Craters Pop As NASA's Dawn Probe Approaches Ceres

astroengine writes New features on Ceres' icy surface are popping into view as NASA's Dawn spacecraft slowly spirals in on its final celestial target in the asteroid belt. Due to arrive in a stable Ceres orbit in March, the ion drive-propelled spacecraft is now less than 90,000 miles (145,000 kilometers) from its ultimate goal. Once arrived at Ceres, NASA will insert the probe into a highly stable orbit where, when the mission concludes in a year from now, Dawn will become a permanent man-made moon of the dwarf planet.

Comments

Bastardation of English continues

[Anonymous Coward]

Craters "pop"? I was expecting some kind of explosion, not a careless misuse of an English phrase. (Hint: The phrase you are looking for is "pop up" or "pop into view", i.e. the verb "pop" is NOT a synonym for "appear".)

Re:Bastardation of English continues

[aaron4801]

1 a : to go, come, or appear suddenly —often used with up. Often, but not exclusively. If you're going to be a grammar nazi, at least be right.

Re:Bastardation of English continues

[MBGMorden]

Actually, no, I had no idea what they meant until I got down into the comments. I assumed that craters were actually popping and was reading the summary trying to figure out if they were just observing some recurring natural phenomenon or if (far less likely) the probe itself was disrupting something on the surface.

"You know what I meant" is a terrible excuse because half the time it's simply not true.