Nice.
Voyager
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GG is basically correct about the anti-matter. When they do come into contact, and are destroyed, the result is a massive release of energy (E = mc2 ). Antimatter can be made in our atom smashers today, but only in very small quantities. Additionally, these antimatter particles do not last long (what do you store them in?) and their only real value today is for research purposes.
Probably the program was speculating about ways to make a spaceship go faster, which may (or may not :wink: there are other clever ideas for space exploration) require vast amounts of energy to be stored as fuel in a manner requiring the least mass possible. If it were possible to store antimatter, the mixing of matter and antimatter would be the most concentrated “fuel” known by science.
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Astronomy is close to my heart. I wonder why our illustrious NASA basically has “shun” Alpha Centauri. I understand that a solar system with multiple suns is problamatic for sustaining life… but gee wiz its only 400 years away.
1)40,000± years from now:
Voyager 1 will float by within 1.6 light years (9.3 trillion miles) of a star known as AC+79 3888 in the constellation Camelopardalis.2)296,000± years from now:
Voyager 2 will sail within 4.3 light years (25 trillion miles) of Sirius, which today is the brightest star in Earth’s sky.or 3) why not send it to proxima centuari and get there in 400 years?
By the time choice 1 or 2 happens we will allready be on the planets waiting on the beach of these planets for these probes to fly by.
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IL,
Part of the reason Voyager is going so fast is because of the gravity “slingshot” assist given by Jupiter (and to a lesser extent Saturn). Alpha Centari does not line up with the line from the earth to Jupiter and beyond, therefore we cannot send a probe to Alpha Centari as fast. Additionally, the purpose of Voyager was to get a close look at Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond not to look at a nearby star (which it cannot do…the power supply and electronics certainly will not last 400 years, nor are we capable of picking up the radio signal, nor do we really want to wait around 404 years for this to happen). If we want a close look then I’d suggest we spend the money for a very large (inter-planteary distance) interferometer instead.
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Ok, but what makes it “Anti” matter. Different configuration of electron/proton/neutron? I mean, what is it? You can see from the term it is supposed to be the opposite of matter, but what is that?
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Different makeup… It basically has all the opposite material that makes up “Matter”… Think of everything in it “opposite” (electrons, protons, neutrons) They come together and “BOOM”…
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if matter is 1, then anti-matter is -1.
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Haven’t read anything on anti-matter in a while, but I still consider its potential for application to be a pipe dream - maybe new research and developments have changed that. It still brings to mind the idea of a nuclear breeder reactor - sounds wonderful but no one has had any luck with a working model. I have to agree that the name is a bit confusing, yet, as humans, we must have a name for everything. Otherwise it doesn’t exist, right?
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anti-matter is just the label for it, since it is the opposite (anti) of matter. it doesnt mean to convey anything strange, mystical, or science-fictiony about the nature of anti-matter, its just a useful label
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Antimatter:
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Part of the the Big Bang theory predicts that in the beginning of the Universe,there were both matter and anti-matter (If I read it right, matter has fundamental “spins”,“ups and downs” ,“flavors” and anti-matter has the exact opposite properties) and this resulted in a battle of annihilation,with what we call “matter” being victorious.We could arbitrarily say for every 100 bits of anti-matter,there were 101 bits of matter and after the massacre,matter came out on top.Of course,this all happened within billionths of a second after the intial “blast” of the Big Bang,but it makes the theory all the more logical by putting into context the idea of what matter is.Its basically the “ashes” from the birth of our universe.BTW I heard that if you had 1 gallon of “anti-matter gasoline” (enilosag?),you could travel 15 billion miles (15,000,000,000 mpg) on one gallon of gasoline.If they come into contact,they would release 100% of their energy,making it the most “efficient” source of energy possible.Anti-matter can be stored in magnetic vacuum containers that keep them from coming into contact with any matter,including the sides of the container itself.They are kind of suspended in the middle of the container.Of course,if they touch any matter–BOOOMM!
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I request that scientists creating/studying anti-matter do their experiments in some other universe.
I don’t like that “BOOM!” thing.
Not closely related, but…
Keplar was a cool genius…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A615782
Did you know that the Earth’s average distance from the Sun(maybe not to the km, but) is equal to 500 light-seconds.
Speed of light 186,000 miles per second.
Earth’s average distance is 93,000,000 million miles from the sun.93m miles divided by 186t seconds = 500 light-seconds
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