Could one day propel space probes. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, I thought the same thing, but it is a legit source for the story.
Thunderous sound waves could one day propel spacecraft to the edge of the solar system, say engineers who have developed a new type of acoustic engine.
Current long-range spacecraft - like the US-European Cassini probe now orbiting Saturn - roam too far from the Sun to use solar power so instead carry plutonium bricks to fuel their engines. As the radioactive plutonium decays, it generates heat that produces an electric current between two different types of metal.
This system uses no moving parts - an advantage since these can fail - but the bricks are large, heavy, and difficult to produce. And these engines yield efficiencies of just 7%.
So NASA is funding research into Stirling engines, which use temperature differentials between reservoirs of gas to create electricity. Conventional Stirling engines are an old technology, invented in 1816 as a safer alternative to steam engines.
What’s wrong with New Scientist? It’s a respectable British science weekly, as far as I can tell from the issues on local newsstands…
Or do you question the appearance of the story rather than the source?
Sunspace:
What’s wrong with New Scientist? It’s a respectable British science weekly, as far as I can tell from the issues on local newsstands…
Or do you question the appearance of the story rather than the source?
Shield’s down, captain! If I were to come up to you and say that I had found a way to propel a spacecraft using sound waves , would you think I was serious or a bit daft? Remember, sound can’t be propagated in a vacuum, so on the face of it, I’d say it was a hoax, but New Scientist is a legit source for information (unlike, say, The Weekly World News ), and in reading the details, it sounds plausible.
“He adds that the sound does not escape the engine”
Spaceflight? . . . . oh . . . . So we’re not using a time machine to hunt dinosaurs?
Of course not, then this would be in Cafe Society.