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Would this work in space?
by rubyfan 9y ago
Would this work in space?
- lucozade 9y agoDon't see why not as long as you don't try to use it outside of an environment with an atmosphere.
- jstanley 9y agoSo, no, it wouldn't work in space.
- Robotbeat 9y agoMars is in space. Venus is in space. And, I suppose, the Earth is in space, too. :) But if we're referring to the near-vacuum of space, it's still possible although the forces involved are incredibly small. There is SOME gas/plasma in space, and certain kinds of sound waves with really long wavelengths (called ion acoustic waves) do, indeed, travel through this thin medium. Unlike sound waves traveling in a neutral gas, ion acoustic waves, because they're traveling through a plasma, can also interact electromagnetically. There's a whole bunch of different waves like this that can travel through the plasma in space a lot like sound waves through the air: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waves_in_plasmas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waves_in_plasmas ...so I imagine that something like this could work under certain conditions (i.e very large and very low-mass objects).
- cyberferret 9y agoI don't think it would without some sort of medium to suspend the end target in. I am presuming that the articles in the video 'hover' there because they are caught in an air pressure pocket where multiple opposing waves essentially phase cancel each other out. In space, it would mean no air, therefore no medium in which to suspend the target. I do wonder about suspending nano particles using light waves though... conceivably that might work in space?!?
- tw1010 9y agoBut would it work on a spacecraft? (Without gravity?)
- TFortunato 9y agoNot quite what your talking about, but yes we can manipulate small (very!) objects today with light, using a technique / setup known as "Optical Tweezers" https://blocklab.stanford.edu/optical_tweezers.html https://blocklab.stanford.edu/optical_tweezers.html