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Rosetta's 12-Year Mission Ends With Landing On Comet (sciencemag.org)

Posted by BeauHD on from the suspense-is-killing-me dept.

sciencehabit writes: It was an unusual grand finale. The crowded European Space Agency (ESA) operations center in Darmstadt, Germany, waited in silence and then the signal from the descending Rosetta mission simply stopped at 1.19 pm local time showing that the spacecraft had, presumably, landed on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko some 40 minutes earlier, due to the time the signal takes to reach Earth. Mission controllers hugged each other; there was gentle applause from onlookers; and that was it. There were no last minute crises. Seven of Rosetta's instruments kept gathering data until the end. Holger Sierks, principal investigator of the 12-year mission's main camera, showed the gathered staff, officials, and journalists Rosetta's final picture: a rough gravelly surface with a few larger rocks covering an area 10 meters across. Earlier, it had snapped the interior of deep pits on the comet (shown above, from an altitude of 5.8 kilometers) that may show the building blocks it is made of. "It's very crude raw data but this will keep us busy," Sierks said. It is hoped that this last close-up data grab will help to clarify the many scientific questions raised by Rosetta.

40 comments

  1. It was the will of Allah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    And his prophet Muhammad. Praise be upon him.

    1. Re: It was the will of Allah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hate to tell you this bruh, but since there's no way to know what direction Mecca is in to pray towards five times per day while in space, your going to just have to stay here...

    2. Re: It was the will of Allah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Jihad is the sixth pillar of Islam, and a duty of all Muslims. It was so decreed by Ayatollah Khomeini, praise be upon him. All real Muslims must pray six times per day.

    3. Re: It was the will of Allah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Jihad more often means to fight ignorance (by teaching). Go learn something.

    4. Re: It was the will of Allah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Put the glue down, bro.

    5. Re: It was the will of Allah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jihad more often means to fight ignorance (by teaching). Go learn something.

      where i come from it means a suicide mission

    6. Re: It was the will of Allah. by rossdee · · Score: 2

      >there's no way to know what direction Mecca is in to pray towards five times per day while in space,

      If you are that far away (where that comet is) then facing the Earth would be good enough

    7. Re:It was the will of Allah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      FCUK the prophet of Satan who Muslims call Mohammed.

    8. Re: It was the will of Allah. by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Oh of those of so little math skills.
      Muslim or not. In space you can find Mecca with knowing the current time. Your current speed and direction related to earth.

      These spacecrafts need this type of calculation to send messages back to earth. While not targeting Mecca they may be targeting Hustan Texas. Which is the same thing.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    9. Re: It was the will of Allah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Learn what?
      My local imam is telling me I should protect the women close to me. That's why I'm always following them when they go outside.
      He is also telling me that I should always help them, so when they need to travel longer distance, I always drive them there so they don't need to bother learning how to drive.
      And with the current rape epidemic, I suggested them to go out covered so as to not attract unwanted attention.

    10. Re: It was the will of Allah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, ignorance of a religion. Which itself would basically mean enlightenment.

      Fight enlightenment.

      Yeah, that seems to pretty much be what Muslims have been doing worldwide for some time.

  2. Meanwhile, the fucking Mars rover by melted · · Score: -1, Troll

    Meanwhile, the fucking Mars rover just keeps on sending pictures back. NASA wins by KO.

    1. Re:Meanwhile, the fucking Mars rover by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Different objectives - impacting a comet is by design a limited function. And Rosetta went MUCH farther - rovers traveled maybe 250 million km from earth, but Rosetta traveled 6.4 Billion km. See here.

    2. Re:Meanwhile, the fucking Mars rover by michelcolman · · Score: 1

      But why did they program it to shut off on impact? Who cares if it might be damaged and short-circuited by the impact, it's end of life anyway, might as well see if if some parts of it survive the impact and send back something useful. No, they intentionally programmed it to go into "safe mode" and basically shut off at the moment of impact. A "clean end" to the mission, they called it. I think they should have gone for some "dirty" pictures instead. Better than nothing, and what does the probe have to lose? It may have bounced around for hours with all its sensors shut off while it was still perfectly capable of sending back more data.

    3. Re:Meanwhile, the fucking Mars rover by mrvan · · Score: 1

      From what I read, they want to prevent having a noise source that could interfere with future missions. I'm not sure I buy that, with what power the satellite could get from broken solar panels on the comet surely the noise would be quite limited, but that's what the local newspaper said.

      Also, I guess they just want to wrap up the project, shut off the receivers, and move on.

    4. Re:Meanwhile, the fucking Mars rover by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mars is not a comet, Mars is a planet, unlike Pluto.

