00:00 Hello everyone, my name is Teresa Poltelva.
00:01 I'm a senior writer at space.com.
00:03 And today I have something really special for you.
00:06 I'm here with Sir Brian May, the rock legend of Queen,
00:10 who also happens to be a part-time astronomer.
00:13 And he was one of the scientists working with data
00:17 and images coming from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission.
00:21 OSIRIS-REx was NASA's first mission
00:23 to collect a sample from an asteroid,
00:25 and it will soon deliver this sample to Earth.
00:30 And Sir Brian actually worked with Dante Loretta,
00:33 OSIRIS-REx chief investigator,
00:36 on a beautiful new book about asteroid Bennu.
00:40 And he is here now with us to tell us everything
00:43 about this book and his collaboration with OSIRIS-REx.
00:47 Thank you very much for finding time to talk to us.
00:50 It's a great pleasure.
00:52 So let me start at the beginning.
00:53 You and OSIRIS-REx, how did the two of you get together?
00:57 Well, quite informally, really,
00:59 because I'm on the outside of NASA.
01:01 Nobody pays me to do this, but I love it.
01:05 And I and my collaborator, Claudia Manzoni,
01:10 generally go around the internet to find things
01:13 which we can make into stereos,
01:15 'cause the data is all there
01:16 from all these different missions,
01:18 from NASA, from ESA, from JAXA.
01:21 There is enough data there to find viewpoints
01:23 in order to make the stereo images which we crave.
01:27 We just love making stereo images.
01:29 And of course, then you have to use a viewer
01:31 to appreciate them in 3D.
01:34 And I mean, I'm creator of the London Stereoscopic Company,
01:40 and we now make stereo viewers.
01:42 We make 3D viewers.
01:43 So what happened with me and Dante
01:46 was I sent him just off the cuff a couple of his images,
01:50 which I'd made into 3D along with Claudia.
01:53 And he was amazed.
01:54 He said, "I've never seen them like this.
01:56 "This is such a great tool,
01:58 "and this might be able to help us find the landing site
02:00 "that we need in order to get our samples safely."
02:04 And so we started to interact,
02:06 and we started to trade emails and pictures.
02:10 And from that point on, I mean,
02:12 we've become very good friends during the passage of time,
02:15 but a lot of work, because when it became serious,
02:18 we're not just making pretty pictures.
02:20 We're supplying them with images that they can view
02:23 and make that crucial decision.
02:25 Is this a flat enough site to land our spacecraft?
02:28 Will it be safe?
02:29 Will we get the sample back to Earth?
02:31 So that's what I became engaged doing,
02:33 and a lot of work, but very, very happy work.
02:36 - Is there any particular reason
02:38 why you are interested in this mission?
02:40 - I'm interested in them all.
02:41 (laughs)
02:42 I was incredibly lucky to be involved
02:44 in the New Horizons mission with Alan Stern,
02:47 who also kind of took me under his wing,
02:49 and I was able to help secure 3D pictures of Pluto.
02:54 See, no one had ever seen Pluto close up before.
02:57 So I was able to bring, I think,
03:00 the universe's first 3D picture of Pluto to light,
03:04 and they went on to photograph an object
03:06 in the Kuiper belt, as you probably know.
03:09 But yes, Rosetta also, we've made some lovely stereo images.
03:13 Maybe there's a book there, too.
03:14 I think the difference is that Dante
03:18 wanted to involve me and involve us at an early stage
03:22 so that we could actually contribute
03:23 to the conduct of the mission.
03:25 That's the crucial difference.
03:26 - I understand that you were actually called up
03:28 to help the team solve a major issue they had,
03:31 trying to find a suitable landing spot
03:34 on the surface of an asteroid
03:35 that looked very different than they expected it to.
03:39 Do you remember how the atmosphere was
03:41 among the scientists during this challenging time?
03:45 - Yeah, well, I think it was suddenly
03:47 becoming much more difficult than they'd expected,
03:49 because Bennu wasn't a solid object with flat places.
03:53 It was a completely randomly accrued object.
03:56 It's a rubble pile, and there are no places
03:59 where it's safe to land, apparently.
04:01 There's only sort of different sizes of pebbles,
04:06 and it's very difficult to assess
04:07 what the landing will actually be like
04:09 if you can't be there and see it with your own eyes.
04:12 That's where this comes in handy,
04:14 because once you have a stereo image
04:16 of that particular potential landing site,
04:18 you can really make an instinctive judgment
04:20 as to whether things are gonna work out or not.
04:22 How near is this boulder?
04:24 How much slope is there?
04:25 How dangerous is it to be to get it off and get on?
04:29 So that's where we were able to get into it.
04:32 And I know that at one point,
04:35 Dante said, "Look, all my guys have to see this.
04:37 "I've seen it.
04:38 "This has changed my whole opinion.
04:39 "I want my whole team to see this."
04:41 So I sent about a box of these,
04:43 and everybody sat around a table, I think,
04:45 and made those decisions,
04:47 looking at Ben as if they were there.
04:50 - So can you explain to us
04:51 how do you create these stereo images?
04:53 - Basically, to make a stereo image,
04:55 you need two different viewpoints.
04:57 Just as in real life, when I look at you,
05:00 my left eye has a viewpoint
05:01 and my right eye has a viewpoint.
05:02 Slightly different.
05:03 I see more of your cheek here,
05:06 see more of your cheek here.
05:07 And that's the whole thing.
05:09 I mean, I've said it there.
05:10 What do you have to do in making a stereo image
05:14 is to reproduce that effect.
05:15 So I have to take a picture from my left eye,
05:17 I have to take a picture for my right eye,
05:19 and then I put him in a viewer, like this,
05:22 in a situation where my left eye only sees the left image
05:26 and my right eye only sees the right image.
05:28 Then the effect is reproduced.
05:31 So I see this crater as if I were about a mile away
05:34 from Ben-Hu,
05:35 but my eyes are about 100,000 miles apart.
05:40 No, not that far.
05:42 Delete that, my eyes are about half a mile apart.
05:45 So how did the idea for the book come about?
05:48 We made so many images and it was a labor of love.
05:52 And it was also very rushed.
05:54 And I remember saying to Dante, we should do the book.
05:57 We have such an amazing collection of images,
06:00 not just of the details of the surface,
06:01 also of the whole planet,
06:05 which is something very attractive.
06:08 And so we started to think of a book
06:10 and we realized that it could be the world's first
06:13 opportunity to make a real atlas of an asteroid.
06:18 So that's what we attempted to do.
06:19 And the fact that it has stereo images as well,
06:21 I think makes it something very, very unique and special.
06:25 So who is the book aimed at?
06:26 Who is the target audience?
06:28 The book is really aimed at anyone who has an interest
06:30 in this kind of subject,
06:32 anyone who's interested in what they see
06:33 when they look up in the night sky.
06:35 It's not just for scientists.
06:36 There's a lot of, well, there's a whole world
06:39 of scientific information in there for anyone who wants it.
06:42 But if you read it as a story,
06:43 you should be able to understand it without prior knowledge.
06:46 (upbeat music)
06:49 (dramatic music)
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