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Rosetta, the Comet Hunter

Posted by Cliff on from the harpooning-comets dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes: "After being delayed for about a year because of a failure of the Ariane-5 rocket, the Rosetta spacecraft is scheduled to be launched on February 26. Rosetta is a special spacecraft, including an orbiter and a lander. And it will take up to 2014 before landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko -- with the help of a harpoon. Then, as says the European Space Agency (ESA), Rosetta will help to solve planetary mysteries. This news release looks at the goals of Rosetta's mission and explains why it will take more than ten years to reach the comet. But here the 'funny' part of the story: the landing. 'In November 2014, the lander will be ejected from the spacecraft from a height which could be as low as one kilometre. Touchdown will be at walking speed, about one metre per second. Immediately after touchdown, the lander will fire a harpoon into the ground to avoid bouncing off the surface back into space, since the comet's extremely weak gravity alone would not hold onto the lander.' This overview contains more details and includes illustrations of the Rosetta's spacecraft and its landing on the comet."

7 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Business Plan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    1. Study comets.
    2. ???
    3. Profit!!!

  2. Re:HAIKU! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Taco drops the soap
    he bends down to pick it up
    bye-bye ass cherry!

  3. Re:Uh, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I enjoyed that scene too.

  4. Oreos up my ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Is it the whole cookie, and just the creamy center? I imagine if it is just the creamy center, then the number is greater than 3x the number of whole cookies that would fit. Please advise.

  5. Off Topic: Aarrrggg! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I hate the way the &@^% mouse wheel interacts with the moderator pull downs. If you forget to click outside the widget, there goes your moderation!!

  6. Long Now Foundation by E.S+Taog · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    The Rosetta project is part of the Long Now Foundation's mission to document as many different languages as possible. It's thought that 50 - 90% of the world's languages could die out by the next century, and this project is hoped to highlight the importance of saving native languages.

    While I certainly appreciate the Long Now's aims, I think there is probably a cheaper way of publicising this issue. Money that could be ploughed into encouraging indigenous societies to use their own languages, or to document them properly. Also, why the bible for fuck's sake? Just imagine, if (and this is a big if) some alien cunts were able to decipher one of the languages on the disk, and then had the dubious joy of reading the first three chapters of Genesis. If they manage to stay awake they will certainly conceive of some very strange notions about us.

    I'm sure they will wonder how we created space flight when we appear to believe that some Deity created the world in seven days. Or turn up asking us who this God dude is, and can they commission him to create some more worlds. They'd have been better off using some other work or fiction or mythology.

  7. No by Mmm_Coco · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    that is retarded