what makes a comet go without stopping?
why is that the "voyager" hasn´t crashed yet ? there are a lot of bodies out there.
why is that the "pathfinder" used parachutes, airbags, and landed upright didn´t crash or landed sideways or upside- down, worked without obstacles, made holes on rocks with a drill and sent info about ? this is too much fantasy and personally I don´t believe it.
thanks for your time and answers. greetings from my country. !
2007-08-06 07:06:50 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Combo answer:
Comets go on moving for the same reasons that planets do. They are just coasting in the frictionless vacuum of space on the speed they got from the formation of the solar system.
Voyager hasn't crashed because space is big and really, really empty. You have to aim at a planet or asteroid very carefully to hit it. It isn't like the movies at all. In movies you have to dodge swarms of asteroids. In reality, you have to work very hard to find and hit one. Even inside the asteroid belt you could not see more than one asteroid at a time. It isn't like the movies where there are swarms of hundreds that you can see all at the same time. It is more like one asteroid here and another one over there but so far away that you can't see it without a telescope, and all the others even farther away than that.
Pathfinder was completely surrounded by air bags and was designed so that, after it came to rest on the surface, it could deflate the air bags and right itself. And it did have a rover with a kind of drill, called the rock abrasion tool, that did drill very shallow holes. By shallow I mean holes not nearly as deep as they were wide.
2007-08-06 07:11:38 · answer #1 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You did not say what country you are from but I will try to answer your questions.
Space is huge! Voyager may eventually crash into something but it is like a grain of sand in the ocean. The chances of it hitting something is very unlikely.
Pathfinder used a system that ensured that no matter how it landed it would be able to end its roll upright. If you check out the NASA site you can probably see a video on how it was able to do this. Many probes have crashed trying to land on Mars so it was a major concern of the scientists.
Pathfinder and the later probes have some great instruments and, again, the NASA site will help you understand how they work. Yes it is fantastic but it is all real.
2007-08-06 14:17:44 · answer #2 · answered by diogenese_97 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Any body in space will continue it's motion as long as there's nothing to impede it. A comet is simply in an orbit - like Earth. It'll go until another force alters that orbit or it hits something.
Voyager isn't anywhere near anything to crahs into. The nearest planet to it (so far as is known) is Neptune.
"Pathfinder" bounced around all over the place, and when it stopped, the way it opened set it up-right. If it had landed on it's side, that side panel opening would've pushed it over so that it was right side up.
Sorry you don't believe it. Maybe rent a Discovery Channel video - they cover the physics behind the craft.
2007-08-06 14:13:17 · answer #3 · answered by quantumclaustrophobe 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Why would the comnet stop? I mean if you threw a rock in space it would just keep going and going and going because there isn't a specific source of gravity (well unless you are like 100 miles from the sun or someting). That is because of inertia. I don't know about the pathfinders and voyager though.
By the way, what is your country?
Greetings from my country too! Long live the Earth!
2007-08-06 14:32:51 · answer #4 · answered by AD 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
1) There is no friction, therefore nothing to stop it. Not to mention motion is relative. So really, everything is moving.
2) You say there are a lot of bodies out there, but almost all of the space is empty. There is actually very little chance of it hitting anything.
3) Fantasy to you maybe. It's called technology and engineering. Just because you don't fully understand how they did it, or are not fully educated enough to understand the physics involved, doesn't mean it didn't happen.
2007-08-06 14:11:48 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I haven't kept up on voyager or pathfinder but as far as comets go...however it was created, it was propelled away from some body and has since just been pulled around by gravity for it's lifetime.
2007-08-06 14:11:12 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Why don't you believe it?
2007-08-06 14:48:47 · answer #7 · answered by Renaissance Man 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