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Unread 19-11-2014, 10:19
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Re: Rosetta & Philae

Quote:
Originally Posted by GrifBot View Post
Well, I'm not extremely educated in the means of how no gravity would effect this, but logically speaking, it would typically bounce or not smoothly land. Imagine a treadmill going on full speed. Imagine jumping on it. You will most likely fall and slide off. The higher you come from, you will also fall harder. Although the no gravity environment would change the Philae landing, I'm imagining that it would have some factor.
There's a fairly good explanation and "simulation" here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlMR...=TLU-o4vCFhIP0 for how Rosetta got into orbit and also learn some fun history.

The fact that the parent craft is in an orbit around the comet means that Philae was only moving at an orbital velocity relative to the comet. Since 67P's gravity is so low, we can deduce that the velocity required to orbit the comet is also quite low (relative to the comet, of course). Forget that they're moving umpteen thousand km/s around the sun - that's irrelevant for a landing from orbit.

To change your analogy, it's like you increased the speed of a neighboring treadmill that you're jumping from to match the speed of the treadmill you're jumping to prior to jumping. Getting into orbit around the comet is like running next to a moving train prior to jumping on it.
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