Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A Bussard ramjet, one of many possible methods that could serve to propel spacecraft. Interstellar travel is the hypothetical travel of spacecraft between star systems.Due to the vast distances between the Solar System and nearby stars, interstellar travel is not practicable with current propulsion technologies.
Space colony on the O'Neill cylinder. The costs and risk of interplanetary travel receive a lot of publicity—spectacular examples include the malfunctions or complete failures of probes without a human crew, such as Mars 96, Deep Space 2, and Beagle 2 (the article List of Solar System probes gives a full list).
In the geocentric model of the Solar System proposed by Apollonius in the third century BCE, retrograde motion was explained by having the planets travel in deferents and epicycles. [4] It was not understood to be an illusion until the time of Copernicus , although the Greek astronomer Aristarchus in 240 BCE proposed a heliocentric model for ...
This phenomenon has been observed outside the Solar System, around stars other than the Sun, by NASA's now retired orbital GALEX telescope. The red giant star Mira in the constellation Cetus has been shown to have both a debris tail of ejecta from the star and a distinct shock in the direction of its movement through space (at over 130 ...
The Interplanetary Transport Network (ITN) [1] is a collection of gravitationally determined pathways through the Solar System that require very little energy for an object to follow. The ITN makes particular use of Lagrange points as locations where trajectories through space can be redirected using little or no
Space weather is the environmental condition within the Solar System, including the solar wind. It is studied especially surrounding the Earth, including conditions from the magnetosphere to the ionosphere and thermosphere. Space weather is distinct from terrestrial weather of the troposphere and stratosphere. The term was not used until the 1990s.
The Space Launch System (also being looked at for "interstellar precursor missions") would be even more capable. [134] [135] Such an interstellar precursor could easily pass by ʻOumuamua on its way out of the Solar System, at speeds of 63 km/s (39 mi/s). [136] [137]
Several space probes and the upper stages of their launch vehicles are leaving the Solar System, all of which were launched by NASA. Three of the probes, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and New Horizons, are still functioning and are regularly contacted by radio communication, while Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 are now derelict.