Warning! Spoilers ahead for The Flash season 7 episode 16, “P.O.W.”
The Flashseason 7 is barreling towards its two-part finale and Iris West-Allen’s latest storyline could bring back the Arrowverse’s multiverse following its collapse in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Time and interdimensional travel have been heavily utilized in the shared universe ever since The Flash unlocked the titular character’s abilities to move backwards and forwards in time. The team’s trip to Earth-2 opened up yet another gateway to traversing the multiverse. While Crisis on Infinite Earths changed that for good, Iris’ situation could unlock the multiverse once again.
Iris has been noticeably absent from two episodes of The Flash. In season 7’s episode 15, Barry revealed she wasn’t feeling well and was recovering from a bout of illness at home. In the following episode, however, Iris confirmed what she was experiencing was far more than a regular cold; when she sneezed, her eyes briefly and startlingly flashed green before returning to their normal color afterward. Why the illness is affecting Iris in this way remains unclear, but her symptoms have led her molecules to become unstable, inducing headaches and time displacement.
At the end of the episode, Nora West-Allen confirms that Iris will be okay, but there’s no telling when her symptoms will clear up or what will happen before they do. That said, it’s possible Iris moving in and out of the timeline could play a crucial role in the future of the multiverse and the reason for her predicament may be hiding in plain sight.
Iris Is Phasing In & Out Of The Timeline
Iris’ absence from The Flash season 7’s episode 15 was suspicious, especially since it involved a possible pregnancy storyline that was happening without her. In the following episode, however, fans learned why Iris has been absent. As it turns out, her cold wasn’t a normal one and it was somehow causing her to phase in and out of the timeline. It got so bad apparently that Deon, the Still Force, swooped in to protect Iris by using his abilities to stabilize her from phasing through various temporal planes, moving her to “pure temporal strains” to keep her alive. If it wasn’t for Deon, Iris would have fractured through time itself, which doesn’t sound very pleasant and could have unprecedented repercussions.
This subplot creates an interesting twist considering everything happening on The Flash right now. Between what’s going on with Iris, the Godspeed clones, August Heart — who originated as Godspeed in 2049 pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths — coming into the picture, and Barry dreaming about Nora telling him there seems to be something wrong in the future, Iris’ timeline instability may be the one thing connecting each of these separate storylines. That said, the reason why she’s suddenly phasing in and out of the timeline has yet to be confirmed on the show, but all roads seem to be leading back to one cause.
Iris Being Pregnant Is Causing Her To Be Unstuck From Time
Barry and Iris have been trying to conceive for a few episodes now. After Barry dreamed about Nora the first time, he assumed Iris was pregnant only for the results of the test to come back negative. However, this could have been a false negative. Considering that Iris’ presence in the timeline has been unstable, it’s possible that she is already pregnant and doesn’t realize it. What’s more, being pregnant with speedster babies won’t follow the same patterns of a normal pregnancy and it’s possible that Iris carrying metahumans is causing her to be unstuck from time. Her phasing in and out of the timeline could be The Flash’s equivalent to morning sickness.
This could also explain why she will be able to regain her speedster powers in the season 7 finale. In the comics, Iris phases back and forth in time because it’s revealed she is actually from the future and was sent back to the 20th century by her birth parents. The Flashshowrunner Eric Wallace has teased this storyline coming into play, but like with all things that make their way onto the show, it will probably be a loose adaptation from the comics storyline it’s based on. Traveling between timelines because of a pregnancy might be the closest the series gets to this particular comics arc in this instance.
Jay Garrick’s The Flash Return Hints At Alternate Earths Connection
Jay Garrick (aka, The Flash of Earth-3) was last seen prior to Crisis on Infinite Earths, warning Barry of the impending doom facing the multiverse. However, the speedster didn’t participate in the crossover, nor was he confirmed to be alive in the aftermath that saw the multiverse rebooted and Earth-1 merge with others (including Supergirl’s Earth-38) to become Earth-Prime. Jay will be appearing in The Flash’s two-part season 7 finale to aid in the Godspeed clone war. How his reappearance will be explained remains to be seen, but it’s possible he will show up courtesy of Iris’ temporal phasing. Jay originally hails from Earth-3 and his return to The Flash coinciding with Iris being able to phase through time (and maybe dimensions) could be connected. Iris may be acting as the bridge between Earth-Prime and Jay’s world without even realizing, and the superhero series might confirm that he is now from Stargirl’s Earth-2 instead.
Theory: Iris’ Temporal Phasing Brings Back The Multiverse
In The Flash season 6, Nash Wells detected particles of Eternium, an interdimensional (and multiversal) element, on Iris prior to the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths. At the time, nothing much came of it, just another tease that seemed to lead nowhere. However, this could come back into play now that Iris is phasing through temporal planes in season 7. It’s possible the combination of Eternium and her moving in and out of time now allows her to connect to not only different time periods on Earth-Prime, but alternate universes as well. Perhaps before she is finally stabilized, Iris will indeed fracture through time and that’s what breaks the barrier separating Earth-Prime from the rest of the multiverse, which has remained a secret post-Crisis.
Namely, Iris’ temporal instability could alert her and The Flash to the fact there are still other worlds out there despite the collapse of the multiverse during Crisis. After all, Stargirl exists on the rebooted Earth-2 and it’s been confirmed that Jay Garrick will make an appearance on the series in its sophomore season. And so Iris’ temporal imbalance could open the gateway to interdimensional travel once more, reestablishing the connection between Earth-Prime and other earths. There has to be a reason for why Nash detected Eternium on her. All of this could also be setting up The Flash’s five-episode crossover event in the fall. Whatever the reasons behind Iris’ phasing in and out of time, the introduction of this storyline for her could finally tie together so many loose plot threads for The Flash and the Arrowverse at large.
As far as we currently know, there is a single expanding blob of spacetime speckled with trillions of galaxies – that’s our Universe. If there are others, we have no compelling evidence for their existence.
That said, theories of cosmology, quantum physics, and the very philosophy of science have a few problems that could be solved if our blob of ‘everything’ wasn’t, well, everything.
That doesn’t mean other universes must exist. But what if they do?
What is a universe?
It should be a simple question to answer. But different areas of science will have subtly different takes on what a universe even is.
Cosmologists might say it describes the total mass of stuff (and the space in between) that has been slowly expanding from a highly concentrated volume over the past 13.77 billion years, becoming increasingly disordered with age.
It now stretches 93 billion light years from edge to edge, at least based on all of the visible (and invisible) stuff we can detect in some way. Beyond that limit, there are either things we can’t see, an infinite expanse of nothingness, or – in the unlikely scenario that all of space bends back around on itself – a round-trip back to the start across a hyperspherical universe.
If we’re talking quantum physics, though, a universe might refer to all fields and their particles, and their combined influences over one another. As a general rule, a universe (like ours, at least) is a closed system, meaning it can’t suddenly lose or gain a significant sum of energy.
Philosophically speaking, a universe might be a discrete set of fundamental laws that governs the behavior of everything we observe. A universe would be defined by its own rules that set its unique speed for light, tell particles how to push or pull, or space how it should expand.
What is a multiverse in cosmology?
A century of astronomical observations has told us a lot about the age, size, and evolution of galaxies, stars, matter and the four dimensions we sum up as spacetime.
We can theoretically squeeze all of the matter of the Universe down to a point where the concentration of energy reduces atoms to a soup of simpler particles and forces combine until we can’t tell them apart. Any smaller than that? Big shrugs.
If we go with what’s known as a cyclic model of cosmology, the parent universe preceded ours in some way. It might even be a lot like this one, only running in reverse compared with ours, shrinking over time into a concentrated point only to bounce back out for some reason. Played out for eternity, we might imagine the respective universes bounce back and forth in an endless yo-yo effect of growing and collapsing.
Or, if we go with what’s known as a conformal cyclic model, universes expand over trillions upon trillions of years until their cold, point-like particles are so spread out, for all mathematical purposes everything looks and acts like a brand new universe.
If you don’t like those, there’s a chance our Universe is a white hole – the hypothetical back end of a black hole from another universe. Which, logically, just might mean the black holes in our Universe could all be parents, pinching off new universes like cosmic amoebae.
What is a multiverse in quantum physics?
Early last century, physicists found theories that described matter as tiny objects only told half of the story. The other half was that matter behaved as if it also had characteristics of a wave.
Exactly what this dual nature of reality means is still a matter of debate, but from a mathematical perspective, that wave describes the rise and fall of a game of chance. Probability, you see, is built into the very machinery that makes up the gears of a universe like ours.
Of course, this isn’t our daily experience as vast collections of atoms. When we send a bucket of molecules called a rocket to the Moon as it zooms past 300,000 kilometres away, we’re not rolling dice. Classical old physics is as reliable as tomorrow’s sunrise.
But the closer we zoom in on a region of space or time, the more we need to take into account the possible range of measurements we might find.
This randomness isn’t the result of things we don’t know – it’s because the Universe itself is yet to make up its mind. There’s nothing in quantum mechanics explaining this transition either, leaving us to imagine what it all means. https://www.youtube.com/embed/dzKWfw68M5U?ab_channel=PBSSpaceTime
In his 1957 doctoral dissertation, American physicist Hugh Everett suggested the range of possibilities are all as real as one another, representing actual realities – separate universes, if you like – just like the one we’re all familiar with.
What makes any one universe in this many worlds interpretation distinct is how each wave correlates with a specific measurement taken of other waves, a phenomenon we call entanglement.
What ‘we’ means, and why ‘we’ experience one entangled set over waves over another, isn’t clear, and in some ways presents an even bigger problem to solve.
What is a multiverse in philosophy?
One of science’s most fundamental starting assumptions is that in spite of what your mother tells you, you’re not special. Nor is any other human, or our planet, or – by extension – our Universe.
While rare events occur from time to time, we don’t answer The Big Questions with ‘it just happened that way’.
So why does our Universe seem to have just the right tug-of-war of forces that allow not just particles to appear, but to congeal for long enough periods into atoms that can undergo complex chemistry to produce thinking minds like ours?
Philosophically speaking, the anthropic principle (or principles, since there are many different ways to spin the idea) suggests we might have it backwards. Without these conditions, no minds would have arisen to consider the amazing turn of events.
If just a single universe ‘just happened that way’ early one spring morning, it’d be one big coincidence. Too big really.
But if there were infinite universes, with infinite combinations of forces pushing and pulling, some would inevitably give rise to minds that just might ask ‘are we part of a multiverse?’
Will we ever discover other universes?
Given the very definition of a universe relies on some kind of physical fence keeping influencing factors apart, it’s hard to imagine ways we might ever observe the existence of a sibling for our universe. If we did, we might as well see it as an extension of our own Universe anyway.
That said, there could be some cheats that could give us a glimpse.
Any experiment to find one would have to rely on that ‘fence’ having some holes in it that allow particles or energy to leak across, either into ours, or away from it. Or, in the case of universes existing in our past, monumental events that left enough of a scar that not even a rebirth could erase.
For now, we still have no good reason to think our blob of everything is anything but unique. Given we’re still learning how our own Universe works, the current gaps in physics could yet be plugged without any need to imagine a reality other than ours.
In countless other versions of this article scattered throughout the multiverse, however, the question of whether we are alone just might have a different answer.
Sir Richard confirmed the purchase in an interview.
E
Elon Musk has bought a ticket on one of rival billionaire Sir Richard Branson’s spaceship flights, according to a newspaper report.
As Sir Richard prepares to fly on Virgin Galactic’s first fully crewed flight to the edge of space on Sunday from New Mexico, The Sunday Times says Mr Musk – who owns rival exploration company SpaceX – has paid for a seat on a future Virgin voyage.
