Posted on 03/18/2019 9:02:50 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Spacecraft already navigate our solar system using gravity wells as slingshots.
The same basic principles operate in the intense gravity wells around black holes, which bend not only the paths of solid objects, but light itself. If a photon, or a light particle, enters a particular region in the vicinity of a black hole, it will do one partial circuit around the black hole and get flung back in exactly the same direction. Physicists call those regions "gravitational mirrors" and the photons they fling back "boomerang photons."
Boomerang photons already move at the speed of light, so they don't pick up any speed from their trips around black holes. But they do pick up energy. That energy takes the form of increased wavelength of the light, and the individual photon "packets" carry more energy than they had when they entered the mirror.
Kipping, the Columbia astronomer, proposed that an interstellar spacecraft could fire a laser at the gravity mirror of a fast-moving black hole in a binary black hole system. When the newly energized photons from the laser whipped back around, it could re-absorb them, and convert all that extra energy into momentum...
This system, which Kipping termed the "halo drive," has a big advantage over more traditional lightsails: It doesn't require a massive fuel source.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
... Then again, they might not.
Tripping the Light Fantastic!..............
Gee, I guess those Guatemalans are really technologically advanced.
Shooting yourself with a high energy laser seems like a great idea.
Boomerang photons already move at the speed of light, so they don’t pick up any speed from their trips around black holes. But they do pick up energy. That energy takes the form of increased wavelength of the light, and the individual photon “packets” carry more energy than they had when they entered the mirror.
...
Wouldn’t increased energy mean a shorter wavelength?
Photons with higher, 'increased,' wavelength have less energy. The science-free journalist meant the increased energy takes the form of higher frequency for the light.
Illegal aliens might zap the Wall to travel the United States.
It seems to me that this still does solve the problem of the massive distance between stars. Even if this technique allows for travel at 50% of light speed, it would still take 9 years to get to the closest star. That isn’t exactly “zipping”.
Why wouldn’t they just use their patent pending Martian Magic Wand?
There is something unique about South America and UFO sightings. They are so common that they have now become generally ignored just like birds flying over.
“flung back in exactly the same direction”
“back” is a different direction. OH!, they mean that the light goes back to its source! Not hard to say, is it?
So you can aim light near a black hole and the light picks up some energy from the black hole and comes back to you with more energy which you use to propel your craft.
Why not pick up some Higgs Bosons, some dark matter, some dark energy, and some spillover background radiation from one of those alternate universes? Mix that with a few quadrillion entangled quantum particles and you’ll have the makings of a real good science fiction story.
So? “Ride the ricochet” is the concept here?
Given the distances involved, they are more likely to land in our minds using another mechanism entirely instead of on our lawns in crude metal cans.
I don’t think you’re supposed to do that.
Yes, I think they probably mean increased frequency, which is shorter wavelength.
Yeah, we’re still basically talking about conventional propulsion here, and that will never get you faster than the speed of light, or even very close to it.
Gotta be careful not to stune my beeber during the hole zapping
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