Two ESA Craft To Observe Asteroid 21 Lutetia

japan_dan writes "Two ESA spacecraft will observe 21 Lutetia during Rosetta's flyby on 10 July: Rosetta from 3,160 km and Herschel from 450 million km. Herschel's PACS and SPIRE spectrometers will view Lutetia in far infrared, while Rosetta will gather data in a variety of wavelengths. Since the observations will be coordinated during and at closest approach, scientists will later be able to correlate the data to produce a map of the thermal radiation emitted by Lutetia. There are a pair of animations modelling the expected temperature distribution over Lutetia at the link. The joint observations are part of a series of 8 sessions planned in the next couple of years by Herschel scientists to study objects that will be visited by spacecraft."

Comments

Amazing

[Inspirius]

Is anyone else continuously amazed that we can observe events like this from 450 million km away? The precision that must be required to see something relatively small, going so fast and so far away.

Re:Amazing

[Robotron23]

I share your amazement, and the notion you mentioned can be extended to everyday matters too.

A friend of mine had to get permission for use of an image from a fellow in Arizona recently, she being in Britain (as am I). The fellow granted permission the same afternoon, which for some reason got me thinking about all the headache the Internet takes away with communication. That same thing would have taken closer to two weeks pre-Internet, and the time and cost would be higher.

Hubble's images are just the same; some are vivid and beautiful, and even more have merit for science and astronomy. Hubble has in the past been focused on certain phenomena and has photographed them continuously over hours or days; if this counts of observance (albeit infrequently updated), then it's all the more amazing because we're talking distances of light years, not millions of kilometres. This distance was impossible even 30 or 40 years ago.

The only thing I personally find dismaying about all this amazing progress is the sheer ignorance of the majority towards it. An ordinary person might remark on it all from time to time ('It's great the stuff we have nowadays.") but few have a geniunely appreciative interest or a will to somehow contribute. The men responsible for all this stuff have always been and will be for the foreseeable future, a minescule minority.

Re:Asteroid as candidates for commodities

[khallow]

A small asteroid typically contains trillions of dollars in valuable metals.

This is incorrect. If you dumped several times as much gold as ever has been mined in current human history, you aren't going to get market price for it. How much those asteroids will be worth will depend on how much people are willing to pay for what is delivered. We simply don't have a viable economic model for the resources of one or more asteroids being sold on a market.

I favor the idea that this could lead to industry using the metals with the best physical properties with little price differentiation between materials (perhaps price being more dependent on amount of demand or energy cost of the material). For example, gold probably would be applied to a lot more things than it currently is. Building wiring could be made out of gold instead of copper or aluminum, simply because gold has the lowest resistance of room-temperature wiring. A gold/copper alloy (or gold-plated copper) might be the best choice for plumbing (due to gold's corrosion resistance, platinum is another choice here). Gold plating would be an option for metal roofs, car parts (which don't experience significant wear), fences, hulls of ships, antennas, and general electronics.

Point is that any planning today to mine an asteroid has to take into account a lot more risks than one would first expect. There are various ways to deal with them. One is to nail down the risks (say through trial and error). Second, is to make it so cheap that you still could run a viable business even with huge risks. Third is to acquire a stream of government or other public funds so that someone else sucks up the risk and cost for you.

Re:Asteroid as candidates for commodities

[khallow]

Who says the minerals have to be returned to Earth's surface?

That's currently the market to consume such resources.

Herschel "Observes" from 3 AU?

[cmholm]

Herschel will "observe" the asteroid from 450 million km, or about 3 AU. While I'm sure useful science will come from it, to say that it's participating in an observation with Rosetta's actual closeup flyby seems analogous to saying I'm participating in measurements from my roof.