 Gravitational superhighway snakes through the solar system.
Engineers compute spacecraft trajectories; quantum chemists track electron paths. Lately, both camps have found they're working on the same problems.
The recent 3-year Genesis mission, led by Martin Lo of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, and Kathleen Howell of Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana, challenged engineers to find the best path for the spacecraft to leave Earth, sample the solar wind, and return. Genesis, with little fuel, had to navigate a gravitational obstacle course created by Earth, the moon, and the sun. Scientists devised an innovative route that took advantage of tubular, energy-efficient pathways, dubbed the "Interplanetary Superhighway" by Lo, that run throughout the solar system.
Charles Jaffe, a chemist at West Virginia University, Morgantown, noticed that Genesis's route bore an uncanny resemblance to the paths of ionized Rydberg electrons, which also follow tubular, low-energy pathways around protons. Inspired by that, Jaffe began collaborating with scientists at Caltech, JPL, and Georgia Tech, applying the techniques of statistical chemistry to plot asteroid movements through the solar system. Meanwhile, NASA has more ideas for using the Interplanetary Superhighway--including as a low-cost orbit for a space station between Earth and the moon. The math behind the Genesis trajectory is described in last month's Notices of the American Mathematical Society. "It may open new doors to people who study planetary mechanics," says Shane Ross, a dynamicist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "And what we do may help chemists solve their problems as well." CREDIT: JPL/CICI KOENIG |
