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In 1971, English mathematical physicist and Nobel-prize winner Roger Penrose proposed how energy could be extracted from a rotating black hole. He argued that this could be done by building a harness around the black hole’s accretion disk, where infalling matter is accelerated to close to the speed of light, triggering the release of energy in multiple wavelengths. Since then, multiple researchers have suggested that advanced civilizations could use this method (the Penrose Process) to power their civilization and that this represents a technosignature we should be on the lookout for.

Examples include John M. Smart’s Transcension Hypothesis, a proposed resolution to the Fermi Paradox where he suggested advanced intelligence may migrate to the region surrounding black holes to take advantage of the energy available. The latest comes from Harvard Professor Avi Loeb, who proposed in a recent paper how advanced civilizations could rely on a “Black Hole Moon” to provide their home planet with power indefinitely. The way this black hole would illuminate the planet it orbits, he argues, would constitute a potential technosignature for future SETI surveys.

Professor Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University, the Director of the Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics (CfA), the founding Director of the Black Hole Initiative (BHI), and the head of the Galileo Project. His latest paper, “Illumination of a Planet by a Black Hole Moon as a Technological Signature,” recently appeared in the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society (RNAAS).

In 1975, Stephen Hawking theorized that black holes emit photons, neutrinos, and some larger particles – thereafter known as “Hawking Radiation.” Since then, proposals for using black holes as an energy source generally fall into one of two camps. On the one hand, there’s the possibility of harnessing the angular momentum of their accretions disks (the “Penrose Process“) or capturing the heat and energy generated by their hypervelocity jets (perhaps in the form of a Dyson Sphere). On the other, there’s the possibility of feeding matter onto the black hole and harnessing the resulting Hawking Radiation.

In his paper, Loeb proposes how an advanced civilization could rely on the latter process by engineering a black hole that would orbit its home planet. This black hole would be very small, weighing just one hundred thousand tons (1011 g). If left unchecked, this black hole would evaporate in just a year and a half through the emission of Hawking Radiation. But as Loeb told Universe Today via email, it could be maintained by accreting relatively small amounts of matter (2.2 kg; 4.85 lbs) onto it per second. In exchange, it would provide an endless supply of power:

“This black hole system is the most efficient engine that I ever thought about. The fuel is converted to energy with the perfect efficiency of 100%, because the mass falling into the black hole is ultimately coming out as Hawking radiation. I have not seen this idea discussed before and had a “Eureka moment” when I realized it a few weeks ago. The only other method for converting mass to radiation with 100% efficiency is matter-antimatter annihilation.”

As Loeb indicates, the amount of antimatter required is beyond anything humanity can achieve at present. Since 1995, the particle colliders at CERN have managed to produce less than ten nanograms of antimatter, which is enough to power a 60-watt lightbulb for four hours. In comparison, Loeb’s proposed 1011g black hole could continuously supply 40 quadrillion (4015) Watts. “The global energy use is a few terra-Watts, ten thousand times less than the power supply of this black hole,” Loeb added. “The other advantage of this black hole engine is that it can use any form of matter as fuel. It could be trash. There is no better way to recycle trash than convert it into clean energy with 100% efficiency.”

Another advantage is that a black hole can use any form of matter as fuel, including whatever waste the civilization produces. In this respect, a black hole engine would solve an advanced civilization’s garbage problems while providing an inexhaustible supply of energy in return. Globally, humans produce roughly 1.92 billion metric tons (2.12 US tons) of waste annually, which is having a severe impact on our environment. This would be enough to feed a black hole engine weighing 1011 g for over 437 million years!

As to how such a feat could be accomplished, Loeb refers to a previous op-ed in which he theorized that a sufficiently advanced civilization could create a “baby universe” through quantum tunneling. Whereas such a feat would be something only a Type III Civilization (or more advanced) could achieve, a black hole engine would be much simpler and perhaps something a Type II Civilization could engineer:

“This is the big challenge. The good news is that it is much easier to produce such a black hole than a baby universe. But any production line of a 1011 g black hole requires compressing matter or radiation to a mass density that is 60 orders of magnitude above the density of solid iron. The density of atomic nuclei or neutron stars is only 15 orders of magnitude above solid density. This was possible to achieve in the cosmic radiation density less than femtosecond after the Big Bang.”

