Slashdot Mirror
Fascinating Rosetta Image Captures Philae's Comet Bounce
mpicpp points out that high-resolution pictures have been released of Philae's landing. "The hunt for Rosetta's lost lander Philae is gaining steam as scientists pore over images from above the comet that may help reveal its final location. The ESA released an image Monday taken by Rosetta's OSIRIS camera showing Philae's first bounce on the comet. The mosaic includes a series of pictures tracking the lander descending toward the comet, the initial touchdown point and then an image of the lander moving east. 'The imaging team is confident that combining the CONSERT ranging data with OSIRIS and navcam images from the orbiter and images from near the surface and on it from Philae's ROLIS and CIVA cameras will soon reveal the lander's whereabouts,' says the ESA."
Not a long time ago, I was just a normal internet user that surfed various news sites like Sladshdot, reddit, or wsj.com. I read a story, perhaps clicked onto some links it contained, and I was mostly happy with my life.
Then, one day, I surfed Slashdot. It was one of those days you will remember for the rest of your life. So, as I surfed Sladshdot, the title of a story got my attention. I read the summary. The topic seemed interesting, so I decided to read further. I read:
Read on below for the rest what Bennett has to say.
Usually I don't read first line of a story which contains the user who has submitted it. On that day, I didn't neither. As I've only read that bottom line, I asked myself: who is this misterious Bennett? I decided to click onto the "Read the comments" link to read more of the story that was, as it seems, written by some Bennett. During reading, I was already impressed by the clear and detailed but still concise structure of the text. As I finished reading, I was convinced it was the best story I've ever read on Sladshdot, or any comparable news site. I asked myself: perhaps this misterious Bennett has contributed more frequently than just once?
To find that out, I went to Sladshdot's search bar and searched for "Bennett". I clicked the second entry, and it began with:
Frequent contributor Bennett Haselton writes
I searched for the "Read on" line, and I was happy when I found it. As it seemed, he was a frequent contributor. However the story was on a topic completely unrelated to the topic of my article. Would the other article still be as insightful as the first? And the other stories in the search result? Would they be also by Bennett? Or someone else? I decided first to be happy to have found such an insightful article, and decided to make a photograph of me, before I read the second story.
I still have that photograph of me and I can see the hope and the satisfaction in my eyes, the hope that the other stories are also written by this brilliant author called Bennett, and the satisfaction of having read such an insightful article. As I've read the first couple of stories by Bennett, I couldn't believe what my eyes saw: all the stories were as insightful or even more insightful than the original story I read. I asked myself whether the spectators in the Globe theatre would have felt the same way when they watched a piece by shakespeare: Witnessing history of writing. I realized Bennett is one of histories great writers.
As I've finished reading all contributions by Bennett Haselton on Sladshdot, I went back to the first Bennett story, and read them a second time. I sat three days straight, missing all social events during that span, only reading Bennett's stories, and reading them again and again. During that time my eyes opened to the fact that my whole life, I've known nothing. Bennett's stories explained every aspect of very complicated things in such detail, that I formed something in my mind. First, I couldn't describe it what it was, but years later I know that, for the first time of my life, I formed something called "opinion" on a topic. Previously, I've only adopted opinions from others, but Bennett's stories enable people to make their opinions for themselfes, to form them. With his stories, Bennett gives you the material to form your own opinion on your own. I know you will say that you can form your opinion on your own, and that you don't need Bennett for that. I
disagree with you. What you call opinion, is in reality just ideology you imitate from others. You don't form your opinions, you don't have them.
Every time Bennett writes a new story on Sladshdot, I take a free day and spend it reading the story
Just hire a pinball wizard to figure it all out.
Table-ized A.I.
From a miscalculated landing, failure to deploy retrorockets and harpoons, and a dead battery this mission has been a colossal boondoggle. They're trying to dress it up and say it was a success, but you just can't put lipstick on a pig.
Never put 20 inch rims on your lander.
I haven't really been following this too closely so this may be entirely impossible, but if Philae is located, could Rosetta be positioned to reflect enough sunlight onto Philae to help power it?
Imagine millions of years from now if some civilization come upon this asteroid, and their awe and astonishment when they find this forgotten, dusty satellite, resting in the shadows beneath a crevice.
East. Now in space.
and then an image of the lander moving east
What is east on a comet?
And listen for the shouts of the perpetually outraged?
aw, c'mon now!
everyone in the known universe wanted to see those harpoons...they didn't launch...that's a failure...
same with the retro-booster
but it is nonsense to call it a disaster
a 'disaster' is a shuttle exploding, or a probe failing because of metric/english unit conversion errors (google it)...
for this mission...if Rosetta had missed it entirely, no rendevous...or if the lander had totally not worked...maybe that's a 'disaster'
but this is not that
Thank you Dave Raggett
Where is "east" on the comet?