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Hayabusa Earth Flyby Swings Toward Asteroid
An anonymous reader writes "As the first of its kind to return asteroid samples to Earth, the Japanese Hayabusa mission took pictures this week during its successful Earth flyby. Eventually headed to the asteroid belt, the probe will feature a novel sample collection 'horn' which hops around on the asteroid's surface and lands intermittently for only a second at a time. The samples will be dust clouds fired up from repeated bullet impacts, since the asteroid's low gravity makes it difficult to 'land' on. When faced with a similar problem, the European Rosetta mission alternatively will harpoon the surface to hang on while also touching down on another small-mass asteroid."
Your father has been killed in a duel with an asteroid and you are given his magic horn to avenge his death. Press start to play!
(Note for the people who don't get the reference, Hayabusa was the last name of the Ninja in the Ninja Gaiden games)
Hayabusa, which is Japanese for "falcon", will act much like its namesake, descending to the asteroid's surface, capturing its prey and returning it to Earth.
Presumably it'll let go of it before coming back? otherwise it'll be the biggest space sample ever collected.
Photographing everything in sight.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Imagine the looks on the faces of those in control as the asteroid pops like a balloon... :)
I was really confused with that "Swings towards" phase..
Ah well, one can never tell these days...
http://efil.blogspot.com/
Check out this awesome photo of the Moon and Earth together, taken by Galileo more than a decade ago during its Earth flyby.
"Studies have shown that people who eat peanuts live longer than those who do not eat."
The article has an artist's impression of Muses-C doing its thing. Takes me back to the old books I used to read that were full of airbrush pictures - artist's impressions of futuristic space missions. There's something inspiring about that style that computer graphics have never been able to replicate.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I don't care what they actually do - as long as the Japanese space program keeps naming its missions after ninjas, I'm there.
Taking off from Kagoshima in southern Japan on its 22 month outbound trip, the Muses-C space probe is scheduled to visit the 1998 SF36 asteroid, 186 million miles from Earth, and bring back a single gram of rock in four years' time.
I bet on the street you could get at least 100 bones for that gram rock.
I'm surprised I never heard of this project before! It's a great idea - astroids contain various minerals that can be used to trace the evolution of the solar system. Of course we have some access to this info from the odd meteorite, but I would guess that rock from the astroid belt will be more "pristine".
... ranges in size from dust particles to rock chunks as big as Alaska.
The only drawback I see for this project is that it is only going to sample the surface of the asteroid, which is the region most exposed to cosmic radiation, cratering, and accumulated dust. Naturally there is still something to be learned from that, but I hope this is just a prelude to a more advanced mission to bore larger samples from the asteroides. I imagine that the difficulties in doing that come mostly from stabilizing the spacecraft, given that it's likely the asteroids are actually loosely bound collections of the rubble left over from previous collisions. Of course, if they're not, that would be interesting too.
And slightly off topic - I think this comparison is funny:
The material in the belt
Exactly how do you compare a large, roughly spherical mass to "the size of Alaska"? Maybe they mean the surface area is the same? The surface area of Alaska is about 1.5 million km-squared; the surface area of Ceres, the largest asteroid, is about 11 million km-squared - that's more like the total area of the US (9.6 million km-squared)!
Or maybe they meant to compare the radii? If Alaska were circular, it would have a radius of 690 km. The radius of Ceres is 466 km. Interestingly, a better comparison in this case would be the size of France (effective radius of 420 km), and France is of course the international standard for measuring astronomical objects... Did you know that the base of Olympus Mons is also about the size of France?
I know that that image is probably "enhanced" by an artist, but come on! The sun is glaring in the lens, yet the moon and earth are full, meaning the sun would be BEHIND the spacecraft... even if it is artistic license, they should try to make the image a little more realistic, it's still spectacular...
"The samples will be dust clouds fired up from repeated bullet impacts, since the asteroid's low gravity makes it difficult to 'land' on. When faced with a similar problem, the European Rosetta mission alternatively will harpoon the surface."
-NOW- who's weaponizing space? Looks like the Japanese and Europeans. This is a threat to our national security! We have a space harpoon capability gap! Mr.President, we recommend making a space harpoon that is two times bigger than the european's space harpoon... to deter them from attacking more asteroids.
"There is no spoon." - The Matrix
Certainly taking this to the next level as compared with the NEAR (Nasa Probe) that was not designed to bring back material.
While this is an improvement, it still only scratches the surface as it will only bring back "up to one gram of material". Also, consider that the gram of material is from the very surface of the asteroid, which is most likely contaminated by other collisions. Still quite an accomplishment if they can recover the material in 2007 as predicted.
We'd better hope the asteroid isn't inhabited; first we're going to shoot at the resident aliens, then we're going to bring them back to Earth? Fred Hoyle must be turning over in his grave...
Have you read my blog lately?
...mission took pictures this week during its successful Earth flyby.
Scientist 1: "Hmmmm. There are beings on that blue planet."
Scientist 2: "What are they doing?"
Scientist 1: "Let's see. One female is dragging around a naked male on a pet leash in the middle of a war."
Scientist: 3: "I suggest we abort this mission and leave them alone before they find out about us and come here."
Scientists in unison: "Agreed! Abort."
Table-ized A.I.
A Space Hayabusa
Please? I'd hate to be the only dork out there....
Why is that so outrageous? Think about it. Earth sends off millions of watts of RF signal every second of every day. We inadvertantly beam out radio stations, television stations, communications, radar, etc etc etc.
/. effect.
Now, since you assume that aliens, if there are any (personally I think there probably are) are not "stupid fucking idiots" then you would also have to assume that they have means of intercepting signals on one of the most simple forms of transmission available.
Which means, for as long as the waves make it through space, anyone who gets the signal, decodes it, watches it, or listens to it and eventually understands it will hear Howard Stearn, Talk radio, really bad music, some really good music, several episodes of law and order a day, war movies, disaster movies, murder mysteries, violence in all formes of transmitted media, news feeds from war zones, news feeds from disaster zones, crime scenes, etc etc etc.
How could they NOT get a very bad picture of earth, just by observing our inadvertant transmissions?
And again, we ARE talking about a completely alien culture. For all they know, Independence Day was a documentary, showing that Earth will destroy anyone who attacks it from space. Or perhaps the War of the Worlds film will show them that if they land here, they will die of disease. Or worse.
Maybe they will see "Day after Tomorrow" and decide that since the earth is now under hundreds of feet of ice and snow, we will be easy pickings.
Then again, they may get wireless or satellite internet access, read slashdot, and fear the
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
According to "Moons and Planets" by W. Hartmann, the total mass of asteroids is 3x10^21 kg, "only about 4% the mass of the moon."
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Hayabusa, which is Japanese for "falcon",...
Specifically, a peregrine falcon, which is the fastest animal in the world. It can reach speeds of 440 kph (275 mph) when diving for its prey. This also accounts for the name of the fastest road bike in the world, the Suzuki Hayabusa. Impressive stuff...