Tuesday, January 6, 2026

Space Domino

Most of you had seen Dr. Stephen Morris’ “Domino Effect Demonstration”. Each domino knocks over one and a half times bigger domino over a chain reaction. I thought that why don’t we use this technique to change the orbit of a big celestial body.

This requires the detailed study of asteroid belt in our solar system. Once a more detailed information is gathered on the trajectories of the asteroids a path can be determined. A path of ever-increasing asteroid that ends on Ceres. Ceres is the closest celestial body to Earth that contains water. It is also surrounded with asteroids of many sizes. A chain reaction that can be triggered by a small spacecraft may deorbit Ceres so that it settles to a new orbit closer to Earth. If humanity is planning to form settlements in our solar system outside the Earth; Moon and Mars are not ideal due to lack of abundant water. Ceres with a much closer orbit would be an ideal candidate.

Domino effect requires asteroids of varying sizes in relative proximity. As far as I know, only the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter has the potential for such an experiment. If initial experiments prove successful, it would be humanities next big step after Moon landing, to deorbit a big celestial body to a planned trajectory.

No comments :

Post a Comment