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Earth Departure Movie From MESSENGER Spacecraft
A reader writes:"The Mercury-bound MESSENGER spacecraft took 358 images during a gravity assist swingby of Earth on Aug. 2, 2005.
Those images were sequenced into an MPEG movie showing the view from MESSENGER as it departed Earth."
Cool, I guess.. This really isn't news, but eh, it's still pretty neat.
Sad to say I've never even heard of the MESSENGER spacecraft before today.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Corale Cache everyone!!! MESSENGER Flyby
The way it should be. I'm so tired of this "oh the whiteman did this"...
You know what, I'm sorry but if you have a family and can't scrap up the 50$ for a bus ticket out of town then you're obviously not fit to be a parent.
This "oh it's my right" bullshit... Having a family is something you have to actually think about. If you can't afford it then clearly you're doing everyone a disservice. And if you're a negro, single with no kids, how can you not afford it? Whitey didn't put roadblocks up. Stupid [black and white] people who can't manage 50$ to their name and/or thought they could ride it out are to blame.
But I guess it's all to easy to sit on your ass, let the tide role in [literally] then blame everyone else for your problems. Seems to be the way of things [everywhere, not just in New Orleans].
That and what the fuck is with the shootings? Is that how you ensure you get timely help by trying to MURDER those who are bringing the help?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I count a grand total of one reply in this thread, and already the site seems to be slashdotted. I guess this just proves that the existence of the silent majority of ./ readers who actually try to RTFA before they post. My faith in humanity is restored!
Theory and practice are the same in theory, but different in practice.
Here's the cache. Movie
Since the editors still think that 640kb of memory should be enough for everyone (including themselves, considering dupes and always forgetting about mirrors), here's the Coral cache.
These images have a calming, peaceful effect. It is amazing how beautiful the earth looks from a far and how chaotic it seems when your in it! Get me out of here :)
Interesting. If I didn't know better, I would've said that this is a POV-Ray animation...
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Can be found here
-Sean (OutdoorDB - The Outdoor Wiki
"The MESSENGER MPEG-hosting server took 358 images during a slashdot assist launch off of Earth on Sep. 5, 2005. Those images were sequenced into an MPEG movie showing the view from the MESSENGER MPEG-hosting server as it departed Earth."
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Is that the new goatse?
1. Phone NASA. Their phone number is (713) 483-3111. Explain that it's very important that you get away as soon as possible.
2. If they do not cooperate, phone any friend you may have in the White House -- (202) 456-1414 -- to have a word on your behalf with the guys at NASA.
3. If you don't have any friends in the White House, phone the Kremlin (ask the overseas operator for 0107-095-295-9051). They don't have any friends there either (at least, none to speak of), but they do seem to have a little influence, so you may as well try.
4. If that also fails, phone the Pope for guidance. His telephone number is 011-39-6-6982, and I gather his switchboard is infallible.
5. If all these attemps fail, flag down a passing flying saucer and explain that it's vitally important you get away before your phone bill arrives.
I'm assuming the earth was probably too bright to get stars .. and it looks like this might have been inside the moon's orbit.
Breathtaking video though. Very cool.
..don't panic
This is the real deal! The Earth is getting smaller in a realistic manner witch I've never seen before. I wonder what kind of acceleration and speed we are taling about here? These would be completely different figures in the movie and the real event. Someone care to do the math?
Don't you just love the reflection of the Sun? And the absence of a "glowing" atmosphere halo? This is what the Earth really look like. Please render planets like this when you do SciFi flicks in the future!
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
http://puffin.tamucc.edu/~mwilliamson/torrents/mdi s_depart.mpeg.mpa.mpg.torrent
I think slashdot news posters must *love* to get people posting comments about their links getting slashdotted. So, here is another rant... "ah, slashdotted already".
Either that or they have a running king-of-the-hill contest on who can slashdot a site the fastest.
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
I don't get it - where is the audio on this thing? In the background there must have been either:
1. A swooshy spaceship noice
or
2. The opening bars of the Star Trek: TNG theme tune
With the current state of CGI and a world awash with 'fake' scifi images running all the way back to 2001: A space Odyssey, it's a shame that this footage just looks so 'plain' even though it's 'the real thing'. Mind you, I find Google Earth truly fascinating.
