00:00Hello everyone, my name is Teresa Polterva, I'm a senior writer at Space.com and today I have
00:04something really special for you. I'm here with Sir Brian May, the rock legend of Queen, who also
00:10happens to be a part-time astronomer and he was one of the scientists working with data and images
00:17coming from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission. OSIRIS-REx was NASA's first mission to collect a sample from
00:25an asteroid and it will soon deliver this sample to Earth. And Sir Brian actually worked with Dante
00:32Loreta, OSIRIS-REx chief investigator, on a beautiful new book about asteroid Bennu and he is here now with
00:42us to tell us everything about this book and his collaboration with OSIRIS-REx. Thank you very much
00:48for finding time to talk to us, it's a great pleasure. So let me start at the beginning, you and
00:54OSIRIS-REx
00:55how did the two of you get together? Well quite informally really because I'm on the outside of
01:01NASA and nobody pays me to do this but I love it and I and my collaborator Claudia Manzoni generally
01:11go
01:11around the internet to find things which we can make into stereos because the data is all there from all
01:17these different missions from NASA, from ESA, from JAXA, there is enough data there to find viewpoints in
01:24order to to make the stereo images which we crave. We just love making stereo images and of course then
01:30you have to use them a viewer to to appreciate them in 3D and I mean I'm creator of the
01:39London
01:39stereoscopic company and we now make stereo viewers, we make 3D viewers. So what happened with me and Dante
01:46was I sent him just off the cuff a couple of his images which I'd made into 3D along with
01:52Claudia
01:53and he was amazed he said I've never seen them like this this is such a great tool and this
01:58might be
01:59able to help us find the landing site that we need in order to get our samples safely and so
02:04we started
02:05to interact and we started to trade emails and pictures and from that point on I mean we we've become
02:13very good friends during the the passage of time but a lot of work because when it became serious
02:18we're not just making pretty pictures we're supplying them with images that they can view and make that
02:24crucial decision is this a flat enough site to land our spacecraft will it be safe will we get the
02:29sample
02:30back to earth so that's what I became engaged doing and a lot of work but very very happy work.
02:36Is there any particular reason why you are interested in this mission?
02:40I'm interested in them all. I was incredibly lucky to be involved in the New Horizons mission
02:46with Alan Stern who also kind of took me under his wing and I was able to help secure 3D
02:52pictures of
02:53Pluto see no one had ever seen Pluto close up before so I was able to bring I think the
03:00universe's first
03:02uh 3D picture of Pluto to light um and they went on to photograph an object in the Kuiper belts
03:07as you
03:08probably know um but yes Rosetta also we've made some lovely stereo images of maybe there's a book
03:13there too I think the difference is that um that Dante wanted to involve me and involve us at an
03:22early
03:22stage so that we could actually contribute to the conduct of the mission that's the crucial difference.
03:26I understand that you were actually called upon to help the team solve a major issue they had trying
03:32to find a suitable landing spot on the surface of an asteroid that looked very different than they
03:38expected it to do you remember how the atmosphere was among the scientists uh during this challenging
03:44time? Yeah well I think it was suddenly becoming much more difficult than they'd expected
03:49because Bennu wasn't a solid object with flat places it was a completely randomly accrued object
03:56it's a rubble pile and there are no places where it's safe to to land apparently um there's only sort
04:04of different sizes of pebbles and it's very difficult to assess what the landing will actually be like
04:09if you can't be there and see it with your own eyes that's where this comes in handy because once
04:14you
04:14have a stereo image of that particular potential landing site you can really make an instinctive
04:20judgment as to whether things are going to work out or not you know how near is this boulder
04:24how much slope is there how dangerous is it to be to get it off and get on um so
04:30that's where we were
04:31able to get into it and I know that uh at at one point Dante said look all my guys
04:36have to see this
04:37I've seen it this has changed my whole opinion I want my whole team to see this so I sent
04:41about a box of
04:42these and um everybody sat around the table I think and made those decisions looking at
04:48Bennu as if they were there so can you explain to us how do you create these stereo images
04:53basically to make a stereo image you need two different viewpoints just as in real life when
04:59I look at you my left eye has a viewpoint and my right eye has a viewpoint slightly different
05:03I see more of your your cheek here be more of your cheek here and um that's the whole thing
05:09I mean
05:09I've said it there um what you have to do in making a stereo image is to reproduce that effect
05:15so I have to take a picture from my left eye I have to take a picture for my right
05:19eye
05:19and then I put him in a viewer like like this in the situation where my left eye only sees
05:25the left
05:25image and my right eye only sees the right image then the effect is reproduced so I see this crater
05:33as if
05:33I were about a mile away from Bennu um but my eyes are about a hundred thousand miles apart
05:40no not not that far delete that my eyes are about half a mile apart you know so how did
05:46the idea for
05:46the book come about we made so many images and um it was a labor of love and it was
05:53also very rushed
05:54and I remember saying to Dante we should do the book you know we have such an amazing collection of
05:59images
05:59it not just of the details of the surface also of the of the um the whole planet which which
06:06is
06:06something very attractive and so we started to think of a book and we realized that it could be the
06:12the world's first opportunity to make a real atlas of of an asteroid so that's what we attempted to do
06:19and the fact that it has stereo images as well I think makes it something very very unique and special
06:24so who is the book uh aimed at who is the target audience the book is really aimed at anyone
06:30who
06:30has an interest in this kind of subject anyone who's interested in what they see when they look
06:34up in the night sky it's not just for scientists there's a lot of well there's a whole world of
06:39scientific information in there for anyone who wants it but if you read it as a story you should
06:44be able to understand it without prior knowledge
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