Image from the "James Webb" telescope (photo: official website, NASA)
Everyone is familiar with the concept of the solar sail that propels spacecraft on the solar winds.
However, scientists are now proposing a new way to harness the solar wind to fly at speeds up to two percent of the speed of light.
If this method is put into practice, then it is a possible way to break through the boundaries of our solar system, and take the human race to other solar systems.
A group of scientists from McGill University (for research) led by Mathias LaRotoro, a space flight researcher, proposes an exciting new way to utilize the solar winds for fast space flight.
The method basically imitates the feeding maneuvers of seabirds, such as the albatross.
According to Orotoro, with the help of a series of such maneuvers, it is possible to accumulate in a year and a half a speed equal to two percent of the speed of light (about 6000 km per second) and a speed of half a percent of the speed of light in a month.
This is a possible way to break the boundaries of our solar system.
Jupiter as photographed by the Webb Telescope (photo: NASA, ESA)
In the method proposed by the scientists from McGill, the idea is that a spacecraft will "float" between the solar winds in the heliosphere (the outer edges of the Sun), accumulating kinetic energy, without the need for a propulsion engine and with modest power requirements for life on board.
The architecture proposed by the scientists here is based on a - here is a complicated word - magnetohydrodynamic wing, which is actually a structure invisible from magnetic fields, similar in nature to the physical wing of a bird or an airplane.
That vanished wing, which could theoretically be built with two plasma magnets with an antenna several meters long between them, would be able to use the solar winds to move in different directions, similar to how birds on Earth use the winds to create lift.
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Assuming that the "engine" described by the researchers can be created, a vehicle equipped with this unusual means of propulsion (which is currently only theoretical), could reach distant stars such as Jupiter's moons within months instead of years, and break through the boundaries of the solar system and reach other solar systems within Hundreds of years.
Admittedly, even hundreds of years are a long time, and they will require generations of ships to complete their mission, but it is still an improvement over the thousands of years it would take a spacecraft with today's accepted means of propulsion to complete a similar journey.
technology
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space