MARS Missions Some Thing to Know

The Recent Success of the MOM(Mars Orbiter Mission) by ISRO made me to write this article,..as the great intelligence in the mission is the method of entering into the Martian Orbit. Where as when we compare with the other projects that had been carried out by NASA this project had been completed with a few amount that to 450crores is a less amount when compared to the project cost of the others.
 
#Mars the planet that is next to us in the solar system and the planet that is named as Red Planet due to the presence of the Iron oxide  prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance,..And many of the satellites shown that the methane is present in the atmosphere of this Red planet.

Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the volcanoes, valleys, deserts, and polar ice caps of Earth. The rotational period and seasonal cycles of Mars are likewise similar to those of Earth, as is the tilt that produces the seasons.

Mars is the site of Olympus Mons, the second highest known mountain within the Solar System (the tallest on a planet), and of Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons. The smooth Borealis basin in the northern hemisphere covers 40% of the planet and may be a giant impact feature. Mars has two known moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are small and irregularly shaped. These may be captured asteroids, similar to 5261 Eureka, a Martian trojan asteroid.

By the first Successful Mars flyby Mariner 4 in 1965 we got a speculated information about the presence of liquid water on the presence of it.Currently there are three satellites orbiting it-Mars Odyssey,Mars Express and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and two rovers on the planet-Mars Exploration Rover "Opportunity" and Mars Science Laboratory "Curiosity". Some of these Satellites shown the images of the water flown marks on the planet.And there are some more satellites and lander which are successful in delivering their information but currently not in a position to work.One of them is Phoenix landed in 2008 and Spirit with its brother Opportunity which were launched in a gap of few months to two different places.For a landing rovers the scientists mainly have to select a best place like they mostly select the Craters.Craters are the holes formed when an asteroid hit the planet.Recently a Lab sized Rover Curiosity had a successful land on the mars with the help of space crane landing,where as the spirit and opportunity landed on it with the help of air balloons covering them.

Behalf of all these many movies had been pictured based on the things that these missions found.Some explained how the life will be there, some explained the alien attacks from the mars and some shown how we Ruined our mother planet and went there to make a new life..

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2012/03/15-famous-mars-movies/

How ever these things shown now many of the people are going to taste what they have seen in the movies. Many of the people had been registered for a one way mission to the mars to land on to it and settle there.And the amazing one is 8000 Indian people had registered with it. These are proposed by a Non-Profit Organization by the name of MARS ONE. Mars One is a non-profit organization that plans to establish a permanent human colony on Mars by 2023. The private spaceflight project is led by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, who announced plans for the Mars One mission in May 2012.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-regas/oneway-trip-to-mars_b_4181771.html

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/over-8000-indians-register-for-project-mars-one/432091-3.html

Mars Orbiter Mission Details

The path details is 

Mars Orbiter Mission carries five scientific payloads to observe Martian surface, atmosphere and exosphere extending up to 80,000 km for a detailed understanding of the evolution of that planet, especially the related geologic and the possible biogenic processes on that interesting planet. These payloads consist of a camera, two spectrometers, a radiometer and a photometer. Together, they have a weight of about 15 kg.

Payload Primary Objective Weight (Kg) Mars Colour Camera (MCC) Optical imaging 1.27 Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer(TIS) Map surface composition and mineralogy 3.2 Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM) Detection of Methane presence 2.94 Mars Enospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA) Study of the neutral composition of Martian upper atmosphere 3.56 Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP) Study of Escape processes of Martian upper atmosphere through Deuterium/Hydrogen 1.97

Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP)
Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP) is an absorption cell photometer. It measures the relative abundance of deuterium and hydrogen from lyman-alpha emission in the Martian upper atmosphere (typically Exosphere and exobase). Measurement of D/H (Deuterium to Hydrogen abundance Ratio) allows us to understand especially the loss process of water from the planet.


Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM)
MSM is designed to measure Methane (CH4) in the Martian atmosphere with PPB accuracy and map its sources. Data is acquired only over illuminated scene as the sensor measures reflected solar radiation. Methane concentration in the Martian atmosphere undergoes spatial and temporal variations.


Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA)
MENCA is a quadruple mass spectrometer capable of analyzing the neutral composition in the range of 1 to 300 amu with unit mass resolution. The heritage of this payload is from Chandra’s Altitudinal Composition Explorer (CHACE) payload. MENCA is a quadrupole mass spectrometer based scientific payload, capable of measuring relative abundances of neutral constituents in the mass range of 1 to 300 amu, with a unit mass resolution.


Mars Color Camera (MCC)
This tri-color Mars color camera gives images & information about the surface features and composition of Martian surface. They are useful to monitor the dynamic events and weather of Mars. MCC will also be used for probing the two satellites of Mars-Phobos & Deimos. It also provides the context information for other science payloads.


Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (TIS)
TIS measure the thermal emission and can be operated during both day and night. Temperature and emissivity are the two basic physical parameters estimated from thermal emission measurement. Many minerals and soil types have characteristic spectra in TIR region. TIS can map surface composition and mineralogy of Mars.

Let see the INDIA to be one of the Amazing on in all Aspects

Top 50 Electronics& IT Companies in India (As per Revenue 2011-2012)

These are the Top 50 Electronics & IT Companies in INDIA given by Electronics For You Magazine in its NOVEMBER 2012 Issue.

