Today I'd like to turn your attention to this interesting article:
https://www.livescience.com/34052-unsolved-mysteries-physics.html
It is conjectured that dark energy makes up about 74% of the universe (with dark matter a distant second at 22%, and only about 0.4 % in solid celestial bodies). It's the energy that powers the expansion of the universe (which would otherwise not happen due to gravity).
1. Do you think we can use the dark energy to our benefit?
2. How could we go about tapping into this resource?
3. Can you propose any other energy that could be useful in long-haul space travel (beyond the solar system, far from the sunlight)?
1. Do you think we can use the dark energy to our benefit?
ReplyDeleteAt this point it seems unbelievable. However, as the development of technology shows, it may be possible someday. Once we did not know how to obtain energy from the sun and now we are developing solar technologies and they are becoming more efficient.
2. How could we go about tapping into this resource?
Here I have a complete empty head. But you can be sure that if I figure out how to obtain such energy you will hear about it :D
3. Can you propose any other energy that could be useful in long-haul space travel (beyond the solar system, far from the sunlight)?
I think we can only rely on what we know now. Perhaps we need to build a machine that can extract fuel directly from the rocks found in space.
1. Do you think we can use the dark energy to our benefit?
ReplyDeleteSurely this will someday be possible. I think with the development of technology all the impossible will someday become very possible =) But unfortunately it seems to me that using this type of energy will require many years of research.
2. How could we go about tapping into this resource?
This is a very difficult question, a couple of articles that I read say that dark energy still needs a lot of research. There is a theory that it gives the effect of antigravity, which means that probably it can accelerate interplanetary transport.
3. Can you propose any other energy that could be useful in long-haul space travel (beyond the solar system, far from the sunlight)?
Creating a perpetual motion machine? I think the creation of some kind of device that could extract energy from the movement of other objects around (asteroids, meteorites)
Hi,
ReplyDelete1. Do you think we can use the dark energy to our benefit?
I think that right now is far too early for that.
2. How could we go about tapping into this resource?
NASA (https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy) right now stands that more about this field is unknown than is known and do not feel competent in that field.
3. Can you propose any other energy that could be useful in long-haul space travel (beyond the solar system, far from the sunlight)?
We have to solve class 1. impossibility defined as "technologies that are impossible today, but that do not violate the known laws of physics." Cool video about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImkCDnCQbKw
1. Do you think we can use the dark energy to our benefit?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I have absolutely no knowledge of dark matter. I think it's a very interesting subject. I wanted to know more about this phenomenon, but I can't find any more literature on this subject. In order to use black matter, we have to keep it somehow. At the moment it is not even possible to detect black matter. There is no point in talking about its use, because practically nothing is known about it.
2. How could we go about tapping into this resource?
Maybe you need to plug in a tube and suck it in? I don't understand what is the point of asking questions that can't be answered (if you can't detect black matter, how can you find the possibility to use it?). Black matter is a great topic for computer scientists...
3. Can you propose any other energy that could be useful in long-haul space travel (beyond the solar system, far from the sunlight)?
Atomic energy is currently being used. Maybe the concept of cold fusion can be developed. I think we are slowly reaching the physical limits of cognition. It's impossible to break the rules of physics known today.
1. Do you think we can use the dark energy to our benefit?
ReplyDeleteI think it is too early to determine if we can use it for our benefit, as we do not really know what it is. It was only observed how dark energy affects expansioin of the Universe, but probably not much more.
2. How could we go about tapping into this resource?
I have no idea ;) but I am not a physicist, so maybe they do have more conceps :)
3. Can you propose any other energy that could be useful in long-haul space travel (beyond the solar system, far from the sunlight)?
Maybe in the future we will be able to create technology to generate energy from different resources available in space and store this energy when there is no fuel available.
@Artur Chudzik, thanks for interesting links :)
Cheers :)
Delete1. Do you think we can use the dark energy to our benefit?
ReplyDeleteWell, it seems an interesting thing to research, that alone is a great benefit. To know about other benefits, we need more research.
2. How could we go about tapping into this resource?
For sure, we'd need some gargantuan structure, probably built according to tight tolerances. Also, lots of energy to bootstrap it into operation. Also some governing body would be needed. But I don't know any details.
3. Can you propose any other energy that could be useful in long-haul space travel (beyond the solar system, far from the sunlight)?
I don't think it ever will be needed. Space travel around solar system would take long, travelling to any place beyond would take orders of magnitude longer. We'd have to keep our mind on the goal for that long, while I can expect whining "we want to go back" start right after the takeoff and only grow louder.
1. At this moment, certainly not. We do not yet know the exact possibilities of dark energy to exploit it. However, someday it may serve as some source of energy.