This was the subject of another recently written paper by Loeb in which he argued that, based on General Relativity, black holes can be made out of light. But what is most interesting about this proposed black hole engine is the way it would be detectable light-years away, making it a viable technosignature that would indicate the existence of an advanced civilization. Like many proposed technosignatures, particularly Dyson Spheres and other megastructures, the existence of a black hole engine is speculative and theoretical. But as Freeman Dyson himself once related, whatever we can conceive (and if the physics are sound), a sufficiently advanced civilization may have already been created. Said Loeb:

“The black hole engine could be discovered as a rogue rocky planet that is illuminated by a gamma-ray moon with no stellar-mass companion. If we ever find evidence for such an engine, we would need to consider the possibility that the source was created or trapped as a primordial black hole by a highly advanced technological civilization. There is no better marker of technological innovation than creating a furnace out of spacetime curvature in the form of a mini black hole.”

Further Reading: arXiv

The post New Study Proposes how a Black Hole in Orbit Around a Planet Could be a Sign of an Advanced Civilization. appeared first on Universe Today.

Thanks to NASA’s Juno mission to the Jupiter system, we’re getting our best looks ever at the gas giant’s volcanic moon Io. Even as Juno provides our best views of the moon, it also deepens our existing questions. Only a dedicated mission to Io can answer those questions, and there are two proposed missions.

Io is well-known as the most geologically active world in the Solar System, and it’s not even close. It has over 400 active volcanoes. Io is the closest moon to Jupiter, and the planet’s powerful gravity is largely responsible for Io’s volcanoes. As the planet pulls on Io, the friction creates tidal heating in the moon’s interior. This creates magma and drives its volcanic eruptions. Sulphur compounds in the eruptions paint the moon’s surface in shades of red, yellow, white, black, and green.

There’s never been a dedicated mission to Io, only missions that captured images as they passed by, including Galileo, Voyager 1, Cassini, New Horizons, and Juno, NASA’s current mission to Jupiter. But Io is intriguing and unique, and it can teach us a lot.

Planetary scientists want to know more about the moon’s geological processes. Io is considered a high heat flux world, and scientists want to learn more about its tidal dissipation. Studying Io can also tell us more about primitive planetary bodies that were once more volcanic, which Earth likely was early in its history.

Io can also tell us more about volcanogenic atmospheres, which can play a vital role in shaping a planet’s environment. This 2020 paper draws a link between Earth’s volcanic activity and the Great Oxygenation Event, a critical period when oxygen accumulated in Earth’s atmosphere. A better understanding of the link between volcanic activity and atmospheric evolution will help us better understand exoplanets and habitability.

Scientists know that the Galilean moons exchange material with Jupiter’s atmosphere and magnetosphere. They also know that material ejected from Io’s volcanoes can reach the surfaces of the other moons. Some of it can be turned into plasma by Jupiter’s powerful magnetosphere, forming Io’s plasma torus. They’re curious about this mass exchange in the Jupiter system and how it’s shaped the moons.

These are the reasons for a dedicated mission to Io.

This schematic of Jupiter’s magnetic environments shows the planet’s looping magnetic field lines, Io and its plasma torus, and Io’s flux tube. Credit: John Spencer / Wikipedia CC-BY-SA3.0 with labels by the author

In 2010, scientists at the University of Arizona and Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory first proposed the Io Volcano Observer (IVO) as part of NASA’s Discovery Program. IVO was proposed as a low-cost mission to explore Jupiter’s volcanic Moon. It was proposed again in 2015 and in 2019. In 2020, IVO was selected with two other missions for further study but ultimately lost out to the DAVINCI+ and VERITAS missions to Venus.

