Scientists find new route through the solar system that should allow for faster space travel than previously thought possible

Scientists have found a new 'superhighway network' through the solar system that would allow for much faster space travel.

The "celestial highway" allows asteroids to travel through space far more quickly than previously thought, and could allow for much quicker journeys for spacecraft, too. 

The routes mean that small objects such as comets and asteroids can fly right across the solar system in a surprisingly short time: travelling the distance between Jupiter and Neptune in less than a decade, for instance.

The research looked at “space manifolds”, or the connection of arches that extend from the edges of the solar system. Calculating those is incredibly complicated work, since it means exploring the dynamical structure of a host of bodies and their gravitational forces.

Researchers were able to better understand them by gathering detailed numerical data about millions of orbits in our solar system, the authors report in an article published in the journal Science Advances, and titled ‘The Arches of Chaos in the Solar System’. They were combined with existing understanding of space manifolds that were already well known to understand where those “space highways” could extend through the solar system.

The most obvious of the arch structures are connected to Jupiter, and its strong gravitational pull, the researchers write.

Further research will be required to better understand how the structures affect objects within the solar system, and how they could be used by spacecraft to send them through space more quickly.

Researchers also hope to better understand how those manifolds behave around Earth, which in turn could have important applications as we look to better understand objects near our planet that could one day collide with it.