Scientists have proposed a dazzling new mission to travel to the stars that is inspired by the elegant flights of seabirds, such as albatrosses, reports a new study. The interstellar concept mission would harness shifting winds generated by the Sun in order to accelerate a spacecraft to as much as 2 percent the speed of light within two years, allowing it to soar into the vast expanse beyond our solar system.
Humans have dreamed about leaving the solar system for thousands of years, but the mind-boggling distances between stars present major challenges to this goal. NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, which were launched in 1977, are the first probes to enter interstellar space, but it will still take them tens of thousands of years to reach another star system.
Now, scientists led by Mathias Larrouturou, a spaceflight researcher at McGill University, have envisioned a much faster spacecraft that would mimic the “dynamic soaring” maneuvers of seabirds by gaining momentum from the solar wind, which is a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun that creates a bubble around the solar system called the heliosphere.
The team found that their “new concept for spacecraft propulsion that invokes dynamic soaring” appears “feasible for a vehicle to achieve velocities approaching 2 percent of [the speed of light] after a year and a half” or “0.5 percent of [the speed of light] after 1 month,” depending on its trajectory through the solar system, according to a recent study published in Frontiers of Space Technologies.
“Inspired by the dynamic soaring maneuvers performed by seabirds and gliders in which differences in wind speed are exploited to gain velocity, in the proposed technique a lift-generating spacecraft circles between regions of the heliosphere that have different wind speeds, gaining energy in the process without the use of propellant and only modest onboard power requirements,” Larrouturou and his colleagues said in the study.
“The technique may comprise the first stage for a multistage mission to achieve true interstellar flight to other solar systems,” the researchers added.
Many interstellar concept missions have been proposed over the years, from tiny chips that use high-powered lasers to propel them to the stars, to hulking generation ships that carry humans across the galaxy. Larrouturou and his colleagues imagine a different kind of architecture centered around a “magnetohydrodynamic wing,” which is an invisible structure made of magnetic fields that is somewhat analogous to the physical wing of a bird or plane, according to the study.
This spectral wing could theoretically be produced by two plasma magnets placed along an antenna measuring several feet in length. In the right parts of the solar system, the field created by the magnets could interact with solar wind flows in different directions in much the same way that birds exploit wind turbulence to create lift.
“The result is a type of lift-generating wing, but without a physical structure,” the team explained in the study. “In dynamic soaring as practiced terrestrially, a lift-generating vehicle executes a maneuver that exploits the difference in wind speeds between two different regions of air, for example, the wind blowing over a hilltop and the quiescent air on the leeward side of the hill.”
If a probe of this kind was placed at the heliopause, the tumultuous boundary to the heliosphere, it could leverage these mixed wind flows to accelerate to speeds of around 3,720 miles per second in a matter of years. In other parts of the solar system, the spacecraft could reach a quarter of that speed in only a month, according to the team’s calculations.
A mission that hit the gas in this way could reach Jupiter in months, not years, and could potentially reach other stars in a matter of centuries. While this is still well beyond a human lifetime, it is a substantial improvement over the multi-millennia trips of slower spacecraft, like the Voyagers.
To that end, Larrouturou and his colleagues conclude their study with a technology roadmap for plasma magnet technology in practice. The team highlights two other concept missions, the Jupiter Observing Velocity Experiment (JOVE) and the Wind Rider Pathfinder Mission, as potential trailblazers of this novel approach to spaceflight.
“These groundbreaking missions would provide validation that meaningful propulsive power could be extracted from the solar wind, providing a foundation for the more advanced concept of extracting electrical power from the wind for lift-generation,” the researchers said.
“The ability to generate large values of lift-to-drag ratio via interaction with the flow of interplanetary and interstellar medium over a spacecraft is found to be feasible, at least from the perspective of the physical principles involved,” they concluded.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
