Scientists Plan To Harvest Huge Energy From Black Holes

JAKARTA - Building human civilization in outer space is not an easy thing to do. The reason is, it requires large energy resources to sustain this desire. Thanks to research conducted by a number of scientists, this hope can still be realized by using science.

Researchers from Columbia University and Universidad Adolfo Ibanez provide their latest report published in the journal APS Physics. The research outlines how to harness the energy generated by black holes.

Theoretically they say that humans can extract energy from black holes by harvesting the charge of plasma particles that escape from the event horizon. For additional information, the event horizon is an area that limits space-time where the slightest light cannot escape.

"Black holes are usually surrounded by hot plasma particles that contain magnetic field charges," said Luca Comisso, a researcher at Columbia University, as quoted by Futurism, Thursday, January 14.

"Our theory suggests that when the magnetic field lines are disconnected and reconnected in the right way, they can accelerate the plasma particles to negative energy so that the black hole energy can be extracted in large quantities," Comisso added.

This latest finding shows that the energy source from these black holes can be used for the survival of mankind, especially for space exploration missions.

This is not the first time researchers have presented their findings to extract energy from black holes. Recently, a study published in Nature Physics in June revealed that humans can dip an object into a black hole's event horizon and fill it with negative energy. By chopping it, we can harvest the resulting energy in an inverted form.

The theory presented by Comisso and his team did not go very far from this idea. This theory is based on the fact that the plasma particles will be pushed in two different directions, both of which are opposite the rotation of the black hole. Depends on the polarity of the plasma shot.

These researchers believe that humans can use it as an unlimited source of energy. Black holes lose energy by adding negatively charged particles.

"Like people who lose weight from eating calorie negative candy," says Comisso. "This might sound strange, but it could happen in a region called the ergosphere, where the space-time continuum rotates so fast that every object rotates in the same direction as a black hole."

In this region, magnetic field lines are disconnected and reconnected repeatedly at very extreme speeds. The plasma particles are fired at a speed nearly the speed of light. This phenomenon is what researchers want to exploit to extract energy in large quantities.

"We calculated that the plasma energy process could reach an efficiency level of 150 percent, much higher than any existing power plant on Earth," said Felipe Asenjo, professor of physics at Universidad Adolfo Ibanez.

"Achieving efficiencies greater than 100 percent is possible because black holes leak energy," he explained, "which is given freely to the plasma that exits the black hole."