    5. Re:Meanwhile, the fucking Mars rover by tlhIngan · · Score: 5, Informative

      But why did they program it to shut off on impact? Who cares if it might be damaged and short-circuited by the impact, it's end of life anyway, might as well see if if some parts of it survive the impact and send back something useful. No, they intentionally programmed it to go into "safe mode" and basically shut off at the moment of impact. A "clean end" to the mission, they called it. I think they should have gone for some "dirty" pictures instead. Better than nothing, and what does the probe have to lose? It may have bounced around for hours with all its sensors shut off while it was still perfectly capable of sending back more data.

      First off, Rosetta is not Philae. It was never designed to "land" - just orbit. The moment of impact it was going to be destroyed You have to remember that they're only strong when they were folded up - once everything's unfolded it's quite fragile. At the moment of landing, the solar panels would've collapsed - they are long parts and it was only strong when it was folded up for launch, so it would've twisted and bent.

      And there's no power once that happens - Rosetta was dying - its onboard fuel is nearly depleted and its far from the sun so its power reserves are diminished. This lets it do some final science using its onboard sensors and relay some final data before impact.

      Additionally, the antenna would've collapsed on impact so it will no longer be pointing towards earth so even if they kept Rosetta "on", there would be no way to receive anything because the antenna would be pointed in a random direction.

    6. Re:Meanwhile, the fucking Mars rover by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It may have bounced around for hours with all its sensors shut off while it was still perfectly capable of sending back more data.

      Except, once on the surface, its antennas would no longer be correctly oriented. Same for the solar panels, so it would lose power quickly, especially with direct heat transfer due to contact with the cold surface.

    7. Re:Meanwhile, the fucking Mars rover by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the antenna were to be off by 0.5 degrees we would have picked up no signal anyway. There is a law for deep space that nothing is left uncontrolled that could produce disruptive signals - we wouldn't want it messing measurements up into the future.

  3. Thoughts on the comet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    The spacecraft's final transmission : "I wonder if it'll be friends with me"

    1. Re: Thoughts on the comet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Ha...Hitchhiker's reference...nice. ðY'ðY¼

    2. Re:Thoughts on the comet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The spacecraft's final transmission : "I wonder if it'll be friends with me"

      Love that one :D

    3. Re:Thoughts on the comet by kwoff · · Score: 2

      https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosett...

  4. Editing -- not copypasting by SeaFox · · Score: 3

    Earlier, it had snapped the interior of deep pits on the comet (shown above, from an altitude of 5.8 kilometers) that may show the building blocks it is made of.

    It it too much to ask submissions be re-written to a point and not just blatant copying and pasting from the source?

    1. Re:Editing -- not copypasting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see you are new here to slashdot, Welcome your suggestions will be dully (sic) considered then forgotten at the sound of the next tone.

    2. Re:Editing -- not copypasting by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      It it too much to ask submissions be re-written to a point and not just blatant copying and pasting from the source?

      What, you don't see the pictures?

      --
      #DeleteChrome
  5. Isn't there a cheaper way to do this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "this will keep us busy"

    Give'm all a Rubick's cube or something.

    1. Re: Isn't there a cheaper way to do this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Or minorities to persecute and kill. They're Europeans after all.

    2. Re: Isn't there a cheaper way to do this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nonsense. Europeans invented multi-tasking.

  6. Great achievement by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

    Although the scientific outcome of the mission is not obviously consequent, the whole operation is a great achievement.

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  7. The t-shirt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    All I remember about this crappy mission is that fucking t-shirt. Is that asshole still wearing it?

    1. Re:The t-shirt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong site, cunt.

    2. Re:The t-shirt by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      The assholes there were the SJWs who reduced Matt Taylor to tears for wearing the shirt. If I had been running the mission I would have had the whole staff wear "New Gunner Girls" for every press conference after that.

  8. It crashed by MoarSauce123 · · Score: 1

    "Landing" is a rather positive spin for what was an intentional crash. Rosetta slammed into the comet's surface, hardly anything I'd call a "landing".

    1. Re:It crashed by whathappenedtomonday · · Score: 2

      It "slammed" into the comet at 1 m/s or about 2 mph (not from the linked article, I read that somewhere else). Quite unlikely that it left much of a dent, and some ESA guy even said it might have bounced back and now floats alongside the comet.

      --
      I hope I didn't brain my damage.
    2. Re:It crashed by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Even though we say that projectiles land, I think that when we use the word "land" for any controlled craft, we mean that it alighted and came to rest in a controlled manner - otherwise we tend to use the word "crash".

      Using "landing" for a deliberate crash seems somewhat wrong to my language ear, much like saying a car parked in a brick wall, or a boat beached at the sea bottom.

  9. that was a close call... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the secret plan of knocking the comet off its collision course with earth was a success!

    1. Re:that was a close call... by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Funny

      You forgot the xkcd link

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:that was a close call... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      There have been many junkie dicks very deep in your throat and ass.

    3. Re:that was a close call... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i, for one, applaud you!