We could use a ‘solar slingshot’ to catch 3I/ATLAS, scientists say
Scientists are considering a rather novel way to get a better look at 3I/ATLAS – a solar slingshot.
In the months since the interstellar trespasser was spotted, scientists clashed over whether it was a giant snowball (a comet) or… a UFO.
One reason for this was that even at its closest to Earth in December, 3I/ATLAS was still 167 million miles away, making observations tricky.
So, why not just send a spacecraft over there? This is what scientists are thinking could be possible by doing a rather risky rocker manoeuvre.
In a new paper, a team from the non-profit Initiative for Interstellar Studies said this would be achievable by exploiting the ‘Oberth effect’.
‘As a spacecraft is falling into the gravitational potential well, it fires its rockets, coming out of it with a greater kinetic energy,’ Dr Alfredo Carpineti, an astrophysicist who was not involved in the paper, told Metro.
The sun’s gravity, in other words, would give the 500kg probe a speed boost – a change in velocity of at least 5.1 miles per second.
If successful, this would make the 3I/ATLAS interceptor the fastest spacecraft in human history.
Our interstellar visitor will do a pit-stop at Jupiter in about 20 days, marking the halfway point of its time in our cosmic neighbourhood.
The plan would also be to fly out the interstellar interceptor to the gas giant first to use its gravity to slow it down. (If it beelined to the sun, it would travel so fast that it would end up being burned out.)
Experts propose launching the probe in 2035, as it could reach 3I/ATLAS by 2085, when it would be 68 million miles away.
As elaborate as this sounds, Dr Carpineti says this is ‘the most efficient time to burn fuel’.
To achieve this, though, would involve flying just 140,000 miles from the sun’s centre, meaning the craft would need to endure searing heat.
The researchers suggest the craft could be clad in a carbon-composite and aerogel, one of the lightest materials in the world.
One thing holding the mission back is that even with the Oberth effect, the craft still wouldn’t be fast enough to get close to entering 3I/ATLAS’ orbit.
3I/ATLAS, formerly known as A11pI3Z, is only the third interstellar visitor to be discovered passing through our neck of the cosmic woods.
The first was Oumuamua, which travelled past us in 2017. In 2019, Borisov, a comet of interstellar origin, passed by.
Like Borisov, scientists believe 3I/ATLAS likely formed as a comet around another star before being flung out into the cosmos.
Dr Carpineti adds: ‘The work doesn’t look at the feasibility of the mission but just the manoeuvre.
‘Indeed, it’s possible to use this approach to catch up with the rocket.
‘But since the interstellar object is so much faster than the previous two, it would take decades.’
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