Three held for allegedly producing counterfeit airbags in Delhi
Over 900 counterfeit airbags of multiple car brands were seized from their possession.
A controversial
and puzzling engine design that could potentially make space travel much
cheaper and faster may actually work, a new NASA study suggests.
The experimental propulsion system known as the
EmDrive, which seems to violate the laws of physics, generated small amounts of
thrust in a lab test, researchers said.
The EmDrive, which was developed by British
researcher Roger Shawyer over 10 years ago, generates thrust by bouncing
microwaves around inside a cone-shaped chamber.
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According to Newton’s third law of motion – for
every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction – this should not work,
because there is no exhaust expelled out of the EmDrive system.
However, researchers led by Harold White from
NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, did measure some thrust.
Their EmDrive variant produced about 1.2
millinewtons of force per kilowatt of energy, ‘Space.com‘ reported.
That is about 100 times more thrust than
solar-sailing spacecraft, which harness the momentum of photons streaming from
the Sun, are able to achieve, researchers said.
Like solar sails, the EmDrive requires no
propellant; a spacecraft equipped with this propulsion system could generate
all the microwaves it needs using solar panels.
It is believed that the EmDrive could make space
travel much cheaper and faster, theoretically opening up the heavens to greater
exploration.
However, the study is just a proof of concept and
further testing is needed to definitively rule out all possible sources of
experimental error, White said.
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