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Category: space travel – Page 149

US20040194445A1 — Antimatter engine

The invention relates to the use of the collision of matter and antimatter as a means of propulsion in a spacecraft, to the control system for said engine and to a block diagram of the connections for same, in which all of the functions are divided into modules. Said invention refers to a form of propulsion that is totally different to those know at present, which enables spacecraft to move considerably faster in outer space and to reach up to one third of the speed light owing to the controlled collision of matter and antimatter. The control system works in conjunction with the engine in order to control the collision and to maintain the optimal parameters for performing said movement.

SpaceX’s private Polaris Dawn mission could launch

It is the first in a series of private launches that will culminate in the first crewed Starship spaceflight.

SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission will include the first-ever commercial spacewalk. The mission, funded and commanded by billionaire Jared Isaacman, is part of the Polaris Program, a series of launches that will include the first-ever crewed Starship spaceflight.

The first of these, Polaris Dawn, was originally slated for late 2022. As is often the case with rocket launches, several factors have come into play, pushing the mission back to no earlier than March 2023, as per an update to the Polaris Program’s website first reported by Space.com.

Source: Polaris Program.

The mission, funded and commanded by billionaire Jared Isaacman, is part of the Polaris Program, a series of launches that will include the first-ever crewed Starship spaceflight.

NASA telescope takes 12-year time-lapse movie of entire sky

Pictures of the sky can show us cosmic wonders; movies can bring them to life. Movies from NASA’s NEOWISE space telescope are revealing motion and change across the sky.

Every six months, NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or NEOWISE, completes one trip halfway around the Sun, taking images in all directions. Stitched together, those images form an “all-sky” map showing the location and brightness of hundreds of millions of objects. Using 18 all-sky maps produced by the spacecraft (with the 19th and 20th to be released in March 2023), scientists have created what is essentially a time-lapse movie of the sky, revealing changes that span a decade.

Each map is a tremendous resource for astronomers, but when viewed in sequence as a time-lapse, they serve as an even stronger resource for trying to better understand the universe. Comparing the maps can reveal distant objects that have changed position or brightness over time, what’s known as time-domain astronomy.

A gamma ray burst — possibly the brightest of all time — sweeps over Earth

In a breathless press release, NASA emphasized that their detectors all over the planet picked up on this, including NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, and the Wind spacecraft.

Gamma-ray bursts are some of the most powerful releases of energy in the universe. Their causes may vary slightly, but typically relate to black holes. Some may be caused when merging neutron stars create a black hole, or when a neutron star and a black hole merge. Because they are so energetic, even a gamma-ray burst that originates on the other side of the universe will often be detectable by astronomers on Earth.

Warp drives may swim through spacetime

I recently wrote about how viscoelastic fluids can be used in liquid body armor to stop bullets. While spacetime isn’t a fluid in the traditional sense, it has many of the same properties. In particular, it deforms when a massive body or any energy at all passes through it. The spacetime manifold resists deformation and seeks to return to flatness whenever a massive body passes on. This property is elasticity.