Local time, on September 5, 1977, the Voyager 1 probe of the United States launched into space and embarked on its own interstellar journey.
During its flight, it experienced two accelerations of , Jupiter and Saturn, and achieved higher flight speeds. It still holds the record of the fastest human probe until today. It flies toward the depths of the universe at a speed of 17 kilometers per second. As of January 12, 2020, after more than 42 years of flying, the Voyager 1 probe has flown 152.2 astronomical units, or about 22.8 billion kilometers.
According to some people, the Voyager 1 probe has flown out of the solar system . But in fact, it only broke through the heliosphere of the solar system.
We know that while the sun is undergoing nuclear fusion, it will release a large amount of electromagnetic radiation and high-energy plasma into the universe. At the same time, the universe is also full of radiation produced by other celestial bodies. In the area close to the sun, the solar radiation is stronger, overshadowing the cosmic radiation trend; while in the place far away from the sun, the solar radiation will become the end of the strong, very weak.
At a distance of 120 astronomical units (18 billion kilometers) from the sun, the two kinds of radiation can roughly reach a balance. The area within this area is called the heliosphere of the solar system, and the junction is called the heliosphere. Of course, because humans’ understanding of this area is still relatively limited, the shape and extent of the heliosphere still cannot be finalized. What Voyager 1 breaks through is only the heliosphere.
However, does it even leave the solar system if it breaks through the heliosphere?
is far from.
Even if it breaks through the heliosphere, Voyager 1 will be bound by the sun's gravity. Although its speed has indeed exceeded the third universe speed , it will fly to the depths of the universe without any accident,It won't look back again, but under the sun's gravity, it will still slow down while flying over.
According to the analysis of scientists, the gravitational radius of the solar system may reach 1-2 light years . This means that even considering the fact that it does not decelerate at all, Voyager 1 may not be able to escape the gravity of the solar system in another 20,000 years. As for the distance as far as Proxima (4.22 light years), 70,000 years is not enough.
Are we really unable to break through the solar system?
Someone proposed a new idea: Isn’t the solar system flat? If you fly south or north, isn't it all right?
Sorry, no way.
To explain this problem, we first need to know: why the solar system is flat.
5 billion years ago, there was no celestial body at the location of the solar system, only a very vast interstellar gas and dust. It was them that formed today's solar system.
First, under the action of electrostatic force, a few particles are combined together, breaking the gravitational balance here. Next, more and more particles gradually fell here and combined, and finally combined into a celestial body with a mass of 200 billion billion tons-the sun. Because the mass is too large, terrible temperature and pressure are generated inside, forcing hydrogen atoms to combine with each other and fusion into helium, so the sun starts to glow and heat.
At this time, there are still many particles in the original nebula. They also began to gather together to form celestial bodies, which are the planets, asteroids, comets and other celestial bodies we see today.
Regardless of the formation of the sun or the formation of other celestial bodies, it is impossible for its matter to fall completely toward the center of mass when it falls. In this case, angular momentum will appear. The final result is the rotation of the celestial body and the celestial body's rotation. The revolution of the sun.
Since we are in a three-dimensional space,Therefore, the symmetry axis of this rotation is naturally a straight line, and the one perpendicular to this straight line is a plane. Of course, at the beginning, the solar system was indeed not flat, but nearly spherical. However, celestial bodies in a plane perpendicular to the rotation axis can move in a normal manner under the action of gravity, and celestial bodies that are not on this plane will attract or even collide with each other. Since the solar system was initially uniform, the place where they met was concentrated on the plane of rotation just now, resulting in the solar system being basically flat, including our Milky Way.
Of course, the actual situation is definitely not so perfect, and the various celestial bodies in the solar system are not completely in the same plane. Generally speaking, we will use the earth's revolution as a reference, and define the plane swept by the sun direction during the earth's revolution as ecliptic plane, and the angle formed by other celestial bodies when they revolve around the sun is called the ecliptic plane. Is the orbital inclination.
In the solar system, the orbital inclination of other celestial bodies is not 0 except that the earth has an orbital inclination of 0° because of human definition. Among the eight planets, Uranus has the smallest orbital inclination, only 0.77°, and the largest is Mercury, which reaches 7.01°.
You might think that this kind of orbital inclination is related to distance, but it is not. Look at Pluto again, the orbital inclination has reached 17.15°! In other words, if according to the original "nine planets" statement, one of the two celestial bodies with the largest orbital inclination is the farthest from the sun, and the other is the closest to the sun. In fact, in addition to Pluto, many celestial bodies in Kuiper Belt have very high orbital inclination, which also confuses scientists.
Okay, back to the original question: even if there is an orbital inclination, the solar system celestial bodies are basically in the same plane. If we want to escape the solar system, wouldn't it be more convenient to fly vertically?
(picture description: schematic diagram of the orbital inclination of the main celestial bodies in the solar system)
In fact, this question has been answered just now. We have said that human probes must truly escape from the solar system,Then we must completely get rid of the shackles of the sun, that is, the influence of gravity. Although the celestial bodies of the solar system are in the same plane, the gravity of the sun is the same in all directions. Therefore, even if it is flying perpendicular to the ecliptic plane, it takes the same distance to fly out of the solar system.
This explains that there is no advantage in vertical flight. Next, let's talk about the disadvantages of this mode.
First of all, as we said, during the flight, Voyager 1 used Jupiter and Saturn to perform two gravitational slingshot effects to achieve acceleration. If the probe flies perpendicular to the plane of the solar system's celestial bodies, it will miss the celestial bodies and take advantage of the opportunity to accelerate the celestial bodies.
Secondly, whether it is Voyager 1, 2 or New Horizons probe, what is the purpose of its flight? Is it just to try to fly out of the solar system? Of course not. Who would spend hundreds of millions of dollars just to satisfy curiosity? After all, they are for space exploration. If they fly vertically and there are no celestial bodies on the road, what are they going to detect?
Therefore, flying perpendicular to the plane of the celestial body, not only is completely impossible to solve the problem of breaking through the solar system, but instead is a bamboo basket hitting water and empty space, scientists will not do such meaningless things.
.-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-