CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
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RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
I hope the people who run our work IT systems understand that our ancient version of IE is making it very hard for me to follow streams of the Rosetta landing progress.
Best bet seems to be the Guardian text feed.
PS: I realise the correct answer is "try working at work"
You'll be able to get some work done this morning.
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4m ago08:59
The OSIRIS camera on Rosetta will take images of Philae during its descent. These are expected to arrive on Earth between 13:00GMT-14:00GMT.
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Oh it's fine you can work all afternoon, landed early -
Images of the descent are all well and good, but there's still exciting stuff happening now!
Seperation of Rosetta and Philae occured at 0835 (although we didn't get the signal confirming seperation until 0903).
She's off!
Quick summary of what's going on:
Rosetta is a European Space Agency probe launched in March 2004 to investigate comets; specifically comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. This is interesting because we don't really know much about comets, despite theories that they might have seeded our world with building blocks for life.
Rosetta carries a tiny lander called Philae. That has just been lobbed off the probe, and is travelling along a seven-hour ballistic trajectory to land on the surface of the comet. It has no propulsion, so is relying on some really good maths to ensure it ends up on the right spot, the right way up, and at slow enough speeds that it doesn't smash into the surface or bounce off.
As it kisses the surface, screws in its three feet with drive into the surface. Combined with some harpoons, it's hoped that will be enough to keep it secure. Noone really knows what the surface is going to be like though.
If everything goes well, [even more] Science will then happen.
Sometimes, humans get things right.
Javascript's disabled, so the cheated xkcd version won't load. I'll have to step through it at home...
"Science will then happen"
The science up until this point has been pretty impressive to be honest.
Corrected :p
@cb
It's engineering up until it lands! Then the science begins.
The engineering behind this is mind boggling, no matter how the afternoon pans out.
I've been following the 'composition of comets' debate since the mid seventies, starting with reading my dad's New Scientist in the bathroom. This could be quite a day for that old astrochestnut.
"The engineering behind this is mind boggling"
I'm sure it is, but what is 'special'/new (apart from the challenge of landing on a small moving object), from other 'go somewhere far away and try a soft landing' trips?
If they can get the lander down, then they can start finding out what this comet is made of. Which is interesting because it is interesting because it is interesting.
@chdot
I suppose it's incrementaly different from previous missions. I'd think the hardest part is probably the feeble gravity available for the landing.
I'm just amazed that these machines work at all after eight years in freezing irradiated hard vacuum.
The comet is really small, really far away, moving really fast, and digging in to it might reveal where life came from.
(That's a bit of a Daily Mail summary, but still valid!)
Aye, but What About The Workers?
"Wednesday's effort is also having to rely on some relatively old technologies.
"Rosetta was despatched from Earth to catch 67P in 2004. That means it and Philae were designed and built in the 1990s.
"And given the conservatism of space engineering, a number of its onboard systems will therefore undoubtedly be 1980s vintage."
The company my brother works for does a lot of work for ESA. I know it was involved in some of the modelling for Beagle as well.
I'll ask him if they had anything to do with this.
Incidentally the thrusters were also used in Skynet, a British military satellite installation, presumably ironically named by techies and approved by generals who didn't go to the cinema...
Robert
Touchdown!
Said in the excited voice of an American football commentator.
The 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Independence Party will object to foreign probes coming here taking our sooty space slush.
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1h ago19:58 Philae may have landed not once but twice – that’s the final message from Esa this evening.
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Nathan Allen (@Sparkly77)
12/11/2014 17:18
Unexpected TV pictures coming in live,from #cometlanding
http://pic.twitter.com/TXTNRPEdQG
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A not-overly-well-written dump of thoughts on the matter:
http://www.darkerside.org/2014/11/rosetta-philae-comet-67p-2/
The fact the mission was approved 21 years ago, back in November 1993, gives a very specific gravitas to the phrase "a lifetime's work".
Chapeau, ESA!
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JRehling (@JRehling)
12/11/2014 17:01
Fox: "Why did America waste money landing on a comet?"
Scientist: "This is a European mission."
Fox: "Why didn't America get there first?"
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BBC have an online video of an open university scientist completely, wildly, and exuberantly losing it with the news of a successful launch.
I envy anyone who can be that inspired by their career!
In other news, Philae is stable on the surface, although may have bounced a few times on landing...
Must confess to not being in the least excited about this.
Sure, what they find out from the comet might turn out to be interesting.
But being able to land something on an object going at a pre-defined speed, on a pre-defined trajectory isn't that ground breaking. Just like landing a plane on an aircraft carrier, except further away and without air friction or waves to worry about.
Or any direct real time control...
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