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This is what you want, on board image just posted on twotter
Looks exactly like a Welsh quarry.
Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat will be pleased.
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Thats superb
Cheap actually.
and funnily enough, much of that €3.50 was paid to Airbus UK, Airbus Germany, and Airbus France, and then to its employees, where ca. 30% of it went straight back as tax to the governments that paid the €3.50 in the first place, all approximately in line with the geographical contribution.
@andy
so, its a bit like those fines on the Banks,
they government takes that money
the banks increase their prices to us
so effectively we are paying the fines.
rosetta - cheap as chips!
ooooooo it might be in a hole or over on its side and battery could be running low, might need to be moved
i love the twitter feed where its like its a real person ..........
The XKCD thing now has its own domain, if you missed it first time.
Give it a moment to load properly and then use right-arrow to step through the frames.
Looks exactly like a Welsh quarry.Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat will be pleased.
Well played 😆
I'm still reading the BBC HYS comments with a mixture of amusement and depression.
If you go there then you can watch, in real time, the birth of conspiracy theories explaining how this whole thing is an elaborate hoax and hasn't actually happened.
At least JHJ has been busy 😉
Bit of a controversy over shirt with pvc clad girls - can't accuse that scientist of being PC
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[url= http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/13/why-women-in-science-are-annoyed-at-rosetta-mission-scientists-clothing ]link[/url]
this mans going to be the latest "12 months on tv star"
andytherocketeer - Memberit's a secure area, never use screensaver or lock.
Being a secure area won't stop me from ctrl-alt-downing you
One thing that puzzles me that I haven't seen answered anywhere, is will the ratio of sunlight to shade alter as the comet orbits the sun?
I get that it is not getting enough hours of sunlight where it is, although there is a chance it will get more as the comet approaches the sun.
As I understand it, they were expecting Philae to stop working when it got too hot through being too close to the sun.
If it's in the shade, does that mean it will have a longer life?
Also, is the comet rotating on it's axis?
Does it have day and night, like a planet?
Is it rotating in relation to the sun, or does it always face the same way, like the moon orbiting the earth?
This seems quite important to me, as the lack of sunlight is the main problem facing Philae, yet there's no proper explanation anywhere of whether that might change, unless I've missed it.
^ unless the orbit of the sun is perfectly spherical and it is spinning on an axis perpendicular to the sun, then it will experience seasons, like earth and the amount of sunlight will vary.
back2basics - Member
i love the twitter feed where its like its a real person ..........
Yep enjoying that too, it's been done really well:
Philae Lander @Philae2014
.@ESA_Rosetta I'm feeling a bit tired, did you get all my data? I might take a nap… #CometLanding
Turns out it's day is 12.4 hours long.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov%E2%80%93Gerasimenko
With a year of 6.4 earth years, I don't suppose the seasons will vary much during this mission.
MTG: That is exactly the hope of the guys at ESA - that the changing "seasons" of the comet will bring more sunlight onto the lander and wake it up at some point in the future.
As the comet approaches the sun, it will also become more volatile, and movements/gas-ejections from the comet may disturb the lander and, potentially shift it out of the shade.
Discussed in lots of places: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30062346
it's also about 4x away from the sun than we are (give or take), so that's 1/16th of the solar energy
think any wake up depends entirely on whether the current solar is enough to keep battery heaters ticking over.
Battery heaters?
That hints at an answer to another question from my oversimplified understanding of space exploration...
If I need to plug my bike lights, phone or whatever in to the charger for 7 hours a night last my intended use each day, then if I was only able to plug them in for 1.5 hours, I would have to limit myself to only using them every fifth day.
All the talk is of Philae shutting down completely because the solar panels are not getting enough sunlight, not just doing less to conserve what battery charging it does get.
I take it there's a minimum charge level needed just for housekeeping, before it's got any to spare for running equipment?
Good point about the gas ejections too.
I remember reading that the Japanese tsunami shifted the earth on it's axis slightly.
I guess something more irregularly shaped and less homologous with no atmosphere and on a much more elliptical orbit is far less stable than a planet.
@ midland. Batteries work less well when cold, you must have experienced that. Applies to your phone etc. I think the danger (reality) with landsr is that it will get insufficient light to even maintain a standby mode, insufficient to heat batteries to attempt to "wake up" etc and it will "die" permanently
Yeah, I guessed it would be something like that, and of course, my idea of cold, riding a bike in winter in the UK, is probably a bit different to that of a spacecraft flying 4AUs from the sun. 😉
soes itz dedz then????
as great as the landing attempt was, would questions be asked as to why drills and harpoons didnt work? cos its my understanding the original landing zone would have been perfect....
don't think there was anything "perfect" about the landing site. it was the least worst option selected, had surface consistency of ash, and the bit under that was much harder than any scientist predicted.
[url= http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Pioneering_Philae_completes_main_mission_before_hibernation ]Verdict so far here[/url]
A great reply from Business Insider in response to Taylor's sexism:
Taylor “The people I work with don’t judge me by my looks but only by the work I have done and can do. Simple.” As a post at Business Insider dryly noted “If only women could hope to someday be judged that way too.”
would questions be asked as to why drills and harpoons didnt work?
I think the answer would be "space is hard".
A better answer would be "the landing site was hard(er than expected)".
The "sexism" storm against Taylor is well OTT.
He has been a bit of a nob and an attention whore, but the claims of sexism are ridiculous.
Not often I disagree with you MSP but even he admitted the shirt was a "big mistake".
He did the whole programme a disservice. Not only was the landing short of expectations, it was presented by a bouncer from a Vegas brothel.
surprised nobody has done this either
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In related news, [url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30102343 ]Lunar Mission One[/url] looking for crowd funding for the initial part.
Probably pop £30 towards it.
Regarding the Philae lander, reports saying "organic" molecules found.
A better answer would be "the landing site was hard(er than expected)".
No, I don't think that was the case. The harpoon (and the little rocket booster intended to "hold down" the lander) both failed to deploy. They then decided not to take the chance of deploying the drills or trying the harpoon again as they were as likely to push the lander away as to anchor it firmly.
[url= http://www.space.com/28041-rosetta-comet-lander-philae-wakeup.html?adbid=10152509264251466&adbpl=fb&adbpr=17610706465&cmpid=514630_20141217_37504837 ]An optimistic update[/url].
It's a bit of a non-story really with no new definite information. I think it's more just a press release to keep the project in the public eye.
I've not followed this to closely but knew the battery lost power at one point. Seeing it wake up again (and that twitter feed) just made me really happy for some reason.