Mr Musk paid a 10,000-dollar (£7,000) deposit to reserve a seat. No date for his flight has been specified.
Sir Richard confirmed the purchase in an interview with The Sunday Times, saying he might reciprocate by booking a ticket on a SpaceX flight in the future.
“Elon’s a friend and maybe I’ll travel on one of his ships one day,” he said.
Amid what has been dubbed the billionaires’ space race, SpaceX has launched dozens of rockets, including manned flights, but Mr Musk himself has not yet flown on any. The company is due to launch its first fully private spaceflight in the autumn.
Sir Richard will become the first owner-astronaut to take part in a mission, beating Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who plans to reach space in his own rocket – through his Blue Origin company – in nine days’ time.
Tourists are expected to pay some 250,000 dollars (£180,000) for a spaceflight on Virgin Galactic, which includes four minutes of zero gravity.
MEPAP(MULTIPURPOSE ELECTRICITY PRODUCER INTEGRATED WITH AIR PURIFIER)
WHAT MADE ME TO DO THIS PROJECT
I was from a lower middle class family. We suffered many months without electricity and our area is prone to traffic so our area is filled with smoke and dust. Many were suffering from several respiratory disorders due to this dust and smoke. These made me to think of inventing a low cost electricity generator
The growing demand for electrical energy and increasing air pollution around the globe is the main factor that driven my research.
More than 80 percent of our energy today comes from burning fossil fuels, which is both harmful to our environment and unsustainable as well. My invention will help to solve the energy crisis by improving the efficiency of electromagnetic energy-harvesting systems, vibration energy-harvesting systems , wind energy-harvesting systems, thermal energy harvesting system and air cleanser all in a single project.
Due to increase in the carbon dioxide level and other harmful gases specially which are contributing in increase in pollution and global warming, our automobile industries are one of the easy and clear target therefore many researches has been undertaken in this field . Globally, it is estimated that about 1/3 of the total energy is utilized while remaining is rejected as waste heat. The maximum efficiency of an engine is around 25% which means that 75 % of the energy left is wasted in the form of heat from parasitic losses and friction which causes 30% waste in the engine coolant and 40% in the form of gases in exhaust.
The given figure shows the energy distribution in an Internal Combustion Engine.
MEPAP’S AIR PURIFIER
FEATURES AND WORKING
MEPAP AIR CLEANSER IS AN AIR PURIFIER WHICH PURIFIES AIR FROM THE SOURCE (VEHICLES AND FACTORIES EXHAUST) WHERE IT IS PRODUCED.
IT IS MADE TO REDUCE THE AIR POLLUTION
The compact purifier is an apt solution for the increasing pollution. The Active Oxidization Cell with its self-cleaning abilities keeps the purification process on, while the 360º air flow guards us from harmful impurities by distributing healthy air.
Active shield
The purification process eliminates sub-micron respirable particles and infection carrying microbes in the air.
Active Carbon Filter
The most advanced technology filters out bad odor, toxic gases and other harmful gases including VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) from the air you breathe in. The carbon filters have excellent absorbent qualities to soothe respiratory discomforts by eliminating irritants in the air.
ICC (Improved Catalytic Converter): Catalytic converters, having expensive metals namely platinum-palladium and rhodium as the catalysts, are fitted into automobiles for reducing emission of poisonous gases. As the exhaust passes through the catalytic converter, unburnt hydrocarbons are converted into carbon dioxide and water, and carbon monoxide and nitric oxide are changed to carbon dioxide and nitrogen gas, respectively. To overcome from cost and reducing the rare metal usage the project made the drive to develop an alternate source of oxidation catalyst for oxidation reaction and thus reduces the NOx and HC emissions. The substrate selected in this project is wash coat technology employed by using the silicon dioxide and alumina with silica. The catalytic converter is constructed with inner/outer shell construction supported with cones and flanges. The initial emission readings are conducted in the experimental engine. This catalytic converter reduces the harmful pollutant more efficiently and at a lower cost than the conventional catalytic converter.
Honeycomb Active Carbon Filter
The carbon filters have excellent absorbent qualities to eliminate repulsive smell, toxic gases and other odor, leaving behind fresh and pure air to breathe.
HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air Filter) Type Filter
The HEPA type filter removes airborne pollutants and eliminates ultra-fine particles like bacteria, pollen, and mould, which cannot be done by other air purifiers.
Anion Generator
The technology ensures that the air you breathe has no positive ions, leaving you rest assured of living in a no impurities zone. Negative ions produced by purifier bind themselves with airborne pollutants and removes them from the air thereby creating a fresh and cleaner environment
Air pollution sensors
Air pollution sensors are devices that detect and monitor the presence of air pollution in the surrounding area. They can be used for both indoor and outdoor environments. These sensors can be built at home, or bought from certain manufactures. Although there are various types of air pollution sensors, and some are specialized in certain aspects, the majority focuses on five components: ozone, particulate matter, carbonmonoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrous oxide.
FUTURE PLAN FOR AIR PURIFIER PART
Carbon Separator and Collector: Carbon dioxide is considered a major reason for global warming. The element jeopardizes people’s health, threatens national security, and endangers basic human needs. Yet, it also holds great promise as a fuel of the future.
The carbon dioxide splitter, which consists of copper and tin.
The splitter has an atomic layer of tin in order to trap the energy that would be lost if copper is utilized as an electrode. It also has a thin membrane between the cathode and anode to improve the reaction.
The splitter can open windows to solving the problem of storing energy from renewable sources by turning it straight into liquid fuel.
The process of splitting is efficient and carbon-neutral. It is already a well-known method of producing fuel without increasing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. CO2 is split into oxygen and carbon monoxide.
Carbon monoxide can be incorporated with hydrogen to create synthetic carbon-based fuel. CO2 is taken out of the atmosphere without being put back in, which produces clean fuel.
MEPAP ELECTRICITY GENERATOR GENERATES ELECTRICITY WITH THE HELP OF VIBRATRION(Piezoelectric Materials) AND ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION(with the help of MetaMaterials) ELECTROMAGNETIC induction [inductive coupling(power density is proportional to d, q, 1/d^3)] and wind energy( from purifier where mini turbine is connected with dynamo) AND ALSO THERMOELECTRIC ENERGY (power density=25µW/cm^2).
ELECTRICITY from VIBRATRION
MEPAP ELECTRICITY GENERATOR could produce enough electricity from random, ambient vibrations to power a wristwatch, pacemaker, wireless sensor , phones etc..,
MEP are highly efficient at providing renewable electrical power from arbitrary, non-periodic vibrations. This type of vibration is a byproduct of traffic driving on bridges, machinery operating in factories and humans moving their limbs.
In two of the sub generators present in PFIG (Parametric Frequency Increased Generators), the energy conversion is performed through electromagnetic induction, in which a coil is subjected to a varying magnetic field. This is a process similar to how large-scale generators in big power plants operate. It also uses piezoelectric material, which is a type of material that produces charge when it is stressed. This version has applications in infrastructure health monitoring. The generators could one day power bridge sensors that would warn inspectors of cracks or corrosion before human eyes could discern problems.
Power Density= 4 µW/cm^2
MECHANISM AND APPLICATIONS:
It contains a resonator which is used to amplify the vibration source, and a transducer device which changes the energy from the vibrations into electrical energy. The transducer consists of a magnet and coil of a piezoelectric crystal.
A number of crystals can emit an electric current when compressed or they can change shape when an electric charge is employed. This piezoelectric effect is used in ultrasound and sonar devices, as well as energy harvesting.
Piezoelectric generators utilize thin casings or beams made of piezoelectric crystals as a transducer mechanism. When a crystal is placed under strain by the kinetic energy of the vibration, a small quantity of current is produced because of the piezoelectric effect. These mechanisms are generally straightforward with few moving parts, and they have a very long service life, making them the most prevalent technique of harvesting the energy from vibrations. It is fabricated by MEMS process.
This device uses a freely rotating, unconventional brass rotor with an implanted magnet, and multiple PZT beams with a magnet on each beam.
As the magnet on the rotor draws near one of the beams, the magnets repel each other and deflects the beam, pulling the beam in a process that is described as frequency up-conversion. The gradual rate of a rotating wrist is changed into a higher frequency oscillation. This device is more efficient than a standard electromagnetic harvester, as such as those used in self-powered watches.
Another application, which is in the early stages of development, desires to use the vibrations generated during aircraft flight to power the electronics on the plane that currently depend on on batteries. Such a system would produce a reliable energy source, and reduce maintenance, since batteries would not need to be replaced and piezoelectric systems have a long service life. This system uses a resonator, which permits the airflow to produce a high amplitude steady tone. This is the same principle that is used in many wind instruments by converting the airflow furnished by the musician into a loud steady tone. This tone is used as the vibration that is transformed from kinetic to electric energy by the piezoelectric generator
ELECTRICITY from ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION:
Electromagnetic energy harvesting based on the “full absorption concept.” This involves the use of metamaterials that can be tailored to produce media that neither reflects nor transmits any power—enabling full absorption of incident waves at a specific range of frequencies and polarizations since the inception of collecting and harvesting electromagnetic energy, classical dipole patch antennas have been used. “Now, my technology introduces ‘metasurfaces’ that are much better energy collectors than classical antennas. microstrip patch antennas areused because of their low profile, light weight, and planar structure for RF harvesting.
Metasurfaces are formed by etching the surface of a material with an elegant pattern of periodic shapes. The particular dimensions of these patterns and their proximity to each other can be tuned to provide “near-unity” energy absorption. This energy is then channeled to a load through a conducting path that connects the metasurface to a Electromagnetic energy collector.
We can also channel the absorbed energy into a load, rather than having the energy dissipate in the material as was done in previous works. Other key applications include “wireless power transfer—directly adaptable to power remote devices such as RFID devices and tags or even remote devices in general.
The technology can also be extended to the infrared and visible spectra
Power Density= 25µW/cm^2.
ELECTRICITY from ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION(RF):
Wi-Fi signals are made of radio waves. Receiving antennas can wirelessly harvest electromagnetic radiation in the Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz and 5.9 GHz), global satellite positioning (1.58 GHz and 1.22 GHz), the cellular communications fourth-generation (4G) (1.7 GHz and 1.9 GHz), and Bluetooth (2.4 GHz) bands and convert the energy from these electromagnetic waves to alternating current (AC). The AC electricity is then sent to the rectifier, which converts it to direct current (DC) electricity.
Using a rectifier made from a molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) layer that is only 3 atoms thick. At this thickness, the MoS2 behaves differently than the bulk material — the atoms rearrange themselves when exposed to certain chemicals. This means the material can behave like a switch, changing from a semiconductor to metallic structure. The MoS2 creates what’s called a Schottky diode, a junction of semiconductor and metal. The diode described in their paper can convert signals at higher frequencies because the structure reduces the extra energy stored by certain materials used in electronics, known as parasitic capacitance. The researchers’ design reduces parasitic capacitance by an order of magnitude compared to current flexible rectifiers, meaning they can capture the previously elusive high-frequency Wi-Fi band radio waves.
ENERGY FROM TERAHERTZ(will implement in future.):
Terahertz waves are electromagnetic radiation with a frequency somewhere between microwaves and infrared light. Also known as “T-rays,” they are produced by almost anything that registers a temperature, including our own bodies and the inanimate objects around us.
Terahertz waves are pervasive in our daily lives, and if harnessed, their concentrated power could potentially serve as an alternate energy source. However, to date there has been no practical way to capture and convert them into any usable form.
