Rosetta

Here is the comet Rosetta that has an EU satellite now.  The satellite plans to disgorge a smaller landing craft that will attempt to land on this spinning comet.  I will be surprised if the lander is successful.  There ain't much gravity there and I suspect the spinning comet will swat the lander into oblivion.

ah yes, I believe I read about this. The satellite is following this currently.

I hope that by messing with these pieces of flying space debris we don't change their course .

*~Tree~* wrote:

ah yes, I believe I read about this. The satellite is following this currently.

I hope that by messing with these pieces of flying space debris we don't change their course .

No problem, virtually all of Earth's space debris is less than 23,000 miles from Earth. The "sweet spot" for parking geosynchronous satellites is 22,500 miles above the equator. Many satellites are much closer in (like the GPS birds), but they are constantly moving.

This comet Rosetta is between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars... quite a bit farther away.

Eric wrote:

*~Tree~* wrote:

ah yes, I believe I read about this. The satellite is following this currently.

I hope that by messing with these pieces of flying space debris we don't change their course .

No problem, virtually all of Earth's space debris is less than 23,000 miles from Earth.  The "sweet spot" for parking geosynchronous satellites is 22,500 miles above the equator.  Many satellites are much closer in (like the GPS birds), but they are constantly moving.

This comet Rosetta is between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars... quite a bit farther away.

I wonder what the scientific value is of doing something like this?