ReplyDelete2. At the moment we hear more about dark energy as something unknown / difficult to know. Many scientists are researching the existence of dark matter. They agreed that it exists, but what are its properties, why there is so much of it, why we cannot see it, why we cannot measure it, why if it is an opposition to known matter, there is no reduction and these two things exist side by side and why in unequal proportions? When we answer these questions, I think that we will focus on how we can use it. It's like black holes. Well-known, we know quite a lot about them, but nobody has come up with the idea how they could be useful to us.
3. In my head I have only ideas of some magical fuels straight from sci-fi movies. If solar energy is out of the question and there is a vacuum in space, we have little to work with. Extraction of some minerals from asteroids, encountered planets. High energy chemical reactions. I really don't have any logical idea at the moment.
1. Do you think we can use the dark energy to our benefit?
ReplyDeleteThe current thinking about the nature of dark energy is that it is negative gravity, a force, or space time curvature, that repels rather than attracts. If this could be directly observed and not merely implied from observations the consequences for physics would be profound. It might lead to making “anti gravity” real and could be a source of the positive space time curvature. In other words, if real it would be a very big deal.
2. How could we go about tapping into this resource?
If and when we discover what it is, it will likely be useful to us in physics to understand better a unified theory of the forces of the universe but it is unlikely it will ever be a functional power source. As we learn more about what we are currently calling "Dark Energy" we may learn that it is not one energy/force it may be a combination of forces that work on galactic and bigger scales. We just know so little about it at this time. It may even turn out to be something completely different from what we think it is
3. Can you propose any other energy that could be useful in long-haul space travel (beyond the solar system, far from the sunlight)?
Steam power, we could use a small nuclear reactor to superheat water harvested from ice in the asteroids. It could be simply vent as exhaust or use as a closed cycle steam system to spin an electrical generator turbine to power a high-power ion drive. With electrolysis we could separate hydrogen and oxygen and have the capacity to make actual chemical rocket fuel, also it could be used for potable water and a breathable atmosphere. A hybrid mining ship that could use all these techniques could turn out to be really practical ship for a long-haul space travel
1. Do you think we can use the dark energy to our benefit?
ReplyDeleteI believe that all types of energy can be used to our advantage, as energy demand is growing all the time. Minerals from which we obtain energy will eventually run out and additionally cause poisoning of the atmosphere. Currently, renewable sources used on a large scale are very fashionable.
2. How could we go about tapping into this resource?
As I mentioned earlier, it would be good to convert this energy into useful and easy to apply, for example, electric current with unlimited application possibilities.
3. Can you propose any other energy that could be useful in long-haul space travel (beyond the solar system, far from the sunlight)?
Since the entire universe is in the vast majority made of the same elements found on Earth, it would be possible to obtain the appropriate minerals to generate energy. Another example mentioned earlier could be the use of nuclear energy.
1. Do you think we can use the dark energy to our benefit?
ReplyDeleteI don't. That's just impossible in my opinion. How we can get energy from that?
From other hand I know than in the past people don't have a foggiest idea that we could get energy from sun and now it's something obvious...we will see but nowadays it's just umbeliveable for me.
2. How could we go about tapping into this resource?
...that's a strange question. For everything. We could create new type of energy generator using this new type of sources...and the rest would be the same for me.
3. Can you propose any other energy that could be useful in long-haul space travel (beyond the solar system, far from the sunlight)?
Nothing more than atomic reactor which could working many many years...
From other hand when I think about my proposal that wouldn't be enough to power the entire ship for more than 200 years...
...I forget to login
Delete1. Do you think we can use the dark energy to our benefit?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately my research interests are not directed at theoretical physics, astronomy and cosmology. Although I like reading about things like black holes, neutron stars, dark matter and energy, all my knowledge is enough only to say, that humanity did not manage to detect dark matter or energy, let alone using them. As far as I understand both dark matter and energy are theoretical construct discovered as it is said, "with the point of a pen". The mathematical apparatus of modern physics is so hard, that I do not even dare to make any statement.
2. How could we go about tapping into this resource?
Well, it would be quite hard to use something that does not interact with a usual matter - the thing we, and all the things we have, are made of. The only thing that I can see here is to employ somehow dark matter's properties related to its "negative density", i.e. it can help to overcome gravity.
3. Can you propose any other energy that could be useful in long-haul space travel (beyond the solar system, far from the sunlight)?
Wikipedia says, that various types of propulsion systems can be used: ion engine, nuclear fission, nuclear pulse, nuclear fusion and even antimatter. Regardless of the type, I think, that interstellar travels are going to be taken in very distant future.