It seems crazy, but light actually exerts a physical force on objects. It could power a new generation of spacecraft for deep-space missions.
During the Age of Sail, ships circled the globe on voyages of discovery and trade. That era ended in the 1800s, when coal-fired steam engines began to replace wind power. Now we may be entering a new age of sail—but this time in space. Reversing history, engines and fuel could be replaced by sails on some spacecraft, pushed not by wind but by sunlight. The idea is still in development, but we know it works.
Moving Charges in a Magnetic Field But that's only half the story. The magnetic field also interacts with charged particles—but weirdly, only if they're moving. And here's the even weirder part: The direction of this magnetic force, shown by the F arrow below, is perpendicular to the direction of the particle's velocity and the direction of the magnetic field .
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