Astronomers Discover Cosmic 'Superhighways' For Fast Travel Through the Solar System (sciencealert.com) 74
Invisible structures generated by gravitational interactions in the Solar System have created a "space superhighway" network, astronomers have discovered. ScienceAlert reports: By applying analyses to both observational and simulation data, a team of researchers led by Natasa Todorovic of Belgrade Astronomical Observatory in Serbia observed that these superhighways consist of a series of connected arches inside these invisible structures, called space manifolds -- and each planet generates its own manifolds, together creating what the researchers have called "a true celestial autobahn." This network can transport objects from Jupiter to Neptune in a matter of decades, rather than the much longer timescales, on the order of hundreds of thousands to millions of years, normally found in the Solar System.
Finding hidden structures in space isn't always easy, but looking at the way things move around can provide helpful clues. In particular, comets and asteroids. [...] "More detailed quantitative studies of the discovered phase-space structures ... could provide deeper insight into the transport between the two belts of minor bodies and the terrestrial planet region," the researchers wrote in their paper. "Combining observations, theory, and simulation will improve our current understanding of this short-term mechanism acting on the TNO, Centaur, comet, and asteroid populations and merge this knowledge with the traditional picture of the long-term chaotic diffusion through orbital resonances; a formidable task for the large range of energies considered." The research has been published in Science Advances.
Finding hidden structures in space isn't always easy, but looking at the way things move around can provide helpful clues. In particular, comets and asteroids. [...] "More detailed quantitative studies of the discovered phase-space structures ... could provide deeper insight into the transport between the two belts of minor bodies and the terrestrial planet region," the researchers wrote in their paper. "Combining observations, theory, and simulation will improve our current understanding of this short-term mechanism acting on the TNO, Centaur, comet, and asteroid populations and merge this knowledge with the traditional picture of the long-term chaotic diffusion through orbital resonances; a formidable task for the large range of energies considered." The research has been published in Science Advances.
The answer is not 42... (Score:2, Funny)
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Oh please creimer, I am begging you now, stop posting that hyperspace bypass crap just as an excuse to spam your affiliate links!
You posted that hyperspace bypass crap several time here on Slashdot see links:
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
etc. etc.
I know that you wrote this but I am begging you to stop now:
creimer wrote:
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
All you need to do is find a website with a permissive TOS, say, Slashdot, create a Python script to scrape your own comments, sprinkle Amazon affiliate links in various posts, and then re-post past links whenever possible. Won't be long before you start making "coffee money" each month.
Why don't you listen to what Slashdot users unanimously tell you instead:
by DrMrLordX:
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
Please stop posting affiliate links. This site is not a forum for self-promotion or profiteering by its readers.
B
Speedy delivery. (Score:4, Informative)
This network can transport objects from Jupiter to Neptune in a matter of decades, rather than the much longer timescales, on the order of hundreds of thousands to millions of years, normally found in the Solar System.
And now we know the secret to how the pioneer spacecraft gotten out there in our lifetimes.
Re:Speedy delivery. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Speedy delivery. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not for over 200 years IIRC. When NASA planned the Voyager missions they asked for funding for the Grand Tour and were turned down. Then they asked for funding for the trip to Uranus and were turned down, then Jupiter/Saturn and were refused again. Finally they asked for funding to go to Jupiter and were approved (Saturn was restored before the bill cleared Congress, mostly because the Soviets had never been that far out). Without mentioning the Grand Tour publicly again NASA launched the two probes during the only window that would allow the full trip. Every day after Saturn has been a mission extension, repeatedly canceled by the anti-science party but restored by the few non-loony still in Congress.
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If that all is true then I have the utmost admiration for the clever heads of NASA at that point in time for finding the limitations of the system, and working it for the advancement of knowledge - to make sure that the once in a lifetime chance was not squandered.
It also makes me depressed as hell that such compounded pettiness and ignorance made working the system necessary.
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No. The Pioneers and Voyagers used a different technique: gravitational slingshots.
