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Craters Pop As NASA's Dawn Probe Approaches Ceres

Posted by timothy on from the ready-for-their-closeup dept.

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.

11 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Bastardation of English continues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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".)

    1. Re:Bastardation of English continues by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

      There appears to be a character limit in what can be posted in the headli

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    2. Re:Bastardation of English continues by aaron4801 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Bastardation of English continues by cyberchondriac · · Score: 2

      You're being overly semantic. "Pop" in that context is indeed a modern idiom, a shortening of "pops out", often used to describe an HDTV picture, where the factory sets the color and contrast extra high on TVs so the picture just "pops" on the store display floor. Sort of a 3D-ish effect, or extremely vivid.

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    4. Re:Bastardation of English continues by MBGMorden · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    5. Re:Bastardation of English continues by gsslay · · Score: 2

      Except I didn't know exactly what they meant. I thought it was indicating the discovery of some kind of volcanic activity. I have never heard or seen "pop" used alone in place of of "pop into view" or even "pop up".

      There's a big difference between language change and single instances of rotten use.

  2. Alien life by fxsoap · · Score: 2

    I REALLY hope this yield something of importance to bring space back to the forefront of people minds. Keep people dreaming, exploring and wanting more.

    1. Re:Alien life by allquixotic · · Score: 2

      Would we be so fortunate as to do so this quickly, though? 600 some odd years ago, almost no one was aware of the full extent of the planet's land masses, much less that there were actual people living on those other land masses. After that settled down, not a lot happened for the next several hundred years in terms of advancement of human life's extent and discovery of new civilizations. Then, suddenly, in the 60s, we're extraplanetary.

      It would be amazing, but unlikely IMHO, to see a single generation of people live to see Apollo 11 and the discovery of extraterrestrial life. I think we're going to have to look a lot further and for a lot longer before we bump into anyone out there.

  3. Re:Waste of money by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    Because this is the kind of world where we may go soon. It's the kind of place that may be useful for mankind to live upon. Europa is too far into Jupiter's radiation belts. Titan is both cold and poisonous. Ceres may have enough frozen gases for use to mine and live on.

  4. Re:Waste of money by Coren22 · · Score: 2

    We already know Europe harbors life. Some of that life even posts on /.

    --
    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  5. You're not helping by GrumpySteen · · Score: 2

    Bastardation? I think you mean bastardization.

    You're not helping.