1. BHARATI AIRTEL LTD.(Rs 416,038millions)
2. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES LTD ( Rs 388,585mn)
3. COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS (Rs 323,686mn)
4. WIPRO LTD (Rs 320,536mn)
5. VODAFONE ESSAR LTD (Rs 320,000mn)
6. INFOSYS LTD (Rs 312,540mn)
7. BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM LTD ( Rs 279,335mn)
8. HEWLETT-PACKARD LTD (Rs 226,650)
9. SAMSUNG INDIA ELECTRONICS PVT LTD (Rs 200,000mn)
10. IDEA CELLULAR LTD (Rs 193,223mn)
11. LG ELECTRONICS LTD (Rs 162,000mn)
12. VIDEOCON INDUSTRIES LTD (Rs 129,195mn)
13. SIEMENS LTD (Rs 121,064mn)
14. RELIANCE COMMUNICATIONS LTD (Rs 111,100mn)
15. HCL INFOSYSTEMS LTD (Rs 103,116mn)
16. PANASONIC INDIA PVT LTD (Rs 100,000mn)
17. REDINGTON (india) LTD (Rs 98,404mn)
18. HCL TECHNOLOGIES LTD (Rs 89,072mn)
19. DELL INDIA (Rs 84,300mn)
20. CISCO SYSTEMS INDIA PVT LTD (Rs 68,000mn)
21. MAHINDRA SATYAM (Rs 63,543mn)
22. SONY INDIA (Rs 63,130mn)
23. HUAWEI TELECOMMUNICATIONS CO. PVT LTD (Rs 61,200mn),
24. BHARAT ELECTRONICS (Rs 59,152mn)
25. PHILIPS ELECTRONICS INDIA LTD (Rs 56,340mn)
26. TECH MAHINDRA LTD (Rs 52,430mn)
27. EXIDE INDUSTRIES LTD (Rs 51,110mn)
28. TATA COMMUNICATIONS LTD (Rs 40,918)
29. iGATE CORPORATION (Rs 39,000mn)
30. ACER INDIA PVT LTD (Rs 35,910mn)
31. MPHASIS LTD (Rs 34,041mn)
32. MAHANAGAR TELEPHONE NIGAM LTD (Rs 33,690mn)
33. STERLITE TECHNOLOGIES LTD (Rs 27,275mn)
34. ORACLE FINANCIAL SERVICES SOFTWARE LTD (Rs 26,058mn)
35. TATA TELESERVICES MAHARASTRA LTD (Rs 24,884mn)
36. AMARA RAJA BATTERIES LTD (Rs 23,710mn)
37. TULIP TELECOM LTD (Rs 23,507mn)
38. MOSER BAER INDIA LTD (Rs 20,961mn)
39. FINOLEX CABLES LTD (Rs 20,639mn)
40. MICROMAX INFORMATICS LTD (Rs 19,780mn)
41. MINDTREE LTD (Rs 19,152mn)
42. POLARIS FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY LTD (Rs 17,499mn)
43. 3i INFOTECH LTD (Rs 16,810mn)
44. MIRC ELECTRONICS LTD (Rs 16,507mn)
45. EMC INDIA (Rs 16,200mn)
46. HONEYWELL AUTOMATION INDIA LTD (Rs 16,191mn)
47. GLODYNE TECHNOSERVE LTD (Rs 15,576mn)
48. CANON INDIA PVT LTD (Rs 15,250mn)
49. GTL LTD (Rs 15,098mn)
50. RASHI PERIPHERALS PVT LTD (Rs 15,019mn)

Methodology: The list of Top companies was compiled using revenue figures sourced from the companies or their balance sheets published on websites like Bombay Stock Exchange.The consolidated revenue for the previous financial year was taken. As gross turnover may not be the ideal reflection of a company's performance, efforts have been made to provide profit/loss figures as well. For conversion purposes, we have taken $1 = Rs 52.88

Disclaimer: While EFY editorial team has taken utmost care to contact all possible sources to make the ranking comprehensive, we may have inadvertently left out a few companies in this ranking.

Source:EFY Magazine November 2012

15 SPECTACULAR TRICKS FOR YOUR BODY!

1) If you've got an itch in your throat, scratch your ear. When the
nerves in the ear get stimulated, they create a reflex in the throat
that causes a muscle spasm, which cures the itch.
2) Having trouble hearing someone at a party or on the phone?

Use your right ear it's better at picking up rapid speech. But, the left is better at picking up music tones.
3) If you need to relieve yourself BADLY, but you're not anywhere
near a bathroom, fantasize about RELATIONS. That preoccupies your brain and distracts it.
4) Next time the doctor's going to give you an injection, COUGH as
the needle is going in. The cough raises the level of pressure in your spinal canal, which limits the pain sensation as it tries to travel to your brain.
5) Clear a stuffed nose or relieve sinus pressure by pushing your
tongue against the roof of your mouth then pressing a finger between your eyebrows. Repeat that for 20 seconds it causes the vomer bone to rock, which loosens your congestion and clears you up.
6) If you ate a big meal and you're feeling full as you go to sleep,
lay on your left side. That'll keep you from suffering from acid reflux it keeps your stomach lower than your esophagus, which will helps keep stomach acid from sliding up your throat.
7) You can stop a toothache by rubbing ice on the back of your
hand, on the webbed area between your thumb and index finger.
The nerve pathways there stimulate a part of the brain that blocks
pain signals from your mouth.
8) If you get all messed up on liquor, and the room starts spinning, put your hand on something stable. The reason: Alcohol dilutes the blood in the part of your ear called the cupula, which regulates balance. Putting your hand on something stable gives your brain another reference point, which will help make the world stop spinning.
9) Stop a nose bleed by putting some cotton on your upper gums right behind the small dent below your nose and press against it hard. Most of the bleeding comes from the cartilage wall that divides the nose, so pressing there helps get it to stop.
10) Nervous? Slow your heart rate down by blowing on your thumb. The vagus nerve controls your heart rate, and you can calm it down by breathing.
11) Need to breathe underwater for a while? Instead of taking a huge breath, HYPERVENTILATE before you go under, by taking a bunch of short breaths. That'll trick your brain into thinking it has more oxygen, and buy you about 10 extra seconds.
12) You can prevent BRAIN FREEZE by pressing your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth, covering as much surface area as possible. Brain freeze happens because the nerves in the roof of your mouth get extremely cold, so your brain thinks your whole body is cold. It compensates by overheating which causes your head to hurt. By warming up the roof of your mouth, you'll chill your brain and feel better.
13) If your hand falls asleep, rock your head from side to side. That'll wake your hand or arm up in less than a minute. Your hand falls asleep because of the nerves in your neck compressing so loosening your neck is the cure. If your foot falls asleep, that's governed by nerves lower in the body, so you need to stand up and walk around.
14) Finally, this one's totally USELESS, but a nice trick. Have someone stick their arm out to the side, straight, palm down. Press down on his wrist with two fingers. He'll resist, and his arm will stay horizontal. Then, have him put his foot on a surface that's half an inch off the ground, like a stack of magazines, and do the trick again. Because his spine position is thrown off, his arm will fall right to his side, no matter how much he tries to resist.
15) Got the hiccups? Press thumb and second finger over your
eyebrows until the hiccups are over - usually, in a short while.

