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NASA's solar sail successfully spreads its wings in space
(www.space.com)
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this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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If photon hitting a surface can impart momentum, does generating photons also impart momentum? Like, if you put a solar powered laser pointer in space, would it move?
Yes, it's called radiation pressure by emmision
The formula for it is Irradiance^1 of the emission/speed of light.
1: irradiance is basically how much power per unit area is emmited by the object, it's units are watt/m^2
As for the lasers thing, I'm not a 100% sure how effective that will be and TBH lasers are pretty complicated and I don't really get them