Rosetta probe Philae just landed on Comet 67P

[AdRock]

The sheer audacity of what they've accomplished is amazing. They threw an object out into space, had it use the gravitational pull of other celestial bodies to help it meander through space, avoid all manner of obstacles (large and small), and land on a rock the size of Central Park. That is simply amazing.

+1. When you think about all the uncontrollable variables that have to go just right it makes it even more amazing. I love shit like this.

[Danny46]

simply amazing. Very cool

[Strychnine]

I read today that escape velocity on 67P is somewhere around 0.5 m/s or 1.1 mph. You could literally jump off of it.


Also, in terms of scale, here's some perspective.

We're going to ignore the rotation of the Earth/Moon and their gravity for this example and just look at distances.

Imagine we're aiming for a very specific hair on someone's head who is casually walking around the moon. We shoot a large virus into space at a speed of a half mile PER WEEK and 10 years later we get a bullseye.

[Strychnine]

Ok one more cool fact.

The mission cost €1.4 billion.

Looking at the EU as a whole from 1996 to 2014 it cost €0.20/person/year.

Total cost per person: €3.50
Cost to see Interstellar in theater: €8.50

[blownaltered]

First image on the comet...

Does anybody else see the alien on the bottom right corner?

[HarrisonTX]

Does anybody else see the alien on the bottom right corner?

Are you serious man?

[Denny]

Are you serious man?

I think he might be. I can almost make it out as well.

[krazy kris]

Why?
Yeah it's cool, but why?

[talisman]

Does anybody else see the alien on the bottom right corner?

lmfao.

This is incredible. Comparable to the moon landing in terms of audacity.

[no4njnk]

Does anybody else see the alien on the bottom right corner?

You do realize that is the moon and is also a photoshop right?

This is flat out awesome, I am interested to see what information we can get from this.

[Strychnine]

More updates

Got fresh news from the team, they are broadcasting live right now on french TV !
Philae landed, and bounced slowly for (1-2-? hours), and travelled 1km away the targetted site. Yes 1000m. Then know this because of the data from the radar. It's now stopped slanted, some cams are shooting the sky, other the ground, and other nearby rocks, as seen on the first photo. It's inside some kind of cave/hole, not much sun for the solar panels.

EDIT1: It landed on the core of the comet, it sees the light from the sun for about 1 to 2 hours per day. In the next days/week the angle of the comet will change/sun, and it very likely the solar panel will get more sunlight so more power for the probe.

EDIT2 : Many labs are performing right now and performed the whole night. For now they put the drilling on hold since they don't know if it's tied to the ground or not. Drilling op was also power hungry so it's kinda a good thing it's on hold since there's not much sun available for the panels. Battery life been re-estimated to 50-55hours due to the lack of sunlight. This time includes the 7 hours of descent.They are constantly adjusting missions goals, depending on conditions, power available, etc,

EDIT3 : The probe has been working to gather scientifict data the whole time, including during the bounces. There's already a large amount of data available, whatever happens next.

EDIT4 : It's resting on "hard" ground, with a layer of dust about 30cm, and that's good news because it allows measurements to proceed as planned. As in, it's not burried into soft soil.

EDIT5 : Solar panels are deployed, radio link is up and running, but the fact the probe is slanted/in a hole/random ground limits the time it can communicate with the orbiter, but that's not jeopardizing the mission. There's already a lot of tings transmitted successfully to the orbiter. Contact between the orbiter and the probe can be approximately done twice per day.

EDIT6 : The first place it touched the comet was exaclty where it was planned, flat and cosy, too bad it didn't harpoon there.

EDIT7 : Next contact will be near 19:30GMT, until 23:45GMT approx.
This night they made contact with the probe (from the orbiter) at about 4:00GMT, and at 5:30GMT they had safely recovered all the data from the first batch of tests.

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From the ESA blog :

The team are ensuring that Rosetta maintains an orbit that is optimised for lander communication support; they are planning a manoeuvre (thruster burn) today to be conducted on Friday that will help keep Rosetta where it should be. Rosetta already conducted a burn last night as part of this effort.

Rosetta is presently sending signals to the ground stations at about 28 Kbps; Ignacio says that the spacecraft's own telemetry downlink uses about 1 or 2 Kbps of this, so the rest is being used to download science data from Rosetta and lander science and telemetry from the surface.

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Important press conference from ESA at 13:00GMT. Over now. http://rosetta.esa.int/

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EDIT8 : So there was more photos, and details.

Important bit I liked, they're planning on righting the lander, studying the best way to do it.

First rebound was about 1000m long, 0.38m/s up, lasted 2 hours.
2nd rebound was 0.03m/s, 7 minutes long.

[Mysticcobrakilla]

Cool shit!

[talisman]

Uhh, WOW.... Potentially the biggest discovery in human history?


Philae Detected Organic Molecules On Comet


Though the Philae lander was short-lived on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, it was able to return scientific data back to Earth from the first samples ever obtained directly from a comet’s nucleus. During its successful 60-hour-long primary science mission last week, Philae made a very important discovery: the comet contains organic molecules.

Not much has been released about the molecules so far, with the Wall Street Journal breaking the news on Monday. The molecules are carbon-based, but no word has been given on what other elements are present, or how complex they may be. Complex organic compounds, like amino acids, are the building blocks to life.

Philae’s mission was to determine which, if any, organic compounds existed on comets. This knowledge will allow scientists to determine if comets brought the necessary ingredients for life to early Earth. The conditions on the young Earth were not favorable for making those compounds, and it is most likely that they came from an outside source.

The discovery of the molecules was made with Philae’s Cometary Sampling and Composition Experiment (COSAC) instrument. This device analyzes compounds present in the comet’s thin atmosphere, seeking out organic and volatile compounds.

As of right now, it is hard to tell when additional information will be provided about the nature of these molecules, and what implications they may have.

http://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/philae-detected-organic-molecules-comet

[lowthreeohz]

This shit is amazing

[Strychnine]

Also, the orbiting Rosetta probe captured the bouncing of Philae as it landed and settled down (this is after the first big bounce)

Newly released photos by Rosetta show Philae's descent toward the comet and the 220-lb. (100 kilograms) probe's position shortly after its first bounce, which lasted 1 hour and 50 minutes. The images span 30 minutes around Philae's initial touchdown, which occurred at about 10:35 a.m. EST (1535 GMT) Wednesday.

Full size: http://i.space.com/images/i/000/043/...tta-photos.jpg