Warp speed! The ability to travel faster than light has long been a staple of science fiction. But recent developments have some NASA scientists thinking that move great distances in a short amount of time could be a reality.
Physicist Miguel Alcubierre created a paper which suggested that space-time could be warped behind and in front of a vehicle, creating a bubble that a ship could ride upon, like a surfer rides a wave. This idea captured a lot of attention, and in fact, NASA is working on this concept now.
A mere 100 years ago, we couldn’t fly from the US to Europe. So, it’s not unrealistic to imagine that the science behind this can be proved within one to two generations.
Branes! And no, it’s not a new Zombie cereal knockoff.
You know, like how they have Choco-Pebbles in the 50lb bags at the store?
Anyhoo, Brane theory (short for Membrane Theory or M-Theory) puts forth the idea that all matter, instead of being a collection of tiny balls of matter, are instead collections of tiny vibrating strings.
Now Jason, you say, isn’t this simply Superstring theory?
Well, yes, you are correct.
M-Theory seeks to unite the quantum world of strings with our observable world.
The vibrational frequency of the string determines what we perceive it as (ie, gravity, matter, energy).
A fascinating topic, especially when you get to the part about there being multiple dimensions, or that our universe could be floating along on one of the membranes.
Jetpacks. A long time staple of science fiction, and the true hallmark of the world of tomorrow.
Never be late for work again!
In the 50’s, everyone thought that the future would be full of the things. Well, here we are in the 21at century and all I got is a Kia. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but dang, we can make celebrities out of Kim Kardashians and Justin Bliebers, but not be able to fly around free as birds?
Or can we?
Let’s take a look at the history of this crazy idea.
I think you will find it’s even older than you thought!
Leave to the Russians to come up with the idea of strapping rocket fuel to your back and lighting it off. Inventor Aleksandr Fyodorovich Andreyev came up with the idea back in 1919. Technologists of the time loved the concept, and a patent was issued, but it seems common sense prevailed as no prototypes were developed.
In 1958, Garry Burdett and Alexander Bohr supposedly developed a jump belt that used compressed gas to propel the wearer up to 7 meters in the air, but it seems no one was interested and financing never developed.
Cutting to the chase, in 1965 (a great year for innovative creations!) Bell Aerosystems began developing the Jet Belt. The first test came in 1969, when a pilot flew about 100 meters in a circle, about 7 meters off the ground. While the system worked, it was deemed too complicated and dangerous (it operated below minimum safe parachute distance and was very heavy!)
The Bell Rocket Belt is probably the most famous of the jetpacks.
Gotta find Penny and that stupid Bloop!
It was used in the James Bond film Thunderball, as well as on episodes of Lost in Space and the 70’s tv show Ark II.
A really cool device, it could only fly a little over 30 seconds.
So, it looks like we are still a ways off from being able to jetpack ourselves to work and avoid rush hour traffic. Then again, if people can barely handle cars, do I really want to be flying around with them too?
Texting and jetpacking?
Nancy Atkinson over at UniverseToday.com has an article that shows us the jetpack technology of today. Go learn something! It will only hurt a little bit…
I have always been fascinated by physics. Waaay back when, I was a freshman in college with dreams of being a gravitational astronomer working with LIGO.
LIGO is the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in Louisiana or Washington. Much like optical telescopes capture light and let us view distant objects, LIGO reacts to gravity waves. By using precisely positioned mirrors and lasers, these waves can be measured.
That brings us to this weeks topic. Gravity.
What it does is easy to explain, but how it does it, well, that’s the tricky part.
We know gravity is a force that is exerted between objects with mass.
We know that the more mass an object has, the greater the gravitational field it has.
We also know that objects that are closer exert more gravitational force than distant objects.
The same force that keeps us on Earth is the same force that keeps the planets in orbit.
Some scientists searching for the Unified Field Theory claim that gravity, electromagnetic force and the forces at the atomic level are aspects of the same force.
Cosmic rays. Where would the Fantastic Four be without them?
So what is the real deal with cosmic rays?
Cosmic rays are super tiny particles that slam into the Earth’s atmosphere. Billions of rays every second!
But most of these are very low level impacts.
Most of these rays come from inside our galaxy, from events such as supernovae, black holes and neutron stars.
These rays are able to travel great distances at fantastic speeds due to the low density of matter in space.
Cosmic rays are one of the limiting factors in space travel and colonization of other planets, as we would need a strong way to shield ourselves from these particles.
Now there is a BIG topic.
The basic definition of a galaxy is a system of millions or billions of stars, together with gas and dust, held together by gravitational attraction.
Earth is a part of the Milky Way galaxy, which is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the Observable Universe.
But just how big is a galaxy? Our galaxy is roughly 100,000-120,000 light years in diameter.
Wow, thats pretty big, you say?
Well, for comparison, the largest known galaxy, IC 1101, is estimated to be 5.5 MILLION light years wide.
Million.
That’s equal to 50 Milky Way galaxies side by side.
Wormholes.
A staple of science fiction that is often used to explain how the characters are able to travel around the universe without having to go into a ton of crazy science.
While we have seen no visual evidence of a wormhole, it is basically a short-cut thru space and time. Imagine folding space and time over like a piece of paper, then creating a tunnel between the folded sheets. You could enter on one side of the paper and come out on the other without having to travel a great distance.
Quasars. Cool name ( and a cool Marvel super-hero back in the day) but what are they?
Quasar stands for Quasi Stellar Object, and they are the brightest and most distant objects in our Universe.
They are also the most powerful and energitic objects known so far.
Some are so large, it would take three billion years to cross them while going at the speed of light.
They are so distant, they outdate our Universe.
Yeah, ponder on that one a bit.
Quasars are believed to be powered as the result of matter being consumed by super-massive blackholes at the center of galaxies.
Science continues to learn more about these super-powerful structures and their role in the Universe.
Just saying the word brings chills to the youth of today.
I mean, how can science compete with “American Idle” and other such shows.
But it wasn’t always like that.
I remember as a kid, the thing I wanted to be most was an astronaut.
That was the highest goal there was.
I was taught that you could become one, with hard work and a little bit of luck.
I want to use this section of Suzi to talk about some of the real science behind space travel and our Universe.
Suzi Quazar is science fantasy, but I think it would be fun to learn about some science facts.
Let’s look at the cover of Issue #1.
It shows our heroine drifting into a red sun.
Terror at the edge of the Universe
Very dramatic and eye catching.
But what exactly is a red sun, or more accurately a red star?
A red star can have a variety of sizes, from dwarf to super-giant.
Imagine a star much like our Sun. As this star gets older, the hydrogen fusion process in the core of the star starts to become inefficient.
This causes a series of reactions, with the result being the star expanding in size. When our Sun reaches this stage, it’s size could increase so much that it would swallow the Earth!
