How do solar sails work? Bill Nye explains.

[@thejesuschrist]

Science is the best thing ever!!!

[@twonumber22]

Amen

[@leofreitasa9933]

Amen

[@lmao8yearsago478]

that is so ironic

[@Isaac-Newton620]

Amen

[@KigurumiAlice]

A photon walks into a hotel. The desk clerk says, "Welcome to our hotel. Can we help you with your luggage?" The photon says, "No thanks, I'm traveling light."

[@phonotical]

Didn't you upload this already? I'll happily travel to space with Bill Nye, either sitting along side him, or sitting on his back as he soars majestically through the sky toward the endemian moon

[@therealdefoma]

0:21 he looks like Wall-E flying around in space with the fire extinguisher

[@1mremington]

Could you explain how a photon could have momentum (M x V) without mass (M)?

[@1mremington]

@Aditya Radhakrishnan Thank you!

[@h_h03]

1mremington lasers dumbhed

[@susanwilson9241]

I wonder if we could harness the momentum of photons here on earth to create a free energy source?

[@sandizmeme7399]

Probably not because of friction. But it's not impossible.

[@knowwankeno1de1witdelongna85]

Look into plasma generating portable particle colliders. Generates plasma by fusing H3 (Helium 3), Deuterium, and Unobtainium from the Moon. Bless you 🙏 Namaste

[@bagas14715]

Kids: can we have a solar sail, mom ? Mom: but we have solar sail at home Solar sail at home : "solar panel"

[@susanwilson9241]

@@bagas14715 - solar panels do not harness the momentum of photons.

[@danielt.8573]

Closest thing we have are solar panels but even if you made something like a big vacuum tube with solar blades/sails spinning inside, it would still be an intermittent power source.

[@cristianF103B72]

I got a QUESTION: What is the exact altitude of the SolarSail 2?Cause in the mission dashboard it says the apogee is about 725 km,but the Mission Team says that the Sail had achieved 727 km on 30th July,so what happened in 3 days,I don’t guess the sail had already start to deorbit.Anyone know something more about it?

[@wetasspaddington]

I do not believe that LightSail2 will de-orbit for a while. I think what you may have been confused about is what Apogee means. The Apogee is the furthest point an object is away from earth. This does not mean that the orbit is circular. While it is extremely close in astronomical terms, I do not believe that LightSail2 is in a perfectly circular orbit. This is incredibly difficult to obtain, and only really performed precisely by geostationary satellites (SatNav etc.). It is very close though, I'll give the PS that, and LightSail is certainly an amazing mission which holds lots of promise for future human spaceflight in our solar system and beyond.

[@cristianF103B72]

Dr. Santiago Ya okay,but I mean the apogee right now is around 725 km,and the Team announce that 3 days ago the Sail raised 2km up with an apogee about 727 km.My question is why the sail doesn’t reach that altitude anymore?

[@gmonorail]

at perigee atmospheric drag on the sail is larger than the orbital boost at apogee from the sun? so the sail is slowly sinking back down into the atmosphere? is that true?

[@rmkenney]

Is there no way of raising perigee? Is it a real physical/mechanical issue with LS2 that can't be altered, or is this just a avionics programming issue? Rather than only rotating the sail to face-on to the sun before perigee, couldn't you also face the sail at a 45 degree angle on the sunward side of the orbit, thus adding to the perigee?

[@RaysAstrophotography]

I have been following space sail news. jAXA put to use already for asteroid missions. Funny video Bill! Good information.

[@abrahamsatinger265]

From MIT: a highly acclaimed educational institute produced a roll to roll graphene on copper substrate process!!! There's your graphene and energy production that you smart intelligent scholars can cut and paste together your solar sails!! A roll to roll to solar sails from MIT!

[@andrewstutz4240]

Gotta love when engineers have an idea and then the people that build it get to tell them everything they got wrong.

[@Curionauta361]

Great video, Bill! Thanks for sharing!

[@HellHammerThrash]

I hate to have to ask this but we've actually been able to measure detectable acceleration from sunlight in solar sailing? or is this all still theoretical?

[@Antifrost]

A few videos before this one, they've already launched a successful test so this has gone past the theoretical stage

[@tfcabral]

You really MUST reproduce that fire extinguisher demo whilst standing on a skateboard. That would be *RAD!*

[@joeyrodriguez]

Congratulations team again! This is history in the making.

[@boldandthebeautifulgimbal2881]

Momentum equals velocity times mass. Photons have no mass so how can they have momentum??

[@MrEnoBeano]

Good video Bill. Thanks.

