Posted on 10/02/2016 1:22:49 PM PDT by ETL
After a journey of billions of miles and a historic cosmic rendezvous, the Rosetta spacecraft met its end after a “controlled impact” with the comet it had been studying.
The European Space Agency (ESA) confirmed a loss of signal from the probe on Friday at 1:19 pm, Central European Summer Time. The maneuver to slowly crash the craft was deliberate— a way to study the comet up close at the tail end of the mission.
“Thanks to a huge international, decades-long endeavour, we have achieved our mission to take a world-class science laboratory to a comet to study its evolution over time, something that no other comet-chasing mission has attempted,” Alvaro Giménez, ESA’s director of science, said in a statement.
First launched in 2004, Rosetta arrived at the two-lobed comet called 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in 2014. It deployed another craft called Philae, which descended onto the comet— but instead of sticking the landing, it bounced, and eventually settled in another part of the comet. The ESA lost communication with it, even if they eventually regained it for a short period of time in the summer of 2015.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (abbreviated as 67P or 67P/C-G) is a Jupiter-family comet,[7] originally from the Kuiper belt,[8] with a current orbital period of 6.45 years,[1] a rotation period of approximately 12.4 hours[6] and a maximum velocity of 135,000 km/h (38 km/s; 84,000 mph).[9]
Churyumov–Gerasimenko is approximately 2.7 by 2.5 miles at its longest and widest dimensions.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov%E2%80%93Gerasimenko
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/09/30/out-with-bang-rosetta-crashes-into-comet.html
Is there a way to use comets and other traveling chunks of rock to explore the universe? Planting some kind of telemetry package and tracking it, I don’t know what might be possible. Maybe someone smarter than me can comment...
Rosetta got stoned.
Hardly a crash or a bang, more like a soft landing.
The gravity of that comet is miniscule.
I don't know so much about exploring the universe, as they (comets and asteroids) don't typically leave the solar system. Most have more or less stable orbits around the Sun. In any case, why would we need them in or to order to film or take pics when a spacecraft can do that.
They travel a very long way along their orbit, beyond the outermost planets I believe, its a really long orbit. Obviously spacecraft have to deliver the package but once deposited you get a free ride with no further expenditure of fuel.
Of course once your spacecraft is up to speed, it can pretty much go forever with no more additional need for fuel other than the batteries to power the electronics.
I don’t know, its just something I have wondered about, if there was a way to piggyback on them for some advantage. Maybe not.
Here’s a link to NASA’s JBL page on the Rosetta mission:
http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/images/comet-67p/churyumov-gerasimenko
“First launched in 2004”? When were the other launches?
I noticed that too, because it says it’s a decade-long project. Perhaps they’re including the planning.
Oh, I see what you mean. How many times can one launch the same spacecraft?
Just realized I provided the wrong url for the 2014 article in post 2.
Here is the correct one...
Humans Are About To Land A Probe On A Comet —
Here’s The Incredibly Tricky Process To Make It Happen
http://www.businessinsider.com/rosetta-land-on-comet-67pchuryumovgerasimenko-2014-10
Is a comet a dirty snowball or a snowy dirtball?
Yup! Looks like the Japanese have been there, and left a sculpture of one of their movie monsters.
It does sort of resemble Godzilla.
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