Tag Archives: HighSpeed

The Earliest High-Speed Radio Burst Illuminates Early Star Formation

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A magnetar, a type of neutron star, can be the source of fast radio bursts

Science Photo Library/Alamy

A peculiar burst of light from the early universe aids astronomers in mapping elusive gases found between galaxies, much like flashlights in dark spaces.

The Fast Radio Burst (FRB) is an extremely brief yet potent burst of radio frequency emissions that has puzzled astronomers since its discovery in 2007. Currently, we know of only a few thousand instances in the universe, leaving much still to be understood about them, especially as most originate from galaxies neighboring the Milky Way.

Now, Manisha Kaleb from the University of Sydney, Australia, along with her research team, has identified a remarkably distant FRB, tracing back to a galaxy that existed merely 3 billion years post-Big Bang.

Kaleb and her collaborators first detected a burst designated 20240304B using the South African Meerkat Radio Telescope in March 2024, corroborating their findings with observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. They determined that the burst originated from a small, faint galaxy that appeared relatively youthful, characterized by rapid star formation.

“This discovery is extraordinarily distant,” stated Jason Hessel from the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. The FRB 20240304B is from an epoch in the universe’s timeline known as the ‘midday’ of the universe, a period when the rate of new star formation peaks. This hints that during the galaxy’s formative years, this FRB—and possibly others—may have stemmed from a young star that underwent a supernova and collapsed into a magnetar, according to Hessel.

A key reason astronomers focus on FRBs lies in their ability to shine a light on ionized gases and lost electrons from radiation emitted by stars, which constitute most of the universe’s matter. Understanding its distribution is crucial for unraveling how larger structures—such as stars and galaxies—form. However, like the FRB, this gas remains largely invisible unless illuminated by a light source.

“This luminous flash reveals all the ionized material between us and the origin of the flash, allowing us to map both the gas and the magnetic fields amidst the stars and galaxies,” Hessel added.

The discovery of FRB 20240304B implies that the universe’s first stars were actively ionizing their surroundings, which can help establish a timeline of when these stars first ignited, according to Anastasia Fialkov from Cambridge University. The insights gleaned will only enhance with the detection of even more distant FRBs.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Astronomers reveal that new high-speed radio bursts originated from neutron stars’ magnetospheres

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A new study has provided the first definitive evidence that fast radio bursts can originate from the magnetosphere, the highly magnetic environment immediately surrounding very compact objects.

Artist's impression of a neutron star. Image credit: Sci.News.

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are short, brilliant bursts of radio waves that originate primarily from extragalactic distances.

These phenomena release as much energy in one millisecond as the sun does in 10,000 years, but the physics that cause them are unknown.

Theories range from a highly magnetized neutron star exploded by a stream of gas near a supermassive black hole to proposals whose outburst characteristics match the signature of technology developed by an advanced civilization.

MIT astronomer Kenzie Nimmo and colleagues focused on the event, dubbed FRB 20221022A, in a new study.

This burst was first detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) in 2022.

The event occurred in a galaxy about 200 million light years away and lasted about 2 milliseconds.

New research suggests that FRB 20221022A emerged from a region extremely close to the rotating neutron star, up to 10,000 km away.

At such close distances, the burst could have originated from the neutron star's magnetosphere, a highly magnetic region immediately surrounding the microstar.

“In a neutron star environment like this, the magnetic field is actually at the limit of what the universe can produce,” Dr. Nimmo said.

“There has been a lot of discussion about whether this bright radio emission can leak out of that extreme plasma.”

“Atoms cannot exist around these highly magnetic neutron stars, also known as magnetars. They are simply torn apart by the magnetic field,” added astronomer Kiyoshi Masui of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“What's interesting here is that we found that the energy stored in magnetic fields gets twisted and rearranged near the source of the magnetic field and is emitted as radio waves visible on the far side of the universe.”

of findings appear in the diary nature.

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K.Nimo others. 2025. Magnetospheric origin of fast radio bursts confined using scintillation. nature 637, 48-51; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08297-w

Source: www.sci.news

Is the US on the right track with high-speed rail technology?

