The descent to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko will take around seven hours, so confirmation of a successful touchdown is expected in a one-hour window centred on 17:02 GMT / 18:02 CET.
“We are anxious but excited,” said Jean-Pierre Bibring, lead lander scientist, during this morning’s press briefing. “It is not every day that we try to land on a comet.”
"According to Musk, the satellite internet project would make for fast, cheap global internet that isn't impeded by terrestrial wires. "The speed of light is 40 percent faster in the vacuum of space than it is for fiber," he says, explaining that internet provided by satellites in low orbit can serve those in sparsely populated areas."
"It will be important for Mars to have a global communications network as well," he says. "I think this needs to be done, and I don’t see anyone else doing it."
"Tesla came to the United States in 1884, and soon began working with famed inventor and business mogul Thomas Edison. The two worked together for a brief period before parting ways due to a conflicting business-scientific relationship, attributed by historians to their incredibly different personalities: While Edison was a power figure who focused on marketing and financial success, Tesla was a commercially out-of-tune and somewhat vulnerable, yet extremely pivotal inventor, who pioneered some of history's the most important inventions. His inventions include the "Tesla coil," developed in 1891, and an alternating-current electrical system of generators, motors and transformers—both of which are still used widely today."
from the New York Times ... one day ... the next generation or the last, time will tell X
"Curiosity has driven six miles since leaving its landing site. Soon the rover will begin climbing Mount Sharp, picking its way through buttes striped with layers that record the geological history of Gale Crater and the changing Martian environment."
Nasa’s New Horizons spaceship has travelled billions of miles in nine years to answer astronomers’ questions about the tiny world ...
And the spaceship is travelling at such a speed that even tiny grains of dust have the potential to inflict serious damage if they strike the craft. “We have got round that problem in a very ingenious manner,” the mission’s principal investigator, Alan Stern, told the Observer. “We have given the craft a bullet-proof jacket. To be more precise, we have covered it in Kevlar, the material used to make body armour. That should protect it.”
Kevlar ... is that some sort of caviar of the limpet variety then?
Back to Pluto : - ... a few months after its launch, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) met and decided that Pluto was not really a planet. It was too similar to several other small icy bodies in the solar system and could not be classified a full planet. So it was downgraded to dwarf planet status...
Stern described the decision as anti-scientific. “Astronomers had found several other worlds like Pluto, so the IAU had the choice: call them all planets or downgrade. It chose the latter because it didn’t want to end up with a very long list of planets in the solar system. Children wouldn't be able to memorise them. And that is ridiculous. We cannot memorise all the rivers or mountains on Earth. Why do we have to remember all our neighbouring planets. That is 19th-century thinking. Pluto is a real planet and New Horizons is going to show it in all its glory in a few weeks. That should change their minds, if nothing else.”
"SEVERAL people have reported seeing a meteor-like object falling from the sky this evening.
Among those who spotted the object was Gavin Engelbrecht, a reporter for The Northern Echo, who saw it about 9.25pm.
He was driving north on the A1 and was near the Angel of the North when he saw what he described as " a massive meteorite".
He said: "it glowed luminescent green and had a long tail.
"I think it must have been a meteor, but it seemed very close – although it could have been miles away. Whatever it was was very large. It was quite a steep angle of entry too."
Convinced he had seen something very unusual, Gavin Tweeted the incident and soon had confirmation that he was not the only one to have seen it.
One sighting of "a bright falling star then a flash of green and a burning tail" was made by someone driving over Shap Fell, in Cumbria."
"... solar activity will fall by 60 percent by 2030 as the magnetic waves inside the Sun will become increasingly more desynchronized during the next two cycles, especially during cycle 26, which covers the decade between 2030 and 2040.
“In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other – peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun. Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other,” Professor Zharkova said."
"The Philae comet lander has fallen silent, according to scientists working on the European Rosetta mission.
The fridge-sized spacecraft, which landed on Comet 67P in November, last made contact on 9 July.
But efforts to contact it again since then have failed, scientists have said.
The first craft to perform a soft landing on a comet, Philae initially bounced, landing in a position too dark for sunlight to reach its solar panels.
