{"id":154801,"date":"2025-07-10T20:41:28","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T20:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/there-is-only-one-chance-in-11000-years-to-reach-the-planet-sedna-some-italians-want-to-utilize-a-nuclear-engine-for-this-mission\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T20:41:29","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T20:41:29","slug":"there-is-only-one-chance-in-11000-years-to-reach-the-planet-sedna-some-italians-want-to-utilize-a-nuclear-engine-for-this-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/there-is-only-one-chance-in-11000-years-to-reach-the-planet-sedna-some-italians-want-to-utilize-a-nuclear-engine-for-this-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"There is only one chance in 11,000 years to reach the planet Sedna. Some Italians want to utilize a nuclear engine for this mission."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A team of \u00a0Italian scientists\u00a0 has drawn up a plan to achieve one of the most distant and enigmatic objects in our solar system: the \u00a0Dwarf Planet Sedna\u00a0.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Two options.<\/strong> Research, prepublished in Arxiv<\/a>, details two concepts of spacecraft designed to drastically shorten the trip to Sedna. The goal is not only to reduce the travel time but also to arrive before the dwarf planet immerses itself in the darkness of deep space for thousands of years.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

One design proposes a \u00a0high-tech solar sail\u00a0 that could potentially make the journey in just \u00a0seven years\u00a0. The other concept involves a \u00a0nuclear fusion rocket\u00a0, which would take about \u00a0ten years\u00a0, but with a significant advantage: it could enter orbit around Sedna once it arrives.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The moment is key.<\/strong> \u00a0Planet Sedna\u00a0, discovered in 2003, has an incredibly eccentric orbit that lasts approximately \u00a011,000 years\u00a0. In \u00a02076\u00a0, it will reach its perihelion, the closest point in its orbit to the Sun. Although “close” is a relative term\u2014Sedna will be nearly \u00a011 billion kilometers\u00a0 away, roughly three times the distance from Neptune to our star.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This presents a unique opportunity in millennia to send a probe. Current rocket technology would require between \u00a020 and 30 years\u00a0 for such a mission, necessitating a complex and high-budget project to be developed rapidly.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The cheap alternative.<\/strong> The first option, the \u00a0solar sail\u00a0, takes advantage of solar photon thrust to propel the spacecraft. This concept has already been tested in missions like \u00a0Lightsail 2\u00a0 by the Planetary Society. However, this sail would further innovate by being coated with a material that, when heated by sunlight, releases molecules via a thermal desorption process, resulting in additional thrust.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Utilizing \u00a0Jupiter’s gravitational assistance\u00a0, this ultralight ship could reach Sedna in just seven years. The significant advantage is that it wouldn’t need to carry fuel, thus reducing overall weight. However, the downside is that it would only be able to perform a quick flyby\u2014similar to what the \u00a0New Horizons\u00a0 probe did with Pluto. While this would yield valuable data, the encounter would be fleeting.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The ambitious alternative.<\/strong> The second proposal is more ambitious: a rocket powered by a \u00a0nuclear fusion engine\u00a0 currently being developed at the \u00a0Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory\u00a0. This engine could produce both thrust and electrical energy from a controlled nuclear fusion reaction, offering continuous and powerful acceleration throughout the journey.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A trip with this \u00a0nuclear engine\u00a0 would take about \u00a0ten years\u00a0. While it is slower than the solar sail, it has a major advantage: it could insert the spacecraft into Sedna’s orbit, facilitating a much more detailed long-term study of its surface, composition, and interaction with the surrounding space environment compared to the solar sail approach.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Why Sedna?<\/strong> The interest in Sedna is not solely due to it being a \u00a0trans-Neptunian object\u00a0, an icy body that orbits beyond Neptune. Its \u00a0reddish surface\u00a0 and extreme orbit make it a pristine relic from the early formation of the solar system. Scientists theorize that Sedna may contain \u00a0organic compounds\u00a0 and \u00a0water ice\u00a0, which are essentially the primordial “bricks” of planets.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Most of Sedna’s time is spent far away from the Sun, allowing its surface to remain largely untouched by radiation and heat. One of the more intriguing hypotheses posits that Sedna could be an exoplanet that was captured by our solar system during a past \u00a0stellar encounter\u00a0. Analyzing its composition in situ would provide an unprecedented opportunity to study material from another star system\u2014all within our own solar system.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Image | CSWANCMU (CC)<\/p>\n

In Xataka | Electronuclear and Nuclear Fusion Propulsion are the options of science to take us to deep space<\/p>\n


\n
General News – 2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A team of \u00a0Italian scientists\u00a0 has drawn up a plan to achieve one of the most distant and enigmatic objects in our solar system: the \u00a0Dwarf Planet Sedna\u00a0. Two options. Research, prepublished in Arxiv, details two concepts of spacecraft designed to drastically shorten the trip to Sedna. The goal is not only to reduce the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":154802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36399],"tags":[3388,6716,32876,9968,704,9623,4896,38601,24970,45],"class_list":["post-154801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-chance","tag-engine","tag-italians","tag-mission","tag-nuclear","tag-planet","tag-reach","tag-sedna","tag-utilize","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}