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

I knew you would like that one! With regards to Philae waking up they say "To wake up and listen for signals from Rosetta, Philae must have at least 5.5 watts and an operating temperature above –45 degrees Celsius. With a bit more energy, around 19 watts, Philae would be able to return the ‘call’."

Valentina Lommatsch had some numbers on the power input last November, they were only getting Sun on one or two panels for just two hours of the 12.4 hour comet day, they rotated Philae's body to optimise the lit area of panels. I think at the time they were looking at June before they could hear from Philae.

edit found the quote )
"Valentina Lommatsch from the lander control centre, did warn the hope was not high, but it was not impossible. The key is the secondary battery needs to be recharged to boot the lander back into operation. This requires the battery to warm up to zero Celsius and then charge to at least 5.1 W; a feat that needs 50 – 60 Watt-hours per day to achieve. At present, there is only 90 minutes of sunlight reaching the lander, which provides between 1 and 4 watts or about 2.5 Watt-hours."
[link to physicsfocus.org]

K

EGU Talk

I'm very behind with all the news now. I haven't had a chance to watch this yet but here is the press conference from the European Geophysical Union general assembly 2015. Participating are Stephan Ulamec and Matt Taylor. I belive the topics covered include, what will Rosetta do next, when will Philae wake up and hey what happened to the magnetised comet.

[link to client.cntv.at]

K

Ceres Again

As promised, here is the latest from Dawn. This is the crescent of the dwarf planet as imaged during OpNav 6. OpNav 7, which will show half the world has already taken place but we probably won't see the results until the beginning of next week.

Ceres partial rotation, north pole view from 33,000 km.
[link to dawn.jpl.nasa.gov]

K

NAVCAM 12th April

NAVCAM from 148 km 13m/pixel
[link to www.esa.int]

Still lots of activity on the lit side, very little sign of it on the winter side.

edit ) Blog post
[link to blogs.esa.int]

K

Damn NASA, I want those pics now!!

Not too long now. You will probably have a new image on Tuesday or Wednesday that will show the most detail yet.

K

Best Ever Ceres

Well here is an early surprise for Ceres fans. The most detailed ever images from the dwarf planet. This image comes from the OpNav 7 imaging run from the 14th of April at a distance of 22,000 km. The resolution is 2 km/pixel, 14 times better than Hubble ( BTH ).

[link to dawn.jpl.nasa.gov]

The twin bright spots, which the JPL team are calling spot 5, are on the far right of the image.

Here is an animation of the same view, looking down from the North Pole.

[link to dawn.jpl.nasa.gov]

By the end of this week, Dawn will be in a circular orbit around Ceres at a distance of just 13,000 km.

Accompanying blog entry.
[link to dawn.jpl.nasa.gov]

K

Jet outburst captured

For the first time ever the cameras on board a spacecraft have witnessed a new cometary jet burst into life. The OSIRIS cameras on Rosetta captured this so far unique moment when a jet burst out from the Imhoptep region, an area that has so far been relatively quiet.

OSIRIS image 17th March, new jet outburst.
[link to www.esa.int]

The image was captured on the 12th of March. The comet continues to increase in activity as it warms during it's approach to perihelion.

blog entry
[link to blogs.esa.int]


K

Magnetics

There is an interesting blog post to go with a paper published my the ROMAP team on the nature of the intrinsic magnetic field of comet 67P [link to www.sciencemag.org]

There is speculation that tiny magnetised iron particles could have played a role in accreting dusty material into larger bodies in the early solar system. If this was common mechanism then there might be a residual magnetic signature on bodies such as comets and this is something that Philae's ROMAP magnetometer measured during its descent to ( and bounce from ) comet 67Ps surface.

