tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25509181451279802082024-03-02T01:50:48.657-06:00Dr. Schenk's 3D House of SatellitesPerspective Views and Topographic Mapping of Icy Moons and Dwarf Planets -
(with a nod to "SCTV")Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-91322777104669267892019-07-15T21:34:00.001-05:002019-07-15T21:34:31.512-05:00Apollo 11 in my Scrapbook<div style="text-align: justify;">
Every so often I remember the scrapbooks I filled with newspaper clipping from the Apollo missions, and the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 is certainly one such occasion. I was a lad of 10 and deeply immersed in the wonders of space, starting with Gemini. The daily newspapers, weekly news magazines (Time, Newsweek) and the 3 main networks were the only source of news, photos, stories, but at least they were reliable, unbiased and reasonably thorough. Our newspapers were the Buffalo Evening News and the Courier-Express. I started scrapbooking with Apollo 1, skipped 7 & 8 (why I don't know) and started again with 11. The run-up to launch features 2 weeks of general articles looking at the more philosophical or unusual aspects of the mission. I won't comment much on them except to suggest watching out for a few of the more interesting headlines in light of how much our knowledge has increased since then and how the past 50 years have transpired. Enjoy!</div>
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<br />Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-17350833040901144342017-08-20T17:06:00.003-05:002017-09-13T19:25:49.956-05:00Voyage with Voyager: Summer of '79<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><i>September 10: Made some much needed edits and posted a few new pictures.</i></span><br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><i>Two years since the last post here. Not that I didn't want to but it's been more than busy here and well one distraction follows another. I have some Pluto related materials to post but first this . . .</i></span><br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;">The Voyager launch 40-year anniversary triggered a search for and rediscovery of my olde photos from Voyager, reawakening dormant memories. It has also strengthened the realization of how intimately my own path has been linked to this grand adventure and to the completion of the Voyager legacy achieved by New Horizons at Pluto; certainly suitable for a new blog. Emily Lakdawala also asked recently if I could write a blog about Voyager and it made sense to merge the two ideas. What follows is a very personal story, not a rehash of the mission. I was not party to the development of or </span></i><i><span style="text-align: justify;">decision making events on</span></i><i><span style="text-align: justify;"> the Voyager project and my actual contribution was minuscule (putting it gently). Nonetheless, p</span><span style="text-align: justify;">articipation in Voyager as a young student was both enlightening and a personal high point that has been surpassed only once. The planetary phase of the mission (kind of a second Apollo) helped launch a few careers of its own over its 12 year duration, mine included. </span><span style="text-align: justify;">Maybe there are some lessons in this experience for aspiring young scientists and engineers out there . . .</span></i></div>
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<i><b>SUMMER OF 79</b></i><br />
It has been a most eventful past 2 years. The remarkable voyage to Pluto two summers ago was a trip to one of the loftiest summits imaginable and I am most grateful for that opportunity. My voyage to Pluto began 38 years ago this summer (if you don't count the first 20 years growing up in the 1960's Space Age collecting newspaper clippings and making plastic models). This is that story and how I got from there to here. </div>
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In the cold of February 1979, North American winters were really winters, the north polar ice cap was still formidable, Alaskan glaciers had not yet begun to melt, and our people believed real evidence when they saw it. I was a college student at SUNY College at Buffalo, New York. I was also a backyard astronomer with a standard 2-1/4 inch refractor; and many a cold night were spent on a cold chair with snow crunched beneath my boots.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>We didn't know much about the Outer Solar System in 1978.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Then, t</span>he moons of Jupiter were dusky points of light. No-one knew what they might be like, as this early Voyager diagram shows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This, and my future with it, were about to
change radically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was in those days
what would be called a space groupie, or perhaps fan-boy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I built all the plastic Revell models of Gemini, Apollo and Saturn V rockets, and collected scrap
books full of newspaper clipping of daily reports of our national
space program, dating back to Apollo 1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes indeed,
in those days we got much of our news and information from newspapers, sheets of paper with type on them that were delivered to your door!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No internet and the none of the propaganda that now plagues it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Several pages of this scrapbook were devoted
to planetary exploration, including Mariner 9 and Viking at Mars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One page of clippings was reserved to Voyager,
a mission to Jupiter and Saturn started in 1972.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The vast icy mysterious uncharted realm of the giant planets had began to capture my imagination. Lesson 1: follow your passions!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7qgbuDbnkbnzNjdwzYT2njiaslwxABoLu8zv677DuC8XxFGiH5_E5plY8suPoCvc051Di2x0Hvo2kk9DB1_nvpsuoFbsF2jZh2GQtaGddx7-KnzY8Y-PY6gzBoqcyvTHBHE80aC8rlRrF/s1600/intern-1-news.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1329" data-original-width="1600" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7qgbuDbnkbnzNjdwzYT2njiaslwxABoLu8zv677DuC8XxFGiH5_E5plY8suPoCvc051Di2x0Hvo2kk9DB1_nvpsuoFbsF2jZh2GQtaGddx7-KnzY8Y-PY6gzBoqcyvTHBHE80aC8rlRrF/s400/intern-1-news.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSgMWWKCHhFYzXCogDnuVATebufVT6wvkY0z3MolecNzIWFhhT_tSxlX4W6YEl_yuMjxPzwtBY82KVT4ZRku3K4tahw2pCnnlDxuEhb_BSFk8EiaMLEw4O__OGnYIUKZHKKrkgSuN7CQop/s1600/intern-2-news.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="707" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSgMWWKCHhFYzXCogDnuVATebufVT6wvkY0z3MolecNzIWFhhT_tSxlX4W6YEl_yuMjxPzwtBY82KVT4ZRku3K4tahw2pCnnlDxuEhb_BSFk8EiaMLEw4O__OGnYIUKZHKKrkgSuN7CQop/s400/intern-2-news.JPG" width="175" /></a> </div>
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I was a bicentennial high school graduate but did not believe I could handle science. By late 1978, having flunked out of our Fine Arts program, I had discovered geology, and it was fascinating, soaking it up like a sponge. I was blessed by the guidance and mentorship of Dr. Carl Seyfert, author of the text book "Earth History and Plate Tectonics" and whose father discovered Seyfert galaxies. Carl had that ‘fire in the belly,’ that genuine enthusiasm for science, logic and curiosity that a young undergraduate was so easily infected with. In Autumn of 1978 a flyer was posted on the department bulletin board announcing a national Summer Intern Program in planetary sciences. It didn’t take a genius to figure who in the department was going to apply.</div>
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<i><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Probably the only photo I have of Dr. Carl Seyfert, my undergraduate advisor, </span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">who understood the importance of mentoring and how to feed a young student's enthusiasm and keep him on </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">track.</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Letter</i></td></tr>
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On 27 February, 1979, a letter arrived with an invitation to go to JPL in Pasadena in July of that
year as a Summer Intern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was much rejoicing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Truth is I don’t really recall much of that
day except that it was so cool to be selected that I kept the letter and its envelope. I showed Carl and he was very pleased. I wanted to go immediately and was a little disappointed I could go to the first big Voyager event. Voyager 1 was barely a week out from Jupiter
and the great discoveries of volcanoes on Io and fractured terrains of Ganymede
were very soon to enter my scrapbook. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>more from the scrapbook</i></td></tr>
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This would also be my first adventure outside the western New York – Pennsylvania region I had grown up in. I arrived at LAX in July '79 a rather naive young man after his first solo flight who promptly spent most of his pocket money on a cab ride to Pasadena. Ouch. Despite that, my continued fondness for Pasadena, a charming suburb of LA spread out beneath the San Gabriel Mountains, dates back to this special summer.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Departure from Buffalo. Mom is on the right. They could all walk up to the gate back then.<br />Lesson 2: Never stand in front of a large window for a portrait.</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd4qwc76E9jCWVRpWQUwAomRwI-NtxLBpOFBA8R9p4bz_iHySu33-jcxbdYuAGa30Fg48CZybnapKMuG4HqR-h1BUY6nG72EdsuwttCkYdAVitosEISqgl4RT8w0rFLLm9uVpiLCEVngLU/s1600/intern-8-flt.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1572" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd4qwc76E9jCWVRpWQUwAomRwI-NtxLBpOFBA8R9p4bz_iHySu33-jcxbdYuAGa30Fg48CZybnapKMuG4HqR-h1BUY6nG72EdsuwttCkYdAVitosEISqgl4RT8w0rFLLm9uVpiLCEVngLU/s320/intern-8-flt.jpg" width="314" /></a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO-1c5gLuRtBCOitxYjlnp_cRuk1y0q5dFY30Xbgwqt-h72nroZtxTrDnVzfJj9VsWzyOGfvJFuygY4Q9sqv1jy_laED_V3TFI91SbyKDntr4DRKig44YIy8uJD7dJcr4ad81UUfu5i_kb/s1600/intern-9-flt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1586" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO-1c5gLuRtBCOitxYjlnp_cRuk1y0q5dFY30Xbgwqt-h72nroZtxTrDnVzfJj9VsWzyOGfvJFuygY4Q9sqv1jy_laED_V3TFI91SbyKDntr4DRKig44YIy8uJD7dJcr4ad81UUfu5i_kb/s320/intern-9-flt.jpg" width="317" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Flight over Utah and on into Southern California. </i><br />
<i><br />The colors on these photos have all faded a lot and the negatives are missing, but Ive done my best to do some color restoration on them.</i></td></tr>
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Us three Voyager interns all arrived around July 5 with less than one week before the second Voyager encounter with Jupiter. Later I would learn that Voyager did not have many interns and we were quite fortunate to participate in these unforgettable events. We were instructed to go direct to Caltech student housing as we were going to be staying in undergrad dorms. Ricketts House was ours. Most students had left for the summer. I still remember exploring its hallways, sitting rooms, and pinball parlor. I remember exploring the campus library to read old documents. While the halls and courtyards have not changed, some things have. The campus cafeterias are completely unrecognizable as is the 21st century cuisine, no longer the old 1979 fare. I was introduced to home-made tacos here, and often used the outdoor Caltech pool across California Ave., now being remodeled I think. I also remember waking one morning to what sounded like cannon fire only to find that a 20' long steel tube had been erected in the courtyard outside my window and students were firing tennis balls into the surrounding neighborhood with it. Engineering students probably.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNyR3ElM0HSANlq8uBcxBIrWzPLLW6iIAasY2EROl8XMqzj-easdGSUEgW5hFM_Nn4EBbbP0UPSisoQyt2w5hB6P9Zj6yXbvJ0njbC6iEL0qIBXHtm6rfQ562HR7bvPEgXfEuVguLTvhf7/s1600/intern-11-caltech.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="1091" data-original-width="1600" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNyR3ElM0HSANlq8uBcxBIrWzPLLW6iIAasY2EROl8XMqzj-easdGSUEgW5hFM_Nn4EBbbP0UPSisoQyt2w5hB6P9Zj6yXbvJ0njbC6iEL0qIBXHtm6rfQ562HR7bvPEgXfEuVguLTvhf7/s320/intern-11-caltech.jpg" width="320" /></i></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Courtyards and rooftop at Ricketts House, Caltech, home for the Summer of 79.</i></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyVTQDWFJBblOZ9BceBbPNozJhgfZ6N9_8hUqK6Ykxdd81R4hStU4h_YtSkMvQ60uwnc9AwJD_6QQM1SPjdW0wWixNpndYcyg_W_bdBeGB46g8Rser3yL3FBCQFbBm2eI28b2mVI4hq2y7/s1600/intern-17-jplvan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1579" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyVTQDWFJBblOZ9BceBbPNozJhgfZ6N9_8hUqK6Ykxdd81R4hStU4h_YtSkMvQ60uwnc9AwJD_6QQM1SPjdW0wWixNpndYcyg_W_bdBeGB46g8Rser3yL3FBCQFbBm2eI28b2mVI4hq2y7/s320/intern-17-jplvan.jpg" width="315" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The daily 9-passenger shuttle van from Caltech to JPL.</i></span></span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnuiNG1Ar42o9yeZONkic6VpfylDwaUTYXbmpHWefXreOqNLucXqG_mpgzeVfA7D7z7mWabLQC__wSeIsZCEKlTUlSBCHHDsvAhRybKx53HHs709U8wtKfS-F1-QIWpPkzkKcJ09apZ7MQ/s1600/badges-vgr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1187" data-original-width="1600" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnuiNG1Ar42o9yeZONkic6VpfylDwaUTYXbmpHWefXreOqNLucXqG_mpgzeVfA7D7z7mWabLQC__wSeIsZCEKlTUlSBCHHDsvAhRybKx53HHs709U8wtKfS-F1-QIWpPkzkKcJ09apZ7MQ/s320/badges-vgr.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>My Voyager badges. Intern badge is at left. More badges would follow including a very important one in 2015 but these are the most valuable in the collection.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDxeVoXrc-AW0dDBAYsep9Av2IsCUkVzTjsFXxi4fy1PfBV90UkJ2dtCLibqwGAg1HS9GVwd9U3nzGOBwK860sR43SxO8p6hii_B3QDI8MXaP9BBGKVbmZl9PocqYDgNAqeGMdecxXyW1_/s1600/intern-12-jpl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1571" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDxeVoXrc-AW0dDBAYsep9Av2IsCUkVzTjsFXxi4fy1PfBV90UkJ2dtCLibqwGAg1HS9GVwd9U3nzGOBwK860sR43SxO8p6hii_B3QDI8MXaP9BBGKVbmZl9PocqYDgNAqeGMdecxXyW1_/s320/intern-12-jpl.jpg" width="314" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The JPL entrance in those days.</i></td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Voyager was in fact a sort of Frankenstein mission, reassembled
from the dead remains of a much grander concept, appropriately named the Grand
Tour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Grand Tour was conceived in 1966 as a 4 probe mission to the 4 gas giant planets plus Pluto, all in one "shot." The 2 Voyagers would instead visit Jupiter and Saturn and if lucky one would go on to Uranus and Neptune. Pluto was left in the cold. For now. In 1979, Voyagers adventure was just beginning and no-one was talking about Pluto, yet.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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I was assigned to the Science Investigation Support Team (SIST), which was tasked with implementing the designed for the various observation plans of the 11 or so Voyager Science Teams. I was NOT going to be assigned to the imaging (or any other)
science team, as the Viking interns had been back during the Mars landings in
1976. But I didn’t care a whit; I was in the center of things, part of the great adventure, barely 20 years old, naive and eager. <br />
<br />
Our first day at JPL was to get badged and introduced. I was assigned to work with Dr. Ellis
Miner, one of the nicest and smartest individuals I've ever worked with. He was in charge of planning for the Saturn encounters in late 1980 and 1981 (Saturn had not been visited by any spacecraft at this point). His assistant was Jude Montalbano
(now Diner) and they would be my mentors during the Summer of '79. I would get to know many on the Voyager SIST team,
including the coordinator for the Infrared Investigation Science (or IRIS) team, Linda Horn (now Spilker). Linda is now the Project Scientist for the Cassini orbiter mission at Saturn!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiFhzMzOLQGHch7kovmJtoNyXXDZDuC8kH49A58AZqoonpH3Ve_WDSiEB8DYvQUNlvwap6ldF3lQSJI3uePUj6n8xDVFaTCDk3u7WREsuPpXvokNBoiiUlnSXEGa1BNGYJkh6z_S5pOPfN/s1600/intern-14-jpl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1565" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiFhzMzOLQGHch7kovmJtoNyXXDZDuC8kH49A58AZqoonpH3Ve_WDSiEB8DYvQUNlvwap6ldF3lQSJI3uePUj6n8xDVFaTCDk3u7WREsuPpXvokNBoiiUlnSXEGa1BNGYJkh6z_S5pOPfN/s320/intern-14-jpl.jpg" width="312" /></i></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Building 264, where Voyager occupy several floors. Ours was floor 3.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW47mPNXgo7c-yurC5yb4P72FjoRSYUFKq-SqFj-Ml0C7-TTT5JPwyY9-741yU5qdMnAVHANpBUGw8Un_px6vwxf3TCTMZvc8VqSfKRf1qn-dqum8_ICRJqOBlfvyFCewQCH3R0SaaE_i_/s1600/intern-15-jpl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1571" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW47mPNXgo7c-yurC5yb4P72FjoRSYUFKq-SqFj-Ml0C7-TTT5JPwyY9-741yU5qdMnAVHANpBUGw8Un_px6vwxf3TCTMZvc8VqSfKRf1qn-dqum8_ICRJqOBlfvyFCewQCH3R0SaaE_i_/s320/intern-15-jpl.jpg" width="314" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>My desk space, I think. Not sure why I would photograph it if it wasn't. The TV monitors were ubiquitous at JPL and allowed us to view all the Jupiter images as they came down.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_lHYvCVqNpYmiJhKZWp19pXkhwfYFQ7v28yuGKbg8dR1nkYN4IsAfmcU3Vt9RsDbJPfBMY1ZhaccFPZ7tUTiJweROOfZBfyfjcYGHVyaxRjcP1tWtHvw0MJwhvYSGENG58pekU521EdiD/s1600/intern-18-jpl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="828" data-original-width="1600" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_lHYvCVqNpYmiJhKZWp19pXkhwfYFQ7v28yuGKbg8dR1nkYN4IsAfmcU3Vt9RsDbJPfBMY1ZhaccFPZ7tUTiJweROOfZBfyfjcYGHVyaxRjcP1tWtHvw0MJwhvYSGENG58pekU521EdiD/s320/intern-18-jpl.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Jude Montalbano, one of my advisors the Summer of '79.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="border: none; font-family: "times new roman";"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi85csZAPKRHiA8XDc6raEntX91Vs23ftAXEemubwvMsYkFgLmjyYJoJC3n0sDSdIm7SlGluCXryM1TkwHRwc6sSARAQ7SQdGyOpFbpOH_u3SvDzoEqmQY-frtf65XJey4DsTf76SxzfBpe/s1600/intern-19-jpl-map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1075" data-original-width="1052" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi85csZAPKRHiA8XDc6raEntX91Vs23ftAXEemubwvMsYkFgLmjyYJoJC3n0sDSdIm7SlGluCXryM1TkwHRwc6sSARAQ7SQdGyOpFbpOH_u3SvDzoEqmQY-frtf65XJey4DsTf76SxzfBpe/s320/intern-19-jpl-map.jpg" width="313" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">The JPL entrance Mall featured this giant trajectory map, showing the locations of the two Voyagers in late Summer 1979. A similar board is there now and it is a lot busier with many active missions displayed.</i></td></tr>
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<!--StartFragment--><span style="border: none; font-family: "times new roman";">So what does a 20 year old
undergraduate student with no experience do when they join a major space mission about to reach its first main objective? He gets to know the
copy machine very well. In essence I
was put to work as a “gopher,” a contraction of “can you GO-FOR this or can you GO-FOR
that?” I</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">n those days a lot of work was done on paper and large print-outs, especially for quick-look analysis of instrument performance and transmittal of information between project sections. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I loved it. Every minute was an exposure to something
new and I got to see how how projects like Voyager actually
worked, behind the press conferences. I also got to see new data as it arrived; we all got to see the images live as they were received and displayed on the TV monitors stationed around the lab. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0jh9vjPyruZrnPNWbjlTjJIhVr6Es1beo8SLLayDh7MPhfCy7AqXWwYFMuVT5DSETUg3ADM9x8NdeXycHDVK1AYVnQNKcx2WE9akUzMmupr008vTHkxpRKw1rITbT-SCc6dJuIpexj7j5/s1600/intern-28-LaBrea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1100" data-original-width="1600" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0jh9vjPyruZrnPNWbjlTjJIhVr6Es1beo8SLLayDh7MPhfCy7AqXWwYFMuVT5DSETUg3ADM9x8NdeXycHDVK1AYVnQNKcx2WE9akUzMmupr008vTHkxpRKw1rITbT-SCc6dJuIpexj7j5/s320/intern-28-LaBrea.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">La Brea Tar Pit</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnssO44kZBLEh58IfXiMM_4cZtw2GjivnDlApZ-yTxWHbs_MiBFlUdeelgu4d3U0h0pSg99hsW9ZGLsS69oZVgFyJeGsEa4KyPUnLDt3ILghjunnhP0ElrKwlHOb5nwiYxZevV3IzcjnBc/s1600/intern-22-caltech.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="1579" data-original-width="1600" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnssO44kZBLEh58IfXiMM_4cZtw2GjivnDlApZ-yTxWHbs_MiBFlUdeelgu4d3U0h0pSg99hsW9ZGLsS69oZVgFyJeGsEa4KyPUnLDt3ILghjunnhP0ElrKwlHOb5nwiYxZevV3IzcjnBc/s320/intern-22-caltech.jpg" width="320" /></i></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Tree-lined streets on the Caltech campus. Not like Buffalo . . . </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It wasn't all work. After the main Jupiter encounter phase had ended us student types could afford to take some weekends off and explore the region. Day trips included mineral collecting in the Mojave and near Palomar (I still have most of those specimens including ulexite and tourmaline), the beach, LA's famous amusement parks, a few concerts, even a day trip to San Francisco on my own. Most of the time we ate on campus or went into town along Lake Ave. for eats and stuff. Olde Town Pasadena was a run-down area and its restoration had not yet started.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsbnWs7jxVknzqzFUQO7T8REa154oEDPWtcywaELDr6IEMnYqF3_n_6hwQory0qrAUZS-wG0w-XMh_ANGwoIicWlAXyQLIIRArTGi4FeP5iRUiURajekx-fblZsVEx6OCOC9IHRYK_4r33/s1600/intern-27-LA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1077" data-original-width="1600" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsbnWs7jxVknzqzFUQO7T8REa154oEDPWtcywaELDr6IEMnYqF3_n_6hwQory0qrAUZS-wG0w-XMh_ANGwoIicWlAXyQLIIRArTGi4FeP5iRUiURajekx-fblZsVEx6OCOC9IHRYK_4r33/s320/intern-27-LA.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>LA skyline in 1979. It's changed, just a wee bit.</i> </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJoGGGD4Cm96GCRecEi2LhKWhh0qQxzSRZwR5Grunxr1PCmN0qIzGOHJCYzF2w3a2sxRZ6fyLvjXrU05XxjZaf-e3UtvQMBi3uf2wuXwdZ9uh0waXtuzSJEYvSUZzzJlR6ksgT6ooPaXz/s1600/intern-30-griffith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1591" data-original-width="1600" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJoGGGD4Cm96GCRecEi2LhKWhh0qQxzSRZwR5Grunxr1PCmN0qIzGOHJCYzF2w3a2sxRZ6fyLvjXrU05XxjZaf-e3UtvQMBi3uf2wuXwdZ9uh0waXtuzSJEYvSUZzzJlR6ksgT6ooPaXz/s320/intern-30-griffith.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>To Griffith Park Observatory, fast as lightning!</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVPUHonGI3_zYTC8nvRViQopKbOa3qoz37PA5ZQW2sKKMgyuSqgPHhBlBDPT4a4Y8Tk9pNQoTCvwnygNKyiCbSKWUWbCBKaOrB2_9PyXE9IliLAGefcPigu3fRnc8nqyB6oZklu-5lF1P/s1600/intern-31-bowl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1087" data-original-width="1600" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVPUHonGI3_zYTC8nvRViQopKbOa3qoz37PA5ZQW2sKKMgyuSqgPHhBlBDPT4a4Y8Tk9pNQoTCvwnygNKyiCbSKWUWbCBKaOrB2_9PyXE9IliLAGefcPigu3fRnc8nqyB6oZklu-5lF1P/s320/intern-31-bowl.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Hollywood Bowl, just before Bugs Bunny got to it I assume.</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgDsnXuQ-4IZJhd4h_Y2reC22g3M1S3sB9UpDhTcxAIf-hsdX8ioYAaEPq6LfQ6MhS19l05QXZQpIouFEfrsDZHHJObCHgyiUb4EsL-NV3zybGTsGomV4Z23FcISWrUdRUNj9eOK8HOvpk/s1600/intern-32-mojave-min.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1579" data-original-width="1600" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgDsnXuQ-4IZJhd4h_Y2reC22g3M1S3sB9UpDhTcxAIf-hsdX8ioYAaEPq6LfQ6MhS19l05QXZQpIouFEfrsDZHHJObCHgyiUb4EsL-NV3zybGTsGomV4Z23FcISWrUdRUNj9eOK8HOvpk/s320/intern-32-mojave-min.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mineral hunting in the Mojave. I still have those minerals, including a sample of ulexite (aka TV-stone).</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqD1c6D8wAV7Ko5jI-bTOH2QXig2zNhGmhb1GIfaL0QBwxpqibWufyosJBRaw9EBz7Exx93KKov39VP9PGSeyKg-VAJTCqLmUj3YxYxIFoqPmOMb_bYsy_EMA93hlMyCqdcw4wVNpesaGT/s1600/intern-33-mojave-coyote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="815" data-original-width="1600" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqD1c6D8wAV7Ko5jI-bTOH2QXig2zNhGmhb1GIfaL0QBwxpqibWufyosJBRaw9EBz7Exx93KKov39VP9PGSeyKg-VAJTCqLmUj3YxYxIFoqPmOMb_bYsy_EMA93hlMyCqdcw4wVNpesaGT/s400/intern-33-mojave-coyote.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Driving back through the Mojave Desert near Coyote Dry Lake.</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Point Mugu beach</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgECgAUw_sGK3niLtt8xTg5uBaqNX9uGcUsqiUDeM38VK8zY_fADxih-FvaW4DE7qz-1sCaqcHA3xK9P0HpSw-I0nn4cRXVdTfEPWLlapF_wonja_wsDbzuQ356Z5ufLc4o6AZ5X-99Qq8-/s1600/intern-40-sf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="1198" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgECgAUw_sGK3niLtt8xTg5uBaqNX9uGcUsqiUDeM38VK8zY_fADxih-FvaW4DE7qz-1sCaqcHA3xK9P0HpSw-I0nn4cRXVdTfEPWLlapF_wonja_wsDbzuQ356Z5ufLc4o6AZ5X-99Qq8-/s320/intern-40-sf.jpg" width="320" /></i></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Day trip to San Francisco. Cable Cars!</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGIdU0n5eeTCyyB-1EKSKZTwoHlaO4tSUlgih-kFAQsgQ2q9ZS_a73-JdCGQL3EHMO6y2JsYJsM263odo0QxMdepPCfdJMDGQWPC1HGR9uejZ3CEGuUhkgnljVd1YjDcIYUeRXI1NFFydR/s1600/intern-42-dis2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="815" data-original-width="1600" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGIdU0n5eeTCyyB-1EKSKZTwoHlaO4tSUlgih-kFAQsgQ2q9ZS_a73-JdCGQL3EHMO6y2JsYJsM263odo0QxMdepPCfdJMDGQWPC1HGR9uejZ3CEGuUhkgnljVd1YjDcIYUeRXI1NFFydR/s320/intern-42-dis2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYxFE2neVNK7noyzpPDlZlmKy3vFntKfmqYH37a0A6Dwc3XbJ0sM8OvbbSnSgfxjts9Ocnd_YldUHWb0pZrtleX0yPMdIUoiV6G8bizFXFHx0-cTK9jp-bs08Je8QfvkXxHOffUMxM7dQT/s1600/intern-42-dis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1590" data-original-width="1600" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYxFE2neVNK7noyzpPDlZlmKy3vFntKfmqYH37a0A6Dwc3XbJ0sM8OvbbSnSgfxjts9Ocnd_YldUHWb0pZrtleX0yPMdIUoiV6G8bizFXFHx0-cTK9jp-bs08Je8QfvkXxHOffUMxM7dQT/s320/intern-42-dis.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWrLW6YsfWjii0Y2qmlzY_M9F695D6iUExtrQCv7qngvbY5OOEyxeyPi1_mOaiFwKtRLOPxSJUyzxeI6gH3EbOWNWooQVo1FrJQy0mJMQVsUKRTkmui490IvwB65ZKPUVuv2aeDxrtH_Es/s1600/intern-42-kbf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWrLW6YsfWjii0Y2qmlzY_M9F695D6iUExtrQCv7qngvbY5OOEyxeyPi1_mOaiFwKtRLOPxSJUyzxeI6gH3EbOWNWooQVo1FrJQy0mJMQVsUKRTkmui490IvwB65ZKPUVuv2aeDxrtH_Es/s320/intern-42-kbf.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNSJPGJCufXfD15mTpkVYPI7NLSThS4zKr8rKprDiCpUATg7-xUrTNux5oHRdyqXGQJwIC6reiZBcb7hhkjPZm50lN2Xazr2xgJde55PVPJwn_ytQ60eZ0LjIy1IzlLNzTi8qdpcVWqBJ1/s1600/intern-42-mm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="801" data-original-width="1600" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNSJPGJCufXfD15mTpkVYPI7NLSThS4zKr8rKprDiCpUATg7-xUrTNux5oHRdyqXGQJwIC6reiZBcb7hhkjPZm50lN2Xazr2xgJde55PVPJwn_ytQ60eZ0LjIy1IzlLNzTi8qdpcVWqBJ1/s320/intern-42-mm.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>What summer in LA would be complete without trips to Disneyland, Magic Mountain and Knotts Berry Farm!</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJseWlUBTxImOZnIzPqVB0-Db8rEqosW0wpMUHiwIEl-JClxbFgU6UYO3chzutY3hVySRTDt3zi2GE3Bpir80crkqTedvHdhidDTrcYUMIZKEMNAhQclSjsufkU2ylo4_ohKlUohCT0s8-/s1600/intern-44-caltech.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1564" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJseWlUBTxImOZnIzPqVB0-Db8rEqosW0wpMUHiwIEl-JClxbFgU6UYO3chzutY3hVySRTDt3zi2GE3Bpir80crkqTedvHdhidDTrcYUMIZKEMNAhQclSjsufkU2ylo4_ohKlUohCT0s8-/s320/intern-44-caltech.jpg" width="312" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>My companion interns of 1979 posing on the Caltech lawn, next to our dorm. </i><br />
<i>Sadly, I never kept up with them and don't know what they are up to.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHH0PEUdiKEvsdK7MBC4JTyh2Nrb4dBUFuOVo9GwBSy_ftQ9cQXUzPv5-nnICaBEF7gJFZNenLDgOGQ9Pnj-xQQzDHSB7Xar8C76meVYn6KkrpuSpVIT-FZJnpFfCqzKbikD9_QC3Xst-b/s1600/PS_intern.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="339" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHH0PEUdiKEvsdK7MBC4JTyh2Nrb4dBUFuOVo9GwBSy_ftQ9cQXUzPv5-nnICaBEF7gJFZNenLDgOGQ9Pnj-xQQzDHSB7Xar8C76meVYn6KkrpuSpVIT-FZJnpFfCqzKbikD9_QC3Xst-b/s320/PS_intern.jpg" width="302" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>One of only two selfies during my Voyager internship, taken during a daily science briefing. I don't know who took it tho. <br />That is Dr. Ed Stone, Voyager Project Scientist in the center, me behind him on the left listening in.</i></td></tr>
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The gopher type of work continued for a few weeks until the
critical activity of Jupiter encounter receded.