Interesting Facts About Sperm

• Intricate sperm production

Sperm is produced in the testes in the small structures called epididymis. During sexual arousal, the muscles push sperm from these structures through a tube called vas deferens. Here the sperm is mixed with other fluids, such as those from the prostate gland, the seminal vesicles and the Cowper's gland that all make up semen. Only one percent of the semen is actually sperm, the rest is fructose, amino acids, vitamin C, calcium, protein, sodium, zinc and citric acid.


• How sperm is welcomed

Couple's chances of successful conception depend not only on sperm's quality, but the environment, where it gets in. Sperm can be viable in alkaline conditions, while most of the time cervical mucus is acidic, meaning that sperm cannot survive in it. However, prior and during ovulation, time which is favorable for conception, the pH of woman's cervical mucus becomes sperm-friendly environment, allowing it to swim and fertilize the egg.


• High temperatures and sperm

Don't wear tight underwear, put your laptop near your privates or take warm baths. Men often hear those warnings, but what's the problem with heat? Nature is wise, that's why man's testicles are located outside the body, where temeperature is lower than inside the body. The thing is that sperm is made only at lower temperatures. When the scrotal temperature increases, it can damage sperm, thus your chances of conceiving a baby.


• Sperm allergy

If sex is not a source of pleasure for you, but rather make your privates swell, itch and result in other icky symptoms, you may be one of those rare people, who suffer from sperm allergy. Women, who are allergic to sperm, are actually allergic to particular protein in the semen. There are even cases when a man is allergic to his own semen, having flulike symptoms after ejaculation. Interestingly, semen allergy is treated with semen, but very small amounts of it.


• Sperm's lifespan

It takes around 10 weeks for the sperm to reach maturity. Once the sperm is inside the woman's body it can live up to 5 days or even longer under favorable conditions. However, when it is outside the body, it can only survive from few minutes to several hours.


• Male and female sperm

There is an equal number of male and female sperm. The female sperm (X sperm) is slower, but stronger, while the male sperm (Y sperm) is faster, but weaker


• Taste of the semen

It is believed that food man eats, affects the taste of his semen. Fruits are known to make semen taste better, while meat, dairy, coffee, onion and garlic can make semen taste bitter or acidic. Other things like smoking, medications, hygiene may also affect the taste of semen.


• Unused sperm

Every day a man produces about 70 to 150 million sperm, while during ejaculation he can produce from 200 to 500 million sperm. But what happens, if man does not have sex or masturbates? In this case, the sperm is broken down and reabsorbed by the body with all its nutrients and its untapped potential.


• Lucky guy

A healthy male produces up to 150 million sperm every day. And while the average ejaculate contains as much as a quarter billion sperm, the route to the egg is not an easy one. There are a lot of obstacles, such as unfavorable conditions of the vagina or the wrong direction it takes to the other fallopian tube. Only about a hundred of sperm can make it closer to the egg and only one: the strongest and the fastest, fertilizes the egg.


• Unfailing supply of sperm

While women are born with the limited amount of eggs, men can never run out of sperm. In fact, men can renew their sperm supply just after 15 minutes after ejaculation. However, it should be mentioned that with the age the quality of sperm may become a bit worse with greater number of slower swimmers and more sperm with DNA damage.

What is this "Neutrino" ??

Well, a neutrino (denoted by the Greek letter ν ) is a "ghostly" elementary particle with some important properties...

- Zero electric charge

- Previously thought to have zero mass
- Travels near or at the speed of light
- Hardly interacts with matter at all, only via the WEAK FORCE (hence the "ghostly")

There are also three different neutrino types, or "FLAVORS" which each interact differently with matter.

- ELECTRON neutrinos: νe
- MUON neutrinos: νμ
- TAU neutrinos: ντ

Currently, neutrino mass has not been measured directly. Neutrino physicists are trying to find out if neutrino flavors can change from and into another ("oscillate"). Neutrino oscillation is possible only if they have mass.

So... where do neutrinos come from?
Well, they're everywhere! Neutrinos are the products of nuclear interactions, ranging from radiation to cosmic rays to fusion. They fly right through you, rarely ever interacting. In fact, more than 50 trillion electron neutrinos from the sun are passing through the human body every second! It's a good thing we can't feel them.

We can study neutrinos from various sources:

- The Sun
- The Atmosphere
- Supernovae
- Particle Accelerators

The neutrinos we will be focusing on the most in this activity will be atmospheric neutrinos. You can read about the other types in the "Links" section.


Neutrinos from the Atmosphere
High energy neutrinos can be created through cosmic ray collisions with atoms in the upper atmosphere. Because it is the neutrinos we want to detect (and not cosmic rays), the best place to do this is deep underground, where thick layers of rock shield from other cosmic rays.

One of these detectors of neutrinos is Super-Kamiokande (or Super-K for short). Super-K is is a huge cylindrical water Cherenkov neutrino detector.

Indian Railways successfully tests anti-collision technology

A path-breaking technology to avoid train collisions was tested successfully between Navandgi and Mantatti stations in Ranga Reddy district on Tuesday morning.

The technology, based o

n a combination of GPS and Radio Frequency-enabled technology, applies brakes without intervention of the train pilots once it detects another locomotive on the move or stationary on the same track avoiding collisions.

Space Time Wrap : Bending Space And Time

Space and Time Warps are a commonplace. They are used for rapid journeys around the galaxy, or for travel through time. But today's science fiction, is often tomorrow's science fact. So what are the chances for space and time warps.

The idea that space and time can be curved, or warped, is fairly recent. For more than two thousand years, the axioms of Euc

lidean geometry, were considered to be self evident. As those of you that were forced to learn Euclidean geometry at school may remember, one of the consequences of these axioms is, that the angles of a triangle, add up to a hundred and 80 degrees.

However, in the last century, people began to realize that other forms of geometry were possible, in which the angles of a triangle, need not add up to a hundred and 80 degrees. Consider, for example, the surface of the Earth. The nearest thing to a straight line on the surface of the Earth, is what is called, a great circle. These are the shortest paths between two points, so they are the roots that air lines use. Consider now the triangle on the surface of the Earth, made up of the equator, the line of 0 degrees longitude through London, and the line of 90 degrees longtitude east, through Bangladesh. The two lines of longitude, meet the equator at a right angle, 90 degrees. The two lines of longitude also meet each other at the north pole, at a right angle, or 90 degrees. Thus one has a triangle with three right angles. The angles of this triangle add up to two hundred and seventy degrees. This is greater than the hundred and eighty degrees, for a triangle on a flat surface. If one drew a triangle on a saddle shaped surface, one would find that the angles added up to less than a hundred and eighty degrees. The surface of the Earth, is what is called a two dimensional space. That is, you can move on the surface of the Earth, in two directions at right angles to each other: you can move north south, or east west. But of course, there is a third direction at right angles to these two, and that is up or down. That is to say, the surface of the Earth exists in three-dimensional space. The three dimensional space is flat. That is to say, it obeys Euclidean geometry. The angles of a triangle, add up to a hundred and eighty degrees. However, one could imagine a race of two dimensional creatures, who could move about on the surface of the Earth, but who couldn't experience the third direction, of up or down. They wouldn't know about the flat three-dimensional space, in which the surface of the Earth lives. For them, space would be curved, and geometry would be non-Euclidean.

