Archimedes stated ( aright ) that if he was given a place to stand , he could move the world . But the the great unwashed at YouTube channelKurzgesagt – In a Nutshellhave greater ambition ; they design to move the whole Solar System .
Intheir later video , they expect a simple yet engrossing query . If the Solar System was move towards a grievous part of the wandflower , such as into the course of a future supernova , could it be possible to transfer the path that the Sun , planets , and thousands of other bodies take around the Milky Way ?
The answer is yes , as long as civilisation is advanced enough . To move a star system , one needs a stellar engine to move the ace . The planets and the quietus will follow along thanks to graveness .
The video focuses on two main types of stellar engine . The first one is called the Shkadov Thruster after the mortal who came up with it , physicist Leonid Shkadov . The design and the aperient behind it are unco simple . Photons , the molecule of visible radiation , have momentum , so they can press stuff about ( although it ’s just a tiny push ) .
This approach is what actuate the Planetary Society ’s successfulLightSail 2this year and it would be possible to use it to move the whole Solar System . You ’d merely involve a huge parabolic mirror made of a light and durable stuff . This would reflect some of the light from the Sun , and in doing so , make a net propulsion using just photons . You would n’t get much actuation though . Over the time it shoot the Sun to complete an orbit of the Milky Way ( 230 million years ) you would have shift the Solar System by just 100 light - years .
A quicker and more various approach is an active stellar engine . The Kurzgesagt team does n’t do thing half - heartedly , so they get an actual physicist to design one for them . Professor Matthew Caplan from Illinois State University has print a newspaper publisher on the topic in the journalActa Astronautica .
The Caplan Thruster works by taking atomic number 2 and atomic number 1 from the Sun using powerful magnetic fields . The helium is fused and the oxygen is release , and the hydrogen plasma is accelerated towards the Sun , passing the momentum of the thruster to our star .
This engine requires additional hoi polloi to be lifted from the Sun and for this grounds , it requires a megastructure such as a Dyson sphere to heat up the region of the Sun just in front of the locomotive .
The Caplan Thruster can create an quickening of about 1 nanometer per 2nd squared , which is rough 10 billion times weaker than Earth ’s solemnity . But like the tortoise and the hare , constancy is honor . That quickening would produce a diversion of over 30 clean - yr in just a million twelvemonth . Enough to avoid a supernova .
you’re able to savour these fact and more in the grand video below .
