STARMAN – A dummy riding on a cherry-red Tesla roadster through space has made its closest approach to Mars.
The first test launch of the SpaceX rocket was an electric convertible with its manned passenger bolted to the top of the Falcon heavy rocket as a stunt during February 6, 2018. Than cherry-red sportscars.) Two years later, the Falcon Heavy is making a second trip around the sun on the upper stage and the vehicle at its top. Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who tracked space objects as a side project, found that Starman passed by Oct.6 million miles (.4. Million million kilometers) from Mars: Oct. 25 at 2:45 p.m. , And 35 times closer to reaching Mars than anyone on Earth.
(According to the World Atlas in 2003, the closest approach between the two planets was 34.8 million miles (million 56 million km), although the planets are often millions of miles apart.)
Starman, last seen leaving Earth, made its first close approach to Mars today – in 0.05 astronomical units or 5 million miles below the Red Planet pic.twitter.com/gV8barFTm7October October 7, 2020
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At its current distance no Falcon Heavy Upper Stage will be able to see. And the strange, beautiful images that once considered the home of the earth have long since ceased to exist. But the orbits of a few years are fairly easy to predict, and McDowell used data on how the rocket is moving, leaving the Earth’s gravity behind its recent movements.
The roadster bearing rocket stage is on an asymmetrical orbital path that takes it from Earth to the Sun at a distance of one end of its track – beyond the orbit of Mars – and then into Earth orbit at the other end, the distance from the Sun to Earth is 0.99 times.
The stage has passed through the second aphelion of its 0.99 x 1.66 AU orbit and returned to the orbit of Mars a few days ago. pic.twitter.com/C6b8LffPuyOctober October 7, 2020
The last time Starman orbited the Sun, McDowell said, it was crossing the orbit of Mars when the Red Planet was fairly far away. But this time the crossing is in line with a fairly close approach – yet not as close as the strong tug of Mercury gravity feels.
At this point, if you look at the roadster, it will probably look very different. According to a Live Science report in 2018, the harsh solar radiation between the planets would have broken the carbon barrier by destroying almost all exposed organic matter (red paint, rubber tires, leather seats and the like). And without the Earth’s protective atmosphere and magnetic ield, even strong plastics of windshield and carbon fiber materials will begin to split. Over the decades or centuries, the car should be reduced to its aluminum frame and sturdyst glass parts – assuming that none of them can be destroyed by the impact of passing space stones.
Published on Original Living Science.
