How Long Would it Take Us To Go To Ceres? (The Closest Dwarf Planet)
865Ceres is the closest dwarf planet to Earth; however, it is much further away than you imagine. To the date of creation of this video, Ceres has only been visited by one spacecraft in all of history, and it took almost 10 years to get there, but... Why did it take us so long to send a spacecraft to this dwarf planet?
Considering the advances that have been made in space travel technology, how long would it take us to get to Ceres today?
Dawn Mission
The only space mission that has visited the dwarf planet Ceres was the space exploration probe launched by NASA called Dawn, which had as its primary objective to examine and study the physical characteristics of Ceres, as well as those of the asteroid Vesta.
Visiting small bodies is very difficult
Contrary to logic, small bodies in the solar system, such as comets or asteroids, are challenging for spacecraft to visit, mainly because they have a feeble gravitational force of attraction, so they do not attract spacecraft with sufficient force. Therefore, the exploration probes must perform complicated maneuvers that can easily divert them if they incorrectly calculate during the flyby.
A very long trip
The trip to Ceres was not easy; being more than 250 million miles ( 414 million kilometers ) away, the probe had to use various maneuvers to reduce the arrival time, which was programmed for the spacecraft to do. Automatically and without human intervention.
Hohmann transfer
Hohmann transfer, also known as Hohmann orbit, is a fundamental concept in orbital mechanics used in space navigation to move a spacecraft from one orbit to another around a celestial body, such as a planet or moon, so it is efficient in fuel consumption.
Why did it take so long?
The main reason why the Dawn mission took almost a decade, while other space missions, like the Rover Curiosity, took only a year to reach Mars, is due to a single factor, and that factor was the objective of the mission.
The ion engine, the most efficient of all
The Dawn mission was the first to use ion propulsion, considered the most advanced and efficient space propulsion system.
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Credits: Ron Miller, Mark A. Garlick / MarkGarlick.com ,Elon Musk/SpaceX/ Flickr
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00:00 Intro
0:40 dawn mission
4:50 a very long trip
5:59 hohmann transfer
8:08 why did it take so long
8:00 afterwar
9:50 the ion engine
11:09 what future lies ahead?
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#insanecuriosity #ceres #dwarfplanets