Posted on 10/20/2014 7:46:15 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Not to be outdone by the feisty Opportunity Rover, the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) turned in its homework this evening with a fine image of comet C/2013 Siding Spring taken during closest approach on October 19.
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To photograph a fast-moving target from orbit, engineers at Lockheed-Martin in Denver precisely pointed and slewed the spacecraft based on comet position calculations by engineers at JPL. To make sure they knew exactly where the comet was, the team photographed the comet 12 days in advance when it was barely bright enough to register above the detector’s noise level. To their surprise, it was not exactly where orbital calculations had predicted it to be. Using the new positions, MRO succeeded in locking onto the comet during the flyby. Without this “double check” its cameras may have missed seeing Siding Spring altogether
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
What a load of hype over a couple of blurry snapshots.
Yes the pics are underwhelming. Apparently they are proud of the technical virtuosity they exhibited in getting the pics at all. I guess the thing is going real fast and isn’t all that big.
I know if they’d asked me to do the math they’d have ended up with a picture of the floor or do thing like that.
Quick, castratos! Pass out the white shoes, plastic bags, and rubber bands!
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