NASA warns two asteroids hurtling closer to Earth than the MOON in 20,000mph

Perhaps it does but our understanding of the equation and its implications are limited by preconception of what "Matter" actually is. The "Proton, Electron...Moron" may be more than humor.

 

Well, "adverse" only if it affects the trajectory in a way you don't like, right?

Pretty much all of our satellites that leave earth orbit are put on trajectories that allow the gravitation of planets to speed them on their way. Some even make use of more than one planet. It's seriously tricky and it means that there are short "launch windows" where being late to launch means waiting for another window. These satellites carry little fuel, because it's heavy. Satellite positioning (so they can aim their communications at earth, for example) is done with gyroscopes that are powered by solar collectors or by small nuclear power packs if going too far from the sun for solar panels to work.

So, ground controllers can only make minor corrections to a flight path that was designed with immense care. Voyager I is one of only two satellites that have left the solar system. It used the gravity of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune to gain enough speed to escape the Sun. It's pretty hard to get something to leave our solar system. The sun's gravity keeps most objects contained within its influence.

Think about calling a shot like that in pool! To make that shot it had to launch within a narrow time slot. The next time the planets will be aligned so that the shot is possible will be 176 years after the Voyager missions launched.

Cool site showing paths of Voyager and various other objects:
https://www.theplanetstoday.com/voyager_flight_path.html

 

I personally don't believe that there is like some kind of sophisticated remote control which can be effective over millions of miles, but I won't go there. I'll ask you one question though: how do they know when to make those corrections during the almost 35 million miles voyage to Mars? Or indeed if a correction needs to be made at all? And please don't patronise me by comparing this kind of thing to a pool game.

 

Generally, a spacecraft is launched with huge rockets into a certain trajectory, or path, and it continues on that that path. Often the smaller rockets that are attached to the spacecraft are not large enough to change that initial push significantly. Spacecraft traveling in one direction have a hard time turning around and going in another. Sometimes a spacecraft can use the gravity of a planet or moon for an orbit or flyby and change its direction that way. Other than that, the course is not changed in large ways, just adjusted or corrected. If a course correction is needed, the spacecraft will fire small attitude rockets to change the direction it is pointing. After that, the main thruster can give the rocket a push in the new direction. In order to do this, the location and heading of the spacecraft must be known perfectly so the spacecraft takes readings and sends them down to ground control and then they radio up a command sequence about how to change the course. On most probes though, AutoNav and Remote Agent can do some of these tasks automatically as they track star position and triangulate much like a GPS on earth..

 

I didn't ask about the method of guidance, only how they know it needs to be adjusted when the vehicle could be 33 million miles away. Like I said, I don't believe radio signals can reach that far, even if someone in mission control decided that a tweak is needed.

 

There seem to be a great many things you do not believe even when documented or visual proofs are presented, this makes communication and discussion with you almost pointless. Soon I will simply stop even trying and use the ignore function to avoid further wasted time....for now however I ask why do you imagine billions of dollars are spent to make this?

 

Yes, the probability that there are still aspects of matter still to be discovered and understand always exists.

 

Yes, documented by NASA and 'visual proof' by CGI and diagrammatic youtube videos? But let me ask you what I asked tecoyah and WillReadmore (neither of whom have responded, I notice) . . . do you believe the video tecoyah posted was filmed on Mars?

 

Just so you know, I AM tecoyah and yes, the video was very clearly taken on Mars by a Rover/Probe we landed there. There are those of us (everyone except you) that accept realities presented with documented and video proofs verified by multiple sources rather than make up fantastical conspiracy theories rooted in impossibility. I ask you just how advanced "CGI" was 20 years ago or even 40? Were the moon landings and Voyager done in CGI before Atari even came out? Did NASA spend its money perfecting a set in the Gobi desert and secretly filming dust devils they made with their super wind machines?
Here is a combination of your CGI conspiracy world and real video for comparison as well as some really cool data for you to ignore.

