Scientists Levitate Small Plastic Plate Using Light

I’ve often said that the way we will use lightspeed will be when we learn to ride light itself like a tunel, and when we look at it as sort of a fiberoptic made of light where using the energy from the vacuum of space itself, and light being your source to move you forward we could use it along with Element 115 to travel the stars. Now it looks like science is catching up to one of my theories as they have used LED lights in a Vacuum chamber, and managed to do just that! But with small plastic so calm down this is still in it’s infant stages here but researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have managed to get two small plastic plates to hover using nothing but light, Wired reports.

Scientists have previously used the same physical phenomenon to float invisible aerosols in microfluidic devices, an object big enough to grasp was never moved before, making the study, published in Science Advances, a breakthrough. The researchers were able to have the Mylar plates, each as wide as a pencil’s diameter, hovering by using nothing but the energy from the light below. The hovering happens thanks to the energy from the LEDs heating up the Mylar’s specially coated underbelly. This energizes the air particles under the plastic and thrusts the plates away with a slight wind. 

I think Magnets will also eventually come into play here, and that will help in making new tech from this discovery. Such things as possible as “Hoverboards” which we’ve wanted since the days of Back to the Future 2 are now an inch closer to becoming reality. Also this technology could actually be utilized to learn more about the mesosphere. Lying between 50 and 85 kilometers (31 and 53 miles) above our heads, this high-up region of the atmosphere is pretty difficult to study since we don’t have access to it. This is a bit of a nuisance since the pressure in Mars’ atmosphere is similar to Earth’s mesosphere, implying that studying our mesosphere could help us develop technologies for Mars and others like it for future space travel, and colonization. Remember folks this sort of tech is happening for reasons not just for fun gadgets.

With the first instance of stable photophoretic flight achieved, the researchers are also armed with an accompanying theoretical model that can simulate how different flying plates would behave in the atmosphere. Utilizing these technologies, the researchers now considering developing a flight system that can take small sensors into the mesosphere by using this light-powered hovering technology. 

The current model indicates that a hovering plate could carry 80 kilometers (50 miles) overhead while equipped with a sensor-sized load; however, the idea is rather in its infant stages, and like I said researchers state that there are many meteorological challenges that need to be overcome before such technologies could be deployed.  But think of the possibilities once again friends.