Re: peice of chinese rocket spotted

From: mike1@mgte.com
Date: Thu Mar 12 2009 - 06:18:52 UTC

  • Next message: Ted Molczan: "RE: 8539 obs March 12"

    Hi Greg,
    
    (Please excuse the misspellings, my Word program is down and I have 
    to wing it)
    
    I'm getting ready to "wheels in the well" (sleep) and I just couldn't 
    resist one little "tweak".
    
    Does a "satellite" truly "revolve" around a planet? (I'm speaking of 
    earth here for definition)
    
    Example: 
    A satellite (to use your terms) orbits the earth every 90 minutes. 
    The earth orbits the sun in one year, but in 90 minutes the earth 
    moves apporximately 100,000 miles in that orbit. The earth is 
    approximately 8,000 miles in diameter.
    
    So in 90 minutes the earth "moves" about 12 of it's own diameters. 
    Wow. Now if I was out in space looking back at the sun, earth, and 
    satellite, I would say the satellite is "zig-zagging" around the 
    earth. BTW the moon does the same thing.
    
    Go to my "FUN" page on my web site and click on "How to Orbit". I 
    have crude drawings showing what I mean.
    
    http://www.mgte.com/
    
    Let me know what you think.
    
    Mike C.
    
    Milton, FL
    
    
    
    On 12 Mar 2009 at 8:05, Greg Roberts wrote:
    
    > Morning Kevin
    > 
    > By astronomical definition a satellite is any secondary body which
    > revolves around a planet under the gravitational pull of the primary
    > body. Another definition is " an object launched into space by man to
    > orbit the earth" - so everything in orbit around the earth is a
    > satellite so you are correct.
    > 
    > As far as I know we have not yet got to the stage where one argues
    > about what is a planet and what isnt a planet ( I refer to the Pluto
    > debate) and so far a satellite is a satellite no matter how small it
    > becomes :-))
    > 
    > Cheers
    > Greg
    > 
    > 
    > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    > --- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L
    > archive:  http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
    > 
    
    
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive:  
    http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 12 2009 - 06:19:37 UTC