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Old 07-08-2011, 10:18 PM
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astroron (Ron)
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Cool Antimatter belt found around the Earth

News just in from the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14405122
This is an interesting finding.
Cheers
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  #2  
Old 07-08-2011, 10:42 PM
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Very interesting, thanks for the link, may download the paper later have a peak. Look interesting.
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Old 07-08-2011, 11:36 PM
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Interesting, but unsurprising. Their existence had been predicted for quite some time. It was only a matter of time before they were found.

I doubt, though, whether there'd be enough antiprotons to power a spaceship. You'd need several tons of antimatter to do that.

I'll have to read the paper.
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Old 08-08-2011, 06:54 AM
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Though Earth has a relatively small antiproton supply in terms of very high delta-v missions, the supply is likely large enough to enable a bootstrap mission where a spacecraft first stops in Earth orbit for a partial ‘fuel up’ and then travels to Saturn to extract most of the fuel for an interstellar precursor mission.

Earth has a minimal (0.25 - 15 ng) trapped supply of antiprotons. This is replenished over a period of several years. The low level is due to inefficiencies in backscattering albedo antineutrons from the atmosphere. Significant fluxes of positrons may exist, though a quasi-static supply < 1 μg is most likely.

Saturn has the largest trapped antiproton supply in the Solar System (estimated at ~400 μg) due to high antineutron production from GCR interactions with its ring system. The flux of transient antiprotons produced in the ring system is also predicted to be significant.
Source: Extraction of Antiparticles Concentrated in Planetary Magnetic Fields, (April 2006). James Bickford Principal Investigator, NIAC

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Over a period of 850 days, between July 2006 and December 2008, sensors onboard PAMELA detected 28 antiprotons
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Old 08-08-2011, 08:09 AM
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28 antiprotons.....

10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1...... pfft...damn, we only moved 0.5 microns

Go to warp 9, Scotty!!!!
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Old 08-08-2011, 08:31 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by renormalised View Post
28 antiprotons.....

10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1...... pfft...damn, we only moved 0.5 microns

Go to warp 9, Scotty!!!!
How far is the next petrol station? Saturn? Get out and start pushing
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Old 08-08-2011, 08:37 AM
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Small quantities of antimatter have enormous potential in a variety of space, medical, and sensing applications. In particular, it has been suggested that tens of nanograms to micrograms of antiprotons can be used to catalyze nuclear reactions and propel spacecraft to velocities up to 100 km/sec. This is well beyond the capability of traditional chemical propellants and opens up new exciting options for space exploration.

Larger supplies of antiprotons would eventually enable spacecraft capable of relativistic velocities. The revolutionary potential of this technology is due to the fact that antiparticles release an enormous amount of energy when they come into contact with regular matter. The energy density is two to three orders of magnitude higher than nuclear reactions and nearly ten orders of magnitude greater than the best chemical propellants used in spacecraft such as the space shuttle.
Cheers
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Old 08-08-2011, 08:53 AM
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Always the optimist Craig. I like that.
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  #9  
Old 08-08-2011, 09:26 AM
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Let's be realistic here, Craig. 28 antiprotons is hardly a nanogram!!!. A proton/antiproton only weighs 1.67 x 10^-24g. Even a million of them would be 9 orders of magnitude too light.

The 15ng supply max they say Earth has is squillions of them!!!. That might be enough, but they're awfully spread out. They would be very hard to collect. Plus, it apparently takes several years to replenish the supply of them when they're exhausted. Unless you want to smash up a few large asteroids and build a ring system around the planet!!!!

Last edited by renormalised; 08-08-2011 at 11:43 AM.
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Old 08-08-2011, 11:22 AM
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Very interesting.
As often happens I go to a suggestd link and that takes me to another, and another etc but I found this (below link) finally.

I had no idea there was "serious" consideration of anti matter propulsion however....

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...prop12apr99_1/


A suggestion was that "faster than light speeds" would be achieved ...

Although it all sounds like impossible I find it exciting we may be looking at humans first serious consideration of interstella travel hopes. Containment ..not a problem.

WOW what a time we live in...I am still coming to grips with the fact you can buy a 3d printer for about 10k...

alex
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Old 08-08-2011, 11:49 AM
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The question arrises ..where did all the anti matter go..on the basis that equal amounts of anti matter and matter were created in the big bang... does anyone have a view on this? I am interested at what point and over what period of time the two may have interacted...

alex
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Old 08-08-2011, 11:50 AM
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Alex, antimatter for power and propulsion has been seriously considered for decades. They just have to find a way of producing it in quantity and cheaply.
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Old 08-08-2011, 11:54 AM
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Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by xelasnave View Post
The question arrises ..where did all the anti matter go..on the basis that equal amounts of anti matter and matter were created in the big bang... does anyone have a view on this? I am interested at what point and over what period of time the two may have interacted...

alex
Actually, not quite equal amounts were created. It appears there was an overabundance of matter to antimatter of 1 part in a million. What we have left is the matter we see.
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Old 08-08-2011, 12:06 PM
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Frame dragging ...

