SCIENCE QUESTIONS (in reverse chronology)

QUESTION FOR THE DAY December 13, 2022

What do we know about the December 5, 2022 Thermo Nuclear Fusion event at LLNL (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) in California? Start with 10,000 people.

Fusion powers our sun and other stars. Historically, we have dreamed of making clean energy but it has not been possible to generate more energy than what it takes to fuel a reactor in a power plant. 

But on December 5th, 2022 a team of scientists at LLNL fired 192 giant lasers into the ends of a gold capsule target containing a  bb sized pellet of very heavy hydrogen.   (see Fig. 1 )

Figure 1 

 

A gold capsule under the focus of 192 lasers instantly vaporizes creating a plasma that compresses the heavy hydrogen pellet inside. This extreme pressure forces the hydrogen molecules to release more energy that it took to power the 192 lasers. This was the world changing thermonuclear event of December 5, 2022 that took place 47 miles east of San Francisco.

 

 Experimental Physicist Tammy Ma explains

 

 

 

 

Figure 2 : using HEAVY HYDROGEN (from sea water.  Just one gallon of seawater could produce as much energy as 300 gallons of gasoline.Credit: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2014/02/fuel-gain-over-unity-in-inertially.html

 

 

 

There are two pathways to the creation of fusion energy: 1. magnetic confinement and 2.  inertial confinement (used at LLNL).

 

1. Magnetic-confinement bottles the fusion reaction into a magnetic container while inertial-confinement employs laser arrays.

Illustration: Chris Philpot

 

 

How The National Ignition Facility (NIF) Works

QUESTION FOR THE DAY August 5, 2022

1. Why does the rain have a pleasant scent?  Click HERE.

2. How far away is lightning? Click HERE.  Scroll way down for the answer.

 

3. Tachinid flies lay their eggs by either 1. depositing eggs directly on monarch caterpillars or 2. depositing eggs on milkweed plants emitting a distress scent that draws tachinids to a prime egg depositing location, and where caterpillars will come in close contact with eggs. 

Our question for today is which method of egg transfer is being used by tachinid flies here in Orange County California?  When we find this answer, we'll better be able to increase the chances of survival for local monarch butterflies. This week, I've brought small caterpillars to safety inside just in case tachinid eggs are deposited on older caterpillars.  I've also started washing milkweed leaves and seed pods in case tachinid eggs have been left on the milkweed.  Next, I'll do research on which egg depositing method is in play at this location.  

SOURCE #1

https://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/diptera/index.htm#Brachycera

 

Count five seconds. Sound travels about 1 mile in 5 seconds.