Posted on 08/06/2014 9:37:08 AM PDT by Red Badger
After a decade in space and 4 billion miles, Europe's Rosetta spacecraft has made history: For the first time ever, a robotic probe from Earth is flying with a comet and will soon enter orbit.
The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft arrived at its target, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, today (Aug. 6) to end a 10-year journey across the solar system. The spacecraft performed an engine burn that brought it about 62 miles (100 kilometers) from the comet's surface.
Comet 67P/C-G and Rosetta are now flying about 251 million miles (450 million kilometers) from Earth. Engineers on the ground had to program the probe to go through a series of complicated burns and maneuvers to make the spacecraft's rendezvous with the comet a possibility. [Photos: Europe's Rosetta Comet Mission in Pictures]
"This is the end of 10 years of interplanetary flight," Rosetta Flight Director Andrea Accomazzo said during ESA's live comet rendezvous webcast Wednesday.
Applause broke out in Rosetta's mission control center in Darmstadt, Germany, where a crowd of ESA dignitaries and officials had gathered to watch the historic event.
"We're at the comet! Yes!" exclaimed Sylvain Lodiot, Rosetta's spacecraft operations manager, once the probe's successful arrival at Comet 67P/C-G was confirmed.
Now, Rosetta controllers will scope out different spots on the comet, to find a good place to land the Philae lander, a small spacecraft that is expected to touch down on the surface of the comet this November. Philae will drop to the comet's surface and make measurements of the cosmic body's physical properties.
The $1.7 billion (1.3 billion euros) Rosetta comet mission launched in March 2004 to begin its history-making journey to Comet 67P/C-G. The spacecraft was originally slated to launch a year earlier and visit a different target, the Comet 46P/Wirtanen, but the mission was delayed and its destination changed following an unrelated rocket failure. [Best Comet Encounters in History]
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was discovered in 1969 by Ukrainian astronomers Klim Churyumov and Svetlana Gerasimenko. It circles the sun once every 6.5 years, and the comet's farthest point in orbit takes it beyond Jupiter. Crowd and Rosetta [Pin It] The crowd waits for Rosetta's arrival at Comet 67P on Aug. 6, 2014 Credit: ESA/S.Bierwald View full size image
The spacecraft is named after the Rosetta Stone, an ancient Egyptian tablet vital to the translation of hieroglyphics. The Philae lander is named after an obelisk discovered on an island in the Nile River. Rosetta mission scientists hope that the orbiter and lander unlock secrets of the history of comets, and the solar system, just as their namesakes helped scientists decipher Egyptian writing.
Rosetta made several loops of Earth and Mars to help the probe gain speed and move past Jupiter's orbit. After getting past the gas giant and making a close flyby of two asteroids — Steins and Lutetia — Rosetta was put into a deep slumber in 2011 for nearly three years. It awoke from hibernation mode in January 2014 to the delight of nervous ESA mission scientists.
Paolo Ferri, head of ESA's mission operations, said during a live webcast Wednesday that compared to January's awakening from hibernation, Rosetta's arrival at Comet 67P/C-G was much less tense. The reason? Spacecraft controllers have known for months that Rosetta and Philae are in good health, as opposed to January, when the probe had been sleeping for years.
Comet surprises by Rosetta Comet 67P 3D Printed [Pin It] An ESA scientist holds up a 3D model of Comet 67P during a webcast about the Rosetta probe on Aug. 6, 2014. Rosetta will learn more about the shape and composition of the comet. Credit: ESA View full size image
The Rosetta spacecraft has captured remarkable views of the comet on its way into orbit. Images of the comet revealed that Comet 67P/C-G is actually two connected pieces hurtling through space together. The smaller "head" and larger "body" of the comet are connected by a bright "neck," as seen in photos of the comet taken by Rosetta.
"The only thing we know for sure at this point is that this neck region appear brighter compared to the head and body of the nucleus," Holger Sierks, of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, said in a statement.
Rosetta has already collected enough data about the comet for scientists to know that the surface of Comet 67P is actually too warm to be ice-covered. Instead, ESA scientists think that the comet only has splotches of ice intermixed with a dusty crust.
Rosetta is expected to stay in orbit around Comet 67P/C-G until the end of 2015.
"We're going to going to ride along with this comet. We're going to have a ringside seat," Matt Taylor, ESA Rosetta project scientist, said Wednesday as the spacecraft arrived at Comet 67P/C-G. "It's going to be an awesome ride. Stay tuned."
4 billion miles...
I hope it brings back nice souvenirs.
My thought too...
“Goody. All that cash to photograph a chunk of clinker...”
At least the spacecraft wasn’t named “Capricorn I.”
It has mass. . . it has gravity. Very, very little, itty-bitty gravity, but it has gravity. About the level of gravity that Obama now has with our allies.
That is pretty small
Ceiling cat will help us!
At least it was euros and not real money.
/johnny
Consider it done, LOL.
LOL...
I watched the . . . Thrilling (NOT) . . . approach last night. I want my two hours back. It was two hours of talking head dignitaries pre-congratulating themselves, thanking everyone, including the "Lord Mayor" of the town, and 1950s level animation of a gray and white Sponge Bob like character riding a "Rosetta Space Probe" jumping up and down, crying "Are we there yet?"
One female spokeswoman waxed breathless about how this would inspire the children to study math and science. I thought it was more likely to cause them to take up bus driving. It would be more eventful and exciting.
At one point, they focused the camera on a digital countdown clock with 12 seconds left, saying the maneuver is about to begin. When it reached zero, "The maneuver has begun. In 22 minutes, we'll know if it worked." At NO time did they explain what the maneuver was to do, show an animation of said maneuver, or tell anyone why they needed to do it. Instead, they cut, without explanation, to a years old video of the awakening of Rosetta, which consisted of people staring at a wave form on a screen that suddenly showed a blip!, and the people exploded into cheers. After 22 minutes of talking to people in front of laptops and computer screens about not much, one of them announces "The maneuver worked." CHEERS.
More talking heads. . . more replaying of the same bad SpongeBob animation. Finally as ennui sets in, one guy in charge of the imaging shows some blurry images of the comet. . . taken months ago. . . after talking about how exciting it was to get a "single pixel image of the comet, then a two pixel, the a 22 pixel moving pixel that they could construct this image from!" And showed a pixelated dumbbell. Whee!
FINALLY, as I was nodding off from sheer boredom, At 2:31 AM Pacific time, as the MC was interviewing another personage, she says "I want to hear you say it!" To which the response is:
"We're at the comet! Yes!" exclaimed Sylvain Lodiot, Rosetta's spacecraft operations manager, once the probe's successful arrival at Comet 67P/C-G was confirmed.
"Look. People are cheering and hugging over there!" Said the bubbly MC.
"Well, now that Rosetta has arrived, the real work can start. . . "
No animation, no pictures, no explanation of how close an orbit. . . No science. More talking heads. I went to bed to dream of a career in bus driving.
If that is the size of the rubber duck.....how big is the loofah?
Big enough to wipe man off about a fifth of the world!
/ end bug eyed speculation.
Disappointed though.
Just checked the antfarm [bpearthwatch] and didn’t see any paranoid rants about this space mission or this particular comet.
*pouts*
Give it time. bpearthwatch is like a bottle of expensive Red Wine, or a big cheese.... [TA]
. These things take time to mature.
Misread that as “These things take time to manure.”
LOL, that works too...
Science isn’t always exciting to the outside observer. Sometimes it’s just boring as hell........................
Looks like Han Solo in carbonite.
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