Posted on 09/11/2005 11:18:47 AM PDT by snowsislander
Hayabusa continues approaching Itokawa, and its image is growing day by day. The left image is taken at 15:00 UTC on September 10 by the visible imager, AMICA. The distance from Hayabusa to Itokawa is approximately 30 km. The right image was obtained at 16:42 UTC on the day. The left image shows different face from the last release. Itokawa rotates about 50 degrees between left and right images. Surface features are more clearly seen.
ping
Cool!
Looks like they'd be good with sour cream....
Are they going to collide?
How big are these 'roids?
Where are they?
Godzilla is coming!
It is Suzuki for 1300 cc motorcycle.
It is Suzuki for 1300 cc of BAD@$$ motorcycle.
ROFLMAO, My thought exactly..:)
I'm not much of an astronomy geek, so I can only assume that these are going to collide?
Oh yeah, thanks a lot. Now I'm hungry again. And I just ate. Just thanks a heck of a lot
;-)
http://www.jaxa.jp/missions/projects/sat/exploration/muses_c/index_e.html
Hayabusa is a Japanese ship that is going to land on an asteroid, take a sample, and return to earth.
No, this is a sample collection mission; the idea is for Hayabusa to return to Earth with samples from the asteroid Itokawa.
How big are these 'roids?
Itokawa is quite small; it's less than 1/2 mile in its longest dimension.
Where are they?
Here's a map:
The Wikipedia has a good page (currently, at least, it's always changing ;-) on the mission: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayabusa
Also, here's a neat image of Itokawa spinning from a few days ago when Hayabusa was a bit further away:
Any time.
Come to think of it...it's about lunchtime here on the west coast...
OK, thanks. Given the orbit posted, it looks as if there could be some risk of colliding with Earth at some point?
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