Mathematicians think abstract tools from a field called symplectic geometry might help with planning missions to far-off moons and planets.
In October, a Falcon Heavy rocket is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida, carrying NASA’s Europa Clipper mission. The $5 billion mission is designed to find out if Europa, Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon, can support life. But because Europa is constantly bombarded by intense radiation created by Jupiter’s magnetic field, the Clipper spacecraft can’t orbit the moon itself.
To describe the motion of three bodies, like Jupiter, Europa and a spacecraft, you need 18 dimensions: six per body. The geometry of the space is defined not only by the number of dimensions it has, but also by the curves that show how the physical system being described evolves over time. Moreno and Koh worked on a “restricted” version of the three-body problem where one of the bodies is so small that it has no impact on the other two .
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