It woke up in June as the comet moved closer to the sun. But the latest data suggests something, perhaps gas emission from the comet's surface, may have moved it again.
"The profile of how strongly the sun is falling on which panels has changed from June to July, and this does not seem to be explained by the course of the seasons on the comet alone," said Stephan Ulamec, Philae project manager at the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
Philae's antenna may have been obstructed, and one of its transmitters appears to have stopped working, Rosetta team members said."
A 'fridge' identity crisis ... de-scribe the Fridge. Erm ....
FFS !!! ... don't even go there .... @ 10,000 ft & climbing !!!
"US citizens are now able to obtain their own asteroids and mine resources out of them, and will be able to own the materials they find there. Until now, space has largely been treated as publicly-owned, meaning that nobody could claim commercial ownership of anything that was out there.
The US government has now thrown out that understanding so that it can get rid of “unnecessary regulations” and make it easier for private American companies to explore space resources commercially. While people won’t actually be able to claim the rock or “celestial body” itself, they will be able to keep everything that they mine out of it.
"It is hoped that the new rules will allow people to harvest the often vast amounts of expensive resources that are inside of the asteroids that fly near our planet."
Oh ... Yep, OK hurry up off ya awl go now ... on ya way ... send us a postcard from Triton ;-))
Does the rest of the planet get to pick the first UScrew?
"Europe's history-making Rosetta comet mission is coming to an end, and you can watch the grand finale live Thursday and Friday (Sept. 29 and Sept. 30).
Around 6:40 a.m. EDT (1040 GMT) Friday morning, Rosetta is scheduled to spiral slowly down onto the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which the robotic spacecraft has been orbiting for more than two years. You can follow that epic moment live on Space.com — as well a variety of other Rosetta events Thursday and Friday — courtesy of NASA TV and the European Space Agency (ESA)."
BBC: "If you're scared of heights, close your eyes now.
Alan Eustace is a senior Google executive, who, in 2014 broke the world record for the highest parachute jump. He took a balloon 135,890ft (41,419m) into the stratosphere and skydived back to Earth.
The space suit suit he wore for the jump is now on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Virginia."
17 Comments
Warming Up
Submitted by Mortal Mindy on
"the melting of Siberia’s permafrost is “a climate time bomb waiting to explode if released into the atmosphere.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/05/scientists-...
First Spacecraft landing on a Comet - live link
Submitted by Mortal Mindy on
http://www.wired.com/2014/11/rosetta-philae-attempt-comet-landing/?mbid=...
Eeek! Go/No Go - Call! - how to make a decision ....
Submitted by Mortal Mindy on
The descent to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko will take around seven hours, so confirmation of a successful touchdown is expected in a one-hour window centred on 17:02 GMT / 18:02 CET.
“We are anxious but excited,” said Jean-Pierre Bibring, lead lander scientist, during this morning’s press briefing. “It is not every day that we try to land on a comet.”
source: http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/12/rosetta-and-philae-go-for-separa...
Global Connections - 'The Prestige'
Submitted by Mortal Mindy on
"According to Musk, the satellite internet project would make for fast, cheap global internet that isn't impeded by terrestrial wires. "The speed of light is 40 percent faster in the vacuum of space than it is for fiber," he says, explaining that internet provided by satellites in low orbit can serve those in sparsely populated areas."
http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/16/7569333/elon-musk-wants-to-spend-10-bi...
"It will be important for Mars to have a global communications network as well," he says. "I think this needs to be done, and I don’t see anyone else doing it."
Great - get on with it then :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4gHCmTQDVI
"Tesla came to the United States in 1884, and soon began working with famed inventor and business mogul Thomas Edison. The two worked together for a brief period before parting ways due to a conflicting business-scientific relationship, attributed by historians to their incredibly different personalities: While Edison was a power figure who focused on marketing and financial success, Tesla was a commercially out-of-tune and somewhat vulnerable, yet extremely pivotal inventor, who pioneered some of history's the most important inventions. His inventions include the "Tesla coil," developed in 1891, and an alternating-current electrical system of generators, motors and transformers—both of which are still used widely today."
