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From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro
Subject: Re: Magellan Update - 01/17/90
Message-ID: <1990Jan18.212423.20561@phri.nyu.edu>
Date: 18 Jan 90 21:24:23 GMT
References: <2595@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Sender: news@phri.nyu.edu (News System)
Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City
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In <2595@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes:
> Today, the Magellan spacecraft is 113,471,037 miles from Earth

	Arghh!  Why do they give the distances to 9 significant figures?
Considering that the thing is moving at about 1.5 million miles per day, to
quote today's distance to a precision of units of miles is absurd.  Do they
do this just because it sounds better to the lay public?
--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy
"My karma ran over my dogma"