Beagle 2 in HiRISE, Possible Targets |
Beagle 2 in HiRISE, Possible Targets |
Feb 15 2007, 06:45 PM
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#46
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
As it turns out, the atmospheric aberrations caused both MERs to land downrange of the centers of their ellipses, so Beagle 2 probably would have done the same (which is why the MOC imaging campaign focused on the eastern half of the ellipse). I don't have any idea what effect EDL malfunctions might have had -- I'm guessing they would also have resulted in a downrange bias but I don't have a clue what the magnitude of that would be, whether 1 or 10 kilometers or more.
--Emily -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Feb 15 2007, 06:52 PM
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#47
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Senior Member Group: Admin Posts: 4763 Joined: 15-March 05 From: Glendale, AZ Member No.: 197 |
Then I guess I'll only throw down a few small chips on that up-range bet
-------------------- If Occam had heard my theory, things would be very different now.
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Feb 15 2007, 07:48 PM
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#48
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Member Group: Members Posts: 153 Joined: 14-August 06 Member No.: 1041 |
I know that I promised to stand still and I also know that you guys are not great fans of this kind of pseudo-perspective but I couldn't avoid it... But it might help one way or the other. It looks to me that the spot I indicated is not an artifact, if you look to this image it looks like there is a crater under it and some shadowing. This also helps me imagine how painful might have been Beagle's end... Who knows if it might just crumbled down the hill on it's back, does anyone see a parachute there? This is certainly a good candidate - If I understand Doug's scaling, the crater is about the right size for a Beagle splat. Spirt's parachute just barely deployed in time to save a similar fate, so splat it could be. |
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Feb 16 2007, 02:56 PM
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#49
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Special Cookie Group: Members Posts: 2168 Joined: 6-April 05 From: Sintra | Portugal Member No.: 228 |
Here I am again...
I grabbed Beagle's last known image and used it in a personal simulation. It has some similarities with Doug's original image but quite different from his simulated view. I also added Beagle 2 dimensions, can anyone tell me if the spot's pixels match those? -------------------- "Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied, "If you seek for Eldorado!"
Edgar Alan Poe |
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Feb 16 2007, 03:07 PM
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#50
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
I have to say, that bright object seems to be too bright to be an ordinary rock. It's also slightly blurry which a cosmic ray artifact wouldn't be. I think it's not too far-fetched to suggest that might really be a manmade object. Whether it's the lander itself or a piece of it, who knows?
Then again, maybe it's just one of them iron meteorites... -------------------- |
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Feb 16 2007, 03:58 PM
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#51
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14431 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Remember - a cosmic ray hit might be a single pixel in the collected data - but it will 'grow' over multiple pixels during map projection.
Also... http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/2007/d..._1920_cut_b.jpg There's nothing about the Ustrax target that elimiantes it from being an imaging artifact. Attached - applying perspective distortion in photoshop on a single white pixel - first just in one direction, then in two directions. See how the dot 'grows'. I don't know how the map projection for HiRISE works - but I imagine it would introduce similar artifacts. Doug |
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Feb 16 2007, 04:06 PM
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#52
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
The point about map projection certainly holds. My opinion is still that it's a real feature, not an artifact.
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Feb 16 2007, 04:10 PM
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#53
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Special Cookie Group: Members Posts: 2168 Joined: 6-April 05 From: Sintra | Portugal Member No.: 228 |
My oppinion too ugordan, mostly due to the fact that the feature looks like is casting shadow.
But, of course...Doug (from the Cosmic Ray Preservation Fund...) can be right... EDITED: Doug, as I asked before, do the feature dimensions match the Beagle 2 ones? "There's nothing about the Ustrax target that elimiantes it from being an imaging artifact." And the opposite? -------------------- "Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied, "If you seek for Eldorado!"
Edgar Alan Poe |
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Feb 16 2007, 04:13 PM
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#54
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14431 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
As the simulation shows - it would be the right sort of size for the heatshield or backshell or unopened lander - but a deployed lander I would expect to look different. If you were to say "this IS a bit of Beagle 2 - which bit?" - I would say the heatshield. But - if you ask which is more likely - 800 megapixels having the odd imaging artifact or a piece of B2 indicative of the spacecraft making it through entry and deploying it's heatshield but later failing, and that heatshield being visible in the first HiRISE image of the landing ellipse....I'd say cosmic ray hit. I'm not saying it isn't a chunk of spacecraft - and it really does look like a chunk of B2. What I'd like is a HiRISE image targetted directly west of this one - a tiny bit of overlap - but I would expect the 'chute to be back up the trajectory and thus west of the heatshield (same was true of Spirit and Opportunity if you think about it.)
Until we see either a fresh crater or a main chute - I don't think it's wise to say we've found any Beagle hardware - we've simply found interesting targets. Just thinking out-loud again - the TDI CCD's on HiRISE, there's plenty of scope for a single cosmic ray hit to actually take out a few pixels in one go - 128 lines to have a stab at for each 'finished' pixel if you think about it. Attached - an extract from the mission report which you can find at http://www.src.le.ac.uk/projects/beagle2/reports.html Suggestive that the heatshield might be somewhere around 150m downrange from the rest of the vehicle...of course drift under the chute and bouncing around could obviously change that significantly. Doug |
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Feb 16 2007, 04:14 PM
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#55
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
If only someone could sneak us the raw, non map-projected image...
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Feb 16 2007, 04:37 PM
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#56
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Director of Galilean Photography Group: Members Posts: 896 Joined: 15-July 04 From: Austin, TX Member No.: 93 |
Doug,
Have you tried map-projecting your simulations? -------------------- Space Enthusiast Richard Hendricks
-- "The engineers, as usual, made a tremendous fuss. Again as usual, they did the job in half the time they had dismissed as being absolutely impossible." --Rescue Party, Arthur C Clarke Mother Nature is the final inspector of all quality. |
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Feb 16 2007, 04:43 PM
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#57
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14431 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
There wouldn't be much point - I don't know enough about the map projection parameters to even make a sensible guess. rendering at 33cm/pixel and then resizing to 25cm is going to introduce some of the 'softness' that reprojecting might induce.
Doug |
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Feb 16 2007, 05:03 PM
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#58
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Member Group: Members Posts: 428 Joined: 21-August 06 From: Northern Virginia Member No.: 1062 |
If only someone could sneak us the raw, non map-projected image... You wouldn't want a raw image, those a pre-cal;-) But I might be able to sneak a small part of one of the artifacts in one of the images, if you give me some pretty good ideas as to where to find it. |
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Feb 16 2007, 05:07 PM
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#59
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
Well, having a sample of the artifacts wouldn't do much good as we already have that in the latest release. Ideally, the same region we're looking at here is the one we're interested. That must be a pain to locate in the calibrated, non-projected images though...
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Feb 16 2007, 05:29 PM
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#60
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Special Cookie Group: Members Posts: 2168 Joined: 6-April 05 From: Sintra | Portugal Member No.: 228 |
Until we see either a fresh crater or a main chute - I don't think it's wise to say we've found any Beagle hardware - we've simply found interesting targets. Who's saying that? I, like you, would like to see full confirmation about the nature of the feature, to, in the case of being a cosmic ray, just move to other locations. -------------------- "Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied, "If you seek for Eldorado!"
Edgar Alan Poe |
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