NASA Satellite Snaps First Image of Target Asteroid 57
coondoggie writes "NASA today said that its Dawn spacecraft snapped the first image of the giant asteroid Vesta it hopes to rendezvous with in July. The asteroid is 530 kilometers in diameter, and appears as a small, bright pearl against a background of stars. Vesta is known as a protoplanet, because it is a large body that almost formed into a planet. It's the second most massive object in the asteroid belt, NASA says."
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Talking about asteroid impacts, this is just a question which had popped up in my head. Just thought this will be the best place to get the answer –
I am not an astronomer. So my question below might contain a lot of factual errors and foolishness. But I had this doubt for a long time, which I wanted to solve.
For avoiding asteroid impact – is the following method thought out and discarded?
Keep a pretty big satellite circling (or nearby) the earth. Make it the fastest man made object – if po
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"Keep a pretty big satellite"
Philip J Fry suggested trash.
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If it was about the energy ratio, you'd be right, but the energy ratio isn't relevant. Alas, it's about momentum, and momentum scales linearly with velocity. This makes the whole thing impractical. Assuming:
- the satellite's path would intersect the asteroid path at right angle,
- the satellite would embed itself in the asteroid
Then, in SI units, the velocity of the compound object is (10E9*[10E3 0] + 10E3*[0 200E3])/(10E9+10E3) = [9.9999 0.002]*1E3 m/s.
The total system would gain a 2m/s motion component in
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Actually, I was calculating momentum - not energy ratio - if you check the result of calculations I had mentioned (100 M to 10 M kms distance). But, I agree that my post was misleading since I mentioned energy ratio and not momentum specifically.
Also, for dino-killer I dont think any impact option is feasible at all - other than the hovering spacecraft idea. But the probability of dino killer is pretty low, compared to the 100m asteroid. So, I was considering for moderate asteroid impacts (torino scale - 8/
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You're making a (common) incorrect assumption: that the change in velocity you impart maps linearly to a change in distance in the future.
When trying to avoid an impact, the best approach is to shift the phase (the location within the largely fixed orbital path) so that the intersection with the orbit of the Earth occurs either a little before we get there, or a little after. Thus most of the time you're either pushing or pulling in the velocity direction (changing the period ever so slightly).
The thing ab
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Very informative. I'll run some numbers to see whether phase shifting would work in a short-term scenario (6 months advance warning).
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Solar sails are an example of a space craft using energy that does not need to be carried from earth but regrettably their power is very limited at the distance from the sun where you could possibly still nudge an asteroid.
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That's awesome. You should be writing documentaries like this one: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/ [imdb.com]
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Um taco, do you know what a satellite is? (Score:2)
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The Official NASA Release (Score:5, Informative)
Come on, Network World for a NASA news release? Ridiculous.
Here [nasa.gov] is the actual NASA press release.
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Naw, graphics out to be of something that's a real threat...
http://en.rian.ru/cartoons/20110511/163969086.html [en.rian.ru]
Re:The Official NASA Release (Score:4, Insightful)
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Slashdot used to be news for nerds, but lately it seems like it just pimps out either editor's friends blogs, or other sites that may be giving Slashdot kick backs.
If that is Slashdot's new business model, so be it. They should at least be upfront about it though.
What would you do? Mod your self down? (Score:1)
NASA seems to not be all into the promotion thing. So its not going out of its way to post this on
So I ask you, Did you liked seeing the info about the asteroid on
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Well lets take a closer look at this submission.
1.) The first sentence "NASA today said that its Dawn spacecraft snapped the first image of the giant asteroid Vesta it hopes to rendezvous with in July.", with an embedded hyperlink, seems to indicate that what I click on should bring me to a NASA web page. It doesn't. The link goes to a blog.
2.) The official NASA news release could have been easily embedded into the summary. It wasn't and that wasn't an accident. It is to force a click thru and gene
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NASA seems to not be all into the promotion thing. So its not going out of its way to post this on /.
Bullshit. NASA has a huge website and sends out press releases to the media.
So I ask you, Did you liked seeing the info about the asteroid on /. ? If not just move on. If you like it you should be thanking coondoggie for posting his WEblog. He posted the NASA link in the first few lines of the article. SO we get both A link on /. and a link to the NASA source.
Coodoggie is a parasitic plaigiarist. He's using NASA's content and adding his own ads, then whoring for hits here. His submission had no links to the NASA story, only his own blog. And he DID NOT provide a link to NASA in his submission. In his blog he steals not only NASA's story, but hotlinks their images.
So you see CmdrTaco also the right thing!
He did, finally, after seeing the comments here. If you look now, besides correcting the typo in the headline "NASAsatellite
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You TELL'em, Steve Dave!
Photoshoped (Score:2)
This is obviously Photoshop. I mean if it were real we should see a 5% whiter pixel in the top left.
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The Asteroid Field (Score:2)
Error in title (Score:3)
The title reads, "NASAsatellite Snaps First Image of Target Asteroid".
Is this a SATELLITE or a SPACECRAFT? If it's not orbiting anything, it's not really a satellite.
And, of course, it's missing a space (no pun intended) between NASA and Satellite.
Re:Error in title (Score:5, Insightful)
Its currently orbiting the sun, and will be entering orbit around Vesta during its science phase, so it is technically a satellite.
Still, generally at JPL we use spacecraft (or just s/c) since a satellite could also refer to a natural body.
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ax a stupid question... (Score:2)
Is this a SATELLITE or a SPACECRAFT? If it's not orbiting anything, it's not really a satellite.
It's orbiting the Sun .
Chinese not allowed to view (Score:3)
Dear Chinese Friends,
You are prohibited from viewing this image.
Thank you,
NASA
Vespa (Score:2)
Maybe they'll find a space camper on that rock?
In case of slashdotting . . . (Score:2)
Waste of pixels! (Score:2)
Almost a planet? (Score:2)
NASA (Score:1)
That satellite isn't even shielded (Score:2)
How are they supposed to protect it from mynocks chewing on the power couplings?
Marooned? (Score:3)
I hope the satellite doesn't get Marooned Off Vesta.
Marooned Off Vesta (Score:1)
Isaac Asimov's first sale was Marooned Off Vesta [asimovreviews.net].
I, for one, would welcome having the mission commemorate him somehow.
The good doctor (Score:1)
Isaac Asimov wrote a short story called Marooned off Vesta