So it's been six hours now since the Hayabusa spacecraft ended its journey in a brilliant flash of light in the dark sky of southern Australia. It was a moment both triumphant and sad. It was literally triumphant because that's what it represented, the triumph of human ingenuity to overcome seemingly impossible challenges that befell the mission time and again. But sad, too, because as we back on Earth followed those trials, we couldn't help but imbue the spacecraft with personality, especially a will to overcome adversity.
As I write this, the capsule's location has been tagged, but it has not yet been retrieved. The heat shield, which fell separately from the capsule, has not yet been found, but they say they will search again in daylight. This post is just to round up some of the amazing photos, movies, and artworks that were posted and shared and Tweeted and re-Tweeted over the previous dozen hours or so.
Before I post the videos of Hayabusa's death, I have one special image: the last photo captured by Hayabusa itself. This was taken after the capsule had been released, and shows Earth looming in Hayabusa's forward view. I'm posting both the original version as returned from the spacecraft, and one produced by Gordan Ugarkovic. The streaking is caused by the brightness of Earth's clouds saturating the camera detector.
Hayabusa's last view (original data) This is the final photo captured by Hayabusa as it approached its reentry into Earth's atmosphere. It was taken roughly an hour before the end of the mission, after it had already released the sample capsule. Credit: JAXA
Hayabusa's last view (cleaned up) Credit: JAXA / processed by Gordan Ugarkovic
OK, on to the reentry images. One of the most spectacular views of the reentry came from NASA's DC-8 airplane that was flown to Australia as part of the Hayabusa Re-entry Airborne Observing Campaign. Here is my own version of the movie, an animated GIF representing one frame per second (sped up 10x); I steadied the frames by aligning them on the reentry capsule, and adjusted the levels to bring out more details in the fireballs. Following my version are some stills and the full video from Youtube. You can download the original video here (42 MB, Quicktime format).
The Death of the Falcon The movie captures the fiery breakup of the Hayabusa mothership, as well as the steadier burn of the sample return capsule. To produce this animation, one frame per second was extracted from the full movie, and the frames aligned on the position of the reentry capsule. Then the contrast was adjusted to set the sky black and emphasize subtler features in the fireballs. A higher resolution version of this GIF animation is available here (3.7 MB). Credit: NASA /ARC-SST / SETI Institute processed by Emily Lakdawalla
You want more? I've got more: the next ones are shot from the ground. There was a nice description of the eyewitness experience of observer Robin Whittle here: "I can't estimate the magnitude but at its peak it was much brighter than Venus. The whole sighting was (I guess) 20 to 30 seconds. After the peak brightness the brightest object left a shimmering trail and for quite a few seconds a smaller, more pin-point, orange object was slightly ahead of it and slightly lower. Later, the orange object dimmed and continued after the main object, which was blue-white, faded. I have a picture 1/15 sec hand-held, but it doesn't show the clarity we could see by eye, with the two separate objects, with the precious payload returning to Earth, just as planned."
Here is a Japan Broadcasting Corporation news report with video shot from the ground.
Here's a nice still from a similar point of view:
Hayabusa lights up the Australian sky A view of Hayabusa burning up over Australia courtesy of the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shumbun Credit: Yomiuri Shimbun
...and one taken with an all-sky camera. You can really fall into the Milky Way in this one.
All-sky view of Hayabusa's reentry Hayabusa burned up upon atmospheric entry on June 13, 2010, creating a huge fireball in the dark sky over southern Australia. Credit: JAXA
And now for the fun stuff: a collection of the whimsical artwork and costumes of Japanese artists, TV hosts, and cosplayers, gleaned from various sources. Clearly the story of Hayabusa resonated with the Japanese public, because this is just the tip of the iceberg. I wonder what young engineers the mission will inspire, and if Japanese space exploration will get a boost from the enthusiasm generated by Hayabusa's success? We can only hope!
Hayabusa's return in Japan's pop culture Top left: a cosplayer dressed as Hayabusa appears at the ISAS museum on the night of Hayabusa's return. (Images from here and here.) Middle left: two views of a TV hostess dressed as Hayabusa and holding a model of Itokawa (from here). Bottom left: a cartoon depicting the battered Hayabusa on her way back to Earth with a sample. Right: two pages from a comic book personifying the battered Hayabusa's release of her sample return capsule (from here).
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Awesome Hayabusa coverage today...by far some of the best out there!
Some more information on how that last image was taken
Thanks for the great coverage, and congratulations to everyone involved.
Here's some more information about that last shot, from poster "Fuji" on the nasaspaceflight.com forum http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=7382.135
This shot was difficalt task.
Spent about two hours to prepare the spacecraft attitude. five or six photo was taken. It was mostly a black screen was a figure of the earth one last time just barely.
Change the attitude taken toward the Earth facing the bottom of the camera body.
For loss of communication during transmission, the bottom of the picture missing.Taking about 25 minutes before contact with the ground was lost. Shooting time was 13:02 UTC (Entry time was 13:51UTC).
Note; Hyabusa's all RCS jet and 2 of 3 reaction wheels was lost, so attitude change was not easy task. I think they use Xe gas.
...
I confirmed information.
This attitude change manurer was 180 degree turn, after entry capsule was released. They used 1 reaction wheel and xenon gas release (it's for ion engine propulsion).
It's hard not to feel sorry for poor Hayabusa with such anthropormophisation. I can't decide if we need more or less of that sorta thing.
Stupid question: Was any spectroscopy work done on the fireball, or would that be pointless? I was thinking it might help calibration, since we know what Hayabusa was made of.
As I saw the words "triumphant and sad", I started wondering. I agree with many Japanese articles that have pointed that Japanese people's traditional mentality must be the reason why they feel even so sad as if Hayabusa is their human friend or a family member. Is that happening not only to common Japanese people but also to others in general?? Anyway another collaboration with Japanese pop culture at the bottom of the following web page.
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Here's some more information about that last shot, from poster "Fuji" on the nasaspaceflight.com forum http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=7382.135
This shot was difficalt task.
Spent about two hours to prepare the spacecraft attitude. five or six photo was taken. It was mostly a black screen was a figure of the earth one last time just barely.
Change the attitude taken toward the Earth facing the bottom of the camera body.
For loss of communication during transmission, the bottom of the picture missing.Taking about 25 minutes before contact with the ground was lost. Shooting time was 13:02 UTC (Entry time was 13:51UTC).
Note; Hyabusa's all RCS jet and 2 of 3 reaction wheels was lost, so attitude change was not easy task. I think they use Xe gas.
...
I confirmed information.
This attitude change manurer was 180 degree turn, after entry capsule was released. They used 1 reaction wheel and xenon gas release (it's for ion engine propulsion).
Stupid question: Was any spectroscopy work done on the fireball, or would that be pointless? I was thinking it might help calibration, since we know what Hayabusa was made of.
Gordon in Glasgow, Scotland
http://www.jspec.jaxa.jp/ikaros_channel/bn006.html