throw a few thousand solar panels on the side of the moon that always faces the sun, send the energy collected back to Earth via microwaves, and you have the potential for a lot of cheap energy after the initial investment.
The moon's tidally locked to the earth, not the sun.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
i'm aware of that, but wouldn't that still mean that only one side ever receives sunlight? poor choice of words on my part
No, both sides receive sunlight. The "dark side" of the moon is misnamed. When we have a new moon there is sunlight on the far side of the moon; when we have a full moon the sunlight is on the near side.
No, both sides receive sunlight. The "dark side" of the moon is misnamed. When we have a new moon there is sunlight on the far side of the moon; when we have a full moon the sunlight is on the near side.
but wouldn't the "dark" side be blocked by the Earth preventing it from receiving sunlight?
The only time the earth blocks the moon is during a lunar eclipse, which is the exception when the moon is on the side of the earth away from the sun, not the rule (as the moon's orbit isn't perfectly aligned with the plane of earth's orbit around the sun).
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
The only time the earth blocks the moon is during a lunar eclipse, which is the exception when the moon is on the side of the earth away from the sun, not the rule (as the moon's orbit isn't perfectly aligned with the plane of earth's orbit around the sun).
ok that makes more sense. for some reason i thought moons followed the same plane of orbit around planets that they do around the sun
but still, i remember seeing a space show talking about the huge benefits of solar panels on the moon, since they could collect the full force of the sun's energy instead of having some of it diffused by an atmosphere. plus with no wind or weather to worry about, there would be virtually no maintenance needed
ok that makes more sense. for some reason i thought moons followed the same plane of orbit around planets that they do around the sun
In general they do, but it's not exact.
And that's not really the reason that one side of the moon isn't always in sunlight.
Here's a picture of the moon going around the earth and the sun illuminating them, the red lines I added are not the moon happy to see you, that's just the face of the moon you always see since it's tidally locked.. as you can see the portion of the moon that is in sunlight changes as the moon goes around the earth, which is just another way of saying that the moon rotates just like other bodies and has its own day/night cycle, it just happens that day/night cycle is the same as the moon's orbit around the earth.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
but still, i remember seeing a space show talking about the huge benefits of solar panels on the moon, since they could collect the full force of the sun's energy instead of having some of it diffused by an atmosphere. plus with no wind or weather to worry about, there would be virtually no maintenance needed
Yup, though you could also put them in certain orbits, and closer would be easier with less loss due to distance.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
We don't know exactly what dinosaurs looked like, but feathers discovered in 80-million-year-old amber provide new clues.
Paleontologists made this discovery of feather specimens near Grassy Lake in southwestern Alberta, Canada, and described the results in the journal Science.
Researchers don't know which feathers were actually from birds that flew and which might have been from theropod dinosaurs, but the filament structures resembles those seen in other non-avian fossils.
There appear to be two types in the sample: those resembling the feathers of modern birds, and "protofeathers," which are similar to the hair-like structures found in a halo around dinosaur specimens from China in early early Cretaceous rock. Those simpler feathers in the amber, which differ from what modern birds have, may have came from small, meat-eating dinosaurs.
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They are working on a prototype of electric cars that are powered by the road itself--electric roads for electric cars. While the idea of cars powered from the ground is not new, the system that they propose is an interesting way to power electric cars as the cars travel along the road through steel belts placed inside tires and a metal plate in the road.
It's an interesting idea, but the massive problem I see with that is that during peak traffic periods, everyone is going to be drawing power from the grid at the same time. At least batteries can be charged during off peak hours. Imagine the headaches that brownouts would cause. Of course that's only with widespread implementation, but you'd need wide-spread implementation to justify the infrastructure.
Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early.
Quote:
"We tried to find all possible explanations for this," said report author Antonio Ereditato of the Opera collaboration. "We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't," he told BBC News.
Quote:
The team measured the travel times of neutrino bunches some 15,000 times, and have reached a level of statistical significance that in scientific circles would count as a formal discovery.
But the group understands that what are known as "systematic errors" could easily make an erroneous result look like a breaking of the ultimate speed limit, and that has motivated them to publish their measurements.
But for now, he explained, "we are not claiming things, we want just to be helped by the community in understanding our crazy result - because it is crazy".
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