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Re: LONG ELLIPSE ORBITS


Article: <[email protected]>
From: [email protected](Nancy )
Subject: Re: LONG ELLIPSE ORBITS
Date: 4 Mar 1997 17:07:37 GMT

In article: <[email protected]> Terry writes:
>>> Does NASA know that the Voyager and Pioneer probes are
>>> travelling in straight lines out of the Solar System ..
>>> [email protected] (Terence Christopher Platt)
>
>>This is depicted in Astronomy magazine, November 1986, on
>> pages 8-9, an article written by Charles E Kolhase, then
>> manager of the Voyager Missions Planning Office at JPL.
>> His diagrams clearly show that these probes fly in
>> STRAIGHT LINES between the encounters they are
>> programmed to make.
>> [email protected]
>
> You seem to be saying that the Sun's gravitation finishes
> totally at some pre-determined distance, .. Unless the probe
> is on a trajectory DIRECTLY away from the Sun (not the
> case here) it will experience a gentle pull at an angle to its
> direction of travel and slowly accelerate sideways, deviating
> from a straight line (also slowing down in its motion away
> from the Sun). ... The accuracy of diagrams in any publication
> is subject tothe enthusiasm of the person drawing them and
> not to be taken at face value.
> [email protected] (Terence Platt)

Are you saying Charles Kolhase, who managed the Voyager Missions Planning Office at JPL, drew a sloppy diagram because he was enthusiastic? Go read the article, as your aspersions don't fit at all! Regarding why planets orbit and probes do not, there is a lot more to why orbits are assumed by planets than simple gravity and momentum. Below, an existing ZetaTalk on this matter. Another existing ZetaTalk that applies is Retrograde Orbit, which I'll post next.

(Begin ZetaTalk[TM])
ZetaTalk: Planet Revolutions

The slow motion of planets around the Sun has long puzzled mankind, who are acutely aware that without continuing impetus to motion, motion stops. Only in dead space, where no gravitational attraction or repulsion forces exist, does motion continue without impetus. Motion without a continuing impetus is eroded by gravitational influences nearby, as in the case of an object thrown upward which slows gradually until turning to plummet to Earth. Children learn with a ball on the end of a string that standing still results in the ball dropping to the ground, as only the continued impetus of their arm throwing the ball away and up from them keeps the ball in motion in an orbit. This same pattern is apparent in satellites sent aloft to circle the Earth, as they are in a slow plummet and eventually plunge to Earth.

What keeps the planets, perpetually, the same distance from the Sun and their motion around the Sun at the same pace?

(End ZetaTalk[TM])
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