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Just the reaction, there's a slight possibility that Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter caught a picture of it entering the atmosphere but we won't know that until lat
by chomp 8y ago
Just the reaction, there's a slight possibility that Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter caught a picture of it entering the atmosphere but we won't know that until later since MRO is on the far side of Mars at the moment.
- mehrdadn 8y agoFun math problem I just thought of: I wonder how high the satellite's orbit would have to be in order to maximize the amount of time during which it would be obscured by Mars when looking from Earth.
- delinka 8y agoThought stream: Minimum arc length of hidden (eclipsed) section of orbit; the higher the orbit, the slower the satellite needs to travel to maintain; I don't have experience with exactly the right math, but intuition tells me that regardless of distance from Mars, the related speed means that the time to traverse that arc will be the same ... maybe we could use an atypical orbit (passing closer to the planet while hidden?) to reduce eclipsed traversal time?