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Credit: Pixabay / Tobias Dahlberg |
I know you're bubbling with excitement to read the rest. To do so, click on "Beware the bubble’s burst".When Britain’s Royal Navy ships were suffering considerable and unexplained damage to their ships’ propellers in WWI, physicists worked out that violent ‘bubble cavitation’ was the cause. This happens because tiny bubbles grow and then collapse as a result of pressure variations in the turbulent water around a propeller. But nobody knew just how hot the bubbles could get before releasing their destructive energy.However, in recent years researchers have found that temperatures inside the tiny bubbles can rise so high that the bubbles start to glow. In fact, there’s evidence that temperatures can rise as high as 15,000 Kelvin (~15,000ºC; 27,000ºF). This indicates that the collapsed bubble has a hot plasma core, i.e. “as hot as the surface of a bright star”.
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