[@zapfanzapfan]

Can we crowd source a Breakthrough starshot if we all go out with a laser pointer at night and point at it? ;-)

[@phonotical]

What if the craft was sent spinning around by say grazing a micro meteorite, those photons helpful for travel? Or does it spin onward forever

[@rodneycarpluk8052]

With faster travel it would be similar to the generation ship concept...

[@lucyboheme540]

Wow!!! This is so cool! Science rocks!

[@ethannf502]

This is so cool!

[@jagadeeshdasari5758]

Its good idea to use the kinetic energy of the light. Afterall the momentum created by the photons on the sail is not so great I think but in space it matters to propagate. What about the gravitational forces produced by massive bodies in space? Don't they affect the solar sail? How come the momentum force of the photons overcome a gravity pull of massive bodies like jupiter?

[@balazsherczeg749]

How does a photon have momentum while having no mass?

[@Hyun766bgcvb]

brilliant with humorous explanation....

[@R3l3ntl3sss]

Neat

[@dankswtf]

Cool!

[@compaqgaming5768]

How to make that tell me 😭😭😭

[@cianlinehan8921]

Just get yourself a nifty sheet of tin foil and chuck into space. Bingobongo, Spaceship.

[@IKnowYouDidnt]

Why couldn't a onboard nuclear powered laser propel a spacecraft? I mean; I can use a flashlight to spin a "sail" thats in the vacuum of a light bulb. Its a toy I have, actually a science demonstration of solar sail principle... So actually, a good deal of force can be applied with just a flashlight... Do photons produce a force when they leave a laser? Could lasers be used to propel fuel for a higher specific impulse?

[@RealTylerBell]

space is just beeping awesome

[@AlphonseZukor]

I would cry too if i didn't have anymore push...MEOW!

[@jacksquatt6082]

I knew it! I knew "Odin - Photon Space Sailor Starlight" would eventually become real!

[@rodneycarpluk8052]

It seems like making faster travel will be more work, but as soon as its made, then thing slike mining, making colonies in space( thats topic thats pretty bad too), will be able to be done much faster...everything would be much more effective...if you cut the travel to an asteroid to mine it in half, or much less, then getting the resources, transporting them to earth, refining them, making better technology to allow for better space travel, its going to be much better...

[@cozettelessor9519]

Since when does bill nye dye have gray hair bahhahha

[@yourboss1646]

I don't think there enough momentum to carry a communication or power instrument of decades by solar sail

[@wr5978]

2002 Disney movie Treasure Planet

[@rodneycarpluk8052]

no customer will want to wait a couple years to half decade or decade to get a shipment of metal...

[@michaelsmith2619]

How would you protect such a flimsy looking thing from being torn up by space debris?

[@Sinnbad21]

No more push

[@rodneycarpluk8052]

Even if the solar sail can reach the star, it will take years to send a signal back to earth...if something along the lines of WARP drive was made, theres estimates of the travel to the nearest star system in a couple weeks...

[@wetasspaddington]

A great video, but the only problem I have with it is the fact that you said that the sun was an 'unlimited source of energy'. This is not true. This defies the laws of thermodynamics, the most uncontested sets of laws known, as energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transferred from one form to another, as we know. The sun *releases* energy through nuclear fusion, however does not create it. One day it will run out of hydrogen to fuse, and become a white dwarf star. Admittedly yes, this will happen in millions (if not, billions) of years, but still, it is a bit misleading.

[@rodneycarpluk8052]

So why is NASA and space companies waiting to make faster travel? To realistically mine asteroids, travel to asteroids will have to be less than years to decades...

[@mitchellbutler7068]

Ahhhh Gravity drive ..... Now that's worth funding ...

[@user-gl2qj7gf8g]

BILL BILL BILL

[@patrickfle9172]

Except it isn't really _new_

[@rodneycarpluk8052]

This is nice. but...

[@matthewkopp2391]

Nice try, but the Bajorans already invented it.

[@fredcatcreedy980]

What a weirdo.!

[@h_h03]

Your head is too big

[@h_h03]

Sorry

[@leofreitasa9933]

Seriously?

[@h_h03]

Leonardo Freitas I have no subscribers

[@leofreitasa9933]

@@h_h03 why should I care? You are not PewDiePie

[@h_h03]

Leonardo Freitas pewdiepie has hella subs yo

[@NylonStrings83]

Awesome now we can travel at 20% speed of light. Yayyyy can’t wait for that new launch to travel 450 million light years. Oh wait I will be dead in 45 years from now so what’s the point 😂