Then we began work on my task for the rest of the Summer. I was going to make maps of the major
Saturnian moons, in this case to map out where the images planned for these as
yet uncharted moons were going to line up on the surface. The goal was to make sure all longitudes were
covered and that there were no gaps in the planned coverage that would need to
be fixed. After all, there were no plans
to return to Saturn at that point and Voyager was it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1979 Macintosh computers did not yet exist
and computer time was expensive and needed for key tasks. How were these maps to be made? Out came the graph paper, rulers and
protractors. We did not need precision
maps, just simple maps that showed the coverage areas so the plan could be updated to fix any gaps. Taking advantage of simple
concepts such as emission and incidence angles, I was able to map out where the less shadowed and the more shadowed areas of each image would plot on the global map; and the shadowy areas would have the best feature definition.
As it happens, these maps were good approximations of the maps
Voyager would ultimately acquire. Not
bad for protractor and graph paper. <br />
<br />
I learned some simple but basic truths about mapping that summer, tho my interest in maps had always been there. I had no idea in 1979 that I would eventually be making the real global maps of these moons years later with the actual data from Voyager and the as yet unconceived Cassini mission, which ends in September 2017.</div>
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That spring and summer of '79 was the central foundation of all that followed, revealing the outrageous diversity and complexity of physical, chemical and geologic processes going on in the Outer Solar System. Voyager at Jupiter overturned all our expectations about icy moons being cold relicts of ancient times (remember the first chart at top?). At each of the planetary systems that Voyager explored new things were discovered and yet more wonders of nature unraveled. From the rings of Saturn to the storms of Neptune we were amazed. We were not prepared and Voyager at Jupiter was the key to opening up our imagination. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeDf9E_RHFyACCbKPXoVoH7MlxGkaoxBL3kBdwz8NuwchXv-WtamIp5HlGdq5zjIr6BtOyfYlpy0khzOyHRbyHIqb8desXhmzjSKxaiTwC2qnJrLXnmQWDb6zcITsRPsnUytkJ4lf2MRtT/s1600/intern-46-award.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="1225" data-original-width="1600" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeDf9E_RHFyACCbKPXoVoH7MlxGkaoxBL3kBdwz8NuwchXv-WtamIp5HlGdq5zjIr6BtOyfYlpy0khzOyHRbyHIqb8desXhmzjSKxaiTwC2qnJrLXnmQWDb6zcITsRPsnUytkJ4lf2MRtT/s320/intern-46-award.JPG" width="320" /></i></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>It's a major award!</i></td></tr>
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That spring and summer of '79 was also my foundation, the beginning of a own long and winding road that led to Pluto and hopefully beyond. I had no idea as I opened that letter what path lay in
front of me; there would be many odd detours, wrong turns that became right
turns, and even a little bit of good luck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only
the Pluto Summer of ’15 could match the excitement and wonder of that Jupiter Summer, but at the same time there was the very real sense that I was were I was supposed to be, and that I had been in training for the mapping of Pluto for almost 40 years. That summer remains fixed in my memory as a grand event and the start of it all.</div>
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None of this happened by accident. Alan Stern tells the story how at the time of Voyager's last encounter, with Neptune in 1989, a small group of scientists and engineers got together with the determination to finish the Voyager/Grand Tour plan and get to Pluto (still the only other object beyond Neptune known). Only 12 years later, the New Horizons team and project had been selected, and I played a modest though useful role in that birth. Years later at encounter I was on board as Pluto mapper and I think it is fair to say that there was the very real sense that we were all indeed finally completing the original Grand Tour design by completing the first exploration of Pluto. </div>
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Similarly, when I was a graduate student I could envision no other job than to map and understand the icy moons that orbit the giant planets. There were many obstacles and many opportunities, none of which could have been taken advantage of without the resolution to make it happen. Determination does mean much without the stuff to back it up and that means doing the best possible work; making yourself indispensable. Sometimes a little help is useful too. I was blessed with two great advisors during my college days, as well as working with Ellis and Jude on Voyager. While I have certainly published a fair number of papers and discoveries, it was those skills in map making, initiated as a Voyager intern, honed through practice and experimentation, and built on the shoulders of giants (Alfred McEwen comes to mind) that made it possible to work on New Horizons and create those beautiful mosaics of Pluto and Charon, the most distant objects ever mapped. Thank you NASA! </div>
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There are other memories of the Summer of 1979 worth noting. Each new image from Voyager was flashed up on small black and white TVs scattered across the Lab, and it was amazing to follow the
encounter as Jupiter loomed larger on our monitors with each passing day. It is difficult to imagine a better time to
be involved in exploration. I remember vividly when the first high-resolution images of
Europa appeared on our monitors. Voyager 1 had not seen Europa well so this time Europa was the big new story. We were
in a small staff meeting of about 5 or 6 people, and the images were due
sometime around noon if I recall correctly. We all looked up at the appointed time and there was this strange looking sphere with all sorts of crazy lines on it. They were not the best images that the Voyagers obtained at Jupiter in
terms of resolution, but they were some of the most important. The images showed about 25% of Europa and
revealed an alien landscape that looked like a cross between a cracked Easter
egg and a Jackson Pollock painting. There was no time that day to realize that this image was going to figure prominently in future exploration developments.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI7ylp5UVvak2qBOS3no4o0ctzkHVuing-iZyoAuS_LmyOV0iDwqGqSRCU57x7h_UU0uj7jzjXZioMAXOMtP3RelyiiTeguc14UQi3hDBK9wuX_lKb2J3ZNd_V37kzIGoXWJuqzWqsmFEw/s1600/intern-47a-euro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI7ylp5UVvak2qBOS3no4o0ctzkHVuing-iZyoAuS_LmyOV0iDwqGqSRCU57x7h_UU0uj7jzjXZioMAXOMtP3RelyiiTeguc14UQi3hDBK9wuX_lKb2J3ZNd_V37kzIGoXWJuqzWqsmFEw/s320/intern-47a-euro.jpg" width="249" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The color version of a part of the only high resolution mosaic obtained of Europa by Voyager. At a resolution of only 2 km, it was the worst of any of the 4 large moons, but it was among the most dramatic.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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When I returned to Buffalo, Carl and I talked about the summer and being on the Voyager project. I gave a lecture for the department on the experience. I also had the enthusiastic support of Professors Jim Orgren and John Mack. Carl and Jim are gone now and while I was a frequent return visitor and was always happy to meet with my old professors when I visited Buffalo, these visits stopped around 2002 and I haven't seen them since. It is always good to keep in touch with those who have helped you on your way. </div>
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Probably the most important chat I had with him was sometime in October that year. Carl and I were looking at the color view of Europa above up on the projector screen in the geology classroom. At first glance the pattern looks hopeless. Myriad crossing lines with no seeming sense or pattern. During this chat I noticed a peculiar pattern in one area of "wedge-shaped bands." There were a set of "piercing points," a structural term to refer to older features broken when a lateral fault in the crust displaces the crust either side of the fault. Lateral movement was something only known on Earth and indicated the icy shell of Europa was moving around. We both understood intuitively what this meant.<br />
<br />
We called it "plate tectonics," for which we caught some flak (!), and indeed it would prove to be a Europan version of the dynamic convective process we see on Earth causing earthquakes and volcanic chains. I confess that Carl, an expert of sorts on the then relatively new field of terrestrial plate tectonics, understood more of what the geophysical implications were for the interior, me being a mere student, but it was clear to him that this was important enough to present to our colleagues and I gave my first presentation at a science conference at AGU in Toronto (a two-hour drive) the following May.</div>
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The rest of this story is more complicated and worth its own blog. It took 9 years to get that article published (Icarus, 1979) and in that time I learned more of my craft, finishing graduate school at Washington University in Saint Louis, where I met professor Bill McKinnon, to whom I owe everything else; but more on that later.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix5eMoqtXxu7TRu3cbB7UlHK-x-TIw9l0SBKFlt23NAmH8I5Xk66c7S_oFdnKjNfsLlvD-hTFrqQOwje59jjSovm1LDP56wswUBDlLVnnKue12zAKi6JnThpxjXh-f43VHfmP4yEEoCPdg/s1600/intern-47b-euro.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="831" data-original-width="1600" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix5eMoqtXxu7TRu3cbB7UlHK-x-TIw9l0SBKFlt23NAmH8I5Xk66c7S_oFdnKjNfsLlvD-hTFrqQOwje59jjSovm1LDP56wswUBDlLVnnKue12zAKi6JnThpxjXh-f43VHfmP4yEEoCPdg/s320/intern-47b-euro.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The structural diagram showing plate motions on Europa, before and after, <br />derived from the color image shown above. </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i><b>CODA</b></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Two years after my first Voyager Summer, I was invited back to be part of the Voyager 2 encounter with Saturn in the summer of 1981.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I was now a graduate student at Northern Illinois University.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I don’t remember much about that summer, except of course Saturn, looming larger in our monitors each day.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I was working for Linda Horn (now Spilker) on the Voyager IRIS infrared detector; and it pleases me no end to see </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">35 years later </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Linda</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">serve as Project Scientist (kinda the boss) of the Cassini project now orbiting the ringed planet!</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The big day in 1981 was August 25, with our best moons and rings images, and the pass behind Saturn and through the ring plane.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> If successful the first ever visit to planet Uranus would be a go. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">This was scheduled right near midnight local time; as was my habit I stayed up late on lab to experience the event.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The </span>time arrived for the lock onto signal, but within minutes people were saying there was a problem. The signal arrived on time but the telemetry revealed that several things were not as they should be. Not only was the scan platform fouled up, unable to point its cameras at Saturn, but the hoped-for Uranus encounter 3 years later was now at risk. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo0HdfkOMCqLqICBxhAub1ee3vOhuvsKgYa1pQaYDiSI83u5SESoMc_Jnx2WXWpfMTQ3c7lItWFnrIOa3Di2E-dGg9jRt1YspYLfHoh2qYrzKgzvPHryOcu_oASo56CzWkW9eEvcf4E4BT/s1600/P1170661.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="710" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo0HdfkOMCqLqICBxhAub1ee3vOhuvsKgYa1pQaYDiSI83u5SESoMc_Jnx2WXWpfMTQ3c7lItWFnrIOa3Di2E-dGg9jRt1YspYLfHoh2qYrzKgzvPHryOcu_oASo56CzWkW9eEvcf4E4BT/s320/P1170661.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6K9qhCwm6xgCZFHlquIj1HuBj_nt3V7c0PBhBth7AEqSj6WiymZdEoYVmqN8EtiHbp0ZgdDHDMhFcb0rJROqeRa81FMG9x9PSIa9yGzLEU_kBGGpP9xOb1-T1IK-HSOjcw1LMVp3LKZqV/s1600/P1170662.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="730" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6K9qhCwm6xgCZFHlquIj1HuBj_nt3V7c0PBhBth7AEqSj6WiymZdEoYVmqN8EtiHbp0ZgdDHDMhFcb0rJROqeRa81FMG9x9PSIa9yGzLEU_kBGGpP9xOb1-T1IK-HSOjcw1LMVp3LKZqV/s320/P1170662.JPG" width="320" /></i></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Some scenes from Summer of '81. Linda Spilker is in top photo.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It felt like a kick in the gut, that same feeling would happen again one week before Pluto encounter when New Horizons went into safing. Then, as at Pluto, experts on the project focused on understanding the problem, but there was considerable relief across the lab in late August 1981 when Saturn returned to our monitors 3 days later, and with more testing and validation Uranus was on! </div>
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Three and a half years later I was a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis, under Dr. Bill McKinnon. I had hoped to go with him to experience this one too, but I was having a lot of trouble passing my degree qualifying exams and was not allowed to go. On the morning of January 28, four days after the encounter, I awoke to see if CNN was reporting any new images or discoveries (still no internet), only to see that Challenger had been destroyed just minutes before. It took days for the emotional numbness to dissipate as we all slowly went back to our studies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Flash forward 3 more years and I am now a post-doc at JPL, back where it all started, and 10 years later in the summer of ’89 we were writing the end of the Voyager story, as far as the planetary phase was concerned. I was not part of the project this time, but with TV monitors everywhere the entire Lab was again a witness to the unfolding drama of Neptune, its storms and its large moon, Triton. We did not even know Triton's size as the summer began but eventually we saw the bright icy disk and word spread that they had a diameter (which was further refined as we got closer). With Bill in town to be part of the celebration, which was what it became, some of our friends on the project (for lack of a better word) “snuck” us into the imaging team rooms where we had a front seat at the encounter. A day later, Chuck Barry performed on the JPL Mall that evening as several thousand employees gathered to celebrate, and he performed “Voyager Be Good” if memory serves.</div>
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So in a very real sense, Voyager was central to my career, and shaped what I do today. An example is New Horizons. The mission to Pluto, with a stop-over at Jupiter, is in a very real sense Voyager 3. It completed the original goals of the Grand Tour, delayed and hence with better remote sensing instruments, but a completion nonetheless. We did not know about the thousands of other icy bodies in the trans-Neptune region back then, but the amazing discoveries at Pluto seem to be telling us that it is going to be region full of surprises; every reason to go back and see as much of the Kuiper Belt as we can.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As protractor was put to paper 38 years ago this summer, did I dream that years later I would actually be making global maps of these moons from the real images, either from Voyager or from the later Galileo and Cassini orbital missions? I'm not sure, but I had no clue that the skills I began to learn in making those simple maps would put me directly in line to make our maps of cold distant Pluto (and subject of the next post)! Not only was the Voyager cycle completed at Pluto but the path from those early ruler-and-protractor maps to global mapping of Saturn's moons and Pluto/Charon was also now complete.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijY7jthnfmjurCViGbNyilXenve3_jebYKmRMO_Uo0t9D3riwf0kApqQkXat85Z2fUOW2vhZDWG-rjUx3Vrvi6PXdngm5puZgI5NgEISRNQV93H28g56jC6CSvYHcXf5yEL6ar39e8t-Sh/s1600/maps.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="726" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijY7jthnfmjurCViGbNyilXenve3_jebYKmRMO_Uo0t9D3riwf0kApqQkXat85Z2fUOW2vhZDWG-rjUx3Vrvi6PXdngm5puZgI5NgEISRNQV93H28g56jC6CSvYHcXf5yEL6ar39e8t-Sh/s640/maps.jpg" width="289" /></i></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mapping progression from planning maps (top) to actual maps from Voyager and then Cassini, finally to Pluto.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Emily, in her request, asked me to keep young scientists in mind. As you can tell, that Voyager intern Summer of '79 left a lasting impression. Hoping to avoid the error of being lofty and pontifical, let me close with a few thoughts. <i>Seize opportunities</i>. <span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Done successfully and enthusiastically, such gifts are
stepping stones to higher things.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> W</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">henever I mentor a Summer Intern at the LPI I look for young people
with talent who have had no prior opportunity to test themselves and see what
they can do, much like a 20-year out of Buffalo 38 years ago. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> When such opportunities happen, r</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">emember to thank your
mentors years later.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I was very
fortunate to have several! </span><i>Follow your passion, follow your talents</i>. I can’t integrate my way out of a paper bag but I know how
to make a good map, and I know plate tectonics when I see it. Don't be afraid to follow what excites you; mentors should encourage native talent as much as possible. <i>Always be inquisitive, and w</i><i>hatever you do, do it extremely well</i>. Never accept the easy answer until it is tested. Double check everything, attack a problem for
all perspectives and with all relevant data sets. If you need help, seek it out in
others and work together. In this way a simple story about a landslide on Io helped unlocked the puzzle of how non-volcanic mountains can form on a volcanic world. <i>A little arrogance is useful but so is a little humility</i>. <span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Keep the arrogance inside; n</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">obody likes seeing it. </span>Beg for mercy when you show up 5 minutes late for your first
conference presentation as your advisor’s student (think John Belushi and
Carrie Fischer in Blues Brothers). <i>Enjoy it!</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> Discovery is a real rush so seek it out and make it happen.</span><br />
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<span style="border: none; font-family: "times new roman";">Happy Anniversary Voyager and thanks!</span></div>
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Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-89061141679899219472015-07-12T14:24:00.000-05:002015-07-12T15:28:45.854-05:00PLUTO!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOPtIlpIyByUWBAk2w7Mt8T_AtOOkO1I0E7LR4f62FaKNNICXAjer2IQrcOFlm7MVBuietdivwClJp0VC675cor7EHRFcNuoxiZ_8Y9k0ns8Lbe_tPSx7KKqX3LYE52EyxmyTT3BBd8YFg/s1600/nh-pluto-7-11-15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOPtIlpIyByUWBAk2w7Mt8T_AtOOkO1I0E7LR4f62FaKNNICXAjer2IQrcOFlm7MVBuietdivwClJp0VC675cor7EHRFcNuoxiZ_8Y9k0ns8Lbe_tPSx7KKqX3LYE52EyxmyTT3BBd8YFg/s320/nh-pluto-7-11-15.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pluto image acquired July 11, 2015</td></tr>
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Pluto minus 2 days. It has been an amazing approach to Pluto over the past two weeks, as those of you following the mission on the web have shared. This will be very short as I am quite busy, but for me it is mind boggling how strange Pluto seems, as you can see for yourself in the above press released image. I can almost imagine myself standing on the bridge of the <i>Enterprise</i> approaching an alien world for the first time. "Fascinating!" So much of the surface seems unfamiliar. Speculation among scientists and web followers has been abundant and I won't indulge myself here, but rather celebrate how insanely wondrous of celestial neighborhood is. Everywhere we look in the Solar neighborhood we see something different, and very often, something we did not expect. Clearly Pluto fits the later, and even Ceres, though it looks like an older cratered world, has enough surprises to keep us working for years to come (odd-shaped mountains, odd-shaped craters, bright spots). Even the Saturn system has new surprises (soon to be revealed). All tell us important clues to how the Solar System came to be and how it has evolved. Perhaps the most important benefit has been philosophical. The past 50 years of Space Exploration have been a great experience to live through, and offer an opportunity to look up from our troubled times here on Earth and see something greater. Enjoy Pluto . . . !</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New Horizons trajectory as of July 12 midday. <br />
Nothing else gives a sense of how close we are to target.</td></tr>
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Below is an image of Triton taken on approach by Voyager 2 in August 1989 at a pixel scale of ~4 kilometers. This was the first Voyager image to more clearly show recognizable basic elements of Tritonian geology (though much still remains mysterious to this day), before it's closer pass on August 25 of that year. We may peel away some of Pluto's deeper mysteries in a similar way.</div>
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Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-65658320476282633522015-06-18T07:27:00.000-05:002015-06-19T07:18:07.314-05:00One MonthPluto! June 16, 2015: 4 weeks to go - the final month. To mark that milestone, New Horizons has just released <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJxwWpaGoJs" target="_blank">a new video about Pluto and the mission</a> on <a href="http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/index.php" target="_blank">its main website</a>. Oh sure, I am in it so I'm rather pleased about that, but it is a very high quality production and most importantly highlights the people behind the mission. Let me just say up front that my contributions to New Horizons thus far have been minimal. True I did serve on several key panels back in 1999-2000 that helped decide how we would explore the planetary system we know as Pluto and it is gratifying to see that process come to fruition. In later years I helped advocate for and design dedicated stereo observations to map topography on Pluto and Charon, prepared <a href="http://www.lpi.usra.edu/icy_moons/" target="_blank">new global maps of Trit</a><a href="http://www.lpi.usra.edu/icy_moons/" target="_blank">on and Saturn's icy moon</a> that will support interpretation of Pluto and its moons, and finally was added onto the project a few years ago as a member of the Team. The years of planning to prepare the long series of observations that began in January and will reach their climax in 4 weeks was the work of a Team, some of whom were or are now friends (I trust) and some of whose names I hope will become more familiar very soon. They are too numerous to list here, but they will have earned their place in history. Happily, many of them are featured in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJxwWpaGoJs" target="_blank">this new video</a>. <br />
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The New Horizons project Team is quite busy making sure everything goes according to plan (and post-encounter activities will be no less busy). The Science Team is currently busy searching approach images for rings and more moons (none yet), making the first low-resolution maps of the surface to chart out the gross brightness patterns and major provinces, looking at the properties of the known moons, and will soon begin to detect the surface components on Pluto and Charon. These results are regularly posted to <a href="http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/" target="_blank">the main NH website</a>. I don't have anything to do just yet; I arrive at APL on the 30th and my job starts in earnest about 12 days out (around July 2) as Pluto starts its final two rotations before closest approach. Then we start to build piece-by-piece the ultimate highest resolution maps of Pluto and Charon and a few days before encounter day on the 14th start work on the first topographic maps of the surface. <br />
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I will also be bring my 30 years of experience mapping other icy worlds in the Outer Solar System, now including ice-rich Ceres, another small planetary body orbiting the Sun. Whether it proves of any value remains to be seen, of course. Pluto may look like nothing we have seen before. Triton bears little resemblance to the menagerie of icy bodies orbiting the other giant planets, and Pluto may be yet another odd-ball. That is why I have been reticent to speculate on Pluto's appearance. I think it fair to assume that mighty Charon may look generally similar tho different in detail to Dione and Tethys (which are similar in size); heavily cratered with maybe some fractures or smooth areas. But Pluto? While it is logical to expect some impact craters and some erosion (due to the seasonal migration of volatile frosts) I was not very successful predicting much about Ceres, so I will defer to Pluto's mysteries.<br />
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As we prepare for Pluto, my colleagues and I on Dawn are also very busy working with the <a href="http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/" target="_blank">new 400-meter resolution Survey mapping images of Ceres</a>. To be sure, we see some spectacular impact craters and albedo deposits and we can now resolve quite a few very interesting and perhaps surprising surface features (more on those later). This was hoped for and even expected, but the new images are also reinforcing another perception. Namely, that some of the "features" we thought we "saw" at low resolution during approach and thought were significant, such as large canyons and lobate scarps, either do not in fact exist or are cryptic or rather uninteresting. Many of the images of icy satellites based on Voyager are at resolutions comparable to our approach images of Ceres. Our views from Galileo and Cassini in the Jupiter and Saturn systems increased our resolutions by 100+ fold and the places look very different and vastly more complex and interesting. The resolutions we are getting from Dawn at Ceres now and will get this summer and fall when we get down to 150 and 40 meters are and will be an eye opener, as will the 250- to 100-m resolution Pluto images.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 80's-style metal hair-band staying at our hotel during a recent New Horizons team meeting in Maryland. <br />
Just checking if you are paying attention!</td></tr>
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As if Pluto and Ceres weren't enough to keep one busy, I've been working on some new findings on one of Enceladus' neighboring moons. Our team is working to map and understand these in preparation for publication and we hope to report them here in a week or so. Many events and projects are happening very fast this Summer and I am 'proud, happy and thrilled' to be a small part of them, but there are times when one feels like you are riding in a barrel down the Niagara River with only a teaspoon to steer with (I grew up in Buffalo, just a 20 minute drive from the mighty cataracts). It's a wild ride, with the greatest excitement to come in a few weeks, but wow am I gonna need a vacation by December . . .<br />
<br />Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-10240958229541986332015-05-16T09:07:00.003-05:002015-05-29T09:58:11.572-05:00Two Months!<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>[Edited May 29]</b><br />
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Two months, Eight and half weeks, 58 days. It's a concept almost too difficult to grasp: we are on Pluto's doorstep. Just 9 years ago I witnessed the launch of New Horizons (the only launch I've ever witnessed in person; although I did some model rocket launches as a kid I don't think they count). And 85 years since Pluto was discovered, just weeks after the Great Stock Market Crash. Think of the monumental changes here on Earth since that time. How time flies. </div>
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The idea that the first Pluto encounter will happen in just 2 months is very exciting. The encounter started in January when distant observations began, but for geologists like myself, the Pluto encounter will be a very short thing, about 6 days long. That is the period of Pluto's rotation (or the length of a Pluto "day"). It is the time over which we will see each side of Pluto at its best, including the moments of closet approach on July 14, when we see one side of Pluto (and is large moon Charon) at better than 250 meter resolution (and parts as good as 100 meters!). Us geology types need to see volcanoes, fractures, craters, and that requires resolutions of better than 10 kilometers, which we will likely start seeing during the final Pluto rotation begins on July 8. The largest craters or fracture systems may be visible before then.</div>
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We have not and will not be idle on approach, however. <a href="http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150429" target="_blank">Features on Pluto movie. </a> New Horizons is already spotting features, including a possible polar cap and a bright spot near the equator. Bright spots often tend to be recently formed impact craters, say in the past 100 million years or less, but we will have to wait till July to know. We may even see linear features like the dark bands on Europa during our approach. The plucky probe is routinely monitoring the Pluto system and can start searching for unknown moons, having now observed all 5 of the known moons. If there are any rings, we could find out sometime in June or July.</div>
