Deep space may provide hidden energy sources, such as dark matter, to fuel future spacecraft. Before we get to that stage, however, a new test engine suggests the possibility of tapping into deep space as a possible energy source – albeit in a small area that might not support interstellar travel.
Indeed, the purpose of the new engine, described in a scientific paper published on November 12, but it does not appear much – but it still marks an important step forward. Until now, its main purpose is to install Greenhouses and other buildings. Known as a combustion engine, a simple device converts the difference in heat into mechanical power.
What is special about this particular engine, however, is that it uses the depth of space to provide the necessary chill. The “warm” part is the natural warmth of the earth, and the “cold” part is something that is “very cold but also very far away:” the team, two engineers at Exhinal of California, Davis, explained in a statement.
“It doesn’t have to actually physically touch space; it can just interact with space,” added senior author Jeremy Muntay in the release.
But how does that work?
First, consider how propulsion engines work. Unlike many other engines, impulse engines work surprisingly well when “a small relaxation difference exists … like that between a hot cup of coffee and its surroundings. The key is to ensure that the warm and cold parts of the engine are clearly separated, he added.
Creating a new engine requires only a simple modification. Mu Muntay and his participating and graduate coach, Tristan Deppe, created a simple panel to function as a heat-generating antenna. I then molded a commercial combustion engine into a square antenna, which ended up being much larger than a laptop.
Simply put, the upside-down side was attached to the ground with an aluminum mount to ensure it absorbed heat from the surface of the earth, according to the paper. The side facing the night sky, on the other hand, was covered with a special type of paint that enabled it to capture infrared rays from deep space and the Sun.
“The reason that this is not like any other technology is that many engines work with a temperature difference, but usually things that are close,” explained the things that are close, “explained the video that introduces the engine. “For us, we have a warm earth nearby, but the cold in space is not too far away, and the connection is very big. And the jump we took is that, we can be ripped away, we can be separated.”
Small engine, cosmic power
For more than a year, mumuniday and dephpe set up a global framework to test their device outside the lab. They found that after sunset, their setup created about an 18-degree CEGRECE CRETE FTRATTION difference on both sides of their square antenna.
This is enough of a heat gradient to produce at least 400 milliwatts of mechanical power per square meter – enough power to directly power a fan and a small piece of paper.
For the researchers, however, the most promising experiment was the one they conducted inside a small greenhouse. In this test, they replaced the engine’s flywheel with a custom fan blade and monitored whether the setup could help ventilate the green at night.
They were surprised to find that the fans provided enough airflow to control the temperature of the greenhouse. Since this is just the first prototype, further development and expansion of the technology “could provide an innovative way to ensure healthy air in public spaces and promote plant growth by controlling humidity and CO2 levels in greenhouses,” the paper noted.
UC Davis has filed a provisional patent for the design, according to the release.
