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Article <[email protected]>
From: [email protected](Nancy )
Subject: Re: LONG ELLIPSE ORBITS
Date: 13 Mar 1997 15:12:23 GMT
In article <[email protected]>
>> Your probes don't return because you CONSIDER them to
>> be on what you term a hyperbolic orbit. Long period
>> comets return because you CONSIDER them to be on
>> what you term long elliptical orbits. However, their exit
>> looks the same, is mapped mathematically the same from
>> the focus they are leaving until you lose sight of them, and
>> in fact until a new comet rounds the Sun and gives
>> evidence of what you term its eccentricity, YOU DON'T
>> KNOW if you're going to be calling it a hyperbolic,
>> parabolic, or whateverbolic comet.
>> ZetaTalk[TM[
>
> Yes, we do know. That's why we observe comets and we fit
> orbital elements to them. With enough observations, we can
> tell the difference between comets on elliptical, parabolic and
> hyperbolic orbits. Their exits (actually their paths across the
> sky) do NOT look the same - that's how we can tell them apart.
> [email protected] (Jim Scotti)
(Begin ZetaTalk[TM])
Perhaps you'd like to share with us just what those difference are? In fact, the difference
lies in the tightness of the eccentricity as they round the Sun, is this not true? Until the
comet makes the turn, you don't KNOW, in most cases, what its going to turn out to be!
Coming into the turn, you're frankly guessing. As it starts to tighten, you begin to firm up
your guess. As its well into the turn, you feel pretty firm about your opinion. But taking a
comet on the long shoot INTO the Solar System, or the long shoot OUT of the Solar
System, you'd be hard pressed to say unless you had other data.
This STILL is not addressing the issue. Beyond the differences between what you term
hyperbolic or parabolic or whateverbolic orbits, what is the difference WAY OUT IN
SPACE, where the comet, per your human theories, tracks SIDEWAYS across the sky, for
no reason, so as to return on the other side of what you assume to be an ellipse! Forget your
probes, which you have agreed are not going to make that turn. You've given yourself an
out by calling it a hyperbolic orbit, so as to avoid the issue of this debate. Just address why
a parabolic comet, which you lose sight of as its so FAR out there, on the straight-away,
makes the turnaround. Describe the forces moving it sideways, please.
(End ZetaTalk[TM])
In article <[email protected]>
>> That said, why would a comet or probe on a hyperbolic
>> orbit be any different from a comet you expect to return?
>> WHAT EXACTLY is it that causes the returning comet
>> to curve sideways out in space? The curve on BOTH is
>> the same as they are leaving the Solar System. It is the
>> eccentricity that is different.
>> (End ZetaTalk[TM])
>
> No different except we know that a comet on a hyperbolic orbit
> will NOT return. We've repeated over and over - gravity causes
> the comet to follow its orbit around the sun, assuming it is on an
> elliptical orbit so that it can return. The eccentricity simply
> describes the shape of the orbit.
> [email protected] (Jim Scotti)
(Begin ZetaTalk[TM])
Geometry is not a force, its a mathematical description. Since you insist that the comet has
taken geometry lessons and just LOVES drawing those ellipses, even though your geometry
would requires two foci for an ellipse and a second focus has never been identified. Lets
just focus on what your probes do, their behavior, as you know them intimately well,
stocking them with instruments and knowing just when they need those little puffs from
their little jets to get them to follow the paths you set them upon.
You're of the opinion, and rightly so, that your probes moving into an orbit when close to
large bodies. You call this a "gravitational assist", using this to turn your probes at a angle
from their prior paths, and puffing them out of this orbit at the proper time. Then they go
straight again. Now, in every case when your little probes go straight again, a line you
chose to call heliocentric and hyperbolic, they have a DIFFERENT center of this mythical
curve. How can they all be different if they're all heliocentric?
(End ZetaTalk[TM])