three body collision

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From: Bill Taylor (bt4_1284@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Sep 26 2003 - 23:46:09 PDT 

Message-ID: <20030927064609.84490.qmail@web40409.mail.yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 23:46:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bill Taylor <bt4_1284@yahoo.com>
Subject: three body collision

Paul,

In a three-body collision such as you have described for a star, a planet,
and a spacecraft (as modeled by the Earth, a basketball, and a table
tennis ball)

http://www.exo.net/~pauld/activities/physics/bouncingballs.html

can it be said that the spacecraft "steals" some of the momentum of the
planet ? If you look at the "system" of planet+spacecraft, the momentum
should be the same both before and after the collision - true?

Thanks,

Bill

=====
Bill Taylor
Drew High School
San Francisco
415 661 9667

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