 

I have better things to do that to sit here watching almost half an hour of some bloke paid to waffle to the world and his wife about things he hasn't done nor can prove! I've heard plenty more of these charlatans spouting off without listening to another one. Nor do I want to keep on reading your posts which amount to nothing more than what you've read in various magazines, which I don't need to say, depend upon this crap to sell advertising in their publications. But returning to the salient point - having filmed those dust devils, how did they then get the dvd recording back from Mars . . . talking of which - Mars is a bit further away than the moon, which is a relative stone's-throw away - not that I'm totally convinced by the moon landing either. Actually, apart from religion, this is the biggest confidence trick perpetrated on mankind.

 

As it is now extremely clear you will not bother to review any data provided (I already provided data on the deep space network we use to communicate with spacecraft) I will now take advantage of this sites ignore function and suggest you do the same. In this way we are both spared any further wasted energy and time.

Have A Nice Life

 

That recording you put up was no way transmitted over 33 million miles. You seem to think I was born yesterday to believe all this crap. But yep, something tells me there will be no meeting of minds, but thank you for being so polite.

 

Why not ?

You seem determined to remain wilfully ignorant. If you simply reject any information which does not agree with your preconceptions, it makes any kind of meaningful discourse more or less impossible.

 

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It makes just as much sense for me to say that you seem determined to believe everything you're told without question nor evidence, therefore are wilfully gullible. Do you believe that video of a dust devil on Mars was actually filmed on Mars? Yes or no? Please don't get into any more waffle because I'm sick of waffle.

 

I don't believe everything without question or evidence, remember I spent years studying this formally and decades as a hobbyist.

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, yes.

 

Honestly? You actually believe it was transmitted over 33 million miles and maintained its clarity? I daresay you know all about the constellations and other superficial stuff, but you have no proof or knowledge of space travel. In other words, it's all theory and rote, and it doesn't impress me in the least because if I were interested enough I could become equally as qualified.

 

Why not ? Compression techniques are very good, there was no need for it to be "live streamed" so bandwidth was not a big issue, and in cosmological terms, 33 million miles is next door.

Constellations have absolutely nothing to do with astrophysics apart from maybe acting as a shorthand for locations of objects.

Regarding space travel, I'd be interested to know what you think constitutes evidence. I consider detecting signals from probes to be adequate evidence that they are where they are and are doing what they are doing.

I doubt it.

Towards the end of my degree, the maths was getting too difficult. Maths is the way to remove the subjectivity and while the vector calculus was quite do-able, once we progressed beyond that, I failed to understand things and instead just learned them. The course on neutron physics was notoriously difficult. Of a class of around 150, all of whom were pretty clever, about half a dozen actually understood it, the rest of us just learned it to a greater or lesser degree. Those half dozen went on to get Phd's and are now professors.

Unless you are a mathematics prodigy and/or savant then I think you'd come up short.

 

I think you need to understand some things. Radio waves are Electromagnetic waves. Light waves are electromagnetic waves. Hence Radio waves and light waves behave in exactly the same way. So let's discuss how far Electromagnetic waves can travel. Do you believe that Mars is 33 million miles away? You can see Mars due to the light waves that it reflects from the sun being an additional 240 million miles. So clearly radio waves can also travel the same distance. We can pick up radio waves from stars billions of miles away.

 

Well without proof there's only guesswork and speculation left, isn't there. And of course even they're subjective, and open to varying levels of belief and/or non-belief. Also, experts and scientists have been known to be wrong? But I've tired of this for now. but I'll readily agree with you that I couldn't be as qualified as you - maths never was my strong suit - far from it. One thing I do know, though - that video was not filmed on Mars.

 

If you picked up a radio signal from space, how would you know how far away the source of it was? And when you say 'billions of miles'? I doubt that the universe itself is billions of miles across.

 

Of course you're tired of it. Every time you get pinned down you get "tired".

No, you don't know that at all. You're asserting it but that's assertion from ignorance.

 

By measuring the change of angle between the object and Earth over a given time period - it's not 100% accurate but near enough.

Pluto is billions of miles away and that is just in our solar system

 

Okay....this is weird. Apparently ignore totally removes someone from view so I am watching everyone talking to themselves.

 

That's a bit weird. In other forums, ignore removes that person's posts but if that person is quoted in another post then the quoted portion will be visible. Is it different here ?

Edited to add.....

I just tried it, and it does block content from an ignored member if it's quoted in another post, and there's no indication that there is ignored content.