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19/12/13/1241244 story

NASA Solar Probe Snaps Elusive Asteroid Trails For The First Time

posted by chromas on Friday December 13 2019, @04:59PM   

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The Parker Solar Probe, one of NASA's most extreme spacecraft, has been gathering data on our sun for the past year, revealing some unusual phenomena in the outer atmosphere. But solar science isn't the only feather in PSP's extremely hot hat. Astronomers at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have used the probe's specialized camera to detect the faint signal of an asteroid dust trail that has avoided detection for decades. 

Parker is equipped with the Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR), a suite of cameras built specifically for taking photos around the sun. Usually, light from the trail is obscured by the brightness of the sun, but the WISPR cameras are specially designed to filter out all that light, giving astronomers a chance to see the faint dust cloud trailing asteroid 3200 Phaethon.

Phaethon is a well-characterized and slightly bizarre asteroid, about 3.6 miles in width, that more closely resembles a comet. It travels closer to the sun than any other named asteroid but its trail is particularly visible near the star, because it's more densely packed. It also has a dark past.

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Original Submission

• dark past (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 13 2019, @05:17PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 13 2019, @05:17PM (#931761)

  > It also has a dark past.

  Gee, way to leave an AC hanging...

  The first Google I found:

  PHAETHON was a youthful son of Helios who begged his father let him drive the chariot of the sun. The god reluctantly conceded to the boy's wishes and handed him the reigns. But his inexperience proved fatal, for Phaethon quickly lost control of the immortal steeds and the sun-chariot veered out of control setting the earth ablaze. The plains of Africa were scorched to desert and men charred black. Zeus, appalled by the destruction, smote the boy with a thunderbolt, hurling his flaming body into the waters of the River Eridanos. Phaethon's sisters, the Heliades, gathered on the banks and in their mourning were transformed into amber-teared poplar trees.

  Maybe Ari knew the family??

• Global Warming Global Warming (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 13 2019, @05:24PM (3 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 13 2019, @05:24PM (#931762)

  NASA should be focusing on proving global warming, not being space paparazzi.

  • Re:Global Warming Re:Global Warming (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 13 2019, @06:01PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 13 2019, @06:01PM (#931774)

    Um, did it not occur to you that studying how the sun heats an asteroid/comet might just have something to do with how the sun heats the earth?

    Parent

    • Re:Global Warming (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 13 2019, @08:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 13 2019, @08:36PM (#931822)

      The earth is warmed more by CO2 than the sun. Like venus which is barely closer to the sun but hundreds of degrees hotter due to CO2.

      Parent

  • Re:Global Warming (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday December 13 2019, @08:26PM

    by HiThere (866) on Friday December 13 2019, @08:26PM (#931816) Journal

    You can't prove to those who have already decided not to believe, so why bother.
    There's already more data than any single person can read to show that it's correct, so that's no reason to collect more.

    So you look into things for other reasons. Perhaps you'll find something related to climate, but the odds of it affecting the argument are too poor to calculate.

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.

    Parent