Antimatter ring found around Earth

[Remus]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128245.500-antiproton-ring-found-around-earth.html

The antimatter, which may persist for minutes or hours before annihilating with normal matter, could in theory be used to fuel ultra-efficient rockets of the future.

"I find it very interesting to note that the Earth's magnetic field works a little bit like the magnetic traps that we are using in the lab," says Rolf Landua at the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland.

"This is the most abundant source of antiprotons near the Earth," says Bruno. "Who knows, one day a spacecraft could launch then refuel in the inner radiation belt before travelling further."
Millions or billions of times as many antiprotons probably ring the giant planets.

This is very good news. Now if only we'd figure out a way to "harvest" that antimatter and store it.

 

[Raziaar]

All that antimatter and yet the most dangerous thing to matter orbiting earth is other bits of matter

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Finally a topic that isn't so ****ing depressing.

Too bad it probably won't be very harvestable anytime soon.

 

[YROC]

The fact of the matter is, it's anti.

 

[Dandan]

Interesting, Warp drives in 20 years or less I hope

 

[sixteenth]

Interesting, Warp drives in 20 years or less I hope

I'm hoping for plaid drives.

 

[StarBob]

This is cool. Harvesting them could be interesting considering all of the radiation circling in the Van Allen belts. I guess if you can actually collect and store antimatter effectively and efficiently, you could easily have found a way to avoid the other issues. However 28 antiprotons is pretty slim pickings...

I wish they would have called antiprotons negatons. I mean they called antielectrons positrons. It only makes sense.

 

[blackout]

The fact of the matter is, it's anti.

duh-dum dum

 

[Mr Stabby]

You can't store it with matter, you would have to use magnetic fields. It's pretty amazing that these anti-protons haven't found any protons in the last 14 billion years.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Space is big, yo.

 

[Remus]

You can't store it with matter, you would have to use magnetic fields. It's pretty amazing that these anti-protons haven't found any protons in the last 14 billion years.

Did you actually read the article?

The antimatter, which may persist for minutes or hours before annihilating with normal matter, could in theory be used to fuel ultra-efficient rockets of the future.

The antimatter is being continually replenished. However there is a finite volume of antimatter which the ring around Earth can contain.
So even if some day we built some sort of harvesting ships to scoop up the antimatter, it wouldn't be depleted.

 

[StarBob]

Did you actually read the article?



The antimatter is being continually replenished. However there is a finite volume of antimatter which the ring around Earth can contain.
So even if some day we built some sort of harvesting ships to scoop up the antimatter, it wouldn't be depleted.

I don't know how common cosmic rays are, but I do know that only a small percentage of them are made of antimatter so it's not like you'd expect it to replenish in a day.

 

[Remus]

I don't know how common cosmic rays are, but I do know that only a small percentage of them are made of antimatter so it's not like you'd expect it to replenish in a day.

This kind of reminds me of harvesting tiberium. When one tiberium field is picked clean, you move to another one and in the mean time the old one regrows.
We'll just have to determine the exact volume and how fast it's being replenished. But we wont be exploiting it any time soon so there's plenty of time to find out.

 

[Eejit]

Remus is right. We'd better ask Kane how to proceed.

 

[Adabiviak]

...didn't know there were so many antiparticles 'raining down' from space. Perhaps a Bussard ramjet would be better suited to harvest these? Presumably not as abundant as hydrogen, but the available energy should be higher.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

All that antimatter and yet the most dangerous thing to matter orbiting earth is other bits of matter

You mean the International Space Station's lost toilet brush? Yep at the speed that thing goes, it could puncture holes in a fair few communication satellites :smoking:

 

[Wanted Bob]

Very cool, but I doubt we will see any sort of collection technology for a long time.