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A comment on SpaceX craft overshot Mars’ orbit and is headed to asteroid belt. Parent comment

Re:SpaceX craft overshot Mars’ orbit and is headed to astero... by ryanwaggoner on Wednesday February 07, 2018 @10:50AM (#16325213)
“Quite close” is relative, given how ridiculously vast space is. The chances that they fire blindly out into space and just happen to hit Ceres seems so unlikely as to be basically impossible.
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Re:SpaceX craft overshot Mars’ orbit and is headed to astero... by everdev on Wednesday February 07, 2018 @12:15PM (#16326065)
True, but it's not like you have to hit an object head on, but merely pass within it's gravitational field which is far bigger.
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Re:SpaceX craft overshot Mars’ orbit and is headed to astero... by ceejayoz on Wednesday February 07, 2018 @12:18PM (#16326109)
Pass within its gravitational field at a slow enough relative speed for capture. Remains exceeeeeeedingly unlikely.
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Re:SpaceX craft overshot Mars’ orbit and is headed to astero... by everdev on Wednesday February 07, 2018 @06:59PM (#16329064)
Nonetheless people are asking SpaceX for data to calculate the probability because they seem to think it's higher than 0 because of the unplanned trajectory.
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