Rosetta Comet Orbiter -** 120 Icy Patches ** Philae Phones Home ** Ceres Fly Over Video ** New Coma Discovery ** Picture MOTHER LODE !

Videos

I hadn't realised ESA had produced quite so many videos about Rosetta, but it looks like there are over 150 of them!

[link to www.esa.int]

I wonder what gems there are in there.

K

Ceres, getting better...

Now this is the best view of Ceres I have seen yet, they will continue to improve throughout the year up until Dawn achieves its lowest orbit in December.

Framing Camera from 8,400 km, RC3 image 8
[link to photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov]

Host page
[link to dawn.jpl.nasa.gov]

K

NAVCAM 28th April

This one's got a halo!

NAVCAM 141 km 13m /pixel
[link to www.esa.int]

That's a great view showing off a halo of jets and evidence of the new one emerging from the foot of the comet ( Imhoptep region )

Blog post
[link to blogs.esa.int]

K

French President Finds Philae !!

French president François Hollande has found the Philae lander -

[link to www.rtl.fr]

OK, not quite but anyway CNES are having an exhibition in the
Champs-Elysees this week featuring a full size model of Philae and large ( 3m sides ) accurate model of comet 67P
[link to www.cnes.fr]

Blast from the past, here is Matt Taylor at a similar event at the Royal Society last year.



[link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

K

Ceres - Rotational animation RC3

OK I know the thread title says Rosetta but how could you not be gripped by by this animation of Dawn's RC3 imaging run of Ceres.

[link to photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov]

You can see the intriguing spot 5 which so far looks to be 5 spots, no doubt it will be more by the time we get closer. There was a thread about it here Thread: Finally a good shot of CERES! Many light sources head on shot.. If you remember it was, intriguingly, not colder than the surrounding surface, unlike spot 1.

When I first saw this image I was excited. If you look at the most prominent white feature in the centre of the image you can see a very dark feature adjacent to it.
[link to photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov]

My first thought was, wow there is a vent, venting something white onto the surface. The dark patch is much darker than the shadow of crater cliffs nearby so I assumed it was a very deep hole like our old friend the pit craters [link to astronomynow.com] Unfortunately, after taking apart the RC3 animation, I have found out it's just an image artefact :(

Link to Ceres images
[link to photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov]

K

Rosetta: The Whole Story

This is pretty cool. Rosetta turned into a heroic comic strip and web story.

[link to www.bbc.com]

Kudos to the BBC. Matt Taylor says in the interview.

"It's got this exploration aspect which I think is fundamentally tapping into your soul as a human. If we didn't have that desire to go out and explore we would still be staring at our navels in a cave somewhere."


K

NAVCAM 3rd May

Comet from Greek: kometes, wearing long hair,

here is a pretty hairy comet nucleus.

NAVCAM 135km 11 m/pixel
[link to www.esa.int]

blog post
[link to blogs.esa.int]

K

Hard to believe you are giving Kudos to Matt Taylor.
Really??

It's probably a case of bad punctuation there. I am saying kudos to the BBC for producing this cool webcomic / multimedia timeline website for Rosetta.
[link to www.bbc.com]

Which includes an interview with Matt Taylor where he says,
"It's got this exploration aspect which I think is fundamentally tapping into your soul as a human. If we didn't have that desire to go out and explore we would still be staring at our navels in a cave somewhere."

Actually I think everyone who has contributed to Rosetta's success deserves kudos for one of the greatest scientific and technical achievements of our lifetime.

K

I agree, and as much as I have criticized Matt Taylor for his coverage, it is a good quote.

Sorry havent been around much...big things on the Horizon chaps.

Are you mixing up Jonathan Amos, sensationalist BBC Science Correspondent and Dr. Matt Taylor, Rosetta mission lead scientist?


That sounds exciting, 2015 the year we make contact is there a hint in your answer?

BTW. I saw "The Comet's tail" last night, maybe there is a familiar face in there.



