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Incredible New Gif Shows Cosmic 'Snow' On the Surface of a Comet (gizmodo.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the winter-wonderland dept.

Press2ToContinue shares a report from Gizmodo: What you're looking at is the surface of the comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which is orbited by the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe. The photo comes from Rosetta's OSIRIS, or Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System. The raw data was collected on June 1, 2016, and posted publicly on March 22 of this year. Twitter user landru79 processed the gif from this data release and shared it yesterday. In the foreground is the comet's surface (still several kilometers away from the probe), and three kinds of specks. The stars in the background belong to the constellation Canis Major, according to ESA senior advisor Mark McCaughrean. Some of the foreground stuff could be streaks from high-energy particles striking the cameraâ"it's a charge-coupled device (CCD), so even invisible particles can leave streaks in the results. And some could be dust from the comet itself.

47 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. New Gif? by ls671 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    New Gif?

    Who cares about the image format in such a context?

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    1. Re:New Gif? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Although I would still question the use of terminology, the point is that it's animated.

    2. Re: New Gif? by ls671 · · Score: 1

      In TFA, they cite "gif" without any ideas what it means and it just went up the chain as is.

      For your png input, it must be that twitter converted it to png from the gif mentioned in TFA.

      If I didn't know gif format, I would have thought that "Gif" meant "Gallactical Input Facilities".

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    3. Re:New Gif? by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      New Gif?

      Who cares about the image format in such a context?

      The only thing GIF is used for these days is animations on the web, so... yes it's useful information.

      --
      No sig today...
    4. Re:New Gif? by caparra · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nowadays gif means 'short animation', much more than a particular format. Slashdot seems to be full of cranky Statlers and Waldorfs this days.

    5. Re:New Gif? by caparra · · Score: 2

      Words mean... whatever people decide they mean. Unless you are on a technical enviroment. Or an asshole environment. If someone on the street talks about a gif he saw, and you later find out it was really a PNG, please, please, shut up.

    6. Re:New Gif? by FormOfActionBanana · · Score: 1

      And most of the "snow" is just background stars, are they not?

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      Take off every 'sig' !!
    7. Re:New Gif? by dargaud · · Score: 1

      Actually it seems to matter here. I simply could not see the animation in Firefox. I saw a static image with a [>] button to start the video, but nothing happened upon click. I had to open it in Chrome to see the (indeed beautiful) animation. So it's certainly not a GIF file.

      --
      Non-Linux Penguins ?
    8. Re:New Gif? by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      More likely, your Firefox install is messed up, and his was too until he went to about:config and changed media.autoplay.enabled to false.

      Unfortunately, some websites are so sure the browser is going to autoplay their videos that they don't bother coding for browsers that aren't, because some programmers are assholes.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    9. Re:New Gif? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Wouldn't it have made more sense to say "animation", given that is the important bit of information that you otherwise have to infer from it being a GIF?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    10. Re:New Gif? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Calm down. Go watch a film or something. ;)

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    11. Re:New Gif? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      Unlikely, for the same reason you don't see stars in Apollo photos.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    12. Re:New Gif? by king+neckbeard · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Slashdot IS an asshole environment.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    13. Re:New Gif? by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      When you hear it's a GIF, you are made aware that it is a ridiculous waste of bandwidth, also.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    14. Re: New Gif? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      GIF is not really lossless since it's 8-bit and so can only display 256 colours at a time.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    15. Re:New Gif? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      Hey man, have you seen the new Star Wars GIF now playing in the theatres?

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    16. Re:New Gif? by msauve · · Score: 3, Informative

      Because the ESA is using 1960's film cameras?

      You do see stars in Apollo photos. Just not when the camera is set to properly expose the sunlit lunar surface, which causes the stars to be vastly underexposed. Looking at the data for one of the images, it's a 12.5 second exposure. The scene is indirectly illuminated, you can see what appears to be an overexposed, sunlit highlight in the last frame of the animation.

      The "falling" stuff is the starfield, they're all moving in unison. Read the comments at the original source - the images capture NGC2362 (Mag 4.1) and MGC2354 (Mag 6.1).

      The stuff moving in semi-random directions (but mostly toward the upper left, it appears) is the "snow." That includes the streaks. In order for a cosmic ray to produce a streak, it would have to be traveling along the plane of the image sensor (or strong enough to effect an entire sensor row/column).

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    17. Re: New Gif? by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      GIF is not really lossless since it's 8-bit and so can only display 256 colours at a time.

      It's also very possible a png has been compressed.

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    18. Re: New Gif? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      I've seen a lot of PNG images with JPEG compression artifacts. That's what happens when non-technical users start using computers.

      Programs need a big fucking warning window when trying to export JPEG to any other format to tell morons that it will NOT increase the quality and will only make the file bigger.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    19. Re:New Gif? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Looking at the data for one of the images [esa.int], it's a 12.5 second exposure.

      In that case, a portion of the point-y objects are indeed stars. Just not all of them. And some streaks might be cosmic rays but those don't move.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    20. Re: New Gif? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Then those people/spec documents need to explain why PNG is required, otherwise it's pointless.

