Bouncy bouncy: Comet probot Philae landed twice ESA scientists are still a bit baffled about just how they managed to land their Philae probe on the surface of Comet 67P after the craft's harpoons failed to fire into the rock. And they think it’s possible Philae landed not once, but twice. It's the first time ever humanity has set down on a comet – and this one's 500 …
I do think that the press coverage of all this is a tad light. Imagine the complexity of getting a craft out of our atmosphere, speed it up using amongst other means gravitation from earth and mars, have it speed into space at high speed for ten years on a journey of 6 billion km, then reach orbit of a comet moving at 18km/s some 500 000km away.
That alone is quite a "brave" idea ... some boffin then says, we might as well land a robot on it, and they listen to this guy!!!!! Knowing that you have 28 minutes delay.
These guyz actually made it happen! They had to trust their theory!!!!
"I do think that the press coverage of all this is a tad light. "
I agree but 'news' today is more about human interest stories. Sky News did 15 minutes at 7 o'clock which surprised me. Firstly because it was Sky and secondly that I actively sought it out because the BBC were doing a very serious piece from Lebanon. Or Syria. Or Jordan. I forget which.
some boffin then says, we might as well land a robot on it, and they listen to this guy!!!!! Knowing that you have 28 minutes delay.
It certainly gives some perspective about people that can't park a family car back here on Earth without several attempts.
Multiple beers to all all involved in the project.
Most people could care less about anything factual or actually interesting.The ability to care less about something implies that one must already care about it to some fairly strong degree. Surely what you really mean is, "most people could care more about anything factual or actually interesting".
Assume a spherical cowhot fudge sundae with the following physical characteristics:
Mass ~1.0 ×10^13 kg
Mean density ~0.4 g/cm³
This yields a sphere of ~1800m radius if I am not mistaken, so all the mass underneath will attract you with 2 * 10^(-4) N/kg at the ball's surface.
This is not much.
Those things are that dense because they've been pulled together for quite some time rather nicely by gravity here on Earth. Most of your sedimentary stone can be much less dense without the big squeeze it undergoes here and that is likely the case way out yonder even though it's likely just iron and ice, although confirmation of it's true makeup would be nice.
In all, great stuff. It may seem easy to hit a dinner plate with a pea but not when you're in London and the plate is in Calais.
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