Spaceref's NASA's "Tour of Asteroid Bennu" Selected for Prestigious Computer Graphics Film Festival says:
It's hard to imagine what the surface of asteroid Bennu might look like - it's shortest distance from Earth still 250,000 miles away - but the video "Tour of Asteroid Bennu" brings us on a journey to see this landscape up close.
On August 9 and 11, 2021, the video produced at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will be featured in the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival Electronic Theater - a high honor for those in the graphic visualization field.
While the graphics are fantastic and the "tour of Bennu's rocks" is illuminating, the narration is... well... mostly serial mythology factoidisms.
Nonetheless the serial factoids about various rocks on Bennu make it worth a listen.
The first stop is Simurgh Saxum. This prominent boulder defines the asteroid’s prime meridian, and serves as the basis of its coordinate system.
In Persian mythology, the Simurgh is a large and benevolent bird, and the possessor of all knowledge.
Saxum is Latin for “stone.”
Question: How does the rock Simurgh Saxum (-25.32°, 4.05°) on 101955 Bennu define its prime meridian and serve as the basis for its coordinate system?
- Considering that its 4.05° longitude (shown in the video) is not on the prime meridian, how does it define it?
- Either (at least) a second point is necessary to establish a coordinate system, or the spin axis is used to define poles, which is used in this case?
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