Electric Comets

[MrAmsterdam]

Scientists think that neutral gas particles from vaporizing ice shot into the coma become ionized under the action of ultraviolet light from the Sun. While the exact mechanism that creates the curious oscillations is still unknown, it might have something to do with the electrified atoms or ions interacting with the magnetic fields bundled with the Sun’s everyday outpouring of plasma called the solar wind.

That sounds like a partly doable experiment ... what are these scientists waiting for?

[raytek2009]

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/ima ... zt7vgp.jpg

Looks like some sort of rod is in lower right of image.
Maybe this is part of Philae?

Still looking for "blueberries"...nothing definitive.

[Dotini]

Yes, this is Philea's CONSERT antenna.

[seasmith]

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/ima ... zt7vgp.jpg [/img]



Switched to NFL, so may have missed something. How can they take a picture of the landed lander,
if they don't know where it is ??

[noogie says eurospace is like a senile old golfer who finally hits the ball on the green,
and still loses it.]

Also, if P67 generates so little gravity, how did Philae return to the surface from a kilometer+ away ,
so quickly ?

[nick c]

How can they take a picture of the landed lander,
if they don't know where it is ??

That is a photo of the landers foot taken from the lander.
As you can see it is lodged between a snow bank and a sheet of ice

[raytek2009]

Yes, this is Philea's CONSERT antenna.

Thanks for the ID. I tried pushing this "little" picture, but it seems highly compressed. Most of the edges get pixelated when looking at the lower few bits of grayscale, but the upper center part of photo shows a very sharp shadow edge. This is probably just compression limits, but I went so far as to put a straight edge along it, just to check for curvature. I can't figure out an illumination angle that would cast a shadow from an edge on Philae and not cut through the rest of the image.

There are some "bubbly bits" that might be blueberry candidates, but need some raw image to make the call.

Pushed Upper Center g1w4ugqe24okofzt7vgp

[scowie]

That's not a shadow edge, it's the edge of the photograph. That picture is clearly an amalgamation of multiple photographs taken at different angles, hence the pointy end of the black wedge that you see if you follow that sharp edge down.

[seasmith]

fused conglomerate

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/ima ... zt7vgp.jpg


Have been studying high-res version of this P67 closeup, at fullscreen display, with various magnifications;
and have developed an impression, based solely on terrestrial experience and purely amateur training:

it looks like a loosely fused breccia-conglomerate 'rock', perhaps partially fused by kinetic energy of an impact or electrical strike.
This may account for the many "rubber ducky" and "peanut" type shapes repeatedly observed in comet/asteroid bodies; and is reminiscent of the schlaggy nodules (slag) ejected by the process of industrial electric-arc gouging.
The various clasts composing the matrix have subsequently been etched out, in fairly high relief, by a long period of high energy radiation and chemical erosive processes.
Colors will of course be influenced by age of specimen and modes of image telemetries,
but a Martian origin should not be surprising,
from an EU-wise perspective.

fwiw


NickC, thanks for pointing out the snow-covered Philae phoot...

[Frantic]

That photo is frustrating. The left side shows clear detail and the photo added on the right side is overexposed badly. you can see the seem between them by the exposure difference. Were they trying to doctor the image to look like ice on one side and dirt and rock the other?

It is a flying mountain. Most of the images to me look mostly like compacted dirt with rocks sized from grains to boulders. So familiar. The comet to me looks like So. Cal desert in the moonlight. Nostalgic, and serene to think so similar a horizon could exist in such a strange place and so close.

[S Freeman]

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/ima ... zt7vgp.jpg

Looks like some sort of rod is in lower right of image.
Maybe this is part of Philae?

Still looking for "blueberries"...nothing definitive.

I believe its an antenna, fiberglass whip with spiral wound conductor?

Regarding anything like 'blueberries', I don't think you will find them in the rocks. you would need to look in the dusty areas:

Comet from 40 meters

Here's more detail:

zoomed image:

It doesn't look like fluffy snow, its very black. but what I do notice is that many of the objects are rounded, like rocks you may find in here on earth in a stream bed, not jagged and broken such as the rock where the lander has rested.
It seems that these are slowly being uncovered, as the dust grains are lofted off little by little by natural electrostatic process (like what occurs on the moon) exposing the debris underneath.
Could they be formed that way from the violent past or some other process?

On the comet, there is no weathering in the vacuum of space such as water, or wind.
What can account for this?

[tholden]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... x3WdyOihH8

[flyingcloud]

do moving particles and subsequent friction cause erosion regardless of the cause of particle movement

if the electrostatic process is causing dust to move past the larger granules would there not be some form of physical contact and erosion without the need for wind or water to move the particles

[scowie]

We should get some T-shirts made up using this picture that say...

Philae "landed" on comet 67P and all it got was this one lousy photo!

[S Freeman]

do moving particles and subsequent friction cause erosion regardless of the cause of particle movement

if the electrostatic process is causing dust to move past the larger granules would there not be some form of physical contact and erosion without the need for wind or water to move the particles

Heres some photos from the lunar surface for comparison:

Lunar Surface (probably 3 meters range)

side view

http://www.our-earth.net/Images/Surface-of-Moon.jpg

Lunar surface in color (see link for more detailed image)

After looking at the images of the moon, we do see both jagged and smooth. In fact, if you look around the net for more lunar surface pics, you can find ones that look very similar to the ones Ive attached above of 67P.
It seems there are some rocks with similar features on the moon as well, and since we know that most of the craters on the moon were hewn out by electric discharge.
So probably the same occurred on 67P, wherein tremendous discharges blasted tons of material off the surface, however, a very small fraction of it was able to drift back down to the surface. Most of it would have escaped, as these stones would have the weight of a dust mote on earth. At first I assumed there should be very little of that kind of material because of the extremely low gravity.
Also on the last picture, upper left, the rocks that Philae is resting up against looks uncannily similar to the rocks on the lunar surface.

[seasmith]

flyingcloud wrote:

do moving particles and subsequent friction cause erosion regardless of the cause of particle movement

if the electrostatic process is causing dust to move past the larger granules would there not be some form of physical contact and erosion without the need for wind or water to move the particles ?

As mentioned earlier:

The various clasts composing the matrix have subsequently been etched out, in fairly high relief, by a long period of high energy radiation and chemical erosive processes. -s

Corrosion in space is the corrosion of materials occurring in outer space. Instead of moisture and oxygen acting as the primary corrosion causes, the materials exposed to outer space are subjected to vacuum, bombardment by ultraviolet light and x-rays, high-energy charged particles (mostly electrons and protons from the solar wind).[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrosion_in_space

Intense EUV light and off-band radiation is also known to contribute to mirror damage.

J. P. Allain*, M. Nieto, M. Hendricks, S.S. Harilal, A. Hassanein
Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois