ESA's Philae spacecraft to land on comet tomorrow

[Tender Branson]

... if everything works well.

History beckons for the European Space Agency on Wednesday as it attempts to put a small probe on a comet.

Previous missions have flown by these "ice mountains" but no-one has ever emplaced a surface lander before.

Esa's Rosetta satellite will drop the probe on to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from an altitude of 20km.



If all goes to plan, the little robot, called Philae, will touch down about seven hours later, deploying screws and harpoons to secure its position.

Confirmation is expected at Earth around 1600 GMT.

The first thing Philae will do on landing is send back a picture of its surroundings - a strange landscape containing deep pits and tall ice spires.

This is, though, an event with a highly uncertain outcome.

The terrain that has been chosen for the landing on the rubber duck-shaped object is far from flat.

Philae could bash into cliffs, topple down a steep slope, or even disappear into a fissure.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30012854

[Tender Branson]

Here's the live stream (incl. animations and facts):

http://rosetta.esa.int

[Ban my account ffs!]

It looks like a fly landing on an airborne turd.

[Tender Branson]

The Philae lander has successfully separated from its mothership.

It now takes ca. 7 hours for touchdown on the comet, which should happend around 5pm (11am Eastern).

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

xkcd has been doing a flipbook today about this updating in real time every 5 minutes.
http://xkcd.com/1446/
Hopefully it get turned into an animated gif or the like once this is all done.

[Tender Branson]

TOUCHDOWN !

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http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30026398

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Okay, I don't generally follow scientific news very closely, but this is really cool.

[afleitch]

It's landed, but it's stabilising harpoons haven't. There's a bit of a radio blackout now but apparently images received are still being processed. It's the most exciting mission this year. Next year, New Horizons visits Pluto.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It's landed, but it's stabilising harpoons haven't. There's a bit of a radio blackout now but apparently images received are still being processed. It's the most exciting mission this year. Next year, New Horizons visits Pluto.

When's the next mission to a planet other than Mars?

[afleitch]

It's landed, but it's stabilising harpoons haven't. There's a bit of a radio blackout now but apparently images received are still being processed. It's the most exciting mission this year. Next year, New Horizons visits Pluto.

When's the next mission to a planet other than Mars?

I'm not sure. The Philae mission is a good test run for missions that might latch on to comets to ricochet them out of the Solar System (NASA is launching it's own asteroid mission in 2016)

Next year NASA's Dawn spacecraft will visit Ceres, but Mars appears to be the main goal.

[Adam Griffin]

Now the comet is singing! It sounds like it's purring, and happy to see us!

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/11/12/4126840.htm

[Marokai Backbeat]

Hopefully, though, we won't let ourselves be distracted by this incredible scientific accomplishment so we can focus on the most important thing.

[MaxQue]

Hopefully, though, we won't let ourselves be distracted by this incredible scientific accomplishment so we can focus on the most important thing.

At the same time, any website publishing that kind of s*** is probably nor worth the time.

[Mr. Morden]

It's landed, but it's stabilising harpoons haven't. There's a bit of a radio blackout now but apparently images received are still being processed. It's the most exciting mission this year. Next year, New Horizons visits Pluto.

When's the next mission to a planet other than Mars?

Juno is scheduled to reach Jupiter in 2016:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(spacecraft)

[afleitch]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30097648

Organic molecules were detected.

[Flake]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30097648

Organic molecules were detected.

Really helps the comet-hit-earth-and-started-life-as-we-know-it theory

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30097648

Organic molecules were detected.

Really helps the comet-hit-earth-and-started-life-as-we-know-it theory

Depends on the molecules and they haven't released that data yet.

[Simfan34]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30097648

Organic molecules were detected.

Really helps the comet-hit-earth-and-started-life-as-we-know-it theory

So you're saying... we're aliens?!

But Christ. They don't call it "rocket science" for nothing.

[Bigby]

Hopefully, though, we won't let ourselves be distracted by this incredible scientific accomplishment so we can focus on the most important thing.

Tumblrites and people who act like them must actively search for sh**t to whine about. What's funny is the friend who made that shirt for the guy was female.

[Lief 🗽]

Hopefully, though, we won't let ourselves be distracted by this incredible scientific accomplishment so we can focus on the most important thing.

Tumblrites and people who act like them must actively search for sh**t to whine about. What's funny is the friend who made that shirt for the guy was female.

Ummm... women can do sexist things as well? The guy apologized and seemed to feel sincerely bad about making a dumb decision, so most of the controversy at this point is coming from outraged MRA types anyway.

[Simfan34]

Hopefully, though, we won't let ourselves be distracted by this incredible scientific accomplishment so we can focus on the most important thing.

Tumblrites and people who act like them must actively search for sh**t to whine about. What's funny is the friend who made that shirt for the guy was female.

Ummm... women can do sexist things as well? The guy apologized and seemed to feel sincerely bad about making a dumb decision, so most of the controversy at this point is coming from outraged MRA types anyway.

Can we not give this any more air time than it's already received?