'Our new technique neatly reveals all possible routes a spacecraft could take from A to B,' researcher Danny Owen said.
Scientists have figured out how to plot the most fuel-efficient routes through space, just like a cosmic sat-nav, or satellite-navigation.Using something called 'knot theory,' astrophysicists have devised a way to use math to calculate the best routes from orbiting one planet or moon to orbiting another, according to a new paper in the journal Astrodynamics.
Astrodynamicists currently achieve this by finding something called 'heteroclinic connections,' which are paths that allow a spacecraft to travel from one orbit to another—such as between Earth and Mars or Jupiter and its moons—using minimal fuel. Finding the heteroclinic connections usually needs a vast amount of computer power, however, or time-consuming guesswork.
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