industryterm:scientific imaging system

Hello, Pluto !
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/07/14/hello-pluto

Images obtained by OSIRIS, #Rosetta’s scientific imaging system, show dwarf planet Pluto shortly before the flyby of NASA’s New Horizons. On Sunday 12 July 2015, OSIRIS, the scientific imaging system on board ESA’s spacecraft #rosetta, took a glance away from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko to the edge of our Solar System, towards Pluto. Over five billion kilometres away, an exposure time of more than three hours, and sophisticated image processing, was necessary to detect Pluto in the #Images. Twenty images, each exposed for ten minutes, had to be stacked and carefully processed to reveal the tiny world. Pluto is thus the most distant body within the Solar System that Rosetta has ever looked at. NASA’s space probe New Horizons made its historic flyby of this distant world today, passing within (...)

OSIRIS catches activity in the act
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/04/20/osiris-catches-activity-in-the-act

Rosetta’s scientific imaging system OSIRIS has witnessed a new jet of dust emerging from the surface of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The image was presented during the European Geosciences Union General Assembly, EGU, in Vienna last week. Sometimes it is all a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Or, as in the case of ESA’s space probe #Rosetta, of opening your eyes at the exactly right moment. In mid-March, the OSIRIS camera was able to catch the elusive moment when a new dust jet from #comet 67P/C-G burst into life. The comet’s activity has been significantly increasing over the last weeks and months. As the comet moves closer to the Sun along its orbit, its nucleus gets warmer and warmer. Frozen gases sublimate from its surface, carrying dust particles with it and (...)

#CometWatch #Images #Science ##CometWatch #instruments #rosetta #science

OSIRIS detects hints of ice in #comet’s neck
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/03/13/osiris-detects-hints-of-ice-in-comets-neck

This post is based on information provided by the OSIRIS team at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany. If it could be seen with the naked human eye, the nucleus of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko would be a dark grey all over. With its array of specialised filters, however, #Rosetta’s scientific imaging system OSIRIS can discern tiny differences in reflectivity at different wavelengths across the comet’s surface. In turn, these differences can reveal clues as to the local composition of the comet. The image shown here focuses on the Hapi region of the comet. Hapi is located in the neck between the comet’s two lobes and has in the past months proven to be particularly active, the source of many of the spectacular jets of dust and gas seen in the wider-view (...)

#Images #Instruments #Science #rosetta #science