It would be very difficult to design a living being that could exist in only two dimensions.

Food that the creature couldn't digest would have to be spat out the same way it came in. If there were a passage right the way through, like we have, the poor animal would fall apart.

So three dimensions, seems to be the minimum for life. But just as one can think of two dimensional beings living on the surface of the Earth, so one could imagine that the three dimensional space in which we live, was the surface of a sphere, in another dimension that we don't see. If the sphere were very large, space would be nearly flat, and Euclidean geometry would be a very good approximation over small distances. But we would notice that Euclidean geometry broke down, over large distances. As an illustration of this, imagine a team of painters, adding paint to the surface of a large ball. As the thickness of the paint layer increased, the surface area would go up. If the ball were in a flat three-dimensional space, one could go on adding paint indefinitely, and the ball would get bigger and bigger. However, if the three-dimensional space, were really the surface of a sphere in another dimension, its volume would be large but finite. As one added more layers of paint, the ball would eventually fill half the space. After that, the painters would find that they were trapped in a region of ever decreasing size, and almost the whole of space, was occupied by the ball, and its layers of paint. So they would know that they were living in a curved space, and not a flat one.
This example shows that one can not deduce the geometry of the world from first principles, as the ancient Greeks thought. Instead, one has to measure the space we live in, and find out its geometry by experiment. However, although a way to describe curved spaces, was developed by the German, George Friedrich Riemann, in 1854, it remained just a piece of mathematics for sixty years. It could describe curved spaces that existed in the abstract, but there seemed no reason why the physical space we lived in, should be curved. This came only in 1915, when Einstein put forward the General Theory of Relativity.

General Relativity was a major intellectual revolution that has transformed the way we think about the universe. It is a theory not only of curved space, but of curved or warped time as well. Einstein had realized in 1905, that space and time, are intimately connected with each other. One can describe the location of an event by four numbers. Three numbers describe the position of the event. They could be miles north and east of Oxford circus, and height above sea level. On a larger scale, they could be galactic latitude and longitude, and distance from the center of the galaxy. The fourth number, is the time of the event. Thus one can think of space and time together, as a four-dimensional entity, called space-time. Each point of space-time is labeled by four numbers, that specify its position in space, and in time. Combining space and time into space-time in this way would be rather trivial, if one could disentangle them in a unique way. That is to say, if there was a unique way of defining the time and position of each event. However, in a remarkable paper written in 1905, when he was a clerk in the Swiss patent office, Einstein showed that the time and position at which one thought an event occurred, depended on how one was moving. This meant that time and space, were inextricably bound up with each other. The times that different observers would assign to events would agree if the observers were not moving relative to each other. But they would disagree more, the faster their relative speed. So one can ask, how fast does one need to go, in order that the time for one observer, should go backwards relative to the time of another observer. The answer is given in the following Limerick.

There was a young lady of Wight,
Who traveled much faster than light,
She departed one day,
In a relative way,
And arrived on the previous night.

So all we need for time travel, is a space ship that will go faster than light. Unfortunately, in the same paper, Einstein showed that the rocket power needed to accelerate a space ship, got greater and greater, the nearer it got to the speed of light. So it would take an infinite amount of power, to accelerate past the speed of light.

Einstein's paper of 1905 seemed to rule out time travel into the past. It also indicated that space travel to other stars, was going to be a very slow and tedious business. If one couldn't go faster than light, the round trip to the nearest star, would take at least eight years, and to the center of the galaxy, at least eighty thousand years. If the space ship went very near the speed of light, it might seem to the people on board, that the trip to the galactic center had taken only a few years. But that wouldn't be much consolation, if everyone you had known was dead and forgotten thousands of years ago, when you got back. That wouldn't be much good for space Westerns. So writers of science fiction, had to look for ways to get round this difficulty.

In his 1915 paper, Einstein showed that the effects of gravity could be described, by supposing that space-time was warped or distorted, by the matter and energy in it. We can actually observe this warping of space-time, produced by the mass of the Sun, in the slight bending of light or radio waves, passing close to the Sun. This causes the apparent position of the star or radio source, to shift slightly, when the Sun is between the Earth and the source. The shift is very small, about a thousandth of a degree, equivalent to a movement of an inch, at a distance of a mile. Nevertheless, it can be measured with great accuracy, and it agrees with the predictions of General Relativity. We have experimental evidence, that space and time are warped. The amount of warping in our neighbourhood, is very small, because all the gravitational fields in the solar system, are weak. However, we know that very strong fields can occur, for example in the Big Bang, or in black holes. So, can space and time be warped enough, to meet the demands from science fiction, for things like hyper space drives, wormholes, or time travel. At first sight, all these seem possible. For example, in 1948, Kurt Goedel found a solution of the field equations of General Relativity, which represents a universe in which all the matter was rotating. In this universe, it would be possible to go off in a space ship, and come back before you set out. Goedel was at the Institute of Advanced Study, in Princeton, where Einstein also spent his last years. He was more famous for proving you couldn't prove everything that is true, even in such an apparently simple subject as arithmetic. But what he proved about General Relativity allowing time travel really upset Einstein, who had thought it wouldn't be possible.

We now know that Goedel's solution couldn't represent the universe in which we live, because it was not expanding. It also had a fairly large value for a quantity called the cosmological constant, which is generally believed to be zero. However, other apparently more reasonable solutions that allow time travel, have since been found. A particularly interesting one contains two cosmic strings, moving past each other at a speed very near to, but slightly less than, the speed of light. Cosmic strings are a remarkable idea of theoretical physics, which science fiction writers don't really seem to have caught on to. As their name suggests, they are like string, in that they have length, but a tiny cross section. Actually, they are more like rubber bands, because they are under enormous tension, something like a hundred billion billion billion tons. A cosmic string attached to the Sun would accelerate it naught to sixty, in a thirtieth of a second.