Now, there’s another proposal for the Io Volcano Observer, but this time, it’s under NASA’s New Frontiers Program. The new proposal shows that the desire for an Io-focused mission won’t go away. Instead, it’s gaining steam.

In a new paper still subject to peer review, a group of mostly American scientists present their case for the New Frontiers IVO. It’s titled “Comparing NASA Discovery and New Frontiers Class Mission Concepts for the Io Volcano Observer (IVO).” The first author is Christopher Hamilton from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona.

The IVO NF would address our scientific questions by reaching three goals, according to the authors:

• Determine how and where tidal heat is generated inside Io;
• Understand how tidal heat is transported to the surface of Io;
• Understand how Io is evolving.

The original IVO proposal had the spacecraft encounter Io ten times in four years after reaching the moon in 2033. It would’ve carried five instruments, with a sixth under consideration. The IVO would’ve crossed Io from pole to pole, passing over the equator at an altitude of between 200 and 500 kilometres (124 and 310 miles.)

The Jovian moon Io as seen by the New Horizons spacecraft. The mission’s camera caught a view of one of this moon’s volcanos erupting. A new mission to Io could have a spacecraft fly right through one of these plumes to sample it. Image Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.

The closest approaches were carefully designed to give the spacecraft the best observations of the moon’s magnetic field, gravity field, and libration amplitude. The approaches also would’ve allowed for both sunlit and dark views of volcanoes, allowing the spacecraft to study the composition of lava. The polar perspective would’ve provided new views of heat emanating from the moon that were unavailable to Galileo and unobservable from Earth.

The new IVO NF proposal maintains the polar orbit of the original IVO but improves it in several ways. Universe Today talked with lead author Christopher Hamilton about the new proposal. His remarks have been lightly edited for clarity.

The first change in the new proposal concerns the number of flybys, which would increase from 10 to 20.

“Both IVO and IVO-NF are great missions, but doubling the number of flybys more than doubles the scienctific return from an Io mission!”

Christopher Hamilton, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona.

“10 flybys for the original Discovery-level IVO mission would fill important gaps in image coverage that remain unfilled after the Voyager and Galileo era,” Hamilton said. So why double it?

“The new tour not only doubles the image coverage of Io’s surface with high-resolution imaging but also enables more flybys of active volcanoes, like Loki, Loki Patera, and Pillian Patera,” Hamilton said. “These are highly dynamic volcanic systems that include active lava lakes and explosive eruptions—one pass over the volcanic systems is simply not enough to constrain their time-variability and eruption dynamics.”

An artist’s rendition of Loki Patera, a lava lake on Jupiter’s moon Io. Credit: NASA.

Like Earth’s Moon, Io is tidally locked to Jupiter, with one side more readily available for study than the Jupiter-facing side. But Jupiter’s effect on Io is much stronger than Earth’s effect on the Moon. “However, tidal interactions between Jupiter and Io are much stronger, exciting tides in solid rock with an amplitude of about 100 m (328 feet), which is taller than the Statue of Liberty!” Hamilton said. These tidal interactions drive Io’s powerful volcanism. “However, studies of the past decade have suggested that this heat has also melted a layer within Io to form a subsurface ‘”‘magma ocean,'” Hamilton said.

The original IVO’s ten orbits, with its magnetometer instrument, would have confirmed or excluded this hypothesis. The new proposal will carry an improved version of this instrument, and with more orbits, it could answer questions about Io’s magma ocean.

“IVO-NF would also carry a fluxgate magnetometer and with the repeat passes, carefully timed to measure Io’s induced magnetic field at different times in its orbit, would greatly reduce the uncertainty in estimating a potential magma oceans depth,” Hamilton said. The current uncertainty is ±10 km, but IVO NF would reduce it to ±3 km. This “would revolutionize our understanding of Io’s interior and the links between tidal heating and volcanism,” Hamilton told Universe Today.

“Both IVO and IVO-NF are great missions, but doubling the number of flybys more than doubles the scienctific return from an Io mission!” Hamilton said.

