Imagine it鈥檚 the soccer World Cup final, but you can鈥檛 watch it live on TV. The sport鈥檚 governing body has decided that all but a few sample photos of it will be embargoed for half a year, and that all decisions by the referee will have to be reviewed by experts over the coming months before a winner can be announced.
Sounds silly? This is pretty much how many space enthusiasts experienced the countdown to the final phase of Europe鈥檚 much-anticipated Rosetta mission.
Rosetta has been travelling to its target 鈥� the comet 鈥� for 10 years. Last month, after the probe had covered more than 6 billion kilometres, the comet was looming larger by the day in the field of view of Rosetta鈥檚 main , yet sample images from this camera were only released to the public weekly, with the latest examples unveiled today. There was no way to 鈥渞ide along鈥� with the mission to one of the oldest objects in our solar system and feel the excitement as a new frontier unfolded far from Earth.
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Rubber-duck nucleus
Then on 15 July something unexpected happened: perhaps by accident, perhaps in a moment of revolutionary fervour after Bastille Day, someone at the French space agency CNES made public of the comet鈥檚 icy core. They showed that the nucleus is in two parts, with a shape far weirder than any seen before 鈥� now nicknamed the .
Curious nucleus (Image: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team/MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA)
CNES swiftly tried to withdraw the rogue press release, but the images had taken the internet by storm. Many who saw them marvelled, including space aficionados who were incredulous that the discovery was supposed to be under wraps until the next scheduled weekly briefing.
A debate erupted on social media, and a group of German space enthusiasts sent an to the authorities involved, calling for full access to all images from Rosetta, a mission that is costing European taxpayers 鈧�1.3 billion. The European Space Agency, which operates the craft, all such demands and insisted on a six-month moratorium on circulating mission data, images included. It said these rights had been granted to the teams which designed and built the scientific instruments.
Rules like this are accepted as the norm for ground and space-based astronomical observatories and some interplanetary missions, mainly those performing in-depth mapping of planets that have been visited before.
Visceral engagement
But a spacecraft approaching a world for the first time is an entirely different story. When exploration of this sort takes place it engages us in an almost visceral way 鈥� but only when access to the adventure is granted in a reasonable manner.
In more than 25 years of reporting on space missions I鈥檝e had the privilege of joining in on some of the best 鈥渞ides鈥� into the solar system鈥檚 depths. In the 1980s came NASA鈥檚 Voyager encounters with the gas giants: cameras fed material live into the agency鈥檚 own public TV channel for days on end. The public could see these worlds up close at the same time as the scientists, share their excitement and puzzle over unexplained features with them.
There were also the encounters of ESA鈥檚 Giotto probe with comet Halley, in 1986, and with comet Grigg-Skjellerup, in 1992: in both cases, data was broadcast live to the world.
Since the turn of the century we鈥檝e had several NASA Mars landings, where the nerve-jangling excitement of touchdown and early manoeuvres were available live to anyone with a TV or computer screen. Fairly raw images from cameras on the Mars rovers are posted online for the world to enjoy and image-processing wizards to work on. The same holds for Cassini, a joint NASA-ESA mission, which has been in orbit around Saturn for 10 years.
Outdoing the pros?
Sadly ESA has been less open on other occasions, for example with the landing by its Huygens probe on Saturn鈥檚 moon Titan in 2005. And it was criticised for sitting on stunning images taken by the Mars Express orbiter in 2004. ESA counters that someone could steal the science teams鈥� thunder if they share too much data, perhaps by publishing research papers based on raw images in the public domain faster than the researchers themselves can manage.
But this never came to pass when NASA chose to share its Mars rover and Cassini orbiter images. Instead the public appreciated the chance to share in the missions and had a go at processing the images, often outdoing the pros in complex tasks such as stitching together chaotic picture sequences taken by descent cameras. Some of the results were so good that the mission teams used them in their publications. But as for the public besting the scientists in getting published in refereed journals, that never happened.
Best practice
While the row over images from Rosetta鈥檚 main camera system rumbles on, ESA has changed its tune over images from the craft鈥檚 second camera, which takes images for navigation purposes. ESA was initially reluctant to share these pictures, with a resolution one-fifth that of the main system, because the main camera鈥檚 research teams might not approve. But on 24 July it made the , perhaps swayed by the leak from CNES and subsequent pleas, that one navigation image would be published daily.
It鈥檚 a start. And Rosetta fans can kind of 鈥渏oin the ride鈥�, at least until its arrival at the comet next week. What happens after that is up to the camera scientists from five countries 鈥� led by Germany 鈥� and ESA. They will have to figure out what publicity strategy to adopt during the year-long orbital phase, especially in November, when Philae, a probe piggybacking on Rosetta, will attempt to land on the comet. Examples of best practice are out there.
It鈥檚 Europe鈥檚 time to shine 鈥� and even set a fresh precedent for public access to data. For next year two NASA spacecraft will again be encountering new worlds up close for the first time: the dwarf planets Ceres (in March) and (July). We still live in an exciting era of space exploration 鈥� that is, if we are allowed to share in the fun.
Leader: 鈥�鈥淪nap-happy space fans deserve quick pics鈥�鈥�
