I hope you have not forgotten the historic launch of super-heavy carrier rocket Falcon Heavy, sent into space electric convertible Tesla Elon musk? No? Then we have two news for you. The good and the bad. The good is that this car we may yet see. Bad – it may fall to the Ground.
According to new results of calculations of the orbital trajectory of elektriraudtee, stylish piece of red iron, resin and other cool items, including Starman (makeshift astronaut, which is a mannequin, dressed in a spacesuit, developed by the SpaceX company) in the future may repeatedly fly past the Earth and one day may even fall down. This is the conclusion reached by canadian astrophysicist Hanno Rhine from the University of Toronto Scarborough (Canada), who with his colleagues decided to find out the probability of this outcome.
“We have already been ready all software, and when we found out that the launch went well, we decided to see what happens with Tesla in the next millions of years”, — commented on the Rhine, portal Science.
Of course, a million years is too long period of time, which does happen, especially when you consider how many factors of gravitational (attraction of those of Jupiter, Mars, Earth and other large objects when approaching them) can play a role and affect the future trajectory of the vehicle.
As initially thought, the Musk of Tesla missed its goal of Mars, and went on a journey to the asteroid belt. Subsequently, scientists have shown that it is not — the car is really closer to the red planet this year, but it will not be her companion.
Rhine and his colleagues drew attention to the fact that such a trajectory actually turned the car in another near-earth asteroid that live between the orbits of Mars, Earth and Venus, and periodically approaching to our planet and its nearest neighbors. And the first approach to the Earth, according to calculations, there must be somewhere in the year 2091, when the distance between the vehicle and our planet will be smaller than the distance from Earth to the moon.
Looking ahead, it should be noted that the calculations showed no potential collisions with the Earth at least in the next thousand years, but scientists say that there are no guarantees they can not give.
“The problem is that due to the chaotic features of the orbit we can’t predict what might happen in a few centuries. We can draw conclusions only in a statistical sense,” said rein in an interview with CBS News.
After 240 computer simulations of possible changes in the orbital dynamics of the car, Raine and his colleagues found that there is a 50% chance that the machine will fall to the Ground in the next few tens of millions of years.
When the astronomers considered all possible adverse factors, their calculations showed that Tesla may return to Earth – the probability of its falling to the nearest planet in a million years is approximately 6%. In addition, there is a 2.5% chance that the first space machine falls to Earth and Venus. If we talk about a later period, say, 3 million years, the chance to “meet” increasing to 11 percent. Scientists say that in any case the simulation of the car fell on Mars and only under one scenario, Tesla for 3 million years fell into the Sun.
In any case, the study authors hasten to reassure the population and the Elon musk, saying that even if the car does head for Earth, we’ll be safe.
“Even if the machine falls to the Ground, the inhabitants of the planet and Elon musk don’t need to worry about it or it will completely burn up in the atmosphere or on the surface will drop only one item”.
Sent into space sports car Elon musk may fall to the Ground
Nikolai Khizhnyak