IVO-NF would also approach Io much closer than the original IVO. The original mission called for an altitude of 200 and 500 kilometres (124 and 310 miles) above Io’s surface. IVO-NF would begin its mission with high-altitude fly-bys, but as the mission progressed and objectives were reached, it would come much closer.

“With 20 flybys, IVO-NF can be more daring, flying closer to Io’s surface and even flying through its volcanic plumes to determine the chemistry of its erupted products in unprecedented detail,” Hamilton told Universe Today.

Initial flybys would be at about 200 km, “but as the mission progresses and Baseline objectives are achieved, we will be able to lower the altitude of later flybys over active volcanoes like Pele Patera,” Hamilton said.

“Nonetheless, we would image and analyze these volcanoes first, making use of repeat coverage to further constrain the safety of the close approach, and take precautions like reorienting the spacecraft’s solar panels so that they fly through the plume side-on rather than exposing the full cross-sectional area,” Hamilton told Universe Today. “Plume flythroughs for Io would also open the door to other sampling opportunities for plumes on Saturn’s active moon, Enceladus.”

This image shows some of the volcanic features on Io, including the Pele volcano. It’s surrounded by a ring of orange sulphur compounds that erupted and fell back to the surface. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

“This may seem dangerous, but even at altitudes of 50 km, there would be very few particles,” Hamilton said. But before the spacecraft comes that close, it’ll use its Surface Dust Analyzer to understand the hazard. This instrument was added to the IVO-NF as a top priority. It will measure surface dust composition and the composition of nanograins in the volcanic plumes. Overall, it will give scientists a better understanding of Io’s dust environment and inform them if it’s safe to approach within 50 km.

According to Hamilton, we’re experiencing a renaissance in exploring the Jovian system.

“This is an important time in Planetary Exploration, and exploration of the Jupiter System is undergoing a renaissance, with Juno, Europa Clipper, and JUICE examining Jupiter, Europa, and Ganymede at the same time,” Hamilton told Universe Today. Io is a critical part of Jupiter’s moon system. It’s at the heart of the orbital resonance configuration between Io, Europa, and Ganymede, and the resonance drives geological activity on all three moons, including volcanism, tectonic activity, and the formation of surface features.

The orbital resonance of the three innermost Galilean moons. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons).

“Juno has filled some important gaps left after the end of the Galileo mission (1995–2003), but IVO and IVO-NF would be the first to have an instrument suite that is optimized specifically for Io,” said Hamilton.

To the intellectually curious, everything in nature is worthy of study and deeper understanding. An extraordinary world like Io is certainly no exception, with everything it has to tell us about itself, its sibling moons, and even about the early Earth and Moon.

“Our paper makes the case that Io is a priority target for exploration that should be considered in the next New Frontier Announcement of Opportunity,” Hamilton told Universe Today. He acknowledges that the original IVO mission at the Discovery level is possible, but the IVO New Frontiers mission would accomplish a lot more and would more thoroughly address our outstanding questions about Io.

“A larger mission to Io via New Frontiers would more than double the scientific return of the mission and would offer the best approach to understanding not just Io, but the Jupiter System as a whole, and the origins of high-heat flux worlds like the early Earth, early Moon, and other terrestrial planets in the Solar System and beyond,” Hamilton concluded.

The post Comparing Two Proposed NASA Missions to Jupiter’s Moon Io appeared first on Universe Today.

An analysis of 1500 climate policies in 41 countries has found that a slim minority have led to a significant reduction in carbon emissions, with most policies being too specifically targeted to make a substantial difference

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One hundred years after the human brain's electrical activity was first recorded, experts are celebrating the legacy of its discovery and sharing their predictions and priorities for its future. A survey saw respondents -- with 6,685 years of collective experience -- presented with possible future developments for EEG, ranging from those deemed 'critical to progress' to the 'highly improbable,' and asked to estimate how long it might be before they were achieved.

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