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Daryl -the other brother Special user Chicago 594 Posts |
Apparently Rosetta's comet lander "Philae" has good news and bad news. Good News- Philae has landed and secured itself to the comet 67P.
Bad News- It landed at the base of a cliff and 2 of the lander's 3 solar panels are being blocked from the sun by the cliff walls. The team has only a couple of days to figure out a solution before the primary batteries go dead. |
R.S. Regular user CT one day I'll have 184 Posts |
Wait a minute... you mean the Philae engineers were brilliant enough to plan, design, and launch a probe that travels across the Solar System for 10 years to a speeding comet moving at 84,000 mph at a distance of 300 million miles and to achieve a pinpoint landing only to have it come down to somebody didn't include enough batteries???
Ron
"It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry." Thomas Paine
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
Remember the missing Mars probes? It is freaking amazing that humans can get stuff out to space. It's disappointing that we can't foresee all contingencies, but it's hardly surprising. That Philae landed on a comet is incredible.
I'm hoping for the best, but I'm absolutely astounded that the probe got there at all.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
JoeJoe Inner circle Myrtle Beach 1915 Posts |
Next step ... land a pod of hibernating humans on comet for 200 years, wake-up in new solar system with habitable planets.
Space travel without fuel. -JoeJoe
Amazing JoeJoe on YouTube[url=https://www.youtube.com/user/AmazingJoeJoe]
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Daryl -the other brother Special user Chicago 594 Posts |
Quote:
On Nov 15, 2014, JoeJoe wrote: Comets tend to stay in a fixed orbit so chances are when you woke up you would be right in the same vicinity (within a few million miles) of where you were in the first place. |
Mary Mowder Inner circle Sacramento / Elk Grove, CA 3659 Posts |
I don't think most comets go beyond the Oort cloud so unless they go and come back to an Earth that has come to it's senses it would seem unlikely.
200 years wouldn't be nearly long enough to get to another planet at comet speed. Any chance that the comet slowly tumbles or that the comet will eventually come into a position where the probe will come into sunlight? If they extend a sail could it catch some sunlight? Might the sail work in the shade? Ice can be very reflective (although I've heard comets are more like dirty snow). I wonder if the little grappling hooks could drag it into sunlight? Can they turn it off till they've had a chance to think a while?, that could conserve power. To bad they can't crack the water into hydrogen and oxygen. -Mary Mowder |
Daryl -the other brother Special user Chicago 594 Posts |
Philae is now sleeping. As the Rosetta satellite rose above the comet's horizon the lander had just enough power to transmit the data it had collected and then put itself into "stand-by mode". There is a slight chance Philae could come back online as the comet gets closer to the sun but even if it never transmits again the landing and data received are considered a huge success.
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