3 ms·
Not negligible at all. Comets and asteroids do not target to move a planet in some other direction, but a swarm of satellites can do it in a coordinated way. Of
by Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
Not negligible at all. Comets and asteroids do not target to move a planet in some other direction, but a swarm of satellites can do it in a coordinated way. Of course you will need millions of satellites performing such dives over million of years.
But if your goal is to move the planet farther from the sun because it becomes more luminous and threatens to scorch the earth and you need to move away to cancel it, it is probably doable.
- baggy_trough 5y agoLet's take Voyager as an example. It weighs under 1000kg. 1 million Voyagers then weighs 1x10*9 kg. A 1km radius rock asteroid, which is nowhere close to the maximum, weighs an order of magnitude more than this.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoSolar sails give you essentially free power to fly around the solar system. So it is just a matter of time. With millions of years (and sun burning out is not exactly a fast process), this is quite doable.