Not new news (Score:5, Informative)
I remember hearing something similar from years ago and a quick Google search showed these 2 articles from back in 2009.
https://www.popsci.com/militar... [popsci.com]
https://phys.org/news/2009-09-... [phys.org]
Re:Not new news (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, you are right, old news.
Used by probes since decades.
The only thing new perhaps is that they wrote a new software to find upcoming paths more easy/quickly.
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Used by probes since decades.
No. Space probes use gravitational slingshots. They rely only on the gravity of the planet they're flying by, robbing momentum from the planet to speed up the spacecraft.
This article is about gravitational interactions between planet pairs that allow objects to pass from one planet's gravitational field to another.
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This article is about gravitational interactions between planet pairs that allow objects to pass from one planet's gravitational field to another.
And that is also already used since decades, lol.
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I believe those articles were about attempting to map them, this is about how they are mapped, I suppose the difference between a satellite photo of a mountain range and a topographic map of the same. I think the really short period between Jupiter and Neptune surprised everyone, it certainly did me. It also supplies a new method for how the inner solar system was emptied of most of the detritus left over from planetary formation, since the traditional 'gravitational slingshot' was inadequate.
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I remember hearing about this in 1990 when Japan's lunar probe used a low energy transfer orbit to get to the moon.
Turns out the idea dates back to the 60s:
Conley, C. C. (1968). "Low energy transit orbits in the restricted three-body problem". SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics. 16 (4): 732–746. Bibcode:1968SIAMJ..16..732C. doi:10.1137/0116060. JSTOR 2099124.
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wait.. what?! (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re:wait.. what?! (Score:4, Informative)
Earth to Jupiter is about 12 years, as Voyager has shown. Is this a typo or am I not getting something here?
Voyager was powered.
It's like saying "there are currents in that stream that can carry objects much faster than the rest" and you replying "but that can't be true - my motor boat goes way faster than any of that".
Re: wait.. what?! (Score:3)
Seriously?
A small fraction of Voyager's original accelration was use to go that fast.
The vast majority was just very very good timing and initial aiming.
Re: wait.. what?! (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously?
A small fraction of Voyager's original accelration was use to go that fast. The vast majority was just very very good timing and initial aiming.
The Voyagers were piloted craft that had thrusters to accelerate and maneuver so they could use gravity assist to achieve even more acceleration. They didn't just ride the solar wind or bumble about like a piece of debris in a stream. The motorboat analogy still stands.
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The motorboat analogy still stands.
No it doe not. As the speed came from gravity assists, aka sling shots.
Not from the engine.
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The motorboat analogy still stands. No it doe not. As the speed came from gravity assists, aka sling shots. Not from the engine.
Not all of the speed came from gravity assist. Boats often use the prevailing environmental conditions (currents and wind) to increase speed beyond the native capacity of the vessel - especially boats with displacement hulls and boats with limited fuel storage. Just like boats, the spacecraft needed to make in-transit course corrections in order to take advantage of it's environment to achieve added velocity.
Analogy is defined as "a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may b
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Sorry, the motor boat analogy is retarded.
If wan to explain to a 7 year old how a space craft works with that analogy: he will grasp nothing. Hence the analogy is wrong or worthless or both.
You are simply thinking to complicated - considering there are no currents in space ...
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Sorry, the motor boat analogy is retarded.
If wan to explain to a 7 year old how a space craft works with that analogy: he will grasp nothing. Hence the analogy is wrong or worthless or both.
You are simply thinking to complicated - considering there are no currents in space ...
Please accept my apologies. I hadn't realized I was speaking to a seven-year-old.
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No problem.
It makes no sense to a 50 year old either, if that is your concern.
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No problem.
It makes no sense to a 50 year old either, if that is your concern.
How sweet. The mentally-challenged 50-year-old allowing you to use their Slashdot account must love you very much.
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everyone on /. loves me :P
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Why do you want to play silly?
The engines alter the course to fly by at the next planet to do a sling shot.
Wow, that was easy.
And that got repeated several time.
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No, the engines didn't alter the course significantly.
What happened:
1. Voyager is launched at a very high speed from Earth, far above Earth escape velocity, on a trajectory that takes it to Jupiter.
