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Rosetta Spacecraft Prepares To Land On Comet, Solve Lingering Mysteries (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes from a report via Science Magazine: All good things must come to an end, and so it will be tomorrow when the Rosetta spacecraft makes its planned soft landing onto the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the culmination of 2 years of close-up studies. Solar power has waned as 67P's orbit takes it and Rosetta farther from the sun, and so the mission team decided to go on a last data-gathering descent before the lights go out. This last data grab is a bonus after a mission that is already changing theorists' views about how comets and planets arose early in the solar system. Several Rosetta observations suggest that comets form not from jolting mergers of larger cometesimals, meters to kilometers across, but rather from the gentle coalescence of clouds of pebbles. And the detection of a single, feather-light, millimeter-sized particle -- preserved since the birth of the solar system -- should further the view of a quiet birth. The report concludes: "A slew of instruments will keep gathering data as Rosetta approaches the surface at the speed of a gentle stroll. For team members whose instruments have already been turned off to conserve power, the ending is bittersweet -- but their work is far from over. Most instrument teams have only examined their own data, and are just now thinking about combining data sets. "We've just started collaborating with other teams," [Holger Sierks of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, chief of Rosetta's main camera,] says. "This is the beginning of the story, not the end."
is reaching its tail end. /duck
For anyone interested, ESA broadcasts a livestream of the event here.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Notice how the US based /. advert site deliberately ignores (or hides) this is a European space mission. Now compare that to anything coming out of NASA, even their non-news his USA USA USA! I know many here are terrified to learn there is more beyond their own bit of land, but a little credit where it is due. Likewise with Indian and Chinese space projects. NASA may be great, and they even beat Russia to the moon, but they're not the only player in town.
Congratulations to all involved in this mission over the 20+ years: and: better to crash than fade away :-)
At 0430 MST, Rosetta is returning higher and higher res pictures of its impact site.
Lots of fine detail at the impact site now being shown on the live feed.
And Muhammad is his Prophet.
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
But look at us here talking when there's more science to do!
The orbital period of the comet is only 6.44 years. Would it be possible to wake up either Rosetta or Philae when it swings by again?
After hearing that they had found Philae, I more than half expected a final heroic attempt to bump Philae upright and somehow gain more data during this "crash". Even if it failed, to die together instead of alone could draw remarkable headline attention.
Noticising the NASA tag in the article related to ESA?
And yourmom ran away with a large black man
It's ESA, the EUROPEAN Space Agency in a really big first.
Well done. =)