On Earth, highways allow people to get from one place to another in a shorter amount of time. In our solar system, space manifolds generated by planets act as celestial highways for small asteroids, comets and spacecraft to hitchhike on a hypothetical space-like jet stream. But what does this network of celestial highways look like in our own solar system – and how fast can an object from, say, Jupiter get to Neptune using one of these manifolds?
These are questions that various astronomers are constantly working on to get a better answer, and according to a recent study published in Science Advances, a new network of these varieties has been detected stretching from the asteroid belt to Uranus and beyond. Together, the structure of these manifolds can be seen as a “celestial autobahn” in our solar system.
“We have observed some routes going from Jupiter to Neptune in less than 10 years,” Nataša Todorović, a research associate at the Belgrade Astronomical Observatory and a lead investigator of the study, told Salon via email. Even more exciting, Todorović added, “I really believe it would allow for faster space travel.”
As expected, the strongest manifolds detected are linked to Jupiter, given the planet’s mass, according to the study. Interestingly, these strong manifolds linked to Jupiter “have deep control over small bodies over a wide and previously unmoved range of three-body energies,” note Todorović and the study’s co-authors. In other words, they are expected to have a lot of influence in space.
“The new thing here is that we have observed the global structure of such varieties, in terms of their domain in the solar system,” explains Todorović. “We have observed that the manifolds generated by Jupiter extend to the outer limit of the solar system, beyond Neptune.”
To put that in perspective, Neptune is the most known planet from the sun in our solar system; it orbits the sun every 164.8 years on average. Saturn is 2,313,267,138 miles from Neptune. These highways allow for short travel times for such long distances.
Todorović, however, emphasized the uncertainty of these celestial networks.
“But we shouldn’t neglect the highly chaotic environment, which means that this course can easily change; finding a fast, reliable itinerary would require a systematic study of a greater number of jobs,” said Todorović.
Aaron Rosengren, Ph.D., an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California-San Diego and a co-researcher on the paper, told Salon via email that a fitting analogy to their discovery was a “ particularly powerful gap. or jet streams from space, which allow for faster and more cost-efficient transport through the solar system. “
Manifolds are very complex in shape, Todorović explained. Technically, they are energy surfaces created by the gravitational interaction between planets and the sun or moons. Todorović said manifolds come from a planet’s “stability points,” or Lagrange points.
“However, we cannot see them in their entirety, as we humans are only limited to 2D-3D shapes,” explains Todorović. “Manifolds coming from different planets can intersect, allowing the transition between them; somehow this will allow planets to be connected through such manifolds, in the sense that an object moves from one planet to another. the other can travel. “
The researchers made this discovery by using a tool called the Fast Lyapunov Indicator (FLI), which is usually used to detect chaos in the universe (which is linked to varieties).
Here, the researchers wrote in the paper, we use the FLI to detect the presence and global structure of space travel manifolds and capture instabilities that affect orbital time scales; that is, we use this sensitive and established numerical resource. to define regions of rapid transport within the solar system more broadly. “
Although the idea of manifolds is nothing new and they have been used in space travel before, Todorović’s study reveals more details about this celestial autobahn generated by Jupiter, which could lead to more information about the nature of comets coming from beyond Neptune – and our solar energy. system, such as the infamous `Oumuamua. As you may recall, ‘Oumuamua caught the attention of scientists around the world in October 2017 because it had some strange features that suggested it could be an alien spacecraft, but turned out to be an interstellar visitor.
“These channels are important in spacecraft navigation and also explain the erratic nature of the orbits of comets that come from the outskirts of the solar system and get close to the sun,” said Avi Loeb, president of Harvard’s astronomy department. to Salon by e-mail. “It could also help to understand the fraction of objects ejected from the solar system into interstellar space.”