MEPAP device would be able to convert terahertz waves into a direct current in future, a form of electricity that powers many household electronics.
This design (referred from MIT ) takes advantage of the quantum mechanical, or atomic behavior of the carbon material graphene. They found that by combining graphene with another material, in this case, boron nitride, the electrons in graphene should skew their motion toward a common direction. Any incoming terahertz waves should “shuttle” graphene’s electrons, like so many tiny air traffic controllers, to flow through the material in a single direction, as a direct current.
Rectifiers, devices that are designed to convert electromagnetic waves from their oscillating (alternating) current to direct current.
Most rectifiers are designed to convert low-frequency waves such as radio waves, using an electrical circuit with diodes to generate an electric field that can steer radio waves through the device as a DC current.
Solar Energy:
Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels use the sun’s power to create a flow of electricity. This is the most widely adopted method of harvesting solar energy today. These panels, which range in size from a few square centimeters to a few square meters, are constructed from many PV cells arranged in an intricate matrix. Intuitively, the larger the surface area available for sunlight to penetrate the PV cells, the more solar energy that gets harvested.
Each PV solar cell is generally made up of a compound semiconductor wafer structure, which can either be a monocrystalline or polycrystalline structure. The structure’s two thin semiconductor wafers, one P-type and one N-type, are each grown separately. The two wafers are placed on top of each other, and the natural reaction that occurs between the two semiconductor types creates a depletion zone that reaches an equilibrium point, without generating any electricity. Due to the PV cell, when light photons pass through and connect with the semiconductor wafers, their interaction releases enough energy to create an equilibrium disruption in the depletion region. That action subsequently creates a brief flow of electricity. However, because of the constant presence of light, this interaction occurs continuously and can produce massive amounts of electrical energy.
The power produced by a single photon interaction replicates across the entire surface of the PV cell. It’s compounded into a whole panel of solar cells. This minor interaction in the depletion zone can be repeated and multiplied, resulting in a significant amount of electricity. PV solar arrays, however, produce DC power. To be integrated with modern power transmission technology, such as the outlets in your home, this DC energy must be converted to AC power using an inverter. There are a variety of proprietary iterations of this fundamental technology that seek to optimize the efficiency of each PV cell on a molecular level, the assembly of the panel, and the panel’s ability to be integrated into a larger solar array.
Thin-film solar cell, type of device that is designed to convert light energy into electrical energy (through the photovoltaic effect) and is composed of micron-thick photon-absorbing material layers deposited over a flexible substrate.
Cadmium telluride thin-films have a peak recorded efficiency of more than 22.1 percent (the percentage of photons hitting the surface of the cell that are transformed into an electric current). By 2014 cadmium telluride thin-film technologies had the smallest carbon footprint and quickest payback time of any thin-film solar cell technology on the market. This is the reason why I used Cadmium telluride thin-film in MEPAP.
Power Density= 1000µW/cm^2
Energy Harvesting from a Vehicle’s Exhaust System Using Thermoelectric Generator Module(TEG):
The efficiency in an internal combustion engine ranges from 25% to 35%. About 50% – 85% of the overall energy loss in a combustion engine is heat, which is either cooled away by the vehicle’s radiator or blown out with the exhaust gases. The other losses take place in bearings and gear boxes. This energy is never put into use again and therefore is called “waste heat”. Even if a small fraction of the waste heat could be turned into useful energy again, it would be a step to the right direction of improving fuel economy.
TEG in MEPAP is a solid stated device which works on the principle of ‘Seebeck effect’.
They are found in solar energy systems like solar panels, solar hot water system, biomass power applications, energy power plants and solar pond systems .Installing a TEG with MEPAP is easy and very beneficial as it has some advantages like small in size, it has no vibrations, makes less or no noise while operating, it generally requires less or no maintenance. And major advantage is that it is using free thermal energy and converting into useful electrical energy. A thermoelectric module consists of many thermo elements connected in electrical channel in series to increase the operating voltage and to increase the thermal conductivity they are connected in parallel. According to a research the conversion of this waste heat into electricity results to an increase of fuel efficiency about 20% . A TEG in MEPAP works on the principle of a Seebeck effect. Two metallic strips, made of different metals and joined at the ends to form a loop. If the junctions are kept at different temperatures then there is an electric current in the loop and the emf developed is called the SEEBECK emf or thermo emf and the current can be used to power a load.
The TEG in MEPAP structure is sandwiched with the thermoelectric material which is then sandwiched by the heat exchanger plates at their ends respectively. The two heat exchangers remains at different temperatures, one at high temperature and the other at lower temperature and called the hot side and cold side. A thermally insulated layer is present between metal heat exchanger and material of a TEG in MEPAP. The p type and n type materials are connected by the metal electrically. A TEG in MEPAP consists of a two sides, one is cold and other is hot side. The hotter side derives the electrons in n type leg towards the cold side which pass through the metallic connection and then passes into the p type leg, hence develops current. Larger the temperature difference between cold side and hot side, larger value of emf will produce.
TEG Power Generation Calculation:
The equation involved in calculation of the performance of a TEG
Z = α2/ kR
Z is a figure of merit of thermoelectric material, R is the electric resistivity
k is a thermal conductivity and
α is a Seebeck coefficient which is
α = ∆V / ∆T,
THERMOELECTRIC METALS:
Thermoelectric materials are used in automobiles, power plants, space satellite, etc. Thermoelectric materials can be characterized according to the structure and composition. They can be classified as – chalcogenide, clathrates, skutterudites, half-heusler, oxides and silicides. The most common thermoelectric materials are the alloys of chalcogenide. The calcogenide materials are popular for their use with (Bi2Te3) and (PbTe).Thermoelectric materials made with Bi2Te3, Se and Sb for temperature use are economical. PbTe has better thermo electric properties at temperature range 500-600 ⁰C and has been used by NASA as a radioactive thermo electric generator (RTG’s) . The stability of a TE material is very important as it should not oxidize within the operating temperature when exposed in air .But nowadays; automobile industries are focusing on bismuth telluride for constructing a TEG.
High charge mobility and small band gaps are the properties of two heavy elements Bi and Te and Bulk alloys of PbTe have a zT value of 0.7 at 467 ⁰C. When SrTe and PbTe are doped with Na, zT value was 2.2 at 642 ⁰C .Skutterudites (MX3) have a lower thermal conductivity due to its complex crystal structure has large voids. CoSb3 based skutterudites are versatile in accepting various actinides, lanthanides, alkalis and alkaline earth metals to be used in void filling and thermal conductivity of skutterudites lowers as the size decreases .Compounds of half heuslers are intermetallic compounds which are thermally stable, having high thermal conductivity and corresponding seebeck coefficient. The lattice thermal conductivity of these compounds reduces having nano structures due to phonon scattering. SiGe alloys are used for high temperature applications because of having very low degradation up to 1000 ⁰C. When compared to their bulk alloys, nanostructured SiGe alloys have higher zT value. Bulk Si0.8 Ge0.2 has zT value of 1 and 0.6 for n type and p type respectively. There is an improvement in zT value when nanocomposite thermoelectric materials are used.
HARVESTING WIND ENERGY(HEW Module):
The present invention relates to a combination air purifier and wind generator. The combination air purifier and wind generator includes a wind-receiving unit installed on a central shaft for driving an electric generator mounted in housing, and an air purifier. The wind-receiving unit includes a governor fixed to an upper end of the central shaft, a spherical blower installed in the middle of the central shaft, and planar magnetic rotary plates installed at a lower end of the central shaft for receiving both artificial and natural winds. Lower magnets are attached to the top of the housing while upper magnets having the same polarity as the lower magnets are attached to the bottoms of the magnetic rotary plates to face the lower magnets. The air purifier includes two air inlets; one air outlet; a copper net, a silver net and a hard charcoal/zeolite net disposed within the air purifier for purifying air introduced there into; and a blower interposed between the silver net and the hard charcoal/zeolite net.
Even though the intensity of the wind increases, the shaft of the generator is prevented from being accelerated beyond a predetermined speed so that any damage to the generator can be avoided and its life can be prolonged, and which includes a multi-stage wind-receiving unit for causing the shaft to be easily rotated even with the gentle natural wind and the artificial wind from the blower so as to enhance the electricity generation.
HEW Module consist of electric generator installed in a box-type housing, a central shaft protruding beyond the top of the box-type housing and having a lower end with a gear coupled thereto for engaging with a gear of the electric generator and transmitting a rotational force, and a wind-receiving unit coupled to the central shaft. The wind-receiving unit includes a governor fixed to an upper end of the central shaft, a spherical blower disposed below the governor, and planar magnetic rotary plates disposed below the blower for receiving both artificial and natural winds. The governor includes a plurality of cylinders of which one ends are fixed to the central shaft, a plurality of wind cups of which one ends are slidably installed within the respective cylinders, and springs connected with the inner ends of the wind cups for elastically supporting them. Lower magnets are attached to the top of the box-type housing, and upper magnets having the same polarity as the lower magnets are disposed on the bottoms of the respective magnetic rotary plates to face down toward the lower magnets.
FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a combination air purifier and wind generator according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a section view taken along line A—A of FIG. 1.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS:
Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of a combination air purifier and wind generator according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
FIGS. 1 and 2 are sectional views of a combination air purifier and magnet-type wind generator according to the present invention. Reference numeral 1 designates a box-type housing, 2 designates a wind-receiving unit, 3 designates an air purifier, and 10 designates an electric generator.
Each of the electric generators 10 is a conventional model for converting mechanical energy into electrical energy. A shaft of the electric generator 10 is coupled with a gear 11.
The electric generator 10 is installed within the box-type housing 1 made of steel frame and plate, or the like. The gear 11 of the electric generator 10 is engaged with and rotated together with a gear 12 coupled with a lower end of a central shaft 13 which penetrates through the center of a top surface of the box-type housing 1 and is positioned in the box-type housing 1. Thus, the gear 11 connected to components for generating electricity, such as a coil and a magnet that are not shown in the figures, within the electric generator 10 converts the mechanical energy into the electrical energy.
The wind-receiving unit 2 installed on the central shaft 13 includes three wind-resistant bodies: a governor 7 fixed to an upper end of the central shaft 13, a spherical blower 6 disposed below the governor, and planar magnetic rotary plates 5 disposed below the blower 6 for receiving both artificial and natural winds.
The governor 7 fixed to the upper end of the central shaft 13 is a horizontal centrifugal rotary body and includes a plurality of cylinders 73 of which one ends are fixed to the central shaft 13, a plurality of wind cups 72 of which one ends are slidably installed within the respective cylinders 73, and springs 75 connected with the inner ends of the wind cups 72 and inner walls 74 of the cylinders 73 for elastically supporting them.
The blower 6 installed in the middle of the central shaft 13 takes the shape of a sphere defined by a plurality of grouped winglets and can obtain a rotational force even with gentle winds generated in all directions. Further, since the blower 6 is disposed in the middle of the central shaft, it can serve to provide a starting force to the central shaft 13 upon existence of the gentle wind while keeping the balance of the central shaft 13, thereby preventing the central shaft 13 from stopping.
Each of the planar magnetic rotary plates 5 installed at a lower portion of the central shaft 13 is made in the form of a rectangular bucket as shown in FIG. 2. Upper magnets 4′ are attached to the bottoms of the respective magnetic rotary plates. Repulsive forces are produced between the upper magnets 4′ and lower permanent magnets 4 (20,000 gauss or higher) that have the same polarity as the upper magnets and are attached to the top of the box-type housing 1, and thus, a levitation phenomenon occurs therebetween. Accordingly, weights of all the components installed on the central shaft 13 become zero, so that the magnetic rotary plates can be easily rotated even with the gentle wind by means of a rotational action resulting from the repulsive forces between the magnets having the same polarity. Consequently, the rotational ability of the magnetic rotary plates can be improved even under any windy conditions. Particularly, the magnetic rotary plates are constructed to be forcibly rotated with the artificial wind discharged from a blower 36 of the air purifier 3 to be described later, even in the gentle natural wind or windless state.
