Target880 t1_je2b6kb wrote
Reply to comment by remorsefulDownfall in ELI5 How do scientists know probes (Like Voyager I) aren't going to get swept up in the orbit of another celestial body? by remorsefulDownfall
The asteroid belt is not like in movies. The average distance between objects is about 1 million km, a bit less the 3x the distance to the moon. If you were on an asteroid it is extremely unlikely you could see another with your naked eye.
If you could see another astroid you are likely to be close to one of the four larger asteroids Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea, they contain 60% of the total mass of the asteroid belt. The total mass of the asteroid belt is about 3% of the mass of the moon.
We do know where the planes in the solar system are and it was because of how they lined up that Voyager I and II were launched.
Voyager, I did flybys of Jupiter and Saturn and exploited their gravitational field to do a gravity boost and increase the speed.
Voyager II did flybys if Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Both have thrusters that were used for small maneuvers so the flyby was exactly as what desired.
There are no unknown objects in the solar system that has enough gravity to capture an object that moves at the speed of the probers.
It it what they encounter in thousand, million or billion of year that is not exactly known
mcarterphoto t1_je2en9n wrote
>If you were on an asteroid it is extremely unlikely you could see another with your naked eye.
I remember science fiction shows when I was a kid, and they'd go through "The asteroid belt!!!' or a "meteor storm!!!" and were avoiding what looked like dozens of balls of crumpled-up foil, banging into their space ship. I think a lot of nerdy kids pictured the asteroid belt as a shotgun blast of planet chunks bouncing off each other. If one really want to bump into a lot of stuff in space, they might choose Saturn's rings though.
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