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Heated sail

12.08.2005

Brothers Gregory and James Benford from the University of California (USA) improved the idea of a solar sail. A sail made of a thin film coated with a reflective layer has long been proposed to be used to accelerate spacecraft due to the pressure of sunlight.

The Benford brothers propose to cover the sail with a special paint that, when heated, emits gas - methane or hydrogen. As a result, the sail will also receive a reactive pushing force. The inventors intend to heat the sail from the Earth, directing a 300-megawatt beam of microwaves to the apparatus launched into near-Earth orbit with an apogee of about 60 kilometers.

According to calculations based on laboratory experiments, such a beam will accelerate a spacecraft with a sail with a diameter of 100 meters to 60 kilometers per second in an hour, which will make it possible to fly to Mars instead of a year in about a month. True, so far the most powerful space communication systems used for contacts with the Huygens-Cassini probe have a power of only half a megawatt.

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Atypical volcanic activity noticed in Europe 15.07.2020

Scientists from the University of California said that the ancient volcanic region may pose a danger to the modern countries of northwestern Europe. It was possible to fix "atypical" activity, the center of which is the German region of Eifel.

Activity also covers parts of Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Luxembourg. At the same time, scientists emphasize that their observations do not mean at all that a volcanic eruption or a powerful earthquake will occur here in the near future.

"Our study suggests that this region is an active volcanic system, much more seismically active than many faults in Europe, between the Eifel volcanic region and the Alps," lead author Paul Davies said in a statement.

It is noted that the region has a very rich volcanic history, but the last eruption occurred here 11 thousand years ago. In the course of the new study, scientists drew attention to the unusual movements that occur on the surface of the Earth: it rises and stretches, which is unusual for this region of Europe.

The Eifel region contains many ancient volcanic lakes, including maars - circular lakes that appeared as a result of volcanic eruptions. One of these lakes is the Laacher See. It is believed that the eruption that gave birth to it occurred 13 thousand years ago.

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