PART B.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
B1. JARGON.
B2. GALLERY.
B3. QUESTIONS.
B4. BIKE PATHS.
B5. ORBITS.
B6. ROAD MAP.
B7. MOVIES.
B8. STEREO.
B9. CAPTIONS.
B10. FUN IDEAS.
B1. JARGON.
Eros_____Asteroid 433-Eros.
Ida_______Asteroid 243-Ida & Ida's Moon Dactyl.
Mathilde__Asteroid 253-Mathilde.
Gaspra___Asteroid 951-Gaspra.
Ganymede_Giant Galilean Satellite of Jupiter.
NEAR__Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous NASA's satellite of Eros. NEARs full name in NEAR-Shoemaker.
IOD____Image Of the Day from NEAR/Eros.
APOD__Astronomy Picture of the Day.
FAQ____Frequently Asked Questions.
PDF____Portable Document Format.
JHU____Johns Hopkins University.
APL____Applied Physics Lab of JHU.
NASA__National Aeronautics & Space Administration.
NSSDC_National Space Science Data Center.
B2. GALLERY.
IOD Main Gallery.
Each Image Of the Day, IOD, is only one of the many images sent back to Earth each a day by satellite NEAR. The rest for that day may be available on the web somewhere.
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The controls Earlier Images & Later Images go to other gallery pages from 11/5/98 to 3/1/01, seven pages in all. The Text only version goes to a list of all images in the IOD gallery including those on the page shown.
Click any individual small picture in the gallery or any name in the table to get a full sized IOD & its caption. The Search feature is sometimes helpful. Several more galleries are listed in Part C. [Click "C" in the top right corner of this page.]
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B3. QUESTIONS.
Here are some questions. You'll have more.
How far could you jump on Eros?
How high could you jump?
Could you run faster?
How long is the day?
How long is the year?
What causes the seasons?
Are there places on Eros that never see the Sun?
Does Eros tumble at random?
Might Eros's slipper shape & its short period of rotation be related?
Like an Earth quake what would cause an Eros quake?
Describe an Earth rise on Eros.
And a Sun rise.
[See Parts C2 & C3.]
Extra Credit:
What are the Kirkwood gaps?
What is the Yarkovski effect?
[See the Web or S&T July 2001 p-44.]
B4. BIKE PATHS.
a. Design.
Suppose you were in charge of bike paths on Eros, how would they differ from ones on Earth?
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b. Questions.
What's the speed limit for bikes on Eros & the fine if you go too fast?
What would it be like if you fell of your bike?
Or had a head collision with an other bike?
For that matter would a bike even work on Eros? Think about it, why does a bike stand up at all? There are only two wheels and a frame. It should topple over like two dinner plates stood on edgy. Would a bike even work in the vanishing small gravity on Eros?
B5. ORBITS.
a. The Asteroid Belt & Trojans.
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b. NEAR's Orbit.
The orbits [plural] of satellite NEAR look like circles & ellipses relative to Eros. What does the orbit [singular] of NEAR look like relative to the Sun? And going a step further what does it look like relative to the local stars?
Describe the Asteroid Belt.
Where are the orbits of Gaspra & Ida?
If there's an asteroid with your name what number is it?
B6. ROAD MAP.
Latitude & Longitude.
a. An arbitrary, but essential, Latitude & Longitude grid has been assigned to Eros. [There's also an X-Y-Z orthogonal coordinate system.]
What's going on in this figure? The four images have aligned equators with north poles up, but then it gets confusing.
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b. Places.
Can we locate any of the craters & features mentioned on Eros? For example where is: The Saddle? The West end Saddle? Crater Psyche? The Paw? The Eastern & Western Hemispheres? etc. The galleries & map in Part C. will help.
d. Projects.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a simple clay/plaster model of Eros or better yet a virtual photographic one on the web with controls to rotate it at will [dream on], but the clay/plaster model would make a nice science project.
A first-cut model has been made from the laser altimeter data. Compared with the camera the laser has very poor resolution, but it's a good start.
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e. Laser model cont.
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B7. MOVIES.
Here's a flyby over the West End Saddle. These are NOT simulated movies; They're real- unedited- direct movies of our nearby solar system neighbor, Asteroid 433-Eros. Wow!
To stop-frame the movie click & hold the scroll bar on the right. For other movies see Part C7.
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B8. STEREO.
Eros in 3-D.
You'll need a pair of those red & green colored glasses for this one. Click the image for a larger one without the caption.
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B9. CAPTIONS.
Right or Wrong?
Surely parts of the provisional captions are wrong, but which parts? Use your judgment; which seem OK, which sound a little fishy & which are dead wrong?
B10. FUN IDEAS.
a. Space Brakes.
Brakes on a car slow it down. Do brakes on an orbiting satellite, say one preparing to land, also slow it down?
Q: Does firing a retrorocket in orbit make you go faster or slower? Explain.
b. Space Elevator.
Instead of using rockets to get things up to a satellite could you just drop down a long rope & pull them up, sort of an Earth to Satellite elevator?
Suppose you caught the rope would it lift you off the ground? Naturally it would have to be attached to a synchronous satellite. Consider the hundred mile per hour jet stream aloft? What about the eccentricity of the satellite's orbit? What about differential orbital thrusts on mid-sections of the rope? Etc. etc. etc. oh yea fellow curmudgeon & naysayers.
About how long would it take, say going at the speed of a commercial jet plane, to get up to the satellite?
What would happen if the satellite tried to lift something too heavy?
Finally, and more to the point, would the space elevator work on an asteroid like Eros? For more on this wacky idea...
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c. Science Fiction.
Asteroid Eros et al. are strange new worlds, a Sci. Fi. paradise.
d. Science Facts.
For preliminary scientific findings...
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End Part B.
All links working
7/20/01--a.