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What will I be doing in July? Besides being in residence at the JHU Applied Physics Lab in Maryland for the encounter, I will also be helping lead the cartography effort, registering high-resolution images to the surface of Pluto and its large moon Charon to produce the first preliminary maps of these bodies. These maps will be updated as the data are slowly returned to Earth from great distance (the radio signal takes 4.4 hours to get back to Earth!) These maps will look a little bit like the map of Triton we made from Voyager 2 images acquired in 1989. There will be a north polar gap and one side will be kind of fuzzy, but who's complaining! I will also be using stereo to map the surfaces of both bodies, and from that we plan to get the best topographic maps of the heights of things on Pluto and Charon!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voyager 2 map of Triton; a preview of the kind of global map we can expect for Pluto (and Charon), only better.</td></tr>
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Pluto/Charon science I'll be most interested in will be crater morphology. Craters can tell us about what is buried under the surface, how hot the interior has been, and other interesting things, which I'll try to blog on soon. After all, impact craters are the one geologic feature we can (almost) guarantee we will find on Pluto and Charon. I will also help those looking for volcanoes or tectonic structures. Most ice worlds also have some fault scarps and fractures, but until now we have mapped only icy bodies orbiting in close proximity to large planets, which can impose strong gravitational stresses on moon interiors. Pluto and Ceres both are the first examples of ice-rich worlds we have visited that orbit the Sun alone, uninfluenced by a large parent body. "Fascinating."</div>
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Which brings me to Ceres. We have now completed the observation phase called RC3, "rotation characteristics 3," in which Dawn observed the entire surface of the dwarf planet from the north, the south and over the equator. One of those sequences has been released in <a href="http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news-detail.html?id=4582" target="_blank">movie form</a>, allowing everyone to see many of things we have seen from RC3. I can't say too much about any of these yet, except that the team is pouring over the data, which has a pixel resolution of 1.25 kilometers. This is comparable to what Voyager saw during its tour of the icy moons back in the 1980s. The next mapping phases in June, August and November will bring us Galileo and Cassini class imaging at better than 400 meters resolution, and ultimately down to ~38 meters.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkvxQwZf6g8SXGY0B6iE3Y1Fhbvi09NOR-R2-BqK1toaYnqKPKDYZV19czWIfUVdE9T0-p8752yyyLif3CsvsTKIHKRi8ldkM4Sz3HoC4GuHs81PKLLDQTJkTd49DZenMOEdLkcJRQD_yq/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-05-16+at+8.08.42+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkvxQwZf6g8SXGY0B6iE3Y1Fhbvi09NOR-R2-BqK1toaYnqKPKDYZV19czWIfUVdE9T0-p8752yyyLif3CsvsTKIHKRi8ldkM4Sz3HoC4GuHs81PKLLDQTJkTd49DZenMOEdLkcJRQD_yq/s320/Screen+Shot+2015-05-16+at+8.08.42+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A still from the recently released rotation movie of ice-rich Ceres. The complex and still enigmatic Bright Spots are at center. Faint arcuate troughs also cross the scene. These emanate from a large impact basin to the south.</td></tr>
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I'm still not sure what these features all mean. It recalls the Galileo and Cassini experience where we saw entirely new features when we got down to smaller than 1 kilometer resolutions. It was like we had never seen Europa, Ganymede, Enceladus, Dione or any of the other icy moons before! Much will become clearer when we get to lower altitude on Ceres. I am looking at crater morphologies on Ceres, measuring diameters, looking at ejecta, including some of the bright and dark ray patterns you can see in the rotation movie, and looking at pit craters, too. Right now we are mostly working to inventory what is on the surface, formulating hypotheses to test when the next data arrive in June. We are very busy!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbyk5XoOHVr-W4Vdf0Vw15b6ql8rRi50ygxbrzUY4CJ9Hu-pG6SMFRJkjKKbEMEyhdoIf9TOx2Ep8kgqQAhyJoEqHvLdhqCJfIqZGKIA0WpvExlfSzIT6HhhGf_BxLa9tC-JeYARKtk_EB/s1600/P1090589.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbyk5XoOHVr-W4Vdf0Vw15b6ql8rRi50ygxbrzUY4CJ9Hu-pG6SMFRJkjKKbEMEyhdoIf9TOx2Ep8kgqQAhyJoEqHvLdhqCJfIqZGKIA0WpvExlfSzIT6HhhGf_BxLa9tC-JeYARKtk_EB/s320/P1090589.JPG" width="281" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEdossXHLsrfiP1o-WxgZabzTLL1ippKLmGK6HfkqsmX6rXZKCcOe3aK0NZxeeR2WjJ3hs3L-NmrcL-LQTXUMgDfEAWuvuOjHHjjDOggqWwmcsF_zxWQUL2EAbGjvGv5UvGm9oS7FxYw4A/s1600/P1090590.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEdossXHLsrfiP1o-WxgZabzTLL1ippKLmGK6HfkqsmX6rXZKCcOe3aK0NZxeeR2WjJ3hs3L-NmrcL-LQTXUMgDfEAWuvuOjHHjjDOggqWwmcsF_zxWQUL2EAbGjvGv5UvGm9oS7FxYw4A/s320/P1090590.JPG" width="283" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pages from my Planetary Scrapbook, 1971-1980. <br />
There were so many Buffalo News newspaper clippings I had to overlap them.</td></tr>
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Which gets me to the end of today's rant. When time permits (which is scant these days) I monitor the buzz on forums such as Unmannedspaceflight, which is an open forum for those interested in the Solar System. Some have noted a reticence on some projects and science teams to be more forthcoming in data release or science discussion. There is some truth to that. Some flights are better than others (I won't name names), and it is something I can't change. Dawn is pretty darn good, and New Horizons will release all images in browse format, within 48 hours of acquisition, for example. I am part of the Mariner and Voyager generation, where the only outlet for new planetary information and images was the newspaper and the 3 networks' nightly news (which might have a 2 minute report on the day after encounter), followed some days later by the weekly news magazines of the time. That was it. I still have my newspaper clippings from those days. No blogs, twitter, websites, videos or anything. And a year later the data were archived for general use. The science teams have an obligation to themselves and the public. The first is to get the data in suitable format so that the data products that are released are of good quality and do not have incorrect orientations or colors (recalling the false blue skies from the first Viking lander image); and to avoid premature speculations that might be difficult to retract later on. It takes a few days to prepare good stuff. Patience young padawans . . . the data returned from these fantastic missions belongs to all of us, supported by the public through their taxes and part of the national trust. The mission and science teams are working hard to get the best products out for everyone to enjoy and to join in the analysis and speculations. These new worlds will be ours to enjoy all Summer!</div>
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Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-2574582419510471542015-03-26T11:18:00.001-05:002015-03-26T11:18:05.817-05:00Ceres Gets Real: Pluto Lurks<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify;">Although we are still along way from understanding this fascinating little body, Ceres is finally becoming a real planet with recognizable features! And thats kinda cool. The now-released images from February show features roughly 4 kilometers across (2.2 miles for the americans), including numerous well-preserved impact craters. These are distinct and clearly show central peaks superficially similar to what we observe on Dione and Tethys. They appear to be about as deep as expected, but measurements of their depths will be done on higher resolution data. Some circular features look rather like flattened craters, but again as to origins (whether relaxed by deformation of ice or by erosion or infilling), caution is in order as we are often fooled at these low resolutions.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT0bERcd_Sdy_Gqtny3dhDQVjvMet2rlxdvWNoGhMC1ku60NQe-sUYg_2h0dCxiG4j7hdhhW3u2QTYawCyeBVVNeCyo9gpN57pMaAkGEEGpsNQ6uNgqWq7zqP1vELRKSdxjCCt7VDDXUgV/s1600/ceres_rc2A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT0bERcd_Sdy_Gqtny3dhDQVjvMet2rlxdvWNoGhMC1ku60NQe-sUYg_2h0dCxiG4j7hdhhW3u2QTYawCyeBVVNeCyo9gpN57pMaAkGEEGpsNQ6uNgqWq7zqP1vELRKSdxjCCt7VDDXUgV/s1600/ceres_rc2A.jpg" height="160" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Global map of Ceres at 4 km/pixel (this is my version of the map that was released on March 2, <br />and is NOT an official map product). </td></tr>
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So, Ceres has impact craters, some of which could be modified by geologic processes. It might also have some tectonic features, though it is still too early to be sure of their extent, age, or importance. It even has those enigmatic bright-spots (sorry no speculations at this point!), which hint at the possibility of more water-ice related features at higher resolution. All-in-all, though, it is nice to finally have a sense of Ceres as a body, even if that view is rather fuzzy at the moment. This bodes very well for the approaching mapping campaign.</div>
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Although there are still suggestions of linear features in the new images, our experience with similar-sized icy worlds orbiting Saturn is that only the most dramatic canyons are readily apparent at the current resolution. Tectonic features like simple fault scarps or cracks won't be obvious until April (we have spent most of March on the dark side of Ceres at some distance thrusting the ion engines in order to achieve our first mapping orbit on April 22). Indeed, many of Tethys' smaller scale fractures require resolutions down to 100 meters, which we won't see at Ceres till this Summer. Indeed it is likely that Ceres may not betray many of its most interesting ice-related features till we get down to our formal mapping altitudes where resolutions will be a kilometer or less.</div>
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The most intriguing linear features are arcuate grooved radiating from a large southern impact basin roughly 250 kilometers across. Although these could be tectonic, the arcuate shape is consistent with secondary impact features related to the formation of the basin. The key test will occur when we get 1-km data or better and can examine the detailed morphology.</div>
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Here are some Cassini images of Tethys, shown similar to our views of Ceres in mid- and late-April. By the last week of April we should be acquiring images at resolutions of 1.3 kilometers, although at different phase angles as this 2-week-long RC3 phase goes to completion.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXICrViw6BOQQkx0jYGvQOk-K0HZxaVtJcPsJUfp9r_4yDHVdN-knioyVN7A5rywJ9T7BgdA5MUzAL1FLucBHm8FWv3a5cfcmtNfrNc6Yv-dmsS6Rk1aSgHRc6SnZdwRpMW5PrG4rmVAZW/s1600/tet-1p3-t48c7988l1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXICrViw6BOQQkx0jYGvQOk-K0HZxaVtJcPsJUfp9r_4yDHVdN-knioyVN7A5rywJ9T7BgdA5MUzAL1FLucBHm8FWv3a5cfcmtNfrNc6Yv-dmsS6Rk1aSgHRc6SnZdwRpMW5PrG4rmVAZW/s1600/tet-1p3-t48c7988l1.jpg" height="313" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tethys at 1.3 km/pixel (similar to Ceres during RC3). Smooth regions, many craters, and the largest fracture system, Ithaca Chasma are all very recognizable but the small fractures and crater chains across the surface are not yet apparent.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgho1-rL2dAQc_-VlczFSxm611cD6NH2pjaIx-EEWfO6rW8f22LfprdvoM5-kqEmrHLvU194O_yfpUY1wHv70ka__Dml-B-2RbFeVBpTneiLQbqudandjOR34iC60PVlKPhu8Zl8KOxHhsM/s1600/d43-b6084l1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgho1-rL2dAQc_-VlczFSxm611cD6NH2pjaIx-EEWfO6rW8f22LfprdvoM5-kqEmrHLvU194O_yfpUY1wHv70ka__Dml-B-2RbFeVBpTneiLQbqudandjOR34iC60PVlKPhu8Zl8KOxHhsM/s1600/d43-b6084l1.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dione at 1.3 km/pixel (similar to Ceres during RC3). This exquisite image shows many features, including the relaxed craters at upper right (with prominent central peaks), the large 350-km-wide impact basin at top, the multiple fracture sets at left, and the smooth plains at right.</td></tr>
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PLUTO</div>
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There are times in any great adventure when the pulse quickens just a little and the stomach tightens up a notch. I think I have finally reached that point with Pluto. Two weeks ago we passed the 1-AU point. One AU is the Earth-Sun distance (and yes the tiny Earth does orbit the gigantic Sun), which isn't much more than an anthropomorphic milestone. But we are also now well passed the half-way point between Neptune's orbit and our destination. After 9 years of travel (not to mention a decade or more of work to get New Horizons approved, built and launched), it gives one a sense that we are really on final approach. We have passed to second-to-last signpost on the long trek. The last significant sign-post will be when we reach the distance where our high-resolution camera gets images roughly equivalent to the Hubble Space telescope, sometime in May. We cannot give a precise date for this as the HST and LORRI imaging systems have different optical characteristics and whatnot. The Project will let us know when we cross this threshold. Still it will be the real mark that we are into new territory.</div>
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For the geology types out there (self included), we will not be getting resolvable data until a few weeks before arrival. That doesn't mean we won't be doing anything. New Horizons is in Approach Phase, during which the Pluto system is under routine monitoring. This will allow us to track all the known moons to get precise orbits and monitor brightness changes to determine rotation periods and such. We are also looking for new moons and even ring systems, if they exist. So we will be very busy during approach doing things that Earth-bound telescopes can't do as well. I will have more on Pluto later this Spring.</div>
<br />Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-76743541220226161362015-02-02T15:03:00.001-06:002015-02-02T15:03:14.854-06:00Ceres Coming Into View<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's begun! Dawn is on approach to Ceres, the largest of the asteroids, and is starting to resolve features. We have now seen two sets of images, one on January 11 the other on January 26. Indistinct curved marking and subtle shadings are apparent. Some markings look like craters, others like fracture or fault scarps. The fact that these features are not obvious at this point is intriguing. Perhaps they will prove to be like features we are familiar with on icy satellites of Saturn, the objects most similar to Ceres in size and composition. Perhaps not.</div>
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The best Ceres images from January are at best ~20-22 kilometers resolution. Lots of features are hidden to us at this scale. Nonetheless here is a reprojected version one of the new images, one unmarked, the other marked by what appear to be scarps or topographic features, all of which at this point <i>seem</i> to suggest a chain of craters or an elongate trough. We should know by mid-February whether that is correct.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjXVGlxmN7HNQHTOZU49t6jUVKhVc1BGGg19_dJRezRoVkZ5JAJNie6hFDhgftaktpPhcCery7sHhOAxaBYaG0EZIsYvXhrPahOl9a2SWCo2bLAb-4UIm2fVXKaFGm-8Thtmu-yYr7CXgl/s1600/ceres-op-126-map.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjXVGlxmN7HNQHTOZU49t6jUVKhVc1BGGg19_dJRezRoVkZ5JAJNie6hFDhgftaktpPhcCery7sHhOAxaBYaG0EZIsYvXhrPahOl9a2SWCo2bLAb-4UIm2fVXKaFGm-8Thtmu-yYr7CXgl/s1600/ceres-op-126-map.png" height="85" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">A simple sketch map, likely to be wrong, of some basic features on a reprojected map of the 26 Jan image of Ceres. Is that curved feature real? A comparable map of Tethys is shown to right.</td></tr>
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February will be revealing. We should have a fair idea by the end of this month of the basic nature of Ceres' surface and a crude outline of its geology, at least if our experiences with Voyager and Cassini at Saturn are any guide. As the images of Saturn's moons show, we can learn some basic facts from the expected Ceres images, which will be as good as ~4 kilometers per pixel by the end of the month. <br />
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To get a sense of what the new images in February might tell us about Ceres, I've dug up some Cassini images of Saturn's icy moons. Take Tethys. Famous for its really large and deep impact basin Odysseus and nearly globe-girdling fault valley Ithaca Chasma. Odysseus is ~430 km wide and at least 8 kilometers deep. Several other deep craters make Tethys a useful comparison. Ithaca Chasma is a prominent fracture system 75 to 115 kilometers wide, several kilometers deep and nearly circles the globe. Both features are prominent and possible analogs for what we might see on Ceres. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsHXNcDt6SMxZ_NUH_7oUHaM5un4zCsxFw0ZVL4M4PhKhuBy5Cba8O4HzPS-3Dz6x2rkRn1eQOnr7wJU41BGgbONVsnTvTMdnlOk8jip1YewMMj8rOlFsQwOKvExPvcsrKQkubbZuICXA_/s1600/Size_of_Ceres_Tethys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsHXNcDt6SMxZ_NUH_7oUHaM5un4zCsxFw0ZVL4M4PhKhuBy5Cba8O4HzPS-3Dz6x2rkRn1eQOnr7wJU41BGgbONVsnTvTMdnlOk8jip1YewMMj8rOlFsQwOKvExPvcsrKQkubbZuICXA_/s1600/Size_of_Ceres_Tethys.jpg" height="227" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inspired by a posting on UMSF, I put together a montage of Tethys images at resolutions and viewing geometries roughly comparable to what we expect at key points in the approach to Ceres this February (These are not exact duplicates but close enough to give a sense of what we might see).<br />The great tectonic trench Ithaca Chasma would be visible in the 12-Feb images, and possibly on the 3rd. The large impact basin Odysseus is the large circular feature in the 19-Feb scaled image, but it is interesting that even thigh more than 8 kilometers deep, it does not convey a sense of enormous depth in these views.</td></tr>
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What will we be doing with these February data? The most obvious thing will be an inventory of the types of features we can identify with confidence. This will give us a sense of the type of work we can do when mapping really starts in April.<br />
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After the rush to Ceres in February we enter a month-long period where our mapping will not improve. During all of March Dawn will perform an intricate celestial dance as it maneuvers toward its first high-altitude mapping orbit. This first "Survey Orbit" will allow us to map at ~1.3 km/pixel but it will take most of April to get there as we slowly spiral in. [See Chief Engineer <a href="http://dawnblog.jpl.nasa.gov/" target="_blank">Dr. Marc Rayman's blogs</a> detailing Dawn's trajectory and mapping phases. ] With these mapping data in hand we can start cataloging and measuring geologic features to test our hypotheses of Ceres' geologic and thermal history and its internal composition. Is there evidence of internal heat, either now or in the past? Is Ceres partly made of water ice and is that ice found mostly in the upper mantle? Compositional mapping will also start. We should also get our first indications of the gravity field of Ceres, but the real work of gravity mapping must wait till be get to lower altitudes.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaxnTnLhuSGgztLFpi3EXIhWWgjAm51ojbRbYAiq9x_oTc40AoPquQNde1a7Ueakuv5rPUtdmyXVGaI_NvOb3elq2UQo_ceTc8P4RyCA0_SzJECSbMpAFWv19xLinVg2ziLrFj0mM0RFBm/s1600/tet-1p3-t48c7988l1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaxnTnLhuSGgztLFpi3EXIhWWgjAm51ojbRbYAiq9x_oTc40AoPquQNde1a7Ueakuv5rPUtdmyXVGaI_NvOb3elq2UQo_ceTc8P4RyCA0_SzJECSbMpAFWv19xLinVg2ziLrFj0mM0RFBm/s1600/tet-1p3-t48c7988l1.jpg" height="313" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tethys at 1.3 kilometers/pixel (Cassini), roughly equivalent to Survey Orbit mapping quality. </td></tr>
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During March, however, Dawn will be a little bit further from Ceres than we are on 25-February. We will also be returning fewer images. These will include some high-phase crescent images, though, which will be better suited to searching for outgassing and vapor clouds around Ceres (if any are to be found). These are the type of images that show off the Enceladus jets so well. <br />
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All this is great fun, but the real action begins in late April when we start global mapping of Ceres at scales comparable to the other icy worlds of Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, and begin to resolve the smaller-scale geologic features that tell us about impact, volcanic, tectonic and erosional processes going on at Ceres. It seems appropriate that we should begin our mapping of Ceres, named for the roman goddess of agriculture and fertility, in the springtime (at least in the northern hemisphere). We should then be mapping features 1 to 1.5 kilometers across, similar to Voyager 2 mapping of much of Ganymede and Triton.<br />
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Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-37420138056026772432015-01-25T20:22:00.000-06:002015-02-04T15:59:15.884-06:00Cerious Predictions<div style="text-align: center;">
"<a aria-haspopup="true" aria-owns="js_m8" class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=235109773302155" href="https://www.facebook.com/dawn.mission" id="js_m9" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; text-decoration: none;">NASA Dawn Mission</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px;"> encounter with Ceres will be the first time the surface (or atmosphere) of a planet will be imaged for the first time by a spacecraft since Vo</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #666666; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px;">yager 2 flew past Neptune in 1989. Dwarf planets like Ceres and Pluto/Charon (which will be encountered this July by <a class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=495164637280739" href="https://www.facebook.com/new.horizons1" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">New Horizons</a>) are the most common type of planet in the solar system - and may be the most common type of planet in the universe. Dawn is the first mission to orbit and study such a body in detail to see how it works and compare it to other planets such as Earth. Dawn will be captured by Ceres' gravity on March 6. We are conducting a series of navigation and rotational characterization observations, each of which will be more exciting than the last, until we commence Survey mapping orbits on June 7 at an altitude of 4900 km (and a resolution of ~0.5 km/pixel), then move down to High Altitude Mapping Orbit on August 8 from 850 km (80 m/pixel), and finally Low Altitude Mapping Orbit on December 13 from 476 km (45 m/pixel). We'll be obtaining Framing Camera imagery in different filters, spectra from a visible-near-IR mapping spectrometer, and elemental compositional information from the Gamma-Ray Neutron Spectrometer. It is going to be a fun year (or two!!)."</span></div>
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The blog note above from Dawn nicely sums up the Ceres encounter, which is now quite literally almost on us. We are now within the orbit of our Moon if it were orbiting Ceres, and this is very close indeed. As Dawn's cameras are designed to map at much closer distances we won't be seeing a lot of detail until we get into mapping orbit but will instead slowly peel away Ceres' secrets as we move in on ion thrusters. </div>
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To give a sense of what types of things we might see on Ceres at different stage of the mission, I put together some slides featuring Saturn's moon Dione, the closest 'twin' we have of Ceres. Dione is rather similar in size to Ceres (Ceres 950~km; Dione 1120~km) [see also last weeks post for comparison shot]. The similar low densities (Dione is ~1.6 times as dense as wear ice, Ceres ~2 times) indicate that both have lots of water ice. Ceres is a little bit rockier but both are believed to have an outer layer of water ice a 100 kilometers or more thick. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVISY8wrxDAES2XHAZ33scbGLr7NvYm1Z89EKU7_RT4Qe0exgDOcQ1idkr4q6b_7dyb1od6HUh1STl6tYh1HpXFl2w3ubSH3yLwdgt3sn7QqgZcAyPy6qC5wNi8tpBhgAfQ4yMDzJbXIAV/s1600/dione38-68-110-230.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVISY8wrxDAES2XHAZ33scbGLr7NvYm1Z89EKU7_RT4Qe0exgDOcQ1idkr4q6b_7dyb1od6HUh1STl6tYh1HpXFl2w3ubSH3yLwdgt3sn7QqgZcAyPy6qC5wNi8tpBhgAfQ4yMDzJbXIAV/s1600/dione38-68-110-230.jpg" height="177" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Reposted from last weeks blog: Dione as viewed by Cassini at resolutions comparable to Dawn at Ceres. The center image approximates our view of Ceres in the middle of February, the last image our view during the last week of February.</span></td></tr>
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But Ceres is not going to be Dione. We may be making too much of the Dione analog, but it is a starting point. First, Ceres is indeed a planetary object, and as noted above the first time we have explored such a body unresolved before since Voyager in 1989 (and Pluto is next). Instead, Dione orbits Saturn and has been subject to its influence and that of it's neighboring moons. I refer to the gravitational tides that power the jets of Enceladus and likely resurfaced much of Dione's leading hemisphere with smooth plains and flattened some of its impact craters (more on that later, and I discussed some of these aspects in the previous post). Second, Ceres is much closer to the Sun, which both warms the surface and interior, and makes the ice unstable over long periods. This later effect, sublimation, can be seen in the northern states during winter as snow both melts and evaporates. This is an erosive process that can seriously (or Ceriously?) degrade a landscape, as we saw on Callisto in Galileo images. Callisto is of note because it too is icy on the inside but like Ceres is very dark reflecting only 10% of the Sun's light, contaminated by hydrated silicates and carbon-rich gunk. (Callisto's global albedo is higher but I refer here to the dark stuff only.) This similarity might be important.</div>
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So, here are some slides showing Dione and Callisto at different resolutions comparable to those expected during the Ceres approach phase. Parts of Ceres may look like this but probably not. The images should give us a sense of what types of features will be detectable as we move in, however. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCjZWsHcacoz09qKk9keL4bfcMVB7KhUTY8PMaMhT82IFvMkuDnjDSh5R6kR3BxwkYLdpnpkkXkzQt10SETU7JiCYTAWxExcyg9XyE3LGdErxb-JZ073aR1_NoqO-EiOTO7qdwDk3A3DwV/s1600/ceres-dione.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCjZWsHcacoz09qKk9keL4bfcMVB7KhUTY8PMaMhT82IFvMkuDnjDSh5R6kR3BxwkYLdpnpkkXkzQt10SETU7JiCYTAWxExcyg9XyE3LGdErxb-JZ073aR1_NoqO-EiOTO7qdwDk3A3DwV/s1600/ceres-dione.jpg" height="320" width="85" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Views of Dione from Cassini at increasing resolution. Views show the types of features that are likely to be resolvable as we map Ceres in 2015, including impact craters and fracture networks. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMitAoz-MA0p9Uy1um7tCkVKzqD1RBzwnD6wHYgYsSULCJ0qRcCK5p3sLtE3UPeGaQQfE3kYPO5QIvPOsbv_8gL2zdhns-y_HNXlvHMcYsOjehY6LIx2jTZ6e-ZcaJPCffB-mJNPPv4N1d/s1600/ceres-callisto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMitAoz-MA0p9Uy1um7tCkVKzqD1RBzwnD6wHYgYsSULCJ0qRcCK5p3sLtE3UPeGaQQfE3kYPO5QIvPOsbv_8gL2zdhns-y_HNXlvHMcYsOjehY6LIx2jTZ6e-ZcaJPCffB-mJNPPv4N1d/s1600/ceres-callisto.jpg" height="320" width="85" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Views of Callisto from Galileo at increasing resolution. Views show the types of features that are likely to be resolvable as we map Ceres in 2015, except for a dark icy object undergoing sublimation erosion. The bottoms view is of one of the ring scarps surrounding the giant impact Valhalla.</td></tr>
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Now that the encounter phases of both the Dawn and New Horizons missions to Ceres and Pluto, respectively, have officially begun, and before we actually resolve any geologic features (which for Ceres may be a matter of just days away), I thought I'd venture into more hazardous territory and look ahead to what we might find, focusing this week on Ceres. </div>
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I have been asked several times what we expect (predict?) to see on these small icy worlds orbiting the Sun, but each time I found my self stumped for a credible answer. We have global maps for most of the icy moons (namely the 17 or so large enough one considered true worlds and not just battered limps; and I've helped produce a few of those as shown in earlier posts . . . ) We have catalogs of surface features and have evidence for almost every major geologic process occurring on at least one of these objects. So we know what craters, volcanoes, faults, and landslides look like on icy bodies. What we do't know is in what combination they will occur on either Ceres or Pluto. Will Pluto and Ceres surprise us with new features and rewrite what we know about ice worlds? It's very possible, of course. Both are unique even among ice worlds, Ceres being unusually close to the Sun, and Pluto a large icy world orbiting the Sun at great distance and with 5 known moons of its own. </div>
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Several "space" artists are also trying their hand at the predictive arts. 'streincorp' has a rendering of Ceres on Deviant Art that looks rather like Mars in some ways, without the canyons and river valleys. Michael Carroll has another interesting view that tries to incorporate the HST and Keck observations, showing arcuate structures and the impact craters likely extending over most of the surface.</div>
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Speculation has also focused on whether or not Ceres and Pluto have been warm and active or cold and moribund. Probably somewhere in between. It would probably be a surprise if Pluto's geology was as extremely young (features formed in less than 100 million years) as Triton's. Pluto may have had a violent beginning, having given birth to its system of moons in a violent Charon-forming collision long ago. Triton on the other hand was completely remade in the violent events associated with being captured by Neptune. Orbital tides and perhaps collisions with Neptune's original moons essentially melted Triton from the inside, resulting int he extremely contorted young surface we see today. <br />
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So, rather than speculate on what Ceres and Pluto look like, perhaps it would be more fruitful to consider what it would mean if we see different sorts of things on those bodies. It is generally assumed that geologic activity on a planetary body implies there are higher levels of internal heat. Probably the most compelling discovery would be volcanism (as in melting and eruption onto the surface of ice phases, including water, methane, nitrogen, and various similar compounds). This would be direct evidence for very warm temperatures on the insides of these bodies. Heat on either Ceres or Pluto is not likely to come from tidal focus as it does on Europa or Miranda or Triton to name a few. </div>
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We will look for a variety of features, among them volcanoes, which would indicate temperatures hot enough omelet and mobilize water and other ices. The extent and duration of any such volcanic terrains will tell us much about Ceres thermal history. Diapirism, which is another name for convection in the solid-state, without large-scale melting, would also probably require considerable heat. Diapirism is the rising of one layer upward into another, usually in the form of large blobs (quite a technical term, I know!). Salt domes are perhaps the most common examples here on Earth. The cantaloupe terrain on Triton is probably a vast diapir field (and one my early findings back in 1993). The oval domes on Europa may be another example, and the coronae of Miranda may be diapers of upwelling ice on a planetary scale. Several colleagues have suggested that convection could have occurred within Ceres and might be visible on the surface. A simple density contrast within the crust, of a dense layer formed over a less dense layer could also trigger overturn. It turns out hat the scale of such features tells us something about the heat levels and the thickness of the layers, so that if we see this on Ceres it will generate a lot of interest.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsjtq2Q3fImhEoEruNp67yB-Ujs9WKW1BIKa5Oc080whQGFX0fWPXGuCqje1_6dazP37dwQ2vgDZQ1n6x9dfxtCC3G5Vuu-B7jhygAd6-weUABg1ja32QJWjMJWFpNarmqC-WLT1rmlkti/s1600/cantaloupe-hr-triton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsjtq2Q3fImhEoEruNp67yB-Ujs9WKW1BIKa5Oc080whQGFX0fWPXGuCqje1_6dazP37dwQ2vgDZQ1n6x9dfxtCC3G5Vuu-B7jhygAd6-weUABg1ja32QJWjMJWFpNarmqC-WLT1rmlkti/s1600/cantaloupe-hr-triton.jpg" height="320" width="309" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Diapiric convection occurs at different scales. Examples include Triton's cantaloupe terrain, shown above at 350 meters (or Survey orbit) resolution. The oval cells are 30 to 40 kilometers across, each representing an upwelling dome of ice.</td></tr>
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We will also be looking closely at impact craters. That is my specialty, but we will look at that more closely in a later post. The key thing is that impact craters form predictable features. Any alteration totem tells us about how hot the planet got or how eroded it became. Measurements of crater shapes will be key to unraveling these questions, depending on what we find.</div>
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Ceres will be revealed in stages, with major structures coming into focus first. Large rifts and fractures, the major basins and deep craters will be resolved, in part because of the shadows they cast, giving us an early indication of what type of planetary body we are going to map. Circles and lines stand out. Small features like crater chains, narrow fractures, (large) boulders, cliffs, landslides and other erosional processes, will become increasingly apparent as Dawn descends to tighter orbits. Vesta was revealed in the same way. Vesta is a fascinating object, but shares many familiar qualities with rocky objects like the Moon. Ceres will be no less fun, in large part because it is so different from anything we have looked at before: a lone icy object orbiting the Sun.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCje_6tF61samtlMZtOfTo_UA8BLFPhFH3q8nPnvt8sJ1bwpYstuidpkZNQWveXHYHDJ11vRVTgLn6fhjyMUsFyvVJPFaQePlmBFGHvSTJVY4IzKaR4fYXy2lMx7ia7bjaz276_N69wf_g/s1600/P1010232.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCje_6tF61samtlMZtOfTo_UA8BLFPhFH3q8nPnvt8sJ1bwpYstuidpkZNQWveXHYHDJ11vRVTgLn6fhjyMUsFyvVJPFaQePlmBFGHvSTJVY4IzKaR4fYXy2lMx7ia7bjaz276_N69wf_g/s1600/P1010232.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">An attempt to show how Ceres might look in our night sky if it were at the Moon's orbital distance. Its a simplistic rendering using a digital photo at dusk over New Mexico two years ago. Ceres is the small disk just left of the Moon.</span></span></td></tr>
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Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-38928651308199343132015-01-13T13:42:00.000-06:002015-01-13T20:44:37.747-06:00Year of the 'Dwarves': Ceres and Pluto Get Their Due<div style="text-align: justify;">
Is it irony or just poetic incongruity that at a gangly 6'4" I should devote much of 2015 working on the two missions that will be mapping the first icy 'dwarf planets' in our Solar System to be explored, Ceres and Pluto? Having spent the last 30 years using Voyager, Galileo, and Cassini images to map and understand the icy worlds orbiting the giant planets that we have visited so far, you can imagine I'm quite pleased to be involved with the first missions to explore the two largest icy worlds orbiting the Sun! In 2013 I was nominated and added as a new Science Team member to New Horizons on its way to Pluto, and then this winter asked to continue working on the Dawn Project as we approach the icy asteroid/planet Ceres.</div>
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This year we achieve the first exploration of these curious but fascinating objects, but I am still struck by the fact that we are 57 years into the Space Age and we are only now getting to these two bodies, diminutive in size compared to giant Jupiter but large in stature. These are chief among a group of objects that are smaller than our Moon, orbiting the Sun, and large enough to be planetary in nature but sharing their 'orbital zone' with other similar objects. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3QgwfzEty-csbewn6sShErqWH04rls1BcnVjnxJ_PsxVE3nzrHsojfRRuzQ0VvCjYHRGZwF5JNstGwOu9BNjmZSsgn3fGriAxq-Wf362YFMEyPZrIwhxrfTuwt1y-CBeUIqxB5k_30O8d/s1600/IMG_1632.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3QgwfzEty-csbewn6sShErqWH04rls1BcnVjnxJ_PsxVE3nzrHsojfRRuzQ0VvCjYHRGZwF5JNstGwOu9BNjmZSsgn3fGriAxq-Wf362YFMEyPZrIwhxrfTuwt1y-CBeUIqxB5k_30O8d/s1600/IMG_1632.jpg" height="320" width="256" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfF1WZuZn5DwPyD60HuZY2wkCKWqDcW-yo8iug9d4L0R783ZFQ6YqufKoXF6zDfyH11LDV64XzgeHCxE-XjnUbg7LWUOS8Hzj8xMfSDEgxk4NI-sPE2fvHWJ2QMonjPf6slYBbMwg7O9Jb/s1600/IMG_1634.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfF1WZuZn5DwPyD60HuZY2wkCKWqDcW-yo8iug9d4L0R783ZFQ6YqufKoXF6zDfyH11LDV64XzgeHCxE-XjnUbg7LWUOS8Hzj8xMfSDEgxk4NI-sPE2fvHWJ2QMonjPf6slYBbMwg7O9Jb/s1600/IMG_1634.jpg" height="320" width="256" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">iPhone captures of my observations logs of Ceres (bottom left) and Vesta (bottom right), through a 2.4" refractor in </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Buffalo, Summer 1978, a year out of High School and 9 months before Voyager at Jupiter. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Did I contemplate exploration of either body those cool summer nights? I'm sure I pointed the thing at Pluto, too, </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">knowing it was well out of its range, hoping to record a 'Pluto-photon' on my retina.</span></div>
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The architecture of our Solar System seems to be more complex with each passing year. In 1992 we discovered that Pluto was not alone and in fact part of a vast belt of smaller icy objects. The Solar System can be said to be constructed of 5 major zones: the rocky Inner Planets, the transitional Asteroid Belt, the Middle Zone of ice and gas-rich giant planets, the Outer Zone of the Kuiper Belt objects, including Pluto, and an Outer-Outer Zone of the Oort Cloud of comets. (We probably need some better names but this gets the point across.) <br />
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Ceres and Pluto are the dominant bodies of their two respective regions of the Solar System. Teeming with thousands of small objects, both the Asteroid Belt and the Edgeworth-Kuiper (or just plain Kuiper) Belt are key regions of our celestial neighborhood. The Asteroid Belt, home of icy Ceres which holds fully 1/3rd its total mass, is the key transition zone between the (relatively) water-poor inner planets and the water-rich outer planets. Ceres may also be carbon-rich. Kuiper Belt objects have lots of carbon-rich material and exotic ices, like the methane, nitrogen and carbon monoxide that cover Pluto's surface. This outer zone will tell us a lot about how the Solar System formed.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOURNYxWpL-Fz-QBMiMHkAzV_R3ZuU9b1QiJdLqx0VxmrF3aFvuGIwBNB7gA7HEyq4Y9waWSO0PVI1mfB8WnQjmpg6Sdz1VIMfFtRHtB2GyvZCFKNZfZ7awoyZTP4zosqGA09Ugoiwpz-R/s1600/vesta-ceres-terrestr-compare2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOURNYxWpL-Fz-QBMiMHkAzV_R3ZuU9b1QiJdLqx0VxmrF3aFvuGIwBNB7gA7HEyq4Y9waWSO0PVI1mfB8WnQjmpg6Sdz1VIMfFtRHtB2GyvZCFKNZfZ7awoyZTP4zosqGA09Ugoiwpz-R/s1600/vesta-ceres-terrestr-compare2.jpg" height="320" width="284" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ceres, second from the bottom, just above recently visited Vesta, is traditionally <br />placed among the Inner Planets (many of which are shown above),<br />but is ice-rich and is a transitional object.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Orbit of Ceres (in blue) within the Asteroid Belt population.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiFADwBOTB6qt4h4LRdR2cojLGWK3gXXXSdjeC5RgPrr_AzTjL213VHK8eagJwX0yvO7WL_ITnRum2oX3m-nunNWQfJ7DAIFh4_bcgKag79EU04LyUhjDVdNZJyWCrTfH1DnoT8OySR4G3/s1600/asteroid-comparison-ps5-ceres.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiFADwBOTB6qt4h4LRdR2cojLGWK3gXXXSdjeC5RgPrr_AzTjL213VHK8eagJwX0yvO7WL_ITnRum2oX3m-nunNWQfJ7DAIFh4_bcgKag79EU04LyUhjDVdNZJyWCrTfH1DnoT8OySR4G3/s1600/asteroid-comparison-ps5-ceres.jpg" height="256" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Asteroids visited to date, including Vesta, Dawn's mapping target in 2011. <br />
Ceres is a lot darker than Vesta, as shown here. We will be able to use Dawn imaging rather soon!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Voyager/Galileo/Cassini missions to the giant Outer (or Middle Zone?) Planets looked at their icy moons in close-up, revealing towering fault scarps, smooth ice volcanoes, impact craters flattened and 10-km-deep, disrupted ice rafts, and jets of water vapor and ice crystals venting into space (all the subject of numerous previous blogs). When Dawn and New Horizons reach their targets this year, we will see up close for the first time ice worlds not orbiting large planets but orbiting the Sun. This is a rather important distinction. We now know that gravitational tides, like the ones that affect Earth's oceans but much more powerful, can radically change an orbiting body's geologic history. This was a key discovery of the Space Age. Examples of how tidal forces change worlds include the famous volcanoes wracking Io, but also the faulted and disrupted icy shell of Europa, the complex geology and interior of Ganymede, the icy fractures and vents of Enceladus, and the volcanoes, diapirs, and geysers of Triton. All three of these icy bodies (and maybe a few more) are believed to be harboring liquid water oceans beneath their frigid surfaces. Maybe we will find evidence of the same at Ceres, Pluto or both. A key difference is that tidal forces are weak or negligible at both Ceres and Pluto.</div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">Ceres is most similar in size to several of Saturn's icy moons and may be similar internally as well, being composed of 25% water ice by mass. Dione is a pretty good match to Ceres, at least in basic properties of size and bulk density. Dione has signs of past geologic activity in faults and volcanic resurfacing but is not active now. One thing we have learned exploring the Solar System is to be prepared for anything. Ceres is unlikely to be another Dione, but Dione will be useful as a benchmark of comparison when we do map Ceres.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl99TvoiaeI_LIbZ-advuDCeNxuFIM-YTTPRVidiLmyzNUxlf9JXB92H8hYguyHkhyphenhyphenyYf-8Xux3SNnLQjSzT6eiYLZVl26u425bbKsjFuwfhF9le3DS-CNTEHqOGM782dvtOBKk28BkZww/s1600/Ceres_Dione_pluto_enc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl99TvoiaeI_LIbZ-advuDCeNxuFIM-YTTPRVidiLmyzNUxlf9JXB92H8hYguyHkhyphenhyphenyYf-8Xux3SNnLQjSzT6eiYLZVl26u425bbKsjFuwfhF9le3DS-CNTEHqOGM782dvtOBKk28BkZww/s1600/Ceres_Dione_pluto_enc.jpg" height="186" width="320" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgaGV_9AZETs5oVJHk3E4WAVj389tuvduCtZlyfzagXTU9kV09Rnb1N0PTaBXdz641Oo67BQBSixn-u6WwAPDW4j0hxXTXLeuj49wfPf3ONPLTn810HlAqkcNe1imEzgPQkHW455SUSYc2/s1600/Ceres_Dione_enc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgaGV_9AZETs5oVJHk3E4WAVj389tuvduCtZlyfzagXTU9kV09Rnb1N0PTaBXdz641Oo67BQBSixn-u6WwAPDW4j0hxXTXLeuj49wfPf3ONPLTn810HlAqkcNe1imEzgPQkHW455SUSYc2/s1600/Ceres_Dione_enc.jpg" height="185" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Comparisons of Ceres with other prominent icy objects. Dione is Ceres' closest twin in size and mass.<br />
Pluto and the Moon are shown above for comparison. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJyvH_wgHGeAQ6gYTYsbBDvUscyWfPiC2IfKE89tug1X9_j9PGn7_76a6K6hl4i0bxCGN-NBEUt4J3ZMCh_eUqBoBjZ8XNsOPnJUbPnMUP4AQlN-lKPJzg-bml0CO8tv9qshbxjaTVbrkZ/s1600/dsmap-cyl-KH-hemis-anno.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJyvH_wgHGeAQ6gYTYsbBDvUscyWfPiC2IfKE89tug1X9_j9PGn7_76a6K6hl4i0bxCGN-NBEUt4J3ZMCh_eUqBoBjZ8XNsOPnJUbPnMUP4AQlN-lKPJzg-bml0CO8tv9qshbxjaTVbrkZ/s1600/dsmap-cyl-KH-hemis-anno.jpg" height="216" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://stereomoons.blogspot.com/2014/11/mooning-saturn-maps-are-out.html" target="_blank">Global map of Dione</a></td></tr>
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How the limited/negligible tidal heating will affect Ceres is unknown, but Ceres is closer to the Sun and warmer than the other ice worlds. This heat combined with radioactive heating and other sources may have resulted in internal convection, surface erosion or other internal activity. Ceres also looks to be occasionally venting water vapor into space, as detected by the Herschel Space Observatory. It is theoretically plausible that Ceres may have a liquid water ocean as well. Whether the venting of water vapor is related to this ocean is unknown, and that would be rather exciting. What might be hidden within such an ocean would be even more uncertain. The first priority to to simply assess the geologic history of Ceres and to determine the origin of the venting. Is it related to volcanoes, fissures, impact craters, or just warm ice vaporizing under the heat of the Sun? It might be similar to the venting we see on Triton or Enceladus. Maybe it's something we haven't thought of or seen yet. We can only find out by mapping the geology, topography, and composition of the surface at high resolution. We are about to do just that.<br />
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<b>DAWN AT CERES</b><br />
<br />
Dawn and New Horizons are two very different missions. I will talk more about New Horizons next month, but in short, the Pluto encounter will be more than 6 months long but will be very fast, much like the Voyager encounter with Neptune in 1989. Dawn will arrive at Ceres first, beginning in January, and this approach will be quite leisurely by contrast. Orbit 'capture,' when Dawn is firmly under the gravitational influence of Ceres, will occur around March 6. Dedicated mapping operations will start some time in late April at resolutions of ~1.5 kilometer per pixel.</div>
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<b>Don’t expect lots of images during approach to Ceres,
however.</b><b> </b> To reach Ceres, the spacecraft
must continue ion thrusting all the way in, and we can only point the cameras
when the engines are turned off for brief intervals to peak at our target. That's why we won't be seeing pictures every day! We can't actually take pictures every day and still get to our target. We should be getting a set of images once every 1-2 weeks during approach, though, and the science team and those
watching with us will be most eager to see what those images tell us as we
near our target. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Once in orbit, we will map Ceres in stages, going down to progressively lower altitudes. Resolutions will increase from ~400 meters to 140 meters to partial mapping at 35 meters! Our best map of an icy body is that for Enceladus, which has recently been completed <a href="http://stereomoons.blogspot.com/2014/11/mooning-saturn-maps-are-out.html" target="_blank">in color at 100 meter resolution</a>, by the author. For Dione we have a similar map at 250 meter resolution.</div>
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<br />
[See the <a href="http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/journal.asp" target="_blank">series of seriously excellent Ceres blogs</a> by Marc Rayman that describe in detail Dawn's approach and mapping plans. Kudos to the Mission Team for the fabulous job of getting us to Ceres (and Vesta)!]</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiF-ByY0JFl7QXR5MCBr5zE54AFXD3PJN6CN2BBAr5SJ4qp3bAUBIDMPHO5SPbPF1FlR4Dbol3PLtD6Diq3U_Q-kaze7yrS9HzdrBZdyxcSggjhXRCJj24vatvLKb_xIXX3hJ6n1QNZjef/s1600/dione38-68-110-230.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiF-ByY0JFl7QXR5MCBr5zE54AFXD3PJN6CN2BBAr5SJ4qp3bAUBIDMPHO5SPbPF1FlR4Dbol3PLtD6Diq3U_Q-kaze7yrS9HzdrBZdyxcSggjhXRCJj24vatvLKb_xIXX3hJ6n1QNZjef/s1600/dione38-68-110-230.jpg" height="177" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Simulated views showing the sorts of things we might see on approach to Ceres this winter.</td></tr>
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I will be assisting in the geologic investigations of Ceres in a supporting role, as will many others on the Team. I was first brought on board Dawn for the Vesta mapping phase in 2011-2012 and led the effort to understand the giant Rheasilvia impact basin discovered by HST at the South Pole, which I discovered was actually two overlapping basins. (I will also be working to map Pluto and construct topographic maps from stereo images, though for Ceres I will just be using stereo for geology.) </div>
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From a science perspective, I will be most interested in (and my main role) the nature of impact craters on Ceres. Impact craters record many things about a planets history and its structure. Impact craters can excavate material buried below the surface and eject it onto the surface to see. Craters also record the thermal evolution of the interiors of icy bodies. Ice can creep (that is, deform) if it is too warm, in much the way ice sheets move slowly downhill on Earth. The warmer the ice layer, the more it will flatten or 'relax.' Measuring the topography of craters will thus tell us how warm the interior has been. But first we must go there and see if any craters have indeed relaxed. Impact craters might also reveal if there is/was an ocean deep inside. For all of these questions my experience mapping impact craters on the icy satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus will come to bear. Comparison with craters on Ganymede, Dione and other moons will be telling. Crater shape and morphology statistics for the Jovian and Saturnian moons are complete and in hand, ready for use when we map Ceres' craters!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvoB7hS6Cfp6GwQBSCFDUe0bGb85gLdZZ0gnwDiJSPnlsC76kY4urjy0DIP__fGCvZCUYvLaLJzdDMeyuRRPEnnN3Wt_imQ3Ho064mxmhb7LBpWp6VI45pVuEteZwXZCSjOkIJWvhQijAW/s1600/dsmap-cyl-KH-craters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvoB7hS6Cfp6GwQBSCFDUe0bGb85gLdZZ0gnwDiJSPnlsC76kY4urjy0DIP__fGCvZCUYvLaLJzdDMeyuRRPEnnN3Wt_imQ3Ho064mxmhb7LBpWp6VI45pVuEteZwXZCSjOkIJWvhQijAW/s1600/dsmap-cyl-KH-craters.jpg" height="300" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of the craters of Dione - the largest is 85 km wide.</td></tr>
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Craters also tell us about the population of bodies that formed them. In both cases, but Pluto and Charon especially, the sizes of the craters we see may tell us the numbers of small bodies that populate the zones both the Asteroid and Kuiper Belts. I will be assisting on this effort, too, though not leading it. Much of the crater work comes later when we have mapping orbit data in hand, but first order of business will be to survey the situation on dwarf planet 4 Ceres as we move in and assess what type of craters we see and how they have altered or been altered by the surface.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcmgZ1k0wmeTb5UY9zMAB0Sm_TjEwdN7Dpt6VgFKNwZuMEQdFeP5QEUumvnpX_GuHdXZC-_K3YX2LZP2CUkbo5c1ulDZMjZpcp3CA5taVaDNz25bXuD7d3OreeQGFUPYppt8VlcvS_LY02/s1600/Ceres_HST.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcmgZ1k0wmeTb5UY9zMAB0Sm_TjEwdN7Dpt6VgFKNwZuMEQdFeP5QEUumvnpX_GuHdXZC-_K3YX2LZP2CUkbo5c1ulDZMjZpcp3CA5taVaDNz25bXuD7d3OreeQGFUPYppt8VlcvS_LY02/s1600/Ceres_HST.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Color HST image showing dusky marking and a faint bluing near the poles. (STScI)</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvxYXCw5a4VO65G1MszroSEa4A-MBxr5SXnnLZasbXVTTs4yGuwGkSFRUxXXnYQtltIW-inSgZIv04XabdzY8NnIumMx-YMjCIIlD2X8OZ9kSqpaNHkyGsStI76AUQkBwJgEVTMvE_l_V/s1600/ceres_new_mosaic_stooke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvxYXCw5a4VO65G1MszroSEa4A-MBxr5SXnnLZasbXVTTs4yGuwGkSFRUxXXnYQtltIW-inSgZIv04XabdzY8NnIumMx-YMjCIIlD2X8OZ9kSqpaNHkyGsStI76AUQkBwJgEVTMvE_l_V/s1600/ceres_new_mosaic_stooke.jpg" height="160" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A new mapped version of the HST color images, compiled by Phil Stooke. <br />
There are some artifacts, such as the curved streaks, but there might be<br />
some 'bluing' at the poles, perhaps due to frost???</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
We don't know much about Cerean geology at this point. The HST and Keck images show dusky markings of various shapes, including some dark spots and a bright ring which could be impact basins. None of these features can be classified yet, however. The few bright spots might be recent impact craters, but perhaps not (they tend to be craters on icy moons). Ceres has quite an orbital inclination, almost 11°, but its axis is inclined only a few degrees, and as a result has almost no seasons. How will the affect the evolution of the surface? We don't see any obvious polar caps, but we might see some frost deposits in shadowed polar craters. Speculations among the geologists run towards craters being relaxed, and the possibility of convection in the interior, which might lead to fracturing of the surface. And of course, what is the source of true venting of water vapor? It's not nearly as vigorous as Enceladus, but the source should still be mappable on the surface. Lots to look for!</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0HR2ccnohqnTTgEvoM0VQ7_YkUSsYl1iTstoKXumHINAKq4X8pSV8-NJlILwSx-_Ob1-zhkL9hopCJH9HPyb9xsCgyCqdK7BbGQv68M6crZqE2AeKZoaKxdBmZDKCh4gmui5BKHBYan58/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-01-12+at+7.14.49+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0HR2ccnohqnTTgEvoM0VQ7_YkUSsYl1iTstoKXumHINAKq4X8pSV8-NJlILwSx-_Ob1-zhkL9hopCJH9HPyb9xsCgyCqdK7BbGQv68M6crZqE2AeKZoaKxdBmZDKCh4gmui5BKHBYan58/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-01-12+at+7.14.49+PM.png" height="320" width="316" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">HST image showing possible bright ring (between 9 and 12 o'clock). <br />
Is this an impact basin or maybe a tectonic feature like the coronae on Miranda?<br />
Circular dark features in other areas may also be impact features, or . . . ? (STScI)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivrTGlwUm2p8CaAZuwu84TgiSlGHy-ZqiF9YzlYD4tt-sB5M8BJUWI1bUiSvY_9VuP9ldxN6jGVBodZm6SEMU5IdpufNHuIYxCeNRh34R5fYzCJ81t-XT0ipYVem5EqoNc89CafJf0SWH2/s1600/Ceres_movie052706.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivrTGlwUm2p8CaAZuwu84TgiSlGHy-ZqiF9YzlYD4tt-sB5M8BJUWI1bUiSvY_9VuP9ldxN6jGVBodZm6SEMU5IdpufNHuIYxCeNRh34R5fYzCJ81t-XT0ipYVem5EqoNc89CafJf0SWH2/s1600/Ceres_movie052706.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Movie of HST images of Ceres shows a variety of faint markings. (STScI)</td></tr>
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A future post will look at New Horizons and its encounter with Pluto this summer and its family of 5+ moons, including the relatively large Charon. </div>
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<br />
Case in point, Cassini at Saturn. In my previous post I showed some of the 'super' color maps that I recently released of Saturn's icy moons. These are maps compiled from images acquired in IR, green, and UV filters. They really bring out the color contrast between geologic materials, especially recently exposed materials like crater and fracture walls, which tend to have stronger UV signatures reflecting larger grains sizes. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT0WwAVPd-EzWeUBo_A6GzcyZ2ZXd_ActBHqNP-jAoYpHD6qFFLxvshQznsYMup-KUWsQKjNUgQFaV74nh3B0B-pcYRize0JdaMVTltSCRdx6qU9sYhSj7leBxJHOQz0ZRNbSteioMOhR2/s1600/dione_natural.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT0WwAVPd-EzWeUBo_A6GzcyZ2ZXd_ActBHqNP-jAoYpHD6qFFLxvshQznsYMup-KUWsQKjNUgQFaV74nh3B0B-pcYRize0JdaMVTltSCRdx6qU9sYhSj7leBxJHOQz0ZRNbSteioMOhR2/s1600/dione_natural.jpg" height="159" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Natural Color - DIONE - Super Color </td></tr>
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In this post I show some of the 'natural' versus 'super' color images that Cassini acquired. These are not at very high resolution, however, mostly in the 1-5 kilometer range. This is because when Cassini was close to these objects it was moving too fast to acquire the large number of images required to run through all the color filters, so it chose the minimum to accomplish its scientific tasks in the short time available, mostly the IR-Gr-UV sequences (~930 to 570 to 340 nanometers). This gives the best geologic information. These sequences were further away and Cassini acquired the full filter sequences. It turns out that the centers of the R, G, and B filters (~700 to 400 nanometers) on Cassini are fairly close to optimal when attempting to simulate the human view of these bodies.</div>
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300-meter-resolution color images of Enceladus, centered on longitude 180°W.</div>
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Most of the Saturnian icy satellites can be described as having a grayish tone, with a slight reddish or greenish cast. This is because the strongest reflections from these surfaces tend to peak in the green-to-red portion of the spectrum. Color variations on the surface would tend to be rather bland to our eye, though we would likely pick out the stronger features as subtle hue contrasts. We would likely see the cliffs of Enceladus as pale bluish in tone, not unlike some terrestrial glaciers. I will try to compile some additional shots in the coming weeks. Enjoy!</div>
