Ceres High Altitude Mapping Orbit (HAMO), Late summer through fall 2015 Options

[ZLD]

Processed enlargement of HAMO 10.


(click to enlarge)

Doesn't seem to be much new to note here. Several very fresh looking craters scattered in this area.


Imaging map with HAMO 10 near the Toharu crater once again.


(click to enlarge)

Looking at the typical progression of images, there should be a good nadir position for capturing Occator for the next orbit but who knows if they'll release it or not.

[Daniele_bianchin...]

In september 2013 a new island formed by a 7.7 pakistan earthquake; The island is a mud volcano that had been caused by an emission of methane gas on the seabed.it resemble a big mount over Ceres:

[Bill Harris]

HAMO image HO-10 is noteworthy because it straddles two major Cerean terrains.

https://univ.smugmug.com/Dawn-Mission/Ceres...2--orient-L.png

--Bill

[RotoSequence]

In september 2013 a new island formed by a 7.7 pakistan earthquake; The island is a mud volcano that had been caused by an emission of methane gas on the seabed.it resemble a big mount over Ceres: http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/image...erial_photo.jpg

Hmm. Good catch! The same mud volcano, from above:

[Habukaz]

Perhaps this is similar to the Java mud volcano

Theories are that it was triggered when drilling breached the surface clay,
which let out mud and gas beneath.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/release...6/09_lusi.shtml

Interesting thing, the area may be sinking into a sort of caldera.

Tons of pictues
http://www.crisp.nus.edu.sg/coverages/mudflow/

Primarily thinking about the bright stuff scattered around the crater - not quite sure how this would relate to it. We have seen plenty of bright impact crater elsewhere in the solar system, but I don't recall seeing older craters with specks of bright stuff around them (but I guess it could simply be the last remnants of a more massive cover of bright stuff that the crater once was surrounded by).

[Bill Harris]

New images to Ceres Gallery, including a study of a crater-facula in HAMO-8, stereo imagery in SO-24,-25, and episodic emplacement of fluidized flows in HO-4.

https://univ.smugmug.com/Dawn-Mission/Ceres

What a quirky little world.

--Bill





I am a traditionalist-- I like to do image montages ("stitching") and stereo pairs manually. But yesterday I finally broke down and got a copy of Stereo Photo Maker (freeware and a dang good program-- support your local developer!!) and last night I redid the two SO-24,-25 stereo pairs noted above. Enjoy.

--b

[ZLD]

Processed enlargement of HAMO 11.


(click to enlarge)


Imaging location map.


(click to enlarge)

It took me a while to realize that HAMO 11 was located right in the middle of SO4. Smacked my forehead on that one. No further updates on SO locations with this one.

[Guest_Steve5304_*]

images of spot 5 are being held from the public because of a peer review pending paper. Im told that the new pictures are wonderful and reveal alot the spots appear to be resembling a lake bed and some sort of dusting material all over the place in and out. The material is still not known..tho its openly being speculated its some sort of new element. something we dont know about yet. It may be many more weeks before occator images are released.

[stevesliva]

The material is still not known..tho its openly being speculated its some sort of new element.

unobtanium or ice-9, definitely.

[Guest_Steve5304_*]

unobtanium or ice-9, definitely.

heh..maybe its elerium

whatever it is supposedly lt doesnt subliminate and yet is above the crater. but its not ice and not salt :shrug:


who knowsyet. the embargo on the images by nature mag it sucks

[Habukaz]

After some searching, I was able to find an interview with Christopher Russell on a dubious website (though the interview itself seems fine enough) saying pretty much the same thing (about an embargo):

We were just ready to submit with the press release written and the images of the bright spots were in our press release. And then, we realized that one of the investigators had sent in a paper to the publication Nature, which required an embargo for us not to talk before publication

[...]

the trouble with getting involved with these journals, the paper's been sent out for review, but it isn't accepted, so we're in this Never Never Land of not knowing [the embargo date]. But the new pictures are lovely.

OK. First of all, it looks like there's a fairly thick dusting of white powder. It covers the area nice and smoothly, and it goes up and down over the terrain, so something's been puffing out white powder in the region probably for some time. There's no evidence that it's puffing right now, but somehow there's been a fine, probably fairly thick layer of this white powder covering the region that we call the bright spot.

OK, first of all, this is not a statement that is without controversy. And that statement about 'haze' was made definitely by a team member, but other team members are questioning it now. 'haze.' Some team members are saying this is scattered light — or equivalent to scattered light. Since it was such a faint observation, they had to blow up the images further than really was justified and perhaps made some artifacts in the data.

(source)

I have seen nothing about this in other channels, though.

[ngunn]

the spots appear to be resembling a lake bed and some sort of dusting material all over the place in and out.

I'm expecting to se a clutser of impact craters somewhat modified by subsequent sublimation (including hazes).

[fredk]

some sort of new element

That sounds like a pretty extreme conclusion from very limited data.

Btw, Russell is quoted in that interview as saying "And this white stuff might have an albedo of 50 percent." I think that's the first mention I've heard of an albedo value.

[Habukaz]

If this embargo is really happening, can we even be sure that we'll see the HAMO images of Occator before the LAMO images of it?

[ZLD]

Thanks for that link Habakuz. That interview had several interesting points.