Getting to Proxima Centauri b will take a lot of new technologies, but there are increasingly exciting reasons to do so. Both public and private efforts have started seriously looking at ways to make it happen, but so far, there has been one significant roadblock to the journey – propulsion. To solve that problem, Christopher Limbach, now a professor at the University of Michigan, received a grant from NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) to work on a novel type of beamed propulsion that utilizes both a particle beam and a laser to overcome that technology’s biggest weakness. Let’s first look at why conventional propulsion systems wouldn’t work to get a craft to Proxima b. Conventional rockets are out of the question, as their fuel is too heavy and burns up too quickly to get a probe anywhere near the speed it would need to reach Proxima b. Conventional solar sails also fail because once they are far enough away from the Sun, only a minimum push is applied to them. Other non-conventional solutions could work, such as nuclear propulsion or ion drives. However, they fall victim to the tyranny of the rocket equation – since they have to carry their fuel, they have to carry more mass to go faster, thereby eliminating much of that benefit. That leaves beamed propulsion—essentially creating a giant beam in space that continues to push on a spacecraft with a collector on it, which can continue to push the entirety of the time the spacecraft is on its way to its destination. Typically, there are two types of beams used in these systems—particle beams and light beams. However, each has a weakness—diffraction. Credit: universetoday.com Both light and particle beams tend to spread out over long distances, making them much less effective at focusing on a single small object that might be light years away. Even lasers, if allowed to point far away, eventually scatter into unusable light. However, there is a way around this. Recently, optics research has developed a way of combining particle and laser beams that all but eliminates diffraction and beam spreading when both are used simultaneously. This would allow a beamed propulsion system to continue concentrating its beam on exactly the right place without slowly losing its pushing force as the probe gets further away. Dr. Limbach used this underlying technology to develop what he calls PROCSIMA, a novel propulsion method that used a coherent combined particle and laser beamed propulsion system. Calculations by Dr. Limbach and his collaborator, Dr. Ken Hara, now a professor at Stanford, show that making a coherent beam that can effectively last to Proxima b while only diffracting out to about 10m is possible, at least in theory. According to their calculations, a 5g probe like the one that the Breakthrough Initiatives project is working on could be pushed up to 10% of the speed of light, allowing it to reach Proxima b in 43 years. Alternatively, they also calculated that a much larger probe of around 1kg could reach the system in around 57 years. That would allow for a much more exciting payload, even if the probe would zoom through the Proxima Centauri system at a significant fraction of the speed of light. There is still some work to be done, including developing things like cold atom particle sources and improving the functionality of the beam systems. However, so far, the project hasn’t been supported by another NIAC grant, though Dr. Limbach’s lab at UM continues to work on similar ideas, such as a nanoNewton propulsion system. Development continues on a star shot method to eventually get a probe to another star, and it seems like, for better or worse, beamed propulsion is the way we will get there. Source: www.universetoday.com The post How the new engine will help get to Proxima Centauri appeared first on Anomalien.com.

