3 ms·
It probably passed close to the Moon, and that near pass flung it into the altered trajectory.
by Delk 6y ago
It 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.