Comments on: NASA shoots comet, looks at hole it made https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/02/16/nasa-shoot-comet-looks-at-hole/ Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:41:09 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 By: Calli Arcale https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/02/16/nasa-shoot-comet-looks-at-hole/#comment-499273 Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:41:09 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/02/16/nasa-shoot-comet-looks-at-hole/#comment-499273 Actually, it’s amazing that Stardust is able to take these pictures at all. It was launched in 1999, so it’s way past its warranty (and incidentally, there’s a stuck filter wheel on that camera that it has to contend with, reducing resolution further) but it’s not even 1999 tech. The camera is a spare from the freakin’ Voyager program! (They did rip out the old vidicon tube and replace it with something a tad more modern, though, and also added shielding specifically to the camera since it wouldn’t be protected by the spacecraft’s main Whipple shields.)

Stardust was one of the triumphs of the “faster, better, cheaper” movement within NASA, and this awesome encounter was icing on the cake. It’s simply spectacular.

BTW, part of the reason it looks softer in places in the Stardust images isn’t just down to resolution — some of it is changes in the actual asteroid! A crater chain in another part of the asteroid has slumped into sort of an ellipse-shaped depression, for instance. Most of it’s the fact that Stardust’s camera just isn’t as good, though. (Also, Deep Impact was a heck of a lot closer; that left image was taken by the impactor, not the mothership, while on its suicide dive.)

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/02/16/nasa-shoot-comet-looks-at-hole/#comment-499272 Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:29:08 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/02/16/nasa-shoot-comet-looks-at-hole/#comment-499272 John, yes, that is exactly what it is. I was using the term “focus” in what must be an incorrect technical sense. The images are blurry because of relative lack of resolution. But nicely focused blurryness.

]]> By: Bert Chadick https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/02/16/nasa-shoot-comet-looks-at-hole/#comment-499271 Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:50:51 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/02/16/nasa-shoot-comet-looks-at-hole/#comment-499271 Yeah! This is why I don’t mind paying taxes. Now we know more about asteroids and when one comes near, how to deal with it.

]]> By: John Callender https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/02/16/nasa-shoot-comet-looks-at-hole/#comment-499270 Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:42:05 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/02/16/nasa-shoot-comet-looks-at-hole/#comment-499270 I don’t think it’s a lack of focus in the later images, as much as the fact that the images were taken from much farther away, and hence have lower resolution when magnified to match the scale i
of the previous image.

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