Scientists on Reddit

Emily Lakdawalla

Planetary scientist and writer, The Planetary Society

How we know it's theirs

The 2020 r/space AMA, posted from this account

We retrieved 3 posts and 253 comments from u/elakdawalla, dated 2014 to 2020, most often in r/space, r/IAmA and r/Damnthatsinteresting.

Best moment

A redditor wrote in r/space

On “I’m Emily Lakdawalla, planetary evangelist for The Planetary Society — AMA about Rosetta and Philae”

In all your time covering space news, what was the most exciting moment for you? And the most stressful? Thank you

u/elakdawalla replied

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Man, that's tough. Landings like Philae's are always really stressful. I remember all of them quite clearly. But then they're followed by the euphoria of seeing that first photo from the surface. I was with the science teams for both Spirit and Opportunity landings -- Opportunity was absolutely tremendous because the first photo showed intact bedrock, and all the geologists around me realized instantly what an awesome mission it was going to be. The Curiosity landing, I honestly didn't believe it was going to work, so when I heard "Tango Delta Nominal!" I jumped out of my chair in the press center, and then I had to sit down because I was hyperventilating :) Landings are thrilling, in both positive and negative ways!

More moments

A redditor wrote in r/space

On “I’m Emily Lakdawalla, planetary evangelist for The Planetary Society — AMA about Rosetta and Philae”

Hey, I am really happy about the results philae already has delivered, but there is one thing I was curious about when I heard about the bounces. Did Philae have stability systems to keep its orientation after the bounces or was it pure luck that it kind of remained head up?…

u/elakdawalla replied

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It had an internal flywheel that spun up before it was released from Rosetta to give it stability. The moment it touched down the first time, the flywheel began to spin down. That turns out to have been insanely fortunate, because as a direct result of the flywheel spinning down, the lander started rotating. That gave the lander stability so it didn't flip over as it was bounding back up from the surface.

A redditor wrote in r/space

On “I’m Emily Lakdawalla, planetary evangelist for The Planetary Society — AMA about New Horizons at Pluto”

New Horizons carried a RTG for energy requirements. Thus the light of the sun reaching would be very low. How did the probes camera capture such a vivid image?

u/elakdawalla replied

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First of all, it's not really that dim; it's like twilight on Earth. Do a Google search on "Pluto time" for explainers on that. Second of all, just as in photography on Earth, you choose a camera detector and an exposure setting that exposes the scene well and you get a nice picture. LORRI is a very sensitive camera; it actually had a difficult time photographing the moons of Jupiter because they were too bright, they saturated the detector. It did its best imaging of Jupiter moons on the night sides of the moons, where they were illuminated by Jupitershine.

A redditor posted in r/Damnthatsinteresting

Cosmic Dress

u/elakdawalla replied

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Hey, that's me, in a skirt I designed using photos from Cassini, and printed at Spoonflower, and stitched myself. The woman behind me is National Geographic reporter Nadia Drake in a dress from Belle Neptune that also uses Cassini photos. The animation comes from The Planetary Society's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BZC8YTTA9-M/?hl=en