Researchers have discovered a new superhighway network to travel through the
Solar System much faster than was previously possible. Such routes can drive
comets and asteroids near Jupiter to Neptune’s distance in under a decade
and to 100 astronomical units in less than a century. They could be used to
send spacecraft to the far reaches of our planetary system relatively fast,
and to monitor and understand near-Earth objects that might collide with our
planet.
In their paper, published in the November 25, 2020, issue of Science
Advances, the researchers observed the dynamical structure of these routes,
forming a connected series of arches inside what’s known as space manifolds
that extend from the asteroid belt to Uranus and beyond. This newly
discovered “celestial autobahn,” or celestial highway, acts over several
decades, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands or millions of years that
usually characterize Solar System dynamics.
The most conspicuous arch structures are linked to Jupiter and the strong
gravitational forces it exerts. The population of Jupiter-family comets
(comets having orbital periods of 20 years) as well as small-size solar
system bodies known as Centaurs, are controlled by such manifolds on
unprecedented time scales. Some of these bodies will end up colliding with
Jupiter or being ejected from the Solar System.
The structures were resolved by gathering numerical data about millions of
orbits in our Solar System and computing how these orbits fit within
already-known space manifolds. The results need to be studied further, both
to determine how they could be used by spacecraft, or how such manifolds
behave in the vicinity of the Earth, controlling the asteroid and meteorite
encounters, as well as the growing population of artificial man-made objects
in the Earth-Moon system.
Reference:
“The arches of chaos in the Solar System” by Nataša Todorović, Di Wu and
Aaron J. Rosengren, 25 November 2020, Science Advances.
The article really doesn't explain how these arches accelerate objects faster then they would normally go.
ReplyDeleteThe article really doesn't explain how these arches accelerate objects faster then they would normally go.
ReplyDelete