The Earth Has A Ring

[SamAsh07]

Of anti-protons! While it's not as visually cool as what Saturn has going for it, this is still an important development, even if we can't technically "see" the ring with our primitive Earthling eyes.

According to New Scientist, this anti-proton ring joins the previously discovered positron cloud that's also circling the Earth like an invisible shield. Ironically, the anti-protons are 2,000 times more massive than their positron counterparts, but were discovered second. Both are trapped in a donut-like ring called the Van Allen radiation belt that's held in place by the planet's magnetic field.

In the distant future, a spacecraft designed to use anti-protons (or other types of antimatter) as a fuel source could tap into this ring to top off its tanks and head out into the void, said Alessandro Bruno, a member of the University of Rome Tor Vergata team that confirmed the anti-proton area's existence.[/p]

My Source

Original Source (For People With More Science-related Knowledge)

Well that's something now, isn't it?

Btw there has been a drought in the USN, barely any new topics

So I thought let's travel the science path, see if it works.

 

[Ikki]

That's interesting.
I like space-related schtuffz.

Spoiler

SPAAAACE

 

[DeadLocked]

Aw I was getting excited, i've always wanted a visible ring around earth since seeing how beautiful they are on saturn.

Maybe we can shoot some earth shit of appropriate mass and make one :trollface.jpg:

 

[koimayeul]

our planet getting sexy maybe we will get alien attention now to invade and colonize it.. smart move! lol

 

[Bladexdsl]

one ring to...circle the earth

Maybe we can shoot some earth shit of appropriate mass and make one :trollface.jpg:

with all the space junk up there i'm surprised it hasn't formed one

 

[FAST6191]

Awesome. For some reason I wandered in here expecting another space junk but this is great.

They say fuel.... I have to wonder what sort of energy density there is although I guess at the temperatures we are talking about it does not matter so much.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

And this means what exactly? They say in years in the future, but I highly, HIGHLY doubt anything will become of it.

Right now, it's just an invisible ring that we can't do anything with.

 

[TheDreamLord]

Wow thats pretty awesome

 

[Rydian]

And this means what exactly? They say in years in the future, but I highly, HIGHLY doubt anything will become of it.

Right now, it's just an invisible ring that we can't do anything with.

As if every scientific discovery has to immediately lead to some kind of weapon or something?

The fact that our own planet has an invisible ring of antimatter around it held in place by magnetism shows that we still don't know crap. How did we find this? Can we use the same method on other things we thought we knew and discover things that we didn't know were there?

You don't have a very scientific mind, man. Where's your sense of discovery? Learning things to accumulate knowledge? I find the fact that you seem to come in angry at every one of the science topics just because it doesn't mean a laser sword or something to be Pretty Fucking Annoying™.

 

[Zerosuit connor]

RYDIAN IS BACK OMGWTF.

Bahaha what have i missed. Yeah I think if modern science & Technology can see this then we aren't far of hover cars and stuff...

 

[ShadowSoldier]

And this means what exactly? They say in years in the future, but I highly, HIGHLY doubt anything will become of it.

Right now, it's just an invisible ring that we can't do anything with.

As if every scientific discovery has to immediately lead to some kind of weapon or something?

The fact that our own planet has an invisible ring of antimatter around it held in place by magnetism shows that we still don't know crap. How did we find this? Can we use the same method on other things we thought we knew and discover things that we didn't know were there?

You don't have a very scientific mind, man. Where's your sense of discovery? Learning things to accumulate knowledge? I find the fact that you seem to come in angry at every one of the science topics just because it doesn't mean a laser sword or something to be Pretty Fucking Annoying™.

Um... first of all, chill.

Secondly, what science threads do I come in angry? I mean, if you took my post as angry, that's kind of sad. I just said that I highly doubt anything will happen with this. I'm also not the biggest fan of you saying that I expect it to do something right away and to mean weapons, so back off a bit.

 

[The Pi]

*Enters nerd mode*

For those who don't know matter-antimatter collisions result in all their mass being turned into energy.

Going by my calculations, one kilo of antimatter colliding with one kilo of matter will produce about 1 x 10^44 Joules (that's a fuck load of energy being produced, for example it could power a 100 watt bulb for about 3 x 10^34 years)

However, no method of collection is 100% efficient I doubt you will get even get 30% of that energy.

Secondly, I highly doubt there's anything close to a kilo there, only a fraction of a gram.

 

[ShakeBunny]

This is actually really cool, but doesn't mean much to me as an American, considering we shut down a lot of our NASA stuff.

 

[Deleted member 473940]

Not visible

Cool stuff though

!

 

[Searinox]

I laughed when people alarmed themselves about us producing a black hole with a particle accelerator because I already knew that where the sun's particles hit our atmosphere, the equivalent of trillions of particle accelerators are running nonstop. High-speed collisions of subatomic particles ejected by the sun with our atmosphere produce antimatter. What I didn't know was that these particles could spin around earth in relative safety. Antimatter is extremely reactive and contact with any sort of conventional matter will annihilate it. Given the fact that even a relatively quiet place like inner space is still pretty chaotic at particle level, it was beyond my imagination that antimatter could really survive. I am truly surprised. Also, that ring looks more like a shell. That electromagnetic enclosement is pretty much a natural penning trap, which is what we on earth use to encapsulate and store antimatter. Again, it's still a pretty dirty environment, with other particle radiation passing by. I'm surprised it survives.

 

[ShakeBunny]

Is it bad that I was actually sort of hoping those guys /did/ make a black hole?

 

[Deleted member 473940]

Is it bad that I was actually sort of hoping those guys /did/ make a black hole?

Do you know what a black hole actually is and what it does?

 

[Rydian]

Um... first of all, chill.

Secondly, what science threads do I come in angry? I mean, if you took my post as angry, that's kind of sad. I just said that I highly doubt anything will happen with this. I'm also not the biggest fan of you saying that I expect it to do something right away and to mean weapons, so back off a bit.

My bad, I was thinking of somebody else that always does it.

But still, I think you should think it over before you claim something's got no use.

 

[chyyran]

Well, that's pretty cool. The problem is how those guys at NASA could utilize the anti-protons.

Is it bad that I was actually sort of hoping those guys /did/ make a black hole?

Do you know what a black hole actually is and what it does?

Hint: It's actually not a hole, in the traditional sense

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Um... first of all, chill.

Secondly, what science threads do I come in angry? I mean, if you took my post as angry, that's kind of sad. I just said that I highly doubt anything will happen with this. I'm also not the biggest fan of you saying that I expect it to do something right away and to mean weapons, so back off a bit.

My bad, I was thinking of somebody else that always does it.

But still, I think you should think it over before you claim something's got no use.

I didn't say it has no use. I'm sure there's a use for it, but I said I doubt we'll see anything come from it for a long time, if at all.

If they wanna make space ships and have that be fuel, cool, I'm all for it. But I didn't say "this doesn't mean anything it won't get any use or anything". I said that I think it will be a while (after we're all dead and hundreds of years from now) before we can use it. We might get some info out of it, but not for a long time will we be able to make full use of it.