A New Horizon on Drops of Jupiter
If you’re heading out of the solar system, you better stop off at Jupiter. Or at least fly by. Jupiter, as it turns out, is the place to get a huge gravity sling-shot boost if you’re heading out towards Pluto and the like. CBC’s Quirks and Quarks blog explains:
If you’re going anywhere serious in the solar system, visit Jupiter first. You’ll save money and a lot of time. Jupiter is a planetary catapult for space probes, providing a free throw into deep space, such as the one it will give the New Horizon mission to Pluto over the coming weeks. A Jupiter pitch can double, even triple your speed and shave years off an interplanetary voyage.
The journey outwards from the Earth to the most distant planets is an uphill drive, where the gravity of the sun constantly pulls back, robbing any spacecraft of speed. So to fight back against nature’s pull, NASA engineers use a little trick known as the gravity assist to add a big boost along the way.
Really, go read the rest of the article. It is so cool. Can you image putting an inter-stellar truck-stop drive-thru there? You know, swing by for that extra boost, heat shield repairs while you wait, top up on hydrogen fuel …
Okay I’ll stop now.
Tags: space travel, gravity catapult, Jupiter, New Horizon probe
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