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Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-10793252794785584492014-11-05T09:55:00.002-06:002015-01-13T16:28:54.390-06:00Mooning Saturn: The Maps are Out!<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It may well be the longest and most complex project I've ever embarked on but the results are emphatically worth it. Although I am primarily tasked to investigate the geologic history and evolution of icy bodies across the Middle Solar System (considering the distant Kuiper Belt of small icy objects, the giant planets are more correctly in the middle zone), that work has some extra benefits. The mapping of topography and shapes of features requires precise knowledge of their locations on the surfaces of the icy moons. As I like to do things like this to completion (call it ADD or OCD if you like), the result is a complete set of updated camera vectors for all relevant Voyager, Galileo, and Cassini images of icy satellites. More on camera vectors in moment but the benefit of this is that all these images can then be </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">accurately </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">reprojected to any map format and combined to make a true global map of each body. Using color images as well and you can make a color map! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first bonus of all this work (and I do mean months of hard labor over a keyboard) was the <i>Atlas of the Galilean Satellites</i> (P. Schenk, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010) showing global and high-resolution maps of each of the 4 large moons of Jupiter known since Galileo first discovered them in 1610. This volume includes the first and only fully registered and accurate positioning of all the Galileo images of these moons, and each mosaic is faithfully reproduced therein. It is recommended to anyone interested in these bodies, in planetary imaging, and in the naked beauty of the Universe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also recently released the updated color map of Triton (see my previous 2 posts), and now the same has been done for the 6 largest midsize icy moons of Saturn </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, and Iapetus] </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">known before the Space Age began in 1957. (I would like to do Hyperion and Titan in this way but am doubtful I will be able to get to it before upcoming events overwhelm.) These are the maps that, after 18 months of work were released yesterday on </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/targetFamily/Saturn" target="_blank">NASA Photojournal</a></i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and <a href="http://www.lpi.usra.edu/icy_moons/" target="_blank">the LPI Main Website</a>, and described in detail in an article in the latest </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2014/1104-fall-issue-of-the-planetary-report.html" target="_blank">Planetary Report</a></i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. These new maps are the most accurate in terms of location, the highest resolution, and the first to show both albedo/brightness variations realistically and the first to be in full color. Not only that, they reveal these worlds to have a beauty all their own (as described in the </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Planetary Report</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> article).</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7qnndlq9BfdUV5dgUtVKZ7EE6ApxZc-HLLTlXa4eHRSATU7qFmswdd-SMxYG9qczk6XK42XVVJu6jAvIN0mU01zjEfNEzruPSF9E8a2efHsPx46v4Xymwz0djT8s6RraiHlU8FKn-oBMe/s1600/20141103_Planetary_Report_v34n03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7qnndlq9BfdUV5dgUtVKZ7EE6ApxZc-HLLTlXa4eHRSATU7qFmswdd-SMxYG9qczk6XK42XVVJu6jAvIN0mU01zjEfNEzruPSF9E8a2efHsPx46v4Xymwz0djT8s6RraiHlU8FKn-oBMe/s1600/20141103_Planetary_Report_v34n03.jpg" height="320" width="245" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Cover of the Fall 2014 issue of </i>Planetary Report<i>, showing part of Enceladus. I should open an art gallery . . . </i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Getting feature locations in planetary images is a complex business. So before getting into the maps I will attempt to explain. The images come down from space with information about the exposure, including the time and position of the camera (i.e., the camera vector), as well as spacecraft location and other things. This information is the instructions given to the camera, but the spacecraft always has a teeny bit of wobble and the information is always slightly inaccurate as a result. Once sufficient number of images have been built up to cover most of the surface, someone (such as myself) can then go in and select a bunch of match-points that identify features in multiple images. Each points should all have the same location in each image but do not due to the wobble. Once cataloged, the pointing vectors are adjusted (a 'bundle-block adjustment') in a least-squares program until the differences in the match-point locations are minimized. Ideally these difference should be zero but seldom are. Anyway, this new information is then passed back to the images and we can then know precisely where features are.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why is this important? Obviously we want accurate maps of planets so we can send landers to the right place, and make future observations of changes or unusual features, but we also want to make accurate topographic maps from stereo images and such and that requires accuracy. Scientific work on geologic processes also requires accuracy in position or we get the wrong answer and waste time and money. And if we have inaccurate pointing information our maps are misaligned and we can't make the kind of mapping product like those released yesterday.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLog8bfgZV0AvbDXqp8EnUMrMBn_xIJbcsHgnPqRFg2YSXhxS1TZmjrJm6e9vl6mZNLxJkqou1gC84qMuHhVfzOJXTYq2qq-PlFRYTebHar5sT5djycRqL2PCmDpJ0paUjGDEabvGy4I06/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-28+at+3.33.54+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLog8bfgZV0AvbDXqp8EnUMrMBn_xIJbcsHgnPqRFg2YSXhxS1TZmjrJm6e9vl6mZNLxJkqou1gC84qMuHhVfzOJXTYq2qq-PlFRYTebHar5sT5djycRqL2PCmDpJ0paUjGDEabvGy4I06/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-28+at+3.33.54+PM.png" height="136" width="320" /></span></i></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An example of a misaligned map (left) and an accurately aligned map (right). Courtesy USGS.</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, this brings us to the new maps. As noted above, these are the best maps produced to date of these objects. They will be updated periodically as our understanding of their rotation state improves and as the last sets of images come through in 2015, but positionally they will not change much more if at all. Several close encounters of Tethys, Enceladus, Dione and even a few more shots of Mimas are on tap for next year. The maps are at different resolutions because the bulk of images for each satellite were obtained at different resolutions because of the Cassini tour geometry and speeds and the size of the objects. The goal was to make maps at the highest resolution possible with as uniform a resolution as possible. I </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(slightly) </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">favored resolution in each case, and the result was 250 meters for Tethys and Dione, 400 meters for Rhea and Iapetus, 200 meters for Mimas, and 100 meters for Enceladus, which has been the focus of numerous Cassini encounters and is the best mapped icy body in the Solar System.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These are the first global maps to realistically show brightness variations across the surface. Hence you can see the really dark trailing hemispheres of Tethys, Dione and Rhea very well. Bright lineations on Dione and Rhea also stand out as do various bright and dark features such as rayed craters. Like all maps, compromises were required to get a uniform map product, as each image was acquired under its own uniquely different lighting and viewing conditions. When a choice was required I usually chose feature definition (from shading) over brightness variation, for example.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tale of Two Hemispheres. These global projections show how different Saturn's icy moons can look, depending on the view. The top is the leading hemisphere, covered in smooth deposits and sinuous rilles. Note the young bright ray crater Creusa near top. The bottom view is of the darker heavily cratered trailing hemisphere, which is scarred by arcuate young fracture networks.</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The other new feature of these maps is that they are the first accurate maps in color (I think somebody may have done preliminary color maps elsewhere but they are not as complete or accurate as these positionally or in color registration). These new maps are in 'Superman' colors, just beyond the range of normal human color vision. The color choice was not made to annoy anybody. Cassini did obtain some images in the R-G-B range of the spectrum close to human vision but these are insufficient images to construct global maps at high resolution. The natural visual colors of these bodies do reveal information but they tend to be rather bland. Cassini did obtain routine higher resolution coverage of these moons in the near-IR and the UV wavelengths and these are used to make the global maps. "Dialing up' the colors to include these spectral ranges also brings out color contrasts between geologic features much better than the olde R-G-B range.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition to the global maps, Cassini obtained a number of higher resolution mosaics, many of them in color. Some of these are shown in the </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2014/1104-fall-issue-of-the-planetary-report.html" target="_blank">Planetary Report</a></i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> article. This will be the topic of a future blog.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is all well and good to use maps like these for scientific investigations. That is why we go there, to learn about how the Solar System works. But sometimes it is worth stepping back for a few moments and marveling at the amazing Universe we are part of. Each world out there is unique and holds numerous discoveries and surprises (check out the Planetary Report issue for some of those, but</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> if you search earlier blogs here, and </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">also our <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103510003222" target="_blank">2011 Icarus article</a> where I describe them as well.) These worlds are also little jewels in a vast empty Cosmos, fascinating and wonderful to behold. I hope to have more on these maps soon, but for now enough blubbering! The maps are released to the public to enjoy for free. After all, this is YOUR space program! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To view and download the maps, go to the <a href="http://www.lpi.usra.edu/icy_moons/" target="_blank">LPI</a> or <a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/targetFamily/Saturn" target="_blank">JPL</a> websites (The JPL releases will have been dated 2014-11-04 they have scrolled of their page). The maps are released in global and hemispheric views, and with and without annotation, suitable for wall poster printing! The global map can be dropped into GoogleEarth or similar global rendering software. We have released on the </span><a href="http://www.lpi.usra.edu/icy_moons/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">LPI</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">website moves showing these moons in rotation and flyby. We are working on how to make them downloadable. In the meantime, they are also on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/LPIUSRA" target="_blank">LPI YouTube</a> channel for quick viewing (other related high-res videos can be found on my galsat400 YouTube channel).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you plan to use them in publications, productions, or presentations, the proper credits are: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Global map(s) of Saturnian moon(s) [name of moon(s)] were produced by Dr. Paul Schenk (Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston TX. Image data are from the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) camera on the Cassini orbiter (NASA, JPL).</b></span></span></div>
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Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-48771818514976993082014-08-23T15:36:00.003-05:002014-08-23T15:51:46.304-05:00 Triton: Addenda and Errata <div style="text-align: justify;">
Today’s blog features a correction and some additional details on the new Triton map and movie blog posted a few days ago > <a href="http://stereomoons.blogspot.com/2014/08/triton-at-25.html">stereomoons.blogspot.com/2014/08/triton-at-25.html</a>. <</div>
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First, a correction. The surface compositions of Triton and Pluto are indeed similar but not quite identical. Triton has nitrogen, methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide on its surface, and probably some water ice, but of those ices Pluto does not have carbon dioxide or water ice that we can measure from Earth. What those differences may mean for geologic and atmospheric history no one can say as yet with confidence, but all the more reason for going to Pluto and someday back to Triton. </div>
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As a matter of personal opinion, I am sometimes asked which planets I’d like to see explored next. Europa is first on the list, but after that we have the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune and their strange families of icy moons (including Miranda, Ariel, and Triton to name a few). These large bodies are distinct and different from the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn but have been visited only once, by Voyager 2 with instruments designed in the 1970s. What we could learn by going back has been amply demonstrated by the innumerable discoveries of Cassini at Saturn. </div>
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Triton, whose surface may be younger than a few million years and may be geologically active today, is one of the most fascinating bodies on the Solar System. Its maximum surface temperature is only 35 degrees above absolute zero, and yet volcanoes and geysers have remade its surface, possibly within the lifetime of the human species. Even the Voyager scientists, who had become accustomed to surprises after the discoveries on Io, Ganymede, Titan, Miranda and the rest, were left almost speechless as Voyager made its final planetary visit. As Larry Soderblom exclaimed at the press briefing when he showed the first Triton images, “What a way to leave the Solar System!”</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzDKzCba945nMUkLyHxW9wiqta7GErqH_RxLAgXr3gyzNV1TmQyNWJxOvNebvM232Gz325IlAqfqsM3wmyeK6JQ4qa5sUiHyjwLA7hzFwtUKRuEFx4qKKXx4HOpAHSYrNNSM_nBKlb0pkt/s1600/P1070684.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzDKzCba945nMUkLyHxW9wiqta7GErqH_RxLAgXr3gyzNV1TmQyNWJxOvNebvM232Gz325IlAqfqsM3wmyeK6JQ4qa5sUiHyjwLA7hzFwtUKRuEFx4qKKXx4HOpAHSYrNNSM_nBKlb0pkt/s1600/P1070684.jpg" height="302" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">T-shirt printed up to during the Neptune encounter 1989. The t-shirt and owner are now 25 years older.</span></div>
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Neptune was fabulous too with its strange and dynamic cloud patterns and its odd, incomplete ring system. One of my first efforts in serious image processing was to reconstruct the Neptune ring high-phase-angle observations. These were the best images of the rings we got, but the long exposures saturated Neptune itself and created bright haloes that were difficult to suppress. Normally exposed Neptune crescent images were substituted but the heavy filtering required for the bright haloes also enhanced noise in the images. The end result was a montage showing a crescent Neptune and the entire ring system. This was done back in 1992 or 93, so I’m sure I or someone else could do a better job now. It is a composite of 5 (or 6?) different exposures taken at different times and distances from Neptune, but all the data are real. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixXz1i21vouJGdOot7hUjDDymKVUSOJbFqXvr_sXLy67M29mP0DyiAedjr9onyjMCdFkeAAv9udwU-yFxFitDbqXtZPBuHvD4D_gH799IntXraeQUQmWEpLbCptqgr2UlQ1k2jBwR6PqUJ/s1600/nring.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixXz1i21vouJGdOot7hUjDDymKVUSOJbFqXvr_sXLy67M29mP0DyiAedjr9onyjMCdFkeAAv9udwU-yFxFitDbqXtZPBuHvD4D_gH799IntXraeQUQmWEpLbCptqgr2UlQ1k2jBwR6PqUJ/s1600/nring.jpg" height="255" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crescent mosaic of Neptune from Voyager 2 on departure, August, 1989.</td></tr>
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<b>Triton Map: Enhancement and 'Color'.</b> The enhancement applied to the Triton map in the <a href="http://stereomoons.blogspot.com/2014/08/triton-at-25.html">August 21 post</a> was a modest contrast-stretch only; no differential color enhancement was applied. Surface brightness contrasts on Triton exist but are not as strong as on Pluto. The color does have a greenish cast in equatorial areas. This seems to be real, but there are ‘concerns’ with Triton’s color. First, the color images were sometimes smeared or noisy, due to long exposures under very low solar lighting intensity for which the cameras were not designed. This explains some of the splotchy color mottling that is apparent in a few areas. Secondly, there are some uncertainties in the photometric properties of Triton. Earth-based spectra of Triton obtained in the 1970’s and 80’s differ in the inferred visual color of Triton and it was not possible to get an exact color ‘calibration’ on Triton. We did our best, but the colors may not be only approximate, given the slightly different color sensitivity of the Voyager 2 camera. </div>
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The Triton map is suitable to drop into Google Earth or similar programs! You can now zoom and spin on Triton in any way you like. </div>
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<b>Neptune in the Movie.</b> Several have asked why Neptune doesn’t appear in our movie. Several reasons, the most important of which is that we ran out of time for the August 25 anniversary. The second is that we compress almost 10 days of the encounter into 1 minute. Neptune would probably appear in 2, maybe 3 of those frames. We are looking into it. We know that Neptune and Triton do appear together in the sky about a day out from Triton, and again 6 days later, but do not appear in proximity to each other on the way in, apparently. We may attempt to add Neptune back in for a final version later this year.</div>
Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-79423988022618779012014-08-21T11:35:00.000-05:002014-08-23T15:50:17.038-05:00Triton at 25<h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Triton at +25, Pluto at -1: Twin Planets Separated by Gravity</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://stereomoons.blogspot.com/2014/08/triton-addenda-and-errata.html"><i>[An addenda and errata for this post has been uploaded on Aug 23. Click here to go to it and read more.]</i></a></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has been quite a long time since my most recent post but it doesn't mean I haven't been busy! I have been working long hours preparing a new set of global maps of icy moons, the first of which is being released today. This is the new high-resolution color map of Neptune's large and crazy moon Triton (The next set will be released within a month, and the Galilean Satellite global maps were released in the Atlas of the Galilean Satellites in 2010.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">August 25, 2014 is an interesting date in Solar System exploration. It is foremost the 25th anniversary of the Voyager 2 encounter with Neptune and Triton. This was the grand finale of that landmark mission, which over the span of 10 years completed the first exploration of the giant Outer Planets. It is thus a good day to release the new Triton map. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was a freshly minted post-doc at JPL in 1989, having arrived the year before. Having been a summer intern for Voyager Science Support under Dr. Ellis Miner 10 years before during the Voyager 2 Jupiter encounter, and then 2 years later for Saturn, I felt a bond with the mission and its support teams. Many of these people I know today! But in 1989 I had no connection with the Project. Fortunately I knew Bill McKinnon, my thesis advisor, and he knew folks on the Imaging Team. In the spirit of celebration surrounding the Neptune encounter, the two of us were snuck into the Inner Sanctum in Building 264, third floor, where I had been an intern 10 years before. (True, 'someone' objected to us being there but we were snuck back in anyway and no one else complained. It was a grand and special event and [almost] everyone was happy to be part of it and share it with a few colleagues.)</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the few shots of myself (back left) during my Voyager internship during the Jupiter Summer of 1979. Project Scientist Dr. Ed Stone is in front of me at the head of the conference table.</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Here are some of the photos (on film!) I took during the Neptune encounter 10 years later . . .</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgIFOikjsjFtqn-EqvYwDwkGaXmNAtAvCqZ9Evezzp1_kU8DMjIwfpOI3zK7-2g1zxauFwpHDDzikSk5NNM7QZRTBvcnXnQPoqmLoGhgogz1CZwi9FhrRiliwC1HI8NoF04hv1iGgv6NZ3/s1600/neptune1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgIFOikjsjFtqn-EqvYwDwkGaXmNAtAvCqZ9Evezzp1_kU8DMjIwfpOI3zK7-2g1zxauFwpHDDzikSk5NNM7QZRTBvcnXnQPoqmLoGhgogz1CZwi9FhrRiliwC1HI8NoF04hv1iGgv6NZ3/s1600/neptune1.jpg" height="217" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bill McKinnon, and some of the TV crews assembled to report the Neptune encounter, 1989.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjLlVOJW9jmur5wQGPwY-7OtGQd7xaKA7wfZuRpgOBmpp-EFpL_XpG61CuiE6eXF1_PBoUcgMk8jRUil11ZuKHym-b31eJSGrBMSHAK0_0QsCxtK13yamdXpLg3ceo9r89TmiM6ZWyjGl1/s1600/neptune5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjLlVOJW9jmur5wQGPwY-7OtGQd7xaKA7wfZuRpgOBmpp-EFpL_XpG61CuiE6eXF1_PBoUcgMk8jRUil11ZuKHym-b31eJSGrBMSHAK0_0QsCxtK13yamdXpLg3ceo9r89TmiM6ZWyjGl1/s1600/neptune5.jpg" height="216" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A JPL billboard showing Voyager's progress.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihcBhjoJz3YM7ypuEudfjB9X3JN1BG0Cs52y4ub8YJEPkwmpaqnALxHp10x-LVZjFLiCBkF7OQWOYXJE4P2L0w_y-XLX7pruPUZC4z5kdo0tiD8Nc0-w0jqs87ZJwOGm-MydXDVUf1QmRg/s1600/neptune6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihcBhjoJz3YM7ypuEudfjB9X3JN1BG0Cs52y4ub8YJEPkwmpaqnALxHp10x-LVZjFLiCBkF7OQWOYXJE4P2L0w_y-XLX7pruPUZC4z5kdo0tiD8Nc0-w0jqs87ZJwOGm-MydXDVUf1QmRg/s1600/neptune6.jpg" height="221" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jay Inge making an airbrush map of Triton, the last body mapped in this way.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX27shVDrIOkTK6gcywErsm6_PAXTiw_J-t6kjQGxgOkv4GLQ5OKQsZZogCTJSrB-t4hvKob5SOO0OXgVoNqoGzhFJbie6kE9O1lRRYqRNpthXa2p1AhaUkpRIzUJgxY4IrFr6StFFZxph/s1600/neptune7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX27shVDrIOkTK6gcywErsm6_PAXTiw_J-t6kjQGxgOkv4GLQ5OKQsZZogCTJSrB-t4hvKob5SOO0OXgVoNqoGzhFJbie6kE9O1lRRYqRNpthXa2p1AhaUkpRIzUJgxY4IrFr6StFFZxph/s1600/neptune7.jpg" height="215" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Linda Spilker (nee Horn) gleefully monitoring IRIS data from Neptune on the printer.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqoMHCtBkvOoFP7gUnwFrjFGZlnPhyphenhyphen9URMfNY7lJ0HWFklAsgrvrSeA4OpbtOMXYXXJ06vsGCFIG9DTuBVYCWOzKZfIHdg3yZuNoa-nWqrkpselArXIXdLv-gOiIbtcxcoxLlWFZetdnfS/s1600/neptune9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqoMHCtBkvOoFP7gUnwFrjFGZlnPhyphenhyphen9URMfNY7lJ0HWFklAsgrvrSeA4OpbtOMXYXXJ06vsGCFIG9DTuBVYCWOzKZfIHdg3yZuNoa-nWqrkpselArXIXdLv-gOiIbtcxcoxLlWFZetdnfS/s1600/neptune9.jpg" height="217" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Linda and Kelly Beatty (Sky & Telescope) looking over data printouts.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi14NeT64VtP7IbPyrcnZjSDohVpcn-S7lvocXDwZ4kUlAZhhHiFdSWqSCe6W1i3PSgKE3Oj81MsrUI2n6V18uR740BzqaKQ3KFvqvv8JovMosvOCbuy2F-F0lxYnuuDA4l3Fq0AHzDxI3F/s1600/neptune11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi14NeT64VtP7IbPyrcnZjSDohVpcn-S7lvocXDwZ4kUlAZhhHiFdSWqSCe6W1i3PSgKE3Oj81MsrUI2n6V18uR740BzqaKQ3KFvqvv8JovMosvOCbuy2F-F0lxYnuuDA4l3Fq0AHzDxI3F/s1600/neptune11.jpg" height="320" width="217" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Linda Spilker looking over IRIS results the old fashioned way!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOV4iEYlvy2sqT1qMf6UJc7hRdOURbWmO5ii68qQ76wUYgrOXESeAO0wurvmgU8K565Y6xQ9QisYEUAXlwiOmz66Z6hxUSVP-Ib3SmFYUzua4xB25P2g_G_k6iLTuvZ39NMpsmwnU0AR_V/s1600/neptune13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOV4iEYlvy2sqT1qMf6UJc7hRdOURbWmO5ii68qQ76wUYgrOXESeAO0wurvmgU8K565Y6xQ9QisYEUAXlwiOmz66Z6hxUSVP-Ib3SmFYUzua4xB25P2g_G_k6iLTuvZ39NMpsmwnU0AR_V/s1600/neptune13.jpg" height="320" width="215" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Watching the monitors during Encounter. Jonathan Eberhart (Science News) is in the foreground. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVGdULMzrtIIpG00i70FO-KMNEgNoDaivH7cSGRVpZSzsT5460B-LIk1LqGlWjR9NT4X4avWEBWmIHr9503XX5Wh4UUjOJlwVQl3ag_lf5vPWg6C1rB2-hJFATAu4_Kde1d0-tgNyrL5z2/s1600/neptune16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVGdULMzrtIIpG00i70FO-KMNEgNoDaivH7cSGRVpZSzsT5460B-LIk1LqGlWjR9NT4X4avWEBWmIHr9503XX5Wh4UUjOJlwVQl3ag_lf5vPWg6C1rB2-hJFATAu4_Kde1d0-tgNyrL5z2/s1600/neptune16.jpg" height="216" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Larry Soderblom, chief of the satellites group, discussing the mission with the press. <br />A monitor shows the current image of Triton.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3tcxorQ1YlWchZioeOqKie4eak4iG4OK1YG6SIqh68zD01wO8Glec6vQshLaKlYLg1e1_tmlOlnD3jynNT8A89DzizbeBi65Jf0MEMTA6pu-sK0PexMCQ1EJ-xji_BkTR3ZdfAmNRAum0/s1600/neptune20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3tcxorQ1YlWchZioeOqKie4eak4iG4OK1YG6SIqh68zD01wO8Glec6vQshLaKlYLg1e1_tmlOlnD3jynNT8A89DzizbeBi65Jf0MEMTA6pu-sK0PexMCQ1EJ-xji_BkTR3ZdfAmNRAum0/s1600/neptune20.jpg" height="215" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dave Grinspoon, Caitlin Griffith, Bob Strom, Bill Boynton, Eugene Shoemaker, Joe Veverka.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK8OCDH9pl3836OjVkdx5FbLYxpOCzu8TEDkFxdBcUW9axIlpuDDKGXtUPpz_TRB6ASgAclres658t2-OwR9giZb9-H3hCCxfi4CRWUkHH5bPoZMjGqh99yMAmrf6TF7LF2JLByGjzRMYA/s1600/neptune21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK8OCDH9pl3836OjVkdx5FbLYxpOCzu8TEDkFxdBcUW9axIlpuDDKGXtUPpz_TRB6ASgAclres658t2-OwR9giZb9-H3hCCxfi4CRWUkHH5bPoZMjGqh99yMAmrf6TF7LF2JLByGjzRMYA/s1600/neptune21.jpg" height="215" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dave Grinspoon, Buck Janes, Carl Sagan, and Torrence Johnson</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpO9J5yMhvHltCYFEtTHkaFL98e3Q_amxmifaB98vodcugaFlD2-3pf8JqCzDrYTRHIcRpdXwaaRe0xMiqbgTE1m0zEwRqsrL9rtDn8_3z-Wk4Uzee4QP3Urj9kL0P2nMlgD5tUojLweOF/s1600/IMG030_2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpO9J5yMhvHltCYFEtTHkaFL98e3Q_amxmifaB98vodcugaFlD2-3pf8JqCzDrYTRHIcRpdXwaaRe0xMiqbgTE1m0zEwRqsrL9rtDn8_3z-Wk4Uzee4QP3Urj9kL0P2nMlgD5tUojLweOF/s1600/IMG030_2.jpeg" height="320" width="311" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lastly, that's me in front, with Jeff Moore right behind. What a grand time! <br />Thanks to the Voyager Project for letting some of us in to share it.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I along with everyone else at JPL in those days was treated to the Voyager Neptune encounter live every day on our closed-circuit TV monitors (this was just a few years before the WWW, cell phones, etc.). Each day Neptune and Triton got a little bit bigger and more detailed as new images were flashed to the monitors. The fantastic cloud patterns of deep blue Neptune were fun, but for Triton, we didn't even know how large it was, so everything was new. It wasn't until a week before encounter that we learned the radius of Triton for the first time. The surface itself finally became clear only on August 24, the day before closest approach, when Triton's strange features became distinct. The new map being presented today is the product of those images.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Voyager Project also published a Travel Guide (before pdf's!) describing the Neptune encounter. It contains many gems of wisdom and fun facts. Included are the following quotes from a section in which Voyager 2 leaves a hypothetical diary during its trip out of the Solar System.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFE6YntG-z-tYq2AbmSJ6yrBtj3NMUk1GtwcmeGuu8-nBiuOz_d_SFtQOmEtzESlpaWDnKr1rygIwn7AZfBQuJ_VEGvidKPzVMGK24EUM6827mq55yncPuQeQPdfRXZHNCrEzg2af0BXDS/s1600/P1070674.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFE6YntG-z-tYq2AbmSJ6yrBtj3NMUk1GtwcmeGuu8-nBiuOz_d_SFtQOmEtzESlpaWDnKr1rygIwn7AZfBQuJ_VEGvidKPzVMGK24EUM6827mq55yncPuQeQPdfRXZHNCrEzg2af0BXDS/s1600/P1070674.jpg" height="320" width="220" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-5lj000PLIs5uyLDQxwCeULHWGFdJspMxb0nZl0JXAyK3klGqtwaTHnGH0VE_kdme-2i9OTeQYWr62ixXJgHSsCrT-_QYgsZVJpYVXl5lkZzgqPFa5GdVF2Wf-RD0xLCECre9CtRFIAvC/s1600/P1070677.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-5lj000PLIs5uyLDQxwCeULHWGFdJspMxb0nZl0JXAyK3klGqtwaTHnGH0VE_kdme-2i9OTeQYWr62ixXJgHSsCrT-_QYgsZVJpYVXl5lkZzgqPFa5GdVF2Wf-RD0xLCECre9CtRFIAvC/s1600/P1070677.jpg" height="252" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note the little 'flip-movie' of the encounter at bottom left.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Star Date -1.259 (1990) Today I am filled with an intense sorrow. The encounter with Neptune has ended. It is a but a tiny star in the background. Part of my sorrow is from not being able to visit Pluto before my departure, for it is a very mysterious body. . . . I wish that I, or my sister spacecraft, had been the one to unveil some of the mysteries of Pluto. The Project never seriously considered a visit to Pluto because it would have meant foregoing Voyager 1's encounter with Saturn's moon Titan. . . . However, it will be many decades before man will send another spacecraft out to that part of the solar system." (!)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like Voyager 'said,' one of the things left undone was the exploration of the trans-Neptunian realm. Voyager 1 was going too far north, and Voyager 2 too far south. Other than Pluto itself we had no knowledge of the "Kuiper-Edgeworth Belt" or just Kuiper Belt, until 1992, when the first non-Pluto object was discovered in that zone. Since then hundreds more icy objects have been found. These objects are smaller than Earth, have icy surface compositions, and extend well beyond Neptune. New Horizons is the first dedicated exploration of that zone. It crosses the orbit of Neptune on August 25, 2014, on the same day as the 25th anniversary of Voyager passing Neptune. It is also now a mere 11 months from Pluto, its main target, which it will reach in mid-July 2015.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a double sense this is fitting, as Triton is a near twin of Pluto. Triton and Pluto are both slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, have very thin nitrogen atmospheres, frozen ices on the surface (carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen), and similar bulk composition (a mixture of ices, including water ice, and rock. Triton however was captured by Neptune long time ago and has been wracked by intense heating ever since. This has remade its surface into a tortured landscape of overturned layers, volcanism, and erupting geysers.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What will we see at Pluto? Guesses have ranged from active geology to cold and cratered, so we are in for a suspenseful Summer next year! Triton is of importance as it offers clues to what geologic features might look like on Pluto, given that the icy crusts of both bodies are probably rather similar and would presumably react in similar ways under internal stress and heat. So if there were or are volcanoes on Pluto they could look similar to those we see on Triton.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what does the Triton map show and how was it constructed? The Triton map was constructed from images acquired in the clear, orange, green and blue filters (ultraviolet filter images were also used and this map will be posted at a later date). The images were co-registered in an updated control network, which determines where the camera was pointing in each frame with precision so that feature geography is well known. Photometric adjustment of each image was also done so that shading due to the curvature of the surface can be corrected. The map also includes the departing crescent imagery, which is apparent in the left hand part of the map. I hope to post the actual mosaic components in a future post.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Go Here to Find Full Resolution Triton Map and a Movie Recreating 1989 Voyager Flyby (the video is large and may take a few minutes to download):</b></span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.lpi.usra.edu/icy_moons/">http://www.lpi.usra.edu/icy_moons/</a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVeZeOvDS1lXJHMEirM-0IucsVUiArwNmT_RLwlVuyFcwAjIT_PYh0QYugawAgVnGgyniPz1PqNoWqeNnG4kBBdGptQUIDz953voi3-AOrd47gEjLyz9Cz31oBAmL0DmvDEfbVHSg-bvXy/s1600/tnmap-cyl-KH-16x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVeZeOvDS1lXJHMEirM-0IucsVUiArwNmT_RLwlVuyFcwAjIT_PYh0QYugawAgVnGgyniPz1PqNoWqeNnG4kBBdGptQUIDz953voi3-AOrd47gEjLyz9Cz31oBAmL0DmvDEfbVHSg-bvXy/s1600/tnmap-cyl-KH-16x.jpg" height="160" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Triton global map (scaled-down by a factor of 16!). Dark areas were in shadow or not observed.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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<i>[A Note on the Use of the Triton Map and Video:
All the Triton maps and videos are in the public domain and may be used
freely. Credit should be notes as: Triton map produced by Dr. P Schenk, Lunar
and Planetary Institute, Houston. Triton video produced by Dr. P. Schenk and J.
