ESA Refuses To Release Rosetta Imagery
Today, I learned that two dust particles on @ESA_Rosetta have names: Francois and Boris. #DPS14 pic.twitter.com/lO2xW89F1U
— Jason Davis (@jasonrdavis) November 12, 2014
Tensions surround release of new Rosetta comet data, Science
“The comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which the Rosetta spacecraft is now orbiting, is by all accounts a fascinating chunk of dust and ice. This week, scientists using the spacecraft’s high-resolution camera presented some staggering images of the duck-shaped comet at a planetary science conference in Tucson, Arizona. They showed the first color images of the comet. They showed dust grains being ejected from the surface, arcs that could be traced back, presumably, to geysers of sublimating ice. And they showed brightness variations less than 10 centimeters apart–which could indicate that they have found sparkling bits of ice peeking through a black crust of dust. But Rosetta’s operator, the European Space Agency (ESA), has released none of these images to the public. Nor have any of these images been presented in Darmstadt, Germany, where scientists at ESA’s mission control are preparing to drop the Philae lander to the comet surface on Wednesday. Project scientist Matt Taylor was reduced to learning about the new results at the Arizona conference by thumbing through Twitter feeds on his phone.”
The fact that they haven’t released any photos doesn’t mean they “refuse” to do so. Unless they have specifically said they will never release any photos to the public, they aren’t “refusing” anything.
You obviously did not read the article I linked to.
“…Furthermore, he says other
researchers, unaffiliated with the Rosetta team, have submitted papers
based on these released images, while his team has been consumed with
the daily task of planning the mission. After working on OSIRIS since
1997, Sierks feels that his team should get the first shot at using the
data.”
I think he has an excellent point. 17 years of getting a mission through to this point and to get scooped in that manner? That’s a kick in the teeth.
NASA spoils us.
Rosetta data is being down-linked (at least in part) by the DSN. I would think that should give NASA some leverage over data release policies.
http://blogs.esa.int/rosett…
While the lack of immediate sharing of data may be reasonably understood as giving first chance to the long-standing research team. However, the lack of transparency goes beyond that.
Case in point – Philae is now 40 minutes from contact with the comet as I write this. We are 70 minutes or so from finding out how it went. What are we seeing from ESA right now? Feeds from the control room? Discussion of the science, what to expect, some computer simulations of the process underway? No.
They’re holding a self-congratulatory public event, heavily stylized, lots of applause from the audience at just the right moments. I find it deeply strange. They have an amazing mission going on, but they are ignoring it in favor of this cheesy TV show.
Where’s the beef?
I suspect it’s politics. A lot of nations chipped in to make the mission possible, and many people with short attention spans (election to election) have to be kept on board as funding will be needed for some time. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the people in the audience are the equivalent in their countries of Congressmen and Senators.
With modern technology would it be that difficult to have a feed of the friendly cheesy news conference and another feed of the control room chatter?
!!SUCCESS!! fabulous incredible tremendous!!!
Touchdown on a comet!
With the exception of the Sun, every class of body has had a lander now.
Kuiper objects? Oort objects?
I am making the assumption that those objects are comparable to asteroids and comets. My “classes” were pretty broad, lumping Neptune in with Venus or Umbriel with Titan.
One could conjecture that dwarf planets like Pluto, Ceres, Eris, etc. are either mega-asteroids or due to internal melting and differentiation are a different class.Or does that make them moon-or-planet-like?
I say we send stuff out there and land on them!
We got a good century or two of exploration just to get the whole Solar zoo organized.
Remember watching live on TV as Voyager images were received scan line by scan line?
This is disappointing.
Here is the ESA’s statement on releasing data.
http://blogs.esa.int/rosett…
Very foolish of ESA. The more we play this game, the more we realize how beneficial openness is, for the public and for the health of the program. NASA, for all it’s faults, has been pretty good about this issue.
So the Philae landing is mostly canned statements, obviously recorded in advance. Apparently the harpoons did hold, and it has not bounced off. All else is obscure. Sad to see this grand achievement diminished by such bureaucratic constipation.
Humans are so magnificent, but so flawed. Get over it, I guess.
I heard it bounced, but re-landed, and the harpoons didn’t work. Maybe they spoke their canned statements too soon?
Would future grant reviewers ignore the experience of the investigators in building and flying the mission, and look only at the number of papers they have published? Very likely they would. The underlying problem is lack of sufficient funding for open, peer-reviewed basic research, even for the most highly qualified proposals, while at the same time major programs costing billions are approved or cancelled based on political expediency.
Sad that sometimes, scientists and government agencies act like two year old children.