WOW!!! ~ ~ Sooz

Cosmic 1st: European spacecraft lands on comet
Associated Press
FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press | 33 mins ago

DARMSTADT, Germany (AP) — The European Space Agency says it has succeeded in landing a spacecraft on a comet for the first time in history.

The agency says it has received a signal from the 100-kilogram (220-pound) Philae lander after it touched down on the icy surface of the comet named 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The landing on the speeding comet marks the highlight of the decade-long Rosetta spacecraft's mission to study comets and learn more about the origins of these celestial bodies.

This is a breaking news update. AP's previous story is below.

DARMSTADT, Germany (AP) -- Hundreds of millions of miles from Earth, a European spacecraft released a lander toward the icy, dusty surface of a speeding comet Wednesday, setting off a seven-hour countdown to an audacious attempt to answer some big questions about the origin of the universe.

A successful landing would cap a 6.4 billion-kilometer (4 billion-mile) journey by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, launched a decade ago to study the 4-kilometer-wide (2.5-mile-wide) 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet. The Philae lander would be the first spacecraft ever to land on a comet.

"It's on its own now," said Stephan Ulamec, Philae Lander Manager at the DLR German Aerospace Center.

Due to the vast distances involved and the time delays in receiving data, confirmation of a landing should reach Earth about 1603 GMT (11:03 a.m. EST).

Scientists have likened the trillion or so comets in our solar system to time capsules that are virtually unchanged since the earliest moments of the universe.

"By studying one in enormous detail, we can hope to unlock the puzzle of all of the others," said Mark McCaughrean, a senior scientific adviser to the mission.

ESA controllers clapped and embraced at mission control in Darmstadt as they got confirmation that the unmanned Rosetta, racing through space in tandem with the comet at 41,000 mph (66,000 kph), had successfully released the 220-pound (100-kilogram), washing machine-sized Philae lander.

"Philae has gone. It's on its path down to the comet," Rosetta flight director Andrea Accomazzo said. "We are all glad that it worked flawlessly in the past minutes."

Philae was supposed to drift down to the comet and latch on using harpoons and ice screws. ESA announced hours before the release that a third component - an active descent system that uses thrust to prevent the lander from bouncing off the surface of the low-gravity comet - could not be activated. It wasn't clear how big of a setback that was.

"We'll need some luck not to land on a boulder or a steep slope," Ulamec said.

During the descent, scientists are powerless to do anything but watch, because the vast distance to Earth - 500 million kilometers (311 million miles) - makes it impossible to send instructions in real time. It takes more than 28 minutes for a command to reach Rosetta.

Two hours after the lander separated, scientists re-established contact with it.

"Now we can follow it on its descent," said Paolo Ferri, head of mission operations at ESA.

Rosetta, which was launched in 2004, had to slingshot three times around Earth and once around Mars before it could work up enough speed to chase down the comet, which it reached in August. Rosetta and the comet have been traveling in tandem ever since.

If the lander's mission is successful, Rosetta and Philae plan to accompany the comet as it hurtles past the sun and becomes increasingly active in the rising temperatures. Using 21 different instruments, the twin spacecraft will collect data that scientists hope will help explain the origins and evolution of celestial bodies, and maybe even life on Earth.

"The science starts the minute we get down to the ground," McCaughrean said.

Tantalizingly, the mission will also give researchers the opportunity to test the theory that comets brought organic matter and water to Earth billions of years ago, said Klim Churyumov, one of the two astronomers who discovered the comet in 1969.

The European Space Agency says even if Philae's landing doesn't succeed, the 1.3 billion-euro ($1.6 billion) mission won't be a failure because Rosetta will be able to perform about 80 percent of the scientific mission on its own.

Online: http://new.livestream.com/ESA/cometlanding

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/cosmic-1st-spacecraft-sends-lander-toward-comet/ar-AA7HXAy

Looks like they haven't gotten final confirmation of actual touchdown. Hope it works.

I read about this, of all places, on a local weather web site. lol. I had to go looking. It's fascinating. From the European Space Agency "Rosetta blog"

→The singing comet

Rosetta’s Plasma Consortium (RPC) has uncovered a mysterious ‘song’ that Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is singing into space. RPC principal investigator Karl-Heinz Glaßmeier, head of Space Physics and Space Sensorics at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany, tells us more.

......

But one observation has taken the RPC scientists somewhat by surprise. The comet seems to be emitting a ‘song’ in the form of oscillations in the magnetic field in the comet’s environment. It is being sung at 40-50 millihertz, far below human hearing, which typically picks up sound between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. To make the music audible to the human ear, the frequencies have been increased by a factor of about 10,000.

The music was heard clearly by the magnetometer experiment (RPC-Mag) for the first time in August, when Rosetta drew to within 100 km of 67P/C-G. The scientists think it must be produced in some way by the activity of the comet, as it releases neutral particles into space where they become electrically charged due to a process called ionisation. But the precise physical mechanism behind the oscillations remains a mystery.

“This is exciting because it is completely new to us. We did not expect this and we are still working to understand the physics of what is happening,” says Karl-Heinz.


http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/11 ... ing-comet/

Santa will not be happy.

I'm just glad that we cut funding for NASA.

You don't need more science. You need more gods.

Maybe the Euro-science will trickle down on the US?

Only once a month when it passes overhead.

What I personally find so astonishing is that it took Philae OVER 10 YEARS to get into position and land on the comet ... AND that its batteries died within days of landing ~ ~ Sooz

Space Agency: Comet Lander Has Completed Primary Mission
By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER, Associated Press Published November 15, 2014, 9:58 AM EST

BERLIN (AP) — The pioneering lander Philae completed its primary mission of exploring the comet's surface and returned plenty of data before depleted batteries forced it to go silent, the European Space Agency said Saturday.

