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- From: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke)
- Newsgroups: comp.archives
- Subject: [sci.space.news] Toutatis Images Available
- Followup-To: sci.space
- Date: 7 Jan 1993 23:44:46 GMT
- Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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- Approved: adam@soda
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- References: <1993Jan5.010845.24683@news.arc.nasa.gov>
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- X-Original-Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 01:07:00 GMT
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- Archive-name: auto/sci.space.news/Toutatis-Images-Available
-
- =======================
- TOUTATIS GIF IMAGES
- January 4, 1993
- =======================
-
- Four radar images of Asteroid 4179 Toutatis have been released and are
- available in GIF format (GIF89a). The asteroid made a near Earth flyby
- on December 8, 1992, at a distance of 2.2 million miles. The antennas at
- the Deep Space Network site in Goldstone, California, were used to bounce
- radar off of the asteroid to obtain the images. The four images are contained
- in a single GIF file. These images were scanned in from a photograph and are
- not the raw data. The caption file accompanying the images is attached below,
- and the caption file is also embedded in the image. Make sure you are in
- binary mode when downloading the images, and in ascii mode when downloading
- the caption files. The Toutatis images are available using anonymous ftp to:
-
- ftp: ames.arc.nasa.gov (128.102.18.3)
- user: anonymous
- cd: pub/SPACE/GIF
- files:
- toutatis.gif - Four views of asteroid 4179 Toutatis
- toutatis.txt - Caption file
-
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- toutatis.txt
-
- PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
- JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
- CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
- NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
- PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. (818) 354-5011
-
- PHOTO CAPTION (TOP) P-41525
- January 4, 1993
- Toutatis Radar Images
-
- These are radar images of asteroid 4179 Toutatis made during the
- object's recent close approach to Earth. The images reveal two
- irregularly shaped, cratered objects about 4 and 2.5 kilometers
- (2.5 and 1.6 miles) in average diameter which are probably in
- contact with each other. The four frames shown here (from left to
- right) were obtained on Dec. 8, 9, 10 and 13 when Toutatis was
- an average of about 4 million kilometers (2.5 million miles) from
- Earth. The time required to obtain each of these images was 55,
- 14, 37 and 85 minutes, respectively. On each day, the asteroid
- was in a different orientation with respect to Earth. In these
- images, the radar illumination comes from the top of the page, so
- parts of each component facing toward the bottom are not seen.
- The large crater shown in the Dec. 9 image (upper right)
- is about 700 meters (2,300 feet) in diameter. The radar
- observations were carried out at the Goldstone Deep Space
- Communications Complex in California's Mojave desert by a team
- led by Dr. Steven Ostro of JPL. For most of the work, a
- 400,000-watt coded radio transmission was beamed at Toutatis from
- the Goldstone main 70-meter (230-foot) antenna. The echoes,
- which took as little as 24 seconds to travel to Toutatis and
- back, were received by the new 34-meter (112-foot) antenna and
- relayed back to the 70-meter station where they were decoded and
- processed into images. The radar observations were part of the
- Planetary Astronomy Program of NASA's Office of Space Science and
- Applications.
-
- #####
- ___ _____ ___
- /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| Ron Baalke | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
- | | | | __ \ /| | | | Jet Propulsion Lab |
- ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |__ M/S 525-3684 Telos | Choose a job you love, and
- /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | you'll never have to work
- |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ | a day in your life.
-
-
-