The usual preposition after the word, "Encounter" is "with". Such as, "My encounter with an old friend". But I saw "of" being used as a preposition in an example sentence in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, under this definition:
3: a coming into the vicinity of a celestial body "the Martian encounter of a spacecraft."
Does this mean that the Martian encountered the spacecraft? Or the spacecraft encountered the Martian? Also, if I were to use other celestial bodies such as Earth, would I say,"The Earth encounter of a spacecraft"? Will the preposition "of" work when we are using non-celestial bodies, such as "My encounter of my old friend"?
Best Answer
The sentences can both be re-written to the same structure.
and
Does that explain it?