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Rosetta arrives at comet destination


Waspie_Dwarf

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Rosetta arrives at comet destination

6 August 2014 After a decade-long journey chasing its target, ESA’s Rosetta has today become the first spacecraft to rendezvous with a comet, opening a new chapter in Solar System exploration.

Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko and Rosetta now lie 405 million kilometres from Earth, about half way between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, rushing towards the inner Solar System at nearly 55 000 kilometres per hour.

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Rosetta arrives at comet destination

Watching BBC news at this moment about this!

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Comet-67-P-C-G-on-3-August-2014-OSIRIS-NAC-e1407327321507.jpg

234 KM / 145 Miles

There is a larger version of that image in the UM image gallery HERE.

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ROSETTA life stream ESA:

http://www.livestream.com/eurospaceagency

:yes:

PS: looking at the pic of 67P and to the right end of the comet, I expect the first CTs claiming the comet is hollow

and so an alien mothership/base, within the next 5hrs.

:yes:

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More new images:

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I can't help myself...but it looks like something you could find on your plate at KFC.....

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Beautiful images. Will be amazing when 67P starts outgassing and we have a front row seat to view teh changes.

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Wow thanks for info, its great to see live video show about this. Very strange shape of the comet indeed.

Right now there are questions from public being answered in live video link that @toast posted. Interesting info.

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The appearance of the comet is remarkable; so different from the rounded, 'potato-shaped' comet nuclei we have seen in the past. The latest image of the object as a whole shows two blocky lobes, connected by a thin, somewhat sinuous looking 'neck'. On the smaller of the two lobes, and opposite the point of connection, there appears to be a large crater, about half the diameter of this lobe. Given the low density of this object, and its presumed fragility, it seem remarkable that it survived the impact, intact.

Edited by bison
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In November the Philae lander will deploy and land on the surface

http://en.wikipedia....i/Philae_lander

There are videos at ESA but they freeze my work browser so just google "Philae Lander" for links. This is a truly special mission and promises some amazing science.

For those just tuning in, here is a video of how Rosetta got to the comet:

Edited by Merc14
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it took 10 years to get there to do only 15 months of work. I wonder how fast they thought it would get there when the spacecraft first left I bet noone thought it would take 10 years.

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it took 10 years to get there to do only 15 months of work. I wonder how fast they thought it would get there when the spacecraft first left I bet noone thought it would take 10 years.

Page 6 of this presentation proves you wrong. Scientist are good enough at math to know how loong it takes to rendezvous with a comet.

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it took 10 years to get there to do only 15 months of work. I wonder how fast they thought it would get there when the spacecraft first left I bet noone thought it would take 10 years.

They would have known its arrival date long before it was launched. The path travelled by these sorts of spacecraft have to be plotted long in advance, in order to make the most efficient use of rocket fuel and to arrive at a scientifically useful time. In this case the spacecraft's path was designed so that it would intercept the comet while it was a long way from the Sun, so it wouldn't be outgassing too much.

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it took 10 years to get there to do only 15 months of work. I wonder how fast they thought it would get there when the

spacecraft first left I bet noone thought it would take 10 years.

If the correct flight time would not had know, no ROSETTA had ever been lauched.

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rushing towards the inner Solar System at nearly 55 000 kilometres per hour.

55 000 km/h - Imagine that crashing into the earth surface

asteroidearth.jpg

elenincometlocationasteroidimpact_zps494e9ba6.jpg

planet_collision_by_raspp-d464l7j.png

18947.jpg

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it took 10 years to get there to do only 15 months of work. I wonder how fast they thought it would get there when the spacecraft first left I bet noone thought it would take 10 years.

The decade long flight was required to grab gravity assists from Earth and Mars in order to get the spacecraft to 55,000 KMH. Watch that minute and a half ESA demo in post #13 to see how it worked. Also, while accelerating the Rosetta did a flyby on two asteroids before entering its hibernation phase.

Edited by Merc14
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Beautiful images. Will be amazing when 67P starts outgassing and we have a front row seat to view teh changes.

That is going to be amazing. I can't wait.

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The decade long flight was required to grab gravity assists from Earth and Mars in order to get the spacecraft to 55,000 KMH. Watch that minute and a half ESA demo in post #13 to see how it worked. Also, while accelerating the Rosetta did a flyby on two asteroids before entering its hibernation phase.

An amazing feat, think of the calculations made in advance to get that little vehicle there in 10 years... stunning.

And some tits think man cant build a pyramid...

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55 000 km/h - Imagine that crashing into the earth surface

asteroidearth.jpg

elenincometlocationasteroidimpact_zps494e9ba6.jpg

planet_collision_by_raspp-d464l7j.png

18947.jpg

Is this a worse case scenario or are you being optimistic?

This will be a great study. But I can't help it. After a few months will the comet say "Rosey, will you stop following me around and go home?"

Edited by paperdyer
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Is this a worse case scenario or are you being optimistic?

Neither, it's a totally unrealistic representation of what an impact by a small object such as this comet would be like.

The crater at Chicxulub, the event that is believed to have lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs, is 180 km in diameter and 20 km deep. That was caused by an object over two and a half times the diameter of 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

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Europeans ehh?

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Europeans ehh?

ESA is awesome. Unfortunately, all you CTers concentrate on NASA and forget the great exploration the rest of the world is doing. Another fault.

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