Summer is still winning

I'm still enjoying the long, lazy summer days… If anyone has emailed me and not had a reply, sorry; I will get round to it. 'Till then here are a few things I could have posted about but didn't.

For those with an interest in religion, Philip A. Harland (Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Ancient History at York University, Toronto) has a podcast giving a historical context to The New Testament based on his course lectures. His blog is Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean or you can start with Podcast series 1: Paul and his communities.

Uzza's Notes has a list of Rape Prevention Tips along with the current humorous deconstruction of the Gospel of Matthew.

The first images from yesterday's flyby of asteroid 21 Lutetia by the Rosetta probe are on The Planetary Society Blog. Can't wait to see the hi-res colour!

Finally there's a new piece of wall art with an evolutionary theme:

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU [9:55]


OK, I’m off to band practice. Have fun! Grow into these trousers... >>

A final farewell to 2867 Steins

It will be a long time, if ever, before humanity visits asteroid Steins again. Let's have a look back before moving on.

The mission plan


Below the belt is goodbye.

Rosetta's flyby of asteroid Steins

Grow into these trousers... >>

Why did Rosetta's camera switch off?

The answer - safety.

This is the best kind of image we will get:

Asteroid (2867) Šteins in color
Three color-filter images from the OSIRIS wide-angle camera were combined to produce this highest-resolution color view of the asteroid from the Rosetta flyby on September 5, 2008. Šteins is, essentially, gray. Credit: ESA ©2007 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / RSSD / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA

Tracking such a small object as asteroid Steins on its (slightly) uncertain trajectory and at high relative speed, pushed Rosetta to its limits. The spacecraft was operating totally independently during the manoeuvre and it was vital that some areas of the craft, the so-called cold faces, received as little direct sunlight as possible. The strain on Rosetta's systems unfortunately took the narrow-angle camera outside of its operating range and the camera did the sensible thing. It put itself into safe mode to avoid damage. All other systems worked fine.

The Planetary Society reports:

One notable instrument found the extreme conditions of the flyby to be out of its set safety parameters, and put itself into a protective "safe mode" nine minutes before closest approach, recovering a few hours later. That instrument was the narrow-angle camera on OSIRIS, which would have produced the highest-resolution images of Šteins. OSIRIS principal investigator H. Uwe Keller explained that the safety parameters had been set conservatively on OSIRIS because, as interesting as Šteins is, it is not Rosetta's primary science target.

Rosetta will now loop back around the Earth before flying on to its next encounter, asteroid 21 Lutetia, on July 10th 2010. Grow into these trousers... >>

Rosetta camera glitch scuppers hi-res images

It seems a software problem on Rosetta switched of the hi-res camera so we will not be getting any higher definition images :(

New Scientist reports:

A glitch prevented the spacecraft from seeing the asteroid in even greater detail. OSIRIS's narrow-angle camera, which has a higher resolution, stopped collecting data minutes before the closest approach.

ESA scientists are still investigating why the instrument switched to this 'safe' mode, designed to protect the camera from injury.

Strangely, I can find nothing yet from ESA. Grow into these trousers... >>

Asteroid encounter #2

Pull up your trousers: Asteroid encounter.

The Rosetta spacecraft and asteroid Steins have danced together briefly in the cosmic void. Here's the first image release from ESA.

Asteroid Steins seen from a distance of 800 km, taken by the OSIRIS imaging system from two different perspectives. The effective diameter of the asteroid is 5 km, approximately as predicted. At the top of the asteroid (as shown in this image), a large crater, approximately 2 km in size, can be seen.
Credits: ESA ©2008 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPM/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

Grow into these trousers... >>

Asteroid encounter

On Friday, ESA's Rosetta spacecraft will do a fly-by of asteroid 2867 Steins a small rock, a tiny rock, about 4.6 km across between the orbits of Mars And Jupiter.
Rosetta is currently tracking Steins and will make course adjustments, if needed, aiming for a closest approach of about 800 km.

This will be a good opportunity to test systems on Rosetta but also fascinating in it's own right. I'll try to post some images etc over the weekend as they as released.

The Rosetta mission is very ambitious including another asteroid fly-by (21 Lutetia in 2010) and culminating in a six month study of a cometary nucleus (67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014) where it will orbit as close as 2km and release a lander to the surface.
From The Planetary Society:

Rosetta will spend six months mapping and observing Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which is only 4 kilometers/2.5 miles in diameter. Then, the spacecraft will release Philae, the lander, to the core for the first-ever direct sampling of a comet's nucleus. Rosetta will continue to make observations from as close as 2 kilometers/1.2 miles. Together with the lander, Rosetta will conduct a total of 21 experiments that will characterize the comet's dynamic properties and surface morphology, as well as determine physical properties of the surface and subsurface, and the chemical, mineralogical, and isotopic compositions.

Another mission to watch out for.
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Image credit: ESA Grow into these trousers... >>