Slashdot Mirror
ESA Releases Lutetia Flyby Images
The European Space Agency has released images from yesterday's close approach of asteroid 21 Lutetia by the Rosetta probe. At its closest, the probe was a mere 3,162 km from the asteroid, passing at 15 km/s and snapping photos sharp enough to make out features as small as 60 meters.
"Rosetta operated a full suite of sensors at the encounter, including remote sensing and in-situ measurements. Some of the payload of its Philae lander were also switched on. Together they looked for evidence of a highly tenuous atmosphere, magnetic effects, and studied the surface composition as well as the asteroid’s density. ... The flyby marks the attainment of one of Rosetta's main scientific objectives. The spacecraft will now continue to a 2014 rendezvous with its primary target, comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It will then accompany the comet for months, from near the orbit of Jupiter down to its closest approach to the Sun. In November 2014, Rosetta will release Philae to land on the comet nucleus."
There is also a replay of the media event webcast on the ESA's website.
When NASA faked the Moon landings they needed an entire film studio. Here all the ESA needed was a potato.
In related news: high-resolution Asteroids 1.2 for linux released.
Damn, I was hoping for some early aerial paintings of ancient Paris.
This is why you shouldn't name things after other things. At least call it "Lutetia II" or "jr." or something.
It's a rock.
Naw they should have called the asteroid the Rosetta's Stone.
Higher-res pictures are available here: http://www.thocp.net/software/games/pictures/asteroids_large.png
As an armchair astronomer, I'm as always, extremely impressed by stuff like this. I know the level of precision to pull this off is nothing more than astounding, involving very complex math, deep knowledge of astrophysics and out-of-this-world engineering.
Still I was wondering; why didn't they aim the flyby a little closer, say 100km and not 3500? I believe they had an earlier flyby which did just that at another asteroid so I assume they had the requisite level of precision. I know this might have required them to be off "course" by a few thousand kilometers but in a journey with hundreds of millions to go it would seem to be a detour requiring very little delta-v (and thus very little propellant). Wouldn't the instruments be able to get much better data from a much closer object? Or maybe the position of this asteroid wasn't precisely known, not only giving a (small) risk of collision but making observation via pre-programmed instruments with narrow fields of view impossible. If anyone has a clue, pray tell!
Miles is another one.
The next one up is usually astronomical units (Sun-Earth distance) or even light years.
Mega or Giga meters are just like Mega or Giga miles unknown.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Mega or giga miles don't make sense; that is mixing two measurement systems. Mega or giga meters make perfect sense, but I guess like you say it is just more common to give units in kilometers.
Just like Phobos and Deimos. We are going to see linear striations (tracks?) everywhere, I bet.
Can someone explain the seemingly strange shadows on the bottom-right image in this montage?
The shadows on the craters in the upper part of the image seem to suggest that the source of illumination is toward the middle-left off of the image, but the craters on the bottom of the image seem to be illuminated from the top of the image.
The only thing I can think of is that there's quite a bit more curvature in that image than is apparent.
Ideas?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
In the last two photos of TFA, striations are clearly visible. Since the craters appear to be mostly round, I doubt the impacts would carry ejecta linearly along the asteroid. Any ideas?
Invenio via vel creo