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Artist's impression of the Brightline West high-speed rail line

brightline west

Today, construction begins on America's first full-scale high-speed rail line, connecting the suburbs of Los Angeles to the bright city of Las Vegas, Nevada. The project could not only allow people in the United States to finally experience high-speed passenger trains of European and Asian standards, but also provide a commercial model for building high-speed rail elsewhere in the United States. be.

A groundbreaking ceremony in Las Vegas today, attended by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, along with officials from Nevada and California, marked the official start of construction on the Brightline West project. Brightline West, which aims to be completed within four years in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, will bypass lines of stranded cars and cross the median of Interstate 15 at speeds of 320 km/h. It is expected to fly passengers at speed. In the weekend traffic jam.

The $12 billion project is a bold gamble for Brightline and its owner, Fortress Investment Group, even considering a $3 billion federal grant announced by President Joe Biden in December 2023. It may seem like. But there are several reasons why Brightline West will be more successful than the rest of the United States. High-speed rail projects are delayed.

According to sources, Brightline is focused on connecting major markets that are approximately 400 to 550 kilometers apart. report By infrastructure consultancy AECOM. This represents a sweet spot where high-speed rail is highly competitive with driving and flying. His 350-kilometre trip on Brightline West from Las Vegas to the Los Angeles suburbs is expected to take him just over two hours, making it an attractive alternative to his four-hour drive, which 50 million people travel between cities each year. This is a great alternative.

“High-speed rail has proven to be a very efficient way to move large numbers of passengers within median distances,” he says. Jiao Junfeng At the University of Texas at Austin. “There are many success stories out there in European countries and Asian countries, and there are markets where high-speed rail operations have proven profitable.”

Another factor in Brightline's favor is that it leased access from Nevada and California to build Brightline West through the existing Interstate 15 corridor. This avoids the costs and delays typically associated with obtaining rights of way and acquiring land.

Reducing the risk of delays can also reduce overall project costs in the long term. California's own high-speed rail project was first approved by voters in 2008 to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles; project cost Soared from $33 billion to $128 billion. Other high-speed rail projects are currently being considered in Texas and the Pacific Northwest.

“When you're talking about preparing for construction or progressing construction, time is not on your side. [because of] say “inflation” Jean Whittington at the University of Washington in Seattle. “These projects are so large that it's like implementing multiple megaprojects that all depend on each other to complete successfully.”

One lesson U.S. National Railroad officials can learn from Brightline is to avoid lengthy planning stages and “focus on the costs of delays and indecision,” he said. Russell Jackson, Global Transportation Director at AECOM. He also suggested that while Brightline's approach focuses only on the most profitable routes, government funding could fill in the gaps in other cases.

“Public funds can be used for projects that are still needed to connect pairs of cities that are a little too close to travel by plane and too far to drive,” Jackson said.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

High-speed rail benefits from Hyperloop’s setbacks

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In 2013, Elon Musk published the following paper: white paper It teased the idea of ​​traveling at high speed from Los Angeles to San Francisco in just 35 minutes through a vacuum-sealed tube (a system he called Hyperloop). The idea was “born out of his hatred of California’s proposed high-speed rail system.” according to to his biographer Ashley Vance.

A decade later, Hyperloop One, the most high-profile startup to try to follow in Musk’s footsteps, close the door. News of its demise came less than two weeks after the Biden administration took office. announced Provides $6 billion in funding for high-speed rail projects across California.

This is a huge victory for public transit advocates, many of whom have struggled for decades to improve not just high-speed rail, but rail service overall. (Biden’s announcement includes Numerous other railway projects across the country.) But it’s by no means a complete victory.

First, many cities and states were fooled by the hyperloop’s siren song and then left adrift. In 2018, I reported on a story about the collapse of Arrivo (another hyperloop startup founded by one of Hyperloop One’s co-founders), and when I called the Colorado Department of Transportation to ask about the company’s bankruptcy, I finally got a response over the phone. I still vividly remember what I noticed. they didn’t know it happened.

Colorado wasn’t alone.Hyperloop One once promised to be built in West Virginia $500 million testing and certification facility state. They also built a test track near Las Vegas, where they briefly took some people through tubes. Clearly, that was enough for then-CEO Jay Walder. Claim It was “the first new means of mass transportation in over 100 years.”

