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Researchers suggest an ion engine could get a telescope to the Solar Gravitational Len point 81 billion kms from Earth in 13 years, and thus allow high resolution imaging of nearby exoplanets. (phys.org)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

2 m/s? Shouldn't it be more on the order of 1.3 km/s with an 81 Tm orbital radius?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Yes. Always check your units, particularly what the calculator you pull up is using for the center body (Earth in my case). And a side note on that difference, it's amazing that the velocity for an orbit that far out is still fast. Even with gravity falling off proportionally, even our little sun pulls hard.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yep. 101% of statistics on the internet are made up, I guess.

Maybe OP mixed up the unit? And, in any case, it would take a lot more in delta-V just to get there.