Earth Departure Movie From MESSENGER Spacecraft 193
A reader writes:"The Mercury-bound MESSENGER spacecraft took 358 images during a gravity assist swingby of Earth on Aug. 2, 2005.
Those images were sequenced into an MPEG movie showing the view from MESSENGER as it departed Earth."
Doesn't appear to be any stars or moon? (Score:3, Interesting)
Breathtaking video though. Very cool.
Impressive! (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't you just love the reflection of the Sun? And the absence of a "glowing" atmosphere halo? This is what the Earth really look like. Please render planets like this when you do SciFi flicks in the future!
Underwhelmed (Score:5, Interesting)
collision 27th frame from end (Score:5, Interesting)
most spectacular is the flash 27 frames from the end. looks like it could be lightning or a large meteor.
Re:No sound?!? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Really, because I didn't know that the sun made such a "hotspot" reflection on the earth. Interesting. All the other pictures I've seen from outer space of the earth make it look less "plastic".
What is there to see? (Score:2, Interesting)
I think I can see the north-west part of Australia at about 1/3rd of the movie, the land being amazingly black. At about 2/3rds one can see (in the topleft "corner") Saudi-Arabia, followed by northern Africa, both golden/yellowish. Now why is that so much brighter than the deserts of Australia.
I'm also surprised by the fact that we see the line where the sun goes down, which suggests that the Messenger is going into a retrograde direction. Isn't that unusual?
I'd expect a satellite that is to go to an inner orbit to pass outside the earth's orbit. That seems to pan out, because we start with something more like a sickle, going to "half earth".
Bert
Looks like that Orbiter simulator (Score:5, Interesting)
Seeing this animation made me realize just how good that programmer is. The visualizations on that simulator nailed it pretty well. And it's free too!
Question! (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok I got a question about the spacecraft's orbit!
From the video, the spacecraft seems to be travelling at the opposite direction of earth's translation (i.e. clockwise in the ecliptic plane, viewing from sun's north to south hemisphere), because the dayside is at the left, and the Earth is, well, becoming smaller...
But, this [wikipedia.org] diagram of messenger's orbit from the article [wikipedia.org] in wikipedia shows that the spacecraft travells in the counter-clockwise direction (same as the planets)... so, I would conclude that the spacecraft speed is less than the Earth's orbital speed.
Question: is that correct?
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Mirror (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Question! (Score:5, Interesting)
as an object drops into a lower orbit they orbit in fewer seconds. Venus goes around the sun in fewer days than earth does, as does mercury...
HOWEVER, the linear velocity of an inner orbit is slower than the linear velocity of an outer orbit.
So, to go in, you slow down. Which results in dropping to a lower orbit, which results in your pulling out "in front" of the object you're seperating from leaving it both "above" you and "behind" you.
So, accelerating spinwise is out, and slower.
Accelerating anti-spinwise is in, and faster
let us not get into what happens when you accelerate OUT or IN....
Re:collision 27th frame from end (Score:5, Interesting)
Phase = 0 --> highlight is directly below you
Phase = 90 --> highlight is halfway between nadir and the western limb
As phase tends to180 --> highlight disappears over the western limb.
Only flyby movie ever taken (Score:3, Interesting)