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Void

Member

Registered: 2011-12-29

Posts: 7,819

Dark Matter Wind?

I just felt like saying something about dark matter.

Particles passing through, I guess they think that as the Earth rotates, a person is alternately upwind or downwind from it's flow.  It is in motion apparently, but scarcly interacts with matter.  The big question for me is could there ever be a machine build that could somehow generate a "Field?" that could interact with dark matter?  Then perhaps a huge energy source, since the dark matter is in motion.

If they really are getting close to understanding the Higgs Boson, then perhaps some star treky type things might eventually occur.

I guess my point is that if dark matter is moving through use here, it is likely moving through Pluto as well.  Maybe we will never tap it as an energy source, but I have a feeling that if there were a way, then it would certaintly help to open up a path to the stars.

But of course I have nothing to offer as how to do that.

We don't really have a understanding of Mass and Gravitation yet, at least not one I have been told and can understand.

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Terraformer

Member

From: The Fortunate Isles

Registered: 2007-08-27

Posts: 3,906

Website

Re: Dark Matter Wind?

Well, certainly I should think that if we could find a way of interacting with neutrinos (by manipulating the weak interaction?), we could create some kind of sail based on that, but it would have to be a mighty big sail at current fluxes, I suspect, and probably too heavy to be practical. Unless of course we could channel then into a tight beam between stars, but then you have to ask what advantage that gives you over conventional beam-riding, either particle or light based. Much higher velocity, perhaps, since neutrinos are travelling at nearly the speed of light? No risk of damaging the rest of the craft - you could step right into the path of the neutrinos and be unaffected?

There's an interesting paper in the last issue of JBIS (Journal of the British Interplanetary Society) concerning the use of focussed gravitational waves being uses to shorten the space between two objects - think warp drive but with the generation equipment outside the spacecraft. You could possibly lay warp lanes between stars with it, but they'd have to be lain subluminally. Or maybe not quite... The generation equipment had to be halfway between the objects, so you could possibly lay a trail of then using the previous one to boost the next to it's position.

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Use what is abundant and build to last