Plotting A Course
Ever the cagey combatant, James Anchor wants to stay hidden for as long as possible. Without knowing the capabilities of your opponents, it’s always safest to assume that they can vaporize you with a glance. That isn’t far from the truth, since Zozians spent the better part of the last millennium asleep on a colony ship! A course is laid in, and off they go!
Here’s a fun thing about Jupiter’s asteroids: what I depicted in today’s comic is something that actually exists in our solar system!
Tags: asteroids, hiding, navigation, orbit
Comments (2)
eekee
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I like a navigator who likes a challenge!
I didn’t know about the triangular shape of our asteroid belt! It’s cool to see that GIF. 🙂
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Victor
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I’m gonna nerd out on you a bit, but that’s okay, because it’s interesting:
The above animation only depicts the asteroids that directly interact with Jupiter in this way. The full asteroid belt is much more densely populated, and most of the orbits are more elliptical in shape.
https://78.media.tumblr.com/5d39a9efcffb52839762d58170814767/tumblr_mj2n8ugiXF1qbh26io1_500.gif
I know what you’re thinking, look at all those asteroids! No wonder the dinosaurs got wiped out!! But our asteroid belt is not particularly dense. It’s nothing like The Empire Strikes Back which depicts several dozen asteroids per cubic kilometer. Our asteroid belt has a very low density, and it’s been estimated that the asteroids are roughly 3 million kilometers apart on average.
The system the Zernabian prison planet is in has many times more asteroids, making this kind of navigational sneakiness possible. Just think: Queen Elcyra is so nasty. she purposely placed her prisoners on a planet that had a high probability of getting wiped out by a large impact!
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