Could you explain how a sattelite can pick up more speed after circling the sun? I believe it is called the slingshot effect? Wouldn't any speed gained from the gravitational pull of the sun be counteracted by the same gravity when the sattelite was distancing itself from the sun?
for a clear answer using basic principles of momentum
and energy conservation.
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material, including background from NASA.
Answered by: Bob Johnson, Ph.D. Theoretical Physics, Durham University, UK.
'To myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.'