[link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

It's a solid introduction to comets, well worth a watch for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

K

After nine years of effort, NASA have finally captured Hydra

The latest images captured by the New Horizons spacecraft, launched in 2006, show four of the the smaller moons of Pluto. Earlier this month we saw an animation of Charon, Pluto's large moon orbiting the dwarf planet. Thread: Rosetta Comet Orbiter -** 120 Icy Patches ** Philae Phones Home ** Ceres Fly Over Video ** New Coma Discovery ** Picture MOTHER LODE ! (Page 65) Now we have this annimation of the four smaller moons; Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra.

[link to www.nasa.gov]

Nix and Hydra were originally discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope's "Pluto Companion Search Team" in 2005

Nasa page
[link to www.nasa.gov]

K

I vehement deny this - it's a lie, NASA is always lying.

THEY DID NOT CATCH ME.

.

Are you the real Hydra or the NASA doppelgänger Hydra?, because TPTB have been know to replace people before you know...

Thread: Would the Apollo Moon astronauts have been frozen then cooked like chicken-in-a-bag - One Star Warrior unveiled - page 28 (Page 27)

Thread: Would the Apollo Moon astronauts have been frozen then cooked like chicken-in-a-bag - One Star Warrior unveiled - page 28 (Page 28)

As long as it isn't IDW approved, I'm the One And Only HYDRA.



.

Last Edited by Hydra on 05/17/2015 10:09 AM

Ceres spot 5

Here is a treat for spot 5 fans. Here is Dawn's RC3 image 12 showing the bright, complex, spot 5 prominently.

[link to photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov]

Image collection from Dawn at Ceres.
[link to photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov]

K

Do you know, I actually am. How embarrassing.
That shows you how far away Rosetta has been from my thoughts recently.

PS...A "Hint" in my answer....that did make me chuckle.
Perhaps.

The Rosetta blog featured an older NAVCAM image a couple of days ago. Just a reminder, there are now over 1800 Navcam images of the comet, going up until late September last year. Here is a nice one of the crater of doom, or Hatmehit as it is called by those Egyptian fans.

[link to imagearchives.esac.esa.int]

You can access all the NAVCAM images from here.

[link to imagearchives.esac.esa.int]

If you want to download the images then you need a viewer that can open FITS files [link to en.wikipedia.org]

By the end of next week we should have all of the detailed images from the 10km orbit and landing phase ! No sign yet of any OSIRIS images of the comet form the planetary sciences archive [link to www.rssd.esa.int]

K

NAVCAM 12th May

Space Potato !

NAVCAM 166 km 14m/pixel
[link to www.esa.int]

An unusual view of the major lobe, side on, casting the minor lobe into shadow.

K

Hello K Hall.

I haven't stopped in for a while and am now just getting up to date with Rosetta.
I've checked the blog posts and images which are showing impressive streamers and I note one entry reporting the comet has no magnetic field.

That brings me to the fun part.

How are the Sparkologists taking these body blows to their delusion?
No sparks. Certainly nothing like million km lightning bolts between comet and planet. Not even little bitty static discharges. Nothing.

Outgassing which is demonstrably outgassing and not "plasma jets/curtains".

No magnetic field. How does a charge move and not produce a magnetic field? Nu EU Fizziks?

I'm assuming they have some childishly lame excuses that they consider very cutting-edge and imaginative.

Here's hoping for some really vigorous outgassing in the future.

Have fun.


R

I was quite pleased to have picked that up ( pretty much ) from looking at the magnetometer chart of Philae's descent.



To be honest, I haven't been following what Thunderbolts or other sparkologists have said. The idea never made any sense from the start so I doubt that any actual data which contradicts their ideas will have any effect at all, it's primarily a belief system for them.

We didn't have to wait for Rosetta to falsify electric comet/universe but here is a little chart you won't see on thunderbolts. Its the output of IES [link to sci.esa.int] as Rosetta orbited the comet last September. Using one of the 'boltz's favourite phrases, sparkologists were shocked to discover a stream of energetic electrons coming from the Sun [link to i.imgur.com] ( the is a similar looking chart for +ve ions ) So that's the end of "the Sun is a giant positively charged thingy in space" Of course it's just the solar wind and we already knew its composition and neutrality but that in itself is enough to disprove EU/EC.


