Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

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Space travel is already a very simple thing in many science fiction movies. In the movie "wandering the Earth", human beings have been able to take the earth to wander. Although the description of science fiction is always somewhat exaggerated, in fact, it is not completely without scientific basis. Now, there is a new technology that is expected to take you to take a look at the vast expanse of space in the future.

(by Mei Lin / tr. by Robert Taylor)

Do you think that now that mankind has realized space travel, it is not surprising to go to space to have a look? Today's spacecraft mainly use the power generated by rockets to fly into space, land on the moon and Mars, and even fly to the edge of the solar system. But if you want to fly out of the solar system and travel deep into space, rockets don't seem to work. Rocket-powered spacecraft, even the fastest spacecraft today, take 80,000 years to fly to the nearest galaxy to Earth.

To this end, some scientists have thought of ion engine technology. They believe that ion engines will allow spacecraft to fly faster, and it will take only about 100 years to fly to the nearest galaxy outside the Milky way.

Why choose ion engine? Scientists choose ion engines because they have advantages that rocket engines do not have.

In rocket engines, some flammable chemicals, such as hydrogen, burn with oxygen to produce large amounts of high-temperature and high-pressure gases. These gases are ejected from the vents to power the spacecraft. The basic principle of ion engine is exactly the same as that of rocket engine. The ion engine accelerates the ions by using the electric field, and then ejects the fast-moving ions from the nozzle to promote the movement of the spacecraft.

In terms of fuel efficiency, the rocket's efficiency of converting the energy contained in the fuel into thrust is not high, only 35%, and the fuel is consumed quickly, which limits the flight distance of the spacecraft. Otherwise, a large amount of fuel must be carried, which is not conducive to the long-distance space travel of spacecraft. Compared with the rocket, although the thrust generated by the ion engine is very small and the acceleration is slow, the fuel consumption of the ion engine is also slow, so it needs only a little fuel to fly longer and longer distances.

Now, ion engine has been widely used in the field of aerospace. Scientists hope that ion engines will also be used in airplanes. In 2018, a team led by Steven Barrett, an aerodynamist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), tested an aircraft powered by ion engines. The plane catapulted from a rubber band and flew smoothly for 55 meters in the air for 12 seconds. However, the planes tested in the laboratory are very small and light, and scientists have not yet been able to build an ion engine to make larger and heavier planes fly.

Now it seems that the ion engine only stays at the theoretical level. A recent new achievement makes quantum engines look more feasible than ion engines.

Using quantum entanglement to generate power recently, scientists from the University of Science and Technology in Okinawa, Kaiserslautern University and the University of Stuttgart in Germany have designed and manufactured a quantum engine based on the principle of quantum mechanics. Unlike traditional engines, this quantum engine does not rely on the combustion of fossil fuels to generate energy and provide power. This is the same as an ion engine.

So how does a quantum engine work using the principles of quantum mechanics? According to the differences in quantum properties, all particles in nature can be divided into bosons and fermions. At very low temperatures, the boson has a lower energy state than the fermion. The quantum engine uses the transformation of particles between these two energy states to generate power.

In the quantum engine, the quantum properties of particles with different energy states, fermion and boson, are different. Among them, the fermion is larger, so the mutual transformation of the two particles can generate power. (photo source: Mirijam Neve, OIST)

Traditional engines work by burning fuel to generate heat, during which most of the heat is wasted, and very little heat is really used to provide power, but in quantum engines, it is not dependent on heat, so there is no such a big waste of energy. more efficient and more environmentally friendly (no fossil energy, no heat release). Compared with ion engine, the power generated by quantum engine is strong enough, and it is more feasible to use quantum engine to promote aircraft, automobile, spacecraft and so on in the future.

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