In this activity, students will build a spectrometer using basic materials to observe the light emitted and absorbed by several sources. This will be used as a model for how NASA uses spectroscopy to determine the nature of elements found on Earth and other planets. For higher grades, this activity can also be used to discuss advanced spectroscopic topics, such as how NASA research is advancing spectroscopic techniques to teach us more about plant life on Earth.
Archiv: physics
NASA Engineer Proposes ‚Helical Engine‘ For Interstellar Travel With No Propellant
Burns said his helical engine would work by accelerating ions confined in a loop. By changing their mass slightly, the engine would then move the ions back and forth along the direction of travel to produce thrust. New Scientist notes that the helical engine would need to be 650 feet long and 40 feet wide in order to work.
Helical Engine
• What and Why
•Thought Experiment
•Ions and Particle Accelerators
•Classical vs Relativistic Dynamics
•Helical Engine Architecture
•A Specific Design Example
•Conservation of Momentum
•Conclusions
NASA engineer‘s ‚helical engine‘ may violate the laws of physics
This mass changing isn’t prohibited by physics. Einstein’s theory of special relativity says that objects gain mass as they are driven towards the speed of light, an effect that must be accounted for in particle accelerators. In fact, a simplistic implementation of Burns’s concept would be to replace the ring with a circular particle accelerator, in which ions are swiftly accelerated to relativistic speed during one stroke, and decelerated during the other.
But Burns thinks it would make more sense to ditch the box and rod and employ the particle accelerator for the lateral as well as the circular movement – in which case, the accelerator would need to be shaped like a helix.
Discovery of a Cosmic-Ray Source Is a Triumph of ‚Multimessenger Astronomy‘
(12.7.2018) As early as the 1780s, French physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb noticed that charged particles were neutralizing the electric charge of some of his experiments. In 1912, Austrian scientist Victor Hess first demonstrated that these particles were arriving from space.
10 Dec 2008: The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna Ultra-high Energy Neutrino Detector Design, Performance, and Sensitivity for 2006-2007 Balloon Flight
This leads to strong motivations to detect the BZ neutrino flux: first, it is required by standard model physics, and thus its absence could signal new physics beyond the standard model.
Oddball particles tunneling through Earth could point to new physics
(27.9.2018) However, twice, during its first flight 2006 and its third flight in 2014, ANITA detected odd radio waves with unflipped polarizations coming up from the surface below instead of the horizon. That suggests the signals were produced by upward-zooming air showers triggered by particles that tunneled through Earth. At first blush, that’s not a problem for the standard model. Neutrinos barely interact with matter, so a couple of cosmic neutrinos might have barreled through the planet before smacking an atomic nucleus in the ice and setting off an upward air shower.