Researchers discover a new superhighway system in the Solar System (VIDEO)
Caption
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. Accordingly, 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. 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.
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University of California San Diego
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