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      #DeleteFacebook
    21. Re:New Gif? by caparra · · Score: 1

      No, they don't. But they get used in not technical environments, and their meaning just changes. That's a fact on language and live.
      Someone who sends me to fuck myself is an asshole, no mother what you fucking bully say. And so are you.

    22. Re:New Gif? by caparra · · Score: 1

      Yeah, yeah. Thats why reddit has r/animatedgifs and not r/gifs for posting animations. OH WAIT!
      But it doesn't matter. The word belongs to YOU and who dares do with it what people do with every word? OWN it and change its meaning over time.

      So if someone says "I saw a ridiculous gif today", she is an idiot. Because she doesn't know 'the difference'.

      No.
      I'm sorry.

  2. Probably no high energy marticles by schure · · Score: 1

    Only stars and dust, no high energy particles in these photographs, is what the experts are writing.

  3. Re:If you post GIFs, you are probably stupid by FormOfActionBanana · · Score: 1

    Why would a GIF reduce the resolution and colours? I thought it would just make the file much larger.

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    Take off every 'sig' !!
  4. Re:If you post GIFs, you are probably stupid by Chrisq · · Score: 1

    If you take high-fidelity video material and reduce the number of colors, resolution, and frame rate, down to the complete 30 year old crap that is GIF, before you re-post it on the internet, then you are most likely stupid.

    Or a Facebook user ... Oh wait!

  5. Re:If you post GIFs, you are probably stupid by 91degrees · · Score: 2

    Because GIF only supports up to 256 colours. Although since this is greyscale it doesn't matter. GIF itself doesn't reduce the resolution but users often do because the file size is usually quite large.

  6. LOL Gizmodo by ruddk · · Score: 1

    UHH a GIF!
    Gizmodo sucks.

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    L'Idiot
  7. Re:If you post GIFs, you are probably stupid by FormOfActionBanana · · Score: 1

    I had no idea! I always thought GIFs were zip compressed BMPs, with a few extra stupid features added like animation.

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    Take off every 'sig' !!
  8. Direct link? by SigmundFloyd · · Score: 3

    Anyone got a direct link to the GIF?

    Stupid Twitter is unusable with w3m.

    --
    Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
    1. Re:Direct link? by BlackSupra · · Score: 2

      "new gif" https://imgur.com/a/0GVpB2s

      "newer star-field stabilized gif" https://imgur.com/p05aEhm

      "article" https://www.livescience.com/62...

    2. Re:Direct link? by SigmundFloyd · · Score: 1

      Thank you, but imgur.com doesn't work either. I could use a link to the GIF file itself.

      --
      Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
    3. Re:Direct link? by BlackSupra · · Score: 2

      https://i.imgur.com/O0Aahi5.gi...

      https://i.imgur.com/p05aEhm.gi...

    4. Re:Direct link? by SigmundFloyd · · Score: 1

      Perfect, thank you! You did what the Slashdot editors should have done.

      --
      Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
    5. Re:Direct link? by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

      Hilariously, those don't work for me. But these do:

      https://i.imgur.com/O0Aahi5.gif?noredirect

      https://i.imgur.com/p05aEhm.gif?noredirect

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
    6. Re:Direct link? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      YouTube link.

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      Table-ized A.I.
  9. Welcome by symes · · Score: 1

    I for one welcome our new speck overloards. May your reign be wipe free.

  10. The truth behind the video... by javipas · · Score: 4, Informative

    Seems to be a little different. It's a 25 minute video that has been compressed in that GIF, so the effect is 'dramatized'. https://www.livescience.com/62... According to that report, the GIF, impressive as it is, is somewhat misleading.

    1. Re:The truth behind the video... by hackertourist · · Score: 1

      That Live Science link has a stabilized version of the video, this visually separates the snow from the background stars and gives a much better view of what's happening.

  11. Re:If you post GIFs, you are probably stupid by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    If you take high-fidelity video material

    They didn't. Your post is invalid.

    Wrong too, but invalid even if it were right.

  12. It's bloody damn COOL by tinkerton · · Score: 1

    Which is the main point nobody seems to care about.

    Your comment on the time lapse is quite relevant though, as opposed to all the posts about GIF format.

  13. Funny by kbdd · · Score: 1

    Funny that we can get this incredible, mind boggling footage and yet, we still don't know if the earth is flat or not...

    1. Re:Funny by dfsmith · · Score: 1

      If the earth is flat, those Mt Everest climbers will surely be red-faced.

  14. Reminds me of the US Northeast this spring by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    Oh the memories. Seems like only a few days ago.

  15. Watch out where the huskies go ... by PPH · · Score: 1

    n/t

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  16. Imagine it's from a movie by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 2

    If I had seen that animation without knowing where it's from, I'd probably assume it was from a crap movie. Because as it turns out, in real life, the effects are shit! :D

    It *is* crazy cool considering it is real though.

  17. Guys,guys....stop. Think about it. by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

    Watching the dynamic equilibrium of a far space body.
    i'm getting old, and I am REALLY excited at the things I never thought I'd live to see, now become real.
    I don't want to die and miss the next 100 years. Damn!!