Other hyperloop projects and companies remain, but most are located outside the United States. Thankfully, the country was already regaining momentum in investing in its rail system with a focus on faster trains.

The most high-profile initiative is Brightline, a company that recently expanded its existing service in Florida. all the way to orlandopassengers can travel there from as far away as Miami.

Brightline is also building what it calls “the nation’s first true high-speed rail network” between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The project is supported by $3 billion in funding recently announced by the Biden administration and is expected to break ground in early 2024.

Building high-speed rail is about more than just money.There is deep-rooted problems Years of deregulation are getting in the way. With a project of this size, it’s difficult to stay on time and on budget.of other A big recipient of the newly announced federal funding (another $3 billion) is the high-speed rail project slated to run down the spine of California, a source of Mr. Musk’s ire.

Could the return of high-speed rail risk a rematch with the world’s richest man? Perhaps rail fans can take solace in seeing how distracted Musk has become since his 2013 white paper.

Moreover, aside from a few engineering competitions held by SpaceX, Musk has only enjoyed his Hyperloop project on a superficial level.

Musk once tweeted that he had received “verbal government approval.” build “New York-Phil-Balt-DC Underground Hyperloop” It was never built. In April 2022 he claimed His tunneling effort, The Boring Company, will “attempt to build a practical hyperloop.”The next day, the company tweeted “Full-scale testing of Hyperloop will begin later this year.” That also never happened.

Mr. Musk has spent the past decade with little involvement in Hyperloop, essentially outsourcing his efforts to abolish high-speed rail. The death of Hyperloop One casts a cloud over that premise, and the billionaire looks increasingly forced to make a decision: Will he be willing enough to find the time to finish the job himself?

Source: techcrunch.com

Helicity Space secures $5 million funding to support fusion propulsion and high-speed deep space travel

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helicity space has raised $5 million in seed funding to accelerate the development of technology that will ultimately enable fast and efficient travel in deep space.

That technology is nuclear fusion propulsion, which has long been the realm of science fiction. The startup says it has discovered a way to use plasma jets in fusion reactions. The project is the brainchild of Setthivoine You, a plasma physicist and co-founder of Helicity. He and two other co-founders, CEO and former banker Stefan Lintner and former Boeing Rocketdyne executive Marta Calvo, officially founded the business in 2018.

Helicity spent several years in stealth, “dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, thinking about what we could do,” Lintner explained in a recent interview. “Fusion is a tainted field and we first needed to be sure we could handle it before raising venture capital capital.”

The Pasadena-based company has successfully raised funding from a prominent group. Airbus Ventures is the venture capital arm of a major European aerospace company. TRE Advisor; Voyager Space Holdings, the company behind the Starlab commercial space station. European space company E2MC Space. Urania Ventures and Geingels.

Lintner said Helicity’s key differentiator is that it focuses squarely on fusion propulsion, rather than fusion for ground-based applications. “Everything we’re doing is moving the spacecraft forward, not generating sustainable grid power,” Eh explained. In some ways, the former problem is easier than the latter. Space is a great vacuum, and that’s exactly the environment that his jet of plasma needs.

“Our concept is first uniquely tailored to be useful in space,” he said. “over time […] Ours may also turn into a nuclear reactor on Earth, but by that time others will have worked it out. That’s not our main goal. ”

The startup’s technology is based on a method called magnetic-magnetic fusion, which compresses a stable plasma jet with a magnetic nozzle. The plasma is heated to hundreds of millions of degrees, causing a fusion reaction that pushes the spacecraft forward.

The startup plans to use the funding to manufacture a proof-of-concept fusion drive that will demonstrate basic technology on a small scale. On a longer-term scale, Helicity aims to fly a complete prototype in space within about 10 years.

Lintner was upfront about the fact that there is still a lot to de-risk and a lot to learn when it comes to the emerging market for Fusion Drive.

“Look, it’s still early days,” he said.
“As economies develop in space, our engines will become increasingly important. The final business model is still a little difficult to predict.”

Source: techcrunch.com