Posted on 09/30/2016 3:01:23 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Rosetta fell silent moments after 6:19 a.m. Eastern Time (12:19 UT) this morning, when it gently crashed into 67P/C-G 446 million miles (718 million km) from Earth. As the probe descended to the comets bouldery surface of the comet in free fall, it snapped a series of ever-more-detailed photographs while gathering the last bits data on the density and composition of cometary gases, surface temperature and gravity field before the final curtain was drawn.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Just wow.
We're saved!!
And just before impact,
Epic reply! Funniest thing I have seen in this day and age of bad political news. Well done Sir or Madame!
All your clean humor is so out-of-date in this dirty profane age of obama. :)
A great Bump! This is fascinating!
Thank you! Those pics are amazing. I loved this last line of the article: “At impact, Rosetta was shut down and no further communication will or can be made with the spacecraft. It will continue to rest on the comet for well-nigh eternity until 67P vaporizes and crumbles apart.”
What sort of gravity can a comet exert? There are stones and loose rubble lying around everywhere in those photos.
...and the last thing you see is a wide-eyed alien looking up, horrified.
Cool pics. I remember my father bringing home a book with the photographs a Ranger probe took as it approached the moon. Pretty cool stuff in the 1960s.
Cool pics. I remember my father bringing home a book with the photographs a Ranger probe took as it approached the moon. Pretty cool stuff in the 1960s.
... Plenty!
Someone's time zone converter must be having a rough day.
A handy rule of thumb I invented for myself is based on Newton’s law of attraction expressed in terms of density.
g = GM/R2 = G rho R3/R2 = G rho R
So for objects of comparable density, the surface gravity is proportional to R. Supposing the comet is 1/1000 the radius of earth and of comparable density says that the surface gravity is g/1000 ...
... rule of thumb!
Litterbugs.
If it is largely an iron-based comet, then it should have plenty of gravity. Otherwise it would just be a trail of dust particles in space.
Even an ice and stone comet has to have some gravity to it.
After all, we do have to appreciate the gravity of this topic.
Yes, but it’s better to have one big pile of litter in one place, rather than two smaller piles in separate places.
I'm sure the comet is less dense than the earth. Give it a factor of 2, so g/2000 ... Rule of thumb!
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