Slashdot Mirror
Online At Last: Comet Lander Philae Wakes Up
techtech writes with this news from the BBC: The European Space Agency (ESA) says its comet lander, Philae, has woken up and contacted Earth. Philae, the first spacecraft to land on a comet, was dropped on to the surface of Comet 67P by its mothership, Rosetta, last November. It worked for 60 hours before its solar-powered battery ran flat. The comet has since moved nearer to the sun and Philae has enough power to work again, says the BBC's science correspondent Jonathan Amos. An account linked to the probe tweeted the message, "Hello Earth! Can you hear me?"
Watch this space for some more links to follow. Update: 06/14 13:39 GMT by T : From the ESA's Rosetta blog:
When analysing the status data it became clear that Philae also must have been awake earlier: "We have also received historical data - so far, however, the lander had not been able to contact us earlier," [according to project manager Dr. Stephan Ulamec.] Now the scientists are waiting for the next contact. There are still more than 8000 data packets in Philae’s mass memory which will give the DLR team information on what happened to the lander in the past few days on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Pinpointing the location shouldn't be a problem now
Sometimes it works in your favor.
It's so lonely and cold out here. Why did you leave me here all alone? Please come and pick me up.
This time, just for fun, all the men will appear without shirts.
I respectfully disagree. I think it's pretty interesting that a spacecraft has gotten itself going via solar power and is communicating with base. That's about as "news for nerds" as it gets. Watching for further updates is also a pretty nerdnewsworthy practice. Spaceships are cool.
xkcd
I have a shallow affect and don't really care about much on this planet. Yet, reading the message "Hello Earth! Can you hear me?" really put a smile on my face. It's quite interesting when something unexpectedly sparks an emotional response in me.
... and this sounds all too familiar. Probe gets lost, and after a while it's "found". Now it will have motive power, and seek to return to the creator. Or sterilize and reseed. or ... Mankind, be warned...
I've been waiting and hoping for that little probe to wake up and start chatting again. I know it's only a lump of machinery, but developing emotional responses to lumps of machinery is built into humans at a pretty low level.
Was apparently "WTF? Did they REALLY do that to Shireen?"
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
Just in time
"An account linked to the probe tweeted the message, "Hello Earth! Can you hear me?""
That's pretty fscking amazing. They added a Twitter client to it before Twitter was even invented!
Am I the only one annoyed with spacecraft personification? Most likely they hire a human to tweet as if they were the spacecraft. It's like pretending Santa Claus is real. Do you want followers to praise the scientists and engineers or the myth of the sentient spacecraft???
Ahhh Hello Ethan :) Want to explain why the universe is big, I mean REALLY big?
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Yeah, but what shirts were the science team wearing?
I totally get that people find it funny that a machine talks to them on twitter. What i don't get is how and why these people then tryto talk back to it. Does anybody actually think their tweets are indeed sent back to the probe??? Why people? Think!! If the probe had to waste energy on reading your tweets it will fall back to sleep soon again. And besides do these people realise it was not the probe that sent the tweet in the first place? It was of course some earthly server that was programmed by a fun dev who hooked up the radio receiver to a program that knows to tweet. I realize that any sufficiently advanced technology is magic to those not versed in the art, but c'mon!!!!
Hear hear
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Yes, because the BBC website is just plastered wall-to-wall with advertising. Dumbass.
I think the nasa staff are feeling what im feeling: these probes feel like they are alive. they are like pets, or extremely loyal voluntary manservants. I would happily consider giving them limited recognition as sentient beings, just for the great work they are doing. at least they deserve to have a gravesite when they stop working. too bad we cant retrieve the bodies. perhaps a museum or, i dont know, something new, like "The Citadel of Cybernetic Pioneers" (after Pioneer of course).
Wait what?
If that's not news for nerds, I don't know what it is.
In addition to the official ESA news channels, there's a Twitter account by the name of SarcasticPhilae.
(Can't believe I'm recommending anything from Twitter, I suppose this is the exception that proves the rule)
Although the invoking of this kind of magic always comes at a high personal cost to the user.
When Russian armored units pour into Germany, France, and Italy, the Europeans will not be glad they spent billions on collecting comet data.
You did hear president Obama (not a war hawk president by any measure) is sending armored reinforcements to Europe?
If it wasn't for NATO, Russia would have done it sooner. That essentially means the EU countries are relying on the US for a military while they send up these wake up / go back to bed space probes.
I can't even get phone coverage in the building I work..