A team of Italian scientists has drawn a plan to achieve one of the most distant and enigmatic objects of our solar system: the Dwarf Planet Sedna.
Two options. Research, Prepublished in Arxivdetails two concepts of spacecraft to drastically shorten the trip to Sedna. Not only with the aim of doing so in less time, but also quick enough to arrive before the dwarf planet immerses itself in the dark of deep space for thousands of years.
One of them is a high -tech solar candle that, according to researchers, could make the journey in just seven years. The other is a nuclear fusion rocket that would do it in about ten, but with a great advantage: it could enter orbit once there.
The moment is key. He Planet Sednadiscovered in 2003, has an extremely eccentric orbit that lasts about 11,000 years. In 2076 he will reach his perihelio, the point of his orbit closest to the Sun, although “close” is a relative term: it will be almost 11,000 million kilometers, about three times the distance from Neptune to our star.
It is a unique opportunity in millennia to send a probe. With current rocket technology, such a trip would require between 20 and 30 years, which would force to develop in record time an incredibly complex and high -budget mission.
The cheap alternative. The first option is A solar candle that takes advantage of the thrust of the photons of the sun To propel the ship, a concept already tested in missions such as Lightsail 2 of planetary society. However, this candle would go one step further: it would be covered with a material that, when heated with sunlight, released molecules through a thermal disorption process that provided an additional thrust.
Thanks to Jupiter’s gravitational assistance, this ultralight ship could reach SEDNA in just seven years. The great advantage is that it would not need to load with the weight of the fuel. The disadvantage is that I could only overflow, quickly through Sedna, As did the New Horizons probe with Pluto. I would collect valuable data, but the meeting would be brief.
The ambitious alternative. The second proposal is more ambitious: a rocket driven by the direct fusion engine that is already being developed in the Plasma Physics Laboratory of Princeton University. This engine would not only generate thrust, but also electrical energy from a controlled nuclear fusion reaction, offering continuous and powerful acceleration.
A trip with the nuclear engine would have been ten years. Although it is slower than the solar candle, it has a major prize: the ability to insert the ship into the Sedna orbit, making possible a much more detailed long -term study of its surface, its composition and its interaction with the space environment compared to the solar candle.
Why Sedna? Not only because it is a transneptunian object, an ice cream that orbits beyond Neptune. Its reddish surface and its extreme orbit make it a pristine relic of the formation of the solar system. Scientists believe Sedna could contain organic compounds and water ice, the original “bricks” of the planets.
Since most of its time passes far from the Sun, its surface has been protected from radiation and heat, being almost intact. One of the most fascinating hypotheses is that Sedna could be an exoplanet captured by our solar system during a stellar encounter in the past. Being able to analyze its in situ composition would literally study material from another star system without leaving ours.
Image | CSWANCMU (CC)
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