I had written about this field before back in December Thread: Rosetta Comet Orbiter -** 120 Icy Patches ** Philae Phones Home ** Ceres Fly Over Video ** New Coma Discovery ** Picture MOTHER LODE ! (Page 56) when I had a sneak peek at some of the ROMAP data and at the time I said "Comet 67P does not have a strong intrinsic magnetic field, although it may ( or may not ) have a weak field of around 5nT or less." That's now been confirmed with the publication of their paper, The nonmagnetic nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, they say, "The ROMAP suite of sensors measured an upper magnetic field magnitude of less than 2 nT at the cometary surface at multiple locations" That is a maximum field strength of just 1/25,000th of Earth's, so that's effectively not magnetised.

blog post
[link to blogs.esa.int]

K

Named dust

You have to pretty interested in dust to work with the COSIMA or GIADA Rosetta instrument teams. If you are one of these scientists then you will hall the rather unusual honour of having a speck of dust, 400,000,000 km away, named after you.

[link to blogs.esa.int]

Takes all sorts I suppose.

[link to blogs.esa.int]

K

One of these spots is not like the others

You may have seen this already but an examination of two different bright patches on the surface of Ceres has revealed that they have different properties. Spot one appears to be colder than the surrounding surface, could this be ice? Spot five, the bright double spot, appears to be the same temperature as the surrounding surface, maybe this is a salt deposit but who knows. Intriguing stuff, what could they be?

[link to dawn.jpl.nasa.gov]

K

NAVCAM 15th April

Two stunning NAVCAM images here from the 15th April with lots of jet activity on the summer hemisphere. The first one focuses on the "crater of doom" or Hatmehit area as it is now known.

NAVCAM 170km 15m/pixel
[link to www.esa.int]

There is a follow up image from four hours later,

NAVCAM 165km 15m/pixel
[link to www.esa.int]

focusing on the neck region, showing fantastic levels of activity ( yes it will get much higher than this ! ). A couple of the jets are so prominent now they show up even in the unstretched version of the pictures. [link to blogs.esa.int]

Blog posts

first
[link to blogs.esa.int]

second
[link to blogs.esa.int]

K

We can see you

The ground observing campaign to view comet 67P has restarted now after the comet passed through its solar conjunction.

"The comet has been recovered by amateur astronomers Jean-Francois Soulier, Jean-Gabriel Bosch and Alain Maury, who observed it from Chile on 13 April 2015 at a magnitude of of 16.8. Congratulations to the observers!"
[link to blogs.esa.int]

The comet is very dim at magnitude 16.8 so you are not going to pick it up with the average backyard telescope, unless your back yard is the Roque de los Muchachos. If you are a member of iTelescope.net [link to www.itelescope.net] you probably know all about this, why am I telling you

K

NACAM 15th April ( again )

Here is a shot that beautifully illustrated the jets diffusing into the coma.

NAVCAM 162 km 14m /pixel
[link to www.esa.int]

We are looking down on the Imhoptep ( foot ) region which is in shadow here. 13 hours ( just over one comet day ) later it was catching the sun again.

NAVCAM 146 km 12m /pixel 16th April
[link to www.esa.int]

blog post
[link to blogs.esa.int]

K

Postcards from the Comet

Scientific American has a short article about the recent close fly-by of Comet 67P by Rosetta. My favourite part is this set of NAVCAM "postcards" showing all the recent jet activity.

[link to blogs.scientificamerican.com]

You can read the original article here.
[link to blogs.scientificamerican.com]

K

Interesting and this thread popped up today.


Thread: Walmarts closings and jade helm in preparation for comet strike in Caribbean area (Page 2)

Well this comet is not going to come that close to us. Here is a pretty neat site showing you where the comet is and where it is going

[link to www.livecometdata.com]

K

Public Talk

Here is a nice public lecture given by Dr. Paul Doherty. It's a good reminder that landing on a comet was a ridiculously difficult thing to do.



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

K

So where are the pics?



Here are the pics [link to imagearchives.esac.esa.int]

ESA have just released another 1297 NAVCAM pictures from between 1st August and 23rd September last year at a time when Rosetta completed its approach to the comet, measured the gravitational field from 100km downwards and completed the global mapping at 30km. Next month we get to see pictures with three times as much detail as Rosetta got down to just 10km over the surface.

