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You might know the name "Hubble" because of the Hubble Space Telescope. But this phenomenal observatory was named after one of the most influential astronomers in modern history. Hubble discovered that galaxies are speeding away from us in all directions, leading to our current understanding of an expanding Universe. Let's learn about the man behind [...] More...

I can't wait for pics of the cupola from space.

Quote: Originally Posted by danscope Yep, We need Jack Nicholson to tell them " Hey pal, hows about just giving your old satelites a push downward and let 'em burn up and just save us all a lot of problems." It could happen... Dan This kind of seems like common sense. Since everyone is beginning to realize that space junk is a problem, how about sending it all downward? That seems pretty open and shut. And yet, they...

Subtle Rocket Man reference in the title?

Quote: Originally Posted by IsaacKuo No, it means that you can't tell without performing simulations and calculating things out. I was responding to your idea. I would assume more active comets would be within or close to the plane of the Earth, due to their formation within the accretion disk, as compared to the number not so closely aligned.

Hi, I have no idea if such a scheme is practical. We do know that much of this orbital debris is watched. Well,....who knows. maybe someday. Best regards, Dan

Quote: Originally Posted by George But does this mean more comet's have a chance with Jupiter to hit Earth? No, it means that you can't tell without performing simulations and calculating things out. That's what these researchers were doing.

Quote: Originally Posted by EricFD Ditto! I'm surprised with that much stuff orbiting the Earth that there haven't been more collisions. And it didn't help that the Chinese deliberately destroyed a satellite thus creating even more debris. That was a real bright thing of them to do. It was even brighter that the US decided to do much the same thing.

Yep. It's been characterized before as our big brother.

I haven't been paying close enough attention, but IIRC the anomaly has shown a correlation with the plane of the flight path's angle to the planet's axis of rotation (We have only a small number of samples, so this isn't solid). In this case Rosetta made a pass over the North Pole to help get to the comet's plane around the Sun.