Pure Wow
Submitted by Mortal Mindy on
from the New York Times ... one day ... the next generation or the last, time will tell X
"Curiosity has driven six miles since leaving its landing site. Soon the rover will begin climbing Mount Sharp, picking its way through buttes striped with layers that record the geological history of Gale Crater and the changing Martian environment."
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/09/science/space/curiosity-ro...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kPDJQBtHaY
Mars 100 Earth Nil
Submitted by Mortal Mindy on
http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/the-mars-100-mars-one-announ...
just guessing:-) Alien invaders
Pluto n Dust
Submitted by Mortal Mindy on
Target Pluto : http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/apr/11/pluto-new-horizons-spaces... ....
Nasa’s New Horizons spaceship has travelled billions of miles in nine years to answer astronomers’ questions about the tiny world ...
And the spaceship is travelling at such a speed that even tiny grains of dust have the potential to inflict serious damage if they strike the craft. “We have got round that problem in a very ingenious manner,” the mission’s principal investigator, Alan Stern, told the Observer. “We have given the craft a bullet-proof jacket. To be more precise, we have covered it in Kevlar, the material used to make body armour. That should protect it.”
Kevlar ... is that some sort of caviar of the limpet variety then?
Hmmm ... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/limpet-teeth-just-how-strong-i...
So' da dust du diener https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqrlWmKNuOw&list=RDlqrlWmKNuOw
Back to Pluto : - ... a few months after its launch, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) met and decided that Pluto was not really a planet. It was too similar to several other small icy bodies in the solar system and could not be classified a full planet. So it was downgraded to dwarf planet status...
Stern described the decision as anti-scientific. “Astronomers had found several other worlds like Pluto, so the IAU had the choice: call them all planets or downgrade. It chose the latter because it didn’t want to end up with a very long list of planets in the solar system. Children wouldn't be able to memorise them. And that is ridiculous. We cannot memorise all the rivers or mountains on Earth. Why do we have to remember all our neighbouring planets. That is 19th-century thinking. Pluto is a real planet and New Horizons is going to show it in all its glory in a few weeks. That should change their minds, if nothing else.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOtoIBrBAYE&list=RDlqrlWmKNuOw&index=29
WTC - Councillor Resigns
Submitted by Mortal Mindy on
http://www.whitbygazette.co.uk/news/local/whitby-s-extraterrestrial-town...
;-( - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDz7RBk9IT8
Mysterious Mysterons
Submitted by Mortal Mindy on
Oooh something falling out of the sky .... or some good old fashioned Kryptonite? great! ;-)
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/12891893.Sightings_of__luminous_gr...
"SEVERAL people have reported seeing a meteor-like object falling from the sky this evening.
Among those who spotted the object was Gavin Engelbrecht, a reporter for The Northern Echo, who saw it about 9.25pm.
He was driving north on the A1 and was near the Angel of the North when he saw what he described as " a massive meteorite".
He said: "it glowed luminescent green and had a long tail.
"I think it must have been a meteor, but it seemed very close – although it could have been miles away. Whatever it was was very large. It was quite a steep angle of entry too."
Convinced he had seen something very unusual, Gavin Tweeted the incident and soon had confirmation that he was not the only one to have seen it.
One sighting of "a bright falling star then a flash of green and a burning tail" was made by someone driving over Shap Fell, in Cumbria."
Eeek to Earth
Submitted by Mortal Mindy on
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33126885
The European Space Agency (Esa) says its comet lander, Philae, has woken up and contacted Earth.
Philae, the first spacecraft to land on a comet, was dropped on to the surface of Comet 67P by its mothership, Rosetta, last November.
... and the cat has had kittens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsfrsLxt0l8
Frosties, Needles ...
Submitted by Mortal Mindy on
http://rt.com/news/273169-solar-cycle-ice-age/
"... solar activity will fall by 60 percent by 2030 as the magnetic waves inside the Sun will become increasingly more desynchronized during the next two cycles, especially during cycle 26, which covers the decade between 2030 and 2040.