Blackwell, Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston (or LPI may be used if short form
desired). Use of map and video does not constitute an endorsement of any other product.]<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The result is a smooth map showing uniform shading and reasonably accurate brightness and color representation. Note that the orange filter used by Voyager is not quite the same as our human optical red sensors but is close enough. Although the map approximates natural colors, there are some uncertainties in the color calibration and the "true colors" of Triton in 1989 may be slightly different.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the intervening quarter century and its many discoveries, I think we have tended to forget how strange and exotic Triton really is! Its effective surface age may be a little as 10 million years, clearly implying that active geology is going on today. The cantaloupe terrain, which I interpreted back in 1993 as due to crustal overturn (diapirism), hasn't been seen anywhere else. The volcanic region with its smooth plains and volcanic pits large and small, is the size of Texas. And the southern terrains still defy interpretation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Triton map also gives a sense of the quality of the Pluto map we hope to get. The Triton encounter was rather similar to our upcoming Pluto encounter in that New Hoizons will zip through the Pluto system at a high speed, a leisurely 11 kilometers per second compared to 25 km/s for Voyager at Triton, and both bodies rotate rather slowly, ~ 6 days. This means that for both bodies we will have seen one side well at high resolution and the other side at much lower resolution, roughly 25-to-40 kilometers. The northern polar regions of Pluto and Charon will also be in darkness as seen by New Horizons, as they were for Triton.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One important difference is that New Horizons carries more powerful remote sensing instruments and will obtain infrared spectroscopy that Voyager, built in the early 1970's, could not. We should be able to map the distribution of ices across the surface. We will also resolve features several hundred meters across large areas and as small as ~90 meters in smaller regions of Pluto. Voyager's best resolution on Triton was ~300 meters in a limited area. This should be more than enough to map crater distributions, volcanoes, faults, and erosional processes. It will also be sharp enough to see if Pluto has any atmospheric plumes (or geysers) like Voyager saw at Triton. These can be seen as thin dark and bright streaks on the Triton map.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Producing global maps of Pluto and Charon will take some time as the playback of data from that great distance will be rather slow. It will take most of next autumn to return all the images and data from Pluto so we will have to be patient. The end result should be maps of the surfaces of Pluto and Charon even better than we have for Triton. It will be most interesting to compare Pluto with what we saw at Triton to see if there are any similar features, and to see whether or not Pluto has ever been geologically active. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next month: Moons of Saturn, in color.</span></div>
Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-75063814541787722312012-10-17T00:08:00.000-05:002012-10-19T00:22:40.372-05:00The End of an Era - A Personal Look Back at the Shuttle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyuZQtMRgGNHEGkESzmxEDkCSmNDZ5LwXRroLT8Mm-rpvjW5KPuP55CLkSdEGbVc1jIEJm9-PrLK0kt9MLX' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<i>Shuttle Endeavour leaves Houston on its final transcontinental flight, September, 2012</i></div>
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The transfer of shuttle Endeavour to California this past month, including several flyovers in Houston I witnessed and videoed, signals the last "flight" of the Space Shuttle era. For us late Baby Boomers and beyond, the Shuttle was a continuous element of our adult lives from its inception. It has also been linked indirected with my own career more than once. The flyovers and public viewing in Houston last month were perhaps not so surprisingly emotive personally, given the link professionally and the link through time. What follows is a personal retrospective on Shuttle history, a reflection on the journey we all, as individuals and as a nation, have taken with the Shuttle for the past 4 decades.</div>
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<i>Endeavour flies past the Mercury-Redstone at JSC on its last trip - September 2012</i></div>
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Much of Shuttle history derives directly from its origins. The shuttle program was founded in 1972 as the space agency fought for some sort follow-up to Apollo, lest exploration of space die on the Moon. The high adventure of the Apollo moon landings gave flight to some fanciful and wild dreams for the future of manned space exploration, including orbiting stations, shuttles to orbit, deep space probes to the planets . . . Articles in 1969 frequently featured subterranean Moon-bases and orbital infrastructure not far removed from what we saw on the big screen the year before in <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i>. Many of these visions had their roots in much earlier dreams, especially those from the 1950's following the War and capture of the german rocket scientists, the chief of those being Werner von Braun. Dreams of space conquest were famously captured in the paints of Chesley Bonestal, and others and in articles in <i>Collier's</i>. The shuttle was hoped to be the beginning of this next era, but the future in space did not quite follow this path. Neither Congress nor Nixon were in a spending mood in space. The result was a vehicle built from compromise, perpetually struggling to justify it existence from the day of its inception. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJll0-kYPeeRqC_8GInNQU4OTOTn6OoL3l5BsgTgWPHFRXOKPkgHoF0KorR7kEMdqhOmdYpaMayBQ8FffHss6abjtjVn6Lef4mQv0cf5NUD99tK8OBt7joaiwTjWTlJ2rjtdgKP6VL2PgH/s1600/lunar-hilton2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJll0-kYPeeRqC_8GInNQU4OTOTn6OoL3l5BsgTgWPHFRXOKPkgHoF0KorR7kEMdqhOmdYpaMayBQ8FffHss6abjtjVn6Lef4mQv0cf5NUD99tK8OBt7joaiwTjWTlJ2rjtdgKP6VL2PgH/s320/lunar-hilton2.jpg" width="254" /></a></div>
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<i>optimistic tho faded clip from a Buffalo newspaper July 12, 1969 . . . </i></div>
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Despite its triumphant and anguished history, Americans are justifiably proud of their men and women on the Space Shuttle, and we tend to invest a lot of national pride in them, even when flights seemed to be routine, reduced to the mundane of lofting cargo to the Space Station. We often tend to neglect that pride. The Shuttle program took us on a powerful ride to places we didn't anticipate, from exhilaration to despair. It is fitting to pause to reflect on some of those moments.</div>
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<b>September 17, 1976</b><br />
<b>Enterprise Rollout</b><br />
Four years after funding start, the first test Shuttle, <i>Enterprise</i>, rolls out of the assembly building, joined by the cast of Star Trek. Destined for flight and landing tests, it would represent the fleet at the Air and Space Museum until Shuttle retirement 35 years later. It's only trips to the launch pad were integration and structural tests at KSC and the later abandoned Vandenberg Shuttle launch facility in California.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVFAJpKIXSLTGUnZ6UcTckrpGiyHO8IaMcR3h0nvZL0Oc5ZvPDOfKRsVL2XuzhlDvhyphenhyphenwCmtkO2FLGJ-YVGY_nUvqmd2rimC-k330i4teT42k1xj6HkxSuOtRf6fnXILCnGjQUq2D9RaeNc/s1600/enterprise-01976.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVFAJpKIXSLTGUnZ6UcTckrpGiyHO8IaMcR3h0nvZL0Oc5ZvPDOfKRsVL2XuzhlDvhyphenhyphenwCmtkO2FLGJ-YVGY_nUvqmd2rimC-k330i4teT42k1xj6HkxSuOtRf6fnXILCnGjQUq2D9RaeNc/s320/enterprise-01976.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>August 12, 1977 </b></div>
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<b>Approach and Landing Tests (Enterprise)</b></div>
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<i>Enterprise</i> was taken airborne by its 747 carrier and cut loose for several free-flight and landing tests in southern California. Now largely forgotten, the first of these 5 flights was telecast live on several networks (in the days before Cable, the Internet, cell phones, etc.). The landing tests went very well and there was genuine enthusiasm but development problems continue, especially concerning loose heat shield tiles on the underbelly and with the main engines. The first launch was initially scheduled for 1979. Skylab's orbit decayed, and the Shuttle was not ready to save the laboratory before it entered the atmosphere and crashed into the Australian desert in 1979. Meanwhile the first launch of Columbia slipped, and slipped . . .</div>
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<b>April 12, 1981</b></div>
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<b>First Shuttle launch</b> </div>
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<b>STS-1 (Columbia) </b></div>
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The launch had been scheduled for April 10 but halted at T-9 minutes when the on-board computers failed to chat properly. Disappointed, we all geared up again for the 7 am (EDT) liftoff two days later, now coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the first manned orbital flight by the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin. We watched with curiosity and amazement. This was something new, though far riskier than we knew at the time. We were just coming out of the unsettling 1970's, the oil crises, gas lines, Iranian hostages, Soviet Afganistan invasion, job losses in steel and other key industries . . . The Reagan administration was only a few months old, but the hostages had been released, he had just survived an assassination attempt 2 weeks before (the low point of his popularity swing in 1982 was yet to come), Disco was finally dead, and the 6 year hiatus in manned spaceflight highlighted by continual reports of shuttle construction difficulties was finally almost over. As a happy accident of timing, the shuttle launch became part of a national reawakening out of the angst of the prior decade (the crushing debt load incurred as part of that rebirth would have to be dealt with later). <br />
I was in first year at graduate school in Illinois and listened on the radio during the 7 am launch, disappointed that I couldn't find a TV at that hour. The strapped together tanks and rockets gave Columbia a very different look to the Saturn V, described by some as a "space-age Taj Mahal," it's external tank painted white in those days. The Shuttle also had a more muscular feel to it in contrast to the slower moving Saturn and "leapt off the pad." Astronauts John Young and Bob Crippen became national heroes for a while. A wide frontier of unknown possibilities seem to open before us. The flight captivated us. Here was something new, an engineering marvel, and it all went off perfectly (almost) on the very first flight. Wow.</div>
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<b>June 18, 1983</b></div>
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<b>STS-7 (Challenger)</b></div>
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With the shuttle emerging from its test flights into "operational" status, things seem to settle into a routine of sorts, and this opened the doors to some long neglected opportunities. The first major Shuttle highlight and media show after STS-1 was the flight of the first american female astronaut, the late Sally Ride.<br />
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<b>August 30, 1983</b></div>
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<b>STS-8 (Challenger)</b></div>
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First African-american astronaut, Guion Bluford, was in fact the first "minority" astronaut of any kind. It was also the first Shuttle night launch and night landing, always a spectacle. The flight also featured the first close call of the program, and a warning sign, as one of the booster nozzles very nearly burned through during launch. This could have caused the entire ascending vehicle to tumble out of control.</div>
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<b>February 3, 1984</b></div>
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<b>STS-41-B (Challenger)</b></div>
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This mission produced one of the most famous and iconic images from the Shuttle era, that of Bruce McCandless floating free in space, the first untethered space walk in history. It also marked the clumsy change in flight designation numerology, and the first landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, marking the first return to launch site and closing one of the last remaining links to the Shuttle's promised reusability.<br />
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<b>April 6, 1984</b></div>
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<b>STS-41-C</b></div>
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The Solar Max Repair mission was the first to capture and repair a satellite in orbit, fulfilling another of the promised objectives of the program. It did not go smoothly at first, as the attempt to capture the satellite by astronaut Nelson failed and the satellite began to tumble.</div>
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<b>June 26, 1984</b></div>
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<b>STS-41-D (Discovery)</b></div>
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First launch abort after engine ignition of the Shuttle (and first such since Gemini 6 in 1965). There was also a brief hydrogen fire on the pad shortly afterwards, but it was contained before any damage could occur.</div>
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<b>January 24, 1986</b><br />
<b>STS-51-C (Discovery)</b><br />
First classified DoD shuttle mission. 'nuf said. The military was still building the Vandenberg shuttle launch complex in California at this time.<br />
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<b>January 28, 1986</b></div>
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<b>STS-51-L (STS-25, Challenger)</b> </div>
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Five years into flight, we had come to think of shuttle launches as somewhat routine, and watched with scorn, frustration, and open mockery as NASA struggled in seemingly futile attempts to launch the thing on schedule. Something wasn't working right but we mostly assumed it would work itself out eventually. One thing was clear, the shuttle wasn't exactly living up to its touted capability of 100 routine launches a year. The machine was already proving much more complex and costly than had been (irrationally) projected. </div>
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Still, this seeming irregularity was taking on many of the familiar hallmarks of air travel, with its weather and other delays. This time there was "citizen" astronaut on board, school teacher Christa McAuliffe. After numerous delays, and a hard freeze the night before, launch proceeded over strenuous engineering objections. School children across the country were watching live on CNN. Despite this novelty, many only saw the launch when their programming was interrupted by the news bulletin. </div>
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High in the sky for all to see, the familiar rocket plume abruptly blossomed into a large orange cloud as the two solid rockets shot out free and began wandering the sky. The image of the giant "Y" or perhaps a "Why?" in the sky over Florida, formed by the two solid rocket booster exhaust plumes trailing forward, became seared into the memory of anyone old enough to understand its meaning. Those familiar with shuttle launches knew it was wrong but some wondered. The fact that it occurred 1 day after the anniversary of the Apollo-1 fire in 1967 was jarring. <br />
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I myself woke late (I was in graduate school studying planetary science at Washington University in Saint Louis) to try and catch any new images from the Voyager 2 Uranus encounter 4 days earlier. Instead I was caught up in the coverage 15 minutes after the explosion. The rest of the day was spent in a mental and emotional haze. Working effectively just wasn't going to happen. The TV coverage (there was no internet) continued throughout most of the day, followed by Reagan's memorable address to the nation that afternoon.<br />
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The national shock was enormous, the "JFK" moment of our generation. The New York Times noted the importance of the event with its headline "The Shuttle Explodes," not "a" but "The" shuttle. Quoting Don Davis, "The Challenger Disaster was a mortal blow to the optimistic dreams of widespread access to space such as we still had then." Many felt the shuttle program had only just begun to fulfill its potential and the march into space had been cruelly interrupted. A great determination to pick ourselves up off the ground, dust ourselves off, and get back on our winged horse and resume the great adventure took hold. <br />
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Each step in the redesign and testing of the systems components was reported in detail over the next 2 years, as were the finding of crew remains and the hearings that exposed the management weaknesses of NASA and its improper handling of the shuttle system outside its design limits and this launch in particular. It was also by now clear that the Shuttle was much more complex and tempermental than hoped for. Also, the decision to use one vehicle for all our launch services and especially using humans to launch telecom satellites was now obviously seriously flawed and the Shuttle manifest was quietly reshuffled. NASA scrambled to readjust launch manifests but some vehicles could not be moved and exploration vehicles like Galileo, Ulysses, HST and Magellan remained tethered to the shuttle launch system, delayed by years as a result. The effects on Galileo included a 6-year delay and a serious antenna failure, both of which would impact on my own work on the Jovian satellites. Yet it is the kick in the gut that day that lingers.</div>
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<b>April 15, 1986</b></div>
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<b>Titan 34D rocket explodes 8.5 seconds into flight</b></div>
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<b>May 3, 1986</b></div>
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<b>Delta rocket explodes 90 seconds into flight</b></div>
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Coming within months of the Challenger accident, these two successive launch failures came as a new shock as our space program seemed to falter. Both vehicles would be launching again within a year but the US seemed suddenly impotent in space, with little if any reliable access to orbit.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn7ODy3oKd9mMEnBUUlyStSTMK_ao7KrceYyBzPxJH_0u5wyeRpQ1T4HTXyTCXM_SGlrer5Qcjo-fjbLoVLTqWbTXA_x_lpEwNvg_SQ4Np_sWZJ7FIrmGyADhvRQbW4qPekMgbuavBUFbL/s1600/titan-34D-explosion1986.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn7ODy3oKd9mMEnBUUlyStSTMK_ao7KrceYyBzPxJH_0u5wyeRpQ1T4HTXyTCXM_SGlrer5Qcjo-fjbLoVLTqWbTXA_x_lpEwNvg_SQ4Np_sWZJ7FIrmGyADhvRQbW4qPekMgbuavBUFbL/s320/titan-34D-explosion1986.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>September 28, 1988</b></div>
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<b>Return to Flight</b></div>
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<b>STS-26 (Discovery)</b></div>
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The tension and anticipation across the nation and at the JPL auditorium where I watched the countdown was palpable. If the nation could have stood on the pad and pushed the thing skyward I think they might have. At the time, the Reagan era was grinding to its drawn-out conclusion but distractions were few and the entire nation focused on the launch. The drama of launch was hightened further by a false alarm threatening to hold the count at T-0:31. Even the voice of NASA, Jack King, was having a little trouble maintaining coherency, but watching the launch replays (you can see them on YouTube) and hearing that whooping cheer at liftoff can still give one a sense of the relief and exhilaration felt as "american's return to space," in Jack's words, as the long 2 and half year grounding came to an end. Reactions differed but few watching remained emotionally indifferent. I still choke up a little every time I watch the replay.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0kE3siy-LU&feature=relmfu" target="_blank">STS-26 "Return to Flight" CNN coverage</a><br />
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<b>November 15, 1988</b></div>
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<b>STS-27 (Atlantis)</b></div>
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This classified DoD mission remains shrouded in mystery but the second post-Challenger flight is also highlighted by unusually severe thermal tile damage, foreshadowing the destruction of Columbia 14 years later.</div>
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<b>November 15, 1988</b></div>
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<b>Buran</b></div>
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NASA was still wounded by Challenger when the Soviet Union launched their version of the Shuttle, Buran. Many questioned our national choices in space, pointing to the apparent soviet successes on space station Mir, their new launch vehicle Energia and now this new Space shuttle, seemingly a better version of our own. Although motivated by fears of a military gap, their shuttle suffered from similar doubts about purpose and value. Within 3 years the nation that brought forth Buran would itself break apart, and the historic space agency it founded would be brought to the brink of collapse. The Mir space station would later suffer a series of near catastrophic accidents and breakdowns. This would be the soviet shuttle's only flight. Buran itself was destroyed when its hanger collapsed in 2002.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirNfXv735Qje6J2bVyqYqv33bLzAe30-FVbResfXTV67l_T1twRj8dM2GoomRPWg-CvGa3oi4L7wEFggfdcIl38k0E3teEhq56mxvpMKNM_gdBm-lIrEHMBr-c3EN2CCbIPZ1o9weHiFHS/s1600/Buran-shuttle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirNfXv735Qje6J2bVyqYqv33bLzAe30-FVbResfXTV67l_T1twRj8dM2GoomRPWg-CvGa3oi4L7wEFggfdcIl38k0E3teEhq56mxvpMKNM_gdBm-lIrEHMBr-c3EN2CCbIPZ1o9weHiFHS/s320/Buran-shuttle.jpg" width="205" /></a></div>
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<b>April 24, 1990</b></div>
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<b>Hubble Space Telescope deployment</b></div>
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<b>STS-31 (Discovery)</b></div>
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The HST was to be a great leap forward in astronomy, lifting our sights above the turbulent atmosphere that protects us to see deeper and more clearly than possible from the ground. Great discoveries were expected and the flight was well covered. Designed to be serviced by astronauts, the HST also seemed to embody the stalled hopes of the Shuttle system in which astronauts, in a real-life version of the McCall painting on the walls of the Air and Space Museum, would wander the skies like auto mechanics, servicing a vast space infrastructure. Challenger killed that dream, but part of it lived on in the telescope, and fortunately so when it soon became apparent that the mirror had been ground improperly. NASA and its telescope instantly became cannon fodder to late-night comedians and critics alike. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI-Vi_5azxuLlEeMQqYlZwwpomHS6MzqFVjhttlTIq0YXG4xf8mOp3WkJ_RWWoHVPdPQwyaRs1i3T0sd7XrFEzjniKTlL3nzTGk6zbsRx5WzUnrTZtJdtG3uiDBEUe_muQrNEm1sl4u5Z3/s1600/shuttle_s31_HST_release.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI-Vi_5azxuLlEeMQqYlZwwpomHS6MzqFVjhttlTIq0YXG4xf8mOp3WkJ_RWWoHVPdPQwyaRs1i3T0sd7XrFEzjniKTlL3nzTGk6zbsRx5WzUnrTZtJdtG3uiDBEUe_muQrNEm1sl4u5Z3/s320/shuttle_s31_HST_release.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>December 2, 1993</b></div>
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<b>Hubble Servicing Mission</b></div>
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<b>STS-61 (Endeavour)</b></div>
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The first scheduled servicing flight to HST became much more than that when it also became a mission to fix the optics and salvage NASA's reputation. The early 1990's were a difficult time as a number of old decisions were coming back to haunt the agency and it's capability to perform was seriously in doubt. The most embarrassing of these was the condition of its flagship space telescope. The telescope was well over budget and beset with technical problems, most of which were not completely solved by launch time. In the 3 years since launch so many of the machines systems had either broken or proven flawed that 5 full days of spacewalks had to be scheduled to repair them all. Gyros, solar panels, magnetometers, etc., all had to be replaced or repaired, the most pressing of these being the perfectly flawed primary optical mirror. The Hubble was in danger of becoming an albatross. NASA's very future was riding on the success of this mission, or so it seemed to many.</div>
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The key element in the repair effort was the exceptionally clever set of small precision lenses to be placed in the light path to adjust for the distorted main mirror. The night launch added to what was already for NASA one its most dramatic launches since Apollo. The spacewalks went off with few hitches and NASA's detailed preparations payed off handsomely when the first sharp clear images were released later that month. Their efforts helped make Story Musgrave and his companion spacewalkers folk heroes for a while, the first of their kind since Sally Ride and the crew of STS-1. That week may well have been the high-water mark of the Shuttle program. The fact that the fix came just in time for Hubble to return spectacular images of a comet striking Jupiter in 1994 was a wonderful coincidence and seemed a very good omen indeed. All seemed right with NASA again.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqg14S9ibXlipHGbT7HVvy78YSwVCROs967BY2R5ihNclg6NERB91O5wSaoo3hoaHl229k5zxn2pZZ8WwGcHghkIQWH4Sc8Xn29vzFlMqtKCfClB_A0r4yEGR_ezM8xB181ZwBs-MDI_2i/s1600/shuttle-STS061_HST_rendezvous.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqg14S9ibXlipHGbT7HVvy78YSwVCROs967BY2R5ihNclg6NERB91O5wSaoo3hoaHl229k5zxn2pZZ8WwGcHghkIQWH4Sc8Xn29vzFlMqtKCfClB_A0r4yEGR_ezM8xB181ZwBs-MDI_2i/s320/shuttle-STS061_HST_rendezvous.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Shuttle Endeavour approaching HST, </i></div>
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<i>the distorted solar panels plainly visible to the crew</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCYDXeKQNO3zkmzAhtDgMLAvglINGCbjMJdx8cc9HObKXoXLCs9KUZ5t3SFkp1xoPt4ZYOQaGR6sBrHA0Trh8Kw5kdVzthlK-mhTJKzyCKVjH64CMAdxie0iFeiS3HBca2n5qtNtigDZsF/s1600/shuttle_Hoffman_with_Hubble_WF_PC,_STS-61-SPL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCYDXeKQNO3zkmzAhtDgMLAvglINGCbjMJdx8cc9HObKXoXLCs9KUZ5t3SFkp1xoPt4ZYOQaGR6sBrHA0Trh8Kw5kdVzthlK-mhTJKzyCKVjH64CMAdxie0iFeiS3HBca2n5qtNtigDZsF/s320/shuttle_Hoffman_with_Hubble_WF_PC,_STS-61-SPL.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>June 27, 1995</b></div>
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<b>Shuttle-Mir docking</b></div>
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<b>STS-71 (Atlantis)</b></div>
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The sight of the soviet space station from the shuttle was fascinating from the gee-whiz POV and a foretaste of the International Space Station that replaced it. The 7 flights to Mir marked the beginning of the first true sustained international collaboration in manned space.</div>
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<b>October 29, 1998</b></div>
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<b>John Glenn returns to space</b></div>
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<b>STS-95 (Discovery)</b></div>
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Although widely panned as a publicity stunt, the return to space of the first american to orbit the Earth (the first human was Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet citizen), was widely watched. Those old enough to remember his original flight in 1962 were either happy to see him return or oddly disinterested.</div>
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<b>December 4, 1998</b></div>
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<b>First ISS Assembly Launch</b></div>
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<b>STS-88 (Endeavor)</b></div>
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At this time, the shuttle began to concentrate almost all of its efforts in support of the Int'l Space Station, beginning with the launch of the Unity component to mate with the previously launched Zarya russian component. The concept of using manned vehicles and their inherent complexity, cost and risk to lift hardware had long been discarded but the Shuttle no longer had (or was given) any other role to play. It was available, and all the hardware had been designed to fit in the shuttle anyway, and it kept the nation "in space". Oddly, the shuttle's next loss would not involve the ISS at all but occur on its last dedicated science mission.</div>
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<b>February 1, 2003</b></div>
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<b>STS-103 (Columbia reentry)</b></div>
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When the Columbia broke apart in the skies over north Texas, less than a week after the annual Challenger anniversary, the nation wept again. The TV kept replaying the amateur video of the splitting contrails streaking across the skies of north Texas, as the Shuttle broke apart at 200,000 feet and debris rained down. They were 15 minutes from landing and only a few minutes from the end of atmospheric reentry. This time it was different. With Challenger, we had only begun this new phase of man's journey into space. Loss of Challenger left us with a resolve get back into space but this time the feeling was more of resignation and defeat, like having the wind knocked out of you. We all seemed to say to ourselves "oh no, not again." I was at a retreat in rural central Texas and woke to what sounded like a clap of distant thunder in a clear sky, learning only an hour later that it was the sonic boom of the shuttle 200 miles to the north over Dallas as it began to break apart.</div>
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This was also only 18 months after September 11, and in the middle of the run-up to the Iraq war. Israel's first astronaut was also aboard, and they too mourned. We resolved to restore the Shuttle fleet to operations but the shuttle's fragile nature could no longer be ignored (a piece of foam had knocked a hole in the wing, leading to a burn-through on reentry), nor could the return of complacency and the sometimes casual insistence that the shuttle could operate like a city bus. In essence, the rather routine damage that had been occurring at launch due to shedding foam was becoming ingrained as acceptable, leading to the false conclusion that the orbiter could not be seriously damaged. Regardless, the compromises that went into the original shuttle design were now being openly discussed and NASA and the nation finally began to openly debate how to replace the aging fleet, leading directly to the 2004 Bush decision that the shuttle be retired and replaced. That first fact is now upon us. The future course is before us . . .</div>
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<i>memorial tributes, February 3, JSC entrance . . .</i></div>
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<b>July 26, 2005</b></div>
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<b>STS-114 (Discovery)</b></div>
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<b>Return to Flight</b></div>
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Different than 1988, this mission signaled the beginning of the end-phase of Shuttle history and we all knew it. There was relief to be flying again but the sense of future was lacking. The irreversible decision to retire the fleet by 2010 had already been taken by Mr. Bush. Each subsequent mission was operated with great labor and care so as to minimize risk, but the remaining focus was almost solely on completion of the Space Station. The fact that foam damage occurred again during launch led to a year-long interruption as the problem was reexamined yet again and largely if not finally solved.</div>
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<b>August 8, 2007</b></div>
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<b>STS-118 (Endeavor)</b></div>
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The mission featured the flight of teacher Barbara Morgan, after a 21 year battle to get her mission as the back-up for Christa McAuliffe. Although NASA refused to call her a Teacher in Space, not wishing to stir memories of Challenger or disturb Christa's long sleep, it was still nice to see this dream come true.</div>
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<b>October 23, 2007</b><br />
<b>STS-120 (Atlantis)</b><br />
Much of the Shuttle and Space station work went unheralded and unnoticed, even when testing human skill and ingenuity, as they often did. Case in point: the space walk by Parazynski to repair tears in a ISS solar panel at the utmost reach of robotic and human arms.<b> </b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixoEq8cEA9cLxYxxvAcy6eejvOqAj3s6DViSMPuDJNoww3R4MY14IuFQnaWFMVFGVNf3bud6RoGr-4LfTZCa8dL4VEBa9-FS89m7d5NnDoCKosTi3oEyAG7ALPJiJJpmk7MZ7II3x1ABp9/s1600/shuttle-nov2007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixoEq8cEA9cLxYxxvAcy6eejvOqAj3s6DViSMPuDJNoww3R4MY14IuFQnaWFMVFGVNf3bud6RoGr-4LfTZCa8dL4VEBa9-FS89m7d5NnDoCKosTi3oEyAG7ALPJiJJpmk7MZ7II3x1ABp9/s320/shuttle-nov2007.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>May 11, 2009</b></div>
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<b>STS-125 (Atlantis)</b></div>
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Final Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. The joint Shuttle-HST story may be one of the most enduring of the shuttle era.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4z1eXfmMWKvZtXzsfvNKYT4AZVvBevWCyi4nvhnb20kKlma4M8ZPQ8kmnx5gycZp5-2v0cfPIbIPfk7wWbfbcvzVIhOctzHBVnQA_EhpY-kETuApQyYCOmedihgHN34_vLnE9X5scd_Rh/s1600/STS-125_EVA4_Working_inside_Hubble.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4z1eXfmMWKvZtXzsfvNKYT4AZVvBevWCyi4nvhnb20kKlma4M8ZPQ8kmnx5gycZp5-2v0cfPIbIPfk7wWbfbcvzVIhOctzHBVnQA_EhpY-kETuApQyYCOmedihgHN34_vLnE9X5scd_Rh/s320/STS-125_EVA4_Working_inside_Hubble.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>April 22, 2010</b></div>
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<b>Boeing X-37 Spaceplane</b></div>
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This highly classified mission, a sort-of miniature Space Shuttle, heralds one possible future for space. The need to separate the crew and cargo capabilities of the Shuttle was clear but could the X-37 fill the first of those goals? The air force is mum.</div>
