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Scientists recommend traveling to planets on asteroids

Academic attention has focused on the argument for using asteroids to travel from Earth to Mars. The distance between Earth and Mars varies as they each orbit the Sun, with the closest distance being around 56 million km and the average around 225 million km.

The planetary research team of the Tarashevchenko National University in Kiev (TSNUK) in Ukraine proposed planetary motion using asteroids in a recent report published in the archive of dissertations (arXiv). Since Mars is much further away than the moon, where people have already landed, sending astronauts requires not only a lot of time, but also materials such as food, water and oxygen .

Time reduction is very important when people move around the planet. If people stay in space for a long time, they can suffer adverse health effects due to radiation or microgravity. Due to the lack of gravity, muscle mass and bone density decrease, and you may become so weak that you cannot even support your own weight when you return to Earth. There is a high possibility that the heart or blood vessels may also cause problems.

Imagine ‘Osiris Rex’ performing a reverse thrust just after retrieving surface samples from asteroid ‘Bennu

“Spaceships need a lot of fuel, so asteroids are the best for high-speed movement,” said researcher Vladimir Restnik, a planetary scientist at TSNUK, “We have been “to analyze,” he said.

He said, “If we can identify asteroids that are approaching Earth and go straight to Mars or Venus, we might be able to use them as a means of transportation. ” He said, “In the 2020-2021 examination, we were able to select about 120 candidates.”

Among those named by the research team is an asteroid that could shorten the travel time from Earth to Mars by up to 180 days. It is about twice as fast as current technology. Some asteroids have a cave-like surface that is suitable for avoiding radiation.

NASA launched the DART mission in 2022 to hit Dimorphos, the satellite of the near-Earth asteroid Didymos, with a small spacecraft.

Researcher Reshitnik said, “It may sound absurd, but asteroids are celestial bodies that have been actively discovered and a lot of information has been collected so far, “NASA’s NEO study aims at more than identify 90% of asteroids over 140. meters in diameter.” he said.

The researcher said, “We need very few resources for astronauts to live on asteroids, and we also need to develop technologies to prepare for radiation and extreme temperatures.” He said, “There are many other problems to be solved, but we need to increase the speed of the spacecraft, develop high-efficiency fuel, and at the same time make the asteroid a shuttle.” ” “How to use it also requires research,” he emphasized.

Humanity is performing various missions related to countless asteroids flying through outer space. The Japanese asteroid probe Hayabusa 2 reached Ryugu in 2018 and collected soil samples. NASA excavated Bennu soil samples using the Osiris Rex asteroid probe in 2020. In 2022, the DART spacecraft collided with Didymos’ satellite asteroid Dimorphos and changed its orbit.

Reporter Jeong Ian anglee@sputnik.kr

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