Views of the Asteroid Toutatis, From Earth As Well As Close-Up

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Views of the Asteroid Toutatis, From Earth As Well As Close-Up

Posted by timothy on Sunday December 16, 2012 @07:26AM from the stone's-throw dept.

When Chinese probe Chang'e buzzed the asteroid Toutatis, it wasn't the only one watching. NASA's observatory in Goldstone, CA was taking radar images, which have now been assembled into a short (40-second) animation. The craft was recording the encounter, too, as reported by Sky & Telescope, which also gives a good summary of the history behind Chang'e's mission.

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The good 'ol days by Tablizer · 2012-12-16 07:33 · Score: 0

Is it just me, or do the newer batch of asteroids resemble big poops? Back in my day, they resembled little moons. And get off my lawn!

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Table-ized A.I.
1. Re:The good 'ol days by JWSmythe · 2012-12-16 07:41 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Resolution really helps things...
  It turned the face on Mars into a collection of rocks.
  And more importantly... Porn pictures on computers are no longer fuzzy 16 color images resembling the naked form.. :)
  
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  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
2. Re:The good 'ol days by SternisheFan · 2012-12-16 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  Is it just me, or do the newer batch of asteroids resemble big poops? Back in my day, they resembled little moons. And get off my lawn!
  My first thought was, "That looks like one ugly, badly grown potato!"
3. Re:The good 'ol days by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-16 07:56 · Score: 0
  
  So you're saying it's hollow and the seventh chamber goes on forever?
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eon_(novel)
4. Re:The good 'ol days by MichaelSmith · 2012-12-16 08:03 · Score: 1
  
  I doubt any asteroid will be found rotating around its long axis though.
  
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  http://michaelsmith.id.au
5. Re:The good 'ol days by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2012-12-16 08:04 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Is it just me, or do the newer batch of asteroids resemble big poops? Back in my day, they resembled little moons. And get off my lawn!
  The smaller the asteroid, the less moony and the more poopy it looks, and all the substantially moony have already been found.
  Planetology also predicts that any sufficiently large poop becomes spherical and develops internal structure. Keep that in mind and don't forget to clean your back-in-my-days outhouse regularly!
  
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  Ezekiel 23:20
6. Re:The good 'ol days by S.O.B. · 2012-12-16 09:19 · Score: 1
  
  Back in my day, they resembled little moons.
  That's no moon.
  
  --
  Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
7. Re:The good 'ol days by Nostromo21 · 2012-12-16 11:17 · Score: 1
  
  Why? Are you suggestion that precession (in an astronomical sense) doesn't affect asteroids just like any other large space object...?
8. Re:The good 'ol days by ArsonSmith · 2012-12-16 17:23 · Score: 1
  
  Especially if your mooning and pooping on my lawn.
  
  --
  Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
9. Re:The good 'ol days by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-16 21:15 · Score: 0
  
  Why? Are you suggestion that precession (in an astronomical sense) doesn't affect asteroids just like any other large space object...?
  Asteroids are not a large space object, they're tiny. They don't have enough gravity or a stable enough orbit to develop a stable spin, so the parent was largely correct- you won't find them nicely rotating around any axis, much less the long one, but rather tumbling across all three axis.
10. Re:The good 'ol days by Immerman · 2012-12-17 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  Umm, any rotating object spins around exactly one axis unless/until it's acted upon by some force (impact, gas jet, tidal influence, etc) that changes that axis. Now perhaps asteroids typically don't rotate around an axis that aligns nicely with the ecliptic plane since their angular momentum is likely influenced more by impacts than the net rotational inertia during formation, but any given asteroid still rotates around one well-defined axis.
  
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  --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
11. Re:The good 'ol days by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-19 22:56 · Score: 0
  
  That's one smelly near earth object. Wow, did that require some pushing on my part.
  Now if you don't mind, I'd like to scootch across your lawn like a dog wiping its ass, and then run really fast in a large circle.
  Have a good day.
Confusing? by sa1lnr · 2012-12-16 08:18 · Score: 1

According to yahoo news it is huge and Sky & Telescope says it is little. :)
1. Re:Confusing? by Tablizer · 2012-12-16 09:48 · Score: 2
  
  That's what you get for asking Marketing Dept.
  
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  Table-ized A.I.
2. Re:Confusing? by arisvega · 2012-12-17 00:15 · Score: 1
  
  According to yahoo news it is huge and Sky & Telescope says it is little. :)
  Also, TFA's source [space.com] has 16 (sixteen) collaborating spy/ad/crap/tracksites going nuts with scripts and cookies and all that.
  By comparison, Slashdot has three: DoubleClick, Google Analytics and ScoreCard Research.
  
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Space race, finally! by Janek+Kozicki · 2012-12-16 08:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

Thumbs up for the chineese. As much as I don't like their politcs & government, I am really happy that they will hopefully start a new space race. All the humanity will benefit from that.

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# #\ @ ? Colonize Mars #
1. Re:Space race, finally! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-16 18:10 · Score: 0
  
  until the made in china space vessels blow up due to leaky capacitors.
2. Re:Space race, finally! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-16 21:51 · Score: 0
  
  columbia,
  challenger
  what's your point actually?
Woo by Intrepid+imaginaut · 2012-12-16 08:18 · Score: 1

That gave me a little thrill. That's one of the building blocks of the future, folks, literally!
1. Re:Woo by ArsonSmith · 2012-12-16 17:21 · Score: 1
  
  Not really, that was video taken on Dec 12 and Dec 13. Here is a video of what it will look like on Dec 21 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtQ6026V3Fc
  Well played Mayans. Well played.
  
  --
  Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
How radar observations of asteroids work by Ford+Prefect · 2012-12-16 09:53 · Score: 1

The radar images are great, but they're definitely not conventional photos - the viewpoint-from-Earth is actually from the 'top' of the image, looking down. They're constructed from a combination of distance measurements and Doppler shifts, the latter thanks to the rotation of the asteroid.
So basically it means a single transmitter and single receiver can figure out a two-dimensional image from a vast distance - and it's nice that these images quite closely match the conventional, optical images taken by the Chang'e probe!

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Asterix and Obelix would love to see this by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-16 11:23 · Score: 1

In fact, that one small village that still holds out against the invaders, would all get a few goose-bumps from having an asteroid named after their favourite god.
I have to assume that there's also a asteroid named Belenos and one named Belisima. Fun times reading those books - and now my kids love them. Thanks for bringing up the memories Slashdot.
the irony of this by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-17 09:50 · Score: 0

how ironic... and i got mails from World Vision to sponsor chinese orphan kids in Yunan citing they are malnourished, subjected to child labour and miss out on schools. And here we are seeing Chinese launching multi-billion dollars space rockets.