Stirling in Deep Space

摘要

For more than 30 years now, NASA's deep-space probes have relied on radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), devices that use decaying plutonium 238 to warm thermocouples and generate electricity. Now the space agency is poised to replace those heavy, expensive and inefficient RTGs with a system that provides more power with much less radioactive Fuel-technology based on a 19th-century invention.