Hunting for 3I/Atlas

3I/Atlas, the third confirmed interstellar object that passes through our solar system after 1I/Oumuamua, which was supposedly an asteroid, but the matter is under debate, 2I/Borisov, which everyone confirms is a comet, no one doubts that, an interstellar comet and 3I/Atlas, an interstellar object with cometary activity.

The image below was published by the European Space Agency on February 26 and is from the Scientific Camera of the JUICE Mission, acronym in English for explorer of the icy moons of Jupiter, it is a ship that will explore the moons of Jupiter and will give us clues about whether there is life, for example, on the Moon Europa, it is one of the objectives, but not because it lands on it, but because it will analyze what the jets of the Moon's geysers expel Europe.

Shows certain details such as gas jets, certain details of the core of 3I/Atlas that are not seen, but are determined by those bright areas that are its coma and a broad tail; but there is one very important thing about a bold and risky plan to try to send a spacecraft to 3I/Atlas published on January 21, the researchers are Adam Hibberd, T. Marshall Eubanks and Andreas Hein.

These three researchers propose using an existing spacecraft or a new one launched specifically designed to go to meet 3I/Atlas, they would have to use a gravitational assistance maneuver, a very risky maneuver because it is called the Oberth solar maneuver after the astronautics pioneer Hermann Oberth, who by the way was born in Transylvania, so you can see that Transylvania is not only a thing for vampires, there are also geniuses who have been born in Transylvania.

100 years ago, Hermann Oberth proposed this risky maneuver to achieve great speed, a gravitational assist passing very close to the Sun or a giant planet like Jupiter, but of course, the problem is that you would have to pass very close and you would have to expose your ship to high temperatures and intense radiation, in the case of Jupiter, intense radiation and you would also have to consume a lot of fuel to achieve enough speed to reach 3I/Atlas, it is not impossible, it is risky, but it is not impossible.

These researchers propose either diverting an existing ship, I think they were thinking about the Parker solar probe when it finishes its mission, for example, but if it were not the Parker, which is already going very fast, by the way, because it is passing close to the sun and gaining more and more speed, well if it were not that, a ship could be launched between 2031 and 2037, with 2035 being the best year for the launch, because it allows a more efficient transfer angle towards 3I/Atlas.

The flight time would be between 35 to 50 years with a possible arrival at the objective because towards the year 2085, if it were 50 years, I do not think the mission would be too expensive, what would be expensive would be the amount of fuel, if it needs a lot of fuel, it would be expensive, because if talking about tons of fuel and putting a ton in space is what makes a space mission more expensive, that is why most space missions use gravitational assistance to reach their objective.

If they had unlimited fuel, the solar system could be explored very quickly and efficiently, that is something that is expected to be achieved when permanent bases are established on the Moon, one of the main functions will be to manufacture fuel for spaceships, because of course, removing any ton from the Moon will be infinitely cheaper than removing it from the Earth and if you make fuel for spaceships, then the Moon could be the supply for the ships that explore the solar system.

That would be the expensive part of this mission, apart from the design to hunt 3I/Atlas, the researchers say that they could also use all the data they have obtained, all the statistics, and all the geometry of the trip that they have designed in the event that the discovery of planet number nine is finally confirmed, which supposedly with all the times, the data, sorry, collected in recent years should be in the near future, if it exists, it should be confirmed with the analyzes that are being done on the huge amount of data collected.

And if it is located, a mission of this type could be sent in an acceptable time to reach that planet number nine or they have also said that it could be used to send a telescope to use the sun as a gravitational lens, it is a project designed a few years ago, it would be to send a telescope to about 550 astronomical units from the sun, which is a huge instance, in fact, the Voyagers have not yet gone that far, the advantage of that position is that you can use the Sun as a gravitational lens, you can use the distortion of the space-time around the sun as a gravitational lens and being able to see stars, extremely distant galaxies, even exoplanets with tremendous quality.

It is an ambitious project, but if it works in one of the cases, it would have a tool for many other missions, and the data obtained and the answers we would obtain would be enormous.

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