SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The journal Nature has a story on new information obtained by re-processing Voyager2 data.
Erich Karkoschka, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, chased down the new detail by comparing 1,600 images taken by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft during a flyby in 1986. “To me it felt like there was a new space mission to Uranus,” he said. “I applied new image-processing techniques so I could see features that other people couldn't see.”
This reprocessing has uncovered an unusual and unexpected rotational pattern in the atmosphere, which could give clues on the internal structure of the planet.
The story is also covered at Universe Today, and University of Arizona News.
There is a vast amount of raw data publicly available from NASA's National Space Science Data Center, and from the UAnews link:
Karkoschka's work illustrates the scientific value that can be gleaned from data that have been around for a long time, available to anyone with Internet access. He had similar success when he investigated 13-year-old Voyager images of Uranus’ surroundings and discovered the satellite Perdita.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hubie on Friday November 14 2014, @08:34PM
It isn't 20 years too late. I don't know exactly what data set he used, but most spacecraft data are put up on NSSDC in a pretty timely manner. If you can't download it from the web site, there are other ways to get the data.