ata, is the size of a fetus and yet has bones as developed as those of a six- to eight-year-old child, Science reported in 2013. The new analysis of Ata’s DNA, published last week in the journal Genome Research, reports mutations in seven genes key for human growth.

These mutations could explain why Ata’s bones developed so quickly, Gary Nolan, an immunologist at Stanford University and co-author of the study, told National Geographic. He suspects that the story is much sadder and more human than an extraterrestrial visitation: someone gave birth to a stillborn fetus several decades ago and buried her in the desert. “The alien hype was silly pseudoscience promoted for media attention,” paleoanthropologist and anatomist William Jungers told National Geographic. “This paper puts that nonsense and poor little Ata to bed.”

2. A BIZARRE DEEP SPACE SIGNAL-

In the summer of 2017, astronomers at the Arecibo Observatory picked up a strange radio signal that seemed to be coming from a small red dwarf star called Ross 128. But the source of the signal was a mystery: a solar flare on Ross 128 might have produced it, but the frequency of the radio waves didn’t quite fit that theory. Could it have been a deep space call for ET? No such luck. The astronomers discovered a week later that the signal originated much closer to home — most likely from satellites in high geostationary orbit in the same part of the sky as Ross 128.

The Arecibo Observatory.

Photo: H. Schweiker / WIYN and NOAO / AURA / NSF

3. JUST DUST

The wild flickerings of star KIC 8462852, also known as Tabby’s star, suggest that something occasionally passes in front of it and blocks out as much as 20 percent of its light. The flickerings have no clear pattern, and whatever is blocking the star’s light probably isn’t a celestial body like a planet. Some have suggested alien megastructures or some sort of extraterrestrial solar panel might be passing in front of the star instead.

But in January 2018, a team of astronomers reported that something much more ordinary is probably to blame for the star’s unusual behavior: a bunch of dust could be surrounding the star and filtering its light. “Weird stars that have dust coming from somewhere isn’t as much of a headline grabber,” Jason Wright, an astronomer at Penn State University and one of the study’s authors, told The Verge’s Loren Grush at the time. But there’s still some mystery left: we don’t know where exactly the dust is coming from.

An artist’s rendering of KIC 8462852, also known as Tabby’s star.

Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt (IPAC)

4. THE GREAT PYRAMID’S GIANT VOID

In November 2017, scientists reported the discovery of a vast empty cavity inside the Great Pyramid at Giza. Using a kind of souped-up X-ray, an international team of researchers tracked subatomic particles called muons that plummet to Earth at nearly the speed of light. Since muons can pass through the air more easily than they can travel through dense stone, the researchers were able to discover previously unknown cracks and cavities — like the 100-foot-long cavern they called the “Big Void.”

The researchers still don’t know the precise shape of the cavity or why it’s there, but study co-author Mehdi Tayoubi said in a press briefing that they suspect that this cavity was built on purpose (by humans). Because, friends: it’s never aliens.

Scientists have taken a major step towards creating an aircraft of the future, one powered by an ion drive rather than using moving parts and fuel like conventional aircraft. In a paper published today in Nature, a team led by Steven Barrett from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) described how they created a so-called electroaerodynamic-powered plane, one that uses solid-state propulsion, meaning no propellers or jet engines with expendable fuel.

“The future of flight shouldn’t be things with propellers and turbines,” Barrett says in the video below. “[It] should be more like what you see in Star Trek, with a kind of blue glow and something that silently glides through the air.”

This breakthrough has not been possible before because our technology simply wasn’t advanced enough. As far back as 1921, scientists have been unsuccessful in trying to develop something similar, once mistaken for anti-gravity technology. But now the team say that key technology advances have enabled this to happen.

In their tests from 2016 to 2018, they created an aircraft with a wingspan of 5 meters (16 feet) that weighed 2.45 kilograms (5.4 pounds). It has a number of thin electrodes running across its wings, and at the front of these are thin wires, while at the back is an aerofoil – a curved surface to produce the lift, like on a regular plane wing.

The thin wires at the front are charged to positive 20,000 volts, while the aerofoil at the back is charged to negative 20,000 volts, creating a strong electric field. At the front, electrons are removed from nitrogen molecules in the air to produce ions. And as these accelerate to the back, they produce an ionic wind, which gives the plane thrust.

“The basic idea is that if you ionize air, which means removing an electron from it, you can accelerate the air with an electric field,” Barrett told IFLScience. “Like the force you get if you rub a balloon on your head.” Over the course of 10 test flights, the plane successful flew about 60 meters (200 feet) in about 12 seconds in a gym that the team hired to use, with a thrust efficiency of about 2.6 percent.

But as the speed increases, the efficiency of the system increases, just like in a regular plane. Theoretically, at 670 miles (1,080 kilometers) per hour, faster than a passenger jet, it is 50 percent efficient.

The technique is similar to how ion engines are used in some spacecraft to travel through space. “There are some significant similarities,” said Barrett. However, those spacecraft rely on ionizing a fuel – such as xenon gas – to produce thrust. The plane developed by the MIT team does not require propellant, instead relying only on the thin wires and an off the shelf lithium-polymer battery.
At the moment the technology is limited, with the plane being very much a prototype. But the future possibilities are exciting. In the near-term, this thrust system could be used to power small drones, making them near-silent as they wouldn’t have any propellers like regular drones.

“I don’t yet know whether you’ll see large aircraft carrying people any time soon, but obviously I’d be very excited if that was the case,” Barrett said in the video.

Tests on the plane are still continuing, with the team now able to turn the plane in the air with a remote control rather than just flying in a straight line. Going forward, they want to try and remove the filaments that are hanging off the plane, with more tests to follow in the coming years.

At the end of their paper, the team compares the length of the plane’s flight (12 seconds) with that of the Wright Brothers in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1904 (11 seconds), the world’s first heavier-than-air flight, although that one did include a pilot.

While this flight is perhaps not on the same magnitude, some of the future possibilities are certainly exciting. “It is possible to fly planes that are solid state, and we demonstrated that for the first time,” said Barrett.

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