This is fascinating, this rock that hurtals threw the black void of space for billions of years, and here it is. Photographed. If we can get here, we can go anywhere.
why this scary
Perhaps because you can see mountains at the same scale that allows you to clearly see the object’s horizon/curvature. It would be like if Earth had mountains thousands of miles high. It’s a landscape that feels deeply unnatural.
Because of the soildier attempting to hide behind the rock (middle right)
It would have been cool if they had named the spacecraft Urashima since they were going to Ryugu, but I guess it wouldn’t make sense because in the story, the gift Urashima brings back from Ryugu ends up fucking him over. At least, that’s how I understood it as a kid.
Something about it is a bit nauseating
It looks super cool
What do you mean “asteroid”? That’s my basement. /j
This is cool and all, and I am super stoked we can do this…but my brain keeps saying, yeah, so what, it’s a big rock.
It’s not just a big rock, It’s a big rock really far away!
Scientists: Yes, we finally did it! We captured a picture from our probe that touched down on a big rock in space! We are awesome!
Me: Holy shit! That is so cool, you are awesome! What did the rock look like?
Scientists: Like a big fucking rock
Me: Dude, no way!
Don’t forget the endless abyss that was pictured too.
endless abyss with distant pockets of potential wonder!
(Lovecraft vs Star Trek)
I’m not sure why but this fills me with such inconsolable dread. Something about a dead cold rock floating through such vast nothingness.
It kind of reminds me of the comet from Outer Wilds, which was kinda spooky, in terms of having to land on this tiny object traveling very fast through space and navigate it
Yeah, and knowing the only reason you can see it is because of the lighting from the robot taking the photo. Otherwise it’s just this thing shrouded in darkness flying through space at whatever ridiculously fast speed only to eventually run into something.
You get it. Scary ain’t it.
Not even surprised that a hayabusa would be fast enough to make it to an asteroid.
Wait til you find out where the “haya” comes from 😜
?It just means fast lol. Hayabusa is just Japanese for peregrine falcon, the haya probably deriving from fast, busa being some sort of suffix used for animals, I think (don’t quote me on that last bit).
I’m 98% sure my source is correct
98.9% at least
Wow, this is even more amazing than I first thought
Hayabusa2 was launched on 3 December 2014 and rendezvoused in space with near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu on 27 June 2018.[11] It surveyed the asteroid for a year and a half and took samples. It left the asteroid in November 2019 and returned the samples to Earth on 5 December 2020 UTC.
I’m just thinking about all the technical challenges to land a flying metal cereal box on a moving asteroid…
Man, this rocks.
It just took a collection of bombs and careful aiming. We as a species are really good at throwing things pretty accurately and at messing with controlling fire
I kid, it’s awesome we were able to make it happen and the wealth of knowledge gained by doing it
Alright, this gives me crazy heebie jeebies. Something about how close that horizon is, combined with the fact that beyond it is just nothing, absolute nothing, for light-years in most directions; hits the buttons for claustrophobia, agoraphobia, acrophobia, and thalassophobia at the same time.
I have never felt happy about the fact that I was born too early to go space mining til now. No thanks. Maybe if I get to keep a ton or two of native platinum for myself, otherwise no thanks.
Now also imagine the view when you’re there and you turn off the light.
Black will be really fucking black and you will only see some stars
Pffft, thats just attic insulation, obv.
My take on it is that it’s a lot of fluffy stuff just collected together and eventually mashed down under its own worth, so you aren’t far off
Looks like the insulation in my attic.
It super does look like that!
What’s the scale?
Someone forgot to bring banana
