Clanger in that hole?
I'm sure I can see a clanger in that hole, is this how they traverse space?
The European Space Agency's Rosetta space probe is preparing to make history by dropping a fridge-sized lander on the surface of a comet. ESA has scheduled Philae's detachment from Rosetta for 09:03 GMT on 12 November, and the agency hopes for a landing at 16:02 GMT. But before this pioneering mission concludes, Rosetta has …
These are great, amazing, in fact. But I wish there was something to give it a sense of scale. I know it's from 10km up, but as with a lot of these things, it's sort of fractal, therefore impossible to guess the scale. How big is that Cheops boulder, for example? 10m? 100m? 1km?
A minor whinge, I admit and I am still in awe of the achievement of putting a probe so close to an actual comet. Looking forward to the landing!
This single-frame NAVCAM image measures 1024 x 1024 pixels. It was captured from a distance of 9.9 km from the centre of the comet (about 7.7 km from the surface) at 02:22 GMT on 15 October 2014. At this distance, the image resolution is 84.6 cm/pixel and the size of the image is 866 x 866 m.
This work is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO) licence. The user is allowed to reproduce, distribute, adapt, translate and publicly perform this publication, without explicit permission, provided that the content is accompanied by an acknowledgement that the source is credited as 'European Space Agency - ESA', a direct link to the licence text is provided and that it is clearly indicated if changes were made to the original content. Adaptation/translation/derivatives must be distributed under the same licence terms as this publication. To view a copy of this license, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/igo/
Credits: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Highlights/Top_10_at_10_km
@bleu
Irrelevant comment. The ESA is not an organ of the EU.
I never said it was. But when has that ever stopped the swivel-eyed loons? They also fulminate against the ECHR which also isn't part of the EU.
Anyway, you seem to be suffering from an irony deficit. The UK's contribution to the ESA is paltry largely because Maggie decided space research wasn't worth investing in.
The same arguments, of course, can also be heard over the water by UKIP's six-fingered, small government Tea Party cousins: guns are great, research is a waste of time.
I was wondering that myself. And then even more about the schedule: we need El Reg Coordinated Timezones!
RLT – Reg standard lunchtime: 13:00
RTT – Reg standard tea time: 16:00 except on Fridays
RBT – Reg standard booze time: 18:00 except on Fridays when it's 13:00
The second picture clearly shows the outline of a sea turtle.
This can only mean that the comet is a spacecraft returning to determine the disposition of their ancient Earth colony.
Because, what are the ODDS, MAN, the ODDS that the outline of a sea turtle would just show up BY CHANCE???
"This is likely to be a tricky endeavour because humanity has never before attempted to land on a huge rock as it speeds through space at 60,000kmph."
I feel pedantic today, so...
It's not "a rock," unless ice is counted as a mineral. There might be rocks in it, tho.
Also, every time a plane comes down it endeavours to land on a huge speeding rock (called "Earth"), but somehow that is not considered exciting news. Very odd, considering that the relative speeds involved are much greater for the planes than for that lander.
Although maintaining the pedantry, a better example considering the context, might be to compare with landing on the Moon and Mars in terms of "attempted to land on a huge rock as it speeds through space".
I don't see the point in mentioning the speed of said rock since the speed means nothing without a reference point and the only valid reference in space is the relative speed difference between the two objects concerned.
>I don't see the point in mentioning the speed of said rock since the speed means nothing without a reference point and the only valid reference in space is the relative speed difference between the two objects concerned.
It just means you have to get to the same speed as the comet, or as close as possible, which might be a challenge, even in space. Imagine the thrust, the direction, the orbiting to meet up with a comet doing 18.3km/s ... yes, km/s, something like 12 miles/s.
It indeed might be the relative speed that counts, and also, the 28 minutes it takes for the signals to reach the craft/earth ... that is like playing Crysis on a 1Mhz 8086.
So guys what caused the bizarre landscape the comet condones; not only this particular one? Do you believe its gravitational fissure of solar radiation when these comets enter the inner solar system or is it just caused by other spacial objects in the Kuiper belt divulging multiple contact with the comet?
Because by these newly released pictures and supposedly the ones we are yet to receive post-landing i can clearly visualize that the comet had no direct contact with other comets, taking the moon as a sample.
So the question is: Do you believe that the comet with its chemical properties is affected by solar radiation or gravitational pull to the sun?