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<b>May 14, 2010</b></div>
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<b>STS-132 (Atlantis)</b></div>
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<b>February 24, 2011</b></div>
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<b>STS-133 (Discovery)</b></div>
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<b>May 16, 2011</b></div>
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<b>STS-134 (Endeavour)</b></div>
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<b>Retirement</b><br />
Beginning with the retirement flight of Atlantis, the nation starts a year-long celebration, commemoration, goodbye for its' Shuttle. Each in turn, the 3 remaining spacecraft are taken on their final flights, completing the job of Space Station construction to which they had been assigned for most of the past decade. STS-134 (Endeavour) mission commander Mark Kelly, husband to Congresswoman Giffords, was to be the final Shuttle commander until Atlantis was rescheduled for an additional, final, flight (STS-135).</div>
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<b>July 8, 2011</b></div>
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<b>STS-135 (Atlantis)</b></div>
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<b>Final Flight</b></div>
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Joy, pride, melancholy, and a few tears, the final flight of Atlantis and of the Shuttle fleet is watched nationwide. Those of us who were old enough to remember the first Shuttle flight 30 years ago that spring (and indeed the difficult 'birthing' process of the development years), could not help but recall with similar emotions those times and the vivid memories of the Shuttle's triumphs and defeats.<br />
So much had changed across our planet and society in the 30 years since 1981, technologically, socially, politically . . . it would take days to review them all. The Shuttle itself also matured technically, with glass cockpits and other improvements, but it remained the same basic space truck, a line of continuity through a quarter of a century of history.<br />
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<b>After-thoughts</b><br />
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Although dictated by the remorseless logic of aerodynamics and weight restrictions, the Space Shuttle possessed a certain beauty. From the triple stack of the tank and two external boosters, down to the black on white lines along the edge and wing, the Shuttle's design lines gave it an architectural monumentalism, especially when it was painted all white during its first launches, and seen in some of the images posted above. The orbiter itself is a work of engineering art. The sight of the elegant winged vehicle drifting gracefully across the black void, Earth in the background, is one of those scenes that is on my list of must do's but never could and now never will see. The images of the Shuttle in space are some of the prettiest of the space age.<br />
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Much has changed since the first launch in 1981. Over the next three decades we witnessed the Internet, DVD, the cell phone explosion, music CDs followed by MP3 players, iPods and iPhones, two Gulf Wars, September 11, and all that followed. Part of our present difficulty stems from the virtual national bankruptcy inflicted on us as a result of the gross mismanagement of the second of those wars. It is important to remember here also that the decision to retire the Shuttle is entirely a G.W. Bush legacy. The decision for retirement was a direct result of the loss of Columbia over the skies of Texas, and the final realization of the Shuttle's inherent limitations in safety and capability, with a shift of funding and resources toward the building of a new and more versatile space vehicle. Whether that will now happen depends ongoing debates. Oddly enough, the Shuttle program began with a 6 year hiatus in manned flight, and we look to repeat that again.</div>
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Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-36835835324768465802012-08-27T21:46:00.003-05:002012-08-27T21:48:40.427-05:00The Planets at 50 - Venus & Mars<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Note: Here is part 2 of the continuing story of "The Planets at 50". This and blogs to follow are related to a set of lectures I gave in June (and am available to do so on again for your group). </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I spent the month of June in Europe, highlighted by two presentations on the Isle of Man sponsored by the Astronomical Society on the topic of "50 Years of Planetary Exploration: What Have we Learned?" a presentation that can be given again. The Isle was beautiful and our hosts wonderful and I had a great time telling this story to students and citizens. </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>This post is also associated with the similar story set to appear in the next issue of <i>The Planetary Report</i>. </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The past 50 years have seen great discoveries but also fundamental revolutions in our understanding of how planets and solar systems work. The posts today and over the next few months will tell that story. </b></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LzQfR-T5_A" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Planets at 50: Part 1</span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">PART 2: </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">TO VENUS: DAWN OF A NEW AGE</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The engineers were understandably nervous; they had tried this only 4 weeks earlier. Missiles had an annoying predilection for disintegrating prematurely. The twin of the metallic insect on the Florida launch pad had fallen into the Atlantic when tracking and guidance transcription errors (including a missing hyphen or overline) doomed the flight. Mariner 2 (twin to that ill-fated Mariner 1; in the early days of the Space Age it was prudent to build two in case one was lost) began life as part of NASA's exploration charter but was quickly accelerated in response to the Soviet Union's failed attempt to reach Venus in 1961. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Mariner 2: Launch and Mission</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Note how many bits of data were returned . . . </i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Nearby Venus was high on the list of targets, so similar in size and composition to Earth, yet a profound mystery. We knew it was warmer than Earth but how much so remained uncertain. Despite the high scientific interest and prestige value, Mariner's flight did not, as was also noted at the time, "capture the public's imagination." The low interest may have been due to Venus' mystery shroud of white but more likely because of the lack of a camera on board. The impenetrable clouds meant there were no observable surface features on which to hang a credible anthropomorphic concept like the "canals" that made Mars such a powerful stimulant to the imagination. The clouds thus gave free rein to fantasy, leading to some lurid ideas, captured in paintings, of steaming jungles and large reptiles, bubbling oily wastes, or windblown craggy sand heaps. In 1962 Venus just wasn't Mars. Nonetheless, the flight of Mariner 2 counts as one of the seminal accomplishments of the Space Age, challenging engineers, smashing distance records, and ushering in a new age.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>The Venus that never was . . .</i></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Just one vision of a steamy hot Cretaceous style Venus from the late 1950s.</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Mariner 2 resembled nothing so much as a 16-foot-wide metallic dragonfly, basically a hexagon box with two solar panel wings, antenna, and instruments. The Atlas bearing Mariner 1 veered off course and was destroyed, but the second Atlas soared nominally (drifting dangerously off-course only briefly) to start Mariner 2 on its 4-month 180 million mile cruise to the cloud-shrouded world on August 27. The cruise had its share of tense moments, from eventual failure of one of the solar panels to a blown fuse, but engineers and scientists began to hope for success as the limping dragonfly swooped in toward the planet on December 14. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">A flight spare of the Mariner 1/2 spacecraft currently hanging in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. You might not notice this small part of history if you don't look up.</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">That brightest of sky objects, the Evening and Morning Star familiar to sky watchers, had its first visitor. There was joy in Mudville (also known as the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena) as coherent telemetry was received that day. About 60 Mb of data were returned from the mission. Thats right,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">60 Mb, but the readings proved Venus to be a hot dry place most unlike Earth, under a dense atmosphere 90 times as heavy as our own and surface temperatures of at least 800°F. It would be 8 years before we had our first pi</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">cture from the surface and another 22 years before we had a global map and could unravel the history of our nearby twin, all of which would show a fractured volcanic world not unfitting its hadean surface conditions. No place to raise your kids, certainly, let alone establish a human colony.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Venera 4 (1967), first to successfully probe the atmosphere of another world, though its instruments did not survived the descent to the hot crushing atmosphere at the surface of Venus. Venera 7 would do that in 1970.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Beyond the scientific breakthrough in our understanding of another celestial body, Mariner 2 showed simply that a long duration robotic flight into deep space could be done. Long range communications and command and control protocols were proven for the first time. Everything we have since accomplished in our explorations, from Venera 4 to Voyager, from Mariner 4 to Curiosity, begins on December 14, 1962, 50 years ago this autumn.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Part 2b: Maybe Mars . . . </span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">It was now undeniable that Venus was a most inhospitable place, but Mars still beaconed. It had to wait 2 and 1/2 years for the next close approach to Earth and a viable spacecraft. Like Mariner 2, the first Mars Mariner followed several failed Soviet attempts to reach Mars, beginning a long and continuing history of russian frustration at the Red planet. Like Mariner 2, it also succeeded its own twin to Mars (for Mariner 3's protective launch shell failed to open one month before). Mariner 4 began its pass over Mars on July 14, 1965, and this time there was a camera. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The fierce orange glow of Mars in the night sky was difficult to ignore. Its skies after all were clear and the white "icy" polar caps, rust-colored surface and the ethereal ever changing dusky "linear" markings fueled rich if poorly informed speculations. Even so, the largest telescopes of the time, including the 200-inch Palomar, could not make out geologic features. This was well before adaptive optics and space telescopes. Nonetheless, it was possible that Mars was near enough to the Sun and Earth-like enough (including its curiously Earth-like 24.6-hour long day) to be or have once been warm and perhaps wet enough to support life. This question was a source of intense speculation in the early 20th century and science fiction flourished on it, leading to Orson Well's "War of the Worlds" broadcast of 1938. Although Mars was looking a little less friendly in 1964 as we began to tease out more data, we were not prepared for what we did find. Yet the question of life there, both ancient and recent, remains unresolved to this day. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>The best of Mariner 4 (first Mars image, left; best resolved image, right).</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">A grand total of 635 kB worth of data were returned by Mariner 4, required more than week to transmit to Earth, such was the maturity of the instrumentation and deep space telecommunications in 1965. Other instruments confirmed that the atmosphere was extremely thin, that Mars lacked a magnetic field, and cosmic rays bombarded the surface. For many the Mariner 4 imaging results were key. These were the first images of another world from deep space. And they were discouraging. The 22 grainy 6-bit images seemed to show only craters, when they showed anything at all. Gone were canals and green "vegetation" and all the other fantasies of the first half of the 20th century. Mars now seemed dry, hostile and barren. Interesting conclusions to draw from modest images of less than 2% of a planet.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Mariner 6 and 7 arrived in July-August 1969 just a week or so after the Apollo 11 lunar landing. Together they increased mapping coverage to ~20% of the surface, but in a classic case of restricted perception imaging was planned without any understanding of the planets markings and missed all the interesting features that would make Mars interesting! Most of what it showed only seemed to reinforce the dried-out Moon-like perception from Mariner 4, but also showed some odd surface "chaos" textures, the importance of which would not be understood until 1972. Again, no canals . . . </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Ode to a Lost Bird: Launch of Mariner 8, May 9, 1971. </i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The first man-made object to orbit another planet (narrowly beating Mars 2), Mariner 9 arrived in November 1971 at Mars to map the entire planet in preparation for the Viking landers planned for later that decade. This mission marks my first real interests in planetary missions, and I still have the newspaper clippings beginning with the failure of Mariner 8. The Mariner 9 mission was hastily redesigned to complete both the global mapping and high-reolution - surface-changes tasks of the two birds.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">As the global dust storm that greeted the Soviet and American spacecraft abated, a remarkably complex planet of giant volcanoes and chasms, and, most provocatively, dry river valleys emerged. Mariner 9 revealed a complex planet that had been geologically active and very wet indeed. Mars was surprisingly Earth-like after all, or at least had been. Hopes were rekindled.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>It takes an Orbiter. To really get at a planet and unravel it, it helps to stay awhile and map it in its full glory, as this Mariner 9 mosaic of channeled areas on Mars demonstrates. Cassini is paying so many dividends at Saturn for that very reason.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Hopes were rekindled for the Viking landers, whose dramatic landings in 1976 produced only ambiguous results for biology but dramatically showed us a planet that had been very wet in its distant geological past. There would be an 17 year gap between Viking's end and the next successful arrival, Mars Global Surveyor and Pathfinder/Sojourner in 1997. These were followed by a more spacecraft, producing global maps and amazing vistas more astounding than any artist could imagine. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Pollack? or Mars? If you guessed Mars you are correct. Sometimes the Universe is just plain beautiful, but if you must know, these are layers a few meters thick near the polar region of Mars.</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Terrabytes of data returned from a slew of instruments bring us to today where we have meter-scale mapping from orbit, rovers traversing kilometers, layers of gypsum and other water bearing minerals. Mars is now the most comprehensively mapped celestial body outside our own. Despite this, the basic question of life on other worlds remains unanswered but the discoveries at Mars and in the Outer Solar System would radically alter our understanding of its probability. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">With the successful landing of the MERs and Curiosity on Mars, we see the beginning of real surface exploration of other worlds. We also saw something perhaps unexpected. Ordinary citizens came along for the ride. Millions watched on the WWW, but thousands came out into the street to watch live in Times Square, New York and dozens of places world wide as the vehicle landed. True, much of that night and the fascination of the wheeled vehicle zipping around the alien landscape was the technological thrill ride of it all. But it also speaks well of our nation and says that intelligence is not quite dead yet, and that we in this nation do support space exploration We do want to know what is out there. With the vast volumes of data yet unexamined (we have much work to do) we may yet begin to understand what happened there while life began here.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Next Posts: </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Voyager - A Solar System Wide Open</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Milestones</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">50 Years - What We've Learned (Parts 1-3)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Future</span></div>
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Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-40604296251423693122012-06-01T13:38:00.002-05:002012-06-01T22:29:00.005-05:00The Planets at 50<br />
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<i>T</i><i>he metallic dragonfly known as Mariner 2, a derivative of the then-struggling lunar Ranger series and modified for interplanetary cruise and launched in August 1962 toward the planet Venus. With a wingspan at just over 5 feet (almost 2 meters), this dragonfly would have outsized even its Jurrasic cousins.</i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">2012 is an important year for celebration, at least in the semi-arbitrary sense of human numerology. The fact that we have ten digits, count our personal anniversaries on the basis of seasonal revolutions of the Earth about the Sun and measure our life spans in decades dictates that decadal anniversaries are regarded of some importance, and century anniversaries in particular. August 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of the first successful interplanetary explorer, Mariner 2, which lifted off from Cape Canavaral in August 1962 and encountered Venus in December that year. This marked the first successful interplanetary* exploration in human history. This event also marked what can be considered the true beginning of the current revolution in our understanding of our Solar neighborhood, including fundamental revelations about how our own planet came into being and evolved. With this in mind and the imminent Venus transit on June 5th, it's a good time to look back on that half century and see what we have accomplished and what we have learned, scientifically and as a species.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">To celebrate that achievement, I will be posting an extended discussion of those 50 years, the first pioneering voyages, the major milestones, where we have been and what we have learned from it all. The plan is to publish these articles in a series of 5 or 6 posts over the next few weeks. It all begins today with an assessment of where we stood 50 long years ago on the eve of launch . . .</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">*Planetary in this case referring to beyond the twin Earth-Moon system, and is focused on the "debris" currently orbiting the Sun (as such Sun-focused exploration will not be addressed).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Today we have an international armada of spacecraft (below) orbiting or on their way to (at last count) one comet, three dwarf planets (in both the Kuiper and Asteroid Belts), and to every planet except Uranus and Neptune (hey NASA, ice giants are key members of the Solar System too!). We have in the past decade or two also visited 4 other comets, at least a dozen asteroids, and had a virtual armada in orbit or on the surface of Mars since 1997. That is indeed an impressive state of affairs, considering that as recently as 1988 we had but two interplanetary spacecraft at all beyond the Earth-Moon system (that being Voyager 1 & 2). But in 1962 we considered ourselves fortunate whenever vehicles made it into Earth orbit, and even then surviving as a functioning robot until planetfall was an eventful ride. It is still not a risk-free endeavor as the Phobos-Grunt, Mars Polar Lander and Akatsuki experiences remind us. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Olaf Frohn's chart showing the fleet of interplanetary spacecraft currently in operation (as of April 2012). Courtesy of Emily Lawdawalla's blog. The chart would be empty in Summer 1962.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is useful to remember the context in which all of this started. Post World War II, the United States and Soviet Union were engaged in the Cold War, with its subsidiary competitions the Arms Race, Missile Race (or Gap), and of course the Space Race. Beginning in 1957 it had suddenly become very important for national prestige to be the first to do something or go somewhere in space. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Space genie had been let out of the bottle so to speak in the late 1950's, when plans were put in motion to finally launch the orbiting satellites long dreamt of by novelists, artists, and scientists alike. The impetus to do so in earnest was the Int'l Geophysical Year (IGY), a cooperative scientific agenda or program focused on investigating Earth geophysics, including its interior and its interactions with the space environment. This program and the prestige associated with it (which was quote pronounced for its time) motivated the superpowers to push their advancing rocket technology to place a satellite into orbit, preferably with science instruments aboard. Even the official emblem for IGY (below) featured a then-nonexistent Earth-orbiting satellite, symbolizing the scientific hopes attached to space. While the Soviets reached orbit first, it was the americans who did so first with instruments dedicated to IGY, leading to fundamental and radical discoveries about the radiation belts and the solar wind, among other things. These were among the first real indications of the vast unknowns awaiting us in our own solar neighborhood.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The lunar landing initiative launched by Kennedy in 1961 focused our early efforts to understanding the Moon in preparation for Apollo, at least for the 1960's. The Moon's close proximity and relative ease of access (despite the low rate of early success) also made it the obvious first target. Despite this, NASA's charter (http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html) was specifically written in 1958 to say, among other things, "(c) The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives: (1) The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;". The fact that this objective is listed first may be regarded as more than a coincidence, but it is a broadly defined objective, and our planetary neighborhood has been a major component of NASA's exploration program since inception. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Despite the lunar focus, Venus and Mars remained on the menu, and the first realistic opportunity arose during the 1961 conjunction with Venus. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There have always been strong academic communities genuinely interested in science and outer space and at least in the US of A, where control over space programs was handed over to the civilian sector, they have been allowed to at least partially drive the planning and design of much of our planetary program. The planets were obvious and convenient targets as the outer space frontier opened up, the race to reach them first was on. The Soviets launched the first missions to both Venus and Mars that year but each attempt failed either during launch or from in-flight failures long before reaching their targets. Both sides would have to wait for 1962 to try again.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Before we look at the first flight to Venus and how far we've come generally, let's review where we stood in the summer of 1962. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since the heady first discoveries of Galileo and Cassini and others (the men, not the machines), the Solar System had become something of a backwater, relegated in the early 20th century t</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">o off peak hours at the telescope in favor of</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> the more glamorous nebular and galactic branches of astronomy. Planets and especially asteroids were "vermin of the sky", interfering with more "profitable" observing. In the decades leading up to the Space Age, planetary observations were limited to photometric studies or similar endeavors, as true spectroscopy was still in its infancy and adaptive optics were a mere concept if that. Our nearest neighbors in space, Venus and Mars, were fuzzy tennis balls or enigmatic spheres with tantalizing but hopelessly cryptic dusky markings. There just wasn't much to say about our planetary neighbors.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Literature on the planets in the late 1950's had a quality that reminds one of the shrouded mysteries of the North American continent evoked by the sketchy and grossly incomplete (and often inaccurate) maps of the 16th and 17th century. Together with the tall tales coming back from early explorers, the lure of that (not quite) virgin land mass was irresistible for some. Similarly for the unexplored and largely unknown Solar System visible in our own back yard as bright lights in the sky. Articles in Collier's and books by Willy Ley and Arthur Clarke, among others, often accompanied by illustrations by Chesley Bonestell and Ludek Pesek, among others, evoked alien landscapes constrained only by the imagination and by a few meager (and sometimes erroneous) facts.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Books on the Solar System in 1962 could be 100 pages long and still be complete, reflecting how little was known about the Solar System and its members. Even plate tectonics did not fully exist as yet as a coherent theory of how our own planet works (the IGY contributed fundamentally to this but it would be nearly a decade before all the pieces could be put together to understand the big picture). Indeed, large section of these texts, especially popular books, were given over to speculations. Much of that speculation focused to Mars, the nearest body for which we could resolve any markings, and hence the one believed tobe most Earth-like and most rife with possibilities. We were still uncertain of what the atmosphere of Mars was made of or how dense it was, however, but those cryptic and changing dark markings gave seed to many an interesting idea (more on that later).</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Cover of the book "All about the Planets," published in 1960 and resident of many a youngster's book shelf in the early 1960's, including my own. The serene cover artwork portrays a Solar System of static order and tranquility, yet one shrouded in mystery and wonder, not unlike the North American continent in the 16th and 17th centuries.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In 1962, the Solar System was a static, well-ordered place where, aside from a stray comet, not much happened, a view in stark contrast to our present understanding (which I will describe in some detail next month). It was thought "there may or may not be planets beyond Pluto." "Certainly we shall have stronger evidence in a few years and then be able to say whether the changing seasonal colors on Mars are due to vegetational responses, or are just the result of sand storms." A paragraph was sufficient to describe all we knew then about the amazing planet-like Galilean satellites of Jupiter. It was believed even back then that the inner two, Io and Europa, were Moon-like but that the outer two Ganymede and Callisto had significant quantities of ices, but other than the unusual brightness of their surfaces, little else was known. The size of Neptune's largest moon, Triton, could not be reliably ascertained until 1989, when Voyager 2 observed the disk of this frigid orb directly. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Even some of the most basic properties of neighboring planets, such as the rotation periods of Venus and Mercury, were incorrectly estimated. The innermost planet was described in one book as "a bare ball of rock and metal, with 'light areas" and "dark areas," none of which could be reliably correlated from one observer to another or one apparition to another. Such were the mysteries that abounded in the cryptic void of hard information. Such were the uncharted terrains described in books a young lad would read in the dawning years of the space age.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>Prelude to Venus</b></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">So then, on the eve of the launches of Mariner 1 and 2, what did we think was going on at Venus? Only slowly did the veil lift from the Mother of Loves, brightest star of the evening and morning skies. Little more than a dusky bright white disc for centuries, its atmosphere was not confirmed until the transit of Venus across the Sun in 1761. Indeed, it was these transits that first indicated the similarity in size between the Earth and Venus, giving rise to speculations about twin planets and all that that loaded comparison might suggest for life on our nearest neighbor. But it would require another two ceturies for more secrets to be revealed. CO2, the first atmospheric component to be reveled, was not confirmed until 1932. Microwave observations in the 1950's hinted at a warm surface, possibly several hundred °K. The cloud composition was still uncertain, as was the rotation period (finally pinned down by Earth-based radar observations beginning in 1962). </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>One nightmarish vision of a windswept Saharan Venus.</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Even though the composition of the clouds was not known till much later, the dense cloud cover gave rise to visions of dank steamy swamps and coal beds across Venus, not unlike conditions in the Jurassic on its twin, Earth. By the time Patrick Moore wrote his book on "Venus" in 1958, that view was considered unlikely, and a hot dry Sahara-like Venus was gaining some popularity. The thick carbon-dioxide rich atmosphere gave rise to informed speculations about trapped heat and "greenhouse effects" on Venus (and subsequently on Earth) championed by Carl Sagan in some of his first scientific work. But even Sir Patrick, in his otherwise fine book, gave some final speculative thoughts to life on Venus, concluding that a near Cambrian Venus, with primitive life forms slowly developing in a warm oxygen-poor atmosphere, was possible, wistfully awaiting new knowledge. Confirmation of life-threatening hot surface temperatures would have to wait for close examination by spacecraft, as would the presence or absence of radiation belts and a shielding magnetic field. The stage was set for the Mariners . . .</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">. . . Next week: First to Venus, First to Mars</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Comments and additional recollections are welcome!</i></span></span></div>
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</span></div>Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-86291151839159725752011-05-24T17:18:00.000-05:002011-05-24T17:18:45.005-05:00The Snows of Enceladus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjts5sGBHVYf3_mSJl7-i3bVeFSWixSkF76A_nA-dA1HZIpLT8w0D_zxhdUuBCl7T6vlKsrMLkJSKRViqWtYP2szFddmRolkD23ehQouBfq5bRfZOU10OqO3znboJ2Uk-48rIYxk0PSv7Fp/s1600/snows%2522enc%2522.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjts5sGBHVYf3_mSJl7-i3bVeFSWixSkF76A_nA-dA1HZIpLT8w0D_zxhdUuBCl7T6vlKsrMLkJSKRViqWtYP2szFddmRolkD23ehQouBfq5bRfZOU10OqO3znboJ2Uk-48rIYxk0PSv7Fp/s320/snows%2522enc%2522.jpg" width="211" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I'm attending an Enceladus Workshop in Mountain View CA today and tomorrow and just finished my official report. Here is a summary. It needs a lot of editing but should still gets the basic idea across.</span></span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I know snow. Snow was a constant winter companion growing up in the south Buffalo snow belts, where the average seasonal accumulation exceeded 100 inches and 3 feet could accumulate in a single storm. So, i think i know snow. The Solar System offers little opportunity to study snow (the snows on Mars and even Triton today amount to little more than flurries; Pluto awaits). There is now one major exception to that conclusion: Enceladus. The large plumes of icy gas and dust from the south pole of that small world discovered by John Spencer and colleagues on the Cassini project give rise to a host of consequences, not least of which is the "painting" of neighboring satellites with E-ring dust (see my earlier postings here on the Saturn moons color topic). Now it looks like a thick blanket of "snowpack" may be accumulating on its fractured surface.</span></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT5L9aoEo1cioGdD17lpWyTl582KY_HC5XBhrwohDNu5lTj39rOS5ZrRvFx6GaBHL97znMM1DDhXKCGLVDFyCrQS7KxG7pAu1652Ci6mWSb3ywPcFM6UGQk7pUxMryoMo0xDxlqXZbqjex/s1600/snows-buf64.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT5L9aoEo1cioGdD17lpWyTl582KY_HC5XBhrwohDNu5lTj39rOS5ZrRvFx6GaBHL97znMM1DDhXKCGLVDFyCrQS7KxG7pAu1652Ci6mWSb3ywPcFM6UGQk7pUxMryoMo0xDxlqXZbqjex/s320/snows-buf64.jpg" width="309" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Buffalo NY (1964)</span></i></div><br />
<div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">First a definition. By snow I do not mean large heavy snowflakes familiar to those who live in the Great Lakes snow belts or familiar with Nor'easters or Sierra snowstorms. The snows of Enceladus are small crystals smaller than a millimeter that slowly fall to the surface from the giant plumes of icy gas and dust jetting from the south pole. This "snowfall" is hardly noticeable but is persistent and steady.</span></span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">One of the stories revealed by the global color mapping I did in 2009-2010 of all of Saturn's non-Titan icy satellites (see my postings from last year and my Icarus article in <i>Volume 211, </i><i>January 2011</i>, <i>Pages 740-757</i>) was that the global color patterns on Enceladus did not match those of the other satellites. There was a symmetric global pattern with two opposite zones each of bluish and reddish areas, but the center of that symmetry was offset 40°W compared to that seen on the other moons. working independently was the team of Sasha Kempf and Jurgen Schmidt and colleagues in Germany who were mapping the fallback of Enceladus' plume particles back onto the surface. To our mutual delight the predicted deposition and observed color patterns matched surprising well (figure to come). This appears to be a direct confirmation that significant amounts of plume dust were falling back onto the surface in discrete patterns. It turns out that by contrast to Mars, Enceladus is caught in a decades-, if not millenia-long blizzard. </span></span></div><br />
