4 ms·
The first “turn” this object makes is almost at a right angle. Seems entirely unintuitive to me. How does this happen?
by nsomaru 6y ago
The first “turn” this object makes is almost at a right angle. Seems entirely unintuitive to me. How does this happen?
- Delk 6y agoIt probably passed close to the Moon, and that near pass flung it into the altered trajectory.
- crazygringo 6y agoExactly. And remember that while the low spatial and temporal resolution of the GIF makes it seem like just being a "pixel" off could result in a totally different orbit (like chaos theory)... ...the actual simulation is dealing with distances of hundreds of thousands of miles, simulated over multiple years of time, presumably with something like minute-by-minute, meter-by-meter precision. (Remember, the object itself is only 1-2 meters large.) The "unintuitive right angle" would appear entirely intuitive if you actually watched it slower while zoomed in closer to the moon.