The Astronomy Thread

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McShrimp

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The gravitational pull of the comet is larger than any other force acting on the rocks. At one point it may have been floating nearby like a small satellite, but given enough time they get closer until its just sitting there. And if it got close to something with enough pull to move the small rocks, it'd likely move the whole comet, and/or not have enough time to separate the small rock given the speed of the passing.
 
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BrutulTM

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Even without the gravity of the comet, there'd have to be some force to move it off. There's no air resistance or bumps or anything like that which would knock rocks off of a moving object on earth.
 
C

Captain Suave

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It's worth noting that exactly this kind of microgravity is what made the comets form in the first place. It's not like they were all broken off some larger body.
 
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Big Phoenix

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I also imagine theres some cementing mechanism going on there with ices.
 
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Wingz

Wingz

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MSN

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meStevo

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The peek into future site development is interesting.

 
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Ukerric

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Hekotat said:
Aight ya'll, help me understand this. This gif from comet 67p that we landed on shows loose rocks sitting on it, how are these rocks not coming off in a zero gravity environment?
Click to expand...

Because it is not exactly zero gravity.

The comet is tiny (4 km diameter), but that's still a significant mass. It exerts a minuscule gravity (around 2 mm/s^2, or 0.02% of Earth's gravity). You can probably achieve escape velocity by jumping... but those rocks don't have legs. If they hit the ground and don't bounce too much, they'll stay on its surface.
 
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C

Captain Suave

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Hekotat said:
zero gravity space
Click to expand...

There's no such thing. You might not presently be detectably accelerating, but everything in the universe is experiencing gravitational pull from everything else. (Subject to speed of light propagation.)
 
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Cybsled

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Hekotat said:
I think the gravity on a comet in a zero gravity space is what's fucking with me.
Click to expand...

The comet has its own gravity - small levels of it, but its there. All it takes is sufficient mass and something has a noticeable amount of gravity.
 
Kiroy

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Mudcrush Durtfeet

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Kiroy said:
"According to the consultants, all purchase orders at SpaceX above $10,000 had to be personally approved by its founder, Elon Musk."

right

I think paying consultants god knows how much, to make up complete bullshit, should probably be included in the list of things that blue origin should work on
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All of that was three years ago. It doesn't seem like BO has made good use of the time, apart from delaying the moon mission via litigation.
 
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Kiroy

Kiroy

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Mudcrush Durtfeet said:
All of that was three years ago. It doesn't seem like BO has made good use of the time, apart from delaying the moon mission via litigation.
Click to expand...

my point is there's no way musk personally approves every spacex PO over 10k - no fucking way

either bad reporting or these consultants were paid millions to say the most obvious things and make up some other stuff
 
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