Moreover, as shown in FIG. 2, the wind cups 72 of the governor 7 and the magnetic rotary plates 5 are staggered so that the wind sequentially and consecutively encounters the wind cups 72 and the magnetic rotary plates 5. Thus, a continuous rotational force is transmitted to the central shaft 13.
The air purifier 3 is fixedly installed on a side of the top of the box-type housing 1 and is Y-shaped by including two air inlets 31, 31′ and one air outlet 32. One of the air inlets 31 is horizontally in line with the air outlet 32 while the other air inlet 31′ is formed to incline upward, so that a wind can be generated due to a change in ambient airflow resulting from drawn air streams and a discharged air stream. Further, a copper net 33, a silver net 34 and a hard charcoal/zeolite net 35 for purifying the polluted air are disposed to be spaced apart from one another at predetermined intervals within the air purifier so that the polluted air is caused to pass through them and to be purified. The blower 36 is interposed between the silver net 34 and the hard charcoal/zeolite net 35 so that the air is forced to be drawn and discharged. Mosquito nets 37, 37′ can be installed at the air inlets 31, 31′ to prevent insects from entering the air purifier.
Reference numeral 8, which has not yet been explained, designates a bearing for ensuring smooth rotation of the central shaft 13.
Next, the operation of the combination air purifier and wind generator according to the present invention will be described.
When the box-type housing 1 of the combination air purifier and wind generator is installed at a desired location such as the interior of a room or a roadside, a no-load state suitable for rotation of the central shaft 13 is achieved by means of the repulsive forces between the upper magnets 4′ in the magnetic rotary plates 5 and the lower magnets 4 attached to the box-type housing 1. Thus, even though a very gentle wind encounters the blower 6, the wind cups 72 of the governor 7 and the magnet rotary plates 5, the central shaft 13 immediately begins to be rotated and is further accelerated by the action of the repulsive forces between the lower and upper magnets 4, 4′. Accordingly, the desired electricity can be easily obtained through the electric generators 10.
In order to reduce loads and cause the rotational speed of the central shaft 13 to reach a normal rotational speed in a short time upon initial rotation of the central shaft 13, the wind cups 72 of the governor 7 are maintained in a state where they are pulled toward the central shaft 13 by the springs 75. The wind cups 72 are kept in the initial starting state without any change in their state so as to facilitate the rotation of the central shaft 13 until rated electricity is provided through normal electricity generation.
The initial rotation of the central shaft is facilitated even with the gentle wind by means of the repulsive forces between the lower and upper magnets 4, 4′, the inward positioned state of the wind cups 72, and the spherical blower 6. Further, the magnetic repulsive forces and the inward positioned state of the wind cups 72 continuously assist the central shaft 13, which has begun to be rotated, to cause its rotation speed to reach the rotational speed at which the desired rated electricity can be generated.
Meanwhile, if the intensity of the wind is increased in a state where the rotational speed of each electric generator 10 reaches a normal rotational speed, the rotational speed of the central shaft 13 is also increased and thus the electric generator may be burdened with an overload.
In order to protect the electric generator 10 against the overload, if the central shaft 13 is rotated with a rotational force larger than a predetermined rotational force, the wind cups 72 of the governor 7 are urged outward from the center of the central shaft 13 by centrifugal forces to reduce its rotational force. On the contrary, if the rotational force of the central shaft 13 begins to be reduced, the wind cups 72 are pulled toward the central shaft by means of the restoring forces of the springs 75 so as to reduce the centrifugal forces. Therefore, it is possible to always maintain the normal rotational speed of the central shaft 13.
Meanwhile, in the very gentle natural wind state or the windless state, the blower 36 of the air purifier 3 is operated using either electric power, which has been generated by the electric generators 10 and then stored, or separate electric power. With the operation of the blower 36, the ambient polluted air is caused to be introduced into the air inlets 31, 31′. This causes a change in airflow thereabouts which in turn generates a wind. The introduced polluted air is purified by passing through the copper net 33, the silver net 34 and the hard charcoal/zeolite net 35, which are disposed within the air purifier. The purified air is discharged and then causes the magnetic rotary plates 5 to be rotated as shown in FIG. 2. As the magnetic rotary plates 5 are rotated, the blower 6 and the governor 7 installed above the magnetic rotary plates are rotated together therewith to increase the rotational force. Finally, the central shaft 13 operates the electric generators 10 so that the electricity is generated.
STORAGE SYSTEMS:
The hybrid energy-storage system(HESS) contains two supercapacitors of different sizes and a switching circuit. An adaptive-learning switching algorithm controls the switching circuit. This algorithm predicts the available source energy and the period that the sensor node will remain in the high-energy area. The algorithm dynamically switches between the supercapacitors according to available ambient RF, Vibration, Solar, EM and Thermal energy. Extensive simulation and experiments evaluated the proposed method. The proposed system showed 40% and 80% efficiency over single supercapacitor system in terms of the amount of harvested energy and sensor coverage.
In a HESS typically one storage (ES1) is dedicated to cover “high power” demand, transients and fast load fluctuations and therefore is characterized by a fast response time, high efficiency and high cycle lifetime. The other storage (ES2) will be the “high energy” storage with a low self-discharge rate and lower energy specific installation costs .
Main advantages of a HESS are:
Reduction of total investment costs compared to a single storage system (due to a decoupling of energy and power, ES2 only has to cover average power demand)
Increase of total system efficiency (due to operation of ES2 at optimized, high efficiency operating points and reduction of dynamic losses of ES2)
Increase of storage and system lifetime (optimized operation and reduction of dynamic stress of ES2)
Energy storage coupling architecture in HESS used in MEPAP:
The coupling architecture in MEPAP consists of two DC/DC-converters. Here the parallel converter topology is very common. The additional DC/DC-converter associated with the “high-power” storage is in charge of the voltage regulation of the DC-bus. It helps to operate the “high-power” storage in a broader voltage band, and hereby the available storage capacity is better utilized.
Frequency decoupling used in MEPAP is well suited for real-time applications. It is accomplished by a simple low-pass filter or by advanced filter concepts based on wavelet or Fourier transform. The low frequency component supplies the set-point value of the power controller of ES2, the high frequency component is covered by ES1.
DESIGNS
PIEZOELECTRIC TRANSDUCER
ELECTRICITY from ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
Metasurfaces
MoS2 layer
RF CIRCUITS
Photovoltaic (PV) solar panel:
Thermoelectric Generator Module(TEG)
STORAGE SYSTEMS
RESEARCH TEST AND IMPACTS
RESEARCH TEST ON PIEZOELECTRIC MATERIAL AND ENERGY FROM VIBRATION:
RESEARCH TEST ON ENERGY HARVESTING FROM EM RADIATION,METAMATERIALS AND RECTENNA:
Output power Usually, the outcome of a WPH system is DC power, which is characterized by load voltage VDD and current IDD. Measuring open-load voltage demonstrates the performance of WPH in general since VDD and IDD depend on load impedance. If the load is a sensor, VDD is more important than IDD while in applications like electrolysis or LED, current is the dominant parameter
Comparison of power-harvesting antenna:
Comparison of voltage multiplier:
R as:
Pr= PtGtGr (λ/4πR)2
where Gt and Gr are antenna gains, and λ is the wavelength of the transmitted signal. The received signal strength, diminishes with the square of the distance, requires special sensitivity considerations in the circuit design. Moreover, FCC regulations limit the maximum transmission power in specific frequency bands. For example, in the 900 MHz band, this maximum threshold is 4 W. Even at this highest setting, the received power at a moderate distance of 20 m is attenuated down to only 10 μW.
(a) The concept of a Huygens’ metasurface [38]. (b) A loaded strip-loop unit cell. (c) A reflection less refracting bi-anisotropic metasurface tested using a quasi-optical system at 20 GHz. (d) Full-wave simulation of reflection less refraction for normal incidence to 71.8 degrees.
(a) A collimating Huygens’ metasurface lens. A ‘spider’ unit cell has been used. (b) Beam collimation in the E-plane at 35.2 GHz. Top view of the metasurface metallization pattern. (c) Concept of a cavity excited metasurface to synthesize arbitrary antenna patterns. (d) Synthesized one parameter Taylor’s distribution with side lobes <-20Db. Sketch of metamaterial converter for the generation of flying doughnut pulses. The metasurface consists of azimuthally oriented dipole resonators arranged in concentric rings. The inset at the bottom left of the figure shows a false color image of a flying doughnut pulse, experimentally generated by a plasmonic metasurface (fabricated by focused-ion-beam milling.
Schematics of TPV (a) and STPV (b) systems. Metasurface emitters are heated with the heat source (TPV) or with solar irradiance in STPV using broadband absorbers and the emission is used to power PV cells.
Waveform-dependent absorber which uses a diode bridge and RC circuit to selectively respond to the envelope of the incoming signal rather than simply its frequency.
Generic representation of a nonreciprocal metasurface, with bias field F0. (b) Magnetless transistor-loaded ring metamaterial particle, mimicking electron spin precession in ferrites, with current J0 operating as the biasing field. (c) Reflective Faraday ring metasurface based on the particle in (b). (Left) Perspective view of the metasurface structure. (Right) Faraday rotation angle versus frequency obtained theoretically from the equivalent magnetic Polder tensor (dashed and solid curves) and experimentally from the prototype shown in the insets (dots) .
(a) Calculated dispersion diagram of a coaxial cable loaded with circular metallic inclusions. (b) calculated effective index of refraction of a parallel-plate glide-symmetric structures .
RESEARCH TEST ON PHOTOVOLTAIC CELL AND SOLAR ENERGY
FF is determined by the relation Vmpp /Voc .
RESEARCH TEST FROM EXHAUST ENERGY(TEG MODULE)
Speed of the vehicle is the most important factor for the power generated by a TEG. For better Performance of TEG, speed of vehicle should be greater. As the exhaust temperature is higher, more energy is available for the conversion into electrical energy. There is increase in optimal length and reduction in optimal width based on dynamic optimization simulations when the Temperature of the exhaust increases.
The efficiency and power of a TEG remarkably depends on the temperature. Given figure shows the temperature of inlet and outlet when the engine is operated between 2500 rpm to 3400 rpm. As the engine speed increases, the temperature difference between the surfaces of TEM increases rapidly, hence the output power also increases.
It was found that there is a possibility of generating 1.4 kW of electricity form the heat recovery system in the exhaust of the car if the power produced by the engine is 150 kW and also found that it is possible to produce electricity of 5.9 MW by a waste heat energy recovery system of 500 MW of gas turbine power plant.
Another experiment has been performed for checking the power output of TEG by changing the speed of vehicle. The speed of the vehicle were 48.3, 80.6 and 112.7 km/hr and the result was the output power increased as speed of vehicle increases correspondingly mass flow rate of exhaust and inlet temperature increased as per the speed. At the speed of 80 km/hr, the power output with 72 mm * 4 mm TEM was 75 W.
Fig1. Variation in temperature due to variation in speed.
Fig2. Variation in power production.
TEG Power Generation Calculation:
The equation involved in calculation of the performance of a TEG is
Z = α2 / kR,
Z is a figure of merit of thermoelectric material, R is the electric resistivity
k is a thermal conductivity and
α is a Seebeck coefficient which is
α = ΔV / ΔT,
T ͞ is the average temperature of cold and hot plate of a TEM and when multiplied by Z it makes it Dimensionless.