“In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other – peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun. Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other,” Professor Zharkova said."
Silence - Philaen "Fridge"
Submitted by Mortal Mindy on
RALMHO :- )) Erm, Knickers !
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33596274
"The Philae comet lander has fallen silent, according to scientists working on the European Rosetta mission.
The fridge-sized spacecraft, which landed on Comet 67P in November, last made contact on 9 July.
But efforts to contact it again since then have failed, scientists have said.
The first craft to perform a soft landing on a comet, Philae initially bounced, landing in a position too dark for sunlight to reach its solar panels.
It woke up in June as the comet moved closer to the sun. But the latest data suggests something, perhaps gas emission from the comet's surface, may have moved it again.
"The profile of how strongly the sun is falling on which panels has changed from June to July, and this does not seem to be explained by the course of the seasons on the comet alone," said Stephan Ulamec, Philae project manager at the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
Philae's antenna may have been obstructed, and one of its transmitters appears to have stopped working, Rosetta team members said."
A 'fridge' identity crisis ... de-scribe the Fridge. Erm ....
FFS !!! ... don't even go there .... @ 10,000 ft & climbing !!!
Back down to earth : http://www.rt.com/news/310170-platinum-asteroid-2011-uw-158/
Yesterdays news ... darn it I missed Odyssey
Cheers 'Bud' ;-) 'bucket list' http://www.rt.com/news/310197-spain-ghost-airport-auction/
Get stuck in. http://newsthump.com/2014/06/05/rich-claim-gap-to-the-poor-still-not-wid... “But if the wind is blowing in the right direction, I can smell chip shops and shell suits all the way up my hill.”
Oh Dear .... priceless.
America 'Susperiority' Day
Submitted by Mortal Mindy on
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/asteroid-mining-made-legal-aft...
"US citizens are now able to obtain their own asteroids and mine resources out of them, and will be able to own the materials they find there. Until now, space has largely been treated as publicly-owned, meaning that nobody could claim commercial ownership of anything that was out there.
The US government has now thrown out that understanding so that it can get rid of “unnecessary regulations” and make it easier for private American companies to explore space resources commercially. While people won’t actually be able to claim the rock or “celestial body” itself, they will be able to keep everything that they mine out of it.
"It is hoped that the new rules will allow people to harvest the often vast amounts of expensive resources that are inside of the asteroids that fly near our planet."
Oh ... Yep, OK hurry up off ya awl go now ... on ya way ... send us a postcard from Triton ;-))
Does the rest of the planet get to pick the first UScrew?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBRtOpwaehM
Rosetta Touchdown
Submitted by Captain Qahn on
http://www.space.com/34229-rosetta-comet-mission-crash-landing-webcasts....
"Europe's history-making Rosetta comet mission is coming to an end, and you can watch the grand finale live Thursday and Friday (Sept. 29 and Sept. 30).
Around 6:40 a.m. EDT (1040 GMT) Friday morning, Rosetta is scheduled to spiral slowly down onto the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which the robotic spacecraft has been orbiting for more than two years. You can follow that epic moment live on Space.com — as well a variety of other Rosetta events Thursday and Friday — courtesy of NASA TV and the European Space Agency (ESA)."
http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/tag/trajectory/
Live link: http://livestream.com/ESA/rosettagrandfinale
Rosetta - Touching
Submitted by Captain Black on
Eeerily silent....
Wot no screaming ;-/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/science-environment-37499184
Rosetta Mission Ended?
Submitted by Captain Qahn on
Wow ... how emotive was that.
Awesome.
Stratospheric Suit
Submitted by Captain Black on
BBC: "If you're scared of heights, close your eyes now.
Alan Eustace is a senior Google executive, who, in 2014 broke the world record for the highest parachute jump. He took a balloon 135,890ft (41,419m) into the stratosphere and skydived back to Earth.
The space suit suit he wore for the jump is now on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Virginia."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-rWtqConY8
"I asked is it possible to linger in the Stratosphere?"
Ah, so... wot not to wear ;-))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABwDWwYX0Q4