Today in Science: UFO documents released, experts shrug

Plus, a shape that shouldn't exist in real life ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­

May 8, 2026—Mathematicians create an impossible shape that can’t exist in real life, construction begins on the DUNE neutrino project, and a famed naturalist celebrates a milestone birthday. Happy Friday! —Andrea Gawrylewski Chief Newsletter Editor TOP NEWS In this archival image you can see the lunar surface as viewed from the landing site of Apollo 12, the sixth crewed flight for the U.S. Apollo Program and the second to land on the moon on November 19, 1969. The UAP can be seen in the highlighted area slightly to the left of the vertical axis of the frame, above the horizon. NASA The Pentagon has started releasing UFO files, including photos, videos and documents spanning several government agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the White House and NASA. Skeptics say so far it’s “nothing unexpected.” | 2 min read A wildfire spanning at least five square miles broke out inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone today. Firefighters are working to contain the blaze and radiation levels are within normal limits, according to multiple news reports. | 2 min read Famed naturalist and soft-spoken BBC narrator David Attenborough turns 100 today. Happy birthday! | 4 min read There is no vaccine for deadly hantavirus, but scientists are working on one. | 3 min read Construction has begun on a massive underground neutrino detector being built in an abandoned gold mine under Lead, South Dakota. | 5 min read Getting the same amount of rest each day may be tied to slower biological aging. | 2 min read Support science journalism you can trust with a subscription to Scientific American. Try it out for 90 days for just $1! TOP STORY Impossible Objects An impossible object is something that looks realistic when drawn but can’t exist in real life. Dutch artist M. C. Escher is famous for depicting such objects, for instance: staircases and waterfalls that are impossible to build in three dimensions. Many of Escher’s works are based on constructions by British mathematicians Roger and Lionel Penrose, such as the Penrose triangle and Penrose stairs, which they published in the 1950s. Robert Ghrist Two mathematicians, Robert Ghrist of the University of Pennsylvania and Zoe Cooperband of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, invented an impossible object that breaks reality in novel ways. It starts with a variant of the Penrose staircase. A bug walking around the blue path in the graphic, for instance, will feel like it is traveling a level course, but if it takes the ladder connecting two opposite sides, it will feel as if it has climbed to a new height. Both courses are locally consistent but globally inconsistent. Robert Ghrist The researchers then imagined rearranging this rectangular path into a line and pasting it onto a cylinder so that the left-hand side connected to the right-hand side. In that case, a bug that walked to the right from its starting point would find itself exactly back where it started. The scientists further imagined winding the path like a Möbius strip—a form one can make by twisting a strip of paper and attaching the two ends. A bug that traveled to the right from its starting point would find that after it completed the loop, what it once considered right side up had changed. This path forms the basis of the new impossible shape, which is a continuous multilevel staircase. Click through to see detailed depictions of how this shape works.

PLAY NOW How well did you keep up with science news this week? Put yourself to the test with today's science quiz. Also, check out today's Spellements puzzle. If you spot any missing science terms from the puzzle, email them to games@sciam.com.  MOST POPULAR STORIES OF THE WEEK Why some mathematicians think we should abandon pi | 4 min read A SpaceX rocket booster is on track to hit the moon at several times the speed of sound | 3 min read A dangerous experiment is playing out on a cruise ship with hantavirus | 4 min read Though Escher didn’t have a formal background in mathematics, the field inspired much of his art. Some of my favorite works of his are his tessellations–the interconnected and repeating patterns he devised (and which inspired some of my own rudimentary attempts in college visual design classes). You can see some of his so-called symmetry work at the official website of the M.C. Escher Foundation. I love too many to pick a favorite, but I'm especially fond of his use of birds and other shapes from nature. Research into repeating units of pattern is very much alive and mathematicians recently proved the existence of the einstein tile—a hat-shaped tile that can cover an infinite plane and never repeat. You can reach out to me anytime: newsletters@sciam.com.  Have a great weekend! —Andrea Gawrylewski Chief Newsletter Editor

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