Cosmic strings may sound far-fetched, and pure science fiction, but there are good scientific reasons to believed they could have formed in the very early universe, shortly after the Big Bang. Because they are under such great tension, one might have expected them to accelerate to almost the speed of light.
What both the Goedel universe, and the fast moving cosmic string space-time have in common, is that they start out so distorted and curved, that travel into the past, was always possible. God might have created such a warped universe, but we have no reason to think that He did. All the evidence is, that the universe started out in the Big Bang, without the kind of warping needed, to allow travel into the past. Since we can't change the way the universe began, the question of whether time travel is possible, is one of whether we can subsequently make space-time so warped, that one can go back to the past. I think this is an important subject for research, but one has to be careful not to be labeled a crank. If one made a research grant application to work on time travel, it would be dismissed immediately. No government agency could afford to be seen to be spending public money, on anything as way out as time travel. Instead, one has to use technical terms, like closed time like curves, which are code for time travel. Although this lecture is partly about time travel, I felt I had to give it the scientifically more respectable title, Space and Time warps. Yet, it is a very serious question. Since General Relativity can permit time travel, does it allow it in our universe? And if not, why not.

Closely related to time travel, is the ability to travel rapidly from one position in space, to another. As I said earlier, Einstein showed that it would take an infinite amount of rocket power, to accelerate a space ship to beyond the speed of light. So the only way to get from one side of the galaxy to the other, in a reasonable time, would seem to be if we could warp space-time so much, that we created a little tube or wormhole. This could connect the two sides of the galaxy, and act as a short cut, to get from one to the other and back while your friends were still alive. Such wormholes have been seriously suggested, as being within the capabilities of a future civilization. But if you can travel from one side of the galaxy, to the other, in a week or two, you could go back through another wormhole, and arrive back before you set out. You could even manage to travel back in time with a single wormhole, if its two ends were moving relative to each other.

One can show that to create a wormhole, one needs to warp space-time in the opposite way, to that in which normal matter warps it. Ordinary matter curves space-time back on itself, like the surface of the Earth.

However, to create a wormhole, one needs matter that warps space-time in the opposite way, like the surface of a saddle. The same is true of any other way of warping space-time to allow travel to the past, if the universe didn't begin so warped, that it allowed time travel. What one would need, would be matter with negative mass, and negative energy density, to make space-time warp in the way required.

Energy is rather like money. If you have a positive bank balance, you can distribute it in various ways. But according to the classical laws that were believed until quite recently, you weren't allowed to have an energy overdraft. So these classical laws would have ruled out us being able to warp the universe, in the way required to allow time travel. However, the classical laws were overthrown by Quantum Theory, which is the other great revolution in our picture of the universe, apart from General Relativity. Quantum Theory is more relaxed, and allows you to have an overdraft on one or two accounts. If only the banks were as accommodating. In other words, Quantum Theory allows the energy density to be negative in some places, provided it is positive in others.

The reason Quantum Theory can allow the energy density to be negative, is that it is based on the Uncertainty Principle.

This says that certain quantities, like the position and speed of a particle, can't both have well defined values. The more accurately the position of a particle is defined, the greater is the uncertainty in its speed, and vice versa. The uncertainty principle also applies to fields, like the electro-magnetic field, or the gravitational field. It implies that these fields can't be exactly zeroed, even in what we think of as empty space. For if they were exactly zero, their values would have both a well-defined position at zero, and a well-defined speed, which was also zero. This would be a violation of the uncertainty principle. Instead, the fields would have to have a certain minimum amount of fluctuations. One can interpret these so called vacuum fluctuations, as pairs of particles and anti particles, that suddenly appear together, move apart, and then come back together again, and annihilate each other. These particle anti particle pairs, are said to be virtual, because one can not measure them directly with a particle detector. However, one can observe their effects indirectly. One way of doing this, is by what is called the Casimir effect. One has two parallel metal plates, a short distance apart. The plates act like mirrors for the virtual particles and anti particles. This means that the region between the plates, is a bit like an organ pipe, and will only admit light waves of certain resonant frequencies. The result is that there are slightly fewer vacuum fluctuations, or virtual particles, between the plates, than outside them, where vacuum fluctuations can have any wavelength. The reduction in the number of virtual particles between the plates means that they don't hit the plates so often, and thus don't exert as much pressure on the plates, as the virtual particles outside. There is thus a slight force pushing the plates together. This force has been measured experimentally. So virtual particles actually exist, and produce real effects.
Because there are fewer virtual particles, or vacuum fluctuations, between the plates, they have a lower energy density, than in the region outside. But the energy density of empty space far away from the plates, must be zero. Otherwise it would warp space-time, and the universe wouldn't be nearly flat. So the energy density in the region between the plates, must be negative.

We thus have experimental evidence from the bending of light, that space-time is curved, and confirmation from the Casimir effect, that we can warp it in the negative direction. So it might seem possible, that as we advance in science and technology, we might be able to construct a wormhole, or warp space and time in some other way, so as to be able to travel into our past. If this were the case, it would raise a whole host of questions and problems. One of these is, if sometime in the future, we learn to travel in time, why hasn't someone come back from the future, to tell us how to do it.

Even if there were sound reasons for keeping us in ignorance, human nature being what it is, it is difficult to believe that someone wouldn't show off, and tell us poor benighted peasants, the secret of time travel. Of course, some people would claim that we have been visited from the future. They would say that UFO's come from the future, and that governments are engaged in a gigantic conspiracy to cover them up, and keep for themselves, the scientific knowledge that these visitors bring. All I can say is, that if governments were hiding something, they are doing a pretty poor job, of extracting useful information from the aliens. I'm pretty skeptical of conspiracy theories, believing the cock up theory is more likely. The reports of sightings of UFO's can't all be caused by extra terrestrials, because they are mutually contradictory. But once you admit that some are mistakes, or hallucinations, isn't it more probable that they all are, than that we are being visited by people from the future, or the other side of the galaxy? If they really want to colonize the Earth, or warn us of some danger, they are being pretty ineffective.
A possible way to reconcile time travel, with the fact that we don't seem to have had any visitors from the future, would be to say that it can occur only in the future. In this view, one would say space-time in our past was fixed, because we have observed it, and seen that it is not warped enough, to allow travel into the past. On the other hand, the future is open. So we might be able to warp it enough, to allow time travel. But because we can warp space-time only in the future, we wouldn't be able to travel back to the present time, or earlier.

