3 ms·
That's what I meant with eccentric path though: As far as I know Pluto is not always that far out, there are points in time where it's closer to the sun than Ne
by m_mueller 12y ago
That's what I meant with eccentric path though: As far as I know Pluto is not always that far out, there are points in time where it's closer to the sun than Neptune - which should be a good moment when either Uranus or Neptune could be used to aerobreak.
Edit: but only when they also line up correctly, which is why I think it would take hundreds of years of waiting.
Edit2: After watching the linked video, Uranus would be out, since Pluto is never close to it, but Neptune might work at some point in time when these planets are close.
- dredmorbius 12y agoThe Neptune-Pluto alignment is one that might be interesting to explore on a solar system simulator. I suspect you might have to wait a fair fraction of a thousand years for that though, at a minimum.
- m_mueller 12y agoI actually tried to find a good simulator for that reason, but all the web simulators I've found didn't have a reasonable time slider UI.
- dredmorbius 12y agoThere's a KDE astronomy simulator I've used that seems pretty good, though I haven't played with it for a while. Celestia IIRC: http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/celestia-astronomy-linux-program.html http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/celestia-astronomy-linux-progr...