2. On arrival to Jupiter (with a high speed relative to Jupiter), Jupiter pulls Voyager towards the planet.
3. Voyager approaches the planet, and its course is changed by Jupiter. The approach path to Jupiter has been calculated so that this course change is in the exact direction needed to intercept Saturn.
4. As
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And that is what we call "fly by" or in laymen terms "sling shot".
So: the speed going out into interstellar space, is not from the engine but from fly bys.
Re: wait.. what?! (Score:1)
Re: wait.. what?! (Score:2)
I assume they meant objects accelerate to a much greater average drift speed. It's like the jet stream. Just because a Jet can go from NY to Japan in 13 hours doesn't mean putting a piece of paper in the jet stream should get to Japan in 13 hours. This probably doesn't help us get outside the solar system much faster but it helps the craft be more efficient. I wonder though if any such currents bring particular matter towards the sun at an accelerated rate which seems far more unlikely.
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While I'm not sure where they get their hundreds of thousands to millions of years from it the distance from Jupiter to Neptune is significantly longer than the distance from Earth to Jupiter.
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The "hundreds of thousands to millions of years" is the time traditionally calculated using gravitational 'slingshot' on a random piece of space debris. This indicates that the transit can take several orders of magnitude less, which I found extremely interesting.
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Yes. These are low-energy transfer orbits, and they've been known about (and used) for decades. They're really slow if you have an engine. I think the novelty here is that these researchers have tracked actual hunks of rock wandering around the solar system along these paths. Jupiter to Neptune in a few decades is fast... for something that doesn't have an engine.
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Voyager was launched at high speed from Earth.
This discovery is about unpowered objects that are in orbit around e.g. Jupiter, and then migrate to Neptune. They are passed from one planetary gravity field to the next.
Superhighways (Score:1)
I was hoping for faster than light travel here but the actual speedup is underwhelming...
Well, could help with cargo I guess. Nonperishable cargo.
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Yeah but imagine having to vacuum pack everything!
oh wait..
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Apparently my sense of humor is defective. I hear that could be a sign of a covid infection.
Han Solo already told us this years ago already (Score:2)
http://www.moviequotedb.com/mo... [moviequotedb.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Nothing exciting (Score:4, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Mechanics_(Goldstein)
Classical mechanics is what rules in these sorts of orbital calculations. OK sometimes tiny relativity corrections. Also, new computational machinery may help when in earlier decades one would have given up/use crude approximations. Instruments have improved hugely to detect little dim extraterrestrial objects. But "superhighway" is terrible hyperbole.
Re: People (Score:2)
The whole point of science is that you do not have to believe. You check.
Of course, to not do that, you *do* have to believe.
"Belief" is the term for a view, held in one's mind despite contradicting evidence from perceived reality, by the way. A schizoid mental illness. In its progressed stages often leading to terrorism, witch burnings or child rape, if extroverted, or minimalism and self-burning if introverted. And outright halluciations in its later states.
So what were you saying?
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"you check" Okay Einstein, please go check quantum mechanics and get back to us on what you find. Take your time, we'll be here all day.
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I just walked over to my refrigerator. The magnets are still stuck to it. Confirmed, quantum mechanics is still working.
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Cosmic? I expected cosmic scales too! (Score:2)
Like between galaxies. You know: So big, "solar" and "galactic" don't cover it, but feeling almost Lovecraftian.
Between planets ... and speeds still slower than our almost entirely gravity-assisted probes ... for using that word ... is just pathetic.
Pathetic (Score:2, Informative)
Congratulations, the magazine shills have (re)discovered the Interplanetary Transport Network [wikipedia.org]. Astrophysicists have known this for many decades, before there was even a space program. The actual scientists, in a science periodical, (not what slashdot is using as a source) have claimed to have discovered a whole new set of pathways which influence centaur objects and TNOs. If that's the case, good for them.
But there are no "structures". Its just the gravitational pathways between major planets can speed
Particle of the week (Score:1)
Tinker tinker tinker (Score:1)
Borg transwarp conduits? (Score:2)
Start packing (Score:2)
They still need that hyperspace bypass regardless.
2 Words - Click Bait (Score:3)