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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[machi]

I've made new entry on my blog, now with three Hartley 2 animations.
They are similar to my old Hartley 2 animation, but with more calibrated images (5 images vs. 43 images), they are more precise and much more detailed.
Two animations are available on youtube - link 1, link 2.
Third (animated gif) is on blog.

[elakdawalla]

Some of your best work yet

The second Youtube animation shows a lot of "sparkles" in the coma. Are these just noise/hot pixels amplified by the contrast stretch, which appear to move because of the morphing? Or are they comet snowballs twinkling in the sunlight, traceable from one frame to the next?

[Explorer1]

The gif on your site is just jaw-dropping; the snowballs gives a sense of place and movement so perfectly....

[machi]

Thanks!

The second Youtube animation shows a lot of "sparkles" in the coma. Are these just noise/hot pixels amplified by the contrast stretch, which appear to move because of the morphing? Or are they comet snowballs twinkling in the sunlight, traceable from one frame to the next?

I didn't trace "snowballs" in morphing, because this would be extremely difficult and time consuming (hundreds of working hours instead of tenths). This is reason, why I used original data in animated gif, so you can see global moving of snowballs around comet.
So I think, that your sparkles are probably snowballs changing position from frame to frame (they disappear for little moment).
If you are watching carefully, then you can see how some snowballs are moving around comet (but still animated gif is better in this way).

[Paolo]

speaking of EPOXI and Deep Impact, does anybody know what is the current status of the mission? I understand that the 2nd extended mission was not funded, but is the spacecraft still being tracked? has it been put in hibernation?
any info?

[Paolo]

I have posted the same question to the Deep Impact facebook page and here is the answer (in first person...)

I am still being tracked -- all spacecraft are tracked at some basic level. No, as far as I know, I'm not in hibernation... I actually took some pictures recently that I'm slowly radioing back to Earth.

[Paolo]

The latest mission tracking requirements published on the DSN Resource Allocation Planning Service website confirm that Deep Impact will be routinely tracked at least once per week until at least 2021.
See http://rapweb.jpl.nasa.gov/Events/DIF_event.pdf and http://rapweb.jpl.nasa.gov/Requirements/DIF.pdf

[djellison]

Consider that a strawman placeholder for an Extended Extended mission. As of yet - no such mission has been approved/funded.

[t_oner]

Here is another collaboration project. Daniel (machi) kindly made his animation frames available. Clearing the erroneous points due to jets took some time. Missing parts can be completed later for Celestia.

Attached File(s)

 hartley2_model.avi ( 694.46K ) Number of downloads: 341

 

[machi]

Cool!

It would be interesting compare volume of the final (celestia) model to official data - 0.84 km3.

[Paolo]

the EPOXI mission site has made available FITS of the recently released deep sky pictures:
http://epoxi.umd.edu/3gallery/deepsky_challenge.shtml
and http://epoxi.umd.edu/3gallery/deepsky.shtml for the original deep sky picture release

[elakdawalla]

I've just played a bit with the Deep Impact deep-sky images. They're very pretty, but cosmic ray hits are a problem. I strongly encourage UMSF members to go to the website Paolo linked to and do something with the data and submit whatever you do to their website. They seem very surprised not to have received any image submissions since they posted the data. We need to show them that it's worth their while to be so open with data! If you're not accustomed to FITS data, IMG2PNG can handle it, or you can use the FITS Liberator. I'd be happy to try to answer any questions about how to work with either one.

[machi]

...They seem very surprised not to have received any image submissions since they posted the data. We need to show them that it's worth their while to be so open with data! ...

I'm downloading M51 images for more than week (and still I have only 60%). After FUP depleted, I have now slow connection + their server is not much supportive for slow connections, so effective speed is now around 2048 bps! (Same as Pioneer 10 from Jupiter)

BTW, nice results, I didn't realize, that they used imaging with filters, so results can be even more interesting (because of color), that those on their pages (brilliant work).

[ElkGroveDan]

I'm downloading M51 images for more than week

Maybe one of us could mail you a DVD next time

[ugordan]

Here's my take on the M51 set, longest exposure filter 1, 2 and 4 sets combined. Clear frames for luminosity, 514 and 750 nm filters for color.