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Philae Lands Successfully On Comet
The European Space Agency has confirmed that the Philae probe has successfully landed on the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko and established contact with headquarters. The harpoons have deployed and reeled in the slack, and the landing gear has retracted. (Edit: They're now saying the harpoons didn't fire after all.) There are no photos from the surface yet, but the Rosetta probe snapped this picture of Philae after initial separation, and Philae took this picture of Rosetta. Emily Lakdawalla has a timeline of the operation (cached). She notes that there was a problem with the gas thruster mounted on top of the lander. The purpose of the thruster was to keep the lander on the comet after landing, since there was a very real possibility that it could bounce off. (The comet's local gravity is only about 10^-3 m/s^2.) The pins that were supposed to puncture the wax seal on the jet were unable to do so for reasons unknown. Still, the jet did not seem to be necessary. The official ESA Rosetta site will be continually updating as more data comes back.
> 10 years and 510 million km
FTFY
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Didn't realize that J.J. Abrams was involved in this project.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"Is your phone over 10 years old and just traveled millions of miles through space?"
Hasn't everything on Earth traveled "millions of miles through space" in the last 10 years?
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
Harpoon did not fire
I understand that a Greenpeace boat got in the way...
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
Jeez people, watch your units!
260.7 fortnights and 2.535x10^9 furlongs
FTFY.
So if they are screwed, then they are fine, right?