The more we determine about the abundance of planets around nearby virtuoso , the more we desire to go there . place humans is a remote dreaming , but launching spacecraft that could reach these stars in ten is almostwithin our grasp . We still need to work out how to slow up such missions down , however , if we want much data . One scientist may have the answer .
We ’ve found so many bewitching worlds astronomers recently control theExoCupto take people ’s favorite . ( CongratulationsKepler-10b ; the original , and apparently still the best ) . The next generation of scope will help oneself us memorise alittle moreabout these worlds , but will barely scrape up the surface of what we want to know .
Thus the enthusiasm to send spacecraft ; nevertheless , to get results in the life-time of anyone alive today will require change of location at a pregnant share of the speed of light . Yet if a probe pass through our Solar organisation at , say , a tenth of the speed of luminousness , it would expend at most 26 hours inside the celestial orbit of Saturn – a foresightful voyage for such a little mission .
The fuel required to slow a guile down through rocket salad would be far too heavy for such a foreign mission . However , Professor Claudius Grosof Goethe University has proposed an choice . In theJournal of Physics CommunicationsGros outlines a marriage proposal to slow down spacecraft down sufficiently as they approach a virtuoso that they could collect plenty of utile data , or even go into permanent orbit .
" Slow would mean in this display case a travelling speed of 1,000 km per second gear , which is only 0.3 percent of the speed of lightness but nevertheless about 50 times faster than the Voyager ballistic capsule , " Gros explained in astatement .
Gros propose fitting the craft with magnetic sails that , once deploy , interact with interstellar accelerator to retard the craft . Rather than being solid physical sails , with all the required weight unit , these would involve an enormous grummet of superconducting material . The parky condition of space are idealistic for superconduction , so the 1.5 million Amp current Gros proposes will circulate infinitely , producing a herculean magnetic field .
There are up to 100,000 charged particles per three-dimensional meter ( 3,000 per cubic foot ) of interstellar space , and even more where leading winds are felt . The field would repulse level molecule it approaches , channel its impulse to them and slowing itself down .
Gros has offer using the same glide slope todistribute seedsto inhabitable but uninspired planets . In the shorter term , however , he calculate a craft could orb Proxima Centauri just 58 year after launch . unluckily , this would need a grommet with a 1,600 kilometers ( 1,000 miles ) spoke , which would need a spacecraft whose 1,500 - ton ( 1,400 - t ) weight Gros calls “ daunting ” to build and launch .
