Rosetta mission landed a probe on a comet today!

General Discussion
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So after 4 billion miles and 10 years traveling through space, the Rosetta mission dropped it’s lander, Philae, toward the comet 67P (the comet is a.k.a. Churyumov–Gerasimenko) last night. It touched down at 8am PST this morning. The harpoon on Philae didn’t launch so it isn’t anchored, but the lander is still on the surface of the comet so it’s so far a success. Good job, European Space Agency!

This is the first time mankind has ever landed on a comet, and the scientific data and samples are expect to tell us a lot about the beginning of the solar system, and perhaps how water and organic molecules first came to earth.

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I really enjoyed this blow-by-blow from xkcd: xkcd1446.org

Who knows, maybe the Heart of Gold will pass him by and make him some whales. :slight_smile:

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Yeah that was pretty cool! I linked to it as I was helping out with the reddit live event.

EDIT: There it is.

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i love what this event represents for the scientific community… but even more so, I love that it has brought people out of the woodworks, emailing everyone they know about the story … I’ve received no less than five emails from folks I haven’t heard from in years! :smile:

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Kind of funny how this worked out. First the thrusters don’t work, then the harpoon doesn’t work.

I can see the memes now: “Doesn’t matter, still landed on a comet.”

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It was awesome, I enjoy getting the Rosetta tweets, been interesting.

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Considering they still managed to land it after 10 years in space is rather amazing non the less :wink:

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Exactly! I think about what I was coding/building 10 years ago, and that really puts the decay of the technology into perspective. :wink:

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It’s funny, Twitter has been one of the fastest ways to stay up-do-date on the latest developments with Rosetta, but Twitter wasn’t even around when they launched!

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Oh yes, it’s definitely amazing. The effort it takes to plan out and execute an operation using severely limited resources over a huge time delay is always amazing!

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On that note, theres only 10 years left until humanity should have a colony on mars, which is scary enough in my opinion.

shivers

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Not sure I get the reference, but it won’t happen in the next 10 years. Way too much infrastructure needed for that to work ATM.

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I’m really happy, this worked out. As a physicist with some old work in astro-physics, it’s nice to see when there are some massmedia suitable events. Most of the real cool stuff is so “off the logic”, that “normal people” don’t get it and that’s kind of sad… There are so many real fantastic ideas and missions which are on ice, because nobody wants to pay for it… maybe this success creates some spotlight for new plans…

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Yeah, it’s sad. Dunno how to change it though - there’s only so much tax money, and it makes sense to try and get as good a return on it a possible.

This coming from a guy who’d love to see the Ministry of Blue-Sky Research Funding mind you :stuck_out_tongue: .

Say its necessary for climate change reasons :wink: .

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Never question the Stianity.

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[quote=“Teleros, post:14, topic:8539”]
there’s only so much tax money,[/quote]
The problem is: they all just want profit. And you don’t get much money with data like this.
Of course this could bring humanity one step further on their way, but right now it’s just too less useful in our daily life… It’s nearly funny when you hear, that one of my professors mission will never launch, because they need like 2 gram of a special metal… ^^

[quote=“Teleros, post:14, topic:8539”]
Say its necessary for climate change reasons.[/quote]
Haha, even saving the planet isn’t a good repay anymore…
Maybe we’ll see some crowdfunding missions some day in the future… :slight_smile:

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[quote=“Stian, post:15, topic:8539, full:true”]Never question the Stianity.

http://www.mars-one.com/[/quote]
Oh I know all about Mars One. It’s just not going to succeed.

Crowdfund the money to get the metal?

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[quote=“Teleros, post:17, topic:8539”]
Crowdfund the money to get the metal?[/quote]
Not this mission. It’s too special to hook up people. Too many long words in the description xD
But I really think, crowdfunding could work on life-near projects with low profit. Like working on new energy-sources/green technology or meds. Boyan Slat shows, that there is at least the chance to get some money… :slight_smile:

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We got people to the moon quite a while ago why not Mars? I personally think they will get out there, but i am not quite sure how long they are going to survive it…

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[quote=“thorbjorn42gbf, post:19, topic:8539”]
We got people to the moon quite a while ago why not mars?[/quote]
The difference between moon and mars is like between swimming on the ocean or diving in the ocean…
I don’t want so say it’s impossible - let’s look at the technical progress - but these people will die.
The question is more like “how” and not “if”…

But if everything works out, there will be some fantastic data and some - hopefully - happy dieing people…

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