Brainteasers

The Seven Planets

Your interstellar police squad has tracked a group of criminals to a cluster of seven planets. Now you must apprehend them before their reinforcements arrive. Of course, the criminals won’t just stay put – they’ll try to dodge you by moving from planet to planet. 

You have a major advantage. Every hour, your state of the art cruiser can warp between any two planets while the criminals beat up smuggling ship can only jump to an adjacent planet in that same time. The approaching rebel fleet in ten hours away. You can't risk letting them escape. 

Can you devise a sequence for searching the planets that’s guaranteed to catch them in ten warps or less not matter what moves they make?

Note: This is not easy as you have no way of knowing whch planet they are on to begin with and therefore you won't know where they are going to move next.  

Another insight that can help us:

Each hour the rebels move from an even numbered planet to an odd numbered planet or vice versa. 

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