This picture would explain why we haven't been over run by tourists from the future.

But it would still leave plenty of paradoxes. Suppose it were possible to go off in a rocket ship, and come back before you set off. What would stop you blowing up the rocket on its launch pad, or otherwise preventing you from setting out in the first place. There are other versions of this paradox, like going back, and killing your parents before you were born, but they are essentially equivalent. There seem to be two possible resolutions.

One is what I shall call, the consistent histories approach. It says that one has to find a consistent solution of the equations of physics, even if space-time is so warped, that it is possible to travel into the past. On this view, you couldn't set out on the rocket ship to travel into the past, unless you had already come back, and failed to blow up the launch pad. It is a consistent picture, but it would imply that we were completely determined: we couldn't change our minds. So much for free will. The other possibility is what I call, the alternative histories approach. It has been championed by the physicist David Deutsch, and it seems to have been what Stephen Spielberg had in mind when he filmed, Back to the Future.

In this view, in one alternative history, there would not have been any return from the future, before the rocket set off, and so no possibility of it being blown up. But when the traveler returns from the future, he enters another alternative history. In this, the human race makes a tremendous effort to build a space ship, but just before it is due to be launched, a similar space ship appears from the other side of the galaxy, and destroys it.
David Deutsch claims support for the alternative histories approach, from the sum over histories concept, introduced by the physicist, Richard Feinman, who died a few years ago. The idea is that according to Quantum Theory, the universe doesn't have just a unique single history.

Instead, the universe has every single possible history,each with its own probability. There must be a possible history in which there is a lasting peace in the Middle East, though maybe the probability is low.
In some histories space-time will be so warped, that objects like rockets will be able to travel into their pasts. But each history is complete and self contained, describing not only the curved space-time, but also the objects in it. So a rocket can not transfer to another alternative history, when it comes round again. It is still in the same history, which has to be self consistent. Thus, despite what Deutsch claims, I think the sum over histories idea, supports the consistent histories hypothesis, rather than the alternative histories idea.

It thus seems that we are stuck with the consistent histories picture. However, this need not involve problems with determinism or free will, if the probabilities are very small, for histories in which space-time is so warped, that time travel is possible over a macroscopic region. This is what I call, the Chronology Protection Conjecture: the laws of physics conspire to prevent time travel, on a macroscopic scale.

It seems that what happens, is that when space-time gets warped almost enough to allow travel into the past, virtual particles can almost become real particles, following closed trajectories. The density of the virtual particles, and their energy, become very large. This means that the probability of these histories is very low. Thus it seems there may be a Chronology Protection Agency at work, making the world safe for historians. But this subject of space and time warps is still in its infancy. According to string theory, which is our best hope of uniting General Relativity and Quantum Theory, into a Theory of Everything, space-time ought to have ten dimensions, not just the four that we experience. The idea is that six of these ten dimensions are curled up into a space so small, that we don't notice them. On the other hand, the remaining four directions are fairly flat, and are what we call space-time. If this picture is correct, it might be possible to arrange that the four flat directions got mixed up with the six highly curved or warped directions. What this would give rise to, we don't yet know. But it opens exciting possibilities.

The conclusion of this lecture is that rapid space-travel, or travel back in time, can't be ruled out, according to our present understanding. They would cause great logical problems, so let's hope there's a Chronology Protection Law, to prevent people going back, and killing our parents. But science fiction fans need not lose heart. There's hope in string theory.

How can you use black holes for time travel?

Black holes can be used to travel into the future only. So far as we know, our universe prohibits traveling into the past.

According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, and to experimental evidence here on earth assembled by Harvard physicists Pound and Rebka, in the presence of a gravitational field, an external observer would see a clock in

a strong gravitational field tick more slowly. This is analogous to the famous time dilation effect in special relativity, except that in the 'gravitational redshift' effect no motion between the observer outside the gravitational field and the clock located within the field, is required.

What this means is that if you were traveling into a strong gravitational field and sending out pulses of light every second, an observer watching these signals from a great distance would see the interval between the pulses increase from seconds to minutes and then hours as the field got stronger and stronger.

Black holes are fantastic sources of very strong gravitational fields. What a distant observer would see as your clock got closer to the so-called Event Horizon of the black hole is that the pulse interval would increase without limit from one second to one month and longer. The frequency of the light pulses would also get longer as the light lost more and more energy struggling to get out from the vicinity of the black hole. As your friend finally entered the black hole by passing across its event horizon, the last photon capable of making it to infinity is emitted at almost infinite redshift, meaning that if you originally emitted a gamma ray with an energy of 1000 billion electron volts, buy the time your friend received it far away, it would have lost enough energy to become a radio photon with an energy of 0.00001 electron volts! So, if it took your friend 1000 hours to travel from where you are to the black hole, the last photon he sent you just before entering the black hole, would arrive at your location 1000 hours from now, but when you looked at the interval between the last two pulses he sent, you would see that they are not the one second interval you started out with, but say 1 or 2 minutes or more. But here's the rub. According to your infalling friend, he/she is still sending the pulses out once each second!

In other words, one second to your friend falling into a black hole is several minutes to you and, in essence, your friend is aging more slowly than you and is traveling into the future faster than you are. If he/she could manage to put on the breaks just before crossing over the Event Horizon and escape to rejoin you, you would note that his/her clock reads a much earlier time than your clock. To your friend, only 2000 hours may have elapsed, however, YOUR clock would read perhaps 10000 hours or several weeks have elapsed depending how close to the Event Horizon your friend could get before escaping. The tidal gravitational forces are enormous near small black holes the mass of the sun, so your friend would be shredded into spaghetti within a few hundred miles of the Horizon. For supermassive black holes of several billion solar masses, however, the tidal forces near the Horizon are very small and survivable. This means you could accidently find yourself passing across this one-way barrier, and only realize your mistake when you tried to escape and found it impossible.

In principle, if you could get within a few millimeters of an Event Horizon before escaping, you could essentially time travel years or millenia into the future as measured by outside clocks. According to your clock, however, perhaps only a few hour or days actually elapsed.

Note, all of the above numbers are pretty darn approximate and are given to qualitatively show the magnitudes of the effects.