AT&ROFLMAO
His is a torrent
mdis_depart.mpeg.torrent
----
I couldnt help but notice that there was a spotlight effect on the center of the earth's sphere. I havent seen this in other images taken from spacecraft. Also the clouds dont seem to move at all ..though that part sort of makes sense .. i would expect to see some sort of minor relative movement .. though I havent examined this closely.
.. or expert in anything for that matter. I also didnt RTFA.
I am not a space photography expert
Anyone else?
Anyone know how tp reverse the video? I think it would look cool zooming into Earth too.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
There are no stars because the Earth isn't real!
This was filmed in some Hollywood studio!
The tin-foil department.
go frame by frame for some interesting events.
most spectacular is the flash 27 frames from the end. looks like it could be lightning or a large meteor.
comment directly in my journal
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu.nyud.net:8090/the_miss ion/images/flyby_images/mdis_depart.mpeg
Serge
i would've liked to see the entire approach as well, did they not take pictures of it? that would've been awesome.
...the Hollywood version probably cost less too. Still, pretty neat.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
I'm sure they could be taken as simply a successful test of the probes systems, but they also capture peoples imagination and help keep the space program going.
Greasemonkey
Script to auto add mirrordot and coralcache links to stories.
Seriously, stop whining and take matters into your own hands.
I've put up a torrent of the video: http://blackbox04.cs.washington.edu:11223/torrents .php?t=mdis_depart.mpeg.torrent
The real thing always looks more plain than the fake scifi images. That's why they can't get 3D models to look human, they make them too perfect. It's too bad that we're so used to the fake images that the real ones look fake in comparison.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Is that our planet? It is quite hard to distinguish anything.
I think I can see the north-west part of Australia at about 1/3rd of the movie, the land being amazingly black. At about 2/3rds one can see (in the topleft "corner") Saudi-Arabia, followed by northern Africa, both golden/yellowish. Now why is that so much brighter than the deserts of Australia.
I'm also surprised by the fact that we see the line where the sun goes down, which suggests that the Messenger is going into a retrograde direction. Isn't that unusual?
I'd expect a satellite that is to go to an inner orbit to pass outside the earth's orbit. That seems to pan out, because we start with something more like a sickle, going to "half earth".
Bert
Has anyone played with that Orbetor Simulator?
Seeing this animation made me realize just how good that programmer is. The visualizations on that simulator nailed it pretty well. And it's free too!
...where are the stars! Does anybody sees stars?! Anyone?
sex is better than war!
Ok I got a question about the spacecraft's orbit!
From the video, the spacecraft seems to be travelling at the opposite direction of earth's translation (i.e. clockwise in the ecliptic plane, viewing from sun's north to south hemisphere), because the dayside is at the left, and the Earth is, well, becoming smaller...
But, this diagram of messenger's orbit from the article in wikipedia shows that the spacecraft travells in the counter-clockwise direction (same as the planets)... so, I would conclude that the spacecraft speed is less than the Earth's orbital speed.
Question: is that correct?
Impressive..I mean space travels may really change your point of view.
Buy the ticket today and change your point of view without reading any book and without installing unix!
"Kata ton daimona eay toy." (Be true to your soul).
That artifact in the middle of the earth that
looks like the reflection of a window. Is that
supposed to be the sun? It looks more like a window to me. I can even see someone looking in.
I'm trying to reverse it using AviSynth but keep getting an error that says "filter graph manager won't talk to me". I think it may have to be a missing audio layer or an unsupported audio codec.
a=DirectShowSource("mdis_depart.mpeg", fps=25,seek=true,audio=false)
return Reverse(a)
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
It's almost as if posting to /. increases the traffic on a site, making that site useless for a while. I wonder if anyone has invented a name for this effect?
Drag the progress bar from right to left?
I could, but what would I learn?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Where are the stars in the background? (this link is for those who can't tell I'm joking)
I do think it's amazing how quickly it's moving though; the visible weather patterns shown don't really change much...
