By undesired, I mean catastrophic, e.g. OMG we just irradiated Vulcan with deadly desination when we entered the system.
Scientific Research:
http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/MatterOfMatter-revised-final.pdf
News Article:
http://www.universetoday.com/93882/warp-drives-may-come-with-a-killer-downside/
Planning a little space travel to see some friends on Kepler 22b? Thinking of trying out your newly-installed FTL3000 Alcubierre Warp Drive to get you there in no time? Better not make it a surprise visit your arrival may end up disintegrating anyone there when you show up.
Warp technology and faster-than-light (FTL) space travel has been a staple of science fiction for decades. The distances in space are just so vast and planetary systems even within a single galaxy are spaced so far apart, such a concept is needed to make casual human exploration feasible (and fit within the comforts of peoples imagination as well
nobody wants to think about Kirk and Spock bravely going to some alien planet while everyone theyve ever known dies of old age!)
While many factors involving FTL travel are purely theoretical and may remain in the realm of imagination for a very long time, if not ever there are some concepts that play well with currently-accepted physics.
Warp field according to the Alcubierre drive. (AllenMcC.)
The Alcubierre warp drive is one of those concepts.
Proposed by Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994, the drive would propel a ship at superluminal speeds by creating a bubble of negative energy around it, expanding space (and time) behind the ship while compressing space in front of it. In much the same way that a surfer rides a wave, the bubble of space containing the ship and its passengers would be pushed at velocities not limited to the speed of light toward a destination.
Of course, when the ship reaches its destination it has to stop. And thats when all hell breaks loose.
Researchers from the University of Sydney have done some advanced crunching of numbers regarding the effects of FTL space travel via Alcubierre drive, taking into consideration the many types of cosmic particles that would be encountered along the way. Space is not just an empty void between point A and point B
rather, its full of particles that have mass (as well as some that do not.) What the research team led by Brendan McMonigal, Geraint Lewis, and Philip OByrne has found is that these particles can get swept up into the warp bubble and focused into regions before and behind the ship, as well as within the warp bubble itself.
When the Alcubierre-driven ship decelerates from superluminal speed, the particles its bubble has gathered are released in energetic outbursts. In the case of forward-facing particles the outburst can be very energetic enough to destroy anyone at the destination directly in front of the ship.
Any people at the destination, the teams paper concludes, would be gamma ray and high energy particle blasted into oblivion due to the extreme blueshifts for [forward] region particles.
In other words, dont expect much of a welcome party.
Another thing the team found is that the amount of energy released is dependent on the length of the superluminal journey, but there is potentially no limit on its intensity.
Interestingly, the energy burst released upon arriving at the destination does not have an upper limit, McMonigal told Universe Today in an email. You can just keep on traveling for longer and longer distances to increase the energy that will be released as much as you like, one of the odd effects of General Relativity. Unfortunately, even for very short journeys the energy released is so large that you would completely obliterate anything in front of you.
So how to avoid disintegrating your port of call? It may be as simple as just aiming your vessel a bit off to the side
or, it may not. The research only focused on the planar space in front of and behind the warp bubble; deadly postwarp particle beams could end up blown in all directions!
Luckily for Vulcans, Tatooinians and any acquaintances on Kepler 22b, the Alcubierre warp drive is still very much theoretical. While the mechanics work with Einsteins General Theory of Relativity, the creation of negative energy densities is an as-of-yet unknown technology and may be impossible.
Which could be a very good thing for us, should someone out there be planning a surprise visit our way!
Let's hope the Vulcan's don't come for a visit 2063.
Comments
"Injuring yourself hurt.
So our study proved that not injuring yourself is beneficial."
I mean really. These people are in the science field but they forgot to factor in deflector technology what a munch of newbs
awesome.
Or are you comparing it to a sonic boom from a vessel flying at supersonic speed... That may actually be an interesting comparison.
Deflector technology may protect the ship. But the point of the article is that the warp bubble creates a large assortment of high energetic particles and photons that will devastate any place where you go "below warp".
"Drop us out of warp, it's a trap!"
-drops out of warp and vaporizes the doomship from the future-
Hum. That ambush didn't work out too well for those guys, did it? :rolleyes:
-'I am no longer allowed to use the warp drive to shotgun blast entire planets.'
Duh... Increase power output to the Deflector field so the field itself is right on the edge of the warp bubble. that way the particles are pushed aside and fly on past.
I mean really it isn't that had.
( and if anyone could not tell. you should not be taking me serious on my replys
Momentum and all that. *throws some glitter* All that energy around the field and whatnot traveling with you gotta go somewhere, no?
How to say...
Hold a mug(this is a warp field) filled with water(pretend it's the particles inside the warp field) and move it quickly forward as if you are about to chuck the water at someone. Will the water stay in the mug or will it splash forward once you stop your hand?
Just reverse the polarity.
Bounce A Graviton Particle Beam Off The Main Deflector Dish..
create a static warp shell.
job done.
Another fun thing is that, because the inside is causally separated from the bubble, it has to be created and broken from the outside. It's more like a warp gate than a warp drive, there needs to be hardware in place at your destination to stop or they won't have to worry about the blast of particles coming out when the bubble breaks, the bubble will just smash into and through the planet. The ship will of course be fine nothing outside or hitting the bubble can have an effect inside, but the planet... well, I'd like to see theories on exactly what will happen then.
Edit: The sad part is, this side effect might be the thing that gets warp research funded some day.
I have to concur, Zodi-emish pretty much summed up the entire Quote in the OP! LoL
Thumbs up for trial and error science!
Now remember folks, always check you have a deflector array installed (before Tuesday) before warping out of the Sol System or Qo'noS!
Warp 9 into a planet dosnt sound good to me.
The ship has to stop when it reaches the destination.. true. But, it doesn't need to stop all of a sudden. If the particles could sweep in the bubble (as the theory says) and get released when it stops, then they are also moving at super-iluminal speeds. So.. maybe a solution could be to try and decrease the speed gradually once the destination is getting close, so that everything inside the bubble (including the particles), can decrease it's speed too. Allowing for a safe stop.
This seems so easy that I'm probably only saying garbage :P
It isn't just particles with mass that are affected. it's also massless stuff, e.g. photons. And it will be hard to create a shape that doesn't get hit by light from some of the countless stars in the universe...
Chilly.
I'm still blaming all that energy built up from the momentum is factor as well. Shockwave and all that. *throws some anvils* Weee.