What are those newly discovered superhighways in space that I keep reading about everywhere and how do they work?
In: Physics
the solar system is held together by gravity, everything is caught in the gravity of something else, causing it to revolve around it. that includes spaceships, which makes space travel complicated, because you’re navigating the gravitational fields of all these different objects, which bend the path your ship is taking. space travel isn’t as simple as pointing towards mars and hitting the gas. your ship’s orbiting earth in a circular path, you want to get to mars, you have to bend the circular path of your ship until it swings around and passes through mars’s gravity, then once again bend your path until it forms a circle around mars. you can take advantage of the moon’s gravity to help, instead of using your engines to do all the work, if you pass by the moon at the right time its gravity can bend your path towards the right direction and save fuel.
some scientists have looked at the way the many gravitational fields at work in the solar system interact and mapped out ideal paths for getting from one place to another with as little fuel as possible. more than just using the moon to slingshot you in the direction of mars, you’re taking advantage of how e.g. the moon’s gravity and the earth’s gravity interact to find a smooth, easy path. those paths are the superhighways.
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