Group items tagged

Europe's Rosetta probe has arrived at a comet after a 10-year chase.

In a first for space history, the spacecraft was manoeuvred alongside a speeding body to begin mapping its surface in detail.

The spacecraft fired its thrusters for six and a half minutes to finally catch up with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

"We're at the comet!" said Sylvain Lodiot of the European Space Agency (Esa) operations centre in Germany.

"After 10 years, five months and four days travelling towards our destination, looping around the Sun five times and clocking up 6.4 billion km, we are delighted to announce finally 'we are here'," said Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of Esa.

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst performs a demonstration of how ESA's Rosetta mission will attempt to put a lander, called 'Philae' on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Alexander narrates the story of the Rosetta mission and performs a demonstration that visualises the difficulties of landing on an object that has little gravitational pull. Using the weightless environment of the Space Station, Alexander attempts to land 'Philae' (an ear plug) onto the surface of the 'comet' (an inactive SPHERES robot) with increasing levels of difficulty: a rotating comet that is not moving to one that is both rotating and moving.

This video is one of the six experiments and demonstrations in the Flying Classroom, Alexander will use small items to demonstrate several principles of physics in microgravity to students aged 10-17 years.

The Rosetta mission's lander, Philae, will be deployed on 12 November at 08:35 GMT/09:35 CET from a distance of 22.5 km from the centre of the comet. It will land about seven hours later, with confirmation expected to arrive at Earth at around 16:00 GMT/17:00 CET.

Final preparations are under way for what could be one of the most ambitious feats in space exploration.
On Wednesday, the European Space Agency will try to land a tiny spacecraft on a comet. This has never been attempted before.
The comet is about 300 million miles away (500 million km), far beyond Mars and is racing through space at about 34,000 mph (55,000 km/h).
Esa's Rosetta satellite has flown for 10 years in a four-billion-mile (6.5 billion km) series of loops around the Sun to pick up enough speed to fly alongside the comet, and it will now release a lander, called Philae, to try to touch down.
But the landing will be extremely challenging, as BBC Science Editor David Shukman explains.

Somewhere dark and icy on a comet 320 million miles away, the history-making, comet-bouncing Philae spacecraft is sleeping. Its batteries are depleted and there isn't enough sunlight to recharge. But while the lander finished its primary job, collecting invaluable data on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the Rosetta mission is far from over. For many scientists, the excitement is just beginning.

Later this year, Europe's Rosetta probe will orbit and land on comet 67P/Churyumov--Gerasimenko. New images of the comet show that it will be a lively place when Rosetta arrives.

While comets were historically thought to be ill omens of war and famine, recent science has revealed that these celestial wonders actually contain amino acids, the building blocks of life on Earth. Justin Dowd explores the implications of this magnificent discovery.

One of the rarest and most exciting events in space exploration is when we land on another celestial body and achieve a boots-on-the-ground view of an alien world. Europe's Rosetta mission is now poised to add another extraterrestrial landfall to that very short list, and top a new list as it becomes the first mission to land a probe on a comet.

As Rosetta moved into what's officially called a "hyperbolic orbit", the cameras on board have been busy taking new images of the strange, icy body, comet 67P.

"It was very emotional to see these high resolution pictures," said Dr Holger Sierks, principle investigator of Osiris (the main camera instrument onboard Rosetta).

The Philae lander has attempted to drill into the surface of comet 67/P, amid fears that its battery may die in hours.

Researchers at Esa say the instrument is being deployed to its maximum extent despite the risk of toppling the lander.

Scientists hope they will also be able to capture some samples for analysis in the robot's onboard laboratories.

If the battery dies the results may not make it back to Earth.

"Solar System debris rains down on Earth in vast quantities - more than a hundred tons of it a day. Most of it vaporizes in our atmosphere, leaving stunning trails of light we call shooting stars. More hazardous are the billions, likely trillions, of leftover rocks - comets and asteroids - that wander interplanetary space in search of targets. Most asteroids are made of rock. The rest are metal, mostly iron. Some are rubble piles - gravitationally bound collections of bits and pieces. Most live between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and will never come near Earth. But some do. Some will. More than a thousand known asteroids are classed as "potentially hazardous," based on size and trajectory. Currently, it looks doable to develop an early-warning and defense system that could protect the human species from impactors larger than a kilometer wide. Smaller ones, which reflect much less light and are therefore much harder to detect at great distances, carry enough energy to incinerate entire nations, but they don't put the human species at risk of extinction."

This year will be another exciting one for space exploration. While 2014 will be remembered as the year we landed on a comet(!), 2015 may be known as the year of Pluto (and other dwarf planets). The New Horizons spacecraft begins its approach to Pluto this month, and will get closest to the dwarf planet in July, taking in the best view ever of the icy, remote world-possibly revealing a dramatic landscape with mountains, volcanoes, and geysers. In March, the Dawn spacecraft will arrive at Ceres, a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres is another icy world, possibly with liquid water under a frozen surface, making it potentially habitable for life.

Tonight, at 11:35 p.m. PST, Rosetta will release its 220-pound lander craft, dubbed Philae, which will slowly descend from a height of about 13 miles onto the landing site named Agilkia, a relatively flat spot on the duck's head. You can follow along here (above) as the landing unfolds on live webcast from the ESA's mission control starting at 11:00 a.m. PST/2:00 p.m. EST today. NASA TV is also providing live coverage starting at 6:00 a.m. PST/9:00 a.m. EST tomorrow.

Whatever the outcome, and the science returned, there will always be questions about the costs of such missions and whether they can be justified in the current financial climate.

On Twitter, Dr Taylor responded to just such a question by borrowing a catchphrase from the irascible BA Baracus character played by Mr T in the A-Team television show: "I pity the fool."

Thomas Reiter, director of human spaceflight and operations at Esa, acknowledged how the top line figure of 1.4bn euros appeared.

But he explained: "If you divide it by the 20 years that the development and the mission has cost, it's about cents per European citizen per year that was contributing to this new knowledge."