The Rosetta spacecraft, orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, has released the Philae lander. If all goes well, in a couple of hours Philae will land, fire harpoons to affix itself to the comet’s surface, and begin a scientific mission that could last into next March. Here’s the Guardian live blog of the landing, here’s the Rosetta Twitter feed, and here’s a livestream from the control room.
Rosetta
by @heymistermix.com| 22 Comments
This post is in: Science & Technology
JPL
I keep looking at an empty control room. It must be time for a coffee break.
satby
Hope all goes well because that is freaking amazing!
Baud
I blame Obama.
SGK
I’ve been waiting with unabashed, un-ironic anticipation for this event. I think it’s so cool.
Nonetheless, here are some pictures of a potato that looks kind of like Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
https://www.flickr.com/search?sort=relevance&text=%22potato%2067p%22
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: You can’t, because it’s the Europeans’ fault. NASA was not involved in this project (that’s probably why it’s working as planned.)
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: You can always blame Obama.
CBS morning news lightly touched upon the fact that China and the U.S agreed to reduce carbon. They did say that the President failed in his mission to convince China that peaceful protests in Hong Kong should be allowed.
sharl
The Philae Lander has its own separate Twitter feed.
Baud
@JPL:
This. By God, does it even have to be said.
@sharl:
Good. Don’t want it to get too intelligent and take over humanity….
Or do we?
chopper
@sharl:
if it starts opining on gamergate i’m just done with this world.
Pee Cee
@chopper:
Look, it’s not about landing on comets. It’s about ethics in space journalism.
sharl
I think the UN Agenda for World Domination includes a requirement that all sentient entities must have an opinion on GamerGate; doesn’t have to be an informed opinion, just something that confirms meme-awareness.
Oh, and even individual sensors on the Lander have Twitter accounts:
MUPUS: MUlti PUrpose Sensor – “One of the instruments on the Rosetta Philae Lander. Measuring thermal and physical properties on the surface of a comet.”
ROMAP: Rosetta Lander Magnetometer and Plasma Monitor
{Richard Nixon voice} My God!
Highway Rob
I’ve got a shiny nickel right here for the first person to photoshop “Kilroy was here” onto a comet photo.
Face
What the hell is so hard about landing on Comet? My cat can do this without any of the drama.
Villago Delenda Est
@JPL: The tarnish on the Tiffany Network obscures everything. Bob Schieffer alone blocks the engravings of the names of Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather.
The only things that they have going for them is that they’re not as deep in the shit as Faux Noise and CNN, and they don’t have a living “anchor emeritus” as blockheadly wrong about everything as Tom Brokaw is.
Villago Delenda Est
@sharl:
“You! Plasma sample #3618! Stop running down the hall! You’ll hurt yourself or another!”
Gin & Tonic
@Villago Delenda Est: That’s Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree Tom Brokaw to you, bub.
Face
@Villago Delenda Est: I figured “plasma monitor” was a supercritical lizard
Felonius Monk
@Gin & Tonic:
What a waste of tin and good ribbon.
Morley Bolero
Touchdown! Yay science.
Matt McIrvin
Successful landing?! All the relevant sites are getting hammered, but ArsTechnica and the Telegraph say they did it.
It had sounded to me as if the chances of success were very low.
Rob in CT
Lander is down & ok, but harpoons didn’t fire. They’re trying to get it to fire now.
Heliopause
Why do we Americans care about this thing? The part about harpoons was quaint, but I didn’t see anything in the description about hellfire missiles or surreptitious GPS devices. And I looked all over those photos of the comet and didn’t see a single muslim wedding party. Nothing to see here as far as Americans are concerned.