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.
This video shows the global arch-like structure of space manifolds in the Solar System. The map shows the region between the outer edge of the main asteroid belt at 3 AU to just beyond the semi-major axis of Uranus at 20 AU. Orbits located on stable manifolds appear in a lighter color. Credit: University of California San Diego
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.
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd1313
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18 Comments
Uh huh??? Did we somehow jump to April 1st? I guess we can use some humor in this down year. Psychobabble lives on.
Ted, babble on. You just failed to get it. It’s about the complex paths one could take to optimize based on the gravitational interferences between many bodies.
Rock on! 😉
Yes, these “highways” are an old but difficult area of “rocket science” [“Interplanetary Transport Network” @ Wikipedia].
“The Interplanetary Transport Network (ITN)[1] is a collection of gravitationally determined pathways through the Solar System that require very little energy for an object to follow. The ITN makes particular use of Lagrange points as locations where trajectories through space can be redirected using little or no energy. These points have the peculiar property of allowing objects to orbit around them, despite lacking an object to orbit. While it would use little energy, transport along the network would take a long time.[2]”
“Interplanetary transfer orbits are solutions to the gravitational three-body problem, which, for the general case, does not have analytical solutions, and is addressed by numerical analysis approximations. However, a small number of exact solutions exist, most notably the five orbits referred to as “Lagrange points”, which are orbital solutions for circular orbits in the case when one body is significantly more massive.”
“There are in fact an infinite number of paths taking one to the point and away from it, and all of which require nearly zero change in energy to reach. When plotted, they form a tube with the orbit about the Lagrange point at one end.
The derivation of these paths traces back to mathematicians Charles C. Conley and Richard P. McGehee in 1968.[4] Hiten, Japan’s first lunar probe, was moved into lunar orbit using similar insight into the nature of paths between the Earth and the Moon.”
Bla bla bla bla bla bla boring
You nerds are hilarious I bet you mentally masturbate with your big thick manuscripts of nerdiness in your lap……top
LOL
Dude, why are you even here? You obviously don’t like science and are just trolling everyone, why don’t you go to 8chan or something.
Thanks man. All these articles are just copy-pasting each other without explaining the terms they are using.
I smile I’m one of the ones that can see something on the bed internet and space that I don’t even have to know about but done it all in mind by everything I’ve learned in school doesn’t take a smart person but a smartass can do alot with it alot faster . To live a parallel here and also in an afterlife shows there is no heaven but one to make us believe in the high low and above which is the devil satin and god . I just want to say thanks to Me Albert Einstein this man was in his mind showed me all I needed to know in one page of his work plus a quote or too. Also how smart he was and what was used of his credibility to shock another country by what god has in mind . Also done Hitler also tried me just search it I found my own in the black book called the bible and I’m gonna be better than god and anything it thinks of . Anyone want to know how to decode decipher or see the information highway contact me
Superstition.
You are amazing! In fact Einstein is only second to one of such deep wisdom and psychic even mentality. Your prodigy of the ages. I genuflect at your presence!!! LOL
I read this article in Geordi Laforge’s voice.
Has anyone proven that this highway exists from the centre areas of the earth, one of which is the Kabah.
Your thoughts…
Ah, you guys ruin all my fun
You guys being the comment police
I’ve been on the highway I took my Studebaker once on a scenic route I covered 10 astronomical units well in time you would not believe in a blink of an eye and I was back home for dinner before I left but that would mean I’m traveling at the speed of light?,Or even beyond? How can that be possible? Heaven’s, it can’t be, as we humans who have been here for maybe a hundred thousand years we know everything don’t we, ha! Anyway, this may be just a paradox since I returned before I left after I took that scenic drive on the super highway of chaos because I don’t know if it’s neat or my alter enlightened me that is riding this commentary or should I call it COMICTARY🤡🙃🤖
We are all blind,all these has already been written in a religious book dated 25,000 years back.Go backward to know the future.To know what is supposed to be an infinite universe is just a small piece of cake.
I do not understand… you say you could cover a 100 AU in less than a century. My understanding is that the Voyagers had to achieve more than 40000 km/h to escape the Solar system. So if my math is correct: 1AU is about 150 million km. At 40000 km/h it takes about 156 days, 100 AU would take 42.8 years… a lot less than a century. Am I missing something? Are my assumptions incorrect?
Gilles,
I believe the difference with the voyagers and the reasoning behind this article has something to do with the small amount of energy. The voyager used a lot to get to its current speed (apart from the occasional help of by swinging along a celestial body’s gravity). I think the article is describing these ‘highways’ as ways to travel without needing to use any energy at all but still travel half the distance as voyager in the same time.
But idk, something along those lines would be my best guess, but tbh.. this article smells like BS
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…and remember don’t buy the DYED foods
+ö+&C:
approximately
1155pm12142020( Anchorage, AK )