Does anyone think these cliffs on the right look pariculary bright ? [link to imagearchives.esac.esa.int] choose photosize original for maximum detail.

This is a little NAVCAM animation to give you a taste of what is available.



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

K

NAVCAM 18th April

After yesterdays avalanche of images here is the more modest single NAVCAM. I can offer you jets though!

NAVCAM 101km 9m/pixel
[link to www.esa.int]

You can make out the dark silhouette of the major lobe, beautifully cast in shadow here.

blog entry
[link to blogs.esa.int]

K

Pluto and Charon

OK, I just checked and this has already been posted by 411 but I love this animation of Charon orbiting Pluto.

[link to www.nasa.gov]

The images were captured when New Horizons was between 110 and 104 million km from Pluto. This is without doubt the biggest year I can remember in terms of Solar system exploration, Rosetta, Dawn and New Horizons, fantastic.

[link to www.nasa.gov]

The animation itself hints at polar cap on Pluto, maybe frozen nitrogen. New Horizons closest approach to Pluto will be on July 14th.

K

Please forgive my ignorance, but WHY are they taking pictures of this comet??

Well comets have fascinated humans for millennia, but they have remained relatively mysterious compared to other Solar system bodies. The best image we had of a comet before Rosetta was this one [link to science.nasa.gov]

The Rosetta mission gave ESA and European Aerospace an opportunity to attempt the most difficult space mission ever and lay down a marker of their abilities. It has also been useful in promoting Ariane 5 as the go to heavy launcher and for scientific co-operation throughout Europe ( and with the USA ).

Comet 67P was selected as the ( fallback ) target after the launch window for comet 46P/Wirtanen was missed. 67P has a similar short period orbit, but it has still taken ten years to get into position to orbit it.

K

Please forgive my ignorance, but WHY are they taking pictures of this comet??
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Because of Science...

Understanding the Universe and Solar System...

I think its some sort of Dead Animal floating around up there?

Historic Epic Photographs

Thread: Rosetta Spacecraft to "Harpoon" a Comet - Historic, Epic, Photographs of something Strange Indeed

Dinosaurs in Outer Space

[link to www.godlikeproductions.com]

Rock or No Rock
Thread: Rock...? or No Rock?

Ah, you are the dinosaur rock guy? Well I would like to add to my previous brief synopsis...



A fuller answer..



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

K

This is not the comet you are looking for....

For everyone in the September comet disaster club. Here is the fun webGL orbit simulator for comet 67P and Rosetta [link to sci.esa.int] . No, it doesn't hit Earth. Just to make sure ESA aren't cheating there is a ground observing campaign to keep them honest. [link to blogs.esa.int]

NASA on the other hand..... ;)

K

NAVCAM 20th April

NAVACAM 128 km 11m / pixel
[link to www.esa.int]

The coma is really starting to fill in now, either that or it's a processing artefact. The image shows us an unusual view with the smallest face of the major lobe facing us.

blog entry
[link to blogs.esa.int]

K

Ceres Pictures and crashed USS Enterprise

Dawn is currently orbiting Ceres in its first science orbit at 13,500 km from the Dwarf planet. Now that the framing cameras can be pointed at the surface, without the need re-orientate to use the ion engine, Dawn is producing an image a day for its RC3 rotational classification sequence. Here is the result for the last week ( view of south pole )

[link to photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov]

Including this nice red/green anaglyph ( 3D ) view
[link to photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov]

One eagle eyed researcher has spotted the final resting place for the USS Enterprise, near the South pole of Ceres.
[link to www.unmannedspaceflight.com]

K

NAVCAM 26th April

NAVCAM 98 km 8.4 m/pixel
[link to www.esa.int]

This is a great view of the most active side of the comet. What is very noticeable is the way the jets cross over each other. They look to be emerging perpendicular to the surface ( normal ) that is producing them. A uniform field around the comet that was powering the jets would of course make every jet that radiated from the surface align with each other.

K