Galaxy sized twist in time pulls violating particles back into line (July 14, 2011).


Quote:
Dr Hadley’s paper (just published in EPL (Europhysics Letters) and entitled “The asymmetric Kerr metric as a source of CP violation”) suggests that researchers have neglected the significant impact of the rotation of our Galaxy on the pattern of how sub atomic particles breakdown.
Dr Hadley says:
“Nature is fundamentally asymmetric according to the accepted views of particle physics. There is a clear left right asymmetry in weak interactions and a much smaller CP violation in Kaon systems. These have been measured but never explained. This research suggests that the experimental results in our laboratories are a consequence of galactic rotation twisting our local space time. If that is shown to be correct then nature would be fundamentally symmetric after all. This radical prediction is testable with the data that has already been collected at Cern and BaBar by looking for results that are skewed in the direction that the galaxy rotates.”

The beauty of this theory is that it can also be tested.
..
The paper only addressees how galactic scale frame dragging could explain experimental observations of apparent CP violation. However the explanation it provides also leaves open the door to those theorists who believe CP violation would be a useful tool to explain the separation of matter and antimatter at the birth of our universe and the subsequent apparent predominance of matter. Indeed that galactic scale frame dragging may even drag open that door a little wider. The universe’s earliest structures, perhaps the very earliest, may have had sufficient mass and spin to generate frame dragging affects that could have had a significant effect the distribution of matter and antimatter.
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Old 08-08-2011, 12:12 PM
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Originally Posted by renormalised View Post
Actually, not quite equal amounts were created. It appears there was an overabundance of matter to antimatter of 1 part in a million. What we have left is the matter we see.
Thanks Carl I was aware of that ..in fact I am sure I read someone suggesting 1%... cant remember where but probably one of the CERN experiments... no matter...a difference is accepted thinking any percentage difference will leave a balance in favour of one side or the other.

I was not trying to suggest if equal amounts then one would entirely cancel the other.. the period of interaction is what I am trying to determine.

I guess if they are hoping to find answers via the CBR it may have been in the inflationary epoch...

There must be some trace of the resultant energy.

I dont know and looking for a pointer to research is all... but it occurred to me that maybe the energy release powered inflation... which although fanciful prompted me to wonder about the impact of what would have been massive energy releases and what happened to its footprint.

alex
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Old 08-08-2011, 12:18 PM
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Originally Posted by CraigS View Post
Does this approach suggest that the anti matter is still out there...still seperated via this initial distribution?

alex
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Old 08-08-2011, 12:22 PM
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Alex, antimatter for power and propulsion has been seriously considered for decades. They just have to find a way of producing it in quantity and cheaply.
Yes Carl I can see that now, I never read about it because I thought it was associated with SCFI...

alex
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Old 08-08-2011, 12:37 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by xelasnave View Post
Does this approach suggest that the anti matter is still out there...still seperated via this initial distribution?

alex
From Hadley's paper …

Quote:
… it is predicted that the anisotropy in space time is responsible for the observed CP violation.


For terrestrial experiments the effect could be manifested as an anisotropy in measured CP violation because the gravitational CP violating term distinguishes the direction of galactic rotation.

If the prediction is confirmed then Nature can be considered to be symmetric under time reversal and space inversion.

CP violation is seen as the key to explaining the matter asymmetry in the Universe, but the measured CP violation is inadequate to explain the Universe that we see today (see [4] and references therein).

The proposed mechanism for CP violation in this paper, has considerable implications for observed baryon asymmetry in the Universe. On the one hand it provides for a much stronger CP violation near massive spinning sources, but fails to give universal CP violation.
Cheers
PS: The point being CP violation tests have an inbuilt asymmetry caused by the known gravitational potential of spinning masses. The Galaxy is the source with the largest effect. Extrapolating to the larger picture of the universe's view of CP violation, would still come down to other observations/theoretical arguments, I believe. (A bit of a stretch, but still, a plausible hypothesis, I guess).

Last edited by CraigS; 08-08-2011 at 01:31 PM. Reason: Added the 'PS'
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Old 08-08-2011, 01:41 PM
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CP violation caused by frame dragging of large spinning masses might have some effect at present within the universe, but to hope that would account for the baryon asymmetry of the universe is probably stretching it a little too far. The amount of frame dragging needed to cause the violation in a structure such as the universe, with the amount of matter/antimatter that was present early on would be staggering. It would have to spin much faster than c, let alone expand faster. The effects would still be observable even after 13.7Ga. Not only in the disparity between matter/antimatter content, but also imprinted upon the CMB and possibly other structures within the universe. Just how much it would affect the anisotropy in space time is still open to debate.

Needs more work, for sure.
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  #20  
Old 08-08-2011, 10:14 PM
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CERN will investigate if gravity acts on anti matter the same as matter... will anti matter fall up? they think it will act the same as matter but wow if it falls up we can start palning the battle star.

Found reading about anti matter very helpful in understanding symetry better but was hard going.

alex
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