15 ms·
Distance alone should give you a full circle, but remember you also have processing time which is significant. If they have two possible arcs, this suggests th
by einhverfr 13y ago
Distance alone should give you a full circle, but remember you also have processing time which is significant.
If they have two possible arcs, this suggests that the same ping was heard by two satellites (and no more), and that these are the places where the difference in time that the satellites heard the pings would work for both satellites.
You have basically three intersecting spheres (one is the earth and the other is based on the satellites' light cones). They all meet in two locations. If you had a third satellite, you should be able to determine which of the two locations was right.
- hatbert 13y agoYou're misunderstanding. There is a single circle, which people are calling two arc. That is because they know the airplane can't fly more than a certain distance from its last known position (this reduces the circle to an arc) and because they know where the airplane isn't from radar data (that breaks the one arc into two pieces, which happen to be roughly the same size).