Quiet!
Nobody sneeze!
It almost sounds like a cartoon from the 1950s: The Philae lander, which on 12 November had a successful rendezvous with Comet 67P after being released by the Rosetta spacecraft, bounced not once but twice, before finally settling on the surface of the space-rock. As reported quite soon after the landing, the boffins in charge …
"The crow hung on to the oxygen handle like grim death, and thought about survival."
A two-hour bounce brings it home just how incredibly weak the gravity is on a ten-billion ton comet. Let's hope it's now safely screwed down (let me be the first to say it, ooh err!) or else it'll be taking another trip once it gets closer to the sun and the outgassing starts
Could someone insert a clip from Bruce Willis' Armageddon please?
By schoolboy maths if I let an apple roll off my head it would take 60 seconds to reach the ground (though with so little gravity it probably wouldn't even roll; hardly any friction). A truly weird place - and striking how it looks exactly like the proverbial "dirty snowball"
"striking how it looks exactly like the proverbial "dirty snowball""
Well, I wouldn't read too much into that if I were you. They've been tinkering massively with contrast and stuff to make the pictures pretty and intelligible. Apparently in RealLife(tm) it looks like a lump of coal, but that makes it quite tricky to pick out details.
"Without the harpoons, the lander is probably anchored by the ice-screw legs that were designed to drill into the surface"
Umm ... the word 'probably' in that sentence is slightly disturbing.
The thrusters didn't fire and the harpoons didn't launch. Maybe the lander is standing tall on the tips of the extended screws.
Man, I can't wait to see a selfie from Philae, so we can see what's going on out there.
The thrusters didn't fire and the harpoons didn't launch. Maybe the lander is standing tall on the tips of the extended screws.
They didn't engage first time, they didn't engage the second time why would they engage third time?
Unless the landing surface was different on the third occasion, it is surely standing on tip-toes?
Depends how the screws were setup - if they reach a limit of extension, they yes, probably - if though, like a corkscrew, they can freely rotate even extended, they there is a possibilty of pulling Philae down.
Hmm.
I've got a corkscrew, it's gone 10am*, perhaps I should try this empirically...
*Bizarre Scots off-sales laws.
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Umm ... the word 'probably' in that sentence is slightly disturbing.
Since Philae reportedly sank 4cm into the surface, even at it's gentle landing speed, I'd be more concerned about the word 'anchored'. Ice-screws aren't going to get much of a grip if the surface is like dry ash. Still, they only have 3 days of battery life [insert iWatch joke here], so they'll have to get cracking with something, whatever the risk. Whatever happens, even getting this far is amazing, though.
Space travel, manned space travel, landings, manned landings, heavy lift rockets, re-usable spacecraft, space stations are all 20C. That when real progress happened. We have just been finnessing it since and going backwards in some ways.
But bouncing washing machines on ice is a first. And flowery shirts beats flares so I'm happy today.
"Space travel, manned space travel, landings, manned landings, heavy lift rockets, re-usable spacecraft, space stations are all 20C"
Correct but as I said I'm not living in the 20th Century, I'm living in the 21st! I don't care if I haven't got my jet pack or my flying car, I can see photos from a surface that isn't Earth so I'm happy too.