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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.
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10 years and 317 million miles.
Harpoon did not fire. https://twitter.com/esaoperati...
It all starts at 0
The second picture was taken from the probe itself after it detached. According to the ongoing conference, the picture was taken exactly (their words) 50 seconds after the probe was released.
The Sun is the bright spot in lower middle. Rosetta itself is in the upper right. Because the probe was spinning when released, there is a slight blurring of the picture.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The blur in the center is a sunbeam -- ignore that. The boxy shape on the top right is the Rosetta probe itself. Extending to the left is Rosetta's solar panel. Here's an artist's conception of Rosetta to give you a better idea of what you're seeing. The stuff around the bottom corners and very left side of the images are just reflections/lens artifacts.
Rosetta solar panels at the top of the image, with the main body of the probe top right. The sun was causing lots of straylight in the image and it was quite saturated, so they had to do some major fix-up work to get anything sensible, hence the wierdness that you see on the left hand side.
Please remain calm, there is no reason to pani... wait, where are you all going?
https://twitter.com/Philae_MUP...
https://twitter.com/Philae2014
https://twitter.com/esa_rosett...
http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/
Is your phone over 10 years old and just traveled millions of miles through space?
No, it isn't.
This will be, what, 14-15 year old tech by now?
Do let us know when you get your iPhone to a comet and can send back pictures with it. Then we might be impressed.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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
for a government run operation.
Congrats to everyone at ESA, especially to all the people behind the scenes you never get to see but whose contribution to this project cannot be overstated.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Ah, the "Whoosh". Because when your poor attempt at humor is indistinguishable from idiocy, clearly it's the audience's fault.
Having checked a number of on-line news sites, the best real-time coverage seems to be on XKCD
Rough crowd tonight.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Bad form, calling "whoosh" on a response your own attempt at a joke. Only a third party can call "whoosh".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.