Discussion
durbster said:
If future missions are to get public support they really should consider the part photography has played in the Rosetta mission.
They do, but every mission, particularly deep space missions, have severe mass constraints.How much of the useful science do you sacrifice for tourist photos?
Einion Yrth said:
They do, but every mission, particularly deep space missions, have severe mass constraints.
How much of the useful science do you sacrifice for tourist photos?
Yep, that's the conundrum.How much of the useful science do you sacrifice for tourist photos?
I don't know what sort of compromise has to be made for adding camera kit (presumably a significant amount or they'd all have them), but if it leads to public attention, that's surely very useful when it comes to requesting funds.
Would the moon landings have been so influential without the photography?
Final image from Rosetta, just before it shut down on the surface
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Ro...
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Ro...
MartG said:
Final image from Rosetta, just before it shut down on the surface
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Ro...
From Hubblesitehttp://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Ro...
"How did comets form?
Comets are some of the material left over from the formation of the planets. Our entire solar system, including comets, was created by the collapse of a giant, diffuse cloud of gas and dust about 4.6 billion years ago. Much of the matter merged into planets, but some remained to form small lumps of frozen gas and dust in the outer region of the solar system, where temperatures were cold enough to produce ice."
And yet the Hayabusa mission brought back samples of minerals such as Olivine that are metamorphic in nature. The picture on the website above show some quite large rocks. Do we need to rethink our theory of where comets come from?
Eric Mc said:
Perhaps. I think we will find that "comets" are probably a group of objects that vary quite a bit in their composition. We already seeing that asteroids can vary quite a lot as do planets, moons, dwarf planets etc.
We clearly do not have the appropriate sophistication of language in astronomy yet. At the moment we're at the stage where we call everything that flies "a bird".Meanwhile, I can't get past the idea that some other civilisation will discover Rosetta someday, and find two robots on it and spend eternity wondering what the bloody hell happened
"We used to think meteorites were just big, barren chunks of rock and ice. Now through billions of dollars spend on space exploration and highly sensitive instruments that have been used to analyse the composition of many of these monoliths of deep space we can say that some are sticky, some are squishy and some are rather lumpy."
jammy-git said:
"We used to think meteorites were just big, barren chunks of rock and ice. Now through billions of dollars spend on space exploration and highly sensitive instruments that have been used to analyse the composition of many of these monoliths of deep space we can say that some are sticky, some are squishy and some are rather lumpy."
Love it.
durbster said:
We clearly do not have the appropriate sophistication of language in astronomy yet. At the moment we're at the stage where we call everything that flies "a bird".
Meanwhile, I can't get past the idea that some other civilisation will discover Rosetta someday, and find two robots on it and spend eternity wondering what the bloody hell happened
Rosetta is the spacecraft. Philae is the lander. The comet is called - 67P/Churyumov-GerasimenkoMeanwhile, I can't get past the idea that some other civilisation will discover Rosetta someday, and find two robots on it and spend eternity wondering what the bloody hell happened
XM5ER said:
jammy-git said:
"We used to think meteorites were just big, barren chunks of rock and ice. Now through billions of dollars spend on space exploration and highly sensitive instruments that have been used to analyse the composition of many of these monoliths of deep space we can say that some are sticky, some are squishy and some are rather lumpy."
Love it.
Eric Mc said:
durbster said:
We clearly do not have the appropriate sophistication of language in astronomy yet. At the moment we're at the stage where we call everything that flies "a bird".
Meanwhile, I can't get past the idea that some other civilisation will discover Rosetta someday, and find two robots on it and spend eternity wondering what the bloody hell happened
Rosetta is the spacecraft. Philae is the lander. The comet is called - 67P/Churyumov-GerasimenkoMeanwhile, I can't get past the idea that some other civilisation will discover Rosetta someday, and find two robots on it and spend eternity wondering what the bloody hell happened
MartG said:
Brililant, thanks.There was this incredible composition a few weeks back too:
https://twitter.com/coreyspowell/status/9885795459...
Another great adventure - Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft reaches cosmic 'diamond':
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-446...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-446...
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