Funny how those clouds aren't moving. Maybe they were glued on. If you look closely right at the end of the clip, you can see a reflection of Mickey Mouse waving.
with Google Earth. I swear, I was trying so hard to stop that globe from spinning and zoom in again, clicking like crazy on it.
Quite obviously this was mocked up in a hideaway
in the arizona desert where they faked the moon
landings too. How stupid do they think we are?
Everyone knows the earth is flat and was made in 7 days anyway. Pah, spacecraft my holy ass!
I mean it looks beautiful and all, but as many have written, where are the stars, and for myself why does the cloud pattern in the lower part of the globe seem to stay the same?
I was one of the team that worked hard to sequence this spacecraft operation, and I can assure you, it is quite real! MESSENGER, a NASA Discover program, was developed and is operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, is headed to the planet Mercury; not an easy place to get to. This flyby is the first of 6 (1 Earth, 2 Venus, 3 Mercury) that are required to put the spacecraft into Mercury orbit. Once there, the spacecraft will go into an elliptical orbit and commence a series of science observations. The extensive payload includes the following: narrow and wide angle imagers, LIDAR, X-ray, gamma-ray, and neutron sensors, magnetometer, visible, near IR and UV spectrometers, energetic particle and plasma sensors. The spacecraft did not take an approach video for two reasons. First, there were extensive instrument calibration efforts going on during that time (e.g. lunar and magnetospheric observations) that required specific spacecraft pointing. In addition, the solid state recorder space is limited, so we chose to get the single 24-hour sequence you see in the movie.
Meh. How come Slashdot is never slashdotted?
If you watch this with mplayer (at least version 1.0pre7), it will wrongly assume that the aspect ratio is 4:3. Just use the -noaspect option.
I don't know whose fault this is, but I suspect that the movie is badly encoded.
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging mission.
No wonder space research costs so much - it isn't easy to come up with these names!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
This is awesome! Great pictures, can't wait 'til we all get the ability to get out there and see for ourselves.
'Go for the eyes, Boo, go for the eyes, aaarrrrrrrr!' -- Minsc
First "real and relable" evidence of actual Earth's rotation around the Sun and not vise versa... Kudos Copernicus!
The "hotspot" effect. Maybe some tan in your white ass would do you some good :-)
>which suggests that the Messenger is going into a retrograde direction. Isn't that unusual?
Well, not quite. Remember that the Earth's orbital speed is about 19 miles/second, so Messenger's orbital speed around the sun is only a small fraction less than than.
What you have to do in order to approach an object closer to the sun than you is lose the potential energy in your current orbit. This will drop you into a lower orbit which will have a greater velocity but lower potential energy. I haven't looked at the Messenger web site, but I wouldn't be surprised if NASA will be using Venus in a reverse slingshot (one that _loses_ energy) in order to get Messenger to Mercury.
6. ???
7. profit!
The first things that popped out to me when I watched this video is:
a) Lack of texture on the clouds: They're flat!
b) EXTREME specular highlighting.
I may try to duplicate this video later in Blender. Nice try, guys.
Look there are no stars in the background! It's the same as with the moon landing videos! Space is filled with billions of stars! Where are they? I demand an investigation into what NASA is really spending our money on!!!
No sig for you!!
ICQ takes 359 images of Mars to even the score
I thought the short movie was pretty cool. WOrth the download time!! I hope one day we can see it taking off!!
This thing zooms by way too fast! It was done before I had a chance to resize my window! Play at half or even quarter speed to get a better experience.
But would have been cooler if started from just prior to liftoff, of course would have required video instead of snapshots then.
Someone, less lazy that I, should check weather records to confirm. Also, I thought that night-side lights were supposed to be visible.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Good Gil Scott Heron reference.
After all, I am strangely colored.
It's hard to believe those images came from Messenger. We've never seen a view of Earth by an interplanetary spaceship flying by in such clarity. Normally the cameras are fixed to the exact focus needed by the mission and only record a few colors.
Where are the stars??
I didn't realize that Earth stopped spinning then restarted like that. I guess that's why I fell down the other day.
On the NASA site, a version is available with micro-second-resolution timestamps in the bottom of the frame.
I deduce that the images were timestamped on the spaceship: The 3 millisecond longer speed-of-light delay for successive images to reach earth would have been very measurable.