ZT ͞ = α2 T ͞ /KR
And
T ͞ = (TH +TC ) / 2
As per the second law of thermodynamics,
ῃ = TH – TC / 2
The maximum efficiency of conversion of a TEG can be found using
The output efficiency of a TEG mainly depends on two variables: the temperature and MFR of exhaust. Maximum power output and corresponding heat transfer can be obtained by maximizing the
MFR ratio. As the size of a TEG increases, the output power also increases.
The awesome spectacle of a black hole ripping a star to shreds can be seen in this striking new visualization from the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), a particle accelerator lab in Hamburg, Germany.
Such events are known as stellar tidal disruptors, and they are fairly rare, occurring just once every 10,000 years in a typical galaxy, according to NASA. Stars are typically flung toward a ravenous black hole after interacting gravitationally with another star or massive object, only to become stretched and devoured should they come too close to the black hole’s maw in a process called spaghettification.
Gravitational tidal forces, similar to the ones that cause the moon to raise tides on Earth, are responsible for most of the destruction. At first, the star’s outer atmospheric layers will get pulled toward the black hole, spinning around its edge like water going down a drain and forming what’s known as an accretion disk, as the video depicts.
Surprisingly, the black hole only consumes about 1% of a star’s mass, according to NASA. The majority will actually get catapulted back out into space in the form of enormous jets of energy and matter that shoot from the black hole’s central region.
These jets can sometimes light up the cosmos, allowing astronomers on Earth to catch glimpses of distant black holes, which are otherwise mostly invisible. Tiny, ghostly particles called neutrinos will also be flung from the black hole, occasionally giving researchers insights into processes occurring during the consumption event.
Some of the star’s material does fall past the event horizon, the point after which nothing, including light, can escape. The visualization shows some of the strange optical effects that the event horizon produces, such as bending light so much that regions at the back of the accretion disk can be seen from its front.
Witnessing how swiftly the black hole dismembers and dispatches the star is an excellent reminder that no one should want to get anywhere near such a powerful object any time soon.
Chinese scientists are planning to fire more than 20 rockets into space to divert an asteroid impact that has a small chance of one day ending life on Earth.
Their target is an asteroid named Bennu, a 85.5-million-ton (77.5 million metric ton) space rock that is on track to swoop within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) of Earth’s orbit between 2175 and 2199. Although Bennu’s chances of striking Earth are slim — at just 1 in 2,700 — the asteroid is as wide as the Empire State Building is tall, meaning that any collision with the Earth would be cataclysmic.
The estimated kinetic energy of Bennu’s impact with Earth is 1,200 megatons, which is roughly 80,000 times greater than the energy of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. For comparison, the space rock that wiped out the dinosaurs delivered about 100 million megatons of energy.
Scientists at China’s National Space Science Center calculated that 23 Long March 5 rockets, each weighing 992 tons (900 metric tons), pushing against the rock simultaneously would be necessary to divert the asteroid away from a fatal course by nearly 6,000 miles (9,000 km) — 1.4 times the Earth’s radius. Their calculations are detailed in a new study published in the forthcoming Nov. 1 issue of the journal Icarus.
A mosaic image of the asteroid Bennu, taken by NASA’s OSIRIS-REX spacecraft. (Image credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)
“Asteroid impacts pose a major threat to all life on Earth,” Mingtao Li, space science engineer of the National Space Science Center in Beijing and lead author of the new study, wrote in the paper. “Deflecting an asteroid on an impact trajectory is critical to mitigating this threat.”
The Chinese scientists’ plan would sidestep the need to stop the asteroid by more direct, yet riskier, means — like the atomic bomb method popularized by Bruce Willis in the film “Armageddon.” In reality, nuking the incoming space rock would break it into multiple smaller chunks that could still collide with Earth, leading to devastating consequences.
The Chinese plan follows a similar, yet slightly more costly, past proposal made by the United States. The NASA plan, called Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response (HAMMER), would send a fleet of 30-foot-tall (9 meters) spacecraft with battering rams to bump the asteroid off course. NASA simulations suggest that 34-53 blows from HAMMER spacecraft, launched 10 years before Bennu collides with Earth, would be needed to shift the asteroid.
NASA and the ESA (European Space Agency) will be the first to test a novel asteroid nudging method in two joint missions launching November 24 of this year. The DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirection) will send a spacecraft to arrive a year later at the 7 million mile (11 million kilometer) distant Didymos asteroid system. Once there, the NASA spacecraft will slam into Didymos’s moonlet — a rock in orbit around the asteroid. The ESA’s mission, Hera, will then monitor how DART has budged the moonlet off-course.
Bennu is a B-type asteroid, which means that it contains high amounts of carbon and, potentially, many of the primordial molecules present when life emerged on Earth. NASA already sent a spacecraft, called Osiris-Rex, in pursuit of samples from the asteroid. Osiris-Rex arrived above Bennu in October 2020, floating above it for long enough to collect loose pieces from its surface with its 10-foot (3 m) arm. Osiris-Rex is expected to return to Earth with its spoils in 2023.
Long March 5 rockets are the workhorses of China’s space program, completing most of the deliveries to China’s space station and launching Chinese probes to Mars and the moon. The rockets have caused concern in the past due to their uncontrolled reentry to Earth. In May, the 22-ton (20 metric ton) section of a Long March 5 rocket fell to Earth, either burning up or landing in the sea near the Arabian peninsula. In May 2020, fragments from a previous March 5 rocket were believed to have crashed into two villages in the Ivory Coast.
Long March 5 rockets are the workhorses of China’s space program, completing most of the deliveries to China’s space station and launching Chinese probes to Mars and the moon. The rockets have caused concern in the past due to their uncontrolled reentry to Earth. In May, the 22-ton (20 metric ton) section of a Long March 5 rocket fell to Earth, either burning up or landing in the sea near the Arabian peninsula. In May 2020, fragments from a previous March 5 rocket were believed to have crashed into two villages in the Ivory Coast.
On July 11, Virgin Galactic will make a giant leap toward commercial suborbital spaceflight. The company will launch its first fully crewed flight of its SpaceShipTwo space plane Unity with a special passenger on board: the company’s billionaire founder Richard Branson.
Branson, three crewmates and two pilots will launch on the historic flight after being carried into launch position by Virgin Galactic’s carrier plane VMS Eve. They will take off from the company’s homeport of Spaceport America in New Mexico, with a live webcast chronicling the flight. Here’s everything you need to know about the mission, which Virgin Galactic has dubbed Unity 22.
WHAT TIME IS VIRGIN’S GALACTIC LAUNCH & AND CAN I WATCH?
Virgin Galactic has not released a specific time for the actual Unity 22 launch, but the company has announced it will begin webcasting the mission at 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT). And it looks like it’s going to be fun. The crew will walk out to the ship about an hour earlier.
Stephen Colbert, host of The Late Show on CBS, will host the webcast along with singer Khalid (who will debut a new single during the launch), former Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield and future Virgin Galactic astronaut Kellie Gerardi, who will launch on a research flight in 2022.
The webcast will begin with the Unity spacecraft and its carrier plane taking off from its runway at Spaceport America, which is located 55 miles (88 kilometers) north of Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Branson has stated that the entire flight will take about 90 minutes, including the ascent up to launch position, release, flight to space and glide back to Earth for a runway landing at Spaceport America.
Virgin Galactic will launch six people on the Unity 22 flight, although the spacecraft is designed to carry up to eight people (two pilots and six passengers).
Unity 22’s crew includes four mission specialists:
Sirisha Bandla, Vice President of Government Affairs and Research Operations at Virgin Galactic. She will evaluate the human-tended research experience via an experiment from the University of Florida that requires several handheld fixation tubes to be activated at various points in the flight profile.
Colin Bennett, Lead Operations Engineer at Virgin Galactic. He will evaluate cabin equipment, procedures and the experience during the boost phase and weightless environment inside Unity.
Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic. Branson will evaluate the private astronaut experience. He will receive the same training, preparation and flight as Virgin Galactic’s future ticket-buying astronauts and use the flight to fine ways to enhance the experience for customers.
Beth Moses, Chief Astronaut Instructor at Virgin Galactic. She will serve as cabin lead and test director in space. Her tasks include overseeing the safe execution of the test flight objectives. Moses has launched on Unity before.
Two veteran Virgin Galactic pilots will be at the helm of Unity during the launch. They have both launched to space on Unity before and are:
Dave Mackay: Mackay is Virgin Galactic’s chief pilot and grew up in the highlands of Scotland. He is a former Royal Air Force pilot and flew for Branson’s airline company Virgin Atlantic before joining Virgin Galactic.
Michael Masucci: Michael “Sooch” Masucci is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who joined Virgin Galactic in 2013 who racked up over 9,000 flying hours in 70 different types of airplanes and gliders during more than 30 years of civilian and military flight.
Two other pilots will fly the VMS EVE carrier plane that will carry SpaceShipTwo into launch altitude. They are:
Frederick “CJ” Sturckow: A former NASA space shuttle commander who joined Virgin Galactic in 2013 with Masucci. A retired Marine Corps colonel, he was the first NASA astronaut to join the company and flew four space shuttle missions.
Kelly Latimer: Latimer is a test pilot and retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force who joined Virgin Galactic’s pilot corps in 2015. She was the first female research test pilot to join what is now NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Centre.
The primary objective for Unity 22 is to serve as a test flight for future passenger flights by Virgin Galactic. As its number suggests, this will be the 22nd flight of Unity, but only its fourth launch to space.
The four mission specialists will each evaluate different experiences that Virgin Galactic has promised its future customers, many of whom have already reserved trips to space with the company at $250,000 a seat.
Bandla, for example, will test the experience of performing experiments aboard Unity during different phases of the flight, including the weightless period. Branson will take note of the flight as a paying passenger to look for ways to enhance the trip for ticket holders looking for the experience of a lifetime.
Moses is Virgin Galactic’s Chief Astronaut Trainer and will ensure everyone is safe in their tests while Bennet will examine Unity’s cabin performance to look for potential enhancements.
This mission is a critical flight or Virgin Galactic, which Branson founded in 2004. VSS Unity is the company’s second SpaceShipTwo after the first, VSS Enterprise, broke apart during a 2014 test flight, killing one pilot and seriously injuring another. Virgin Galactic has made numerous safety upgrades to prevent such an accident from happening again.
The mission will begin with takeoff from Spaceport America, where Virgin Galactic has built its “Gateway to Space” terminal to serve its future customers. The crews of Unity and Eve will walk out to their vehicles at about 8 a.m. EDT (6 a.m. local time, 1200 GMT). They’ll be wearing custom Under Armour flight suits made for Virgin Galactic.
After takeoff, the carrier plane VMS EVE will haul the SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity (short for Virgin Space Ship) to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters), when it will drop the the spacecraft.
Virgin Galactic’s first test passenger Beth Moses looks out the window of the VSS Unity during a test flight with pilots Dave Mackay and Michael “Sooch” Masucci, on Feb. 22, 2018. (Image credit: Virgin Galactic)
After separation, Unity will ignite its hybrid rocket motor, which uses a mixture of solid and liquid propellant, to begin the boost phase. This will carry Unity to its target altitude above 50 miles (80 kilometers), where the pilots and crew can expect up to 4 minutes of weightlessness. They will exist their seats and enjoy sweeping views of the Earth below through the many round windows that dot the space plane’s fuselage.
