Rosetta Mars Flyby, Info and Links Options

[nprev]

No doubt, but I can hear him or her yelling "YAAAA-HOOO!!!!" as Rosetta passes periapsis...

[mars loon]

Sorry to be a curmudgeon, but the reaction to this image, which is rather bland and poorly exposed, surprises me a bit. No accounting for taste, I guess.

In less than a nanosecond I felt like "I've arrived at Mars" . Pack the gear and prepare to land at the foot of Olympus Mons. Then lets drive to the cliffs of Valles Marinaris!

ken

[mchan]

No doubt, but I can hear him or her yelling "YAAAA-HOOO!!!!" as Rosetta passes periapsis...

Or "YEEEE-HAAWW!!!"

But then as Mars rushes on closer, looming ever larger, the thought occurs, "Wait a sec, did I use metric or English units for that last course correction?"

[dvandorn]

Sorry to be a curmudgeon, but the reaction to this image, which is rather bland and poorly exposed, surprises me a bit. No accounting for taste, I guess.

Doesn't surprise me a bit, Mike. I know exactly why, too.



-the other Doug

[lyford]

I dunno, but that picture sure evokes something from my subconscious past.....
perhaps this is what it is tapping into?

[Stu]

I guess it depends on how far genetics will go toward miniaturizing humans, and then if we can train them to hang onto a solar panel.

Very funny! I like that! (and asked for it!)

Just think how much less food and water and life support teeny humans would need tho...

Anyway, where are these wonderful crescent images huh? huh??

[Toma B]

I hope this isn't going to become one of those SMART-1,Mars-Venus Express press releases...if so we might wait for few months to see another 3 images...
No... they should have learned something by now.... or not?!?

[ugordan]

It was Sunday yesterday, you know. And we did get a few images released fairly soon (including the new Mother Of All Global Mars Views). Seriously, what does it take to satisfy some people?

[Stu]

Oh I'm satisfied, I'm just impatient!

But seriously, if I was in charge of ESA Outreach, in competition for column inches and airtime with my better-funded and better-connected NASA counterparts, at a time when space exploration budgets are being squeezed tighter every month, I'd pay someone weekend overtime to get tapping away on their keyboards and get as many images "out there" as quickly as possible, not just to justify the money spent on the mission to the cynics and bean counters, but to keep the momentum going.

Sometimes I just think that, although they are undoubtedly very dedicated and professional at the running of space missions, the good people at ESA just Don't Get the importance of Outreach and of putting images out into the public domain. I know, old argument, zzzzzzzzzzzz, but... seriously... this is another gift horse they have here, and although they aren't kicking it in its mouth they are kind of leaving it to graze in a corner of the field on its own...

I'm sure the images will be worth the wait tho.

[Toma B]

Me 2 ...just impatient...
Don't you wanna see more images sooner rather than later? Do you like waiting?
I couldn't agree more with you Stu...

[OWW]

It's not that the released images are not satisfying, it's the FEAR that ESA won't release any more of those wonderful images. A very Real fear in my opinion, based on the press-release record of SMART1/Venus-Express. Because of this past, people are going to expect the worst.

Personally, the moment ESA didn't release the batch of images yesterday at 13:00 CET as PROMISED, I knew it was time to better get excited about the New Horizons Jupiter encounter, because waiting for ESA images is setting yourself up for disappointment.

This all has nothing to do with the Quality of the images though, they're fantastic.

[ugordan]

Not to be defending them or anything (their PR efforts sure could use a boost), but maybe the other data didn't turn out to be spectacular in terms of quality and an "oomph" factor. That's been known to happen (and not just to ESA). Say for crescent images -- the phase is so large you could have miscalculated the exposures and got anything from severely underexposed images to very overexposed and bland images. Scattered sunlight might have been a problem as well.
That still leaves a bunch of approach data an Phobos images waiting to be released.

If they don't release anything else today (and maybe tomorrow), then I'll start being disappointed. Right now, I'm only impatient.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Seriously, what does it take to satisfy some people?

More than 6 or 7 pictures? LOL Maybe that's all they ended up taking.

[ugordan]

I count eight (8) images that were all released on Sunday. Nine if you count that fudged red/green filter image. Sunday is usually a day off so, seriously, what'd you all expect?
Rosetta's got seven more years to travel till its destination and one day after a flyby you're impatient they didn't yet release all the imagery? Wow...

From several of the image descriptions:

Higher resolution images of Mars will be made available later.

[Stu]

Hey, good news! When I enquired in an email about when we might expect more pictures, Jean-Pierre Bibring, one of the team responsible for That Image, very kindly wrote me back:

As for your question, we are presently processing both the CIVA images asquired during the swing by, and spectral images acquiring from the orbiter (VIRTIS) and from Mars Express (OMEGA). This should lead to pictures in the coming day, possibly released via ESA.