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Antimatter and Fusion Drives Could Power Future Spaceships

Nuclear fusion reactions sparked by beams of antimatter could be propelling ultra-fast spaceships on long journeys before the end of the century, researchers say.

Image: Comparison of Daedalus spacecraft and Saturn V rocket.

A fusion-powered spacecraft could reach Jupiter within four months, potentially opening up parts of the outer solar system to manned exploration, according to a 2010 NASA report.

A number of hurdles would have to be overcome—particularly in the production and storage of antimatter—to make the technology feasible, but some experts imagine it could be ready to go in a half-century or so.

It’s “probably not a 40-year technology, but 50, 60? Quite possible, and something that would have a significant impact on exploration by changing the mass-power-finance calculus when planning,” Jason Hay, a senior aerospace technology analyst for consulting firm The Tauri Group, said during an Aug. 29 presentation with NASA’s Future In-Space Operations working group.

The power of fusion

The fuel for such a fusion-driven spaceship would likely consist of many small pellets containing deuterium and tritium—heavy isotopes of hydrogen that harbor one or two neutrons, respectively, in their nuclei. (The common hydrogen atom has no neutrons.)

Inside each pellet, this fuel would be surrounded by another material, perhaps uranium. A beam of antiprotons—the antimatter equivalent of protons, sporting a net electrical charge of minus-1 rather than plus-1—would be directed at the pellets.

When the antiprotons slammed into uranium nuclei, they would annihilate, generating high-energy fission products that ignite fusion reactions in the fuel.

Such reactions—for example, deuterium and tritium nuclei merging to create one helium-4 atom and one neutron—throw off huge amounts of energy that could be harnessed to propel a spacecraft in several different ways.

“The energy from these reactions could be used to heat a propellant or provide thrust through magnetic confinement and a magnetic nozzle,” states the 2010 report, called “Technology Frontiers: Breakthrough Capabilities for Space Exploration,” which NASA produced with the help of The Tauri Group and other experts.

The basic idea is not new: Project Daedalus, a study conducted by the British Interplanetary Society in the 1970s, proposed using a fusion rocket to power an interstellar spacecraft. Daedalus’ fusion reactions would be sparked by electron beams rather than antiproton beams, however.

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Thunderclouds Make Gamma Rays—and Shoot Out Antimatter, Too

Thunderclouds emit gamma rays in powerful, millisecond-long bursts called terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, first discovered by space observatories.

These bursts can also produce beams of electrons and even of antimatter that can travel halfway around the globe.

All proposed explanations for the phenomena involve strong electric fields unleashing avalanches of electrons inside clouds, but none fully accounts for the sheer energies of the gamma rays.

New dedicated space missions and research aircraft may solve the mystery, as well as find out if the flashes pose radiation exposure risks for airline flights.

Antimatter-Powered Supernovae

The largest stars die in explosions more powerful than anyone thought possible—some triggered in part by the production of antimatter

Image: Highest-energy supernovae might look quite spectacular from a planet orbiting the exploding star, but any civilization would most likely be obliterated. Credit: Illustration by Ron Miller

In recent years several supernovae have turned out to be more powerful and long-lasting than any observed before.

Archival images showed that the stars that gave rise to some supernovae were about 100 times as massive as the sun: according to accepted theory, stars this big were not supposed to explode.

Some supernovae may have been ther­mo­nuclear explosions triggered by the creation of pairs of particles of matter and antimatter.

The first generation of stars in the universe, which created the materials that later formed planets, may have exploded through a similar mechanism.

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bethefoodoflove:

proofmathisbeautiful:

Scientist Trap Antimatter for a Record Breaking 16 Minutes!!

(gizmodo) - Scientists working on the Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) near Geneva, Switzerland did something no other scientists have done. They stored atoms of antihydrogen for 1000 seconds (~16 minutes) which is 10,000 times longer than they’ve ever done before. By trapping and observing antimatter for that long, scientists can better understand the properties of it.

Read the whole article HERE!!

They went from less than a second not too long ago, and now they’re already up to 16 minutes? Fuck yeah energies of the future