Slashdot Mirror
Mars Express Captures Phobos and Deimos
westtxfun writes "The Mars Express Orbiter captured a very cool movie of Phobos and Deimos on Nov 5. Besides the 'wow factor,' the images will be used to refine models of the moons' orbits. The orbiter has also captured high resolution images of Phobos back in July. 'The images were acquired with the Super Resolution Channel (SRC) of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). The camera took 130 images of the moons on 5 November at 9:14 CET in a span of 1.5 minutes at intervals of 1s, speeding up to 0.5-s intervals toward the end. The image resolution is 110 m/pixel for Phobos and 240 m/pixel for Deimos — Deimos was more than twice as far from the camera. '"
It's so weird when reality looks like bad Photoshop.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
That the jpg weight in at 666kb ?!!!?
Please, forgive my ignorance (physics is not my field): What orbit model is going to be refined? I've always thought that planetary movements were resolved centuries ago, and that modern cosmology studies the 'very big' things, portions of universe so massive that introduce glitches in relativistic theories, instead of moons' orbits.
It's kind of sad but that movie made my genitals move a little bit.
It's sad that we are so used to action and sci-fi films with amazing simulations of astonishing things, that when it comes to the real one (a piece of rock which really exists up there, and IS cool) we think we are seeing the intro for a 1985 asteroid game, and think for ourselves 'where are the explosions? I myself had to do an effort to rationally avoid that thinking and covince myself of the real coolness of the thing.
I don't see any Leather Goddesses. Maybe I need to set the naughtiness level to "lewd".
No need to give American high schoolers laxatives to get them to emit shit. Just ask them to write an essay and you'll get a huge pile.
Movie is only one of mission returns, and it surely looks like a video game to many who don't think further than WoW when thinking about exploring unknown :).
Mission itself is what is important here - being technologically advanced far more than Voyagers and giving us previews of what will come in future.... Better cameras and other instruments, better communications, faster spacecraft.... We are only beggining to see around solar system (Voyager is only 32 yrs old) and Mars Express is BIG THING.
What is also expected is downplay of whole thing, not-invented-here syndrome... But it's ok and it's temporary - results will surely be used without discrimination in world's scientific communities.
What I can't understand is why they're still inventing whole lander thing when technology for safe landing (and going back up) of people is tried FORTY years ago?!! One would expect it wil be everyday thing after so much time. Just think about how other technologies developed in 40 years span. Just compare already mentioned cameras and communications.... Weird.
http://opencm3.net, http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/
most awesome ...'awesome' is so over-used, but it's truly appropriate here
Encapsulating planets takes a BIG satellite.
It must stretch itself out really thin for only weighing 1123 kg.
If you want the "HI-RES TIFF" versions of the images, you'll need to add another "f" onto the ends of the URLs.
-- Wodin
What is really creepy about these movies and pictures is, that somehow you always expect stars in the background (like on a ship at night). Instead you get two rocks hanging in a black void. Just one vast emptiness. Scary.
And some strange effect of my eyes "booting up", I read that as "Mars Captures Phobos and Deimos"... i almost dropped a lung.
Also, those are some amazing graphics, did you see those 2 rocks moving across that screen! WOW
I think it is quite sad that we have gotten to the point where unrealistic CG looks better than the real thing.
I think the space agencies should hire whatever CG teams they can to make things awesome, i'm talking dust trails on a moon, explosions of fire or whatever, maybe throw in some messy pixels in animations that look semi-human to keep the alien hunters interested.
It won't exactly matter if they are found out, by the time the kids grow up and are interested, the current teams will probably be dead... it would almost be trolling in the future from your grave.
I could imagine the grave stones of all the team, something along the lines of "once you get in, you never get out", it would appear to just be in reference to how much they loved it, but they'll never truly get it till they are working and it is too late.
You're making a good point and a funny thought struck me. Since the movement is so jerky because of the low framerate, it could easily be made to look better by editing it so that the "missing" frames for a good framerate, are created by interpolating - just like editing applications do, when you apply slow motion effects. It wouldn't be quite as "real" but it would look much better.
that whole "we've sent things to Mars" myth that the Conspiracy is trying to force on you. I think the whole thing was shot on a soundstage in Southern California ... I'm pretty sure I can see the support wires.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
We're doomed!!!!
Is it just me or does Phobos seem like a drunk pirate with two peglegs has been wandering around on it?
Or you might end knee-deep in the dead.
Anybody know the absolute magnification? These objects are really close, but small. Whatever, I suppose. It would surely still be weird to see them track across the sky live.
The RSS feed headline said "Mars Express Captures Phobos and Deimos" and I thought to myself, if we can do that then any future comet or asteroid impact should be easy to avoid, we just capture it and park it at Lagrange Point 4. Then we can maybe use the materials as resources for other missions....
Then I read the story and see we have a stop frame animation that looks like a cut from Robot Chicken.
It just doesn't pay to get excited about science.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
My fingers instinctively groped for the keyboard when I saw the asteroids entering the picture. I find it alarming that the large asteroid is faster than the small one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maelstrom.png
Notice that both moons move in a perfect horizontal line? So the camera was perfectly aligned at the time? Or ???
Did anyone else expect tumbling or rotation, however slowly?
What's the deal with the curious striations running longitudinally across the whole surface? Notice, in particular, that they even continue down into and through craters! What could cause that?
My first thought was that Phobos must have a fast spin in addition to its fast orbit, and that it was acquiring those gouges as it spins through clouds of debris. Then I read the notes and learned that the "N" marked the north pole of its axis, meaning that the striations are running perpendicular to its rotation!?
Back to the drawing board....
Phobos and Deimos have a significant amount of water.
How about a manned deep space mission to sample them...probably cheaper
than a return to the moon, and demonstrably more interesting.
Don’t shock them. They have yet to learn, that the world is not a state of the USA, and that hot dogs are actually no food at all. ^^
Maybe the world has yet to learn that, in fact, it really is a state of the USA, and that Hot Dogs are actually the -ultimate- food.
When will you poor barbarians learn SOMETHING.
This is my sig.
I'm an american citizen and I do know this.
I'm an American too. My advise to my fellow citizens is not to kiss up to foreigners when they knock the country. They would knock the country no matter what we do. Of course they want to chat up their nation and knock ours down a peg to do it. Just don't get caught up into trying to believe that their bitching is true. 95% is a bunch of well, bitching, and there's not a single thing that they bitch about America doing that they have not or would not equally rationalize themselves into their country doing.
This is my sig.
I'm looking at those craters and am trying to figure out where the Phobos bases are. Perhaps it's at the wrong angle. Did the UAC cover it up?