By David Szondy | NEW ATLAS | November 23, 2025 – What if you could draw energy from the night sky without effort? That’s the question that researchers at the University of California, Davis are trying to answer with a new engine that generates power simply by sitting under the clear starry heavens.
If you look up Stirling engines on the internet, you’ll immediately find a load of toys and hobby kits for a device that runs seemingly by magic. It’s a strangely simple machine, usually configured with a piston and a flywheel, that burns no fuel, is self-contained, and can be set in motion simply by warming it with a mug of hot water or, paradoxically, cooling it with a block of ice and giving the wheel a light push to get it going. So long as the mild heat or cold source is present, it will run.
It was invented in 1816 by Reverend Dr. Robert Stirling, a Scottish clergyman and engineer, as an alternative to steam engines.