Yes the jets inconveniently cross over each other, not what you would expect if they were being driven by a uniform field around the comet. They also start to dissipate within kms of the nucleus.
[link to www.esa.int]


Certainly no intrinsic field. They could have had lots of fun if only they paid attention to what the plasma consortium found e.g. spacecraft potential being driven more negative in the jets, monoenergetic electron beaming from the surface ( 400 V ), possible dust levitation, negatively charged nanograins in the coma, unusual ion species etc. I guess either no one there is paying attention or they just don't understand how they could use that information to help construct their stories.


I enjoyed Thornhills squirming over how the comet density is seven times lower than their rocky asteroid model predicted, he said
"..it's the confusion by physicists of mass with quantity of matter. For more than a century scientists should have know according to e=mc^2 that the mass of sub-atomic particles is an energetic variable dependant on the electric environment. That is why the so called universal constant of gravitation is so maddenly inconstant"
Which is a bit of a mouthful, I guess they can just never admit to being wrong.


I am hoping the crack in the neck spreads and the comet breaks in two. No reason to suggest it should happen on this particular orbit and not far into the future ( if at all ) but it would make for a great show.

K

Ceres Spot Shot !

Spot-tard, is that a word? If it is then good news for spot-tards as Dawn is now orbing Ceres at a distance of 7,200 km, we can see the mysterious spot 5 in even more detail.

Dawn Framing camera at 7,200km, view of spot 5 on Ceres
[link to photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov]

If you have an idea what is is the NASA would like to know here - [link to www.jpl.nasa.gov]

As ever, for the most recent Ceres images you should browse this link
[link to photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov]

K

he he he

Frozen Hydrogen, or Water Ice.

Ceres will be the pit stop to the planets, lads.

Yes, there is plenty of water out beyond the frost line, which lies somewhere inside the asteroid belt at around 3 AU. I think after molecular hydrogen it is probably the most common substance. Most of the big moons and the KBOs are mainly water. I wonder if we will still be using chemical rockets when we have reached the point of being able to make asteroid gas stations?

K

You are still going to need propellant with many types of proposed nuclear propulsion.

I forgot helium, there is more helium than water in the outer solar system but there is still a lot of water and other ices out there.



True but Setheory has promised me a reaction mass free, go anywhere future ;)

Thread: NASA validates "WTF - Impossible" space drive. Interesting...UPDATED - 8/14/2017

K

Picture tease

ESA are teasing us with NAVCAM images of the 10km orbit. Look at this one from the 25th October, 75cm/pixel !

[link to www.esa.int]

I am hopeful that by the end of the week we will have hundreds more images of the comet at this resolution.

In another picture released by ESA this week, scientists are still shocked and baffled as to why the most common organic substance found in Antarctic meteorite samples is Pantene pro-V

[link to www.esa.int]

K

If you are not a fan of robotic exploration missions, you are probably in the wrong thread. Here is a run down of some possible exciting future missions from Wired magazine

[link to www.wired.com]

Don't forget what is already underway or launching soon. Hayabusa 2 is on its way to asteroid Itokawa [link to b612.jspec.jaxa.jp]

ExoMars will launch next year [link to exploration.esa.int]

BepiColumbo will launch towards Mercury in 2017 [link to sci.esa.int]

Also in 2017 NASA's Juno spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter. [link to www.nasa.gov]

During that time frame there will also be missions from China, India and Russia. There are some details here [link to www.spaceanswers.com] although some of those missions have already been scrubbed.

K

Video: Rosetta's adventure so far and what we have learned about this fascinating comet to date

The Rosetta spacecraft is still orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko while it now approaches the Sun. Six months ago Rosetta made history by delivering its Philae lander onto a comet’s surface - something no other space mission has done before.

more here:
[link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

That's a great summary thanks F-BVFA, good find! I will just add the embedded video.



K