EPOXI Mission News Options

[stevesliva]

Looks like the Deep Impact list has been revived. Posting here for others to get back on board:

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EPOXI E-News #1 May 2008
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WELCOME BACK!

Did you know that the Deep Impact Flyby Spacecraft has a new assignment? The
EPOXI mission combines two exciting science investigations in an entirely
new mission that re-uses the Deep Impact spacecraft. The Extrasolar Planet
Observation and Characterization (EPOCh) investigation will observe stars
that have known transiting giant planets. The Deep Impact Extended
Investigation (DIXI) of comets observes comet 103P/Hartley 2 during a close
flyby in October 2010.

The education and public outreach team decided to get back in touch with our
Deep Impact friends and begin sending out newsletters again to keep you
informed of these two exciting investigations! During the two years since
our last newsletter for Deep Impact, the science team has stayed busy
continuing to do more analysis on the data collected in July 2005. The
science team also proposed and was awarded an extended mission teaming up
with a group from Goddard Space Flight Center.
EPOXI website: http://epoxi.umd.edu/
Mission Overview: http://epoxi.umd.edu/1mission/index.shtml
Press Releases: http://epoxi.umd.edu/7press/index.shtml
DI Results: http://deepimpact.umd.edu/results/

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MISSION STATUS

Dr. Deming, Principal Investigator (PI) for the EPOCh portion of the
mission, sends us the latest mission status report in which he tells us
about the current observing target GJ436. “This is an exciting time for
EPOCh, as we search for an exo-Earth orbiting a stellar neighbor of our
Sun!” reports Dr Deming. He also talks about the plans to observe a very
special planet in late May and early June.

Read his status report as well as past reports from other team members at
http://epoxi.umd.edu/1mission/status.shtml

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EPOCh TARGETS

The EPOCh component of the EPOXI mission will carefully study a small number
of stars in order to learn more about planets that we know are orbiting
those stars by watching the planets as they transit (cross in front of) the
star. EPOCh will also search for clues to other planets that might be
orbiting the same stars.

Read more about the EPOCh science targets to find out which stars are being
observed.
http://epoxi.umd.edu/2science/targets.shtml

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PLANET QUEST

Are we alone?
For centuries, human beings have pondered this question. Medieval scholars
speculated that other worlds must exist and that some would harbor other
forms of life. In our time, advances in science and technology have brought
us to the threshold of finding an answer to this timeless question.
The recent discovery of numerous planets around stars other than the sun
confirms that our solar system is not unique. Indeed, these "exoplanets"
appear to be common in our galactic neighborhood.
The EPOCh investigation is part of a larger family of missions studying
extrasolar planets. Learn more at the Jet Propulsion Lab Planet Quest Web site.
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

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OBSERVING CHALLENGE

The transits that will be studied for EPOCh are extremely difficult to
observe because the change in brightness is very small and requires high
precision photometry that can be accomplished with instruments on the Deep
Impact spacecraft. Observers on Earth can still take a look at the stars in
the night time sky. The selected stars are also pretty dim because we don’t
want them to saturate or over expose the spacecraft instruments but they are
bright enough to be visible in amateur telescopes if the sky conditions are
good and the skies are dark.

Like people, stars have multiple identifiers. EPOCh’s first target was a
star labeled as HAT-P-4 by the scientists observing it. They made their own
list of target stars so that was their shorthand name. But HAT-P-4 has
numerous other names which are more useful in identifying it in other databases.
HAT-P-4 = SAO 64638 = TYC 2569-1599-1 is a magnitude 11, G-class star
located in the constellation Boötes.
Chart: http://epoxi.umd.edu/2science/challenge.shtml

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SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION

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subscribers may join the EPOXI Mission e-news mailing list on our website
at: http://epoxi.umd.edu/6outreach/newsletter.shtml

[PDP8E]

...of the small sample of rocks and comets we have visited , most (alot?) tend to exhibit this shape architecture -- is there a clue here?

[dilo]

Attempt to make two stereo pairs from images #495378/385/389 (caution: very large baselines!)

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[nprev]

Phenomenal!!! Late to the party as usual because of pain meds, but remarkable work as always, guys!

[elakdawalla]

There's a directory full of images here:
http://epoxi.umd.edu/3gallery/ENCOUNTER/
It includes the five close-approach pics, plus some more distant views from the 24 hours before close approach. The pictures are all posted with fairly detailed metadata embedded within the pixels of the images themselves, including information on the stretch that was applied to them (the min and max original DN in the 16 bit image) as well as filter and exposure information. Most images were taken through a clear filter but some were taken through narrowband filters in emission lines of OH, CN, and C2, which are in ultraviolet and green wavelengths. Anybody out there planning to take a crack at some color combos? I may not be able to try until I get home after the afternoon briefing...

[peter59]

Where are images taken by the High Resolution Instrument (HRI) ? I know that the instrument is out of focus, but it always HRI.

[Stu]

Dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum...

[nprev]

Damn; where's the "like" button?

Good one, Stu!

[elakdawalla]

Where are images taken by the High Resolution Instrument (HRI) ? I know that the instrument is out of focus, but it always HRI.

They weren't planning on releasing those today. The deconvolution process is now well-understood but it does require manual tuning, and they don't want to release non-deconvolved versions (not as JPEGs anyway).

[Guest_cassioli_*]

"normalized" animation:

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Den]

These jets look very distinct, I wonder how well that gels withthe idea that cometary jets are the product of surface wide sublimation focused by topography? I recall that being the most favoured mechanism behind cometary jets, though I could be out of date or just plain misremembering.

Come to think about it, that mechanism seems unlikely to be at work for long.

Even if at the beginning evaporation does happen directly on the surface of the young comet, very soon the surface gets covered by mantle of non-sublimating dry dust.

Then further evaporation proceeds slower, underneath this mantling layer.

Resulting gas often doesn't escape uniformly - it finds weaker spots and forms fissures => we see jets!

[Guest_cassioli_*]

Full flyby animation

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Paolo]

been watching the press event on NASA TV. two good questions by Emily!
I have lost the part about the engineering aspects of the flyby. what was the final distance? and does anybody know whether a transcript or podcast or recorded video of the event is available?

[ups]

Dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum...

Lol, well done.

[peter59]

Enhanced version of opposite end of comet with tons of jets silhouetting night side

[peter59]

I found more radar data (October 24-27,29-31) and Hartley 2 model.
http://www.naic.edu/science/ao_hartley.html
We can compare the model with reality, a perfect fit.