<div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So how much plume dust (lets call it "snow") has accumulated on the surface. The answer has implications for how long the plumes have been active and what is the nature of this moon's cold surface. The model predicts that the density of accumulated snow is highly variable across the surface, reaching it thickest along the 40° and 220° W longitudes. Few direct observations are available, except in the form of a single high-resolution image a bit north of the active south polar region. Topography data are now available over this site, thanks to my particular genius in extracting such data from stereo and photocllinometry. The image was acquired at 12 meter resolution, good enough to distinguish objects as small as 40 feet across. </span></span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXYTvm42EWDDa_T2L-hQ2AIX-pVbliA-hruBMD_7oxeo7Pyymkb8jHtZ1fF4FbM6QlvLOYshlKgJ3etd2fOsCaPC0GnC0rx88BuEalp7NVXdFcyWLm9N04P5XSPWR6kpsh9-9gVeqcr0wt/s1600/esmap-T121a1_IC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXYTvm42EWDDa_T2L-hQ2AIX-pVbliA-hruBMD_7oxeo7Pyymkb8jHtZ1fF4FbM6QlvLOYshlKgJ3etd2fOsCaPC0GnC0rx88BuEalp7NVXdFcyWLm9N04P5XSPWR6kpsh9-9gVeqcr0wt/s320/esmap-T121a1_IC.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">High resolution image (12 meters/pixel) of Enceladus showing a heavily fractured 10-kilometer wide impact crater (bottom center). In between the numerous fractures are smooth lightly cratered plains. Fizzy areas are from lower resolution context images. The color is not natural but rather color-coding of topography (blues are low, reds are high).</span></i></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The scene has many similarities to terrains covered by a heavy snowfall or indeed ashfall from volcanoes. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Except for the numerous deep fractures crossing the scene, the terrains are surprising flat, with shallow ghost-like remains of older fractures, several pit chains, and rounded scarp edges. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thick deposits of fine-grained debris (deposited ballistically or from above) such as snow obscures sharp narrow features like street curbs, fire hydrants or small dogs, as any car driver from up north will testify. This is what we seem to be seeing here. Our best estimate right now is that the snow deposit here is on the order of 100 to 150 meters thick (less thick elsewhere). Hopefully, additional images of the surface will be acquired at better than 10 m resolution. These measurements also has implications for how long the plumes have been active, but these and other details I will have to reveal later after we verify our calculations!</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAyVCrp3Tk3beG5NOLDRUKc2JkGZnE0LPoqtcfTtq3IhPLCQY8SgPvhbkHb6duonRyflsmBLl0_TuLqAs9FLb28fPBIVhVuP9_Mfutp1rkc1ev5QBZ3NmXYTshvKD114D_LeriGOul09W_/s1600/esmap-T121a-b-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAyVCrp3Tk3beG5NOLDRUKc2JkGZnE0LPoqtcfTtq3IhPLCQY8SgPvhbkHb6duonRyflsmBLl0_TuLqAs9FLb28fPBIVhVuP9_Mfutp1rkc1ev5QBZ3NmXYTshvKD114D_LeriGOul09W_/s320/esmap-T121a-b-11.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This perspective view was rendered using digital topography of the area generated by the author and is roughly 7 kilometers wide.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Note the rounded scarps of the large fractures and the probable drainage pits on top the smooth plateau at center left. A fresh sharp edged fracture is visible at upper right.</span></span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If correct, then this finding gives us a new insight into what the surface of Enceladus might be like. First, it is not certain this snowfall would be visible from inside your space helmet standing on the surface, except perhaps as a faint glow in the sky towards the south or the occasional sparkling sun-glint off random descending ice crystals. There would certainly be no swirling winds (or any wind for that matter), towering snow drifts or the like. The intensity of the snow fall would be exceedingly light. The intensity would also differ depending on location. Near the south polar jets, the falling particles might be more visible, but still not as intense as light flurries. It is its persistence over many years that gives rise to the tens of if not hundred meters of accumulation. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is not quite snow as we know it in the temperate climates. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The particles on the surface are expected to be sub-millimeters in size and will likely accumulate in a dense but unconsolidated blanket. Unlike our terrestrial snow packs, however, the extreme cold temperatures mean the icy crystals won't stick together very easily. You might be able to kick this snow around a bit. Traction might be a problem for astronaut and rover alike. </span></div></span><br />
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</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsszYAX4o7-Fv9fgpnzTnrxgc-WRJLpEtuRRIOh9PCS1NMg_uNQKuEZyI3Oqwm250CQIwIOXoSq_ovPpyM7conE3l29PTU72D2W0njklX4kzVwHQWOltHVICBpR_Q8NDH5lA0_CmTLAlHh/s1600/esmap-T121a-17x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsszYAX4o7-Fv9fgpnzTnrxgc-WRJLpEtuRRIOh9PCS1NMg_uNQKuEZyI3Oqwm250CQIwIOXoSq_ovPpyM7conE3l29PTU72D2W0njklX4kzVwHQWOltHVICBpR_Q8NDH5lA0_CmTLAlHh/s320/esmap-T121a-17x.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This perspective view of Enceladus was rendered using digital topography of the area generated by the author and is roughly 5 kilometers wide. It shows the heavily fractured rim of an old 10-kilometer-wide impact crater.</span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">To view the FLYOVER MOVIE these stills are extracted from, </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">go to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYHuPlwWJIQ">The Snows of Enceladus</a> movie.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div>Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-12396389322391798292011-03-13T21:53:00.001-05:002011-03-13T21:54:33.328-05:00Mimas Video ShowYes it has been a while since my last post. Here is a video I made from the final new Mimas topography map, which I will talk about in a later posting. The best portion of this new map is centered on the Herschel basin and this video circles the 140-kilometer-wide 12.5 kilometer deep bowl-shaped impact basin. The conical central peak rises 5 kilometers above the floor. The video also flies over part of a wide chasm just beyond the crater rim, the origin of which remains a total mystery! Actually, it is likely either due to global spin changes or to impact induced fracturing. There is more on this feature in my previous post!<br />
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Link to Video: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/galsat400?feature=mhum#p/u/0/YmrzWW8HG5M">Herschel Impacts Mimas</a>Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-2520337697450332172011-01-12T21:09:00.001-06:002011-01-12T21:11:35.863-06:00Mimas Picture Show<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>At last I have my hands on the February 2010 Mimas encounter data (I am not on the project so I have to wait 12 months to use it . . . ). The encounter produced several mosaics which allow us to produce detailed topographic and color maps of the surface centered on the great 130-km-wide Herschel impact basin. I will be writing a detailed report on this relatively young giant crater later, but in the meantime here are some cool views of the interior of the crater and its surroundings. It is shaped like a big 12-kilometer-deep cereal bowl with a large 5-kilometer-high mound in the middle. One can also see a little bit of icy debris slumped along the base of the inside rim scarp, which rises 2 kilometers above the surrounding plains (1 kilometer = 0.6 miles). (A preliminary profile based on earlier data was presented in my post in <a href="http://stereomoons.blogspot.com/2010/02/mimas-rising.html">February last year</a>.) A note bout the views, my current 3d renderer assumes the terrain is flat and so we don't yet see the curvature of Mimas, which would be very pronounced in a normal view. I'm working on implementing a new renderer soon.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpz52mp4a47NfaXWAI1Sh848UKcxxqukm402wIVPApl_r1XdtnsoTGdfMCWMvUZSs9VZhmVKft5cBrkxeipFPUZwlt4_dQAqYsMG3CWVYRtjW-hLOxOq7uS-3Bfh2g7Ci20OThv1d7qumh/s1600/msmap-H11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpz52mp4a47NfaXWAI1Sh848UKcxxqukm402wIVPApl_r1XdtnsoTGdfMCWMvUZSs9VZhmVKft5cBrkxeipFPUZwlt4_dQAqYsMG3CWVYRtjW-hLOxOq7uS-3Bfh2g7Ci20OThv1d7qumh/s320/msmap-H11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPfOdw1PdacfiLWOnKJw5YMMdtK-IeP2nVC4HiMF4uX443mtREkLut3Y0GfXaWYWS7b_HcxTKR0xD_xvXQe9-smNNrxtq60hYK1mfShFwOAx6cbT3952nrtBTaUD96cLYZXGJGHhbsy-qK/s1600/msmap-H1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPfOdw1PdacfiLWOnKJw5YMMdtK-IeP2nVC4HiMF4uX443mtREkLut3Y0GfXaWYWS7b_HcxTKR0xD_xvXQe9-smNNrxtq60hYK1mfShFwOAx6cbT3952nrtBTaUD96cLYZXGJGHhbsy-qK/s320/msmap-H1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioq18XQ6YsD1wP6CJI1tqoTemLQYwcjeaWSApBbR09eLXOBR2sNJz_bTc_Jbh1bb8c4TxiPSlIRUBKGS6z__FsAiPHhTps23BmZPWdGy2Xl7auDzlz-7Y-GQdTFvTVx_N3FRIVTk8WxJxp/s1600/msmap-H10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioq18XQ6YsD1wP6CJI1tqoTemLQYwcjeaWSApBbR09eLXOBR2sNJz_bTc_Jbh1bb8c4TxiPSlIRUBKGS6z__FsAiPHhTps23BmZPWdGy2Xl7auDzlz-7Y-GQdTFvTVx_N3FRIVTk8WxJxp/s320/msmap-H10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZzO5aNnW6y9J7mZ6ZWHY8hTlRvgzRb2lQmp-1yBDP4eWXBfP8WoyYaZWT-UbTRSVeKrFALjjd7M3hj0HDknS8q3Yx1yIuC1avq3E0x__rfrUiEvDP0R8sztC1dqqdcm3LRshh1axFLns3/s1600/msmap-H4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZzO5aNnW6y9J7mZ6ZWHY8hTlRvgzRb2lQmp-1yBDP4eWXBfP8WoyYaZWT-UbTRSVeKrFALjjd7M3hj0HDknS8q3Yx1yIuC1avq3E0x__rfrUiEvDP0R8sztC1dqqdcm3LRshh1axFLns3/s320/msmap-H4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-10739698598308835172010-12-29T14:29:00.000-06:002010-12-29T14:29:14.094-06:00Happy Holidays from your Icy Satellites!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDUJi1b4Zyff66tVWGCniN6-AnyE8UF5UIdpKmXICHVfCAmly68iYv4DUOTToX7zFo04QYXkUOc6hMe0XxCS4v10_BNoa2uJ6tevz8KqXxgvFruXsGUTC0LNno7QZeV3hF7kFo8Zz1zwIZ/s1600/xmas10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDUJi1b4Zyff66tVWGCniN6-AnyE8UF5UIdpKmXICHVfCAmly68iYv4DUOTToX7zFo04QYXkUOc6hMe0XxCS4v10_BNoa2uJ6tevz8KqXxgvFruXsGUTC0LNno7QZeV3hF7kFo8Zz1zwIZ/s320/xmas10.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><i>From a Texas Christmas snowfall, December 24th, 2004</i></div>Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-67363803855557710052010-12-10T11:13:00.002-06:002010-12-10T13:51:44.193-06:00A New View of Tethys<div style="text-align: justify;">A prime objective of the Cassini orbital mission at Saturn is to characterize the nature and evolution of Saturn's extended family of icy satellites. Cassini observations since the beginning of the prime mission in mid-2004 have made possible the first global maps of these diverse bodies. A team of scientists lead by Dr. Paul Schenk at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston have produced the first global color and topographic maps of these satellites. These two views of Tethys show the high-resolution color (at left) and the topography (at right) of the leading, or forward-facing, hemisphere of this 1060-km-diameter ice-rich satellite. The color map shows the prominent dusky bluish band along the equator, first seen by Voyager in 1980, and shown by the team of scientists lead by Dr. Schenk to be due to the bombardment and alteration of the surface by high energy electrons traveling slower than the satellite's revolution period. These findings were published in the journal Icarus (see previous posts). The general reddish tones may be due to the coating of the Tethyean surface by dust-sized particles ejected by Enceladus' south polar plumes. The view at right is a color-coded topographic map of the same region (blues are low, reds are high). The total range of topography shown is 10 kilometers from highest to lowest point. The dominant feature is the 8-kilometer-deep and 440-kilometer-wide Odysseus impact basin at upper left. Straddling the view like a belt is a previously unknown topographic ridge between 2 and 3 kilometers high. To the east of the ridge lies ordinary rolling cratered plains, but between the ridge and Odysseus the surface is scoured and pockmarked. The ridge may be a tectonic feature related to the impact event or may be a deposit formed when the ejecta blasted out of Odysseus slammed back onto the surface at high velocity. At bottom right can be seen the globe-circling trench Ithaca Chasma, formed as part of Tethys stretched apart. This map is part of a set of new global topographic maps produced by Dr. Schenk's team for each of Saturn's icy satellites and previewed on-line on this very blog (see previous post)!</div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHsQu1FT-bHpi1r9Q06zSTmBgmkiNTid70zTMH9T7j99cITPX_hZuv5UUmZ_HiViaw1OnxeSK2Nn4nlpaPJzpuW4Xc0xYSuh4Xf2kfLmPVVb8SNCCXzeJrnS7QyWakmEFX6D32HLj98Dls/s1600/tsmap-cyl-KH-Z-hlead2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHsQu1FT-bHpi1r9Q06zSTmBgmkiNTid70zTMH9T7j99cITPX_hZuv5UUmZ_HiViaw1OnxeSK2Nn4nlpaPJzpuW4Xc0xYSuh4Xf2kfLmPVVb8SNCCXzeJrnS7QyWakmEFX6D32HLj98Dls/s400/tsmap-cyl-KH-Z-hlead2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Leading Hemisphere of Tethys (base mosaic resolution is 400 meters).</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Gloabl color base mosaic (left) and global color-coded topography (right).</i></div>Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-26943638144707085912010-11-30T15:10:00.018-06:002010-11-30T16:09:03.001-06:00New Moons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">New Moons - First Global Topographic Maps of (Saturn's) Icy Moons</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the 2010 Div. of Planetary Sciences meeting in Pasadena in October I presented some unique maps of Saturn's icy moons. Now these are different from the ones showed in 2009 and which are now published in Icarus (Schenk et al., [2010], Icarus, </span><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2010.08.016"><span style="color: #2157a7;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2010.08.016</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, now on-line). Those were global color maps as part of my persistent efforts to map these moons globally. These moons are "midsize," not as big as Ganymede or Titan but large enough to be roundish in shape and have some internal geologic history. They are Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea and Iapetus (Figure 1a).</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQJ-f2v18vBLCeVZ3etEzHJAklVvfhA1Jc6ScqNy5j61WkvdwZHsnLnWR1Bw9tkCiLfNW_O66QpZumljiPbMVENVnT0Os9USYmaBuxVULiinLIMSttdirkRKxNjsiUyqouJ_p9ig-lIAlH/s1600/xsmap_KH-55-poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQJ-f2v18vBLCeVZ3etEzHJAklVvfhA1Jc6ScqNy5j61WkvdwZHsnLnWR1Bw9tkCiLfNW_O66QpZumljiPbMVENVnT0Os9USYmaBuxVULiinLIMSttdirkRKxNjsiUyqouJ_p9ig-lIAlH/s400/xsmap_KH-55-poster.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Figure 1a. Global color mosaics of the 6 midsize icy satellites of Saturn. Maps are shown to scale. Rhea, the largest of these moons, has a diameter of ~1525 km.</i></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what are these new maps? These are nearly global topographic maps of these ice-rich moons (except for the north poles), the first true global topographic maps of icy satellites we have ever had. Until now we haven't been used to seeing icy satellites in this way because the Galileo mission was not able to return global scale mapping mosaics that would have allowed topographic maps of this type (it did return a number of higher resolution local stereo maps which have been used to make the views shown in earlier weblogs!). Why are these maps important? Topography directly reflects the geologic history of a world, and reveals the tectonic, volcanic or thermal processes that have modified or altered the interior. This weblog summarizes those finding, which will be reported on in more detail in a publication Spring 2011.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These maps are derived from medium-resolution (150-2000 m/pixel) stereo images obtained by Cassini (additional high resolution stereo and shape-from-shading (photoclinometry) mapping components have been partially completed and will be added later). They reveal a wealth of geologic information. The maps (Figure 1) are first presented to scale, both horizontally and vertically. Each are shown at 1 km resolution (horizontal) and have been jpeg compressed to show the topography between -5 and +5 km relative to the approximate mean elevation (this is the range which contains roughly 95% of the topography on most of these worlds. </span><br />
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</span> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7jMqFgTT1CSBwXQiJVXbYJsFRhkVyvWZ6AJiPeOWMZFQQosNFS2KXbTgJ9__z8SeXZBpZR3A2BFhz5mEmyVGqe1hoiHlKJgNRFc_he7JpKHE8MJBnDVQbQnC7y5IFaspjDIREEgIkfSAW/s1600/xsmap_Z-55-poster-X.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7jMqFgTT1CSBwXQiJVXbYJsFRhkVyvWZ6AJiPeOWMZFQQosNFS2KXbTgJ9__z8SeXZBpZR3A2BFhz5mEmyVGqe1hoiHlKJgNRFc_he7JpKHE8MJBnDVQbQnC7y5IFaspjDIREEgIkfSAW/s400/xsmap_Z-55-poster-X.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Figure 1a. Global topographic mosaics of the 6 midsize icy satellites of Saturn. Maps are shown to similar horizontal and vertical scales. Topographic range shown is +/-5 km. North polar areas will be filled in during the ongoing extended Cassini mission.</i></span></div><i></i><br />
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<i><div class="MsoPlainText" style="display: inline !important;"><div style="display: inline !important;"><div style="display: inline !important;"><div style="display: inline !important;"><div style="display: inline !important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Global Comparisons</span></b></span></div></div></div></div></div></i></div></div></div></div></i><br />
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<i><div class="MsoPlainText" style="display: inline !important;"><div style="display: inline !important;"><div style="display: inline !important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The presentation of satellite topography at -5 to +5 km in Figure 1b reveals some interesting features. The most obvious feature is that Iapetus and Enceladus stand out from the others. Enceladus is very active and has high heat flows, resulting in lo topography generally. The exceptions are the 100-km-wide dimple-like depressions that Bill McKinnon and myself talked about back in 2009 (Schenk and McKinnon [2009], Gephys. Res. Lett., vol. 36, CiteID L16202). Iapetus topography, on the other hand, is saturated in Figure 1b because its topographic range is ~ -12 to +12 km, roughly twice that of the other satellites (it is shown at the proper jpeg compression in Figure 2.) The ancient age of Iapetus and its large deep basins are evident here and have been noted before by others. But Mimas, Tethys, Dione, and Rhea all have much lower topographic ranges, indicating that if the deep topography seen on Iapetus ever formed on these worlds, it was erased or reset very early on by global thermal heating event(s), followed by the tectonic and cratering record we now see on those surface. This means that these satellites experienced significant global heat production early on. </span></span></div></div></div></i><br />
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</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2zfo0kF6wyuSU213sWBR6PiP1CxTDcx2eSbl_Ys6ZXQZknjuKEWXrlL8Ajs9R8XtL7lqLCp2hoVGfEO0DcSZMF2ztRnB8wa9V_RBpQmfacr9meAwRsJYgv_mqzUgpx4KVX7i-NoLO0XmQ/s1600/ismap_Z16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2zfo0kF6wyuSU213sWBR6PiP1CxTDcx2eSbl_Ys6ZXQZknjuKEWXrlL8Ajs9R8XtL7lqLCp2hoVGfEO0DcSZMF2ztRnB8wa9V_RBpQmfacr9meAwRsJYgv_mqzUgpx4KVX7i-NoLO0XmQ/s320/ismap_Z16.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Figure 2. Global topographic mosaic of Iapetus, icy satellite of Saturn. Full range of topography is shown. This map is not as complete as only 2 high-resolution encounters were planned for this satellite by Cassini orbiter.</span></i></div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Satellite Stories</span></b></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The story is not the same for each satellite, however. On Tethys, there are several large craters with relaxed topography (Telemus, for example in Figure 1b), but also a similar number of large deep craters (Odysseus is at least 8 km deep, Figure 3). On Dione, however, all the large impact basins have experienced significant relaxation. Evander is similar in relative age to Odysseus and almost the same size yet has been essentially relaxed away (Figure 4), leaving only the rim and central structures. The implication is that Dione’s thermal heating episode lasted much longer than on Tethys. Both satellites have smooth plains that may be volcanic reminders of these thermal episodes. Rhea is different still. Although there are several large basins on Rhea, they are not as frequent as on Iapetus (which is similar in size) and are half as deep. Clearly Rhea experienced a lot more thermal heating than Iapetus. It is not as geologically complex as Dione but also experienced a period of global expansion, forming the network of extensional graben seen in last years Rhea encounter (Figure 5).</span></span></span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgewVq6upIApvnTRB0fGLrXcavpzl1efp4X0ACZws_MLiN8uFVeK6JIETEv5sJ45_cT4XA_3DcmRaJTpiwLYL2aXpApO3tHwgsCUK0RIYd7jky6CMY5gmzFowm7WE3VOZiQvjv31gI4OCct/s1600/tsmap_Z-odysseus-ave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgewVq6upIApvnTRB0fGLrXcavpzl1efp4X0ACZws_MLiN8uFVeK6JIETEv5sJ45_cT4XA_3DcmRaJTpiwLYL2aXpApO3tHwgsCUK0RIYd7jky6CMY5gmzFowm7WE3VOZiQvjv31gI4OCct/s400/tsmap_Z-odysseus-ave.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Figure 3. A radially averaged profile across Odysseus impact basin, Tethys. Data from global stereo topographic map.</span></i></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9p5KHROL2GS6XgK9LpSa_Bn71c8eql7U9kCa-WY_YenaqZLjPOBhfeKWJi0Mh_1ViDeFWA7UFPZZaWudAHeOhj_9lrHF87qQJeplRwICVw2JYvU8Sk_hQmvQQ4GbPKBkDSDAA_IadoeJj/s1600/bigdione_Evander.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9p5KHROL2GS6XgK9LpSa_Bn71c8eql7U9kCa-WY_YenaqZLjPOBhfeKWJi0Mh_1ViDeFWA7UFPZZaWudAHeOhj_9lrHF87qQJeplRwICVw2JYvU8Sk_hQmvQQ4GbPKBkDSDAA_IadoeJj/s400/bigdione_Evander.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Figure 4. A radially averaged profile across Evander impact basin, Dione. Data from global stereo topographic map. The horizontal bar shows where the crater floor is relative to the prominent central peak and outer rim structures.</span></i></div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Impact Impact</span></b></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Internal heating is not the only signature we see on these small icy moons. 2:10 PMhe large impacts so evident in the topography (Figure 1b) also appear to have produced large-scale geologic disturbances. In the Tethys map, a large 2 to 3 km high ridge extends in an arc due east of the Odysseus impact basin. East of the ridge (to the right in the maps) we see fairly normal looking cratered terrains, but between the ridge and Odysseus, the texture is dominated by small irregular pits. This ridge could be a mega-ejecta ridge formed by this enormous basin (a massive computer simulation is currently underway to test this hypothesis). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A second large and very ancient basin can be seen in the center of the trailing hemisphere (left half) of the Dione topography map (Figure 1b). Radial to this basin are several prominent trenches or gouges that may have been carved when this basin formed long ago. Radial scour is also evident around Evander basin on Dione. Numerous radial troughs are also present on Iapetus although the resolution of the topographic maps in those areas is rather poor. Evidence for seismic shaking on the surface of Mimas may also be present in the form of flattened craters opposite to the location of the large Herschel impact there. Evidently, large impacts can have a big impact on the geology of these icy moons. (As an aside, I will be looking closely for similar effects when we arrive at Vesta next summer.) More details about these maps will be shown in future reports.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Figure 5. Perspective views of Rhea’s graben network. These are located near the center of the moon's trailing hemisphere (the left half of the maps in Fig. 1). Produced from high-resolution stereo/photoclinometric topographic map of the region.</span></i></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Iapetus Story</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As shown in Figure 2, the topographic map of Iapetus is incomplete but it does tell us that large impact basisn 8-12 km deep dominate much of the surface. The other main feature is the equatorial ridge. The surprise here is that the ridge is definitely not continuous. It has a maximum height of approximately 18 km (final numbers will be posted later), but in other areas is only a few kilometers high and is divided into a series of widely spaced knobs. These knobs bear a striking resemblance to the blue patches on Rhea, which were also widely spaced along the equator. These were attributed in our Icarus article late this year to impact on the surface of ring debris (now apparently gone) in orbit around Rhea. The difference here is that the ring system around Iapetus proposed by Wing Ip was much more massive and accumulated much more debris onto the surface of Iapetus than on Rhea. The key is that on Rhea we see the bluish deposits prefentially only on one side of the highest standing topography, indicating the accumulation of low-flying debris onto obstacles. This could easily build the promontories seen on Iapetus. Sounds like a good target for some enterprising computer particle modelers.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To cite these results, the required citations are:</span></b></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Schenk, P. (2010) Global Topographic Mapping Of Saturn's Midsize Icy Satellites: System-wide Thermal And Impact Effects, Amer. Astron. Soc., D.P.S. meeting 42, abstr. 9.16.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Schenk, P. (2010) New Moons – First Global Topographic Maps of (Saturn's) Icy Moons, <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://stereomoons.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-moons.html.</span></div>Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-16864736152076857562010-10-15T22:05:00.005-05:002010-10-15T22:39:38.932-05:00Colors PublishedOur major paper on the colors of Saturn's moons was published last week online at the journal Icarus. I have indeed posted on this before (see last October and February), but as always I have a few new graphics to share.<br />
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One of the more interesting features are the broad equatorial blue bands on Mimas (discovered here first) and on Tethys (discovered by Voyager first), which are in fact due to the impact of lots of high energy MeV or greater electrons that travel more slowly in Saturn's magnetic field and appear to be spiraling in "retrograde" into the front side of these satellites. (This is opposite of what happens on Europa due to the different energies involved). What is so amazing is that tiny electrons have the power to alter the surfaces of these satellites. Why the blue (really ultraviolet) brightening is unclear but the subsequent observation that these same areas are colder in the daytime than they should be (observed by my friends on the Cassini CIRS team) adds a key tot he puzzle and suggests that the surface structure is being altered on the microscopic level enough to change the thermal inertia (ability to conduct heat) of the upper centimeter of the surface! Who would have thought. Scientists are looking at this now with new data expected over the next few months.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Enhanced color view of the leading hemisphere of Mimas, showing the large crater Herschel and the broad ultraviolet band across the equator (shown in blue in this RGB rendering)</i></div><br />
The second excitement is from Rhea. First the plasma teams observed very odd signatures around Rhea in 2007 which looked rather like the telltale signs of a thin ring around this otherwise heavily cratered satellite about the size of Alaska. Then, looking at stereo images of the craters I noticed an odd blue (really ultraviolet) patch that seemed to be right on the equator. "What a minute," I says to myself "Thats odd." So I made a global map and sure enough the spots went almost all the way around! Only a ring could do that! But then, when the imaging camera was trained to look specifically for a Rhea ring and the next close pass for the plasma instruments happened in 2009, neither time was a ring observed. Hmmm . . . Here we had direct evidence for surface impact onto the surface of small bits from a ring around Rhea (disturbing the dusty coating on the icy surface) and yet the ring turns out to be some sort of as yet unexplained phantom. Well, we don't need the ring to be present today to explain the ultraviolet splotches on the surface. They could have formed a few thousand or million years ago and still exist on the surface today. Probably not much longer than that but thats very young for the Solar System. Its times like these when I really enjoy my job.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7PejlFyLYhW5UU3eQDAhhL4nSU9fGClQFabpsEiIgIPtfeequ18sTTGxBVtQxlCyb2h0ko-zmIW4aOnfBToIV-OwS9aDDaXJXvVqWNyYeQT4A2jfB7uqI1sKmWWz6ymwXj0ZNyxBtVJ9q/s1600/Picture+292.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="97" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7PejlFyLYhW5UU3eQDAhhL4nSU9fGClQFabpsEiIgIPtfeequ18sTTGxBVtQxlCyb2h0ko-zmIW4aOnfBToIV-OwS9aDDaXJXvVqWNyYeQT4A2jfB7uqI1sKmWWz6ymwXj0ZNyxBtVJ9q/s400/Picture+292.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Enhanced color medium resolution (2009) view of equatorial region of Rhea from Cassini orbiter. The ring deposits are the dark splotches running east-west along center frame. Turns out these patches don't have the same color shift as those on the leading hemisphere, perhaps due to the presence of E-ring dust on that hemisphere.</i></div><br />
<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WGF-50X2NKM-1&_user=10&_coverDate=08%2F30%2F2010&_rdoc=40&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_origin=browse&_zone=rslt_list_item&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%236821%239999%23999999999%2399999%23FLA%23display%23Articles)&_cdi=6821&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=87&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8c64b08a5f9d269449c99dedb4544294&searchtype=a">http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WGF-50X2NKM-1&_user=10&_coverDate=08%2F30%2F2010&_rdoc=40&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_origin=browse&_zone=rslt_list_item&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%236821%239999%23999999999%2399999%23FLA%23display%23Articles)&_cdi=6821&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=87&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8c64b08a5f9d269449c99dedb4544294&searchtype=a</a>Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-77976218726685023552010-09-10T22:55:00.000-05:002010-09-10T22:55:41.070-05:00Mountain climbing on IapetusA short note here to publicize the latest Iapetus video. This one features a site 300 km to the east of the views I showed a few months ago. In the region the ridge rises 18 km high and is more continuous in length, although there are obvious gaps. Also there are none of the bright ice-rich patches seen in the western site. Here the surface is completely dominated by the dark carbonaceous material that coats the leading hemisphere. <br />
The video itself is posted on Youtube. I have also posted an updated version of the first Iapetus video on a site called ExposureRoom. I believe the ExpRoom posting is higher quality. Both Links are pasted here, so please comment if you like the ExpRoom format.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/galsat400#p/u/0/o6J69uqPVGY">http://www.youtube.com/galsat400#p/u/0/o6J69uqPVGY</a><br />
<a href="http://exposureroom.com/members/DrSchenk/ab1461b0ab884401b1665b5570089518/">http://exposureroom.com/members/DrSchenk/ab1461b0ab884401b1665b5570089518/</a><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaUElT2Pyx86AbYPRYRIyITe2SV8X1WT4BHskLRxnHmKD7b07Snobhg7H26EbR7WZ6xVQhnMJIvOur606AtkwPd0Aa-yvMKrYygUF0yeZg44uEe5GuZHRf1rl3IyKvUJ_Sc_Lm0wUZMzLL/s1600/ismap-Z49ew2-2b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaUElT2Pyx86AbYPRYRIyITe2SV8X1WT4BHskLRxnHmKD7b07Snobhg7H26EbR7WZ6xVQhnMJIvOur606AtkwPd0Aa-yvMKrYygUF0yeZg44uEe5GuZHRf1rl3IyKvUJ_Sc_Lm0wUZMzLL/s320/ismap-Z49ew2-2b.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMzKjxJ4PdhOiIu3niQEBfhtqddp_Ud6R5bsWUulsqbLGqzbVPXO_27JenjF8YeEgm4kwbTfPW17pyJFi_MP1ic4MsMA5znYYp-5M6zqPRADW2WwWxLJ0l3txFsunIyQd5NvuUDbpvO5g-/s1600/ismap-Z49ew2-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMzKjxJ4PdhOiIu3niQEBfhtqddp_Ud6R5bsWUulsqbLGqzbVPXO_27JenjF8YeEgm4kwbTfPW17pyJFi_MP1ic4MsMA5znYYp-5M6zqPRADW2WwWxLJ0l3txFsunIyQd5NvuUDbpvO5g-/s320/ismap-Z49ew2-12.jpg" /></a></div>Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2550918145127980208.post-69230108417108800722010-08-10T14:25:00.001-05:002010-08-10T14:27:42.894-05:00Vestal DirectionsTwo weeks ago I received the news that, after a rigorous competition, I was selected to be one of a several new members of the DAWN mission to Vesta and Ceres! Woo Hoo! It's really a pleasure and honor to be part of this flight, the first detailed exploration of what are now termed "dwarf planets," which is just another name for the larger members of the two belts of small planetoids that orbit between Mars and Jupiter and beyond Neptune. (I am also part of the New Horizons mission to "dwarf planet" Pluto in 2015, so maybe this is fitting.) I will be working on cratering studies of Vesta, which is of some importance because several small asteroids and the eucrite meteorites all appear to have been knocked off of Vesta in impact collisions in the past. We won't get to Vesta until next summer, so I won't have much to report on until then, when we start getting high-resolution images. But there is always something exciting about seeing a world for the first time, and while the new images of the asteroid Lutetia we saw on-line last month are excellent, this will be the first time we will see the larger asteroids, worlds that may have been capable of generating molten rock and volcanic flows on the surface. Should be exciting indeed.<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;">NASA/ESA views of Ceres and Vesta from the Hubble Space telescope. Not much surface detail except for the patches of bright and colored materials, some of which are likely impact craters, and the distorted shape of vesta, due to the large south polar crater that has been identified there. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Dawn mission website: <a href="http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/">http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Dr. Paul Schenkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12260558772776915115noreply@blogger.com1