After that short encounter with weightlessness, the crew will climb back into their seats as Unity prepares to return to Earth. Pilots Mackay and Masucci will have “feathered” the spacectraft’s twin tail booms to provide stability during atmospheric reentry.
The feathered tail will then be locked back into place for the glide back to Earth, which will end with a runway landing at Spaceport America. The entire flight, from takeoff to landing, should last about 90 minutes, Branson has said.
WILL VIRGIN GALACTIC REALLY REACH SPACE WITH UNITY 22?
Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity spaceliner captured this view of Earth during the vehicle’s first trip to space, on Dec. 13, 2018. (Image credit: Virgin Galactic)
Virgin Galactic will launch Unity to an altitude above 50 miles (80 km), which NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. military classify as space. They will earn astronaut wings for reaching that height.
Another widely recognized boundary of space, the Kármán line, is at an altitude at 62 miles (100 km) above Earth. The SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity won’t reach this milestone, which has led Virgin Galactic’s competitor Blue Origin (which does fly higher than 62 miles) to call out Virgin Galactic for missing that mark.
WHERE DOES VIRGIN GALACTIC LAUNCH SPACESHIPTWO FROM?
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Virgin Galactic initially launched SpaceShipTwo test flights from the company’s facilities at Mojave Air and Space Port in California. However, in 2020 the company moved Unity and its carrier craft to its permanent home at Spaceport America, where it plans to fly regular passenger flights beginning in 2022.
Spaceport America is located near Las Cruces, New Mexico and is home to Virgin Galactic’s “Gateway to Space” terminal, a welcome center and waiting room for ticketed passengers preparing for trips to space. It also sports a large hangar designed to fit multiple SpaceShipTwo spaceplanes and the VMS Eve. Virgin Galactic has also built a new vehicle, the SpaceShip III VSS Imagine.
WHEN COULD I LAUNCH TO SPACE WITH VIRGIN GALACTIC?
If you booked a trip with Virgin Galactic early and have one of the first reservations, you may get your chance to fly in space as early as 2022. If not, there’s a long wait ahead. And that’s assuming you can afford the $250,000 ticket price.
Virgin Galactic has said it plans to begin passenger launches in 2022 after a series of final test flights in 2021. The company does have hundreds of reservations for customer flights in backlog from eager would-be astronauts that have been waiting for over 17 years (since Richard Branson first announced Virgin Galactic in 2004) for the SpaceShipTwo to finally fly. The company paused taking new reservations after the 2014 accident.
Virgin Galactic is expected to resume taking reservations for “a limited number of tickets for future spaceflights” sometime this year, according to its website.
Alpha Centauri is the third-brightest star in our night sky – a famous southern star – and the nearest star system to our sun. Through a small telescope, the single star we see as Alpha Centauri resolves into a double star. This pair is just 4.37 light-years away from us. In orbit around them is Proxima Centauri, too faint to be visible to the unaided eye. At a distance of 4.25 light years, Proxima is the closest-known star to our solar system. Science of the Alpha Centauri system. The two stars that make up Alpha Centauri, Rigil Kentaurus and Toliman, are quite similar to our sun. Rigil Kentaurus, also known as Alpha Centauri A, is a yellowish star, slightly more massive than the sun and about 1.5 times brighter. Toliman, or Alpha Centauri B, has an orangish hue; it’s a bit less massive and half as bright as the sun. Studies of their mass and spectroscopic features indicate that both these stars are about 5 to 6 billion years old, slightly older than our sun.
Alpha Centauri A and B are gravitationally bound together, orbiting about a common center of mass every 79.9 years at a relatively close proximity, between 40 to 47 astronomical units (that is, 40 to 47 times the distance between the Earth and our sun).Must Watch Sky Events in 2021
In comparison, Proxima Centauri is a bit of an outlier. This dim reddish star, weighing in at just 12 percent of the sun’s mass, is currently about 13,000 astronomical units from Alpha Centauri A and B. Recent analysis of ground- and space-based data, published in 2017, has shown that Proxima is gravitationally bound to its bright companions, with a 550,000-year-long orbital period.
Proxima Centauri belongs to a class of low mass stars with cooler surface temperatures, known as red dwarfs. It’s also what’s know as a flare star, where it randomly displays sudden bursts of brightness due to strong magnetic activity.
In the past decade, astronomers have been searching for planets around the Alpha Centauri stars; they are, after all, the closest stars to us so the odds of detecting planets, if any existed, would be higher. So far, two planets have been found orbiting Proxima Centauri, one in 2016 and another in 2019. A paper published in February 2021 reported tantalizing evidence of a Neptune-sized planet around Alpha Centauri A, but so far, it has not been definitively confirmed.
How to see Alpha Centauri. Unluckily for many of us in the Northern Hemisphere, Alpha Centauri is located too far to the south on the sky’s dome. Most North Americans never see it; the cut-off latitude is about 29° north, and anyone north of that is out of luck. In the U.S. that latitudinal line passes near Houston and Orlando, but even from the Florida Keys, the star never rises more than a few degrees above the southern horizon. Things are a little better in Hawaii and Puerto Rico, where it can get 10° or 11° high.
But for observers located far enough south in the Northern Hemisphere, Alpha Centauri may be visible at roughly 1 a.m. (local daylight saving time) in early May. That is when the star is highest above the southern horizon. By early July, it reaches its highest point to the south at nightfall. Even so, from these vantage points, there are no good pointer stars to Alpha Centauri. For those south of 29° N. latitude, when the bright star Arcturus is high overhead, look to the extreme south for a glimpse of Alpha Centauri.
The southern constellation Centaurus. Image via Wikimedia/ International Astronomical Union/ SkyandTelescope.com.
Observers in the tropical and subtropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere can find Alpha Centauri by first identifying the distinctive Southern Cross. A short line drawn through the crossbar (Delta and Beta Crucis) eastward first comes to Hadar (Beta Centauri), then Alpha Centauri. Meanwhile, in Australia and much of the Southern Hemisphere, Alpha Centauri is circumpolar, meaning that it never sets.
In this image taken at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, the Southern Cross is clearly visible, with the yellowish star, closest to the dome, marking the top of the cross. Drawing a line downward through the crossbar stars takes you to the bluish star, Beta Centauri, and then to the yellowish Alpha Centauri. Image via ESO / Wikimedia Commons.
Alpha Centauri in mythology. Alpha Centauri has played a prominent role in the mythology of cultures across the Southern Hemisphere. For the Ngarrindjeri indigenous people of South Australia, Alpha and Beta Centauri were two sharks pursuing a sting ray represented by stars of the Southern Cross. Some Australian aboriginal cultures also associated stars with family relationships and marriage traditions; for instance, two stars of the Southern Cross were through to be the parents of Alpha Centauri.
Astronomy and navigation were deeply intertwined in the lives of ancient seafaring Polynesians as they sailed between islands in the vast expanse of the South Pacific. These ancient mariners navigated using the stars, with cues from nature such as bird movements, waves, and wind direction. Alpha Centauri and nearby Beta Centauri, known as Kamailehope and Kamailemua, respectively, were important signposts used for orientation in the open ocean.
For ancient Incas, a llama graced the sky, traced out by stars and dark dust lanes in the Milky Way from Scorpius to the Southern Cross, with Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri representing its eyes.
A plaque at the Coricancha museum showing Inca constellations. Coricancha, located in Cusco, Peru, was perhaps the most important temple of the Inca empire. Image via Pi3.124 / Wikimedia Commons.
Ancient Egyptians revered Alpha Centauri, and may have built temples aligned to its rising point. In southern China, it was part of a star group known as the South Gate.
Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the constellation Centaurus, named after the mythical half human, half horse creature. It was thought to represent an uncharacteristically wise centaur that figured in the mythology of Heracles and Jason. The centaur was accidentally wounded by Heracles, and placed into the sky after death by Zeus. Alpha Centauri marked the right front hoof of the centaur, although little is known of its mythological significance, if any.
A depiction of the Centaur by Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in his atlas of constellations, Firmamentum Sobiescianum, sive Uranographia. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Alpha Centauri’s position is RA: 14h 39m 36s, Dec: -60° 50′ 02″
Bottom line: Alpha Centauri is actually two binary stars that are quite similar to our sun. A third star that’s gravitationally bound to them is Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our sun.
NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun-like star. This discovery and the introduction of 11 other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark another milestone in the journey to finding another “Earth.”
The newly discovered Kepler-452b is the smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone — the area around a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet — of a G2-type star, like our sun. The confirmation of Kepler-452b brings the total number of confirmed planets to 1,030.
“On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0.”
Kepler-452b is 60 percent larger in diameter than Earth and is considered a super-Earth-size planet. While its mass and composition are not yet determined, previous research suggests that planets the size of Kepler-452b have a good chance of being rocky.
Highlighted are 12 new planet candidates from the seventh Kepler planet candidate catalog that are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit in the stars’ habitable zoneCredits: NASA Ames/W. StenzelTwelve New Small Kepler Habitable Zone Candidates
There are 4,696 planet candidates now known with the release of the seventh Kepler planet candidate catalog – an increase of 521 since the release of the previous catalog in January 2015.Credits: NASA/W. StenzelRead more…
While Kepler-452b is larger than Earth, its 385-day orbit is only 5 percent longer. The planet is 5 percent farther from its parent star Kepler-452 than Earth is from the Sun. Kepler-452 is 6 billion years old, 1.5 billion years older than our sun, has the same temperature, and is 20 percent brighter and has a diameter 10 percent larger.
“We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, biggercousin to Earth, providing an opportunity to understand and reflect upon Earth’s evolving environment,” said Jon Jenkins, Kepler data analysis lead at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, who led the team that discovered Kepler-452b. “It’s awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star; longer than Earth. That’s substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet.”
To help confirm the finding and better determine the properties of the Kepler-452 system, the team conducted ground-based observations at the University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory, the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona, and the W. M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. These measurements were key for the researchers to confirm the planetary nature of Kepler-452b, to refine the size and brightness of its host star and to better pin down the size of the planet and its orbit.
The Kepler-452 system is located 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. The research paper reporting this finding has been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal.
In addition to confirming Kepler-452b, the Kepler team has increased the number of new exoplanet candidates by 521 from their analysis of observations conducted from May 2009 to May 2013, raising the number of planet candidates detected by the Kepler mission to 4,696. Candidates require follow-up observations and analysis to verify they are actual planets.
Twelve of the new planet candidates have diameters between one to two times that of Earth, and orbit in their star’s habitable zone. Of these, nine orbit stars that are similar to our sun in size and temperature.
“We’ve been able to fully automate our process of identifying planet candidates, which means we can finally assess every transit signal in the entire Kepler dataset quickly and uniformly,” said Jeff Coughlin, Kepler scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, who led the analysis of a new candidate catalog. “This gives astronomers a statistically sound population of planet candidates to accurately determine the number of small, possibly rocky planets like Earth in our Milky Way galaxy.”
These findings, presented in the seventh Kepler Candidate Catalog, will be submitted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. These findings are derived from data publicly available on the NASA Exoplanet Archive.
Scientists now are producing the last catalog based on the original Kepler mission’s four-year data set. The final analysis will be conducted using sophisticated software that is increasingly sensitive to the tiny telltale signatures of Earth-size planets.
Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
For more information about the Kepler mission, visit:
Astrophysics is a branch of space science that applies the laws of physics and chemistry to explain the birth, life and death of stars, planets, galaxies, nebulae and other objects in the universe. It has two sibling sciences, astronomy and cosmology, and the lines between them blur.
In the most rigid sense: Astronomy measures positions, luminosities, motions and other characteristics Astrophysics creates physical theories of small to medium-size structures in the universe Cosmology does this for the largest structures, and the universe as a whole.
