- 1 of 499
- ››
Future Space Explorers Could Commute On Interplanetary Gravity Highways [I Heart Tech]
NASA and other national space exploration organizations often use the gravity of objects in space to their advantage to save fuel. Often by slingshotting around planets and moons, you can use half the fuel you would normally, even if the distance is longer because essentially it's like gliding a bike downhill. Now some scientists have figured out a way to use gravity to create an incredibly efficient zone of interplanetary travel.

From PhysOrg:
The central concept is that of Lagrangian Points, or L-points. An L-point is a place in space where the gravitational fields of the surrounding bodies all cancel out to create a point of apparent zero gravity. This concept has been exploited before; the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory is stationed at one such point, where the close-by Earth's gravity cancels the distant Sun's gravity. It sort of just sits there, in this gravitational rut.
And that's basically what these gravity corridors are: they are pathways in space where the gravity is lowest and, in most cases, where the gravity is getting lower. If the gravity of the surrounding planets can be seen as big hills, the gravitational corridors are the sloping valleys between these hills. If scientists can find the valleys that slope in the direction they want to go, they won't need much fuel at all to just roll down those valleys.
Scientists in America and Germany are working to develop a map of these corridors for future space flights. They envision a time when very little fuel would be needed to easily drift from one of Saturn's moons to the other using the gravity of these floating rocks.
- cranberryzero's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Similar entries
- Do Einstein's gravitational theories break down at a massively large scale? [The More You Know]
- Does the Milky Way have a hidden neighbor galaxy? [The More You Know]
- Better than cat juggling, it's a cat in zero gravity [The More You Know]
- The secret of UFOs discovered? [The More You Know]
- Fun with meteorology: A video of gravity wave clouds in motion [The More You Know]
Forums Quicktab
-
I Heart Food
-
Politics Suck
-
Random and Misc.
-
I Heart TV
-
Celebrities are Stupid
- 1 of 57
- ››
-
Animated gif thread is GOcranberryzero

-
Songs that get stuck in your headNaly D
Does anyone else find it odd that of the songs I posted, 4 are from after I was born? [I think]
Songs that get stuck in your headNaly DSongs I always get in my head, but just randomly. I never fucking listen to any of them.
any Devin Townsend/ Strapping Young Lad fans on here?stinktowel...but not coming anywhere near here........... ADDICTED IS AMZING!!!!!
Songs that get stuck in your headNaly DThen you will love
- 1 of 83
- ››
PopularQT
-
An animated re-telling of the Dock Ellis LSD no-hitter [Sports]
-
Excuse you, we is trying to slow dance here [Pic]
-
What Earth would look like if it had rings like Saturn [The More You Know]
-
Google introduces the Google Chrome OS, an open-source web-based OS [I Heart Tech]
-
The desk of an Atari geek, circa 1980-something [Pic]
-
Meet Lauren Williams, the woman with two vaginas [The More You Know]
(3,733)
-
Porn star shoots cum out of her nose... thar she blows! (NSFW) [I Heart Kink]
(2,784)
-
How to make a pregnant woman ice sculpture in one easy step [Pic]
(2,702)
-
Who was your first celebrity crush? [Discussion]
(2,581)
-
Will work for a hot man load to the face [Pic]
(2,336)
Recent comments
-
Utah state senator doesn't want gays to shove it down his throat. Open wide. [Politics Suck]paulywog
haha He's hanging out with the wrong gays if they're stuffing it down his throat. You know, I'm fine...
-
Batman with a beard? Giving beards to the beardless [Art]paulywog
With the beard, he looks a little more like an evil Russian or perhaps a Jewish person. In that alternate...
-
Japanese Halls cough drops commercial FTW [JapanWTF]paulywog
I love that country!
- 1 of 4321
- ››
Who's online
Online users
- annocalla
- SynerJetics
- Thereisnospoon
- clownpenis.fart
- Atom
- gloomcookie613
- tingham
- Rebaud22
- StevenSeagal
- paulywog








This reminds me of something
This reminds me of how George Lucus described navigating hyperspace in Star Wars.
"Choose!"