Image Source:en.wikipedia.org

Sea of the Devil: Dragon Triangle

The Bermuda triangle's infamous association with disappearing boats and aircraft is known across the globe. Less well known is an area off the west coast of Japan which has an equally deadly history. It is an area where Japanese sailors fear to voyage; they call it 'Ma-no Uni' – the "Sea of the Devil".

Legend has it that huge restless dragons surface from their deep shelters to seize any unfortunate passing mariners. Japanese sailors have often recorded freakish occurrences in the area and talk of hearing terrible noises and seeing awful red lights. They believe one particularly potent creature lives in an immense palace beneath the waves. They call this monster 'Li-Lung', the "Dragon King of the Western Sea", and say his lair is decorated with the ships he has captured.

This mysterious zone stretches from western Japan to Yap island in the south and Taiwan to the west. Like the Bermuda Triangle, it is seen as having an above average number of navigation and communication failures. In truth, this area of ocean bears a remarkable resemblance to its Western cousin. Both areas are known for extreme changes in weather conditions, unexpected fogs, tidal waves, seaquakes and hurricanes, and both have examples of agonic lines, lines upon which a compass needle will point true north and south. Their most unwelcome similarities are the truly horrifying levels of unexplained sinkings and disappearances.

By the late 1940s, the amount of ships being lost without trace in the region lead to the Japanese government declaring the area a danger zone. In the early 1950s they decided to dispatch a research vessel to study the area. Despite enjoying good visibility and calm seas, the Kiao Maru No.5 disappeared without trace on 24th September 1952. The lives of all twenty-two crew and nine scientists were lost. The vessel has never been found. They are regular occurrences which stretch back for centuries and continue to this day. Whether it is dragons or not, the real evidence behind this ocean’s terrible secret remains on the seabed.

Folding car

The car concept which is equivalent to a golf cart in size is equipped with computers that locate parking lots and a mechanism that collapses it in half, taking one-eighth the size for parking to an average car. This car weighs

merely 1,000-to-1,200-pound and will available for use at its parking lot after swapping a credit or debit card.
City Car concept doesn’t have central engine and traditional power train, for it is powered byin wheel motors. Each wheel unit contains drive motor – that also enables regenerative braking – steering, and suspension, and is independently digitally controlled.
City Car idea doesn’t have central engine and customary power train, for it is powered byin wheel motors. Each wheel unit contains drive motor – that also enables regenerative braking – steering, and suspension, and is independently digitally forbidden...

Weirdest Animal Genetic Alterations

9.The Ear Mouse

One of the first genetic images to go viral was the “ear mouse.” The mouse appears to have a human ear attached to its back, but it is actually just human cartilage that was molded into an ear form. It is often confused with a real human ear, but that process is still a long way away.

 

 

 

 

8. Cow’s Breast Milk

Human DNA was mixed with a cow’s milk genetics to produce breast milk straight from the udder. Years from now, you could actually buy breast milk from a store instead of baby formula.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 7. Spider-Goat

Marvel may have the inspiration for its newest superhero with the Spider-Goat. Using genetics from spiders, goats have been born with the ability to produce a webbing protein in their milk. This webbing could be used to make all kinds of products in the future.

 

6. Blue Strawberries

Apparently mushy strawberries from the freezer have been a big enough concern that scientists felt the need to do something about it. Using DNA from an Arctic Flounder Fish, a new ge

netically altered strawberry turns blue while growing. The new strawberry could withstand harsher temperatures, but it will take years of research to see if it is ready for consumption.

 

5. The Sheep Humans

Several B-horror movies seem to be coming to life with the recent genetic alterations on sheep. Injecting human DNA into a sheep has resulted in 15% of the sheep to be made up of huma

n body parts. These parts include lungs, livers and other organs that could potentially be used for human transplants years in the future

4. Double-Sized Salmon Fish

DNA has been altered in salmon to make the fish grow double their size. The eggs are being sold to fish farms that can quickly grow the salmon, and then sell it. The sale of these fish in the United States could be approved within the next couple of years.

3. Tweeting Mice

No, mice have not yet learned how to use Twitter, but hundreds of them are tweeting in a Japanese laboratory. Over the years, genetic mutations from dozens of animals have been performed

on the mice, with one of the rare successes coming from a bird, with some mice using bird songs and tweets to make noise. 

 

 

Watch this video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLu37VvCozw&feature

 

2. Scorpion Cabbage

What do scorpions and cabbage have in common? On a farm in California, they actually share the same venom. In an effort to prevent caterpillars from eating crops, this cabbage has bee

n genetically altered to contain scorpion venom that will kill the creatures instantly. The venom has been altered enough to cause no harm to humans.

 

 

1. Glowing Kittens

In an effort to prevent the spread of feline AIDS, a selected group of cat reproductive eggs were injected with genetic altering material that could prevent the disease, but also made

the animal glow. The glowing process is used to track the disease, but any new kittens born from these cats could possess the glowing power as well

NASA Mars 'Returner'

Curiosity is making amazing progress even as we dawdle on Facebook right now. Just earlier this week, it discovered sediment that mimics deposits of what an Earth stream would leave if it were there on Mars. Hopefully this is the sort of discovery that might precede discovering remnants of microbial, or even advanced life (or even currently living organisms!).

The sad thing is that those potential samples are still anywhere between 36 - 250 million miles away (depending on orbital comparisons) from Earth. A mild hindrance for us in investigating these sedimentary samples, and even any biological samples, under clean-room laboratory conditions befitting of the potential discoveries.

This can all change in the very near-future thanks to some provisional mission plans from the great minds at NASA...

NASA's Mars Program Planning Group released on Tuesday (25th September 2012) several key mechanisms that could be employed in order to bring samples of sediment, strata and even bio-matter back to Earth for analysis and study!

Out of these options laid out, NASA have decided upon one, but refuse to commit pen to the proverbial paper until the Whitehouse release their 2014 fiscal year budget request.

One such mechanism involves the use of containment tubes, sealed several times over to protect against deep-space. These are then mounted into a supersonic rocket which relays the samples to an orbiting base-station.
Much like a carrier-pigeon, this station then passes the projectile into a larger vessel, which is propelled towards Earth. Once in proximity to Earth, it will be collected by a human-manned craft and brought down to the planet for investigation.
Quite literally a shuttle relay run!

Other options involve the use of Sky-cranes, much like how Curiosity was delivered, which drop off several collection robots which continually collect and deliver specimens.

The key thoughts and considerations here are that Mars is now potentially being 'contaminated' by Earth - what is to say that bacteria wasn't present in Curiosity or the Rover? Similarly, what is to say that specimens brought back from Mars are able to be controlled through our known methods of decontamination and bio-hazard procedures in laboratories?

Would it not be a stroke of irony, if not typical human-luck, that a newly discovered bacterium from Mars wipes out our planet, simply because we are not adapted to combat it? Well, NASA may be able to use the International Space Station to study the samples within, so we may be safe...

Water on Mars: NASA scientists are 'excited'

Mars rover Curiosity found rocks on the Martian surface that are too big to be carried by wind, so researchers suppose water must have existed on Mars at one time. Over the next two years, Curiosity will continue its search for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars.

There have been previous signs that water existed on the red planet long ago, but the images released Thursday showing pebbles rounded off, likely by water, offered the most convincing evidence so far of an ancient streambed.
There was "a vigorous flow on the surface of Mars," said chief scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology. "We're really excited about this."

RELATED: Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz 

The discovery did not come as a complete surprise. NASA decided to plunk Curiosity down inside Gale Crater near the Martian equator because photos from space hinted that the spot possessed a watery past. The six-wheeled rover safely landed Aug. 5 after a nail-biting plunge through the Martian atmosphere. It's on a two-year, $2.5 billion mission to study whether the Martian environment could have been favorable for microbial life.
Present day Mars is a frozen desert with no hint of water on its radiation-scarred surface, but geological studies of rocks by previous missions suggest the planet was warmer and wetter once upon a time.
The latest evidence came from photos that Curiosity took revealing rounded pebbles and gravel — a sign that the rocks were transported long distances by water and smoothed out.
The size of the rocks — ranging from a sand grain to a golf ball — indicates that they could not have been carried by wind, said mission scientist Rebecca Williams of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz.
Though Curiosity did not use its high-tech instruments to drill into the rocks or analyze their chemical makeup, Grotzinger said scientists were sure that water played a role based on just studying the pictures.
It's unclear how long the water persisted on the surface, but it easily could have lasted "thousands to millions of years," said mission scientist Bill Dietrich of the University of California, Berkeley.
Curiosity chanced upon the dried-up streambed while driving to Glenelg, an intriguing spot where three types of terrain meet. Its ultimate destination is Mount Sharp, a mountain rising from the center of crater floor, but it was not expected to travel there until the end of the year.
Finding past water is a first step toward learning whether the environment could have supported microbes. Scientists generally agree that besides water and an energy source such as the sun, organic carbon is a necessary prerequisite for life.
While an ancient streambed holds promise as a potentially habitable environment, scientists don't think it's a good place to preserve the carbon building blocks of life. That's why the rover will continue its trek to the foothills of Mount Sharp where there's a better chance of finding organics.

Dyson Spheres: The Ultimate Energy Shell Game

 The world's exponential population growth will soon need to flatten out otherwise within a few hundred years every square foot of the Earth's surface will be taken up by a human. (Which reminds me of one of my favorite bumper stickers from a space advocacy group in the 1970s that read: "American Needs Space to Grow.")
With this population growth, mankind's hunger for energy has also increased exponentially. And if this continues, we will soon consume more energy than the Earth receives from the sun. Should they exist, this could be a common problem faced by burgeoning civilizations across the galaxy.
ANALYSIS: Looking for Alien 'Bubbles' in Other Galaxies
A solution to this energy demand is to become an extra-terrestrial civilization and harvest the resources of a planetary system to colonize space. A daunting yet logical step is to build solar energy-collecting structures in space and live on them.
This concept was taken to its logical extreme by British physicist Freeman Dyson who proposed in 1959 that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations might encase their stars in an artificially constructed sphere, the radius of Earth's orbit.
This so-called Dyson Sphere would provide a virtually infinite living space 600 million times larger than the surface area of the Earth. It would also trap almost all of the sun's energy output -- 400 trillion trillion watts!
Dyson was inspired by descriptions of such mega structures in two science fiction stories: "The Star Maker" by Olaf Stapledon, written in 1937, and "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil," written by scientist John Desmond Bernal in 1929. The later story describes a "Bernal Sphere" space habitat.
A rigid shell of the Dyson sphere might have a thickness of a few feet, depending on the strength of the material fabricated. It would also have to rotate to make artificial gravity. To maintain habitable temperatures the sphere would need to be bigger than Earth's orbit.
ANALYSIS: Super-Civilizations Might Live Off Black Holes
To avoid the dynamical stress a solid shell might undergo, a Dyson Sphere might be a constellation of many small independently orbiting structures -- like squares of mirrored glass on a disco ball. The energy-collecting elements would likely be very thin, while habitat segments would be thicker. Their orbital paths would be adjusted by using solar sails or ion engines.
The classic science fiction story "Ringworld" By Larry Niven, meticulously describes a spinning Hula-Hoop type structure, rather than a sphere as imagined by Dyson.
At least a partial Dyson Sphere -- or Niven's ring -- around the sun could be built from dismantling the planet Mercury and reassembling it into shell segments. The problem is that the energy required for destroying a planet is 100 billion times the U.S. annual energy consumption (sheesh! Even the Death Star probably didn't carry those kinds of batteries!).
So where would that energy come from? The sphere would have to be built piecemeal with the energy collected from the first segments being use to fuel further planetary disassembly.
ANALYSIS: Why We Don’t Need to Worry About Space Invaders
An army of robots would have to do the task. They would need to use resources to build more robots -- like the enchanted brooms in Walt Disney animation of Paul Dukas' symphonic poem "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." Even with this bootstrapping approach, the construction would take centuries because orbiting solar collectors can only capture so much energy over time.
There have already been astronomical database searches for Dyson spheres. The spheres would absorb and re-radiate the star’s energy as infrared light. As seen from Earth, a shell or partial shell would glow at a comparatively cool few hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
Galactic archeology is now being done by scouring infrared all-sky databases for sources in this temperature range. An artificial structure would need some other clues, perhaps an unusual spectral signature not found in a dust-shrouded young stellar object, or a complex, repeating fluctuation in brightness that is hard to explain by normal circumstellar dynamics.
Finding unequivocal evidence for a Dyson Sphere would tell us that there are no practical limits to the capabilities of an intelligent species, given time, perseverance, and a godlike mastery over matter and energy.
Image credit: NASA