In practice, the three professions form a tight-knit family. Ask for the position of a nebula or what kind of light it emits, and the astronomer might answer first. Ask what the nebula is made of and how it formed and the astrophysicist will pipe up. Ask how the data fit with the formation of the universe, and the cosmologist would probably jump in. But watch out — for any of these questions, two or three may start talking at once! Goals of astrophysics Astrophysicists seek to understand the universe and our place in it. At NASA, the goals of astrophysics are “to discover how the universe works, explore how it began and evolved, and search for life on planets around other stars,” according NASA’s website.
NASA states that those goals produce three broad questions:
How does the universe work?
How did we get here?
Are we alone?
It began with Newton
While astronomy is one of the oldest sciences, theoretical astrophysics began with Isaac Newton. Prior to Newton, astronomers described the motions of heavenly bodies using complex mathematical models without a physical basis. Newton showed that a single theory simultaneously explains the orbits of moons and planets in space and the trajectory of a cannonball on Earth. This added to the body of evidence for the (then) startling conclusion that the heavens and Earth are subject to the same physical laws.
Perhaps what most completely separated Newton’s model from previous ones is that it is predictive as well as descriptive. Based on aberrations in the orbit of Uranus, astronomers predicted the position of a new planet, which was then observed and named Neptune. Being predictive as well as descriptive is the sign of a mature science, and astrophysics is in this category.
Milestones in astrophysics
Because the only way we interact with distant objects is by observing the radiation they emit, much of astrophysics has to do with deducing theories that explain the mechanisms that produce this radiation, and provide ideas for how to extract the most information from it. The first ideas about the nature of stars emerged in the mid-19th century from the blossoming science of spectral analysis, which means observing the specific frequencies of light that particular substances absorb and emit when heated. Spectral analysis remains essential to the triumvirate of space sciences, both guiding and testing new theories.
Early spectroscopy provided the first evidence that stars contain substances also present on Earth. Spectroscopy revealed that some nebulae are purely gaseous, while some contain stars. This later helped cement the idea that some nebulae were not nebulae at all — they were other galaxies!
In the early 1920s, Cecilia Payne discovered, using spectroscopy, that stars are predominantly hydrogen (at least until their old age). The spectra of stars also allowed astrophysicists to determine the speed at which they move toward or away from Earth. Just like the sound a vehicle emits is different moving toward us or away from us, because of the Doppler shift, the spectra of stars will change in the same way. In the 1930s, by combining the Doppler shift and Einstein’s theory of general relativity, Edwin Hubble provided solid evidence that the universe is expanding. This is also predicted by Einstein’s theory, and together form the basis of the Big Bang Theory.
Also in the mid-19th century, the physicists Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) and Gustav Von Helmholtz speculated that gravitational collapse could power the sun, but eventually realized that energy produced this way would only last 100,000 years. Fifty years later, Einstein’s famous E=mc2 equation gave astrophysicists the first clue to what the true source of energy might be (although it turns out that gravitational collapse does play an important role). As nuclear physics, quantum mechanics and particle physics grew in the first half of the 20th century, it became possible to formulate theories for how nuclear fusion could power stars. These theories describe how stars form, live and die, and successfully explain the observed distribution of types of stars, their spectra, luminosities, ages and other features.
Astrophysics is the physics of stars and other distant bodies in the universe, but it also hits close to home. According to the Big Bang Theory, the first stars were almost entirely hydrogen. The nuclear fusion process that energizes them smashes together hydrogen atoms to form the heavier element helium. In 1957, the husband-and-wife astronomer team of Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge, along with physicists William Alfred Fowler and Fred Hoyle, showed how, as stars age, they produce heavier and heavier elements, which they pass on to later generations of stars in ever-greater quantities. It is only in the final stages of the lives of more recent stars that the elements making up the Earth, such as iron (32.1 percent), oxygen (30.1 percent), silicon (15.1 percent), are produced. Another of these elements is carbon, which together with oxygen, make up the bulk of the mass of all living things, including us. Thus, astrophysics tells us that, while we are not all stars, we are all stardust.
Astrophysics as a career
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Becoming an astrophysicist requires years of observation, training and work. But you can start becoming involved in a small way even in elementary and high school, by joining astronomy clubs, attending local astronomy events, taking free online courses in astronomy and astrophysics, and keeping up with news in the field on a website such as Space.com.
In college, students should aim to (eventually) complete a doctorate in astrophysics, and then take on a post-doctoral position in astrophysics. Astrophysicists can work for the government, university labs and, occasionally, private organizations.
Take math and science classes all through high school. Make sure to take a wide variety of science classes. Astronomy and astrophysics often blend elements of biology, chemistry and other sciences to better understand phenomena in the universe. Also keep an eye out for any summer jobs or internships in math or science. Even volunteer work can help bolster your resume.
Pursue a math- or science-related bachelor’s degree. While a bachelor in astrophysics is the ideal, there are many other paths to that field. You can do undergraduate study in computer science, for example, which is important to help you analyze data. It’s best to speak to your high school guidance counselor or local university to find out what degree programs will help you.
Take on research opportunities. Many universities have labs in which students participate in discoveries — and sometimes even get published. Agencies such as NASA also offer internships from time to time.
Finish a doctorate in astrophysics. A Ph.D. is a long haul, but the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics points out that most astrophysicists do have a doctoral degree. Make sure to include courses in astronomy, computer science, mathematics, physics and statistics to have a wide base of knowledge.
Natalie Hinkel, a planetary astrophysicist who was then at Arizona State University, gave a lengthy interview with Lifehacker in 2015 that provided a glimpse into the rewards and challenges of being a junior astrophysics researcher. She described the long number of years she has put into doing her research, the frequent job switches, her work hours and what it’s like to be a woman in a competitive field. She also had an interesting insight about what she actually did day to day. Very little of her time is spent at the telescope.
“I spend the vast majority of my time programming. Most people assume that astronomers spend all of their time at telescopes, but that’s only a very small fraction of the job, if at all. I do some observations, but in the past few years I’ve only been observing twice for a total of about two weeks,” Hinkel told Lifehacker.
“Once you get the data, you have to reduce it (i.e. take out the bad parts and process it for real information), usually combine it with other data in order to see the whole picture, and then write a paper about your findings. Since each observation run typically yields data from multiple stars, you don’t need to spend all of your time at the telescope to have enough work.”
Device for harnessing terahertz radiation might help power some portable electronics.
Terahertz waves are electromagnetic radiation with a frequency somewhere between microwaves and infrared light. Also known as “T-rays,” they are produced by almost anything that registers a temperature, including our own bodies and the inanimate objects around us.
Terahertz waves are pervasive in our daily lives, and if harnessed, their concentrated power could potentially serve as an alternate energy source. However, to date there has been no practical way to capture and convert them into any usable form.
Now physicists at MIT have come up with a blueprint for a device they believe would be able to convert terahertz waves into a direct current, a form of electricity that powers many household electronics.
Their design takes advantage of the quantum mechanical, or atomic behavior of the carbon material graphene. They found that by combining graphene with another material, in this case, boron nitride, the electrons in graphene should skew their motion toward a common direction. Any incoming terahertz waves should “shuttle” graphene’s electrons, like so many tiny air traffic controllers, to flow through the material in a single direction, as a direct current.
The researchers have published their results today in the journal Science Advances, and are working with experimentalists to turn their design into a physical device.
“We are surrounded by electromagnetic waves,” says lead author Hiroki Isobe, a postdoc in MIT’s Materials Research Laboratory. “If we can convert that energy into an energy source we can use for daily life, that would help to address the energy challenges we are facing right now.”
Isobe’s co-authors are Liang Fu, the Lawrence C. and Sarah W. Biedenharn Career Development Associate Professor of Physics at MIT; and Su-yang Xu, a former MIT postdoc who is now an assistant professor chemistry at Harvard University.
Breaking graphene’s symmetry
Over the last decade, scientists have looked for ways to harvest and convert ambient energy into usable electrical energy. They have done so mainly through rectifiers, devices that are designed to convert electromagnetic waves from their oscillating (alternating) current to direct current.
Most rectifiers are designed to convert low-frequency waves such as radio waves, using an electrical circuit with diodes to generate an electric field that can steer radio waves through the device as a DC current. These rectifiers only work up to a certain frequency, and have not been able to accommodate the terahertz range.
A few experimental technologies that have been able to convert terahertz waves into DC current do so only at ultracold temperatures — setups that would be difficult to implement in practical applications.
Instead of turning electromagnetic waves into a DC current by applying an external electric field in a device, Isobe wondered whether, at a quantum mechanical level, a material’s own electrons could be induced to flow in one direction, in order to steer incoming terahertz waves into a DC current.
Such a material would have to be very clean, or free of impurities, in order for the electrons in the material to flow through without scattering off irregularities in the material. Graphene, he found, was the ideal starting material.
To direct graphene’s electrons to flow in one direction, he would have to break the material’s inherent symmetry, or what physicists call “inversion.” Normally, graphene’s electrons feel an equal force between them, meaning that any incoming energy would scatter the electrons in all directions, symmetrically. Isobe looked for ways to break graphene’s inversion and induce an asymmetric flow of electrons in response to incoming energy.
Looking through the literature, he found that others had experimented with graphene by placing it atop a layer of boron nitride, a similar honeycomb lattice made of two types of atoms — boron and nitrogen. They found that in this arrangement, the forces between graphene’s electrons were knocked out of balance: Electrons closer to boron felt a certain force while electrons closer to nitrogen experienced a different pull. The overall effect was what physicists call “skew scattering,” in which clouds of electrons skew their motion in one direction.
Isobe developed a systematic theoretical study of all the ways electrons in graphene might scatter in combination with an underlying substrate such as boron nitride, and how this electron scattering would affect any incoming electromagnetic waves, particularly in the terahertz frequency range.
He found that electrons were driven by incoming terahertz waves to skew in one direction, and this skew motion generates a DC current, if graphene were relatively pure. If too many impurities did exist in graphene, they would act as obstacles in the path of electron clouds, causing these clouds to scatter in all directions, rather than moving as one.
“With many impurities, this skewed motion just ends up oscillating, and any incoming terahertz energy is lost through this oscillation,” Isobe explains. “So we want a clean sample to effectively get a skewed motion.”
One direction
They also found that the stronger the incoming terahertz energy, the more of that energy a device can convert to DC current. This means that any device that converts T-rays should also include a way to concentrate those waves before they enter the device.
With all this in mind, the researchers drew up a blueprint for a terahertz rectifier that consists of a small square of graphene that sits atop a layer of boron nitride and is sandwiched within an antenna that would collect and concentrate ambient terahertz radiation, boosting its signal enough to convert it into a DC current.
“This would work very much like a solar cell, except for a different frequency range, to passively collect and convert ambient energy,” Fu says.
The team has filed a patent for the new “high-frequency rectification” design, and the researchers are working with experimental physicists at MIT to develop a physical device based on their design, which should be able to work at room temperature, versus the ultracold temperatures required for previous terahertz rectifiers and detectors.
“If a device works at room temperature, we can use it for many portable applications,” Isobe says.
He envisions that, in the near future, terahertz rectifiers may be used, for instance, to wirelessly power implants in a patient’s body, without requiring surgery to change an implant’s batteries.
“We are taking a quantum material with some asymmetry at the atomic scale, that can now be utilized, which opens up a lot of possibilities,” Fu says.
This research was funded in part by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the U.S. Army Research Office through the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN).
