the Engine is able to send on a journey across the Galaxy, the entire Solar system? Such a bold project is offered by Matthew Kaplan (Caplan Matthew) from the University of Illinois. His scientific article published in the journal Acta Astronautica.
Archimedes promised in the presence of a fulcrum to move the Earth. Kaplan swung the entire Solar system, and you do not need a fulcrum , and the engine.
Where, why and how fast?
something to keep the Sun from his usual orbit around the Galaxy and go with him to God knows where? Whether really it is good there where we are not?
the fact that where we are, one day could be very bad. For example, if any truly close stars decide to explode as supernovae.
now science has reached or almost reached the level allowing to predict this disaster, say, in a million years. This means that we have time to emigrate. But how?
One of the first schemes of a similar motor was suggested by our fellow countryman Leonid Mikhailovich Shadowym. He proposed to set before the Sun, the mirror, which will reflect back half of sunlight. The result is a kind of jet engine with a jet of sunlight.
illustration of the operation of the engine Schadow.Illustration Michelle Buhrmann.
However, the system is very slow. To overcome a hundred light-years, the system will require 230 million years of the movement.
Kaplan promises to move the Sun 50 light years per million years. This should be enough to get out of the supernova shock. But how does it work?
Pushing the Sun before him
he offers to place in the space station, generating two powerful jets. The first one will be directed from the Sun. This will be the exhaust of the engine, giving acceleration of SolarNoah system. But, if the jet is only one, the ship just headlong rush to the star and crash into her. Therefore, we need a second jet is directed to the sun and facing directly into it.
the power of the second jet needs to be exactly such as to compensate for the effect on the station and the first jet, and gravity of the Sun. So the ship will crash at the same point relative to the stars, not even turning around it.
This second stream can be represented as a rigid rod connecting the Orb and the station. And then the first jet will become the engine that pushes forward both objects.
it is also Possible to imagine the station as a man pushing a stalled car. The first jet (“feet”) results in movement of the device, and the second (“hand”) passes the momentum to the star. In short, the joke about the sunset hand takes a very unexpected sound.
When the Orb begins to move, it will entice your gravity all the planets, asteroids, comets and so on. And no wonder: because a star has 99.9% of mass of the Solar system. So all we’ll take.
One jet needs to accelerate the Solar system, and the other to keep the Sun at a constant distance from the engine.Illustration Michelle Buhrmann.
Material issue
However, as a precaution I asked one of the kinoperson for whose account this Banquet? Where futuristic engine to get that much matter and energy to nothing less than to move the Solar system?
the Source of both will serve as the star herself. According to the author, the electromagnetic field will capture the solar wind plasma. The system then will sort it by the nature of the particles.
the Jet, which rises from the station and facing the Sun, it is proposed to form hydrogen – the main component of the solar wind. As for the thread, flying away from systemss and give it the acceleration, is trickier.
part of the captured plasma will act as fuel in a fusion reactor. Here helium will be synthesized beryllium (He + He = Be), and then the carbon (He + Be = C).
From carbon and hydrogen will be synthesized nitrogen (C + H = N), and the last, again with the addition of hydrogen – oxygen (N + H = O). Note that these reactions go in the stars.
From the hot oxygen stream will be directed from the Sun. However, to achieve complete conversion of carbon into oxygen, will need a temperature of no less than a billion degrees.
to provide the reactor and additional engine energy, the theorist proposes to construct around lights something like a Dyson sphere. This structure collects solar radiation and direct it to the desired point.
the Speed of thermal motion of the particles in the reactor will be about 1200 kilometres per second. But such figures do not impress the imagination of astrophysicists. It is only 3-4 times faster than the slow solar wind and only in 1.5-1.7 times faster than the fastest. So jet will probably have to disperse the electromagnetic fields.
In what five years?
Kaplan’s Project is still only a concept with the most advanced and simple calculations. To date, humanity has not mastered even the construction of fusion reactors as such, not to mention the power plants that can lead to the movement of the Sun or to gather a significant portion of its energy.
Perhaps these kinds of projects we don’t need. Our species 200 thousand years or a little more. The distance from the wagon and the plow to orbital stations and edit the genome, we have overcome several centuries. If the account will go on millions by the time the mind is able to leave with biological bodies and become some kind of “great quantum consciousness”, which, as the poet wrote, spit from space explosions all overnew. And even if such radical revolutions will not be thought to move the stars by nuclear fusion reactor and rocket engine will probably be similar to the idea of Jules Verne to fly to the moon using a cannon.
However, to enjoy the flight of fancy is much easier than flying through the Galaxy with the Sun. And “News.Science” (nauka.vesti.ru) wrote about some of the initiatives of space scale and space is audacity. For example, we talked about the idea to send to Earth asteroids to extract minerals from them.
Text: To.Science
