[X] My Assistant

[Malmer]

All very true.  But the current shape may be just a first iteration, and might serve as a basis for more detailed mapping from stereo images later.  This current version may be done with off the shelf CAD-type software as well, for quick volume and other estimates.  Typically, the type of work you suggest would take longer.  And in the absence of major local concave areas there will be little difference in the end.  Personally, I would like to see a lat-long grid superimposed on the images soon.

Phil

You are right... I just thought that they had some fancy custom software written in advance just sitting there waiting to be fed with the data... Thats what I would have if it was my mission.

I guess its my background in 3d graphics that makes me think it is trivial to build stuff from pictures...

But I guess thats the kind of attitude you get from wasting 30000 hours of your life dabbling with 3d graphics.

or to quote a buddy from work:
"its just ones and zeroes, how hard could it be?"

Mattias

[Phil Stooke]

This article about Hayabusa on Sky & Telescope's website contains the best image I have yet seen of Itokawa:

http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1610_1.asp

(click on the image to see it at larger size)

Phil

[ljk4-1]

This article about Hayabusa on Sky & Telescope's website contains the best image I have yet seen of Itokawa:

http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1610_1.asp

(click on the image to see it at larger size)

Phil

To the forum: Going on the data we have at present, and with the space probe we have there now, where would you land on that space rock - and why?

[Phil Stooke]

First, I would land near one or the other of the poles, to minimize the lateral movement of the target under the descending spacecraft.

Then I would avoid major relief that might cause a problem - you don't want to land on an awkward slope or be right beside the edge of a big rock.

Last, I would try to land once in the smooth pond material and once in the rougher terrain. The particle size differences could be characterized, plus any other differences which might occur. There were slight spectral differences between pond and non-pond materials on Eros, for instance. If that's true here we would want samples of both.

That sequence of constraints, engineering, safety and science, is typical of site selection for Apollo and for Mars landers as well.

Phil

[djellison]

I cant wait for Minerva to get 'down amoung 'em charlie' on that lump - it's going to be...I hate to use the word...but.....cool

Doug

[dvandorn]

I cant wait for Minerva to get 'down amoung 'em charlie'  on that lump...

I agree -- though I can guarantee you that this "lump" does *not* have enough boulders on it to fill Galveston Bay.

-the other Doug

[Phil Stooke]

"I can guarantee you that this "lump" does *not* have enough boulders on it to fill Galveston Bay.

-the other Doug"


No, but maybe Clear Lake...

Phil

[Rakhir]

Another update but still no new image

http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/1014_itokawa.shtml

[Phil Stooke]

http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/1017_itokawa.shtml

latest update... no images but news of the IR instrument.

Phil

[Rakhir]

New update about altitude estimation using navigational camera.

http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/1021_itokawa.shtml

Rakhir

[Rakhir]

New Jaxa update : Animation of Itokawa's rotation

http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/1024.shtml

Rakhir

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Still not a crater to be seen anywhere on it -- although there's certainly plenty of regolith.

[antoniseb]

Still not a crater to be seen anywhere on it -- although there's certainly plenty of regolith.

I think I see a good sized crater 50-100 meters. On that little video, when the asteroid is oriented so the knobby end is to the right (about 3/4/ of the way through the clip), there is a dust-filled ellipse near the bottom, about a third of the way from the left side.

[Phil Stooke]

There aren't any crisply defined craters... at the resolutions we've seen so far. That might change during the descents to the surface. But I think the roughly circular patches with generally smoother centers we are seeing are indeed impact craters. They just become covered with rubble, which is probably mobilized on a regional or global scale by every impact. The shaking also would degrade topography, since the craters are being dug into rubble, not solid rock, even if the crater is not being draped with a fresh blanket of debris.

Phil

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Jeffrey Bell is asking me where the big crater that supposedly erased all the others with seismic shaking is, and he's got a point. This raises the other possibility pointed out by Erik Asphaug: that at some point, Itokawa made a fairly close apparoach to an inner planet and tidal forces spread the ejecta all over the rotating asteroid. (Given Itokawa's incredibly weak gravity, it need not have come very close to that planet.)