"All of our instruments could be operated and now it's time to see what we got," ESA's blog quoted lander manager Stephan Ulamec as saying.

Since landing Wednesday on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko some 311 million miles (500 million kilometers) away, the lander has performed a series of scientific tests and sent reams of data, including photos, back to Earth.

In addition, the lander was lifted on Friday by about 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) and rotated about 35 degrees in an effort to pull it out of a shadow so that solar panels could recharge the depleted batteries, ESA's blog said.

ESA spokesman Bernard von Weyhe on Saturday confirmed the lander's difficult rotation operation. It's still unclear whether it succeeded in putting the solar panels out of the shade.

Even if the lander was rotated successfully and is able to recharge its batteries with sunlight, it may take weeks or months until it will send out new signals. Regular checks for signals will continue.

The agency did not schedule any media briefings on Saturday.

ESA's mission control center in Darmstadt, Germany, received the last signals from Philae on Saturday morning at 0036 GMT (7:36 p.m. EST Friday). Before the signal died, the lander returned all of its housekeeping data as well as scientific data of its experiments on the surface — which means it completed the measures as planned, the ESA blog said.

During a scheduled listening effort on Saturday at 1000GMT, ESA received no signals from Philae, ESA's mission chief Paolo Ferri told The Associated Press.

"We don't know if the charge will ever be high enough to operate the lander again," Ferri had told The AP ahead of the 1000GMT (5 a.m. EST) listening time. "It is highly unlikely that we will establish any kind of communication any time soon."

Now it's up to ESA's team of scientists to evaluate the data and find out whether the experiments were successful — especially a complex operation Friday in which the lander was given commands to drill a 25-centimeter (10-inch) hole into the comet and pull out a sample for analysis.

"We know that all the movements of the operation were performed and all the data was sent down" to ESA, Ferri said Saturday. "However, at this point we do not even know if it really succeeded and if it (the drill) even touched the ground during the drilling operation."

Material beneath the surface of the comet has remained almost unchanged for 4.5 billion years, so the samples would be a cosmic time capsule that scientists are eager to study.

The lander did already return images of the comet's surface that show "it is covered by dust and debris ranging from millimeter to meter sizes," while "panoramic images show layered walls of harder material," ESA's blog stated.

The science teams are now studying their data to see if they have succeeded in sampling any of this material with Philae's drill.

Beyond analyzing the new data, scientists are also still trying to find the exact spot where Philae landed on Wednesday.

"The search for Philae's final landing site continues, with high-resolution images from the orbiter being closely scrutinized," the blog said.

Scientists hope the $1.6 billion (1.3 billion-euro) project will help answer questions about the origins of the universe and life on Earth.

One of the things scientists are most excited about is the possibility that the mission might help confirm that comets brought the building blocks of life — organic matter and water — to Earth. They already know that comets contain amino acids, a key component of cells. Finding the right kind of amino acids and water would be an important hint that life on Earth did come from space.

"The data collected by Philae and Rosetta is set to make this mission a game-changer in cometary science," Matt Taylor, ESA's Rosetta project scientist, was quoted as saying on the blog.

Online: www.esa.int/rosetta

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/comet-lander-completed-primary-mission

Reads like a good plot for a scifi novel ... except that this is what is really happening ~ Philae takes over 10 years to reach its destination, its battery dies within days of landing, scientists "confident" the battery will recharge via solar panels as it "nears the sun" next year ~ Sooz

Scientists 'Confident' Comet Lander Will Wake Up As It Nears The Sun
By FRANK JORDANS Published November 17, 2014, 2:22 PM EST

BERLIN (AP) — There is a strong chance Europe's comet lander will wake up from hibernation as it nears the sun, raising hopes for a second series of scientific measurements from the surface next year, scientists involved in the mission said Monday.

The Philae lander, which became the first spacecraft to touch down on a comet Wednesday, has already sent reams of data back to Earth that scientists are eagerly examining. But there were fears its mission would be cut short because it came to rest in the shadow of a cliff.

Shortly before its primary battery ran out, the European Space Agency decided to attempt to tilt the lander's biggest solar panel toward the sun — a last-ditch maneuver that scientists believe may have paid off.

"We are very confident at some stage it will wake up again and we can achieve contact," Stephan Ulamec, the lander manager, told The Associated Press.

That should happen next spring, when Philae and the comet it is riding on — called 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko — get closer to the sun, warming up a secondary battery on board. A few days of sunshine on the solar panels should be enough to charge the battery sufficiently to conduct science runs, said Ulamec.

Before they can say for certain if they'll be able to restore contact with Philae, scientists first need to find out where on the 4-kilometer (2.5-mile)-wide comet the washing machine-sized lander is, he added.

New pictures released Monday offer very good clues about where it has come to rest.

The high-resolution images taken from Philae's mother ship Rosetta show the lander descending to the comet and again after its first and second bounce. These were caused by the lander's failure to deploy its downward thrusters and harpoons.

Scientists at the German Aerospace Center, DLR, said Monday that an initial review of data the lander sent back 311 million miles (500 million kilometers) to Earth showed the comet's surface is much tougher than previously assumed. There's also evidence of large amounts of ice beneath the lander.

Scientists are still waiting to find out whether Philae managed to drill into the comet and extract a sample for analysis.

Material beneath the surface of the comet has remained almost unchanged for 4.5 billion years, so the samples would be a cosmic time capsule that scientists are eager to study.

One of the things they are most excited about is the possibility that the mission might help confirm that comets brought the building blocks of life — including water — to Earth.

http://rosetta.esa.int

Kirsten Grieshaber contributed to this report.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/idealab/comet-scientists-confident-wake-up