Liquid water may still flow on Mars, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to spot. The search for water on the Red Planet has taken more than 15 years to turn up definitive signs that liquid flows on the surface today. In the past, however, rivers and oceans may have covered the land. Where did all of the liquid water go? Why? How much of it still remains?
Observations of the Red Planet indicate that rivers and oceans may have been prominent features in its early history. Billions of years ago, Mars was a warm and wet world that could have supported microbial life in some regions. But the planet is smaller than Earth, with less gravity and a thinner atmosphere. Over time, as liquid water evaporated, more and more of it escaped into space, allowing less to fall back to the surface of the planet.
Where is the water today?
Liquid water appears to flow from some steep, relatively warm slopes on the Martian surface. Features known as recurring slope lineae (RSL) were first identified in 2011in images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The dark streaks, which appear seasonally, were confirmed to be signs of salty water running on the surface of the planet.
“If this is correct, then RSL on Mars may represent the surface expression of a far more significant ongoing drainage system on steep slopes in the mid-latitudes,” a research team member told Space.com in 2012.
“The detection of hydrated salts on these slopes means that water plays a vital role in the formation of these streaks,” the study’s lead author, Lujendra Ojha, of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, said in a statement. Vast deposits of water appear to be trapped within the ice caps at the north and south poles of the planet. Each summer, as temperatures increase, the caps shrink slightly as their contents skip straight from solid to gas form, but in the winter, cooler temperatures cause them to grow to latitudes as low as 45 degrees, or halfway to the equator. The caps are an average of 2 miles (3 kilometers) thick and, if completely melted, could cover the Martian surface with about 18 feet (5.6 meters) of water.
Frozen water also lies beneath the surface. Scientists discovered a slab of ice as large as California and Texas combined in the region between the equator and north pole of the Red Planet. The presence of subsurface water has long been suspected but required the appearance of strange layered craters to confirm. Other regions of the planet may contain frozen water, as well. Some high-latitude regions seem to boast patterned ground-shapes that may have formed as permafrost in the soil freezes and thaws over time.
The European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft captured images of sheets of ice in the cooler, shadowed bottoms of craters, which suggests that liquid water can pool under appropriate conditions. Other craters identified by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show similar pooling.
Evidence for water on Mars first came to light in 2000, with the appearance of gullies that suggested a liquid origin. Their formation has been hotly debated over the ensuing years.
But not everyone thinks that Mars contains water today. New research reveals that RSL may actually have formed by granular flows formed by the movement of sand and dust.
“We’ve thought of RSL as possible liquid water flows, but the slopes are more like what we expect for dry sand,” lead author Colin Dundas said in a statement. “This new understanding of RLS supports other evidence that shows that Mars today is very dry.”
That idea may have been washed away by the recent discovery of a possible subsurface lake near the Martian South Pole.
An underground lake?
Researchers made a big splash when they announced that Mars might be hiding a lake beneath its southern pole. The European Mars Express spacecraft used its Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) to detect the proposed water. Ground-penetrating radar sent radar pulses to the surface, then timed how long it took for them to be reflected. The properties of the subsurface layers affect how long it takes for the beams to return.
MARSIS’ investigation revealed that the Martian south pole is composed of multiple layers of ice and dust to a depth of about nearly 1 mile (1.5 kilometers) spread over a 124-mile-wide (200 km) region.
“This subsurface anomaly on Mars has radar properties matching water or water-rich sediments,” Roberto Orosei, principal investigator of the MARSIS experiment and lead author of the new research, said in a statement.
MARSIS also revealed the presence of a subsurface lake among the pockets. According to the radar echoes, the lake is no more than 12.5 miles (20 km) across, buried nearly a mile beneath the surface. The scientists aren’t certain of the lake’s depth, but they have confirmed that it is at least 3 feet (1 meter) deep. According to the researchers, the lake must have salt to keep from freezing.
“This is just one small study area; it is an exciting prospect to think there could be more of these underground pockets of water elsewhere, yet to be discovered,” Orosei said.
Not all researchers are as certain about the presence of liquid water.
“I think it’s a very, very persuasive argument, but it’s not a conclusive or definitive argument,” Steve Clifford, a Mars researcher at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, told Space.com. “There’s always the possibility that conditions that we haven’t foreseen exist at the base of the cap and are responsible for this bright reflection.”
More than three decades ago, Clifford proposed that Mars could harbor liquid water beneath its polar caps in the same way that Earth does. On Earth, lakes beneath the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are created when heat from within the planets melt the glaciers in patches. Clifford told Space.com that a similar scenario could happen beneath the Martian polar ice caps.
“The bright spot seen in the MARSIS data is an unusual feature and extremely intriguing,” Jim Green, NASA’s chief scientist, said in a statement. “It definitely warrants further study. Additional lines of evidence should be pursued to test the interpretation.”
“We hope to use other instruments to study it further in the future,” Green said.
Liquid gold
Water may seem like a very common element to those of us stuck on Earth, but it has great value. In addition to understanding how Mars may have changed and developed over time, scientists hope that finding water will help them to find something even more valuable — life, either past or present.
Only Earth is known to host life, and life on our planet requires water. Though life could conceivably evolve without relying on this precious liquid, scientists can only work with what they know. Thus they hope that locating water on celestial bodies such as Mars will lead to finding evidence for life.
With this in mind, NASA developed a strategy for exploring the Red Planet that takes as its mantra “follow the water.” Recent orbiters, landers, and rovers sent to Mars were designed to search for water, rather than life, in the hopes of finding environments where life could have thrived.
That has changed, however, with the flood of evidence these robots have returned. Curiosity determined that Mars could indeed have supported microbial life in the ancient past, and the next NASA rover — a car-size robot-based heavily on Curiosity’s basic design — will blast off in 2020 to look for evidence of past Red Planet life.
The dog wears a harness with a microphone that picks up its barks. The barks get processed through a device that determines what the dog is saying and then outputs it through speakers.
Raspberry Pi Zero is the affordable brain powering NerdStoke’s solution to this age-old human-and-pup problem. But writing code that could translate the multitude of frequencies coming out of a dog’s mouth when it barks was a trickier problem. NerdStoke tried to work it through on Twitch with fellow hobbyists, but alas, the original dream had to be modified.
The kit worked fine – it was the coding challenge that changed the course of this project
Spoiler alert: fast Fourier transforms did not work. You would need a clear, pure tone for that to work in a project like this, but as we said above, dogs bark in a rainbow of tones, pitches, and all the rest.
So what’s the solution?
Because of this, a time-based model was devised to predict what a dog is likely to be barking about at any given time of day. For example, if it’s early morning, they probably want to go out to pee. But if it’s mid-morning, they’re probably letting you know the postman has arrived and is trying to challenge your territory by pushing thin paper squares through the flap in your front door. It’s a dangerous world out there, and dogs just want to protect us.
Nerdstoke had his good friend record some appropriate soundbites to go with each bark, depending on what time of day it happened. And now, Nugget the dog can tell you “I want to cuddle” or “Why aren’t you feeding me?”Same, Nugget, same
While the final project couldn’t quite translate the actual thoughts of a dog, we love the humour behind this halfway solution. And we reckon the product name, Holler Collar, would definitely sell.
The internet of things, or IoT, is a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people that are provided with unique identifiers (UIDs) and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.
A thing in the internet of things can be a person with a heart monitor implant, a farm animal with a biochip transponder, an automobile that has built-in sensors to alert the driver when tire pressure is low or any other natural or man-made object that can be assigned an Internet Protocol (IP) address and is able to transfer data over a network.
An IoT ecosystem consists of web-enabled smart devices that use embedded systems, such as processors, sensors and communication hardware, to collect, send and act on data they acquire from their environments. IoT devices share the sensor data they collect by connecting to an IoT gateway or other edge device where data is either sent to the cloud to be analyzed or analyzed locally. Sometimes, these devices communicate with other related devices and act on the information they get from one another. The devices do most of the work without human intervention, although people can interact with the devices — for instance, to set them up, give them instructions or access the data.
In the yawning vacuum of intergalactic space, something large is lurking.
Not a galaxy, although it’s of a comparable size: A vast cloud of hot, faintly glowing gas, bigger than the Milky Way, in the space between galaxies congregating in a huge cluster.
Scientists believe this cloud may have been unceremoniously stripped from a galaxy in the cluster, the first gas cloud of this kind we’ve ever seen. Even more surprisingly, it hasn’t dissipated, but has remained clumped together for hundreds of millions of years.
This not only tells us something new about the environments inside galaxy clusters, it suggests a new way to explore and understand these colossal structures.
“This is an exciting and also a surprising discovery. It demonstrates that new surprises are always out there in astronomy, as the oldest of the natural sciences,” said physicist Ming Sun of the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Galaxy clusters are, as the name suggests, groups of galaxies that are bound together gravitationally. The galaxy cluster where our ‘orphan’ gas cloud was found is called Abell 1367, or the Leo Cluster, around 300 million light-years away. It contains at least 72 major galaxies, and makes up part of a larger, supercluster complex.
Such environments often have a lot going on, and astronomers like to peer into them to try and figure out how our Universe is connected. In 2017, astronomers using Japan’s Subaru Telescope spotted what appeared to be a small, warm cloud in Abell 1367; since its origin was unclear, they went back with more instruments to take a closer look.
A team led by astronomer Chong Ge of the University of Alabama in Huntsville used the ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray telescope and the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on the Very Large Telescope, in addition to Subaru – and, to their surprise, they found X-ray emission showing the cloud was larger than they first thought.
Much larger, in fact – bigger than the Milky Way galaxy, with a mass around 10 billion times that of the Sun. And it didn’t seem to be associated with any known galaxy in the cluster. It was just drifting there. But the wealth of data allowed the researchers to take the the temperature of the gas, in turn providing clues as to its provenance.
The cloud’s temperature ranges between 10,000 and 10,000,000 Kelvin – consistent with gas that can be found within galaxies, the interstellar medium. The much more tenuous hot gas of the intracluster medium (the space between galaxies in the cluster) is hotter still, at around 100 million Kelvin.
This suggests that the cloud of gas was stripped from a galaxy as it moved through space.
“The gas in the cloud is removed by ram pressure of the hot gas in the cluster, when the host galaxy is soaring in the hot gas with a velocity of 1,000 to 2,000 kilometers [620 to 1,240 miles] per second,” Sun said.
“It is like when your hair and clothes are flying backward when you are running forward against a strong headwind. Once removed from the host galaxy, the cloud is initially cold and is evaporating in the host intracluster medium, like ice melting in the summer.”
This is fascinating, but kind of weird – because the researchers couldn’t find any nearby galaxies that could account for this occurring recently. Yet, if the gas had been ripped from its galaxy hundreds of millions of years prior, as this lack of proximity suggested, how had it not been diffused into the intracluster medium?
To work this out, the team performed calculations, and found that a magnetic field could hold the gas cloud together against the instabilities that ought to otherwise tear it apart, for long periods of time.
Given the high mass of the cloud, the team has inferred that the parent galaxy from which it was torn was a large and massive one. This could help them track down which galaxy it was; another clue could be traces of gas that extend from the cloud, which might point in the right direction.
In addition, now that one lonely cloud has been identified, scientists have a set of data that will help to identify other such clouds in the future. This will provide valuable information about intracluster dynamics, and the distribution of matter in galaxy clusters.
Plus, we now have observational evidence that the intracluster medium can divest galaxies of their gas.
“As the first isolated cloud glowing in both the H-alpha spectral line and X-rays in a cluster of galaxies, it shows that the gas removed from galaxies can create clumps in the intracluster medium, and these clumps can be discovered with wide-field optical survey data in the future,” Sun said.
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