Editing 2906: Earth
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The ''absence'' of a clearly visible Moon, which would have a near-identical phase to the illuminated Earth and could easily be the second brightest object in the scene, is therefore best explained by it being no more than a sub-pixel object, indistinguishable from the surrounding darkness of space, somewhere within thirty Earth diameters (and thus [[2205: Types of Approximation|approximately]], in this image, pixels) of the visible Earth. This could include being sufficiently in conjunction/opposition to Earth to blend in, or be obscured by it.<!-- Note just for those who pass by this source: This excludes the 'out there' humorous possibility that the badly-done manouver did not effect the spacecraft, so much as it somehow sent the *Earth* out of its position, leaving the ship (and the Moon, and more than half of all other satellites?) still technically continuing more or less their prior Earth-orbits - which are now technically various solar ones... (BunsenH:)This could be a remake of {{w|Space: 1999}}. (OP:)Indeed, but actually turned up several notches! --> | The ''absence'' of a clearly visible Moon, which would have a near-identical phase to the illuminated Earth and could easily be the second brightest object in the scene, is therefore best explained by it being no more than a sub-pixel object, indistinguishable from the surrounding darkness of space, somewhere within thirty Earth diameters (and thus [[2205: Types of Approximation|approximately]], in this image, pixels) of the visible Earth. This could include being sufficiently in conjunction/opposition to Earth to blend in, or be obscured by it.<!-- Note just for those who pass by this source: This excludes the 'out there' humorous possibility that the badly-done manouver did not effect the spacecraft, so much as it somehow sent the *Earth* out of its position, leaving the ship (and the Moon, and more than half of all other satellites?) still technically continuing more or less their prior Earth-orbits - which are now technically various solar ones... (BunsenH:)This could be a remake of {{w|Space: 1999}}. (OP:)Indeed, but actually turned up several notches! --> | ||
β | The general lack of other visible stars, etc, would be explained by the exposure being tuned to not wash out the illuminated internal view, and not being set up for useful astronomical shots, though may then set another range of useful limits on what magnitude of reflected sunlight must still arrive from Earth in order to remain visible.<!-- Additional bonus note: This would depend upon the effective Earth-phase, Earth-albedo (e.g. ocean/land/ice-cap as prime reflector), the actual levels of the running lights by the ' | + | The general lack of other visible stars, etc, would be explained by the exposure being tuned to not wash out the illuminated internal view, and not being set up for useful astronomical shots, though may then set another range of useful limits on what magnitude of reflected sunlight must still arrive from Earth in order to remain visible.<!-- Additional bonus note: This would depend upon the effective Earth-phase, Earth-albedo (e.g. ocean/land/ice-cap as prime reflector), the actual levels of the running lights by the 'cupula' viewing window and possible lower-dynamic-range capabilities/adjustments to the resulting image by the hypothetical 'comic camera', perhaps other details. On top of it being more governed by Rule Of Funny than *strict* reality, I suggest that making the actual calculation would be more troublesome than it's worth. Right? --> |
β | The orbital speed in low-earth orbit is ~ | + | The orbital speed in low-earth orbit is ~8km/s. Escape speed is ~11km/s. So to reentry the spacecraft must do a retrograde burn of some hundreds m/s, while to escape it must do a prograde burn of ~3km/s. So it must have been quite an error (~10 times bigger and in the opposite direction). |
=== The "pale blue" dot === | === The "pale blue" dot === |