Word: alfv
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...more and more science fiction becomes science fact, the exploits of Buck Rogers seem less and less fanciful. Reviving an old idea, two University of California scientists have now proposed that astronauts follow in the footsteps of Buck and Wilma. Man's next target in space, Hannes Alfvèn and Gustaf Arrhenius argue in Science, should be one of the tens of thousands of asteroids -or planetoids, as Buck called them -that circle the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter...
...Alfvén's theory evolved from an earlier proposal by another Swedish physicist, Dr. Oskar Klein, who believes that the known universe originated billions of years ago from a cloud of matter and antimatter particles that was contracting because of gravitation. As the particles drew closer together, the increasing annihilative reactions between matter and antimatter produced enough radiation pressure to reverse the contraction of the cloud and hurl its primeval matter outward in an expansion that has continued ever since...
...Proving Alfvén's assumption would be just as difficult as disproving it. Spectral lines emitted from antimatter stars or galaxies would be of the same wave length as radiation from their material counterparts, making them useless for identifying distant antimatter. On the other hand, one unmistakable characteristic of matter and antimatter is that whenever the two meet they annihilate each other. This leads Alfvén to concede that two bodies in the solar system-the moon and the sun-are indisputedly composed of matter. There was no annihilatory reaction when Soviet and U.S. rockets...
Primeval Reversal. On the other hand, such celestial bodies as quasars appear to emit enormous quantities of energy that probably could not be produced by nuclear reactions alone. In some cases, Alfvén says, "total annihilation of matter and antimatter may be the only possible energy source." The sudden release of great amounts of energy from a supernova, for example, has never been satisfactorily explained. It might well be caused by the collision of antimatter and matter stars...
...Insulation. To explain why the original cloud did not completely annihilate itself, Alfvén suggests that regions of matter and antimatter can coexist. A layer of hot ambiplasma (matter and antimatter particles in the process of annihilation) may sometimes be created, he says, when matter and antimatter meet. Like the insulating layer of steam that forms between a drop of water and the surface of a very hot stove, the ambiplasma would separate and repulse the hostile regions. In that way, Alfvén believes, the two forms of matter could be prevented from committing mutual destruction...