Space Ship lands on Comet.

[SkyvanDelta]

Amazing and congratulations.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Touchdown!_Rosetta_s_Philae_probe_lands_on_comet

"Immediately after touchdown, a harpoon is fired to anchor the lander to the ground and prevent it escaping from the comet’s extremely weak gravity. The minimum mission target is one week, but surface operations may continue for many months."

[Lockheed Bob]

Re: Space Ship lands on Comet.

Latest word is that it bounced once & slightly turned. They are studying as to why the harpoons to anchor it didn't appear to work but all else working ok.

[SkyvanDelta]

Re: Space Ship lands on Comet.

If the comet is attracted to the sun by the suns gravity, why does the comet continue to miss hitting the sun? Why does the comet continue to miss the object which it is attracted to?

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Space Ship lands on Comet.

If the comet is attracted to the sun by the suns gravity, why does the comet continue to miss hitting the sun? Why does the comet continue to miss the object which it is attracted to?

A little phenomenon called orbit......

[SkyvanDelta]

Re: Space Ship lands on Comet.

A little phenomenon called orbit......

How about some real life simple examples that we experience every day on earth that an 8th grader could understand and explain to another 8th grader of why a comet that comes from very far away, continues to miss the object which is attracting it?

[FlyKidChris]

Re: Space Ship lands on Comet.

How about some real life simple examples that we experience every day on earth that an 8th grader could understand and explain to another 8th grader of why a comet that comes from very far away, continues to miss the object which is attracting it?

Too much energy not quite perfectly directed at the heavenly body - the ones that are do collide with it. So for a comet, imagine a heavenly body in the middle here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6FvgHSBFMs

[SkyvanDelta]

Re: Space Ship lands on Comet.

So why does the comet miss its target the sun, if that is what the comet is attracted to by gravity? Give me some examples of what we see on this planet, simple examples that an 8th grader could understand and explain to another 8th grader.

Too much energy not quite perfectly directed at the heavenly body - the ones that are do collide with it. So for a comet, imagine a heavenly body in the middle here:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6FvgHSBFMs

[L.E.D.]

Re: Space Ship lands on Comet.

Maybe the best everyday example is a tetherball - remember those? A pole with a volleyball attached by a rope?

If you threw the ball directly at the pole, you'd hit it, but if you throw the ball and miss, the rope will catch it and the ball will circle around the pole. The rope is always pulling the ball towards the pole, but the motion of the ball keeps the rope pulled tight.

Another example is one of those funnel shaped things you see at the mall sometimes, where you put a coin in and it rolls
around and around and finally goes down the drain. That's actually a lot closer to being orbital motion.

If you could just 'drop' a comet into the solar system, it would hit the sun, just like the tetherball hit the pole, or the coin going directly down the drain. However, comets are part of the solar system and the whole ball of wax started out spinning, so everything is moving a little sideways, some more than others. The planets are moving sideways fast enough to have nice circular orbits; comets and some asteroids not so much, so they fall in long skinny orbits, loop around the sun and get slung back out again.

Here's a video that shows the idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3OQ7ek7t68

[FuryFan]

Re: Space Ship lands on Comet.

The Sun is just the most massive of countless large objects that have an effect on the orbit of any other object in our little neighborhood. We've using been using the gravity (or warping of space-time, if you like) of the planets to launch our spacecraft farther and faster since the dawn of the space age.

Kevin