"Still," answered Michel, "if we get near enough—"
"Error," replied Barbicane. "Have you not seen shooting stars by thousands in the sky at certain epochs?"
"Yes."
"Well, those stars, or rather corpuscles, only shine by rubbing against the atmospheric strata. Now, if they pass through the atmosphere, they pass at less than 16 miles from our globe, and yet they rarely fall. It is the same with our projectile. It may approach very near the moon, and yet not fall upon it."
"But then," asked Michel, "I am curious to know how our vehicle would behave in space."
"I only see two hypotheses," answered Barbicane, after some minutes' reflection.
"What are they?"
"The projectile has the choice between two mathematical curves, and it will follow the one or the other according to the velocity with which it is animated, and which I cannot now estimate."
"Yes, it will either describe a parabola or an hyperbola."
"Yes," answered Barbicane, "with some speed it will describe a parabola, and with greater speed an hyperbola."