Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Rosetta mission lands Philae spacecraft on comet

The whole world is talking about the mission,it is time to celebrate this accomplished 


After a 10-year journey, Philae has landed on the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet after being launched from the space probe Rosetta. Astrophysicists hope Philae will unlock knowledge about the origins of the solar system and even life on Earth, which some believe may have started with comets seeding the planet with life-giving carbon molecules and water




As Philae temporarily loses touch with Rosetta, we leave you with this artist’s impression of the lander on the surface. Thanks for joining us on this truly amazing day for space exploration.


Artist’s impression of Rosetta’s lander Philae on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Follow the deployment and landing attempt on this liveblog.
 An artist’s impression of Rosetta’s lander Philae on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Photograph: Esa
Updated 
Philae may have landed not once but twice – that’s the final message from Esa this evening.
According to Stephan Ulamec, Philae Lander Manager, DLR, the lander team believe that Philae may have bounced from the surface and settled again in a slightly different place.
Engineers know that the anchoring harpoons did not fire. It is also known that the communications link to Rosetta failed intermittently in an irregular pattern shortly after the landing but always immediately re-established itself.
However, science data has been received and is currently being processed, but the promised first panorama from the surface has not been released.
Rosetta is now out of touch with Philae as the orbiter has dipped below the horizon of the comet. The link to Philae was lost a little earlier than expected but this is probably because a hill or boulder was in the way of the line of sight.
Right now, Philae should be working through its first automatic sequence of science experiments. Contact will be re-established through Rosetta later tonight, and the data downlinked.
There will also be more telemetry to assist the engineers in understanding the exact sequence of events during the landing.
We will know more tomorrow.

retrieve from
http://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/live/2014/nov/12/rosetta-comet-landing-live-blog
for more update news visit the link
http://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/live/2014/nov/12/rosetta-comet-landing-live-blog

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