Just two years from today, on July 4, 2026, the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and, with it, the founding of our country. Those who were alive to remember our bicentennial celebrations of 1976 already know what to expect: a massive nationwide celebration, with fireworks and parades, with streets lined with flags and large festivals happening across the country. Symbols and sentimentality will not suffice for this occasion. Whoever is president will need to outline a positive way forward for this country, shared values that can embolden us to face an uncertain future. The campaign to observe our semiquincentennial already has an official name — America250 — and a website promising an effort “to commemorate and celebrate our 250th anniversary with inclusive programs that inspire Americans to renew and strengthen our daring experiment in democracy.” What remains to be seen is the tone of the event. One of the curious realities of this celebration is that it will almost certainly be heavily affected by the outcome of the 2024 election. Neither President Biden nor President Trump seems to think this “daring experiment” is doing very well at the moment. Each man takes every opportunity he can to express his dismay. They differ on why American is failing. Biden sees a nation filled with violent dissenters and unabashed racists, the product of a genocidal past. Trump sees a nation corrupted by bureaucracy and foreign influence, in need of renewal. The 1976 Bicentennial is looked back upon as a joyous, unifying affair, but that year the country was also grappling with the aftermath of Watergate and the tumult of the 1970s. 2026 will happen at a time when the meaning of America is more contested than ever, as reflected by a number of cultural and political flash points, big and small: the1619 Project, Black Lives Matter, “Hamilton,” “White Fragility,” January 6. It will be met with protests, soul-searching angst, and uncertainty about the nature of the American experiment. Today America faces innumerable threats — rising inflation, a broken housing market, failing educational and medical systems, declining birth rates, and unchecked mass immigration. As if the election of Trump in 2016 weren’t enough, COVID-19 offered undenable evidence of just how divided our citizenry is, with half of the population wanting to be left alone and the other half openly calling for them to catch a deadly disease and die. Then there are our foreign policy problems, continuing to threaten global stability and trade: ongoing wars in Ukraine and Israel, a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, tensions between North and South Korea. America250 suggests an opportunity to ask some pressing questions about who we are. Are we the same republic that George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson founded? Have we been corrupted beyond repair? Is the Constitution a dead letter? Does America even want to be America any more? Or are we doomed to national suicide, decline, secession, and a bloody civil war? Whoever wins the 2024 election will have to stand on the national stage on July 4, 2026, and give a speech that speaks to this identity crisis. Symbols and sentimentality will not suffice for this occasion. Whoever is president will need to outline a positive way forward for this country, shared values that can embolden us to face an uncertain future. As we go into the ballot boxes this November, we should ask ourselves which of these two candidates has the vision, determination, and courage to tell America the hard truth: Unless we can recover some of the spirit with which we founded this great nation, the chances that it will be around for its tricentennial in 2076 are slim indeed.

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A year ago, Meta debuted Threads, its response to Elon Musk acquiring and quickly destroying Twitter. As users wanted somewhere new to migrate, mostly because they disagreed with Elon Musk's decisions for the platform, Mark Zuckerberg took the lead in announcing this new social network that would use Instagram's user base but focus on writing threads instead of photos. During this past year, Instagram's head, Adam Mosseri, assumed the lead with everything related to Threads. He was the face of updates, addressing complaints, and giving tips and tricks. In these 12 months, Threads improved both its web interface and apps, and it feels the hard work has paid off. While celebrating the platform's first anniversary, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Thread now has more than 175M monthly active users. However, despite its impressive user base, I still think the platform hasn't managed to replicate what made Twitter huge. Post by @zuck View on Threads I know it's pretty much a meme asking if "anyone still uses Threads." I know you are there, I'm there, and most people are there. But are they engaging with the platform? I don't think so. While I used to be a very prominent Twitter user, I don't feel Threads was able to fill the gap left by the other platform. Even though I thread occasionally, I usually forget about it. I also feel X has most of the accounts I'm interested in following. That said, one reason why Threads looks like an empty party is that most people are talking alone. You don't get viral on Threads or start a meme there. Most likely, you're copying and pasting something from X to the platform. Another interesting comparison is how much Elon Musk posts on X and how little Mark Zuckerberg is on Threads. At the end of the day, it's great to have another social media platform, but maybe they're all dying—or I'm in that phase where all the cool kids have moved to a new place, but I haven't discovered it yet. Threads might have almost 200 million active users, and it might be a success in some instances, but I feel social media, in general, has lost the sense of community that made us join them so many years ago. Where do we go next? Don't Miss: You can finally delete Threads without deleting your Instagram account The post Threads turns 1 with 175M active users, so why does it still feel empty? appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: Rare Meta Quest 3 discount, $8 mosquito bite relief, $300 off Narwal Freo X Ultra, more Today’s deals: $3 smart plugs, $299 Apple Watch S9, $38 bug zapper, $700 off Samsung G9 monitor, more Today’s deals: $120 off Ryzen 9 mini PC, $89 Apple AirPods, $25 portable neck fan, $79 23andMe DNA test, more Best deals: Tech, laptops, TVs, and more sales

President Joe Biden on Wednesday awarded the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry to two Union soldiers who stole a locomotive deep in Confederate territory during the Civil War and drove it north for 87 miles as they destroyed railroad tracks and telegraph lines.

The Boston Globe editorial board on Wednesday joined a growing list of media organizations calling on President Joe Biden to suspend his reelection bid after his disastrous debate performance last week against former President Donald Trump.