Limitations of Chemical Propulsion for Interstellar Escape from Habitable Zones around Low-Mass Stars
Manasvi Lingam, Abraham Loeb
(Submitted on 24 Aug 2018)
The habitable zones of low-mass stars are characterized by escape speeds that can be a few times higher than the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Owing to the exponential dependence of the required fuel mass on the terminal speed for chemical rockets, interstellar travel may not be easy for technological species inhabiting planets around M-dwarfs.
Comments: Accepted for publication in Research Notes of the AAS; 3 pages
Subjects: Popular Physics (physics.pop-ph); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:1808.08141 [physics.pop-ph] (or arXiv:1808.08141v1 [physics.pop-ph] for this version)
Submission history
From: Manasvi Lingam
[v1] Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:59:01 GMT (101kb,D)
