Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
Japan's Hayabusa2 probe makes second touchdown on distant asteroid (japantimes.co.jp)
290 points by Ultramanoid on July 11, 2019 | hide | past | favorite | 23 comments


Only tangentially related but I'd like to share it as space nerds (like me) may love it:

https://mainenginecutoff.com/blog/2019/05/downlink

This is a small mac app getting real time satellite images, and using it as your wallpaper. One of the source is Jaxa's Himawari-8, hence the link.

Also, the podcasts from Anthony Colangelo (same page) are pretty good to keep up with the space industry


There is also desktop earth for non Mac users: http://www.anka.me/desktopearth.aspx


As GOES covers the US Coasts, and Himawari-8 Japan/East Asia/Australia, do you know of any geostationary satellites over Europe, from which the live images are available?



This is really cool. Thanks for creating it and sharing it. Already installed :)


The engineers (and press?) look so excited in that photo. Wonderful to have something positive on a national level to root for. While I'm happy for the USA's women's soccer victory, I suppose I prefer to root for the technical triumphs more. ;-)


One other thing to keep in mind: the fact the the spacecraft is still operational means that all those engineers will still have jobs tomorrow :)


That is a very good point that I had never though about. I wonder what sort of contingencies exist in the contracts for those engineers?


Congratulations to JAXA for this big achievement!


Where are the pictures / videos?



It's curious that the images weren't deinterlaced properly.


I'm glad this mission seems to go way better than the previous one.


Big achievement. Mind bogglingly complex mission.


I wonder what it would take to attach a booster to an asteroid and bring it in earth orbit



I 'm surprised by the low cost:

> The mission cost was estimated by the Glenn Research Center at about $2.6 billion,


What could possibly go wrong?


Using asteroids/rocks as kinetic weapons is one of my favorite hard sci-fi tropes.


it would burn in the atmosphere?


Amazing! Looking forward to what they will find out once they start drilling.


Banzai!


[flagged]


Nearly 98% of Japan's population is ethnically Japanese. There are multiple reasons for this but a big one is how long the country maintained isolation up until recently, historically. I don't know to answer your question, people are people, but hopefully that gives you context.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: