Dr Rajiv Desai
An Educational Blog
Extraterrestrial Life (Life Beyond Earth)
Extraterrestrial Life (Life Beyond Earth): _ Figure above shows Earth, as seen by NASA’s Voyager 1. In this image, taken from 4 billion miles away 33 years ago, Earth appears as a “pale blue dot” representing less than a pixel’s worth of light. Would this light reveal Earth as a habitable and inhabited world? Our search for life on exoplanets will depend on an ability to extract information about life from the faint light of faraway worlds. _ “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” -Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction author and former Planetary Society board member _____ Section-1 Prologue: Is mankind alone in the universe? Or are there somewhere other intelligent beings looking up into their night sky from very different worlds and asking the same kind of question? Are there civilizations more advanced than ours, civilizations that […]
Mirage of Fusion Power
Mirage of Fusion Power: _ “We say that we will put the Sun into a box. The idea is pretty. The problem is, we don’t know how to make the box”. Pierre-Gilles de Gennes _ Figure above shows ITER fusion reactor tokamak. A tokamak is a device used in nuclear fusion research for magnetic confinement of plasma. It consists of a complex system of magnetic fields that confine the plasma of reactive charged particles in a hollow, doughnut-shaped container. The tokamak (an acronym from the Russian words for toroidal magnetic confinement) was developed in the mid-1960s by Soviet plasma physicists. It produces the highest plasma temperatures, densities, and confinement durations of any confinement device. Fusion energy scientists believe that tokamaks are the leading plasma confinement concept for future fusion power plants. _____ Section-1 Prologue: The demand for energy is ever growing, as more people around the […]
