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Solar System in a Can May Reveal Hidden Dimensions
dylanduck writes "A model solar system, made of tungsten and placed in space, could reveal hidden spatial dimensions and test alternative theories of gravity. If the system's 'planets' moved slightly differently to the way predicted by standard gravity, it would signal the presence of new physical phenomena." From the article: "Once at the Lagrange point, the artificial solar system would be set in motion inside the spacecraft. An 8-centimetre-wide sphere of tungsten would act as an artificial sun, while a smaller test sphere would be launched 10 cm away into an oval-shaped orbit. The miniscule planet would orbit its tungsten sun 3,000 times per year."
I wonder if our universe is just a hidden spacial dimension test for a super-advanced alien civilization... still trying to figure out string theory.
the old L5 Society wanted to place a module they called a High Orbital Mini-Earth there... sort of a H.O.M.E. on LaGrannge.....
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Since we're not able currently even to build a spaceship capable of making it to the moon (having mothballed all the relevent tech and gone for the technical nightmare that is the shuttle, and the hidiously expensive disaster that is the ISS), why bother with these types of experiments?
Such experiments, while useful, aren't practical when we have a real and current need to figure out how to get construction workers and ordinary people into space, so we can build a realistic presence there.
Once we're there, we could perform experiments like this at a fraction of the cost.
Ok, perhaps I'm thinking too fancifully, but it's real concern. Let's face it, every environment we've moved into only becomes liveable when the ordinary people who know how to build stuff and make things arrive. The larger the number of people, the faster things progress.
So long as it's only scientists and the 'elite' going into space and performing experiments progress will be very slow. That can't be good.
What we need is people going 'prospecting' for interesting asteroids/orbiting 'junk' that can be exploited, building commercial stations, setting up routine flights into space. In short, we need economic forces active in space.
If I had a nickel for everytime I heard someone suggest replacing a tungsten weight with uranium, I'd have a buck or so. Uranium (238 anyway) isn't denser than tungsten. Tungsten is the densist material for semi-practical applications. It's more available than iridium or osmium, and far less expensive than platinum, three more dense elements. For a few reasonably obvious reasons, neptunium and plutonium aren't really good alternatives to tungsten if you just want a dense lump of metal.